Operation Hell Gate - Marc Cerasini [64]
A fire chief in white helmet stood in the middle of the street, yelling into a bullhorn. "Get out! Get away! Clear the area now..."
Inside the rubble, among the trapped and moaning FBI agents, hot flames touched the ruptured gas main. Liam was blinded by an impossibly bright orange flash. Behind him, the plate-glass window of a furniture store shattered. A wave of superheated air washed over him, and Liam was bowled over by the force of the blast. Deafened, scorched, trembling, he curled into a ball around the attache case while the sidewalk quaked beneath him.
* * *
8:12:57 A.M. EDT
Atlantic Avenue Tunnel
Jack, Taj, and the young Afghani felt the stones under their feet tremble before the thunder of the gas explosion reached their ears. Then they heard it. Dust fell from the ceiling and smoke billowed out of the narrow shaft they'd climbed out of. First a dusty powder, then oily curls of hot smoke. The young man's gaze found Taj. His lips trembled.
Another sound made itself known — alien, alive, angry. Tiny, tittering squeals merged into a sustained shriek, the chattering click of thousands of tiny claws brushing stone. In the weak light of the electric bulbs, a rippling brown carpet seemed to flow along the floor, the walls, at the far end of the tunnel. Stampeded by the explosion, they rushed toward the men in a snarling mass of teeth and claws.
"Rats!" Jack shouted.
"This way," Taj called, turning away from the maddened swarm. Jack followed the man for a few steps before he realized the young Afghani was not with them.
"Taj!" Jack cried.
The man turned, saw the young Afghani. "Borak!" he cried. "Follow us."
But the young man shook his head. "I will stop them."
"No!"
The Afghani turned his back on them, lowered the muzzle of the Uzi he drew from his sash, naively fired. The bullets chewed through the squirming, squealing tide without effect. The brown flow swarmed around the young man even as he emptied the magazine into the panicked horde. The rats nipped at his sandals, clawed at his legs. The young man howled and dropped the useless weapon. Reaching into his loose shirt, he pulled out an old, Soviet-made grenade.
"Not in here!" Taj screamed.
But the boy was too frightened to hear him. As the rats swarmed over him, forcing the boy to the ground, he popped the pin on the grenade.
Without a word, Taj and Jack ran away from the rats, the impending explosion. Jack figured on a ten-second fuse and counted down in his mind.
Eight... seven... six...
"Get ready to hit the ground!" Jack cried.
Five... four... three...
"Down!"
Jack leaped forward, skidded along the hard stone floor. He curled into a ball, covered his ears. As expected, the explosion seemed massive in the enclosed space. The sound reverberated off the walls, bringing down dust and jarring more masonry loose as it rocked the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old structure.
As the smoke cleared, Jack jumped up. Taj was already on his feet, running forward. Over the startled squeals of the swarming rats, they heard another sound — crashing masonry, crumbling earth, and the roaring rush of water. The grenade or the gas explosion — or perhaps both — had ruptured a water main.
Running behind Taj, Jack glanced over his shoulder to see a tidal wave of foaming black water engulfing the horde of rats and following them down the length of the tunnel.
"Here!" Taj cried, "the ladder."
Jack saw the Afghani scramble up iron rungs embedded in the stone. His fingers closed on the cold metal a split second later, just as the foam washed over his feet, his ankles, his legs.
* * *
8:45:41 A.M. EDT
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
The FBI received an urgent electronic message from the Centers for Disease Control. The memo informed the Bureau that the long-planned transfer of disease cultures to Paxton Pharmaceuticals in New York City was taking place as scheduled. A flight plan was included in the memo, providing the FBI with the radio frequencies the pilots