Part 32 (1/2)

He flicked it downward, raised the rifle, and tried the trigger again. The underbarrel responded with a disheartening sproing sproing, like that of a spud gun.

The grenade flew out. It hurtled through the hundred feet or so of subbas.e.m.e.nt and punched the firewall, creating a colossal, magnificent explosion.

Charlie closed his eyes and still could see the fiery flash. His ears shut down. Pressed flat against the inside wall of the stairwell, he felt a hard gust from the hail of pa.s.sing shrapnel. He had no idea whether the shrapnel included bits of firewall.

Once the gust subsided, he crept into the subbas.e.m.e.nt. He couldn't see what damage, if any, the grenade had done. The firewall area was blocked by a ma.s.s of dust and smoke.

He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and plunged into it. The air smelled and tasted like a spent match. He felt his way toward the firewall. Then he felt the firewall itself*where he'd hoped to feel nothing.

He opened his eyes. Through a burning haze, he saw that the firewall remained anch.o.r.ed to the surrounding concrete walls and ceiling*unfortunately, the blast-proof frame had lived up to its billing. The metal slats themselves had puckered outward, however, leading to a cavity at its base big enough for a midsized dog to squeeze through.

Charlie tried, an act of contortion. A steel shard cut into his neck. Another ripped into his sleeve and dug into his arm. At the cost of two strips of skin, he made it through.

In the tunnel, the dust kicked up by the grenade had grayed the air. Using a hand as a visor against it, Charlie made out the forms of two men standing together halfway down: almost certainly Drummond and Fielding*had Drummond revealed he'd triggered the bomb, Fielding would have fled, at the least. Charlie couldn't see enough of their shapes or features to tell who was who. Except for a small circle glowing faintly.

The lit end of a cigar.

Charlie fired the AK. The cigar hit the floor along with Fielding, the splash of sparks momentarily illuminating his rifle and the rage on his blood-splattered face.

One of his bullets sparked the wall inches from Charlie's head. Charlie didn't hear it; he still couldn't hear anything. He countered by spraying more of his own bullets, sending Fielding staggering in retreat. He disappeared into the smog, perhaps into the complex itself, allowing Drummond to run to Charlie.

Drummond shouted something. Charlie couldn't hear what, but Drummond's urgency made it clear he wasn't suggesting they stick around. Charlie estimated forty seconds remained for them to get out of the tunnel, feel their way across the subbas.e.m.e.nt, climb two flights of stairs, and exit the building through the Perriman offices. He wasn't sure whether it was possible. But trying beat the h.e.l.l out of the alternative.

He ran with Drummond for the firewall. Along the way, he emptied his banana clip at the shards around the hole, effectively enlarging it, then cast the spent rifle away. At the end of the tunnel, Drummond stepped aside, allowing Charlie through first. Charlie pulled Drummond out on the other side. Together they raced across the subbas.e.m.e.nt and into the stairwell.

They were halfway up the stairs from the bas.e.m.e.nt to the ground floor when the detonation came. The stairwell filled with white light so intense that Charlie couldn't distinguish any single object*not Drummond at his side, not even his own hand in front of his face. Although he couldn't hear, he heard the blast, and he felt it in his stomach and his knees and his teeth. The blast current hit like a bludgeon. It s.n.a.t.c.hed him, and in its hold there was no telling up from down, until he came down chin first onto the edge of a stair.

The white light dissolved into swells of hot gray dust and blue-black smoke that stank of burned rubber, inflaming his lungs, and revealed that the walls of the stairwell were buckling, the ceiling was raining chunks of concrete, and Drummond was gone. Utterly vanished. Possibly he'd fallen into the sooty abyss where the bottom five or six stairs had been a second ago.

As Charlie peered into it, the remaining stairs, including those beneath his feet, cracked apart into nothing.

He flung a hand at the stout handrail. Because the lower mooring had fragmented, his weight caused the rail to pop free of the wall. The upper mooring held, enabling him to climb the rail while it swung.

He belly flopped onto the landing, then scurried on scorched*and possibly broken*hands and knees into the Perriman offices.

Other than the billows of white dust, tinted red by the illuminated exit signs, all was as before. Except, of course, the building might come down at any second.

If Drummond had made it out of the stairwell, Charlie figured, he would have headed down the hallway to the front vestibule, which opened onto West 112th Street.

There were no footprints in the fresh coating of dust there.

Charlie felt like slumping into one of the plastic workstations and crying. He hauled himself toward the vestibule. Halfway, he sensed motion behind him. He spun around, his hope reignited, all of his parts feeling like new again.

It was water, spraying from fire sprinklers.

His hearing had begun to return. He could make out the howl of a smoke alarm, though barely. To his ears, it was a drone.

Still he could hear Drummond. At least he thought he could. From the office next to the stairwell, the one whose door said D. CLARK, DEPUTY DISTRICT SALES MGR, N. ATLANTIC DIV. 'Is there a fire?' Charlie thought he heard him say.

Charlie bounded down the hallway and threw open the door. Drummond swiveled sharply in his desk chair. A coating of white dust made him look like a baker. He seemed irked that there had been no knock. Taking in Charlie, his demeanor s.h.i.+fted to puzzled.

'Charles, what are you doing here?' His eyes settled on Charlie's Perriman uniform. 'Are you working here now?'

20.

Charlie led Drummond out of the office, at the same time using Drummond's shoulder to keep weight off a new knee injury relative to which his old gunshot wound felt like a paper cut. The gla.s.s-walled vestibule at the far end of the hallway showed West 112th to be as crowded now, in the middle of the night, as it ordinarily would be at midday during a street fair. Dogs yelped at the strange rumbling below-ground. Residents with coats thrown over pajamas gawked, through the haze of streetlamps, at towers of smoke rising from sidewalk grates. Charlie heard them speculating: 'student prank,' 'science experiment,' and, the overwhelming favorite, 'terrorists.' Drummond out of the office, at the same time using Drummond's shoulder to keep weight off a new knee injury relative to which his old gunshot wound felt like a paper cut. The gla.s.s-walled vestibule at the far end of the hallway showed West 112th to be as crowded now, in the middle of the night, as it ordinarily would be at midday during a street fair. Dogs yelped at the strange rumbling below-ground. Residents with coats thrown over pajamas gawked, through the haze of streetlamps, at towers of smoke rising from sidewalk grates. Charlie heard them speculating: 'student prank,' 'science experiment,' and, the overwhelming favorite, 'terrorists.'

'My guess would be a cigarette,' Drummond said in earnest. 'Eighteen percent of all nighttime fires begin when a person falls asleep while smoking.'

'My guess would be penthrite and trinitrotoluene,' said Fielding, climbing from the dark remains of the stairwell, a.s.sault rifle in hand. Dust gave him a ragged edge.

The shock of seeing him hit Charlie nearly as hard as the blast current. He probably would have fallen if he weren't clutching Drummond.

Drummond studied Fielding as if trying to remember who he was. 'Interesting theory,' he told him meanwhile.

Although the lights were off in the hallway, Fielding's extensive wounds were apparent from blood that slicked much of his face and body. Yet he approached without evident impediment, his rifle blinking orange along with a changing traffic signal outside, his finger on the trigger.

Charlie looked to Drummond for guidance only to find Drummond looking to him the same way.

'Should we tell him about the security blanket?' Charlie asked, intending it for Fielding's ears.

'That is a decent bargaining chip,' Fielding said. 'An hour ago. In case it comes up in your next life, a man with an honest-to-goodness security blanket doesn't resort to blowing himself up.' He flicked his rifle at a bare stretch of hallway. 'Now, both of you, back up against the wall.'

Charlie raced to conceive a way he and Drummond could defend themselves. There was nothing in reach, save a light switch and the carpet sodden from the fire sprinklers. The people milling outside the front vestibule couldn't see them through the doors and all the way down the dark hallway, and probably wouldn't be able to hear a cry for help, or intervene in any case. The huge bank of fluorescent tubes directly above Fielding's head held more promise: They might come on with enough flash or pop to distract him long enough that his rifle could be knocked away. Also the people on the street might be able to see in. And, at some point, Drummond might blink on too.

As he and Drummond backed toward the wall, Charlie tried to telegraph his intent to him. 'Fifty-fifty proposition,' he said.

Drummond gave no sign of acknowledgment. But would he under the best of circ.u.mstances?

Trying to be discreet, Charlie flipped the light switch with his elbow.