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Fifth Avenue

Christopher Smith

BOOK ONE

FIRST WEEK

CHAPTER ONE

July

New York City

The bombs, placed high above Fifth Avenue on the roof of The Redman International Building, would explode in five minutes.

Now, with its mirrored walls of glass reflecting Fifth Avenue’s thick, late-morning traffic, the building itself seemed alive with movement.

On scaffolding at the building’s middle, men and women were hanging the enormous red velvet ribbon that would soon cover sixteen of Redman International’s seventy-nine stories. High above on the roof, a lighting crew was moving ten spotlights into position. And inside, fifty skilled decorators were turning the lobby into a festive ballroom.

Celina Redman, who was in charge of organizing the event, stood before the building with her arms crossed. Streams of people were brushing past her on the sidewalk, some glancing up at the red ribbon, others stopping to glance in surprise at her. She tried to ignore them, tried to focus on her work and become one with the crowd, but it was difficult. Just that morning, her face and this building had been on the cover of every major paper in New York.

She admired the building before her.

Located on the corner of Fifth and 49th Street, The Redman International Building was the product of thirty-one years of her father’s life. Founded when George Redman was twenty-six, Redman International was among the world’s leading conglomerates. It included a commercial airline, office and condominium complexes, textile and steel mills and, soon, WestTex Incorporated-one of the country’s largest shipping corporations. With this building on Fifth Avenue, all that stood in George Redman’s way was the future. And by all appearances, it was as bright as the diamonds Celina had chosen to wear later that evening.

“The spotlights are ready, Miss Redman. ”

Celina turned and faced a member of the lighting crew. Later that evening, the spotlights would illuminate the red ribbon. “Let’s try them out.

The man reached for the cell phone clipped to his belt. While he gave the men on the roof the go-ahead, Celina looked down at the list on her clipboard and wondered again how she would get everything done in time for the party.

But she would. All her life she had been trained by her father to work under pressure. Today was just another challenge.

Hal nodded at her. “Should be any time now,” he said.

Celina tucked the clipboard beneath her arm and looked up at the roof. She was thinking that, at this distance, she would never see if they worked when a switch was flipped and three of the ten spotlights exploded into flames.

For a moment, she couldn’t move.

Thousands of shards of jagged glass were hurtling toward her, glinting in the sun.

She could see a great cloud of black smoke billowing on top of the building.

There was fire-roaring, twisting toward the sky.

And there was one of the spotlights, flipping through the air, rushing toward her and the ground.

She felt a hand on her arm and was pulled to safety just as the spotlight whooshed past her and slammed onto the sidewalk, where it cracked the cement and burst into a shower of fiery red sparks. For a moment, everything went silent-and then the glass began to hit in a deafening cascade of sound.