CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In a very real sense, the south end of Manhattan is the center of the universe. The concrete canyons of Broad and Wall, of Nassau and Exchange and Maiden, have for a century served as the financial epicenter of the world. The largest of the Federal Reserve Banks is located there. AIG, Morgan Stanley, Deloitte, Merrill Lynch. And until abnorms like Erik Epstein forced the government to shut it down, $153 billion flowed through the New York Stock Exchange every single day.
It is a landscape of marble and glass, of cobblestone streets thronged with tourists and traders, of the rumble of delivery trucks on Broadway and blasts of warm air from the subway, of enormous American flags and somber statues. During the workday the population swells 600 percent. Under the very best of circumstances, it is not easy to navigate quickly.
Cooper was not finding today to be the best of circumstances.
The new Leon Walras Exchange was located in the grand old building that used to house the NYSE. Though popular opinion focused on Erik Epstein, the twenty-four-year-old billionaire had in truth been only the most successful of a number of abnorms whose gifts broke the global financial system. For two hundred years, the market had existed on the myth that all people were equal. It was a nonsensical statement, but an easy one for most people to swallow when the prospect of financial gain was involved.
It was a myth that couldn’t survive the gifted. Epstein and others like him had pillaged the market with as much ease as Cooper could have dodged a slap.
Two years ago, the United States had bowed to the inevitable and dissolved the stock market. It was a nuclear option, and while it had worked, the side effects were disastrous. Without the free market to support it, American industry had to pay for itself—and found it often couldn’t. Small-cap companies became endangered species. Entrepreneurship plummeted. Protests on Wall Street raged to this day. Meanwhile, fortunes were wiped away, and the grandmother who stored cash in her mattress suddenly had the right savings plan.
If it was to survive, America had to develop a new system of exchange, one which would be impervious to the games-manship of gifted individuals. By functioning as an auction house and averaging the bids to arrive at a final price, the Leon Walras Exchange had in one stroke stripped out the volatility, excitement, and emotion of investing, while still offering the potential for businesses to raise capital. It was a step backward to a more archaic age that had taken two painful years to move through the political process.
And today, March 12, 2013, at 2:00 p.m. General Electric would become the first public offering of the new financial reality. At 2:00 p.m., history would be made.
Which meant that now, at 1:51 p.m., lower Manhattan was a nightmare. Wall Street had been cordoned off for blocks in each direction. Foot police redirected traffic on Broadway, blowing whistles and gesturing impatiently. Half a dozen school buses had been parked along Liberty, and harried teachers fought to corral children hyped up on the excitement of an afternoon out of class. A line of protesters shoved against a police barricade, raising placards and shouting slogans. A marching band played in Trinity Churchyard, the brass mostly lost in the noise but the bass thumping uneasily through every stomach. Media helicopters circled above. Bobby Quinn’s datapad showed a live feed of a podium on the steps where the former CEO of the NYSE chatted with the new CEO of the LWE and the first deputy mayor of New York, the three of them surrounded by men in dark suits and sunglasses.
If there was a worse place for a bomb to go off, Cooper couldn’t think where it would be.
“I don’t know nothing about how to make bombs, man. I’m an electrician.” All the hard-guy attitude had vanished from Dusty Evans in the instant his friend skidded across the concrete. “I just did what I was told. The company I work for did some of the wiring on the new Exchange. Mr. Smith had me steal a key and then use it to plant the bombs.”
“Bombs? More than one?”
“Five of them.”
Ahead of them two cops were walking a police barrier into place. Cooper burped the siren, pointed at his chest, then at the street beyond. The nearer cop nodded and rotated the barrier out of their way. Cooper tossed them a salute as he steered the Escalade through the gap. Every nerve in his body was screaming for speed, but in the crowd of tourists and sightseers they had to creep forward at five miles an hour. Someone banged on the back window of the truck. A blonde stopped right in front of him to pose for her pimply-faced boyfriend. Cooper laid on the horn.
1:53.
“What did they look like?”
“Like in the movies. Blocks of gray putty. They weighed about fifteen pounds.”
“Total?”
“Each.”
It had gone on like that the whole ride in, every question leading to an unhappy answer. Eventually Evans had started repeating himself. When it was obvious they’d gotten out of him all they were going to, Quinn had used a second pair of cuffs to secure his hands to his opposite ankles. It was an awkward, uncomfortable position, and the big man was bent nearly in half, weeping softly.
“Shut it,” Quinn said. He’d climbed up to the passenger seat, and when he saw Cooper looking at him, he cocked his head and took a breath, his nostrils flaring. It was a look that read, Well, we’re in it now. “We could evacuate.”
“The politicians, maybe.” Cooper rode up on the curb to pass a cop on a horse. “Not all these people.”
“Some of them. Use the cops, SWAT—”
“It’d be panic, people trampling each other. Besides, we don’t know it’s on a timer. If Smith sees everyone running, he’ll blow it early.” Ahead a row of fast-food vendors had parked right in the middle of Broadway. He grimaced, thought about plowing through the falafel truck, threw the truck into park instead. 1:56. “I’m going to have to try to stop this myself.”
“Yourself? Bullshit. I’m coming—”
“You have at least one cracked rib.”
“I can take the pain.”
“I know you can. But you’ll slow me down. Besides, all I know about disarming bombs comes from old cop shows. Unless I just pull the red wire, I’m going to need help.” He popped the magazine on the Beretta. Eight rounds left. “I need you to get me a bomb squad.”
“They’ll never make it. Not in this crowd.”
“Then get them ready to talk me through it. I’ll be on the earpiece. And call Peters, let him know what’s going on.” He took a deep breath, then opened the car door. The crowd noise enveloped him. “And, Bobby, just in case—”
“—arrange ambulances and emergency services, I know. But make sure it doesn’t come to that, okay?” The fear in his partner’s eyes wasn’t for his own safety or for Cooper’s. It ran deeper than that, and broader. Cooper recognized it because the same thoughts had been running through his head. It was a fear of what would be unleashed if he failed. A fear of the cracking of the world.
Cooper slammed the door and began to push through the crowd. 1:57.
The ceremony won’t start on time. These things never do. And John Smith likes theater. He’ll wait until every camera is watching.
But then he will blow it. Unless you stop him.