by Terrence Aym

Created on: August 11, 2009

Excerpt from: "The Networked Man"

Prologue

CHICAGO POLICE HEADQUARTERS was wired with C-4 plastique and ready to blow.

The center, a refurbished five story brick leviathan, stretched across an entire city block. In less than three minutes, most of the building would become little more than smoking rubble.

A steady stream of uniformed and plainclothes cops wended their way in and out of the building. Some wore somber faces, others laughed at fellow officers off-color jokes. None was remotely aware of the explosive doomsday approaching. At this time of day roughly eight hundred men and women occupied various floors of the center.

Across the street, facing west on Grand Avenue, a man sprawled back into the dark interior of a non-descript two-door sedan. No one noticed him or the vehicle. But if someone had been observing him, they would have noticed that he wore a tight smile and frequently checked a military-style chronometer strapped around his left wrist. On the face of the timepiece an LED screen counted down seconds.

He held a road map propped against the steering wheel. He pretended to study it. On his lap lay a flat black box, a wireless detonator. A small red button protruded from one side. From time to time his right thumb unconsciously caressed the button's rim.

Chronometer reading: one hundred twenty seconds.

A heavyset woman struggled with a large vase of flowers half a block down the other side of the street in front of a florist shop. A man slipped a plastic bag crammed with dry-cleaned clothes across the back seat of a gun metal SUV. A flock of pigeons took flight from the concrete sidewalk when a small boy laughingly threw a pebble into their midst.

The timepiece briefly trilled a one-minute warning. The man set down the map.

On the roof of the five-story building a blue and white police helicopter changed pitch and attitude. The aircraft dipped downwards approaching the roof cautiously as it fought a variable crosswind. At the last moment its landing skids pulled up and the helicopter bumped gently to a perfect landing in the center of the marked helipad.

The LED readout flashed forty-five seconds. The man twisted the ignition key, started the engine.

Three grim men quickly exited the chopper bending low to avoid the whirling blades above their heads. The three men were the City of Chicago's Police Commissioner, the Midwest Regional Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Deputy Chief Assistant of the State of Illinois' Attorney General's Special Task Force Unit on Terrorism.

Rotor wash whipped at the trio's coats and violently tossed their hair. One of the men spat out a curse and rubbed at his eyes after a small cloud of grit blew into his face. Once they were free of the wind they hurriedly made their way across the flat roof to the building's entrance less than forty yards away. All three carried brown leather briefcases with heavy security latches. The cases contained background information, FBI Profiler reports and database printouts of a man and an organization known only as "Hydra."

At the building's roof access door, two armed, uniformed officers waited to escort the men below.

The numbers fell. The chronometer urgently beeped. Thirty seconds.

The man in the non-descript two-door sedan checked his mirror, and then carefully pulled away from the curb. He drove sedately down the street, signaled a right turn, and then smoothly disappeared into the traffic flow. As he accelerated faster heading north his thumb found and pressed the detonator button.

Behind him, one square city block of Chicago real estate ceased to exist.

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