All teams positioned at Carnegie Hall. Building secure. You're cleared to enter at 7:30 PM.
"Time to go," I tell Sonya.
We leave the staging location at 7:20 PM, walking the two blocks. Security detail around us, but not obviously—we can't appear to have an army.
We reach Carnegie Hall at 7:28 PM.
The venue is elegant—historic, 900 seats, ornate architecture. The lobby fills with well-dressed patrons excited for the evening's performance.
They have no idea.
Mariana meets us at the stage entrance. "All teams positioned. Twenty operators in the audience as patrons. Fifteen backstage as crew. Ten on the perimeter. Subway emergency response teams staged at major stations throughout the city. We're as ready as we can be."
"Where is Anton?"
My phone buzzes.
Text from unknown number.
Change of venue. Not Carnegie Hall. LINCOLN CENTER, main theater. You have 30 minutes. 2,000 people instead of 900. Hope you can run in heels, Sonya. Clock is ticking.
The world tilts.
"Mariana." I show her the phone. "He's not here. He's at Lincoln Center. We're at the wrong venue."
Her face goes white. She's already on the radio. "All teams—abort Carnegie Hall! Anton is at Lincoln Center. Repeat, Lincoln Center main theater. Reposition immediately!"
Chaos erupts instantly.
"Lincoln Center is twenty blocks north," Mariana says, already running. "He's already inside—" She's on her phone. "Yes, I need to know about tonight's performance at Lincoln Center—what? Holiday gala? Who's performing?"
Her expression confirms my worst fear.
"Lincoln Center has a holiday gala tonight, starting at 7:00 PM. Multiple performers. Guest artist scheduled 8:15 PM—" She looks at me. "Anton booked under a false identity. He's already inside as a scheduled performer. Two thousand people in the audience are watching a holiday show. They have no idea."
"Evacuate," I say immediately.
"We can't. Not without causing mass panic and alerting him. If he has a deadman switch for the subway devices, if evacuating triggers detonation—" She's calculating rapidly. "We go. Now. Get there, position what teams we can, pray we contain this."
We're running for vehicles at 7:37 PM.
Twenty blocks in Friday evening Manhattan traffic. Thirty-eight minutes until Anton takes the stage. And somewhere in the subway system below us, Friday rush hour continues—hundreds of thousands of commuters, unaware of the potential threat.
The convoy races north, no sirens—can't alert Anton—but lights flashing, FBI clearing the way.
Sonya sits beside me, hand on her stomach, breathing controlled.
"He played us," she says. "Got our teams deployed to the wrong location. Now we're scrambling while he's already positioned with two thousand hostages."
"We'll adapt."
"We don't have a choice."
We arrive at Lincoln Center at 8:05 PM.
The holiday gala is in full swing—music, applause, festive lighting. The massive complex is completely unaware.
Mariana's teams are arriving in scattered waves, repositioning from Carnegie Hall twenty blocks away. Disorganized, not properly deployed, racing against the clock.
