Vasilevich flinched instinctively from the sound and concussion of the explosion. It was the second one to take place at Parks’ command in as many days. Vasilevich smiled at his handy work as he watched chunks of concrete that made up the subway entrance land all over the street as the doorway itself crumbled in a blast of blue-grey smoke. He lowered the RPG tube from his shoulder and turned to the others to get their reaction.
Just as he turned into it, the first strike from the aluminum Kali stick hit him square on his right cheek, cracking the bone on impact. Before the sting registered, the second Kali stick struck; this time on the other side of Vasilevich’s head, cracking the orbital bone of the left eye.
Vasilevich dropped to the rooftop unconscious, and Winn was already in mid-attack on his next target. He used the momentum of the swing from the last stick strike to turn his body and drive a back kick dead center into Mitchell Jr.’s solar plexus, the force of the blow knocking the wind out of his opponent—just as he was removing his weapon from his waistband. Winn kept his motion continuous, cracking a Kali stick across Mitchell Jr.’s skull while preparing to engage his next opponent.
Winn’s technique wasted no movement. He used the direction and force his body had generated by the kick to plant his feet directly in front of Logan. Logan realized what was happening, but it was too late. Winn poked the Kali stick in his left hand into Logan’s wind pipe, simultaneously swinging the stick in his right hand. The second stick landed at the top of Logan’s skull, the impact shorting out his brain circuitry and shutting it down. Logan’s muscles slackened before his body clattered to stillness on the rooftop.
Winn did a quick scan of the carnage he had lain out across the roof. They had never seen him coming, so focused on the subway attack, and it had taken him less than seven seconds to nullify the four men on the rooftop, starting with Drugal; yet he swore at himself for getting here too late.
Now, with all four men laid out and unconscious, Winn quickly gathered their firearms and tossed them into a large air conditioning vent, the weaponry clanging against the metal walls of the shaft as they fell. Winn then approached Logan’s awkwardly-angled body and searched his pockets for a cell phone. He found what he was looking for in Logan’s jacket pocket, an older model Blackberry. Winn quickly dialed 911 and informed the operator about the explosion, the perpetrators, and where the authorities could find their weapons before putting the phone in his own pocket. He would go through the contact list on Logan’s phone later and see if he could find Parks’ contact in the directory. Perhaps he could negotiate some sort of truce. He then turned his attention to the subway. Over forty people were trapped inside, and he had no idea if they were hurt or even alive. As he heard police and rescue sirens approaching, Winn strapped his Kali sticks across his back and took one last look at the men on the rooftop before he made his way to the fire escape. He climbed over the roof’s edge, landing without a sound on the metal grill of the fire escape. He quickly began his decent down the metal stairs to the street below, knowing that if Parks had authorized this strike, it was because he had both Alex and Nikki in his grasp.
As he made his way to the rubble that used to be the entrance to the 417, Winn knew that Alex would have to face Parks. It seemed to be Alex’s destiny to face down evil men. They were drawn to him, Winn knew, in part because of the power Alex possessed and their desire to control it for their own gain; but also because of their deep need to find meaning and justifications for their actions, for their lives as a whole. Powerful men needed adulation and meaning, and Winn speculated that perhaps they felt if they confessed their sins to the one man who knew all, they would be absolved of the crimes behind their ideology.
Winn had hoped to be able to help his top student understand this, but right now he had to focus on the task at hand. He approached the rubble that made up the entrance to the 417, grabbed a large piece of concrete, moved it aside, and started digging.
“Is anyone hurt?” Rodriguez yelled, the instinctive question of a police officer, his voice echoing off the cracked concrete walls of the 417. Something dripped down the side of his face; he put his hand on his forehead and felt the wetness of blood. The explosion had literally knocked him off his feet, and his head had hit the concrete hard. He had scrambled to get upright as soon as he could, but the blow to the head had left him dizzy and disoriented. The 417 was now a mass of dimly-lit rubble, the ceiling partially collapsed, with only scattered flashlights providing illumination.
“Everyone stay calm,” he yelled, as he heard a combination of screams and panicked conversations in many languages echoing throughout the rubble. He pulled his flashlight from his waistband and clicked it on just as he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Yaw asked Rodriguez.
“I’m fine, you?”
“I’m okay. We need to do a head count. See who’s hurt; see who needs help.”
Rodriguez ran his flashlight over the partially-collapsed hall of the abandoned subway station. The beam cut through dust to reveal porthole views of fallen concrete intermixed with frightened faces huddled together in clusters. Rodriguez pushed away disorientation and focused on his sense of duty as an officer. His flashlight beam settled on the only exit from the 417. A pile of rubble sealed the tunnel tight.
“Glen. Goddamn it,” Rodriguez whispered, knowing his partner and fellow officer lay within the rubble.
“I’m sorry,” Yaw said.
“We have to find a way out of here,” Rodriguez responded, deflecting his emotions by focusing on the task at hand. He ran his flashlight over the walls, the ceiling, and the entrance. The walls were cracked, and a massive pile of rubble sealed the entrance like a tomb. He turned to Yaw. “We’re gonna run out of air.”
“I know,” Yaw confirmed. “Let’s finish our head count, help who we can, then grab the able bodies and start digging.”