Part 54 (1/2)
”Nothing out of the ordinary for a crowd this size,” Kemp said. ”Some guy in the southwest sector had an asthma attack, a seventy-two-year-old woman in the north section had a fainting spell and a teenage girl got stung by a bee.”
”What about arrests? Does it sound like they found Sutsoff?”
”Two gang bangers were fighting with knives near the Guggenheim and a drunk was exposing himself near the Museum of Natural History. I'll let you know if we pick up anything.”
Gannon hung up. ”Nothing,” he told Emma. ”Let's keep moving.”
They headed south in the direction of Turtle Pond.
At the west side of the park, at the Eighty-third Street police command post, Lancer had his cell phone pressed to his ear.
”We're all clear?” he asked.
”It's a go, Bob, just ahead in the program.”
”Good. Alert every cop out there. This might be our only hope.”
Sutsoff and the baby had been sitting on the gra.s.s northeast of the Delacorte Theater.
She had decided enough time had pa.s.sed.
The program had now been going for over two hours with short concert performances punctuated by brief speeches from celebrities, n.o.bel laureates and politicians. The weather was ideal--everyone was upbeat.
As she removed her laptop from her bag to run a status check, a long, loud roar rose from the Great Lawn. For an instant, she was pulled back to Vridekistan, but her medication dulled her anxiety as the president started to address the crowd. With his tie loosened and s.h.i.+rtsleeves rolled to his elbows he told the conference how ”for every one of us, being human in today's world means bearing enormous responsibility....”
Sutsoff paid little attention to him.
She concentrated on her work. She saw that of her operation's seventy couples, thirty-one had succeeded in administering Extremus Deus Variant 1 to the ”delivery vehicles” and were currently present somewhere on the Great Lawn.
That number was in keeping with what she'd antic.i.p.ated. She was pleased with her rough calculations as to how many people had been touched by the children and how many of those people would have touched someone, who then touched another and so forth.
At least 50 percent of all the people who'd gathered here.
A touch was all it took.
And given the scale of the victim pool, with people coming and going and touching others, the variant would be carried beyond the park and the numbers would grow and grow.
All Sutsoff needed to do was submit the range.
”How about everyone, except for me and little Will?” She smiled to herself.
She entered the parameters, ensuring it excluded her and the baby.
No harm will come our way.
Entering the activation code would require about five minutes.
As Sutsoff was about to start, another loud cheer floated over the crowd and people around her got to their feet. The president had called for everyone to ”rise up, show your human side. Reach out to your neighbor.” He had formed a human hand-holding chain on the stage. It stretched into the crowd which swayed as people joined a soloist in the chorus of ”Give Peace a Chance.” Sutsoff declined to hold anyone's hand but encouraged others to hold the baby's hand.
When the song ended, the crowd sat down to wait for the next rock band to perform, leaving Sutsoff enthralled. She had not expected this hand-holding exercise. She estimated that 90 percent of the people here now carried the variant.
All she had to do was submit the activation code and press Enter.
She looked at her keyboard and listened to the sounds of happy families talking and laughing, then lifted her face to the sky and swallowed.
After today, the world will never be the same.
She positioned her laptop to enter the complex code.
”Ladies and gentlemen!” A man's voice boomed through the sound system. ”May we have your attention please for a very important announcement?”
Sutsoff stopped typing and stared at the nearest large screen.
It filled with pictures of her and the baby, images showing them exiting the Tellwood hotel. There were several photos that changed every four seconds in a slide show. Crisp head-to-toe color shots credited to the World Press Alliance.
Sutsoff was stunned.
”We have a serious medical situation,” the voice boomed, ”for Mary Anne Conrad who is traveling with her grandson William John Conrad. We need to locate them immediately. We believe they may be here, so please look around you. If you see her, please point her out to the nearest security or medical official. Please, do it now.”
Waves of mild concern rolled through the park as people looked around them and back at the giant screens displaying Sutsoff's photos, now being enlarged to show details of the stroller and the baby's shoes.
Still wearing her large hat and dark gla.s.ses, Sutsoff turned to the group of teenaged boys on the lawn beside her.
”I think she's right over there.” Sutsoff pointed to the east.
”What?” a boy with metal rings in his nose said.
”The lady they're looking for--see, by the man with the flag?”
”Big deal, whatever.”
Sutsoff paused her work, closed her laptop, gathered the baby and her things then headed west to the nearest exit. She remained calm. All she needed was to find a safe place for five minutes to enter the code. She had to get out of the park now and get as far away as possible.
Gannon and Emma stared at the screen, then each other.
”That's pretty good,” he said.
In the vicinity of the southwest quadrant, an NYPD detective locked onto the woman pus.h.i.+ng a stroller among the crowd. He compared the stroller shown on the big screen to the stroller he saw a short distance away. They were the same blue color, and the same dancing elephant patch and the same wheels. Then he focused on the baby's shoes.
It was them.
He lifted his radio to his mouth.
Gannon and Emma were not far from the Delacorte Theater when Gannon's cell phone rang.
”Jack, it's Mike. We just heard on the scanner that they spotted them near West Drive not far from Seventy-ninth.”
”We'll head there now. Alert the photographers.”
Gannon and Emma started running.