‘What are your plans for the rocks?’ she said.
‘They will be destroyed,’ he said.
‘They?’ she said. ‘You haven’t destroyed the one from Peru?’
A vein quivered above his right eye.
‘We have the Peru meteorite. It will be destroyed as soon as we have Denton,’ he said. ‘Not a moment sooner, not a moment later.’ He finished his flute of champagne. ‘You can keep running. With the meteorite on your back. But your chances are not … encouraging. Or you can pass the burden to us. Which is what would’ve happened before you stole it.’
‘Actually I didn’t — yeah, never mind,’ Sophia said.
‘This isn’t your fight,’ the Commander said. ‘Denton is our mess and we need to clean it up ourselves.’
‘And I’m his mess,’ Sophia said. ‘What guarantee do I have that I can walk out of here alive?’
The Commander held his ballistic mask in one hand, inspecting it. ‘We’re here to do our job,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t involve you.’
‘Of course,’ Sophia said. ‘And if you don’t do your job the details of this plan can be passed on to Denton.’ She held up her phone. ‘Camera feed.’
‘Oh, that’s not a problem at all.’ The Commander lifted the tablecloth beside him, revealing a microwave-sized cell phone jammer.
Sophia looked down at her phone and realized it had no signal. The Commander was blocking all frequencies, including his own communications, inside the grand ballroom, which meant her phone couldn’t even hijack his for reception.
The Blue Berets moved toward her, carbines raised.
‘I’ll need you to raise your hands, Sophia,’ the Commander said. ‘Just as a precaution.’
She noticed the masked soldier in casual gear approach her and produce a different weapon, a slimmer, more compact tranquilizer rifle. He fired into her neck.
She turned to DC. He’d stepped away from her. Another tranquilizer dart cut the air near her, striking Czarina in her neck. Sophia tried to fight the solution in the dart but it was useless. She dropped to her knees.
‘You promised you wouldn’t hurt her,’ DC said.
‘And I’ve kept that promise,’ the Commander said. ‘As long as you keep yours, neither of them will be harmed.’
Sophia slumped forward. Her eyes were closed before she hit the floor. The voices drifted to nothing.
Chapter 43
Nasira crossed the roof of Grand Central the same way she’d escaped. This time, she was alone and the hurricane was at full strength above her. The wind chilled her body through her jacket. Drenched, she lowered herself to the skylights by dangling from an internal ledge, dropping to a narrow column and then hanging from the column. The drop from the column was just short enough that she could land and absorb the impact by simply bending her knees.
She needed to get inside Grand Central terminal without being spotted on camera. Before her, arched windows were protected by wrought-iron barriers. The hurricane had smashed one barrier through an arched window, breaking it and granting her access.
She crawled through and found herself high above the main concourse of Grand Central. She was standing on a long balcony that ran from east to west.
Below her, the main concourse was eerily empty and quiet except for the drum of rain outside. A four-faced opalescent clock marked the center of the concourse. The east and west ends both had stairs that led up to the mezzanine floor. On the east, a café. On the west, an Apple Store. On the north end she could see four sets of escalators that fed into the MetLife building. She saw no sign of operatives, not that she imagined they would be standing somewhere she could see them. She figured they would mostly be concentrated in the lower concourses, placed strategically so they would see her before she saw them.
She moved to the center of the balcony, wiped her wet hands on the inside of her jacket and removed the first iPhone from her pocket — one with a red cover. She used the roll of duct tape she’d taken from the office space and fixed the iPhone to the balcony with the wide lens angled outward. She slowly scrunched up a ball of tape and placed it under one end of the iPhone, angling it down to face the main concourse.
With that done, Nasira activated the camera using Aviary’s custom camera app and was pleased to discover the lens was wide enough to capture the entire concourse from end to end. She got down on her stomach to give herself some cover from below, then hit the transmit button and added Aviary’s phone and her own. She checked her own phone and found the feed coming through nice and clear.
She noticed there were two video feeds on her phone now. She swiped across to the new feed and realized it was the feed Sophia was sharing with both her and Aviary. She could see an almost three-sixty degree view of Sophia walking into the Astoria with DC and her new operative friend. Her screen could only show half of the three-sixty degrees at a time but Nasira could move her thumb to pan around behind Sophia, past her leg, to the street behind her, viewing the phone’s multiple cameras seamlessly. It looked like Sophia and DC had arrived in a Marauder armored—
Nasira froze in position, lying along the edge of the balcony, as the information booth in the center of the main concourse opened and an operative stepped out, followed by another. They moved with purpose to the west end of the concourse. Nasira didn’t retreat; she stayed in place until they disappeared from view, down one of the passages to Lexington Avenue.
She glanced back at her phone and switched to the map.
The operatives were peeling off. Moving north. In pairs.
She crawled to her knees and watched as another pair moved away. Denton was pretty confident his captives — Jay and Damien — weren’t going anywhere. He probably had his remaining Blue Berets standing guard.
She needed to get to the fiber cable, fast.
Chapter 44
Sophia woke in a hotel room, by the looks of it some sort of presidential suite. She blinked to sharpen the edges of her vision. She was sitting in a cream chair, her wrists strapped to its polished wooden arms. Her ankles were strapped to the legs. Sitting in front of the ornate fireplace was Czarina. She was tied in a similar fashion.
Rain drummed the windows, obscuring what on any other night was likely an incredible view of New York City. Two Blue Berets sat on the crimson-and-gold-striped chairs at the other end of the suite. They watched in silence, masks on. Their presence unnerved her.
The Commander wasn’t taking any chances with her captivity.
‘If we survive this,’ Czarina said, now awake, ‘I think I’d like to go dancing somewhere. On a beach. And drink out of a coconut. That would be really nice.’
‘Are you OK?’ Sophia said.
Czarina nodded slowly. She looked drowsy still.
Sophia glared at the Berets. ‘At least they didn’t kill us.’
One of the Berets tilted his head. She wondered if perhaps he was reconsidering.
The door to the suite burst open. It was DC. He moved inside and closed the door behind him. He stepped between her and the Berets. He was carrying a carbine in one hand, pointed down. The Berets started to stand, alarmed by his urgency. DC strode toward them. Sophia noticed his left hand grasped his sword, slung between his back and her ruck, which he was carrying on both shoulders.
‘Have they been talking to you at all?’ DC asked the Berets.
‘No—’
DC drew his tachi sword and ran it through the Beret’s neck. The other Beret was on his feet, carbine swinging to fire. DC used his sword to knock the carbine clear.
DC thrust his sword into the disarmed Beret. The blade fractured the Beret’s armor and moved deeper. DC used the barrel of his own carbine to remove the impaled Beret from his sword. He finished with a stroke across the neck.