The Phoenix Variant: The Fifth Column 3 (9 page)

Sophia zoomed out on the map to reveal a cluster of operatives on the upper west side, all moving in close proximity, next to Central Park. They were just on the other side of the park.

‘They’re converging,’ Sophia said.

She looked over the dark lake, thoughts racing.

‘On what?’ Aviary said.

‘Not sure yet,’ Sophia said.

‘Your earpieces and microphones,’ Aviary said. ‘They work on the phone I gave you.’

‘Not now, Aviary.’

Aviary was already running. Alongside the lake, south.

‘Shit,’ Sophia said.

She was going for the operative—why? So Sophia could deprogram the operative and expand their forces? A hundred yards from another eight operatives, in the path of a hurricane? What could possibly go wrong?

Sophia thought of trying to catch Aviary mid-run but they were too close to the operative. Growling to herself, she dropped her ruck to the grass and dug into the front pocket. She found an earpiece and slipped it in one ear. She pulled at the microphone cord, ran it under her T-shirt, clipped the microphone to her bra, and clipped the button to the hip pocket in her jeans. She plugged it into her iPhone and dropped that in her jeans pocket. Ruck back over her shoulders, she sprinted.

As she ran, her phone vibrated. She slowed enough to pull it from her pocket and see the incoming call. She hit the green button.

Aviary’s breathing filled her eyepiece. It was working, as she’d promised. ‘I’ll be there soon,’ she said between breaths.

‘Stay back!’ Sophia shouted. ‘Stay—’ She hit the button. ‘Stay back!’

She hoped the channel was as secure as Aviary claimed. Since it was using an encrypted data stream instead of an actual radio channel, it certainly should have been.

‘I have the eye,’ Aviary said over the noise of traffic. ‘I repeat, I have the eye.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Sophia hissed, reaching the end of the lake.

A busy road cut through the park: the Eighty-Fifth Street Transverse. Sophia switched back to the map and watched the operative move along the western side of the transverse.

Sophia had been training Aviary how to conduct anti-surveillance, and now she realized in doing so she’d inadvertently taught Aviary surveillance as well. But getting eyes on an
operative
—that was a whole other level. Operatives were a different breed of target entirely, trained to notice what people could not. Aviary was a quick learner, and sharp, but she didn’t have the level of awareness she needed to do this. That would take a long time to instill and refine in her subconscious.

‘If you get the eye, disengage!’ Sophia said into her T-shirt. ‘Can you hear me?’

Sophia crossed the transverse and moved into a softball field. From there she started to run again, reaching the other side of the field and ducking into trees and undergrowth.

‘Yeah,’ Aviary said, breathless. Softer this time.

Sophia stopped short of the park’s edge and checked her iPhone. The cluster of operatives was right before her. The map told her it was the American Museum of Natural History. Only now the cluster seemed to be dispersing. One operative was coming right for her. The others moved outward in different directions.

‘Moving north along Central Park West. Female, red jacket, scarf, black hat,’ Aviary said. ‘No company.’

‘Get away from the museum!’ Sophia hissed into her microphone. ‘They’re spreading out. Go north!’

Sophia saw the figure moving in her direction. She wasn’t sure if the operative had any genetic vision enhancements so she continued walking parallel to the main road, along one of the pathways inside the park. She kept her hands in her pockets and didn’t dare look in the operative’s direction. She wasn’t near a lamppost so her face would be difficult to make out. The operative moved swiftly, crossing in front of her. He registered her face before he crossed over and Sophia realized all he would’ve seen was the painted skull on her face. He kept moving, didn’t glance back. Sophia kept going in the same direction.

Once the operative disappeared into the forest she changed direction and made for the museum. It was lit brightly in the night, large enough to take up an entire city block.

‘What’s your locstat?’ Sophia said.

‘Central Park West, heading north,’ Aviary said. ‘Passing West Eighty-Fifth. Just picked up a ruck—I repeat, just picked up a ruck from another person, a male. Moving fast, almost got hit by a cab. Shit, just passed the ruck to
another
operative. Black hat, red jacket. Why are they—? She has something in that ruck. It’s on her back now!’

‘OK,’ Sophia said quietly. The last thing she wanted to say was ‘copy that’ in a public area.

She started walking toward Central Park West. She checked her iPhone again, taking the brightness down so her face remained as dark as possible. All the operatives had dispersed from the museum, including the one who had passed right by her and the one who Aviary was tracking.

Sophia’s fingers trembled. ‘Oh shit. Aviary!’ she yelled. ‘Get below gr—’

The museum exploded.

Sound rattled everything inside her. A large ball of flame pushed out from the museum entrance, another at the northeast wing, and another at the southeast.

Night became day, an orange surreal day.

The museum rippled with multiple detonations.

Sophia hit the ground, pressing her chest against the grass. She moved to a wide old tree nearby and crawled between its roots as debris and glass dropped beside her. A taxicab rolled past, narrowly missing her leg. She hugged herself tighter, using the old tree for cover.

She peered around the trunk. Balls of fire raged into angry black plumes. The trees closer to the blast had been slung to the ground, torn from their roots. Cars littered the scorched grass.

A black swan event.

A deep rumbling sound shook Damien. He thought it was the music at first, but then he saw champagne swill and bowls clatter on tables. He turned to Jay.

‘Did you hear that?’

‘No,’ Jay said. ‘But I felt it. Sound system is ace.’

Damien swallowed. ‘I think it was something else.’

‘Earthquake?’ Jay said.

Damien noticed Jensen separate from a colleague. ‘Sounded like mortars to me. Or an explosion.’

Excited murmuring spread through the crowd. People were looking at their phones.

‘What’s going on?’ Jay whispered. ‘Looks like they’re checking the information superhighway.’ He nodded at Damien, knowingly. ‘You know, the internet.’

Jensen slipped through the nervous crowd to reach them.’

He smoothed his collar. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said.

Damien resisted the urge to pull at his own collar. ‘Is everything OK, sir?’

‘Of course.’ He flashed his teeth: a beacon of hygiene. Or oxidation, Damien wasn’t sure which.

Jay was watching the crowd. ‘Looks like they’re starting to evacuate early,’ he said. ‘Something’s going down.’

‘My attendance is required on the eighteenth floor,’ Jensen said. ‘Quickly, if you will.’

Jay moved nimbly around Jensen, silently mouthing the word
champ
. Jay led Jensen from the ballroom, sticking to his ten o’clock; Damien took up his own position at the opposing side, Jensen’s five o’clock. Their movements compressed as they worked through the crowd to the cocktail reception. Jay strayed past a tray of food and Damien noticed him suppress the urge to take something.

They walked the long silver corridor into an idle elevator. Damien was embarrassed to feel a bit tipsy as the doors closed and the floor number ticked upward. It settled on the eighteenth floor with a chime and the doors parted. Jay was first out, checking his sides. Jensen ignored him and stormed forward through a rotunda and into another foyer. Damien remained close, turning his head slightly to check their surroundings. The floor was apparently uninhabited.

‘Straight ahead,’ Jensen said, even though he’d already moved past Jay.

Jay had to quicken his pace to overtake their charge, leading them into another large ballroom, only this one was completely empty. Floor-to-ceiling windows ran the length of the opulent space, and large glass lattice doors at either end led onto rooftop terraces. Damien looked up at the ceiling. It was entirely glass, sapphire blue with an intricate art deco pattern. At the center of each partition, a deer or winged horse.

Between them and the glass ceiling there was a balcony for a mezzanine floor. Figures moved into view, standing at the balustrades. They looked down on Damien, Jensen and Jay. Damien realized they were dressed in the same costumes as the performers in the ballroom downstairs.

‘Who are you meeting here, sir?’ Damien said.

Jensen stood precisely in the center of the ballroom. ‘I never said.’

‘That would be me he is meeting,’ a voice said from the foyer they’d entered through. Her accent was distinctly Jamaican.

Damien turned to watch the woman enter, accompanied by a pair of soldiers, but not the modern soldiers he’d expected. He could see them more clearly as they stepped through the center of the three archways.

One woman, one man; they wore oxide-black Corinthian helms that reminded Damien of an iron-age Batman. They’re certainly more menacing than Batman, he thought, though they were not carrying any firearms or prop weapons. He noticed their belts carried sheaths for puglios—a weapon he’d briefly learned of in Project GATE. They were unmistakable: compact Roman daggers with a wavy edge. Their right arms were encased in some sort of gauntlet. They wore royal breastplates in rich indigo and sheaths on their hips for longswords.

The Jamaican woman wore a pearl-white Corinthian helm. It covered her face except for narrow circles around her eyes and a thin strip that ran from her nose to her neck, revealing her lips. Her sword’s sheath was etched with a headless serpent. She wore a purple cape and black boots. Blue eyeshadow streaked from one eye like fire.

‘Greetings,’ she said. ‘How you feeling this evening?’

Jensen shot her a Hollywood smile and gestured with open hands. ‘Ah, I was beginning to think you were showing me up.’

She didn’t return the smile. ‘Me boss would not allow it. Did you bring the delivery?’

Damien maintained his position behind Jensen, watching the others on the balcony through his peripheral vision. They hadn’t moved, but he noticed one of them had a bow slung over her back. They wore Corinthian battle helms—these were golden, smooth and round. They looked like something out of a science-fiction movie rather than a historical item of clothing.

Jensen adjusted a button on his tuxedo. ‘Exactly as requested. I trust you are satisfied?’

The woman stepped forward. Jensen almost leaped behind Damien.

‘Everything cool,’ she said.

Jensen turned to Jay. ‘Stay where you are.’

Damien watched as Jensen stepped around Jay and walked halfway toward the woman. A gesture of trust, he assumed. But another Corinthian soldier strode through the foyer toward them. Damien tracked him from the corner of his eyes. The soldier did not move for Jensen, but Damien kept an eye on him.

The soldier instead approached the woman and whispered something in her ear. Damien read the soldier’s lips but it wasn’t English. He watched the woman’s reaction carefully. She showed very little shift in her expression, which was already difficult to observe through her pearl helm, but it didn’t look to be pleasant news.

‘This look fishy still,’ she said. ‘You bringing the authorities?’

Jensen shook his head. ‘That would be a … poor business choice for everyone involved.’

‘Looks like you a man never hear me too good,’ she said. ‘I never said bring the authorities. They downstairs in the lobby causing a big fuss.’

Damien saw Jay’s neck stiffen.

Jensen’s arms were out, palms open. ‘I honestly have nothing to do with that,’ he said. ‘And it’s likely it has nothing to do with
us
.’

‘Me patience starting to disappear,’ she said. ‘Best you hand over the package now.’

Jensen moved to one side, taking refuge under an archway. Damien tracked two more soldiers through another archway on his left. They moved behind Damien and Jay and remained at a safe distance.

Damien took two careful steps forward so he was in line with Jay.

‘Is there a problem?’ Jay said.

‘Everything is everything,’ she said. ‘You be who we came for, gentlemen. Please relax now.’

Jay exchanged a glance with Damien that conveyed something between alarm and annoyance.

‘Look, whoever you think we are,’ Damien said, ‘we’re not them. We work in security. That’s it.’

She smiled for the first time and took a step closer, her dark helmed soldiers matching her movements.

‘Why are you looking for us?’ Jay said.

‘What we going to do now is put you in bindings,’ she said. ‘Little from that, we take you from here.’

‘What the hell you want from us?’ Jay said.

‘Your DNA,’ she said, ‘is a untapped market.’

‘You know what else is an untapped market?’ Jay said.

The woman blinked.

‘Yeah, I have nothing,’ Jay said.

She turned to the soldiers on the mezzanine floor. ‘Prepare them.’

Sophia left the tree and ran for the street. The explosions had rippled beyond the museum and disintegrated city block upon city block across the upper west side. The devastation was like nothing she’d seen before.

She hit the button. ‘Aviary,’ she said. Her ears were ringing. ‘Aviary!’

There was a crackle, then a voice. ‘What … the hell was that?’

‘Where are you?’ Sophia said.

‘Sub … Eight-Six—’ Aviary said.

Aviary was cutting out. If she was in a subway station that would explain that. Wifi and cellular would cut out once her phone was deep enough in the subway station, and there weren’t any hotspots in the New York subway.

Sophia checked her iPhone again. The operatives were long gone, but she knew if she kept an eye on them they would likely regroup. And that would be interesting. On the map, she checked the corner of the subway station and found the operative Aviary was chasing. The dot was stationary for now, and Sophia worried that her friend had been spotted.

Sophia started running again, heading north for the subway station. She weaved around the vehicles that had rolled over onto the grass and crossed from the park itself to Central Park West.

The air was loaded with fine debris, making her cough. Embers and ash flakes wafted around her. She ran through it all—the discarded vehicles, the crumpled corpses, the moving bodies, the dazed and injured wandering amongst the wreckage bleeding and muttering. One man sat on the curb, face covered in blood, and began to comb his hair. Sophia ran past him, reaching the edge of the blast zone and closer to the subway station.

She pushed through the gathering crowd. She was on the corner of West Eighty-Fifth Street. Aviary had been there just moments earlier. She checked her iPhone. The operative was moving west from the station. Sophia scanned the streets. Black hat, red jacket—nowhere to be seen. West Eighty-Fifth was a small one-lane, one-way street. Cars were parked on either side and some of them were SUVs so it was hard getting visibility around them.

Then she saw Aviary, her vibrant red hair in stark contrast to the darker colors moving around her. She was walking west. That meant the operative was ahead of her, moving west along Eighty-Fifth. Sophia stuck to her side of the road and continued with them. Moving diagonally to a target on foot was the best position, so Sophia stayed on her side.

The whole
fucking
area had just gone up in flames.

She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t even know how many blocks, but it must’ve been quite a few. In any case, all that mattered right now was pulling Aviary out of harm’s way. She didn’t have the training and she was going to get herself killed. Or tortured, and therefore Sophia caught.

‘I have the eye,’ Aviary said. ‘West on West Eighty-Fifth, heading toward Columbus Avenue. Red jacket. Still carrying the ruck.’

Sophia consulted her phone, checking that Columbus Avenue was ahead of her. It was.

Aviary was fixated on the ruck. Sophia was curious too, but with so many operatives around she didn’t want to be seen, let alone involved. Unless I could capture and deprogram this operative … she thought. No, the risk was off the charts. She needed to get off the island. She settled on her plan. Get Aviary and get out. End of story. Forget recruiting operatives—she couldn’t handle those numbers. She could re-evaluate, try to figure out what the Fifth Column was trying to achieve with this attack, and she could do it from a safe location.

‘Standby standby!’ Aviary said, hurting Sophia’s ear. ‘The eye is in a cab. Shit.’

Sophia looked across the road and saw Aviary flag down a cab of her own. It took her a moment but she was quickly inside and moving. Sophia started running, searching for a cab herself.

‘Don’t follow!’ Sophia said.

‘Follow that cab!’ Aviary said.

Sophia saw the cab move off, heading west along the one-way street. There were no cabs behind. She thought of hijacking someone but the cabs weren’t moving terribly fast. She decided to just sprint it. The street was mostly empty, the buildings on each side were four-story apartments and they looked expensive as all hell, though after the explosion their value might drop somewhat.

The two cabs were just in her vision ahead. On her iPhone she confirmed the operative wasn’t too far along, about to hit Columbus Avenue. On her right she spotted a drycleaners and a hotel entrance. The cabs containing the operative and Aviary had stacked up at the intersection.

‘Waiting in traffic at Columbus Avenue,’ Aviary said. ‘First cab off the rank, I’m tow-barring.’

That told Sophia the operative was the first vehicle in the line. Tow-barring meant Aviary had no cover while stationary—she was right behind the operative.

‘Get out of the cab, Aviary,’ Sophia said. ‘She must have seen you by now. Walk away.’

‘What the fuck?’ Aviary said.

Sophia slowed when she noticed two gray SUVs stack up behind Aviary’s cab. With particular timing they each disgorged four men, all in black fatigues and helmets, all carrying carbines and wearing protective black masks that looked like hockey masks.

Sophia checked the chamber of her Glock and moved toward the back of the SUVs.

The masked men moved past Aviary toward the first cab. One of them smashed the rear cab window while another hurled a grenade inside. Smoke filled the cab. Another grenade went in. This one went
bang
. They weren’t going for Aviary at all: in fact they didn’t even realize she was following the operative.

Sophia took cover in a basement courtyard beside some stairs. Through the wrought-iron fence she watched the operative roll out of the cab. The red-jacketed operative stayed low and tangled one of the masked men’s legs, dropping them. She unfurled, attacked another and was caught by CS spray as the third masked man blocked her in. She collapsed, spluttering and groaning.

The masked men closed on her, cuffed her, then hustled her back into the front SUV. The SUV drove around Aviary’s vehicle, nudging both cabs out of the way and grinding along the parked cars. The second SUV followed suit. They both took a left on Columbus Avenue and disappeared.

It was over.

Sophia checked her phone. No operatives in sight except the one who had just been abducted. Sophia checked behind her for any backup teams or surveillance, then rushed to Aviary’s cab. Aviary was unharmed but in shock.

‘Hey, you with me?’ Sophia said, snapping her fingers in her friend’s face.

There was a moment of pause before Aviary focused on her. ‘What …? Fuck.’

Sophia pulled her out of the cab. ‘Well, that was interesting.’

Aviary breathed heavily in response. ‘Uh, yeah.’

Sophia pointed to her phone, to the blinking dot being whisked down Columbus Avenue. ‘Can you tag this operative?’

Aviary stared blankly at Sophia for a moment and then finally switched on. She looked at Sophia’s iPhone and tapped the dot. A little bubble popped up with the operative’s code number, which Sophia didn’t understand. Aviary pressed the arrow next to it and chose
Bookmark
. Then she chose
Follow
. Siri offered turn-by-turn directions.

‘Shut up, Siri,’ Aviary said.

‘Good,’ Sophia said. ‘Get back in.’

‘What? I thought you didn’t want—’

‘You heard me,’ Sophia said, helping the driver out of his cab. ‘Are you alright?’

The driver, hands shaking, nodded. ‘What the goddamn hell just happened?’

‘I’m borrowing your cab,’ Sophia said, jumping into his seat. ‘That’s what’s happened.’

Before he could protest, she closed the door and started the engine. She checked that Aviary was still in the back before taking off down Columbus Avenue, weaving through traffic.

‘We’re still following her?’ Aviary shouted from the back seat. ‘I thought you didn’t want to!’

‘That was before she was abducted by soldiers in black masks.’

‘Oh good, I thought I imagined the masks thing,’ Aviary said. ‘Hey, can we get back to the part where I ask what the hell you’re going to do?’

‘Not before I ask what the hell you were thinking going after an operative.’ Sophia glared at her in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Do you have a death wish?’

‘No,’ Aviary said. ‘I’m sorry. I just, I just got really excited. I thought we could use another ally. You know, because Nasira isn’t here. Your best buddy.’

‘Deprogramming takes time,’ Sophia said. ‘Before they can be an ally. Plus, it’s been a while.’

She moved her legs together enough to stop her iPhone from slipping off the seat. She glanced down at the screen to track the operative.

‘But you can put them in slave mode!’ Aviary said. ‘Place them under your command.’

Sophia watched her in the mirror again. ‘How do you know that?’

Aviary looked down. ‘I read your notes on deprogramming.’

‘Yeah, well, slave mode isn’t recommended for any length of time,’ Sophia said.

‘OK,’ Aviary said. ‘So what now?’

‘Whatever’s in that bag, it has something to do with the detonations. If we’re in for a second round, I need to stop it.’

On her left, the evening sky was thick with black smoke. The devastation had reached quite a distance west of the museum.

‘I’m sure they have people to stop that, right?’ Aviary said.

Sophia looked at her concerned face in the rear view mirror. ‘You mean like operatives?’

‘Yeah.’

Sophia took a left onto Broadway, searching the traffic ahead for sign of the gray SUVs. ‘They’re the ones who tend to start it,’ she said. ‘Remember the operative you just tried to track? Remember why I left the Fifth Column in the first place?’

‘Oh,’ Aviary said, quickly putting her seatbelt on. ‘Right.’

‘I think I see one,’ Sophia said, mostly to herself as she pushed forward.

She changed lanes to move around the traffic, bouncing from chute one to chute two to chute three and back again. Sirens wailed behind her, but they converged on the museum behind them.

‘Don’t you want to be discreet?’ Aviary said. ‘They’ll see us coming.’

‘We don’t have time for that,’ Sophia said. ‘And I’m in a cab. I mean, erratic driving should blend me right in.’ She put her foot down and rammed the cab in front of her.

‘Is that what you mean by erratic?’ Aviary said.

It was the only way through. Sophia pushed in beside the cab, scraping along the door panels and tearing off her side mirror. She ignored the enraged driver and pushed past, forcing herself into the center lane. She was behind the second SUV with one cab for cover.

‘Operative’s not in this one!’ Aviary called from the back seat. She was checking her phone too.

Sophia risked a glance at her phone. It told her the operative in the first SUV was a block ahead of them. ‘Yeah.’

‘What are you going to do? Go past this one?’ Aviary said.

‘Not yet. Just need to take it out of action for a little while,’ Sophia said, moving carefully into the left lane with her indicators on.

Her cab was scratched and dented, but anyone inside the SUV looking through the side mirrors wouldn’t notice much out of place. Sophia crept closer, lining her front up diagonally with the rear of the SUV.

‘Rubies!’ Aviary yelled.

Sophia saw the lights shift to red. The cab in front slowed, brake lights on. The SUV pushed faster.

‘You’re not getting away,’ Sophia said.

The SUV punched through the lights, gaining distance between them. They were probably completely unaware of her presence, but they’d pushed through to catch up with the vehicle carrying the kidnapped operative.

Sophia pulled hard on the wheel and struck the corner of the cab in front of her. She pushed through, hearing metal grind and glass shatter. She didn’t know whether it was the cab’s taillights or her headlights and she didn’t really care.

She made it into the SUV’s lane. The SUV was already halfway through a busy roundabout and Sophia had a fresh red. She pushed through the red light and realized the roundabout was actually a large, heavily congested traffic circle. She saw the SUV winding around to the right.

Weaving around the other cabs, Sophia guided her cab straight through the center. Aviary shrieked and clung to her armrest. Sophia drove onto the footpath, through the center of Columbus Circle. She hit the horn to clear people around her, then dodged a monument and made for the other side. The SUV came into her view from the right. She aimed straight for it.

Aviary screamed from the back seat.

‘Hold on,’ Sophia said.

She kept her arms bent and accelerated, shooting the cab off the footpath and back into the traffic circle. She missed a passing car on the inside lane, clipped another in the second and smashed perfectly into the side of the SUV, just behind the rear wheel. Her body whipped back and then forward, restrained by the seatbelt. Her cab spun, facing the wrong way.

Sophia checked her rear vision. The SUV she’d struck had spun and collided with a car in the adjacent lane, slowing to a halt. It was about to take off again but another car rammed in behind it. The SUV was pinned into place, at least for the moment.

‘That should do it,’ Sophia said under her breath.

She reached under the steering wheel and snapped it to the left, pulling the cab around to avoid an oncoming vehicle. She went hard over a curb and down 8th Avenue. It wasn’t the street she wanted but it would do.

She heard Aviary exhale with relief from the back seat. Sophia spotted the leading gray SUV. It was five vehicles ahead. She closed as fast as she could.

‘You’re insane,’ Aviary said quietly from the back seat.

‘Sorry,’ Sophia said.

‘No, it’s awesome,’ Aviary said. ‘Don’t stop.’

Sophia looked down at her phone but it slipped off her seat.

‘First left, here!’ Aviary shouted, excited. ‘Get back on Broadway. The SUV’s about three blocks ahead. On 55th.’

‘Got it.’

Sophia took the left, cutting off a sedan. The driver hit his horn and yelled. She ignored him and weaved around a bus that lumbered in front.

‘Is this Broadway?’ Sophia asked. She didn’t have time to check the signs or get her bearings.

‘Yes!’ Aviary said. ‘Right! Right! Turn right!’