“This one. But I’m sorry to have it.”
Kara was crying. She was dying and had let her defenses go. I could feel mine wavering.
I wanted to say something in our last moment together. Something profound. Kara did instead. It was the simplest of things. But it was everything.
She reached back, her hand touching my face.
“You can’t do nothing, Logan.”
I wanted to tell her how much I would miss her. How sorry I was for every time I almost picked up the phone to call and didn’t. For not being more in her life. But the words caught in my throat.
Her hand slipped away.
“Kara?”
I felt something go out of her.
Whatever I was holding wasn’t my sister anymore.
I eased her down onto the concrete, closed her empty eyes. I saw her, not as this shell, but in a perfect memory: twelve years old, riding ahead of me on her bicycle down the dirt road outside our grandparents’ house. It was late afternoon, and in the golden light, she glanced back at me and Max, taunting us to, Catch up! Go faster!
I came to my feet, my pistol in one hand, my other holding the pilot chute. I walked to the edge of the glassless window and looked down.
Kara had come to this side of the building because it was the only aspect that didn’t have another skyscraper crowding up against it. I looked out over the plaza and Broadway, and what had once been Zuccotti Park—a 33,000-square-foot oasis in the heart of the Financial District. Now just a patch of dead, flooded trees.
A strong wind was still blowing off the harbor. I would need some velocity to clear the building.
I jogged back forty feet from the window, and as I turned to face my runway, something zipped past my ear.
* * *
—
Hazmat-suited people were flooding out of the northeast stairwell. A projectile struck my pack. I pulled out a tranq dart, tossed it aside, and fired twelve rounds in under two seconds, everyone scattering, and then I was running.
Thirty feet from the window.
Twenty feet.
Two darts struck the pack.
Ten.
I shot past Kara, thinking: This is the last image I will ever have of my sister.
Two feet from the edge, I leaped, exiting the building at a dead run, my consciousness dividing—
It was the strangest sensation of my life, falling at one-quarter speed, my stomach lifting, the ground looming toward me, the wind blasting my face, and out of my right eye, I saw a light burst from the roof of One Liberty Plaza. Sniper.
I’d been falling just two of the 6.18 seconds it would take me to hit the ground when I tossed the pilot chute out in front of me. It vanished, the plaza still racing toward me and a main line of animal panic rushing through me as I waited for the main chute to deploy, wondering if it had been damaged by the darts.
I was wrenched up—still descending, but after that splinter of freefall it felt like I was moving horizontally to the ground. Gunshots popped behind me, and that sniper rifle flashed again as I glided over Broadway and the submerged trees of Zuccotti Park.
Reaching up, I grasped two handles. When I tugged on the left, I veered left. Correcting with the right, I straightened myself on a heading that sailed me over the center of the park.
Something exploded behind me in a series of low, concussive booms, and I glanced back as a wall of rolling flame licked through the windows of the thirty-fourth floor.
Even from this distance, I could feel the heat on my face as glass rained down onto the flooded plaza. I hoped no one else had been killed in the blast, but at least the government wouldn’t be walking off with any of her work product.
Well played, sis.
There was a building straight ahead. I eased to the left, now four hundred feet above ground and gliding over Cedar Street between skyscrapers, the street wind wreaking havoc on the canopy.
I floated out over another open space, glimpsed the dome of a church in the distance, the light poles and dead trees of Liberty Park, and beyond it all, the hulking black shadow of One World Trade Center.
Ten feet above the water, I took a deep breath and pulled a handle on the main lift web of the harness.
I splashed down into freezing salt water, trying instinctively to swim for the surface, but I sank like a rock—my gear too heavy, all systems redlining.
My boots touched pavement—I was full submerged.
I killed the panic.
It took me a full minute to free my shoulders. In total darkness, I worked the harness down my legs, fighting to pull my boots through the holes as the first sparks of oxygen deprivation kindled in my field of vision. Finally, I tore off my jacket and body armor, bent my knees, and sprang off the street.
Surfacing. Gasping.
I was on West Street, facing the storefront of an abandoned Marriott.
I swam into the lobby, toward a staircase that curved up to the second floor. Dragging myself off the last submerged step, I sprawled across the landing.
Breathless and shivering. Hurting everywhere.
And one thought repeating.
I had killed my sister.
Those words ricocheted through my head, and I tried to stave them off, but a crushing pressure was building in my chest. I didn’t know how much longer I could insulate myself from the blast-radius of her death.
The scream was coming.
* * *
—
Dawn light woke me.
I came to consciousness curled up against the wall, having slept just over an hour, and on the verge of hypothermia.
I sat up, powered on my phone—eighteen missed calls from Edwin.
He answered on the first ring.
“You live.”
“Not by much.” I couldn’t be sure who was listening in. If a trace had already begun on my location.
Edwin said, “Running is pointless.” His voice sounded stiff. He was performing and not for me. “We have images of your face. There are BOLOs out to everyone. You’ll never make it out of the city.”
I understood. He knew this call was being monitored, that he couldn’t be seen as helping me. But he was also warning me. Be careful. They’re looking for you.
Edwin said, “Let’s meet somewhere. I’ll bring you in.”
“I have to tell you two things,” I said, “and then I’m going to hang up. First—you better do right by Nadine. Treat her well. Treat her fairly. Second—that stuff I injected into you?”
“Yeah?”
“It was only saline.”
* * *
—
I waded down into the water, instantly shivering again. I swam out into the morning light, scrambled up a dead tree, and found a comfortable place to perch in the branches, desperate to warm myself in the sun.
High on the east aspect of the buildings, the glass and steel were shining in the early sun, and a little ways up West Street, I heard voices.
For a moment, I thought it might be a search party, but then I saw the gathering of boats near One World Trade Center. It was a collection of ramshackle skiffs. Some were laden with fresh fruit. Others with books, magazines, and sundries. One sold beer and cigarettes. From another lifted coils of smoke—an old woman grilling kebabs. Music effervesced from the crowd—someone playing guitar. The sounds of conversation and laughter reverberated off the buildings.
The temptation to swim over was strong. Barter for breakfast. See about getting a boat. But the commotion at 140 Broadway last night must’ve sounded like Armageddon. Anyone in the vicinity would have heard it, and me stumbling into their midst would only raise an alarm. So I settled for watching them from a distance—this forgotten fragment of humanity making a life together in the most inhospitable of places.