well.
“There’s no longer any peace to be had!” Bailey shouted from the stage. “Whether you know it or not the war has already begun!”
To describe the next few seconds as a blur would make it seem as if the ensuing events were jumbled together or indistinct, and they were far from that. They passed in something like slow motion, like those graceful shots of a drop of milk splashing into a cereal bowl or a rifle bullet cutting edge-to-edge through a playing card at twenty thousand frames per second. But the trade-off for all that visual clarity was a complete inability to act; Noah could see everything, but do nothing.
A slate-gray pistol appeared in a man’s hand nearby—a man whom Molly had pointed out earlier as a newer member of her organization. The weapon was drawn down and level toward the stage. There was a flash, and the sonic pressure of a firecracker or the popping of a paperbag too near his ear, and then another, over and over as the crowd surged away from the gunman. The rising sounds of panic, a shower of glass and white sparks as a spotlight shattered in its mount above the stage, the back door banging open, the rush of black-suited officers storming in, a sudden stinging odor like a mist of Tabasco and bug spray, a loud commotion at the far end of the room as another squad in riot gear burst in.
Noah was caught up in the blind retreat of those around him, pushed back toward the center of the room. And there was Molly, maybe twenty feet away, held by her hair and crumpling to her knees, her left arm twisted high behind her by a roughneck the size of a linebacker. Noah heard a stifled cry and a repeating electric sound. He turned to see the big man he’d met earlier, Hollis was his name, stricken and helpless in a seizure on the floor, the barbs of a stun gun buzzing in his chest.
From behind his tinted visor a nearby man-in-black raised his riot club, ready to cave in the skull of the helpless man at his feet.
In this strange, slow procession of vivid snapshots, a random thought made its way back to him from earlier in the day.
We stay mostly the same and then grow up suddenly, at the turning points.
What came next would either go down as one of those dreaded defining moments, or as the final mistake of a bad night that would top any that had ever come before. It didn’t matter which; the die was already cast. Just because he spent his days strip-mining the vast gray zone between right and wrong didn’t mean he couldn’t tell the difference.
Time resumed its proper pace, and he felt his will unfreeze. As the black truncheon swung down Noah reached up and caught the uniformed man by the wrist, stopping him cold with an unexpectedly steely grip toned over years with his personal trainer at the Madison Square Club. It’s true what they say: you just never know when all those pull-ups are going to come in handy.
There was no struggle. The other man locked eyes with him, their faces a hand’s width apart. Perhaps the man was in the midst of a definingmoment of his own. At first he looked surprised, and then incredulous, and then—despite the impressive array of armaments swinging from his belt and the three additional troopers already rushing to his rescue—he looked afraid.
A moment is only a moment, and just like that, it’s gone. Noah felt the first savage blow to the back of his head, and maybe another. And then he felt nothing at all.
CHAPTER 13
He opened his eyes, and found her looking down at him.
It was the wide variety of aches and pains that told him for certain she wasn’t a figment of his imagination. His head was resting in her lap, and Molly held him steady as the crowded police van bumped and jostled along the patchy downtown streets.
Police van?
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi.”
The light glaring down was bright blue-white, fluorescent, and harsh. As he turned his head he winced at a sudden stitch in his neck, like a bee sting to the spinal cord. The rear
“There’s no longer any peace to be had!” Bailey shouted from the stage. “Whether you know it or not the war has already begun!”
To describe the next few seconds as a blur would make it seem as if the ensuing events were jumbled together or indistinct, and they were far from that. They passed in something like slow motion, like those graceful shots of a drop of milk splashing into a cereal bowl or a rifle bullet cutting edge-to-edge through a playing card at twenty thousand frames per second. But the trade-off for all that visual clarity was a complete inability to act; Noah could see everything, but do nothing.
A slate-gray pistol appeared in a man’s hand nearby—a man whom Molly had pointed out earlier as a newer member of her organization. The weapon was drawn down and level toward the stage. There was a flash, and the sonic pressure of a firecracker or the popping of a paperbag too near his ear, and then another, over and over as the crowd surged away from the gunman. The rising sounds of panic, a shower of glass and white sparks as a spotlight shattered in its mount above the stage, the back door banging open, the rush of black-suited officers storming in, a sudden stinging odor like a mist of Tabasco and bug spray, a loud commotion at the far end of the room as another squad in riot gear burst in.
Noah was caught up in the blind retreat of those around him, pushed back toward the center of the room. And there was Molly, maybe twenty feet away, held by her hair and crumpling to her knees, her left arm twisted high behind her by a roughneck the size of a linebacker. Noah heard a stifled cry and a repeating electric sound. He turned to see the big man he’d met earlier, Hollis was his name, stricken and helpless in a seizure on the floor, the barbs of a stun gun buzzing in his chest.
From behind his tinted visor a nearby man-in-black raised his riot club, ready to cave in the skull of the helpless man at his feet.
In this strange, slow procession of vivid snapshots, a random thought made its way back to him from earlier in the day.
We stay mostly the same and then grow up suddenly, at the turning points.
What came next would either go down as one of those dreaded defining moments, or as the final mistake of a bad night that would top any that had ever come before. It didn’t matter which; the die was already cast. Just because he spent his days strip-mining the vast gray zone between right and wrong didn’t mean he couldn’t tell the difference.
Time resumed its proper pace, and he felt his will unfreeze. As the black truncheon swung down Noah reached up and caught the uniformed man by the wrist, stopping him cold with an unexpectedly steely grip toned over years with his personal trainer at the Madison Square Club. It’s true what they say: you just never know when all those pull-ups are going to come in handy.
There was no struggle. The other man locked eyes with him, their faces a hand’s width apart. Perhaps the man was in the midst of a definingmoment of his own. At first he looked surprised, and then incredulous, and then—despite the impressive array of armaments swinging from his belt and the three additional troopers already rushing to his rescue—he looked afraid.
A moment is only a moment, and just like that, it’s gone. Noah felt the first savage blow to the back of his head, and maybe another. And then he felt nothing at all.
CHAPTER 13
He opened his eyes, and found her looking down at him.
It was the wide variety of aches and pains that told him for certain she wasn’t a figment of his imagination. His head was resting in her lap, and Molly held him steady as the crowded police van bumped and jostled along the patchy downtown streets.
Police van?
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi.”
The light glaring down was bright blue-white, fluorescent, and harsh. As he turned his head he winced at a sudden stitch in his neck, like a bee sting to the spinal cord. The rear
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