The Zero Hour

Then, footage of hordes of people evacuating neighboring buildings. Several people had been trampled in the ensuing panic. None had been killed, but several were injured.

“Police sources tell CNN that all entrances and exits to the Moore Street building have been blocked off except the main, front entrance. After a standoff between federal and local authorities, a team from the Department of Energy known as NEST, the Nuclear Emergency Search Team, has taken control of the scene.”

There was a shot of the front of the Network building. Six buses had been lined up, three on a side, forming a narrow passageway, a chute, that led directly from the building’s front doors to a courtyard across the street.

The buses looked like regular city buses except for one crucial difference. Steel plates attached to the sides of each bus had been lowered to the pavement so that no one could crawl out underneath them. In effect, the buses formed high metal walls that would keep anyone from escaping. Everyone evacuating the building had to pass between the specially modified buses to the courtyard, where everyone could be inspected or even questioned if need be.

This same method had been used in 1979, when armed Sunni fundamentalists had seized the holiest of Islamic shrines in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, with twenty thousand people trapped inside. Saudi troops had to figure out how to get the religious pilgrims out without letting the terrorists lose themselves in the escaping herd. They used riot-control buses to construct a corridor through which the pilgrims were funneled to a nearby stadium, and there questioned.

Pappas smiled to himself.

Fire department volunteers stood both inside and outside the front entrance, rushing the panicked workers through the revolving front door three at a time and into the bus corridor. Once safely in the courtyard across the street, each person was looked over by a small team of observers from MINOTAUR, led by Vigiani and Sarah.

The process did not go smoothly at all. The lobby swarmed with people, many banging against the plate-glass windows in terror.

“I’m going to die in here!” one woman kept shouting.

“Let us out!” a man yelled.

The building’s windows, like those of many office buildings in the city, could not be opened, but on the street people could hear thudding. In one office on the sixth floor a metal desk chair was hurled through the plate-glass window, scattering shards of glass over the sidewalk. A voice screamed out in terrible agony, “I can’t stand it!” and then a woman in her early twenties jumped from the jagged hole.

The impact of the pavement hurt the woman badly, broke several bones, but she survived the fall, which the police and fire department crews feared would encourage others to do the same.

The commander of the Bomb Squad, though chafing at being supplanted by NEST, picked up a bullhorn and announced: “Stay in your offices! There is no reason to panic! There is time!” But he didn’t believe what he himself was saying. Poor bastards, he thought.

***

For the most part, Sarah and Vigiani were able to scan the emerging workers at great speed. Baumann was a master of disguise, but from a distance of a foot or two, he would not pass by undetected.

A few men were detained-bearded men, including one with long hair who worked in computers in a law firm on the second floor-but after a few seconds of additional inspection they were cleared.

“I’m going to sue your fucking ass,” the long-haired man said.

“Good luck,” Sarah said tightly.

There was another crash, as a desk was hurled out of a twelfth-floor window. Fragments of glass hit several onlookers, drawing blood, though no one was seriously hurt.

“Anyone attempting to leave except through the front entrance will be detained,” a metallic voice thundered.

“Who the fuck cares?” a middle-aged man shouted from the lobby. “We’re all going to die!”

Sarah turned to Vigiani. “All right, now you take over. I’m going in.”

“You’re… what?” gasped Vigiani.

“Going in the building,” Sarah said, striding off.

“You’re out of your mind!” Vigiani shouted after her.

“Yeah,” Sarah said softly to herself, “but I’m the boss.”

CHAPTER NINETY-THREE

At the same time as the police and firemen were herding office workers out of the building, NEST had already begun to move equipment up a loading ramp and into the rear service entrance of the building.

They were escorted by a tight blue knot of uniformed patrolmen who made sure no one was able to escape the building as they entered. Several persons attempted to force their way past the NEST men but were grabbed by the policemen.