The Coming Storm Read online

The barrage shattered every window on the street. Shards of glass and slivers of brick rained down from the buildings and splashed into the floodwaters. Jenna heard screams coming from inside the apartments, from the people who hadn’t hit the deck fast enough, but she also heard more gunfire coming from the upper floors, and she caught a glimpse of someone poking a handgun over a windowsill. South Brooklyn had no shortage of guns, and the local gangbangers knew how to use them. They took potshots at the FSU officers, firing from the dark windows overhead and dodging the blasts of return fire from the cops’ assault rifles.

  The bullets zinged over the sidewalk in front of Jenna, whizzing in all directions. One of them struck the pavement just a yard away, and a sharp chip of concrete grazed her ankle. Frantic, she flattened herself against her building’s door and slid her body upward, edging toward the brass knob. She twisted and squirmed, pressing her shoulder against the knob, but she couldn’t get the damn thing to turn. Shit, shit, shit!

  Then the door suddenly opened behind her. Someone grabbed her arms and yanked her into the vestibule, then slammed the door shut.

  Before she could catch her breath, Jenna was dragged into the apartment building, as far as possible from the front door and the gunfire outside. It was darker here than on the street, and Jenna couldn’t see a thing at first. But then she slid to a stop at the foot of the building’s stairway, and when she looked up she glimpsed the dim outline of the biggest man she’d ever seen.

  He let go of her arms but stayed hunched over her. “Don’t make a fucking sound.” His voice was low and hoarse, and he was breathing heavily. “You’re mine now.”

  TWO

  Lieutenant Rick Frazier spotted the New York Times reporter at the Bay Parkway checkpoint. The weaselly little asshole stood beside the chain-link fence that surrounded the South Brooklyn District. The man’s face matched one of the ninety-six mug shots Frazier had memorized when the FSU sent him to this shithole of a city.

  The moment of recognition was wonderfully satisfying. Like a key turning in the lock of Frazier’s brain. He smiled as he recalled all the details about the man: name, address, birthdate, bio. Damn, I’m good. I’m a fucking computer.

  Frazier stepped away from the checkpoint—a sliding gate in the fence, manned by two FSU officers under his command—and lifted his head, pretending to scrutinize the storm. He scowled at the night sky and the sheeting rain, which soaked his uniform and seeped into his boots. But all the while he kept one eye on the Times reporter. The man’s name was Allen Keating, and he was a puny fucker, barely five and a half feet tall. Frazier was thirteen inches taller and outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds.

  The reporter had dressed down for tonight’s assignment. He wore a pair of ratty jeans and a black T-shirt that clung wetly to his torso. He was trying to blend in with the other people standing by the fence, the handful of curious locals who’d ventured out of their apartments at 2 a.m. to see the commotion at the checkpoint. Little Miss Keating stood there in the rain, acting casual, not wearing a press badge nor holding a reporter’s notebook, doing his damnedest not to look like a newspaperman. But Frazier wasn’t fooled. The sneaky bastard had an iPhone in his hand. He was using it to shoot video of the crowd on the other side of the fence.

  Frazier stepped closer, still pretending to watch the weather. This section of the fence was sturdy and high, topped with coils of razor wire and illuminated by high-intensity searchlights. It ran for miles along the borders of South Brooklyn, separating the flood-ravaged, FSU-controlled district from the still-livable neighborhoods to the north—Bensonhurst, Midwood, Flatlands. The New York Police Department still patrolled those areas, but south of the fence the Feds were in charge. All the decent, law-abiding people had fled the district months ago, turning it into a refuge for criminals and illegals, an urban swamp festering on the edge of the city. And tonight’s storm had flushed the swamp creatures out of hiding. At least three hundred of them swarmed on the other side of the fence, shouting and cursing at the FSU officers.

  “Hey, cocksuckers! Let us out! We’re drowning here!”

  “Why are you assholes just standing there? Open the fucking gate!”

  Frazier ignored them. Under ordinary circumstances, he would’ve gladly opened the checkpoint and started interrogating anyone in the crowd who wanted to leave South Brooklyn. That was the primary mission of the Federal Service Unit—to clean up the district by imprisoning its criminals and deporting the illegals. But the storm had caused problems across the whole city, and FSU teams had been dispatched on dozens of emergency calls. Frazier was left with a skeleton crew, so paltry that all they could do was monitor the fence and make sure that none of the scumbags climbed over it. He didn’t have enough officers to interrogate the crowd or transport them to the detention facilities. So he kept the gate closed. Let them wait till morning.

  But Allen Keating didn’t ignore the crowd. The Times reporter poked his iPhone through a small hole in the fence to get a better view of all the wetbacks and ragheads on the other side. To the untrained eye, they didn’t seem so dangerous. They just looked miserable and filthy and hopeless, and that’s what the Times wanted everyone to see. In reality, there were dozens of rapists and murderers in that crowd, and probably a few Islamic State sympathizers who would’ve loved to plant a bomb in Grand Central Station. But the newspaper reporters didn’t care about that. All they wanted to do was show the world how the big, bad FSU was persecuting those poor, oppressed souls.

  Frazier sidled past his men—Sergeant Barr and Corporal Hendricks, both cradling their assault rifles—and positioned himself directly behind Keating, less than five feet away. The reporter aimed his iPhone at the only child in the crowd, a short, skinny boy in dirty, wet clothes, maybe eight or nine years old. The boy stood in an ankle-high puddle and held the hand of a black woman with dripping, matted hair. Frazier guessed the woman was Somali, because she was so tall and thin. She must’ve come to the United States more than seven years ago, before the refugee ban. Somehow she’d evaded all the Homeland Security roundups since then.

  This woman wasn’t a terrorist. She had a fist-size bruise on her jaw and track marks on both her arms. She was an addict and probably a hooker too, dressed in denim shorts and a bikini top and staring straight ahead with dull, heavy-lidded eyes. She didn’t even seem aware of the kid standing by her side, gripping her hand and shifting his weight from foot to foot, antsy and frantic, as if he needed to go to the bathroom. The Times reporter adjusted his iPhone’s camera and focused on the boy’s face, which glowed like a brown moon under the searchlights.

  Frazier focused on the kid too. His darting eyes, his shivering lips. The lights shone on him so intensely that they seemed to illuminate every thought in his head, every fear and nightmare. The kid was scared shitless. His mother was killing herself, and they were surrounded by predators. So the boy shivered and fidgeted, as if he could sense what was coming, all the abuse and horror that lay ahead for him. He cowered at the sight of it.

  It was disturbing. No, worse than that—it was fucking unwatchable. The boy’s face reminded Frazier of something from long ago, from his shitty hometown in poor-as-fuck Missouri. From that awful night on the gravel road in Cassville.

  Jesus Christ. The kid looks like Andy. The same shock on his face. The same horror.

  Frazier shook his head until the image went away. His memory was too good now, that was the problem. The drugs had improved it too much, made it too painful. Even after the picture faded from his mind, he still felt the ache in his chest, sharp and burning.

  There was only one sure way to kill the pain. He took a deep breath and lunged at Keating.

  With one hand Frazier gripped the reporter’s elbow and with the other he grabbed the iPhone. He ripped the phone out of Keating’s hands and held it in the air for a moment, furious and triumphant. Then he hurled it at the pavement as hard as he could, smashing it into a hundred pieces.

  Keating staggered and lost his bal
ance, falling against the chain-link fence. He tilted his head back and gaped at Frazier. “What the hell? Who are—”

  “You think you’re smarter than us, asshole?”

  “I … I don’t know what—”

  “You thought you could get away with it? Sneaking into a restricted security zone? After we warned you and your bosses at the newspaper so many times?” Frazier tightened his grip. He could feel the slender bones under the reporter’s clammy skin. “How dumb do you think we are?”

  Keating trembled. His shoulders shook so hard that they rattled the section of fence he was leaning against. He’d just realized the sheer depth of the shit he’d stepped into. “Look … I have a press pass … issued by the New York Police Department this year, two-thousand-twenty-three … it’s in my—”

  “We’re not the fucking NYPD. You’re interfering with a federal operation and breaking federal laws. Which means you’re going to federal prison.”

  The reporter’s eyes widened. “You can’t do that! You don’t have…” He clenched his hands, fighting his own fear. “You’re required by law to contact the New York Police Department when—”

  Frazier interrupted him by breaking his arm. All he had to do was yank Keating’s elbow backward, and the bones in his forearm snapped like pretzels. It happened so fast and took such little effort. The reporter dropped to his knees and started screaming.

  Sergeant Barr and Corporal Hendricks stared at him. Although they didn’t say a word, their faces twitched in surprise. They were both new recruits to the FSU who’d arrived in New York just yesterday, so they’d never seen Frazier in action before. It always shocked the recruits when they saw how fast and strong he was. The effects of the new drugs were much more dramatic than the changes you’d get from the older stuff, the stimulants and steroids. Frazier’s men were clearly impressed, but they also seemed uneasy. After an awkward moment, they turned away and went back to scanning the crowd on the other side of the fence.

  But Frazier didn’t care what they thought. He felt stupendous, on top of the world. The burning pain in his chest was gone, replaced by that wonderful sense of satisfaction, like a key turning, everything clicking into place. It felt so good that he wanted to keep it going, maybe by hurting the reporter some more. Maybe he should break the bastard’s other arm.

  Then the portable radio clipped to his belt started buzzing. Frazier reached for it and stepped away from the fence, letting the reporter slump to the ground. According to the radio’s LED screen, the call was from Frazier’s boss, Colonel Grant. He was the regional commander, in charge of all the Federal Service Districts in the Northeast, appointed by the president himself. In other words, it was Pretty Fucking Important.

  Frazier stepped farther away, so Barr and Hendricks couldn’t eavesdrop. Then he raised the radio to his mouth. “Frazier here. You need something, Colonel?”

  “We got a problem.” Grant’s voice was deep and gravelly and serious. The man was a no-nonsense commander, and now he seemed to be in a particularly shitty mood. “We sent Team Six to make an arrest in the Brighton Beach sector and they got caught in a firefight. Their truck died, and a bunch of hoods started taking potshots at them.”

  This was bad, but not terrible. There had been similar incidents in South Brooklyn over the past three months. “Did Headquarters send the Quick Reaction Force to bail them out?”

  “Yeah, they’re on their way. But I want you to lead another team to the sector. The idiots in Six let their suspect run off, and we need to recapture her as soon as possible.”

  “Her? A woman?”

  “Her name is Jenna Khan. Thirty years old, five-foot-four, short black hair, light brown skin. Last seen ten minutes ago near Sixth Street and Brightwater Court. She’s unarmed, wearing a gray nightshirt, no shoes, no pants. I already sent you her picture.”

  “Wow, she sounds intimidating. Why do you want her so bad?”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Frazier. I can’t tell you shit, it’s all classified. Just find the Khan girl as soon as you can.” Grant paused for a moment, as if reconsidering his answer. When he resumed, his voice was low and wary. “It’s connected to Palindrome. So now you know why this is important, right?”

  Frazier knew. There weren’t many people in the whole country who knew about the Palindrome Project, but he was one of them. He was one of the first men to volunteer for the experiments. “Okay, I’ll round up my team. We have Stryker vehicles that can get through the flood zone.”

  “And Frazier? You should also know what our priorities are. We don’t need to interrogate the girl. We just don’t want her talking to anyone else about the project. So if you run into any trouble, don’t worry about her fucking health, all right? You’re authorized to use extreme prejudice.”

  “So you mean…?”

  “Get it done. If you can’t take her alive, waste her.”

  THREE

  The huge man dragged Jenna to her apartment building’s basement. He didn’t remove the plastic cuffs from her wrists—he just grabbed her left arm above the elbow and hauled her downstairs. She fought him, twisting in his grip and digging in her heels, but it was no use. Her bare feet slid down the wet steps.

  She was terrified. The basement was even darker than the lobby, and the floodwaters streamed down the walls, funneling through every chink and crack in the building. At the bottom of the stairway the water was knee-deep, cold and churning and invisible in the darkness. Jenna couldn’t see a thing, but the giant pulled her to the left without stopping, as if he knew exactly where he was going. It made no sense—there was nothing in the basement except a laundry room and a row of storage lockers. Shit, he’s going to rape me here. Then drown me.

  Jenna stumbled. She fell forward and her face splashed into the water, frigid and salty and thick with filth. But the giant jerked her upright and dragged her along, pulling her farther into the flooded basement. They turned left again and waded into even deeper water, up to her naked thighs and the bottom of her nightshirt. She cried in frustration, furious and desperate. This hulking maniac was going to murder her. He was going to rape her and drown her and leave her body floating in the putrid water. It was so sickening and pointless.

  Then they stopped, and there was a loud thump in the darkness, a few feet ahead. The giant grunted, and there was an even louder thump, then another. Jenna realized that the man was hitting something with his forearm or shoulder, slamming into something solid with all his might.

  He hit it one more time, and the thing gave way. It was a door, an emergency exit at the back of the building. It led to a small courtyard covered in two feet of water, which swirled around a Dumpster and a discarded refrigerator. The giant pulled Jenna through the doorway, and she felt a burst of relief as they sloshed their way outside. She was still his prisoner, but she was alive. And though the courtyard was middle-of-the-night dark, it seemed as bright as day compared with the basement.

  The man dragged her past the Dumpster and down an alleyway between two other apartment buildings. They emerged on Fifth Street, a block away from the FSU officers. The cops were still shooting it out with Jenna’s neighbors—she could hear the gunfire in the distance—but they were on the other side of the apartment buildings, so they couldn’t see her or the huge man who’d kidnapped her. Without pausing, he tugged her to the right, and they splashed north along the flooded street, away from Coney Island Beach and the roiling ocean.

  Jenna’s legs and feet were numb from the cold, but her mind was clearer now, less saturated with panic. For the first time she got a good look at the giant, who seemed even larger now that they were running side by side. He was almost seven feet tall and built like an NFL lineman. Bulbous shoulders bulged out of the sleeves of his wet T-shirt, and trunk-like thighs pumped inside his soaked jeans. His skin was dark and his hair had been shaved to black stubble. Jenna couldn’t see his face so well—he kept a step ahead of her as he dragged her along—but he had deep-set eyes and flaring nostrils, and his li
ps drew back from his teeth as he ran. He looked menacing and ferocious and, yes, maniacal. It wasn’t reassuring.

  And yet he hadn’t hurt her. He could’ve easily killed her in the flooded basement, but instead he’d freed her from the FSU men and rescued her from the firefight, following an escape route he must’ve scoped out in advance. Clearly, he had plans for her. The only trouble was, Jenna didn’t know what those plans were. He might be taking her someplace even worse. Maybe some abandoned apartment building where he could hurt her at his leisure.

  She needed to find out. After they’d run a hundred yards down the street, she jumped ahead and stepped in front of him. He didn’t let go of her, but she forced him to break stride. “Hey!” she yelled. “Where are we going?”

  “Goddamn it!” His voice was fierce but quiet. “I told you to keep your mouth shut!” He spun around and stared at the block behind them, where they’d emerged from the alleyway.

  Jenna automatically looked in the same direction, squinting to see better in the darkness. Another surge of seawater washed over the beach and gushed into the street, but luckily there were no FSU officers chasing them. “Okay, listen.” She lowered her voice but stood firm. “I don’t know who you are or what—”

  “My name’s Derek, and that’s all I’m gonna say now, you hear?” He tightened his grip on her arm and yanked her forward. “You want those assholes to catch up to us?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then shut the fuck up and keep moving!”

  She couldn’t win this fight. Derek the kidnapper was too strong, and she was too dazed, and the wind howled overhead, buffeting and drenching them. She fell into step beside him, and they dashed through the storm.

  A minute later, they reached Brighton Beach Avenue. An elevated subway line ran above this street, but the trains had stopped running in South Brooklyn three months ago, after the riots in June. Now the rusted tracks shadowed the avenue and its boarded-up storefronts, the remnants of what used to be pharmacies and supermarkets and restaurants. Rain pummeled the empty train stations and sluiced down the steel columns that supported the tracks. The street below was a muddy river, rising steadily.