higher speed. He was done slowing down; he would run this truck into the ground.
The skyscrapers downtown rose in front of them, black smoke billowing upward. As they passed West 57th, Hawke looked right and caught a glimpse of the Hudson, winking like a shining steel ribbon in the distance. It brought a memory of their summer trip to Point Pleasant Beach, Thomas tottering down the newly restored Jenkinson’s Boardwalk after their adventures in the water, his skin losing the bluish tint of cold as he took in the rides, games and food vendors, the smells wafting over him, gulls crying overhead. Thomas ate French fries and ice cream and was exhausted by one, and they had left early, he and Robin talking quietly as Thomas slept in the backseat.
The Hudson was gone again, hidden behind brick buildings. The open water was freedom, almost close enough to touch. He thought of Cuttyhunk Island, isolated, self-contained, a place to hide. He would get them out safely. He imagined finding Robin and Thomas waiting for him and tried to force his mind to hold on to it, but the thought dissolved once again into a vision of their apartment in shambles, blood on the walls, his family gone, fading away into the abyss.
The memory of finding Lowry crouched in the darkness of the basement came back to him. Lowry, staring at old family photos and thinking about… what? Hawke squeezed the steering wheel so hard that his hands started to ache. Whatever had happened to Robin was his fault. He hadn’t acted in time, and now his family was paying the price.
“Oh no,” Young said. She had turned around in the seat as far as she could and was peering out through the rear window. Hawke glanced at her and saw Vasco staring backward at the sky, too. Hawke couldn’t see, but from the look on their faces, he didn’t want to know.
“The drone’s back,” Vasco said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
4:56 P.M.
A FOUR-CAR ACCIDENT CLOGGED most of the 51st Street intersection a hundred feet away. Hawke took the old truck up onto the sidewalk, barreling underneath a temporary construction passageway, the world suddenly plunged into darkness as his bumper pinged one of the supports and caused the roof of the passageway to come down behind them like a wave of dominoes. He swerved back onto the road and into the gray light, past a line of shops with colorful awnings, an Italian grocery, a burger joint and a dry cleaner’s, speeding past the New York Skyline Hotel. The truck was making a ticking sound now like on
He kept the gas pushed to the floor and an eye on the side mirror, watched the drone sweep in and out of view behind them like a darting insect.
Vehicles were starting to pile up, more and more of them, and he kept to the center of the street to avoid as many as possible. The city skyscrapers loomed in front as they flew past 43rd and then 42nd Street with its huge shining glass hotel tower. Hawke’s heart dropped as he saw smoke drifting ahead from several locations. He thought there had been some sort of explosion within the tunnel itself. Doe had disabled the escape routes just like she had taken out the bridges. Of course she would have thought of everything. He could already see it; the entrances all blocked, cars and trucks would be jammed in all of them, making it impossible to pass. She was cutting them off before slowly strangling them to death.
The truck began to jerk, and the engine raced ahead, teeth slipping in the gears underneath. As the truck’s engine screamed in protest, something slammed into them from the left, coming out of nowhere like some kind of beast lunging with open jaws. Hawke felt the impact like a sledgehammer in his shoulder and hip, and as his head slammed into the driver’s side window with a sickening crack, time slowed down to a crawl; the world went dark as they did a shrieking, horrible spin, the truck tipping up onto its side and sliding, then grinding to a stop against a light pole.
Hawke’s ears were ringing. He opened his eyes, his vision shot through with pinpricks of bright light. He slowly became aware of Vasco right in front of him, shoulders jammed down against the pavement and shattered windshield, bleeding from the mouth. Hawke reached out to touch him, and the effort took an abnormally long time, his arm stretching through space; eventually his fingers found Vasco’s throat, searching for a pulse, and the man jerked against him and opened his eyes, coughed a spray of blood. “Jason,” Hawke said, “talk to me.”
What he had taken for life-threatening internal injuries turned out to be more superficial than he thought. Vasco shook his head like a dog, tried to smile through red-stained teeth. “M’all right,” he said, his eyes a little vague, unfocused. “Bit my goddamn tongue. It’ll take more than that.”
Hawke looked up. Anne was hanging from the seat belt she had managed to fasten before the crash, dangling directly over him. Her eyes were open, and she blinked, fumbling at the release. Hawke reached up in time to catch her as she tumbled down into his arms.
The three of them were now jammed together around the steering wheel. “Who hit us?” Vasco said, his mouth sounding full of cotton. He spat another stream of bright red blood, tried to shift against shards of glass, groaned. “We need to get out of here—”
A grind of metal made Hawke peer out through shattered glass. He watched over Vasco’s shoulder as a black car reversed into view, engine growling as it struggled to pull away from a metal mailbox that it had run down after crashing into them and spinning away. The car’s right front end had been pushed in, and the edge of its bumper dragged and shot sparks across the ground. Hawke could see lights hidden behind the remains of the grill, the kind that undercover vehicles used.
The car swung around to face the truck. Afraid it was going to come at them again, Hawke frantically tried to work himself free from around the wheel, pushing Young away. But the black car didn’t move.
Doors slammed. A moment later, large hands reached in and yanked Vasco through the hole where the windshield had been; a voice rang out.
“Exit the vehicle now!” a man shouted. “Keep your hands out and visible! Make any moves and you’re dead.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
5:08 P.M.
HAWKE LOOKED AT YOUNG. “Don’t go out there,” he said, but she wriggled out through the windshield onto the pavement and disappeared from view. He heard scuffling movement as if she was being dragged, heard her cry out and a double click; then silence.
Hawke closed his eyes, slammed a palm on the steering wheel. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say, to set things right. The tunnel was blocked, and there was no way out of this. The memory of the man who had been shot outside the temple came back to him: the man’s hands coming up as he backed away in a futile effort to ward off the bullets, the back of his head spattering across the ground.
He was going to die before he could make it home. He would never know whether his family had survived, never see them again. His last interaction with his wife, their fight last night, would be left unanswered and unresolved forever.
