7:40 p.m. Tenth floor. Waverly Hotel.
Gena ran across the room and Drake followed her out onto the balcony, stumbling over the doorsill like a drunk. The city was huge outside. Luminous. Unearthly. The sun was down, the Financial District glittering along The Embarcadero, a red and violet glow edging the skyline. They leaned over the railing and looked down at the street a hundred feet below, the wind gusting up the face of the high rise, whipping Gena's hair around her shoulders. The Presidential motorcade hadn't moved. Down the block, three squad cars and a hook-and-ladder truck were pulling in by the plaza, their cherries flashing like clusters of molten jewels. More response was coming, the sirens getting louder. Drake could hear them converging on the hotel from all directions.
"Who called them?" Gena yelled over the wind.
"I don't know." Drake suddenly felt very unsteady. Lightheaded. The day was catching up with him. Fumbling with his cell phone, he called WESTCOM, but Paxton didn't answer. Talking to Adder, perhaps. He tried Viddy and started to get alarmed when no one responded. Viddy was his Control. He was supposed to be instantly accessible while the operation was running. Drake tried Operations, the front gate, reception, punching through all the numbers on his speed-dial list, but no one picked up. Comms was manned twenty-four by seven. They were cut off. It couldn't be an accident.
WESTCOM had gone dark.
"All units," he shouted over his headset, leaning against the railing and forcing himself to concentrate. "Listen up. We're aborting. Clear the building now. Regroup in the plaza and stay in contact. Nastya, we'll be out in a minute. Keep people away from the door."
"Copy that," she said. "Please hurry."
"Drake..." Gena was staring off to the west. "What's that?"
"What's what?" He couldn't see anything but city lights, the huge towers of the Embarcadero Center, the Bank of America building.
"Don't you see that?" She pointed. "There's something moving behind that building there. It looks like—"
She stepped back from the railing, her eyes wide, backing away from whatever she'd seen. It didn't compute. The voices on his headset were getting louder, cross-talk leaking through the static. There was something he was supposed to be doing, but he couldn't remember what. He looked up at the skywalk ten stories above them, but the angle was all wrong. The Secret Service would evacuate the President across the skywalk to the parking garage—it was the fastest route—but if anyone was moving across the span, he couldn't see them. The Waverly was so huge that a war could break out on the upper floors and he wouldn't hear about it until it was too late. Then he noticed the helicopter hovering over the hotel, its rotor and skid lights blinking. It was just hanging there. Watching. Lightning flickered in the distance, flashes of soft light in the clouds over the Pacific. The atmosphere was full of lights—jets on approach to Oakland Airport—haloes drifting by like UFOs. An aircraft warning beacon flashed on top of a skyscraper to the north, the pulsing light strangely hypnotic. More lightning flashed to the east. It looked like artillery shells were bursting on the other side of the Oakland Hills.
"I feel weird..." Gena said, touching her face with both hands.
"Matthew!" Nastya on his headset. "Get out here!"
"What's wrong?" he heard himself say.
He could hear the panic in her voice.
"I don't know," she said. "There's too many people out here. They're getting off the elevators. Coming out of the stairwells. Can't you hear it?"
"On our way." He headed back into the room, bumping into furniture, Gena brushing against him, hurrying for the door. The rooms were sound-insulated, but the noise from the hall had definitely grown louder, an undercurrent of voices, shouting and confusion. It sounded like a crowd moving through a subway access tunnel, a herd of cattle shuffling up a chute into a slaughter house.
"What is that?" Gena backed away from the door.
Nastya screamed over the channel.
"Nastya! What's wrong?"
Drake fumbled with the door lock, hesitating, suddenly afraid to open it, then he yanked it open and they were hit by a wall of noise and a blinding flash that turned the room into a color negative, rays of light flooding through the door as if a star shell had just burst outside. Gena ran into the light, a skeleton surrounded by a shadow outline. Drake could see the keys in one of her pockets, a pen, loose change. It was like she'd just stepped in front of an airport X-ray machine, one of those full-body scanners. He lurched backwards, covering his eyes with his hands, dropping the gun, his cell phone, yelling something incoherent, then he staggered into the hall.
The corridor was full of wavering blue light, the overheads pulsing, complex patterns rippling across the wall and ceiling like reflections on the bottom of a swimming pool. Hundreds of people rushed by in both directions, running in and out of the rooms, knocking each other down, guests in suits crawling across the floor, shrieking, laughing. Drake forced his way through the mob, looking for Nastya, hands scrabbling at his face, the crush of bodies knocking him back against the wall. The hotel manager slammed into him, his eyes terrified, clutching at his sleeves, then the crowd dragged him away, pulling him down.
The air was full of bats. Insects swarmed across the ceiling—giant beetles, spiders with human heads—the lights changing into eyes, the walls pixelating, falling to pieces and then reforming again. The mob boiled into the elevator lobby. Fighting. Clawing at the elevator doors. Beyond them, the hall turned into a balcony running along the central atrium. People milled next to the railing, looking down into the lobby ten stories below. They were climbing over each other. Jumping over the side. Drake pushed someone away, broke free and stumbled down the hall. There it was. He punched the glass hard. Pulled the lever.
The fire alarm screamed through the hotel.