Here We Stand (Book 1): Infected (Surviving The Evacuation) Read Online Free PDF Page A

final leg of his journey. Of course, he still wasn’t… wasn’t…
    His single-track obsession with escape was finally derailed. Something had happened. Something big. He turned around, trying to see what all these people were running from. All he saw was a sea of faces, all wearing the same expression of disbelieving fear. His first thought was of those bombs on the day of the inauguration. Had Farley again guessed what Tom had planned, and organized something similar here in New York? No, he couldn’t. Not today. Surely not. There was no smoke in the sky, but, barely audible over the crunch of plastic and metal, the blaring of horns, and the yelling of hundreds of people were sirens and… were those screams?
    On the far side of the road, a cyclist dodged through the stalled vehicles at an insane speed. She raised a bloody hand, waving it in a circling motion above her head. Turning in the saddle, she looked behind, and realized that whoever she’d been signaling to was no longer there. She didn’t see the cab driver open his door and didn’t have time to brake. The front wheel hit the door, and she went flying. Tumbling over the hood, she disappeared from view.
    Tom tried to push his way through the dense crowd toward the woman.
    “Out of the way!” an obese suit bellowed, elbowing Tom in the ribs. The pain cut through that treacherous instinct. No matter what had happened in New York, he was on the run. Suppressing a wave of guilt, he let himself be caught up in the throng. As his legs concentrated on moving, and his arms on pushing the jostling crowd away, that old instinct kicked in. He was escaping. Getting away was good, but now was the time to think of his destination. Maintenance crews were working on the Brooklyn Bridge. His plan had been to mingle with them before disappearing into an underground parking facility on the far side. He had a car there, and so would drive to Staten Island, change cars again, head to the mainland, and then to the airfield. It was twenty minutes since he’d left the construction site, and he was heading in the wrong direction. Powell would have traced the call to that location in another forty minutes. Not long after that, he’d have accessed the satellite feeds and seen the guy in the hard hat leaving. He’d wanted Powell to waste time inspecting the work crew on the bridge, knowing that for each question asked, he’d get at least two in reply. He wasn’t going to make it.
    He pulled off the hat and let it fall into the road. Head bowed, he pushed his way through the surging mob and into the relative calm of an alley. He took out the tablet, but hesitated before using it. If they traced his activity, they might link it to the call he’d made to Julio, and so be waiting at the airfield. But unless he found out what was going on, he’d never catch that flight.
    He opened the browser and loaded a website. The entry of a stolen password later, he had access to the city’s transport management system. After one more click, he was looking at traffic-camera feeds for downtown Manhattan. It was chaos. The island was at a standstill. Where people weren’t running, they were supine on the ground, or staggering from spot to spot, clearly injured and suffering from shock. No one was helping them. Though he could hear sirens, there were no first-responders in the feeds. Three clicks later, he had a southbound view of Brooklyn Bridge. It was gridlock. As to what was causing this panic, he still couldn’t tell. The screen was small and the images indistinct, but he saw a man staggering through an intersection toward a school bus. His arms were outstretched as if he was seeking help. Tom closed the browser and opened the newsfeed. One word was common to all headlines: terrorist.
    Detail and fact were missing from the hastily written articles, but twice he saw Grand Central mentioned. He swore. That was his plan B, to be used if Powell was close on his heels. He wasn’t going to