The big road remained eerily empty except for one other car, half a dozen lanes away, headed in the opposite direction. Whether friend or foe, Lacey couldn't tell.
Then the roadway lifted and the Manhattan skyline hove into view to the right, pacing them as they raced along. The gap where the Trade Towers used to stand caused an ache in Lacey's chest. The hijackers and their victims were long gone, and now most of the survivors were probably gone as well. And Islam ... Islam was gone too.
Good riddance. Lacey had no use for any religion, but she'd found Islam's treatment of women particularly offensive. A mongrel religion, cobbled from pieces of others and strung together by adolescent sex and power fantasies. Good fucking riddance.
A lump built in her throat as she thought about what her city had suffered. She'd thought nothing could be worse than the Trade Tower attack, but then the undead had come ...
A few minutes later they were passing through Union City. She saw the weathered old sign, UNION CITY—EMBROIDERY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, and shook her head. Union City wasn't embroidering a thing these days.
"I can't believe this," Lacey shouted over the wind whistling around and between them as they coasted down the Lincoln Tunnel helix. "We made it without being hassled again."
Carole glanced at her watch and shook her head. "Forty-five minutes. That must be a record."
"And that includes the time we lost with those two motorcycle yo-yos. It's like everybody's on vacation."
"I think we might be able to take credit for some of that," Carole said. "After what we did in the Post Office, I'll bet they've drawn their collaborators closer—doubling the guard and measures like that. The upside of that is an easier trip getting here; the downside will be a much more difficult time accomplishing what we came here to do."
"Every silver lining has a cloud, right?"
Carole nodded as they threaded an E-ZPass lane and aimed for the tunnel's center tube. "Always."
Carole turned on the headlights as they entered the dark, arching maw, and just then a siren howled behind them. Lacey jumped in her seat and looked around at the flashing red lights atop two blue-and-white units that had appeared out of nowhere.
"Police?" Carole said.
Lacey eyed the cars. First off, the NYPD was long gone. Second, the four shaggy-headed silhouettes crammed into that first unit didn't look anything like cops. Probably an equal number in the unit beside it.
Eight Vichy. . . she doubted the tactics she'd used on the two bikers would fly here. As if to emphasize that point, one of the occupants in the lead cop car held an assault pistol out a rear passenger window and fired a burst into the air. The bullets shattered some ceiling tiles and the pieces rained on the cop car, denting the hood and cracking the windshield. Lacey spotted a fist flying in the rear of the car. Someone wouldn't be trying that again.
The following unit pulled alongside the first, high beams flashing on and off. Lacey rose in her seat, exposing herself to the glare, and waved.
"What do we do?" Carole shouted over the roar of the wind, Her expression was tight.
"Your turn."
"My turn? For what?"
"To show a little titty."
"What?"
"Yeah. I did my part, now you do yours. I'll take the wheel and—"
"Not on your life! Just shoot at them. We don't have to worry about sunlight leaking into the trunk while we're in here."
Lacey thought of that assault pistol that had fired a moment ago, and wondered if there were more of them in the units. She didn't stand a chance against that sort of firepower. Then she looked down and saw the napalm balloons.
"Slow down a little," she said as she crawled into the rear. "Here we go again."
She crouched on the back seat and pulled off her T-shirt, then she grabbed a napalm balloon in each hand.
"What are you doing?" Carole said.
"I'm about to play hide and seek. Just be ready to burn rubber when I tell you."
Could she get away with something like this again? If they were half as horny as she thought they were yeah. Maybe.
Taking a breath, she pressed a balloon over each breast, plastered a big grin on her face, then rose to her knees.
The left blue-and-white swerved as the driver hit the siren again and a couple of hands popped out the windows to wave the horn sign. The right unit did the same.
She pulled the balloon off her left breast and held it high.
The sirens wailed again.
She bared her right breast and held that balloon aloft.
Another wail.
She tossed both balloons at the cars.
"Hit it!" she yelled as she dove for the seat.
The last thing she saw as the tires screeched and the Fairlane leaped forward was one balloon splattering harmlessly on the pavement and the other breaking against the grill of the right car. The front of the car exploded, rocketing the hood toward the ceiling, and then Lacey was down, flat on the rear seat. The explosion kicked them from behind like a rear-end collision. A wave of heat rolled over them for an instant before they left it behind.
Lacey peeked over the back of the rear seat in time to see the burning unit sidewipe its companion. The second bounced off the wall with a shower of sparks, then slammed into the first as someone's gas tank exploded. The second car flipped then and landed against the first. Amid the agonized screech and groan of metal grinding against concrete and asphalt and tile, both slid to a halt across the tunnel roadway in a single, twisted, flaming mass.
Lacey shook her head. Wow. Powerful stuff.
She thought she saw something moving, a flaming man-shaped thing crawling out a window, but she couldn't be sure. Suddenly a third explosion rocked the mass. The other gas tank, she guessed.
Lacey tugged her shirt back over her head and climbed up into the passenger seat.
"That's it! The last time I strip down for these animals."
"Let's hope so," Carole said. "By the way, that was an amazing piece of indirection."
Was that a note of genuine admiration Lacey detected in her voice?
"Thank you. And my compliments to the chef on that napalm." Lacey pointed ahead at the splotch of brightness ahead in the dark of the tiled gullet. "Look. The light at the end of the tunnel."
"More Vichy there?"
Lacey grabbed the shotgun. Her stomach crawled. How long could their luck last?
But to their amazement, the Manhattan side of the tunnel was deserted. Gasping with relief, they swerved left and roared into the concrete box of an enclosed above-and-below-ground park-and-lock lot on 42nd Street.
BARRETT . . .
Neal kicked a piece of blackened metal from the wrecks and sent it spinning across the scorched pavement. He tugged on his beard.
"What the fuck?"
"What the fuck is right," Barrett said. "All seven guys gone. Just like that."
Franco was going to be pissed ... if he found out.
The relief crews had arrived on the Manhattan side at noon to find smoke billowing from the middle tube. They'd waited till it tapered off, then drove inside. This was what they'd found.
Lights from the headlights of a couple of cars illuminated the twisted mess of metal. The ceiling and walls were scorched black for hundreds of feet in both directions.
"You think it was a hit?" Neal said.
"You mean like what happened at the Lakewood Post Office. I don't know. See any bullet holes?"
Neal shook his head. "Not a one."
Neither had Barrett.
Two carloads of cowboys reduced to crispy critters. It looked like one car had plowed into the other, smashing it against the side of the tunnel. Barrett visualized a bent side panel, showers of sparks, a gas cap tearing off, then kablam!