Still, I was so relieved to see her – to see her alive – that the incongruity didn’t dawn on me at first.
She was alone. No Bruno Torenzi.
“ Elizabeth!” I called out.
I started running toward her, flying down the platform. It was a knee-jerk reaction. There was no thought, only instinct. How could I not go to her?
She was about to tell me why. My niece stopped, raising her palm. “Wait, Uncle Nick!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “Stop right there! I’m serious!”
Chapter 93
OH GOD NO. This can’t be happening. Only it definitely was happening. I was watching it happen from maybe fifty feet away.
All I needed to see were the red wires peeking out of her sweater. My mind connected the dots from there. Just like the red wires are connecting the blocks of C-4 explosives strapped to Elizabeth ’s chest.
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” I yelled, or more accurately screamed. I couldn’t see him but I knew Torenzi was there. Somewhere. Then, suddenly, he was everywhere.
The air crackled with the sound of the train’s public-address system, a thick static followed by a thick Italian accent. “What did I say about you coming alone?” he asked, sounding like the voice of God.
“I did come alone!” I shouted.
“Lie to me one more time and you watch your niece die. In a horrible way.”
I stared at Elizabeth. Her eyes were staring right back but I knew of course she couldn’t see me. That only made things worse, made my guilt worse.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “You’re not going to die.”
Then I turned around, looking at nothing but the empty platform behind me. But it wasn’t empty. I knew it, and Torenzi sure as hell knew it.
Slowly, the six-man SWAT team that Keller had employed stepped out from the shadows and the rafters, one by one. They were armed with assault rifles equipped with high-power scopes. The original plan had been to take out Torenzi the second he stepped away from Elizabeth.
But now Torenzi was calling all the shots. “Get on the train with the girl,” he ordered. “First car.”
It was so damn unnerving not being able to see him. I could still see just Elizabeth, standing up ahead with her walking stick. What an unbelievable coward this bastard was and had been, right from the start. And not just Torenzi, because D’zorio had to be involved in this. His people, anyway. Torenzi couldn’t be working alone here. Could he?
I walked down the platform, reaching for Elizabeth ’s hand. “I’ve got you,” I said.
“Don’t let go,” she whispered.
“I won’t,” I said.
Together, we stepped back onto the train, the doors immediately closing behind us. The idling diesel engine kicked in, shaking the wheels into motion. And then we were off.
To where, though?
Not to mention, where the hell was Torenzi?
“Welcome aboard,” came his voice suddenly. Only it wasn’t over the PA. It was from the front of the train.
I turned in the vestibule to see him standing about a dozen feet away, next to the conductor’s cabin. He was wearing the same suit, same sunglasses, same “don’t screw with me” attitude. In one hand he was holding a small device that looked like a flip-top cell phone without the flip top. It was the detonator.
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!”
Chapter 95
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 c
ould 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.
But as he reached the open door right by us in the vestibule, he kicked me in the ribs. “Get up!” he said.
He kicked me again even harder, to make sure I had heard him and was getting up.
Slowly I began to stand, and before my knees could even straighten, Torenzi pushed the engineer down and grabbed me in his place. I was his new hostage, his ticket off the train, and of course I was his target as well.
But Keller had other ideas. What was he doing now?
His gun gripped tight in his outstretched hand, he began walking toward us down the aisle.
Torenzi barked. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”
Keller didn’t. He kept walking, his mouth clenched so tight I could see his jawbone rippling along his cheeks. He seemed like a man possessed. What was he doing? Didn’t he see the gun to my head?
In fact, that’s all he saw.
Right before Keller shot me in the chest.
Chapter 96
THE FORCE OF the bullet’s impact knocked me out of Torenzi’s grasp. It happened so fast that even if he’d pulled the trigger and tried to blow my brains out, he probably would’ve missed. Besides, what was the point? Why bother killing me when the FBI was doing it for him?
As I fell to the ground, Torenzi thrust his gun forward and opened fire on Keller. I couldn’t see much, though. Shit! Did he get Keller? Did Keller get him?
No! And – no!
I saw Bruno Torenzi dive behind the row of seats across from where I lay wounded. I looked over at Elizabeth. “Don’t move!” I said to her.
She nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I won’t, Uncle Nick. Are you okay?”
Next to her was the engineer, clinging to the floor. Our eyes met for an instant and it was as if I could read his mind. I should’ve called in sick today!
I hear you, buddy. Me too.
I could see enough of Torenzi to tell he was reloading. One hand was holding his gun, the other removing the magazine.
Wait! Where is the detonator?
My eyes searched the seat next to him. There it was.
I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t stop at all. I pushed off the floor with both hands. Then I lunged for the detonator, scooping it up in my hands.
I had it! But now what could I do?
Torenzi turned to me and I was maybe four feet away from him – point-blank range.
That’s when Keller shot him for the first time.
Blood sprayed as Torenzi took a bullet above his elbow. He let out a horrific grunt and spun around to shoot back at Keller, only to take another bullet higher on the arm, some-where just below his shoulder.
But the killer didn’t go down. Instead, he fired back at Keller.
Then Torenzi bolted off the train. The last sound I heard was his footsteps on the gravel around the tracks as he raced into the woods.
Chapter 97
KELLER LOOKED LIKE a blur in a comic-book-inspired movie as he came sprinting down the aisle.
“I’ve got the detonator!” I yelled, holding it up. With the other hand I was pointing out the door of the train. “Don’t let him get away!”
But Keller went nowhere except down on one knee, right by my side. “Suspect armed and on foot,” he announced into his radio. “You okay?” he asked me.
My chest felt as if I’d just danced with a wrecking ball, but all things considered? “Yeah, I’m okay,” I said. I handed him the detonator.
Then I lifted up my shirt and we both stared at the bullet lodged in the Kevlar vest that he had insisted I wear.
“Bull’s-eye,” he said with a smile.
“Oh, that’s funny,” I said. “You could’ve killed me!”
“You’re right, I could’ve,” said Keller. “But Torenzi? He would’ve for sure.”
“Uncle Nick?”
We both turned to Elizabeth, who was still on the floor about six feet away. She was still wearing a bomb.
Keller went over to her and helped her to her feet. “Honey, that’s Agent Keller, with the FBI,” I said. “He’s going to get that bomb off you.”
My eyes went to Keller. He gave me a nod somewhere between hope and confidence: I’ll do my best.
Then he held the detonator up like a Fabergé egg, quickly studying it front and back. It actually was a flip-top cell phone without the flip top.
“So he dials some numbers and we all go boom – is that how it works?” I asked.
“Only one number… speed dial,” said Keller. He motioned to Elizabeth. “Somewhere on her is the ringer of another phone that’s wired to a detonating cap. Simple. ETA pioneered it before it was adopted by jihadists, and now apparently Italian hit men.”
Keller assumed I knew what ETA
was, given my profession. He was right, and it didn’t stand for “estimated time of arrival.” ETA was Spain ’s homegrown terrorist network.
“Uh, excuse me, but shouldn’t we be calling the bomb squad or something?” asked the engineer. He was still sitting on the floor of the train, a little dazed but clearly comprehending the situation.
“Trust me, they’re already on their way,” answered Keller. “The problem is, we can’t wait for them.”
It wasn’t exactly the answer the engineer was looking for. “Why not?” he asked, half a beat before I did.
“Because right now any phone can detonate this bomb,” said Keller. “All Torenzi has to do is get to one.”
“So what do we do?” I asked.
“We don’t do anything,” said Keller. “I need both of you guys to clear out of here right now. A hundred yards, no less than that. Move it. Go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said flatly. “I’m staying right here. Period.”
It was the easiest decision I’d ever made, and it didn’t seem to surprise Keller that much. He didn’t bother fighting me on it. Instead, he turned to the engineer and cut straight to the chase.
“You married?” asked Keller.
The guy wasn’t quite ready for a pop quiz, easy as it was. He was still rocking and reeling from all the action he’d had in the past hour.
“I said, are you married?” repeated Keller.
“Yes,” said the engineer.
“Any kids?”
Keller didn’t say another word.
He didn’t have to.
“I’m out of here. Good luck,” said the engineer. “I’m praying for you.”
Chapter 98
I WATCHED THROUGH the window for a few seconds as the engineer did the right thing and got the hell away from the train. Then Keller got down to business. Very tricky, very risky business.
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