Twelve Hours Read Online Free PDF Page B

commotion.
    Then, the first bullet hit.

8:53 a.m.
    Adele picked through what was left of the silver platter of fresh fruit and plates of patés, smoked salmon, and caviar delivered by room service. Morgan rolled his eyes as she popped a grape into her mouth, grinning at him as she chewed. Looking out the window, Morgan saw that the motorcade had come in through the garage, leaving only curious onlookers and the police cordon outside.
    He heard a beep in his earpiece. Conley.
    “Did you get the news?” Conley asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You haven’t heard?” asked Conley. “Bombs in Penn Station.”
    “When?”
    “A few minutes ago,” said Conley. “It’s all over Twitter. No way I’m getting inside the hotel now. They’re taking extra precautions because of the Iranian president. Doors are locked and security’s turning everyone away.”
    Morgan shot a glance at Adele, who was looking at him as she bit into a pear. “What do you know about the attack?”
    “Nothing yet. I’ve made contact with Bloch at headquarters, but it’s going to be bedlam for at least a couple of hours.”
    “Bomb in New York City, on the day of the Iranian President’s visit.”
    “It’s a hell of a coincidence,” said Conley.
    “I don’t like coincidences,” said Morgan. “I’m going downstairs to see what I can find out.”

8:54 a.m.
    Alex didn’t hear the shot, just the screaming some ten feet ahead of her, its source and cause concealed by the throng of people. A movement like a riptide dragged her backward toward the station doors.
    The next bullet came seconds later, a stream of bloody mist erupting from the back of a freckled-faced woman right in front of her. The woman slumped back, and Alex nearly fell onto the asphalt of East Forty-second Street in an attempt to hold her up. The woman tumbled onto the pavement, blood gushing out right at the bottom of her ribcage, near her spinal column.
    The crowd opened up around the fallen woman, giving Alex a refreshing breath of cool air. She saw the entry wound at the woman’s chest and made an instinctive calculation that the bullets were approaching from a high angle.
    Sniper.
    She looked up at the buildings that surrounded them, but there were too many windows to even count, let alone find a single shooter. She cast her gaze down at the woman, who stared up at the sky in wide-eyed, uncomprehending terror. Alex moved toward her to administer first aid or at least offer her a measure of solace. But the crowd closed in again as people scrambled for cover, and Alex was swept along with it. It was no use trying to get back to her.
    Cover, she thought. I need cover. But it was useless—she was now moving with the mass of people around her, whether she wanted to or not, toward the doors to Grand Central Terminal. She was tossed and squeezed and her mind grew foggy with panic. Focus, she told herself. But the crowd heaved, and her knees couldn’t keep up. She stumbled and fell.
    She curled up into a ball as feet hit her back, her shins, her head. She heard another surge of screaming, she didn’t know where from. A shoe scraped her ear, and it seared with pain, feeling like it was half torn off. I’m going to get trampled. I’m going to die. She screamed .
    “Alex! Alex!” Her name was reaching her as if from a distance. “Alex, get up!” A hand on her shoulder. “Come on!”
    Clark Duffy pulled her to her feet, with the help of a beefy man with a scraggly black beard who was holding back the crowd as much as he could to give her space. She staggered to her feet and moved, led by Clark, toward the door. The rest of the way was a blur of movement and shoves until she was panting inside the main concourse, surrounded by marble and under the green-painted ceiling. Around her, families and friends drew close to each other, looking around in alarm. She turned to Clark.
    “Thanks,” she said, giving him a hug. “And thank you,” she told the bearded man who had