In the other hand was a gun. It was aimed at the conductor’s head.
“What now?” I asked Torenzi.
He nodded slowly. “You’ll see. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Chapter 94
TORENZI WAS CERTAINLY on top of everything, and that was really scary. He’d kept a watchful eye on the security monitors inside the conductor’s cabin, checking every camera focused on every door of the train. There would be no uninvited guests stepping on board with him, no front-page heroes. It would be just the conductor, Nick Daniels, and Daniels’s niece. A nice little trio, neat and manageable. That is, until he no longer needed them.
Yeah, Torenzi was on top of everything. Except the train itself.
That’s where Agent Keller was.
There were no cameras pointed up there. Better yet, there was a ceiling panel on top of the engine car that could be opened from the outside. At least that’s what the Metropolitan Transportation Authority official had assured him while presenting a crash course outside Grand Central Station on the M7 electric multiple-unit railroad car, otherwise known as the 5:04 from Westport.
“Trust me, you’ll see the panel once you’re up there,” said the MTA official.
The guy was right.
As soon as Plan A had fizzled, Keller had rappelled down from the rafters above the train on track 19. The last time he had done anything like it was twelve years ago during his training at Quantico. “You never know,” his instructor had said.
That guy had been right, too.
Keller had landed on the roof less than a minute before the train had sputtered forward, pulling out of the station. Unclipping his rope, he crouched down low, something like a surfer riding a monster wave. There was no turning back now.
Next, Keller spotted the roof panel. It was no more than ten feet away. Edging toward it, he reached for the two tools given to him by the MTA. The first was a 3200-rpm power screwdriver equipped with a half-inch flat-head bit to maximize the torque. The second was a tad more primitive: a crowbar.
“Once you remove the four screws you’re going to need some elbow grease prying open that panel,” an MTA engineer had warned. “It’s a heavy mother.”
It was also the only way to get inside that train undetected. “Anything else I need to know?” Keller had asked the engineer.
“No, I think that’s it.”
Think again.
Channeling his inner carpenter, Keller quickly dispatched with the four screws holding down the panel. No problem there. The real trick was keeping his balance on top of the train. It was zipping along at full throttle, relentlessly rocking back and forth on the tracks. Still, he was managing. So far, so good.
“Crowbar time,” Keller mumbled, hoping he had a good supply of elbow grease.
Immediately, he knew that the MTA mechanic hadn’t been kidding around. The panel was a heavy mother, all right. It wouldn’t budge. Not an inch. Was it stuck?
Maybe.
Keller tried again. He could almost hear the clock in his head ticking away as he pressed down hard on the crowbar.
“Shit!”
The panel still wouldn’t budge. This was definitely a problem, a big one.
Then, turning his head, Keller had an even bigger problem – if that was possible.
A ray of light had caught the corner of his eye. It was literally the light at the end of the tunnel, which also marked the end of the underground tracks. So much for that old cliché meaning good things were coming his way. That MTA official had forgotten to mention a little thing called clearance.
There wasn’t any.
The loading gauge of the tunnel looked to be only a few inches higher than the train itself. Even if he lay flat, he still wouldn’t clear it. It was either jump or splat!
Or get inside that damn train in a hurry.
Keller shifted his body alongside the panel, desperately throwing his weight into the crowbar as the tunnel kept getting closer and closer to its end. The vibration of the train felt like an electric shock through his body as the air whipped over him, blasting his face, pushing the beads of sweat off his brow like rain on a windshield.
“C’mon, you son of a bitch!” he yelled at the panel. “Move!”
TIME WAS MEANINGLESS – and I had no idea how many minutes, how many seconds, had actually passed so far. A burst of late afternoon sun hit my eyes as we shot out of the underground tunnel leaving Grand Central Station. It felt like we were practically flying off the tracks.
Torenzi had barked at the engineer to “gun it” and that’s obviously what he was doing. Given that the poor guy had a gun aimed at his head, I could hardly blame his accommodating nature. Funny how that works.
I squeezed Elizabeth ’s hand. “Stay behind me,” I whispered, stepping between her and Torenzi.
I wasn’t expecting any small talk or chitchat from the bastard. Whatever his plan was, it didn’t include telling me all about it. He’d come to kill me, and the only reason he hadn’t done it yet was to make sure he wouldn’t get caught. But I had to die – I knew too much.
I figured we weren’t about to pull into some town in Westchester and step off the train, la-di-da. Agent Keller had seemed sure of it, too. Still, he had plotted every scenario the moment Torenzi had hung up on me at the hospital and had arranged for local police to be camped out at every station all the way up to New Haven, the end of the line.
“Just in case Torenzi’s stupid,” Keller had said.
But we both knew he wasn’t. He was daring as hell, and he was smarter than I would have thought. Actually, I’ve noticed that before about professionals in Europe. They work hard; they learn their craft – even the hit men, apparently.
Torenzi turned to the engineer less than a minute later. “Stop the train,” he ordered. “Right here! Now.”
The engineer slammed the brakes like… well, like a guy who still had a gun aimed at his head.
We skidded along the rails, the train wheels scraping like countless fingernails on a blackboard. I spun around to catch Elizabeth, who was hurtling toward the ground. Not a good thing when you’re wearing a bomb, I was thinking. All I’d been focused on while on that train was how to make sure Elizabeth survived this. I was the reason Elizabeth was here, and so far there was nothing I could do to help her.
Torenzi held every advantage, literally. The gun. The detonator. A plan to kill me. I held nothing. Except a very scared little girl’s hand.
Out the window I could see dense trees on both sides of the track. We were shielded from view and it wasn’t by accident.
“Please, leave the girl alone!” I shouted. “You’ve got me. I’m the one you want.”
“You’re right,” said Torenzi calmly, reaching into the engineer’s cabin.
He hit the button for the doors to open. Then he raised his gun and aimed it dead center at my chest. For the first time, I let go of Elizabeth ’s hand.
“GET DOWN! GET DOWN, DANIELS!”
Out of nowhere came a voice from the back of the train car. I didn’t know who it was at first, and I didn’t care. It was someone!
And suddenly that someone was shooting at Torenzi! I grabbed Elizabeth and yanked her down to the floor with me as Torenzi fired back. Bullets whizzed over our heads as I connected the voice to Agent Keller. But how did he get on the train? And did I really care how?
Looking up from the floor I saw Torenzi grab the engineer in a choke hold. Next, he jammed his gun right into the man’s ear.
Keller stopped firing.
“Stay where you are, asshole!” Torenzi warned as he forced the engineer up the aisle in front of him. The closer he got, the more I tried to cover up Elizabeth with my body.
The train fell nearly silent, the only sound the low hum of the idling engine. I didn’t dare look at Torenzi as he came toward us, not even a glance. All I wanted was for him to get off the train, even if it meant he’d never be caught.