HL 04-The Final Hour (28 page)

I had never felt so hopeless, so afraid. I’d been tortured, shot at, beaten, locked up. I’d been running for my life so long I’d almost forgotten what it was like to live without being hunted. But all that time, there’d been something in me, something that lifted me over fear, that never let me sink to the final level of despair. The bad guys were after me, okay, but at least I knew where I was going. I just had to get away, stay alive, prove my innocence, take the next step and the next until I found my way home.

But this wasn’t like that. It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t even about Mike, though I could barely stand to think of him alone and bleeding back there in the dark behind me.

This was about all those people up above me, up there in the city, thousands and thousands and thousands of ordinary people, coming together to celebrate the New Year. And all of them in danger, their lives under threat. All their lives depending on me—me alone—and what I did next.

See, all this while, all night long, I’d just been following Mike. Well, sure I was. Mike was my teacher, my sensei. He always knew what to do, where to go. He could handle anything. I was glad to follow him. I’d been his student since I was a little kid.

But now . . . now he was gone. Now it was just me down here—just me standing between a million people and total, absolute catastrophe. What if I couldn’t stop it? You know? What if I couldn’t even find Prince? I mean, I hadn’t studied the maps like Mike had. What if I took a wrong turn and just got myself lost in the tunnels and wandered around like an idiot while Prince let his poisoned gas loose into the city? I could already see the headlines in my mind:

Guy Acts Stupid While Millions Die
.

The rest of my life—that would be all I would think about. How I couldn’t make it without Mike to lead me. How I failed everyone at the most evil hour of the most desperate day.

I hurried through the tunnel, through the shadows, the fear of failure like a sickness in me, making my breath short, my stomach weak. I could feel the sweat pouring off me. I could feel the dampness of my hand against the handle of the gun. It wasn’t just the running and the fighting that made me sweat. This was a cold sweat, an anxiety sweat. It was the sweat of fear.

I came out of the tunnel into another great arcade, a vast expanse of emptiness and columns and shadows. There were tunnels all around me, tracks disappearing into deeper darkness.

I stopped at the edge of the place. I looked from one exit to another. I felt the hopelessness like a bottomless pit inside me, the fear like a hand tightening on my throat.

Where was I supposed to go now? Which tunnel? Which way?

“You’re not alone, Charlie,” I whispered to myself—as if I were Mike, as if I were Mike talking to me. “You’re never alone.”

I felt my heart reach out desperately into the darkness.

Help me
, I thought.

Almost as if in answer to my prayer, a train shot out of one of the tunnels, the light glaring in my eyes as it headed my way. I quickly moved to the right, off the tracks, and edged away farther into the arcade. The train barreled by to my left and then disappeared into the tunnel behind me.

It vanished into darkness. And it turned out my prayer had not been answered at all. There I was, just as before, and I had no more clue which way to go now than I had when the train appeared. My lips were still dry with fear. My stomach was still empty with hopelessness.

Then I saw the way.

It was because I’d moved. I’d shifted position to get out of the path of the train. Now I was looking directly down one of the tunnels that exited the arcade. As I stood trying to figure out my next move, something blinked down there. A light. More than one light. Several lights with different colors, blinking and shifting in the shadows again and again.

Instinctively, I started moving toward that light. After only a few steps, I understood what it was.

It was light coming into the tunnels from the outside—electric light of some kind, maybe neon lights—something that was blinking and shifting up there.

Times Square!
I thought.

Of course. Times Square, where the New Year’s ball came down, where the greatest concentration of people would be. If Prince was going to release gas into Times Square, he’d have to go somewhere with an opening onto the street.

I started to run. I crossed the arcade and headed for the tunnel.

It was a narrow passage with only one set of tracks running through it. The minute I stepped into it, I saw what I was looking for.

Up ahead, there was a narrow platform. Tiled walls, illuminated by dim lights. It looked as if they had begun to build a station here but never finished it.

The colored lights blinked and shifted on the walls and I lifted my eyes. There, above the platform, there were two grates in the high ceiling. Through the grates, I could see—the city. A solid mass of people was passing overhead. I could hear noisemakers and shouts and an enormous whisper of human motion. I could hear music in the distance, as if a live performance was in progress. And I caught glimpses of lights: big lighted signs, jumbo TV screens, massive shifting images that sent their moving, blinking glow down here into this dark, underground world.

And finally, I saw Prince.

He was dressed all in black so that he blended into the shadows of the station. But a track switch clicked somewhere and a red signal light in the tunnel turned green and the green light picked his moving silhouette out of the surrounding darkness.

Prince was at the far end of the station platform. He was at a ladder embedded in the wall there, a long, long workman’s ladder leading up to the high ceiling and the grates maybe ten stories above. He was just about to begin the climb. As he took hold of the ladder, I saw he had a knapsack on his back. I knew he must have the Cylon Orange device in there.

A breath of foul wind blew over me. A rumble sounded in the near distance. A train was coming, headed for the tunnel.

“Prince!” I shouted.

He glanced over and saw me. His eyes flashed as they caught the light from the oncoming train. He didn’t hesitate. He started his climb.

I ran over to the platform, grabbed hold of the edge, and hauled myself up. I leveled my gun at Prince.

“Prince!” I shouted again. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

He didn’t stop, not even for a second. He kept climbing.

The rumble of the train grew louder. The glow of its headlight started to spread over the tracks below me.

I took aim.

Then a man stepped out of the shadows and pressed a gun to my head.

I spun even before the barrel touched me, sweeping my gun hand around to knock his gun away. Good thing I was fast. He was already pulling the trigger. The gun went off with a deafening blast, but the bullet went wild as his gun went flying. I lowered the barrel of my gun to his face, ready to shoot, ready to kill him then and there so I could stop Prince.

But he was fast too. He spun away and back-kicked me in the gut. I staggered and he kicked again—a high kick at my wrist this time—knocking the gun out of my hand.

He was a big man, blocky, blond, and stupid-looking, but he moved like a bolt of lightning. He jabbed his stiffened fingers at my throat. I dodged to the side and grabbed his arm. I elbowed him in the face, crushing his nose in a blast of blood. But it barely slowed him. He wrapped his arms around me and charged to the edge of the platform, carrying me with him.

We both went over the side together, falling down to the tracks and into the path of the oncoming train.

The impact of the ground broke the big man’s hold on me. I jumped to my feet—and saw the headlights bearing down on me, seconds away. The Homelander was up just as quick, his shadow blocking the light. The rumble of the train filled the tunnel. A warning whistle screamed, deafening.

Desperation filled me. All I could think was,
If I die
here, a big chunk of the city dies with me
.

I leapt for the platform. It was a bad move. The Homelander threw himself at me, grabbed me. I elbowed him again. He wouldn’t let go. The train bore down on both of us as we struggled.

I twisted around, hit the big man with the web of my hand, right under the chin. He gagged. His arms lost their strength. With the power of terror, I hurled him away from me. He staggered back a few steps—and suddenly stood bolt upright. Caught in the glare from the onrushing train, he froze in position, trembling as if in fear.

But it wasn’t fear. He had backed into the third rail. It was the voltage that had frozen him there. He was staring at me, trembling. But in fact, he was already dead.

The train punched into the station, heading straight at me. I turned and threw myself at the platform again, hauling myself up.

I felt the whisper of death on my sleeve as the train rushed by me. But I was already rolling across the platform, safe. The next second, the train was gone.

The Homelander was gone too. Not a sign of him. I guess the train hit him, carried him off—but I didn’t have time to figure it out now.

I looked across the platform and saw Prince. He was almost halfway up the ladder, moving quickly and steadily toward the grate that opened into Times Square, pausing only a moment to reach behind him and shift the pack he had strapped to his back.

I climbed to my feet and raced after him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
On the Ladder

There was no time to recover my gun. Once Prince reached the top of the ladder, once he reached the grate, there was nothing to stop him from activating his device, charging those canisters, releasing the gas. I ran as I’d never run before, straining every muscle with the effort that sent me tearing across the platform at top speed.

I leapt for the ladder and started hauling myself up. If I was exhausted, if I was weak, if I was battered, I no longer felt it, any of it. I just felt the need to move, to climb, to go, to reach him, to stop him.

As fast as Prince climbed, I climbed faster. I closed the distance quickly. I saw his figure getting larger up above, framed against the shifting light of the signs and TV screens blinking down over us. The music played louder as I got closer to the surface, a happy rock tune making a bizarre jaunty counterpoint to our desperate chase.

Prince scrambled toward the lights and music and I scrambled after him.

At first, I don’t think he even knew I was there. I think he must’ve assumed the big thug below had taken care of me. Maybe he saw us go onto the tracks together and figured I was done for. I don’t know. But for the longest time, he didn’t even look down. He didn’t see me coming.

I kept scrambling up the ladder, my teeth gritted and bared. Higher and higher until the floor was practically invisible beneath me, a blur of shadows ten stories down.

Prince climbed and I climbed faster. I got closer and closer to him. Prince was now about five rungs from the top, moments from reaching the grate. Below I had come within two rungs of him.

I guess at that point, he sensed my presence because, finally, he looked down and saw me.

I was close enough to see his reaction even in the dim light. His normally cool, sophisticated expression changed completely as surprise made his eyes go wide. My guess must’ve been right: He must’ve thought I was dead. The sight of me there, right beneath him, clearly caught him totally off-guard.

He let go of the ladder with one hand. The hand went to his belt. A gun. If he had time to pull it, I’d be dead, an easy target. There was nowhere to duck or dodge on the ladder, and if I let go now, it was a long way down. It’d be a miracle to survive slamming into the platform from ten stories up.

Fear gave me the extra burst I needed to close the final gap between us. I came up under Prince’s feet. His body blocked the rungs above me. I grabbed the side of the ladder with one hand and grabbed his leg with the other. I pulled myself up another rung and another.

Prince cursed and tried to kick me off him. I lost my hold on his leg. I swung out over the abyss, still holding the ladder with one hand.

Prince drew his gun and pointed it down at me. I hauled myself upward and reached for him, wrapped my fingers around his wrist, twisting it. He tried to yank away, but I pulled myself up farther and got some leverage on him, pinned him against the ladder. I smacked his gun hand against the wall—once, twice, three times. Finally, he dropped the weapon. It went spinning down and down into the shadows.