Quake (3 page)

The aisle smelled a bit musty and, as she stared at the bindings, she frowned. Medieval French history; that wasn't going to help her any in naming a favorite author. Silly as it was, she suddenly felt claustrophobic. Ray had her all but cornered. A wooden cart on wheels stood dead ahead as though to block her pass if she tried to make a run for it.

Gustave Flaubert, or will I come off as a literary snob? Talk about pretentious. But then, I can't exactly say J. K. Rowling either. Someone in between. Someone he won't be expecting. Not a canned answer like Mark Twain or Charles Dickens
.

As she thought, a pair of thick books jumped off the top shelf and landed on the floor in front of her with a
thunk
that she felt in her belly. She hopped back a step as dust came billowing up from between the books' yellowed pages.

A moment later, she tried to peek through the stacks to see who was lurking in the next aisle over. She was hoping to receive an apology for what
had
to be an accident. But before she could steal a glimpse, a single book struck her on the top of her head.

“
Ow,
” she said, rubbing her scalp and staring down at the large old volume. Now she wondered whether it was an accident at all, or perhaps the students at Columbia weren't quite as mature as she'd previously thought. She peered through the stacks again. “That
hurt
,” she hissed.

Ray held up a finger to silence her. “Hear that?”

“Hear what?”

But then she heard it, too. A low rumble, as though they were trapped inside the belly of a great beast and it was hungry.

“We'd better get back downstairs,” Ray said.

But as soon as the words left his tongue, he and Lauren were knocked into one another as the shelves on both their left and right poured more books down upon them. Together they fell to the floor, watching in terror as the tall bookcases themselves began to shudder, threatening any second to crush Ray and Lauren under their weight.

“What's happening?” Lauren cried, though she didn't get, nor had she been expecting a response, at least not from Ray. But as if to answer her question, a series of images popped instantly into her mind.

Her mother.

The towers.

The second airplane.

The blaze and billowing black smoke rising to blot out the sky.

No
, she thought.
It can't be
.
We can't be under attack again.

Her father's words rung in her ears. “We're safe, honey. This is
our
city. We have nothing to be afraid of.”

She thought,
Then why the hell were FBI agents and undercover cops following me around all summer? Huh, Dad?

Nick froze. He stood before the jury box as still as stone, just as he had a dozen years ago when he finally reached the outer perimeter raised by the NYPD around the World Trade Center. Even as jurors jumped from their seats and leapt the rail, Nick stood stationary. In his mind a montage of violent images roared across the stage. Images of the South Tower as it began to crumble from the top down, followed thirty minutes later by the North. The mammoth clouds of dust and debris that immediately billowed toward the sky, blotting out the sun, simultaneously breaking off at the feet of the towers and racing down the streets like a living force.

He'd frozen then, too, his feet becoming part of the ground, as hundreds of spectators started toward him, trying to escape the carnage. Then he'd been thrown from his stupor by the stampede, and nearly trampled a few moments later.

Now he came out of the daze himself, as the camera in his mind turned to Lauren's crying at her mother's funeral. Lauren at five. Lauren at nine, as she tried to comprehend. At thirteen, as she began asking questions about the mother she was losing all over again in her head. “I can't remember her, Dad. It's like a photo from an old newspaper; she just keeps fading and fading.”

As the floor shook, Nick spread his feet farther apart to maintain his balance. He needed to get the hell out of the courthouse—because Lauren couldn't lose another parent.

Swiftly, Nick turned, his eyes searching for Feroz Saeed Alivi like a heat-seeking missile. In the chaos he couldn't see him. Was Alivi behind this? Had the bastard made good on his threats? Were the poems he wrote in prison a coded call to a sleeper cell here in the city to unleash hell on the first day of his trial?

In his ears Nick heard random shrieks.

“It's a bomb!”

“We're under attack!”

“A plane hit the courthouse!”

Nick turned and saw the courtroom spectators battling each other with stiff arms and sharp elbows as they tried to squeeze through the tall mahogany double doors all at once. The court officers clawed at the edges of the human heap, but were outnumbered and helpless to control the crowd.

Nick spun, searching for another exit. The jurors were following the judge's clerk into chambers. He envisaged the chambers and immediately knew his jury was doomed; in the judge's chambers there was nothing to duck under and there was no way out.

He swung his head back in the direction of the defense table. No sign of Alivi, but Kermit Jansing was following a pair of U.S. marshals into the lockup. As a prosecutor Nick had never been back there, but he was sure there was no easy way out. The worst of the worst stepped through those doors almost daily; none, to his knowledge, had ever escaped.

The shaking continued. Windows suddenly shattered and the walls around him began to crack and crumble. A few feet away a chandelier crashed to the floor, and Nick's mind turned again to the threats Alivi had made before his trial.

Could they have struck again?
he thought.

Right now it didn't matter. Regardless of the cause, Nick needed to make it out of the courthouse alive, for his daughter.

The tremor continually worsened and finally took Nick to the floor. As he rose, he spotted the judge's black robe swooshing toward him.

“
Your Honor
,” he cried, “
this way!
”

He grabbed her arm and led her straight toward the throng trying to get through the tall mahogany double doors.

“We're going to be
trapped
,” the judge shouted, trying to pull away from him.

Nick tightened his grip on her wrist to the point where he could feel bone. “It's the only way out,” he said. “You have to trust me.”

It was a surreal moment; Nick had spent his entire adult life trying to persuade federal judges to trust him. Never before, though, was so much riding on one judge's faith in him.

In front of them, the dense pile looked like crazed players in a lawless rugby match. Nick saw no openings, at least not at first. Then his gaze lifted. The doors to the courtroom were at least fourteen feet high. Above the top of the throng he could see the white marble wall in the hallway.

Nick quickened his pace to gather steam, dragging the judge along with him. As they neared the human obstruction, he turned his head and shouted “
Up
” into Justice Gaydos's left ear.

Nick's right foot found a calf and he climbed, his left foot landing on a man's lower back milliseconds later. From there, his momentum took him up a spine, onto a pair of shoulders. When his foot touched someone's head, he immediately leapt over the top of the pile.

In flight he lost hold of the judge's arm and hit the marble floor hard and tumbled. As the walls shook on either side of him, Nick pushed himself up and appraised his body for injuries. Pain on the entire left side of his body. A cut in the middle of his forehead had opened and blood streamed down his face and spilled onto the white marble.

He spun and found the judge on her hands and knees, the floor lifting and falling beneath her, trying to toss her off like a mechanical bull. He helped her up as more bodies spilled out of her courtroom and into the hallway.

Though his ears were ringing, he heard the judge shout, “I'm fine. Just run.”

Thinking only of Lauren, Nick started down the hallway, bouncing off the walls like a ping-pong ball, each smash giving him a jolt of pain instantly dimmed by adrenaline.

Above his head he heard a creaking sound and looked up to see flakes of ceiling raining down on him, bouncing off his head and shoulders like hail.

He kept moving. Ran past the elevators. Accelerated as he approached the red metal door at the end of the hall. Crashed into the crash bar and barreled into the stairwell.

The stairwell was pitch black and moving like a special effect in one of Lauren's Harry Potter movies. He gripped the green rail as tightly as he could and started down the cement steps, taking two or three at a time, hoping against hope that one of his legs wouldn't give out.

On the second landing he paused. He listened hard and heard the screams of men and women emanating from each of the first three floors. What he didn't hear was the guttural groaning of the courthouse structure. At least for the time being, the building wasn't in immediate danger of falling.

The violent shaking finally stopped. Maybe the worst was over.

If there had been bombs inside the building, it was possible that all of them had already gone off.

It was also possible that the bombs were set on a timer and that more explosives were scheduled to detonate in a few minutes in order to create maximum chaos and wipe out as many of the city's first responders as possible.

Maybe Nick was safer remaining in the stairwell until help arrived.

But then Nick heard the familiar sound of steel beams bending. If the upper floors collapsed, Nick would be trapped under the rubble and likely killed.

Lauren can't lose another parent.

He grabbed hold of the handrail and hurried down the stairs as quickly as he could.

When he reached the door to the first floor, he slammed into the crash bar but the door didn't budge. It wasn't locked, Nick was sure of that. Locked doors in public buildings created fire hazards. He pressed his face against the glass of the narrow vertical window that looked out onto the lobby. A pillar had toppled over, lodging itself against the metal door, trapping him inside.

Cursing under his breath, Nick pushed at the crash bar again. His feet slid backwards as though he were moonwalking. He needed to gain some leverage, but the stairs were too far back. So he retreated to the first step and got himself into a three-point stance. Like a linebacker waiting for the center to snap the ball he remained motionless, trying to decide exactly which part of the door to strike. Then he took off in a sprint and slammed his left shoulder into the crash bar as hard as he could.

Immediately, he went down in searing pain. Grimacing, he scanned the side of the door; it had opened only an inch or so. But it
had
opened.

Nick just needed to put more strength into it.

Yeah, right
, he thought. He'd given that try everything he had.

Suddenly the stairwell began to shake again, this time even more violently than the last. The off-white walls started to splinter. If another bomb had gone off, it had been the largest blast thus far. Nick needed to get the hell out of the courthouse, and fast.

He got to his feet and steadied himself as best he could. He went up the first five steps, hoping to gain more momentum. Ceiling flaked down in front of him, like a sudden winter. He took a deep breath, and then raced down the stairs, leaping the last two and continuing toward the door with his left shoulder down.

Screaming, he slammed into the crash bar again.

This time the door moved significantly. Not enough to let him through, but enough to give him hope.

He didn't waste any time. Just began pushing and shoving, taking a few steps back and ramming the door again and again.

Another few inches.

Then another.

He was breathing hard, his heart pounding, sweat and blood mixing and streaming into his eyes, blinding and burning him, but he kept at it.

Another running start, another strike to his upper body, and this time he went down fearing he'd dislocated his shoulder.

He wiped the blood and the sweat from his eyes and stared hard at the door. That last shot had done the job. It'd be tight, but he thought he might just fit through the narrow opening.

While the stairwell shook, Nick pushed the pain aside and slid his right arm through first, followed by his right leg, then his right shoulder. He tucked his stomach in as much as he could and squeezed through the opening. The edge of the metal door caught on the flesh on his forehead, cutting him further. The violent shaking threatened to crush his ribs.

As wide tears of blood slid down his face, Nick continued to squeeze and push. From the other side of the door he imagined it looked like the stairwell was giving birth.

Finally he fell forward into the lobby, his momentum carrying him several yards and landing him flat on his stomach just as the latest tremor faded.

He glanced up. The opulent ground floor looked like a war zone.

Pillars had fallen, court officers had been killed, their bodies lying sprawled among mammoth puzzle pieces of ceiling in pools of their own blood.

Nick pushed himself to his feet and staggered from one body to the next, trying to find a survivor.

But there were no survivors to be found. Not here.

He gave a fleeting thought to the cell phone he had checked as he entered the courthouse this morning. He glanced toward the room where the phones were held but it was sealed off by the fallen pillar.

Finally, he looked toward the heavy glass doors. Outside, the world was a swirl of dust and debris. All of Pearl Street was occupied by a massive force eerily resembling the clouds that had chased hundreds down the streets of lower Manhattan on the morning of September 11.

Slowly, he moved toward the doors.

Slowly, he pushed through the crash bar of the door on the far right.

Slowly, he stepped into the brown and gray city, and he knew right away that Manhattan was once again under attack.

Not, this time, by men.

But by nature.

Mother Earth herself had declared war on the island of Manhattan.