The Complete Strain Trilogy: The Strain, The Fall, The Night Eternal. Guillermo Toro del

next town, and had to board a train for Poland, his bubbeh, wracked with guilt, insisted that, for Abraham’s sake, she be allowed to turn herself in.

      “Run, Abraham. Run from the Nazi. As from Sardu. Escape.”

      But he would not have it. He would not be separated from her.

      In the morning he found her on the floor of the room they had shared—in the house of a sympathetic farmer—having fallen off in the night, her lips charcoal black and peeling and her throat black through her neck, dead from the animal poison she had ingested. With his host family’s gracious permission, Abraham Setrakian buried her beneath a flowering silver birch. Patiently, he carved her a beautiful wooden marker, full of flowers and birds and all the things that had made her happiest. And he cried and cried for her—and then run he did.

      He ran hard from the Nazis, hearing a pick-pick-pick all the time at his back …

      And evil followed closely behind.

THE BEGINNING

N323RG Cockpit Voice Recorder

      Excerpts, NTSB transcription, Flight 753, Berlin (TXL) to New York (JFK), 9/24/10:

      

      2049:31 [Public-address microphone is switched ON.]

      CAPT. PETER J. MOLDES: “Ah, folks, this is Captain Moldes up in the flight deck. We should be touching down on the ground in a few minutes for an on-time arrival. Just wanted to take a moment and let you know we certainly ’preciate you choosing Regis Airlines, and that, on behalf of First Officer Nash and myself and your cabin crew, hope you come back and travel with us again real soon …”

      2049:44 [Public-address microphone is switched OFF.]

      CAPT. PETER J. MOLDES: “… so we can all keep our jobs.” [cockpit laughter]

      2050:01 Air-traffic control New York (JFK): “Regis 7-5-3 heavy, approaching left, heading 1-0-0. Clear to land on 13R.”

      CAPT. PETER J. MOLDES: “Regis 7-5-3 heavy, approaching left, 1-0-0, landing on runway 13R, we have it.”

      2050:15 [Public-address microphone is switched ON.]

      CAPT. PETER J. MOLDES: “Flight attendants, prepare for landing.”

      2050:18 [Public-address microphone is switched OFF.]

      FIRST OFFICER RONALD W. NASH IV: “Landing gear clear.”

      CAPT. PETER J. MOLDES: “Always nice coming home …”

      2050:41 [Banging noise. Static. High-pitched noise.]

      

      END OF TRANSMISSION

THE LANDING

       JFK International Control Tower

      The dish, they called it. Glowing green monochrome (JFK had been waiting for new color screens for more than two years now), like a bowl of pea soup supplemented with clusters of alphabet letters tagged to coded blips. Each blip represented hundreds of human lives, or, in the old nautical parlance that endured in air travel to this day, souls.

      Hundreds of souls.

      Perhaps that was why all the other air-traffic controllers called Jimmy Mendes “Jimmy the Bishop.” The Bishop was the only ATC who spent his entire eight-hour shift standing rather than sitting, wielding a number 2 pencil in his hand and pacing back and forth, talking commercial jets into New York from the busy tower cab 321 feet above John F. Kennedy International Airport like a shepherd tending his flock. He used the pink pencil eraser to visualize the aircraft under his command, their positions relative to one another, rather than relying exclusively upon his two-dimensional radar screen.

      Where hundreds of souls beeped every second.

      “United 6-4-2, turn right heading 1-0-0, climb to five thousand.”

      But you couldn’t think like that when you were on the dish. You couldn’t dwell on all those souls whose fates rested under your command: human beings packed inside winged missiles rocketing miles above the earth. You couldn’t big-picture it: all the planes on your dish, and then all the other controllers muttering coded headset conversations around you, and then all of the planes on their dishes, and then the ATC tower over at neighboring LaGuardia … and then all the ATC towers of every airport in every city in the United States … and then all across the world …

      Calvin Buss, the air-traffic-control area manager and Jimmy the Bishop’s immediate supervisor, appeared at his shoulder. He was back early from a break, in fact, still chewing his food. “Where are you with Regis 7-5-3?”

      “Regis 7-5-3 is home.” Jimmy the Bishop took a quick, hot look at his dish to confirm. “Proceeding to gate.” He scrolled back his gate-assignment roster, looking for 7-5-3. “Why?”

      “Ground radar says we have an aircraft stalled on Foxtrot.”

      “The taxiway?” Jimmy checked his dish again, making sure all his bugs were good, then reopened his channel to DL753. “Regis 7-5-3, this is JFK tower, over.”

      Nothing. He tried again.

      “Regis 7-5-3, this is JFK tower, come in, over.”

      He waited. Nothing, not even a radio click.

      “Regis 7-5-3, this is JFK tower, are you reading me, over.”

      A traffic assistant materialized behind Calvin Buss’s shoulder. “Comm problem?” he suggested.

      Calvin Buss said, “Gross mechanical failure, more likely. Somebody said the plane’s gone dark.”

      “Dark?” said Jimmy the Bishop, marveling at what a near miss that would be, the aircraft’s gross mechanicals shitting the bed just minutes after landing. He made a mental note to stop off on the way home and play 753 for tomorrow’s numbers.

      Calvin plugged his own earphone into Jimmy’s b-comm audio jack. “Regis 7-5-3, this is JFK tower, please respond. Regis 7-5-3, this is the tower, over.”

      Waiting, listening.

      Nothing.

      Jimmy the Bishop eyed his pending blips on the dish—no conflict alerts, all his aircraft okay. “Better advise on a reroute around Foxtrot,” he said.

      Calvin unplugged and stepped back. He got a middle-distance look in his eyes, staring past Jimmy’s console to the windows of the tower cab, out in the general direction of the taxiway. His look showed as much confusion as concern. “We need to get Foxtrot cleared.” He turned to the traffic assistant. “Dispatch somebody for a visual.”

      Jimmy the Bishop clutched his belly, wishing he could reach inside and somehow massage the sickness roiling at its pit. His profession, essentially, was midwifery. He assisted pilots in delivering planes full of souls safely out of the womb of the void and unto the earth. What he felt now were pangs of fear, like those of a young doctor having delivered his very first stillborn.

      Terminal 3 Tarmac

      LORENZA RUIZ was on her way out to the gate, driving a baggage conveyor, basically a hydraulic ramp on wheels. When 753 didn’t show around the corner as expected, Lo rolled out farther for a little peek, as she was due her break soon. She wore protective headphones, a Mets hoodie underneath her reflective vest, goggles—that runway grit was a bitch—with her orange marshaling batons lying next to her hip, on the seat.

      What