Free Quake by Jack Douglas Page A

be behind this?
    If so, her dad wasn’t safe at all. She shivered. She didn’t know what she would do if she lost him. It was too horrible an idea to even contemplate.
    How could I have even considered leaving him for the next four years?
    The debate that had gone on in her head for the better part of the past year was a farce. Why didn’t she see this until now? It took a bookcase falling on top of her and crushing her legs and trapping her for her to figure this all out?
    She felt ashamed.
    Guilty.
    What must my dad think of me for wanting so badly to leave?
    Her father must have thought she was a selfish, ungrateful brat. My God, what had she put him through these past twelve months? He’d lost his wife, and for the past year he thought he was losing his only daughter? What kind of a person was she to put him through all that?
    He’s got to be safe. He’s just got to be.
    If he was, she hoped he wasn’t worrying. She could just imagine his reaction if he heard there had been a terrorist bombing at Columbia University this morning. And what did that tell her about her situation?
    If he could have been here he would have by now.
    How deeply was she buried? Had the entire building collapsed the way the Twin Towers had? Was the bookcase providing her with a pocket of air? If so, how much of that air could possibly remain? How long did she have? Was she under so much rubble that she’d be a skeleton by the time she was found?
    They were pulling bodies out of Ground Zero even months after 9/11. The sifting just ended in 2010, and they’re still finding human remains.
    How could she have blamed her father for this predicament she was in? Ludicrous. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t Lauren’s either. She was here at Columbia University for a completely legitimate and useful purpose. To tour the campus. To consider whether she wanted to call it home for the next four years. Because she hadn’t yet made up her mind about Stanford.
    Hadn’t she though? Hadn’t she made up her mind in Butler Library before the sky came falling down?
    She had.
    She’d decided.
    She’d chosen Columbia University.
    She’d chosen to stay close to Dad.
    She’d chosen to stay close to home.

14
    In the lockup adjacent to Justice Gaydos’s courtroom at 500 Pearl Street, U.S. Marshal Darren Shaw regained consciousness and lifted himself off the gray concrete floor. A fog of dust hung in the air like poison gas. Shaw rubbed at his eyes, summoned as much saliva as he could (barely a drop), and spat on the ground. His body was weak, his throat raw. He twisted his head to look around but saw nothing but rubble. Where were his fellow marshals? And just as important, where was his prisoner, Feroz Saeed Alivi?
    He could practically hear his wife, Tamron, in his ear. “Don’t you worry about that goddamn terrorist. You get yourself the hell out of that courthouse and get yourself home. Your three children need their daddy, and I need my husband.”
    Darren Shaw still had no clue as to what had happened. But even assuming the worst—a natural disaster that devastated the entire island of Manhattan—he didn’t think its effects would be felt as far as his family home across the Hudson River in Jersey City.
    First time in my adult life I’m glad we moved to New Jersey near Tamron’s mother instead of Battery Park like I’d wanted.
    Shaw took two small steps forward, testing first his right leg, then his left. Sore, but nothing broken. Nothing dislocated, as far as he could tell. He flexed his arms, wriggled his fingers and toes.
    Everything still there, he mused, though looking around he was certain that not everyone was so lucky.
    Maybe the prisoner Feroz Saeed Alivi was dead. Maybe. But without a body, Shaw had no choice but to start looking. Not just to save his job, but because he loved his country. Shaw wasn’t going to let his nation experience