body to his feet, then flicked it to Hanscomb’s face. “Where’s Price?”
“He’s dead,” Hanscomb said. “They shot him.”
“And you got away,” Vasco said, flicking the light at Hawke again. “How convenient.”
Hawke felt blood rush to his face. “You son of a bitch—”
“Take it easy, hero,” Vasco said. “Just pointing out the obvious. The two of you should find your own way out of here, maybe. Safer for me.”
“I don’t think so,” Hawke said. “You’ve got the flashlight. Besides, you’ve got so much experience in dangerous situations, right? Maybe you should tell us what the best strategy is for a war like this.”
“Look,” Vasco said, taking a step closer in a vaguely threatening way that Hawke didn’t like. “I don’t give a shit whether they know the truth or not.” He took another step, keeping the beam on them. “I wasn’t in the army,” he said. “Okay? Shocker. They didn’t like my attitude. I told you what you wanted to hear back there at the temple. Who cares? You were hysterical and about to go off the rails.”
Hanscomb didn’t seem to react at first. The flashlight showed a tightening around the eyes, a firming of the mouth. “I don’t like being lied to.”
“Sue me. I got you this far, and we’re alive. You think he hasn’t lied to you, too? He’s lied to all of us.”
“I haven’t lied about a damn thing. You ran off and left one of us to get shot in the back. Some leader.”
Vasco waved the light toward the stairs up to the street, muscles in his arm standing out like ropes. “Fuck you. Anytime you don’t like my plan, there’s the door. But if you want to stay with me, just do what I say. Now we better keep moving, don’t you think? Before V for Vendetta here brings the heat down on our heads.”
He turned and vaulted one of the turnstiles, the light bobbing and flashing in the shadows beyond. “You coming or not?”
Hawke went over to Young, who hadn’t moved. Her wet face glistened in the dark like something polished. “We have to keep going,” he said, and maybe it came out harsher than he’d intended. “One of us is dead. There’s nothing more for us up there. Or maybe it’s something else you’re frightened of. You want to tell me exactly what they want with us? Why they trapped us in that hospital?”
Young shook her head. He could barely see her at all now as the flashlight retreated. When he tried to touch her arm, she jerked away. “Don’t,” she said. But she followed him over the turnstiles and after the light that bobbed and swayed beyond like a beacon flashing a warning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
3:05 P.M.
A SECOND FLIGHT OF WIDE STEPS brought them to the next level, uptown and downtown tracks side by side beyond a long, narrow platform spaced with support columns and holding old benches. A few more emergency lights dotted the ceiling, but the glow barely cut through the gloom. Normally this stop was well lit, but now it was dark and silent, the vast warren of tunnels sensed rather than seen. Hawke had been here just a few short hours before and it had been bustling with activity, hundreds of people streaming in and out and going about their daily lives, but that seemed like a lifetime ago, all that had come since like a nightmare he couldn’t escape.
Price was dead. It could have been any of them. And Vasco didn’t even seem to care.
The group stayed close to one another as they approached the tunnel. Vasco played the flashlight around the platform and peered over the edge of the drop to the tracks. A noise like a bird’s wings made him swing the flashlight beam quickly back to find a scrap of newspaper that fluttered against a bench. The draft brought the scent of more hot grease and ozone and what might have been another moan, but Hawke couldn’t be sure. Fear prickled his skin. It was like the faint call of a whale in the deep.
“It’s a straight shot,” Vasco said, pointing the light along the tunnel toward downtown. His voice echoed through the emptiness of the platform. “Trains aren’t running, so there’s no danger. Might not be the most pleasant way to go, but it’ll bring us right to Grand Central.”
“And the Financial District?” Hanscomb said. “My husband’s building is at Two Hundred West Street.”
“You could follow the number four tracks to Bowling Green,” Vasco said. “Then go to the water. It’s a much longer walk, though.” The flashlight made it hard to see his face. “He’s dead, you know that, right? Even if he’s not, how are you going to find him? And what are you gonna do even if you actually make it down there?”
“Don’t you say that,” Hanscomb said. She was trembling. “Don’t you dare.”
“What’s your husband’s name, Sarah?” Hawke said.
“Harold,” she said. “They called him Harry, but I never did. It was always Harold.”
Past tense. Hanscomb’s lips were white as she pressed them together. She was on the edge of collapse. Hawke wanted her to focus, wanted to give her something that built her strength and bound them. “I’ve got a son; I think I told you. Another baby on the way. You have kids?”
“Two,” she said. A bittersweet smile touched her face. “They’re both in college now. Cliche, isn’t it? House in the suburbs, Wall Street yuppie husband, manicures and yoga and afternoon cocktails while the kids were at dance and lacrosse practice. I used to drive a minivan before the Cadillac. That was a gift from my husband, supposed to mark the transition when Jean went off to school.”
“Jean?”
“My youngest. She’s at Smith. Taylor is in his senior year at USC.” She covered her mouth with a hand. Her face was ashen, hollow, as if collapsing upon itself. “You don’t think this has spread beyond New York, do you? They aren’t…” She couldn’t seem to go on.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” he said. He touched her arm, felt her shaking. “Which is why we need to focus on getting ourselves out of the city. They’re going to be worried about you.”
She nodded, bright red spots of color blooming in her cheeks. “Jean’s so nervous, always wanting to know the door’s locked or I’m driving the speed limit. She’ll drive Taylor nuts with this. He…” She paused, swallowed, shaking, and didn’t speak again. Hawke was ashamed. Asking her about her kids had been a mistake. Hanscomb had been little more than an irritating distraction to him since the moment she had crashed the SUV, but she had a life and a family like anyone else. She had kept her mind occupied with her husband’s plight, but that only masked the real terror. This facade she had built around herself was about to come crashing down, and Hawke saw all the pain waiting behind it.
He felt his own panic begin to creep closer to the surface, thinking of Robin’s scream, of the blood spattered across the wall. He fought it back and touched the light worm of scar across the last knuckle of his pinkie. His mother always said he had a knack for staying calm under pressure; when he was eight, he had caught the finger in a car door and it was nearly severed. She liked to tell people how he had simply clutched it to his shirt and said,
As a child, he had been scared of death. But he didn’t feel that way anymore. He was numb to it for himself; it would come eventually whether he was ready or not. But he was terrified for Thomas. The thought of his boy huddled somewhere, crying for his daddy, punched the air from his chest.
Vasco had maneuvered his legs over the side of the platform, and now he dropped to the tracks with a grunt, the flashlight beam flickering before coming back strong. “We’re wasting time,” he called from below. “Long walk ahead of us.”
Hawke went over the edge next, and helped Hanscomb and Young down. “Watch the third rail,” he said.
