KMC Forums - 24 - New York

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Three months after Day Four…

The following takes place between 8:00am and 9:00am.

08:00:00

The train was running on time, everything was going according to plan. The man in the black coat took a long puff of his cigarette. His sunglasses hid his eyes from view. He leant casually over the side of the railings; this was going to be an amazing day. The train headed into the tunnel.

A large explosion tore through the air, people spun around to see its origin. The man in the black coat smiled, as everybody ran towards the carnage. He pushed himself away from the railings and let his cigarette fall from his mouth. He stood on the tip of it with his polished black shoes, turned and headed into the crowd. His smile still on his face, although he kept his head down. He couldn’t afford to arouse suspicion, not this early on.

08:03:26

Aaron Matthews straightened his tie. He bent over and kissed his wife on the cheek. His left hand slid down the sofa to his brown, leather jacket. He threw it on and uncurled the collar. His wife got up from the sofa and kissed him on the lips. Aaron’s hands moved down her body to her belly, he quickly jerked it back.

“He doesn’t like me…” He joked, glancing down at her pregnant figure.

“She…” she emphasised the word, “…doesn’t want you to go.”

Aaron smiled, kissing his wife again and pulling his car keys out of his pocket. “I know dear. Today will probably just be another boring day at the office. If it’s quiet I’ll try and get home early.” He kissed her again on the lips before moving out of the living room and into the hall.

His wife followed him, “I love you,” she called after him as he headed out of the door.

“Ditto,” He smiled, “that goes for you too, son.”

She returned the smile as he headed out of the door and down to his black Land Rover.

08:09:02

“What’ve we got?” Isaac said heading down the steps from his office. He pushed a few strands of his greying, brown hair out of his eyes and moved over to Francis Jones, the head of tactical.

“A bomb caused a section of the subway to collapse, onto a passing train. Estimated deaths so far are fifty-seven, with injuries three times that. Fire and ambulance services are already on the scene to help those that they can. We’ve had five terrorist groups claiming they’re ones behind the attack, but none of them are creditable.”

“What else do we know?”

“At this moment in time nothing. We expect the real group to emerge within the hour.”

“Good. Let me know when you’ve got something.” Isaac turned and headed over to Christine Richardson’s, the senior technician, station.

Francis turned to Kelly Barnes, his assistant on tactical. “Keep a look out for anything out of the ordinary; I’ve got a feeling that this is just the start.”

08:13:54

Lawrence McKnight staggered through the building’s halls. There was nobody else around. He kept his left hand to his chest, using his right to steady himself along the wall. A smear of blood ran along the wall with his hand. His eyesight blurred. He coughed, using his right hand to stop himself. He toppled over onto the wall. He could see his destination just ahead.

He pushed himself just far enough through the door to knock the phone off the desk. He collapsed to the floor with it. Still holding his left hand under him he used his right hand to dial and kept the headset near his head.

“Josh Staples” came the answer on the other end of the phone.

“Queens Centre…” Lawrence uttered down the phone as a second bullet flew through his back.

08:17:32

Josh walked over to Christine and Isaac.

“I’ve just had an odd phone call. All it said was “Queens Centre”. I recognised the voice, but I can’t quite place it.”

“A tip-off?” Isaac asked as Francis walked over.

“Aaron passes there every day on his way here. He’ll be heading past there soon; we can get him to check in on the way past.” Francis offered.

Isaac nodded, “Call him. Tell him to keep his eyes open for anything.”

Francis walked back to his station and pressed one of the speed dial buttons on his phone.

Aaron’s phone rang in his pocket; he looked down between his phone and the road. Pulling out his Motorola Razr V3. “Mathews.” He answered.

“Aaron…We need you to check out the Queen’s Centre Mall on your way past. It’s connected to the bombing that happened earlier this morning.”

Aaron nodded to himself, “any idea of what I’m looking for?”

“Anything suspicious. We don’t know. All we’ve got is the place.”

“Okay, I’ll call you back when I get there.” Aaron said, about to hang up.

“Oh, and Aaron…Happy Anniversary.” Francis hung up the phone.

08:26:43

Aaron pulled up in his Land Rover. He opened the glove compartment and removed two spare 9mm clips; he shoved them into his jacket’s pocket as he got out of the car. He locked it and looked around. The car park was still quite empty; it was still early in the morning. He took out his phone and a Bluetooth headset. He put the headset on his ear and dialled back CTU.

“I’ve just arrived at the mall, so far everything seems normal. I’m heading in now.” He pressed a button on his keys and the vehicle’s lights flashed, registering that it had been locked.

Aaron moved towards the mall. He walked through the glass doors at the front of the complex and looked around, everything was normal. A security guard was wandering around by the escalators in front of him. He moved towards him, reaching into his trouser pockets and getting his CTU badge out.

“My name is Aaron Mathews, I’m with CTU. Have you seen anybody acting odd around here today, or the past few days?” Aaron spoke calmly to the man.

“No, everything’s been pretty routine. There were some maintenance guys here earlier that nobody seemed to know anything about, but they had the right papers…”

“Where are they now?” Aaron asked with his voice quickening.

“On the third floor I think. A section up there had to be closed off last week for repairs. I think they’re part of that team…”

“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” Aaron said, moving around him and rushing up the escalator.

“Did you get that, Francis?” He spoke down his headset.

“Yeah, that sounds like it could be what you’re there for.”

Aaron grabbed the end of the escalator and used the momentum to throw himself around and up into the next one. He did the same at the top of that one, running up the final one. There wasn’t any power on the third floor. Light shone through the glass room above. He saw the three men ahead of him. He reached for his badge.

“Excuse me.” He said raising his badge and moving towards them, “I’d like to see your paperwork.”

One of the men reached into his toolbox, pulling out a pistol. He aimed it at Aaron, who leapt behind a nearby pillar. He reached to his waist and pulled out his own gun. A couple of bullets hit the pillar, spitting dust out.

“I’m under fire. It looks like these are our men.” Aaron said, moving his head to his left as another bullet removed a portion of the pillar. Aaron spun out from the pillar letting off a couple of rounds at the men. One of the shots hit the central man in the shoulder, causing him to recoil backwards, his gun dropping to the floor.

“Aaron, we need you to bring back at least one of them for questioning. They’re our only lead right now.” Isaac shouted into the phone, thinking that Aaron might not be able to hear him over the fire fight.

Aaron spun back out from behind the pillar again, letting loose on the second of the men, the bullet’s hit him square on in the chest. He took cover behind his pillar again. The firing stopped. The final man was out of ammo. Aaron emerged, aiming his gun at the final hostile.

“Put your hands in the air and throw away your gun!” He shouted, moving slowly closer to him.

The man raised his hands; he put something in his mouth as he did so.

“No!” Aaron shouted, running towards them.

The man’s mouth began to froth, as he collapsed on the floor. The first man whom Aaron had shot was rolling over; his hand hit something behind a stack of boxes. Aaron moved quickly, he dug his knuckles into the back of the hostile’s neck, hitting the pressure point and rendering him unconscious. He moved behind the boxes to see what the man had pressed.

“Son of a *****!” He shouted, “we’ve got a bomb here…”

08:43:28

“Okay, Aaron. I’ve managed to find the schematics for the bomb, giving the description you’ve given me.” Christine said into the phone, “do you have a screwdriver at hand?”

Aaron pulled the toolkit towards him, “yes.”

“Okay, I need you to remove the four screws on the casing. There’s a black plastic cover over them, but you should be able to see where they are.” Her voice was eerily calm, that’s how Christine was. No-one had ever seen her loose her temper, or crack under pressure. No matter how bad the situation she would always talk in that calming manner.

“Okay, I’ve removed the screws.”

“Good. Now slowly lift up the case. Be careful, if you do it woo quickly, or lift it too high you’ll detonate the bomb.”

Aaron slowly lifter the casing off the bomb, resting it next to the bomb’s base. “I’ve done that. Now there are five wires. A red, a yellow, a blue, a green and a black.”

“That’s right. You need to cut the black wire.”

Aaron was about to question her, the black wire looked like the booby trap wire. Yet Christine had always been right before. He reached into the toolkit and found some wire cutters. He put it to the wire and held his breath. Quickly he squeezed the wire cutters together; the black wire broke in half. The bomb stopped ticking.

“The bomb is defused. I repeat, the bomb is defused.” He said into his headset.

“Good work Aaron, bring in the suspect.” Isaac said, pressing a button on the phone to hang up.