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He dodges a nanny pushing a two-seater stroller. “This is not a joke. This is as real as it gets. Please…Amanda, I need to know if there’s anything unusual that MI6 has picked up in the Manhattan area during the last week.”
“Unusual?Jeremy, please.”
“Amanda,” he says, raising his voice as he keeps running along North End Avenue, “you know what I mean. Anything that doesn’t fit, stands out, sounds strange.”
Even against the din of Manhattan traffic, he can make out her sigh. “We got a couple of phone calls from idiots claiming to be Irish separatists, saying they were going to blow up the consulate next year to mark the Easter Uprising. Some Scottish twit accused his roommates of being in league with Satanist pedophiles. A couple of drunken lads called us, joking about wanting to kidnap the Duchess of Cambridge the next time she’s in town.”
The facade of the Nansen Arms grows larger as he continues to run. Old aches and pains from injuries that Jeremy received in Lebanon and on that deserted runway in France scream at him.
“And here’s the latest,” she says. “A Special Branch chap called in something he learned about an illegal Pakistani immigrant working at One World Trade Center.”
He comes to a halt, breathing hard.
“Go on,” he says. “Please make it quick.”
“Well, he claims the man was keeping an illegal automatic rifle in his flat,” Amanda says. “And I don’t blame him, being a Muslim in America nowadays, but the other thing was a code.”
“What kind of code?”
“Hold on, I’ve got my notes here.”
He’s tries to ease his breathing, tries to keep his focus on what Amanda’s telling him.
“Here it is,” she says. “This Special Branch fellow says he found these words and numbers on a slip of paper. The wordslift four,followed by the numerals 6, 6, 8, and 9. Then the wordsaccess roof,followed by the numerals 9, 8, 6, and 6. That’s it.”
As she is talking, Jeremy—pen in hand—scribbles the words and numbers on the palm of his hand.
Amanda says, “Do you think this is important?”
Jeremy looks up at the roof of the hotel owned by Rashad Hussain. He knows—sweet Jesus, heknows—that the bastard is up there right now, watching everything unfold.
“God, I hope so,” he says, then disconnects the call and resumes his race.
One more time check.
The explosions will occur at 11:09 a.m.
It’s now 10:43 a.m.
Chapter110
IN HISseat at the controls of HV412-29, Orrin Block sees clear cruising ahead of him, as they are now north of the Hoboken Terminal. He turns in his padded chair and is about to ask after Miguel’s weekend plans again when a dark shadow suddenly dims the interior of the cab, like a passing thundercloud.
Miguel sits up and stares out his side window, and Orrin says, “What the hell was that?” Then comes the roar of engines overhead, and Orrin sits back in fear as a helicopter swoops over them, heading up the track at low altitude.…Jesus, it looks like fifty feet, if that!
The chopper turns so Orrin can make out the blue-and-white fuselage, and there’s no missing the large white letters on the tail boom:
N Y P D
New York cops?
Here?
“Miguel!” he calls out, as the helicopter refuses to move. “Call Dispatch, see if they know why the cops want us to stop!”
The helicopter moves up the track, then rotates again.
Still at low altitude.
