Bowles waited until the last moment to veer off the highway. He ran through the light and sped up toward the complex.
Looking through the front windshield, everything seemed normal. Aside from a small cluster of white clouds, the sky was azure blue, the sun bright yellow.
Behind the car, black smoke rose from downtown.
Greta Torbin turned on the radio, fiddling until she found a news station.
A helicopter has struck a building downtown, believed to be the Smart Metal Company Headquarters. There are reports of several IEDs and explosions, and a shooting in the T line…
“Maybe you should turn it off,” suggested Bowles. “We don’t need a play-by-play.”
“Leave it on,” said Chelsea.
The reporter continued almost breathlessly, describing various attacks, some based on things he had heard over the police scanner, some on Twitter, some from other stations. A few of the reports were clearly wrong — he claimed Logan Airport had been shut down, but Chelsea could see airplanes rising in the sky on a clear path to and from it.
“Five minutes,” said Bowles, pulling into the entrance to the mall. “Five minutes or we are coming down and dragging you out.”
“Five minutes,” answered Chelsea.
Bowles sped toward the entrance, then did a power skid to turn sideways so he could let Chelsea out as close as possible. She hopped out of the car, leaving the door open as she sprinted to the security station. The two men on guard raised their weapons, then realized it was her. One pointed around the X-ray machine, indicating she should skip the check — a violation of protocol, even for her, but understandable under the circumstances.
She had gone around the machine when something exploded in the lot behind her. Chelsea spun back and saw flames leaping from the SUV — it had been hit by an antitank missile.
The two guards ran toward the vehicle. Chelsea started to follow, then stopped, unsure what to do.
“No, keep going,” ordered a man behind her.
He grabbed her by the midsection. She kicked his kneecap and elbowed his stomach, but was hit hard in the side of the head before she could spin out of his grip. She fell to the pavement, her head rebounding off the concrete. The world dimmed.
“Finally we meet,” said the man, pushing his face into hers.
Ghadab, she thought as she blacked out.
102
A man driving a delivery van had crashed into the steel barriers between the street and the sidewalk in front of the Smart Metal building; a moment before impact, he set off the fertilizer-based bomb packed into the rear. The explosion had buckled a portion of the front of the building, but had done far more damage to the structure across the street.
Johnny Givens reached the scene two minutes after the explosion. Combusted metal and concrete filled the air, thick enough to obscure the sun. Sirens roared in the distance but so far neither police nor firemen had arrived. Two or three cars, so twisted and split they couldn’t be identified, sat like discarded bones in the street.
There were body parts everywhere, but no live people, at least none that Johnny could see.
He picked his way through the street, jumping past a long gash in the asphalt, nearly tripping over a jagged claw of concrete on the sidewalk. The stone facade at the Smart Metal entrance was scarred black; a slab of metal blocked the doorway, having fallen from above. Johnny doubled back around the side to a second entrance.
The two security men there raised their rifles as soon as he turned the corner.
“It’s me, it’s me!” he shouted, raising his hands. “It’s Johnny!”
They looked spooked. Johnny felt his heart clutch — they were going to shoot.
“It’s me!” he shouted again, stopping.
Finally, they lowered their weapons. He walked toward them quickly.
“What’s going on?”
“Beefy’s downstairs,” said one of the men—“Snake” Boone. “He’s pretty hurt. He was outside when the first suicide bomber hit.”
Two men in suicide vests had arrived at almost the exact moment the helicopter struck the building. The truck bomb had followed a few minutes later, either delayed or purposely timed in an effort to catch people as they evacuated.
“Keep the place locked down,” said Johnny. “No one in or out.”
“Right.”
“Not even Massina himself,” added Johnny. “No one!”
He pushed inside. Expecting chaos, he found silence instead. The entire first-floor lobby was empty, except for security teams crouched in defensive positions at the center of the hall and behind the mashed front entrance. Johnny ran to the post at the main entrance.
“Most of the employees are in the basement,” said Corey Draken, who was in charge of floor security. “Sweep teams are working their way up.”
“Where’s Massina?”
“Computer has him on the executive floor still. Where the helicopter hit. Vendez is with him.”
Massina coughed so hard it felt as if his chest was turning itself inside out. He crawled forward, trying to escape the blanket of soaked Sheetrock. Water cascaded down the side of the left wall. But the right wall, still dry, turned blue with flames as the fire reached it.
Vendez, struck by part of the wall as it fell, lay on his stomach a few feet away. Massina shook him, but got only a moan in response.
“Time to go,” said Massina.
He pulled Vendez with him a few feet, getting away from the worst of the debris. The stairs had been cut off by the collapse of the ceiling and the wall. There was another set at the far end of the building, but that was on the other side of the fire.
Best bet is to go to the window and wait, Massina thought.
Not much of a bet.
Better than being here.
“Come on,” he told Vendez. “We’ll go into one of the offices. This side, away from where the helicopter crashed.”
The north stairwell between the fifth and sixth floors had collapsed. One of the three elevator shafts appeared intact, but the car was stuck on the fourth floor and wouldn’t move, even in emergency manual mode.
Johnny, standing with one of the sweep teams on the fourth floor, had the automated security com operator connect him to Boston’s emergency response center.
“I have two men trapped on the top floor,” Johnny said. “We’re going to need a ladder truck.”
“Got it,” said the man. “They’re estimating five minutes.”
“That’s too damn long,” said Johnny, snapping off the Talk button.
The small office at the back of the personnel section appeared at first glance a haven; drenched by the water, it was intact and several degrees cooler than the hallway. But as soon as Massina stood up, he realized safety was a mirage: smoke was furling in, choking off the oxygen. He dropped quickly to the floor, his eyes and throat burning.
Coughing, he crawled to Vendez near the window. Vendez was slipping in and out of consciousness.
“Stay with me,” said Massina as Vendez’s eyes closed.
“Oh, yeah,” said the Finance chief.
“Stay awake. I need you. Not just today, tomorrow.”
“Uh.”
Vendez started to slide to the floor. Massina stopped him, then lowered him gently, realizing there was better air there.
Or at least hoping there was better air.
“I wonder if the phones are working. What do you think, Jason?”
Massina didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one. He lowered his face to the floor, took a big gulp of air, and held his breath. Then he jumped up and grabbed a phone from the desk.