The Strain, the Fall, the Night Eternal (76 page)

Setrakian focused his interest on two pages, one pure text, the other a rich illumination. Beyond the obvious artistry of the page, Fet could not understand what it was about the image that captivated the old man so—that wrung tears from Setrakian’s eyes.

They stayed beyond their allotted fifteen minutes, Setrakian rushing to copy out some twenty-eight symbols. Only Fet could not find the symbols in the images on the page. But he said nothing, waiting while Setrakian—obviously frustrated by the stiffness of his crooked fingers—filled two sheets of paper with these symbols.

The old man was silent as they rode the elevator back down to the foyer. He said nothing until they had exited the building and were far enough away from the armed security guards.

Setrakian said, “The pages are watermarked. Only a trained eye can see it. Mine can.”

“Watermarked? You mean, like currency?”

Setrakian nodded. “All the pages in the book. It was a common practice in some grimoires and alchemical treatises. Even in early tarot card sets. You see? There is text printed on the pages, but a second layer underneath. Watermarked directly into the paper at
the time of its pressing. That is the real knowledge. The Sigil. The hidden symbol—the key …”

“Those symbols you copied …”

Setrakian patted his pocket, reassuring himself that he had taken the sketches with him.

He paused then, something catching his eye. Fet followed him across the street to the large building facing the glass front of Sotheby’s. The Mary Manning Walsh Home was a nursing home run by the Carmelite Sisters for the Archdiocese of New York.

Setrakian was drawn to the brick front to the left of the entrance awning. A graffiti design spray-painted there, in orange and black. It took Fet a moment to realize that it was yet another highly stylized, if cruder, variation on the illuminated figure in the front matter of the book locked away on the top floor of the facing building—a book no one had seen for decades.

“What the hell?” said Fet.

“It is him—his name,” said Setrakian. “His true name. He is branding the city with it. Calling it his own.”

Setrakian turned away, looking up at the black smoke blowing over the sky, obscuring the sun.

Setrakian said, “Now to find a way to get that book.”

Extract from the diary of Ephraim Goodweather

Dearest Zack,

What you must know is that I needed to do this—not out of arrogance (I am no hero, son), but out of conviction. Leaving you in that train station—the pain I feel now is the worst I have ever experienced. Know that I never chose the human race instead of you. What I am to do now is for your future—yours alone. That the rest of mankind may benefit is but a side issue. This is so that you will never, ever have to do what I just did: choose between your child and your duty.

From the moment I first held you in my arms, I knew that you were going to be the only genuine love story in my life. The one human being to whom I could give my all and expect nothing in return. Please understand that I cannot trust anyone else to attempt what I am about to do. Much of the history of the previous century was written with a gun. Written by men driven to murder by their conviction, and their demons. I have both. Insanity is real, son—it is existence now. No longer a disorder of the mind, but an external reality. Maybe I can change this.

I will be branded a criminal, I may be called mad—but my hope is that, in time, the truth will vindicate my name, and that you, Zachary, will once again hold me in your heart.

No amount of words will ever do justice to what I feel for you and the relief that you are now safe with Nora. Please think of your father not as a man who deserted you, who broke a promise to you, but as a man who wanted to ensure that you survived this assault on our species. As a man with difficult choices to make, just like the man you will one day grow to be.

Please think also of your mother—as she was. Our love for you will never die so long as you live. In you, we have given this world a great gift—and of that, I have no doubt.

Your old man,

Dad

Office of Emergency Management, Brooklyn

T
HE
O
FFICE OF
Emergency Management building operated on a darkened block in Brooklyn. The four-year-old, $50 million OEM facility served as the central point of coordination for major emergencies in New York. It housed New York’s 130-agency Emergency Operations Center, containing state-of-the-art audiovisual and information technology systems and full backup generators. The headquarters had been built to replace the agency’s former facility at 7 World Trade Center, destroyed on 9/11. It was constructed to foster resource coordination between public agencies in the event
of a large-scale disaster. To that end, redundant electromechanical systems ensured continuous operation during a power outage.

The twenty-four-hours-a-day building was operating exactly as it should. The problem was that many of the agencies it was meant to coordinate with—local, state, federal, and nonprofit—were either offline, understaffed, or else apparently abandoned.

The heart of the city’s emergency disaster network was still beating strong, but precious little of its informational blood was reaching the extremities—as if the city had suffered a massive stroke.

E
ph feared he would miss his narrow window of opportunity. Getting back across the bridge took him much longer than he had expected: most people who were able and willing to leave Manhattan had already done so, and the road debris and abandoned cars made the crossing difficult. Someone had tied two corners of an immense yellow tarpaulin to one of the bridge’s support wires, rippling in the wind like an old maritime flag of quarantine flying off the mast of a doomed ship.

Director Barnes sat quietly, gripping the handle over the window, finally realizing that Eph was not going to tell him where they were headed.

The Long Island Expressway was substantially faster, Eph eyeing the towns as he passed them, seeing empty streets from the overpasses, quiet gas stations, empty mall parking lots.

His plan was dangerous, he knew. More desperate than organized. A psychopath’s plan, perhaps. But he was okay with this: insanity was all around him. And sometimes luck trumped preparation.

He arrived just in time to catch the beginning of Palmer’s address on the car radio. He parked near a train station, turning off the engine, turning to Barnes.

“Get out your ID now. We’re going inside the OEM together. I will have the gun under my jacket. You say anything to anybody or try to alert security, I will shoot whoever you talk to and then I will shoot you. Do you believe me?”

Barnes looked into Eph’s eyes. He nodded.

“Now we walk, and fast.”

They came up on the OEM building along 15th Street, the road lined with official vehicles on both sides. The tan-brick building exterior resembled that of a new grade school, nearly a block long but only two stories tall. A broadcast tower rose behind it, surrounded by a wire-topped fence. National Guard members stood at ten-yard intervals along the short lawn, securing the building.

Eph saw the gated parking lot entrance, and, inside, what had to be Palmer’s idling motorcade. The middle limousine appeared almost presidential, and certainly bulletproof.

He knew he must get Palmer before he got into that car.

“Walk tall,” said Eph, his hand around Barnes’s elbow, steering him along the sidewalk past the soldiers toward the entrance.

A group of protesters heckled them from across the street, holding signs about God’s wrath, proclaiming that because America had lost faith in Him, He was now abandoning it. A preacher in a shabby suit stood atop a short stepladder, reading verses out of Revelation. Those surrounding him stood with their open palms facing the OEM in a gesture of blessing, praying over the city agency. One placard featured a hand-drawn icon of a downcast Jesus Christ bleeding from a crown of thorns, sporting vampire fangs and glaring red eyes.

“Who will deliver us now?” the shabby monk cried.

Sweat ran down Eph’s chest, past the silver-loaded pistol stuck in his belt.

E
ldritch Palmer sat in the Emergency Operations Center before a microphone set upon a table and a pitcher of water. He faced a video wall upon which was displayed the seal of the United States Congress.

Alone, except for his trusted aide, Mr. Fitzwilliam, Palmer wore his usual dark suit, looking a shade paler than usual, a bit more shrunken in the chair. His wrinkled hands rested on the top of the table, still, waiting.

Via satellite link, he was about to address an emergency joint
session of the United States Congress. This unprecedented address, with questions to follow, was also being broadcast via live Internet feed over all television and radio networks and their affiliates still in operation, and internationally across the globe.

Mr. Fitzwilliam stood just out of camera view, his hands clasped at belt level, looking outside the secure room into the larger facility. Most of the 130 workstations were occupied, and yet no work was being done. All eyes were turned to the hanging monitors.

After brief opening remarks, facing the half-full Capitol chamber, Palmer read from a prepared statement scrolling in large print on a teleprompter behind the camera.

“I want to address this public health emergency in terms of where myself and my Stoneheart Foundation are well-positioned to intervene, to respond, to reassure. What I can present to you today is a three-fold action plan for the United States of America, and the world beyond.

“First, I am pledging an immediate loan of three billion dollars to the city of New York, in order to keep city services functioning and to fund a citywide quarantine.

“Second, as the president and CEO of Stoneheart Industries, I want to extend my personal guarantee as to the capacity and security of this nation’s food delivery system, both through our essential transportation holdings and our various meat-packing facilities.

“Third, I would respectively recommend that the remaining Nuclear Regulatory Commission procedures be suspended in order that the completed Locust Valley Nuclear Power Plant be allowed to come online immediately, as a direct solution to New York’s current catastrophic power-grid problems.”

A
s head of the Canary Project in New York, Eph had been inside the OEM a few times before. He was familiar with the entrance procedures, which were secure and yet manned by armed professionals used to dealing with other armed professionals. So while Barnes’s identification was inspected rather closely, Eph simply dropped his shield and pistol into a basket and walked briskly through the metal detector.

“Would you like an escort, Director Barnes?” asked the security guard.

Eph grabbed his things and Barnes’s arm. “We know the way.”

P
almer’s questioning fell to a panel of three Democrats and two Republicans. He faced the most scrutiny from the ranking member of the Department of Homeland Security, Representative Nicholas Frone of the Third Congressional District of New York, also a member of the House Financial Committee. Voters were said not to trust baldness or beards, and yet, on both counts, Frone had bucked the trend now for three successive terms of office.

“As to this quarantine, Mr. Palmer—I have to say, hasn’t that horse already left the barn?”

Palmer sat with his hands set upon a single piece of paper in front of him. “I enjoy your folksy sayings, Representative Frone. But as someone who grew up in the seat of privilege, you might not realize that it is indeed possible for an industrious farmer to saddle and mount another horse in order to safely rein in the one that got away. America’s working farmers would never give up on a good horse. I think neither should we.”

“Also I find it interesting that you should tie your pet project, this nuclear reactor, that you have been trying to ram through regulatory procedures, into your proposal. I’m not at all convinced this is a good time to be rushing such a plant into production. And I would like to know how exactly it will help, when the problem, as I understand it, is not energy deficiency but interruptions in delivery.”

Palmer responded, “Representative Frone, two critical power plants servicing New York State are currently offline, due to voltage overload and power-line failure caused by widespread surges in the system. This starts a chain reaction of adverse effects. It decreases the water supply, due to a lack of pressure in the lines, which will lead to contamination if it is not immediately addressed. It has impacted rail transportation up and down the northeast corridor, the safe screening of passengers for air transportation, and even road travel, with the unavailability of electric gasoline pumps. It has disrupted mobile telephone communication, which impacts statewide
emergency services, such as 911 response, placing citizens directly at risk.”

Palmer continued, “Now, as to nuclear power, this plant, located in your district, is ready to come online. It has passed every preliminary regulation without flaw, and yet bureaucratic procedures demand more waiting. You have a fully capable power plant—one that you yourself campaigned against and resisted every step of the way—that could power much of the city if activated. A hundred and four such plants supply twenty percent of this country’s electricity, and yet this is the first nuclear power plant to have been commissioned in the United States since the Three Mile Island incident in 1978. The word ‘nuclear’ dredges up negative connotations, but, in fact, it is a sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions. It is our only honest large-scale alternative to fossil fuels.”

Representative Frone said, “Let me interrupt your commercial message here, Mr. Palmer. With all due respect, isn’t this crisis nothing more than a fire sale for the superrich such as yourself? Pure ‘Shock Doctrine,’ is it not? I, for one, am very curious to know what you plan to do with New York City once you own it.”