Edge of Apocalypse Read Free Page A

didn't let him finish. "General, we have a status red, repeat, a confirmed status red."
    The general's body shot up in his chair. "What and where!?"
    "Two birds incoming, U.S. East Coast," intoned the voice on the phone.
    "Specify!" roared the General. "Where?!"
    "New York City."

THREE
    There was one unusual thing about that night for Abigail Jordan. At long last she and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Deborah, had managed to book tickets for an opera at the Met. Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Abigail tried to arm-twist her husband, Joshua, into going, but she had to laugh at the improbability of that. Besides, Joshua was scheduled to fly back to New York from a meeting with some military brass in Washington. He was taking the shuttle to JFK and would then, in his private helicopter, go directly to his Manhattan office to do some late-night work with his research and development team. Which meant Joshua Jordan had a built-in excuse to miss the opera. Much to his relief, Abigail figured.
    Still, Abigail had applied her powers of persuasion. Clever arguments came easy for her. She'd been trained as a lawyer. "Look, Josh," she'd said to him on her cell phone earlier, "I know you don't like the opera, but Madame Butterfly is actually a story about a lieutenant in the Navy who has this conflict--" Her husband chuckled and cut her off. He even managed to say it with a straight face: "Navy? You got to be kidding. Abby, honey, even if I didn't have to work late, let's remember that I retired from active duty as a colonel in the Air Force. The Air Force. Sitting through an opera about a sailor, hey, that'd be a betrayal to all my flying buddies..."
    She'd tried not to laugh at his sly comeback, but it was hard. At least this way she would have some private time with Deborah--first a wonderful dinner together, and now they were looking for a cab to whisk them to the Met before curtain time. In some ways her daughter was so much like her dad. A cadet at West Point, Deborah was heading for a career in the military. Yet Abigail was delighted that she still loved girly things. A good love story, even in Italian, would be right up their alley.
    As the two of them walked quickly through Times Square looking for a taxi, she glanced at Deborah. She had Joshua's dark, penetrating eyes and a softer, pretty version of his square-jawed face. Like her mother, Deborah was tall, thin, and athletic. Abigail had missed her, even though West Point wasn't that far from their penthouse in New York City, and she and Joshua had seen her several times during her third year at the academy. It was still so good to have her around, even if only for a weekend.
    The two of them crossed Broadway, underneath the brazen illumination of the giant three-hundred-foot-high LED screens, neon signs, and flashing JumboTrons of Times Square. Abigail and Deborah were almost to the island in the middle of the street that housed the large glass-encased TKTS discount tickets booth. They would have to get off of Broadway to find a cab. For many years traffic had been banned from Times Square, so Abigail and Deborah were about to head to a side street to hail a taxi.
    But just then they heard the awful sound. A sickening metallic crash.
    Abigail and Deborah quickly whipped their heads around. A cab had just smashed into a vendor's hot dog cart.
    Abigail was stunned. What's a cab doing in Times Square?
    Unbelievably, the taxi didn't stop. The cabbie continued to gun his engine down 47 th Street, first dodging around pedestrians and then hopping the curb onto the sidewalk at full speed, toppling pedestrians like bowling pins. Several theater lovers, waiting in line at the TKTS booth, started to race across the street to get to the fallen pedestrians.
    Deborah turned to sprint after them. "Come on, Mom; they need help!"
    But Abigail saw something and grabbed her daughter's arm. "Look out!"
    A large black limo and then a minivan streaked into Times Square and almost mowed down the good