The Fall. Book II of The Strain Trilogy

there, in orange and black. It took Fet a moment to realize that it was yet another highly stylized, if cruder, variation on the illuminated figure in the front matter of the book locked away on the top floor of the facing building — a book no one had seen for decades.

“What the hell?” said Fet.

“It is him — his name,” said Setrakian. “His true name. He is branding the city with it. Calling it his own.”

Setrakian turned away, looking up at the black smoke blowing over the sky, obscuring the sun.

Setrakian said, “Now to find a way to get that book.”

Extract from the diary of Ephraim Goodweather

Dearest Zack,

What you must know is that I needed to do this — not out of arrogance (I am no hero, son), but out of conviction. Leaving you in that train station — the pain I feel now is the worst I have ever experienced. Know that I never chose the human race instead of you. What I am to do now is for your future — yours alone. That the rest of mankind may benefit is but a side issue. This is so that you will never, ever have to do what I just did: choose between your child and your duty.

From the moment I first held you in my arms, I knew that you were going to be the only genuine love story in my life. The one human being to whom I could give my all and expect nothing in return. Please understand that I cannot trust anyone else to attempt what I am about to do. Much of the history of the previous century was written with a gun. Written by men driven to murder by their conviction, and their demons. I have both. Insanity is real, son — it is existence now. No longer a disorder of the mind, but an external reality. Maybe I can change this.

I will be branded a criminal, I may be called mad — but my hope is that, in time, the truth will vindicate my name, and that you, Zachary, will once again hold me in your heart.

No amount of words will ever do justice to what I feel for you and the relief that you are now safe with Nora. Please think of your father not as a man who deserted you, who broke a promise to you, but as a man who wanted to ensure that you survived this assault on our species. As a man with difficult choices to make, just like the man you will one day grow to be.

Please think also of your mother — as she was. Our love for you will never die so long as you live. In you, we have given this world a great gift — and of that, I have no doubt.

Your old man,

Dad

Office of Emergency Management, Brooklyn

The office of Emergency Management building operated on a darkened block in Brooklyn. The four-year-old, $50 million OEM facility served as the central point of coordination for major emergencies in New York. It housed New York’s 130-agency Emergency Operations Center, containing state-of-the-art audiovisual and information technology systems and full backup generators. The headquarters had been built to replace the agency’s former facility at 7 World Trade Center, destroyed on 9/11. It was constructed to foster resource coordination between public agencies in the event of a large-scale disaster. To that end, redundant electromechanical systems ensured continuous operation during a power outage.

The twenty-four-hours-a-day building was operating exactly as it should. The problem was that many of the agencies it was meant to coordinate with — local, state, federal, and nonprofit — were either offline, understaffed, or else apparently abandoned.

The heart of the city’s emergency disaster network was still beating strong, but precious little of its informational blood was reaching the extremities — as if the city had suffered a massive stroke.

Eph feared he would miss his narrow window of opportunity. Getting back across the bridge took him much longer than he had expected: most people who were able and willing to leave Manhattan had already done so, and the road debris and abandoned cars made the crossing difficult. Someone had tied two corners of an immense yellow tarpaulin to one of the bridge’s support wires, rippling in the wind like an old maritime flag of quarantine flying off the mast of a doomed ship.

Director Barnes sat quietly, gripping the handle over the window, finally realizing that Eph was not going to tell him where they were headed.

The Long Island Expressway was substantially faster, Eph eyeing the towns as he passed them, seeing empty streets from the overpasses, quiet gas stations, empty mall parking lots.

His plan was dangerous, he knew. More desperate than organized. A psychopath’s plan, perhaps. But he was okay with this: insanity was all around him. And sometimes luck trumped preparation.

He arrived just in time to catch the beginning of Palmer’s address on the car radio. He parked near a train station, turning off the engine, turning to Barnes.

“Get out your ID now. We’re going inside the OEM together. I will have the gun under my jacket. You say anything to anybody or try to alert security, I will shoot whoever you talk to and then I will shoot you. Do you believe me?”

Barnes looked into Eph’s eyes. He nodded.

“Now we walk, and fast.”

They came up on the OEM building along 15th Street, the road lined with official vehicles on both sides. The tan-brick building exterior resembled that of a new grade school, nearly a block long but only two stories tall. A broadcast tower rose behind it, surrounded by a wire-topped fence. National Guard members stood at ten-yard intervals along the short lawn, securing the building.

Eph saw the gated parking lot entrance, and, inside, what had to be Palmer’s idling motorcade. The middle limousine appeared almost presidential, and certainly bulletproof.

He knew he must get Palmer before he got into that car.

“Walk tall,” said Eph, his hand around Barnes’s elbow, steering him along the sidewalk past the soldiers toward the entrance.

A group of protesters heckled them from across the street, holding signs about God’s wrath, proclaiming that because America had lost faith in Him, He was now abandoning it. A preacher in a shabby suit stood atop a short stepladder, reading verses out of Revelation. Those surrounding him stood with their open palms facing the OEM in a gesture of blessing, praying over the city agency. One placard featured a hand-drawn icon of a downcast Jesus Christ bleeding from a crown of thorns, sporting vampire fangs and glaring red eyes.

“Who will deliver us now?” the shabby monk cried.

Sweat ran down Eph’s chest, past the silver-loaded pistol stuck in his belt.

Eldritch Palmer sat in the Emergency Operations Center before a microphone set upon a table and a pitcher of water. He faced a video wall upon which was displayed the seal of the United States Congress.

Alone, except for his trusted aide, Mr. Fitzwilliam, Palmer wore his usual dark suit, looking a shade paler than usual, a bit more shrunken in the chair. His wrinkled hands rested on the top of the table, still, waiting.

Via satellite link, he was about to address an emergency joint session of the United States Congress. This unprecedented address, with questions to follow, was also being broadcast via live Internet feed over all television and radio networks and their affiliates still in operation, and internationally across the globe.

Mr. Fitzwilliam stood just out of camera view, his hands clasped at belt level, looking outside the secure room into the larger facility. Most of the 130 workstations were occupied, and yet no work was being done. All eyes were turned to the hanging monitors.

After brief opening remarks, facing the half-full Capitol chamber, Palmer read from a prepared statement scrolling in large print on a teleprompter behind the camera.

“I want to address this public health emergency in terms of where myself and my Stoneheart Foundation are well-positioned to intervene, to respond, to reassure. What I can present to you today is a three-fold action plan for the United States of America, and the world beyond.

“First, I am pledging an immediate loan of three billion dollars to the city of New York, in order to keep city services functioning and to fund a citywide quarantine.