The Challenge

by Ridley Pearson

  “Well, you see, I have a photographic memory, and I saw this woman…It’s kind of a long story.”

  “So the conductor currently has the briefcase?”

  “No, sir. Not exactly…I kind of…It’s in the baggage car with my dog.”

  “Your dog?”

  Speaking of his dog, Steel’s mother had arranged for him to take Cairo for a potty walk during the Toledo stop. Now she was irritated by the announcement that they’d be delayed. If they didn’t get the chance to walk the dog soon, then Cairo would use her crate as a bathroom—and that would be ugly.

  “This is going to cut into our time in the station,” she said.

  Then, all of a sudden, Steel realized this stop had nothing to do with the case and everything to do with Kaileigh. Her nanny had reported her missing—plain and simple. For a moment he relaxed. Then he tensed again: what if he was wrong?

  He asked his mom, “But I can still take her for a walk, right?”

  He was thinking that the best place to be during this security check was off the train.

  She didn’t hear him. She checked her phone—again. He knew she was waiting for a call from his father. She’d hidden her concern well for the past ten days, but Steel knew his father should have called by now. Again, he wondered if his parents were having problems. Again, he pushed it aside.

  “What about Cairo?” Steel asked again.

  “If she hasn’t gone by now it’s a miracle.”

  “It’s not like she’s been eating or drinking,” Steel said. “Remember Montana?”

  His mother grinned. Of course she remembered Montana, she said. The family had dozens of great dog stories.

  He looked out as the train pulled into the station. Lady police officers with dogs. He grew increasingly nervous. Either he or Kaileigh was going to get it. What would his mom say when she found out he hadn’t told her about the baggage car? He’d be grounded for life. She might even withdraw him from the science challenge to punish him. How was he going to tell the cops with his mom around?

  He caught his mom staring at her phone again.

  “He’ll call,” Steel said.

  She smirked. Her eyes grew glassy. “Your father?” she said. “I spoke to him when you were in the restroom. Didn’t I tell you?”

  She’d never been able to lie to him. For years he’d been able to see through her lame attempts.

  “Oh yeah?” he said, trying to sound excited. “That’s fantastic! Did you tell him where we were?”

  “Of course!”

  “Is he going to come to the challenge?” What a weird game to play, he thought.

  “He’s going to try. It’s the best he can do.”

  “That’s cool. If he tries, he’ll make it,” Steel said.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” she cautioned. She looked a little panicked. “He’s terribly busy.”

  “It’s okay, Mom.”

  All of a sudden it looked as if she might cry.

  He’d totally crush her if he told the police in front of her. She would freak out. He thought maybe the best thing would be to wait until Washington.

  13.

  As Larson boarded the front of the train, he entered a world of confusion.

  Passengers had not followed instructions. Some of the elderly travelers seemed to think they’d been ordered off the train. Other passengers crowded the aisles clutching their bags, waiting to get off. A line five people deep had formed in front of the restroom. Some people had headed to the dining car, only to find the concessions closed, and were now crowding the back of the car, trying to return to their seats.

  Larson took one look at the confusion and knew immediately that ten minutes was not going to be enough. Worse, Amtrak was not going to give him more than ten minutes. He’d never meet up with Hampton in the middle of the train, given how slow this was going to go. It was a blown operation before it began.

  Tempers flared. Questions were shouted at him. More announcements over the PA system were drowned out by chaos. No one seemed in any hurry to comply with requests. Anarchy.

  Larson scanned the rows of seats, looking for a passenger that matched the description he’d been given. The size and urgency of the task struck him. The dogs clearly offered him the best chance at identifying and apprehending a suspect; trained to detect gunpowder, gun oil, and several chemicals used in explosives, he wanted to get a dog on his end of the train, past as many passengers as possible.

  He radioed Hampton and told him to forget about the boy for now. Their primary suspect remained their top priority. He wanted all efforts made to find Grym.

  Hampton reported that the conditions on the far end of the train were as difficult as on Larson’s end. He said, “We’re into this one on a wing and a prayer.”

  14.

  At the moment that Hampton received the call from Larson, his hand rested on a door handle to the fourth sleeping berth in the train car. He and a K-9 team had searched the baggage car with only one minor distraction: the German shepherd had gone a little wild when passing a crated dog. The shepherd wasn’t supposed to “alert” to other dogs, and her handler had disciplined her. It certainly hadn’t been alerting to Grym, so Hampton moved on, having no idea of the presence of the briefcase in the back of the cage.

  He swung open the door to the sleeping berth. He faced a woman and a boy—a kid about the same age and height as the boy seen on the platform in Chicago. He stepped out of the way, allowing the German shepherd halfway inside the berth, her nose twitching.

  “Sorry for the intrusion; just a routine inspection.”

  “Doesn’t seem very routine,” the mother said.

  Following a quick glance at the mother, he tried to meet eyes with the boy, but the boy—reading a book—didn’t look up.

  “Thank you,” Hampton said, still hoping to make contact with the boy.

  With the clock ticking, he jotted down the number of the berth—along with the train car—into his notebook and moved on. Apprehending Grym was the primary assignment. No one wanted money going to terrorists.

  Some boy and his briefcase would just have to wait.

  15.

  At the sight of the U.S. marshal and the K-9 team, Steel freaked. For a moment he thought his heart had stopped. The marshal, an African American, had shoulders as wide as the train car door. He had a kind face, though he wore a serious expression. From behind him came the German shepherd. She nosed her way into the room while Steel’s mother made small talk.

  He wanted to tell his mother to shut up, to stop delaying the man and let him get out of here. After experiencing a spike of heat up his spine as the man attempted to make eye contact, Steel kept his head down and didn’t look up again.

  He knows something…he thought.

  Finally, after what seemed like forever, the man thanked them—thanked them!—and closed the door.

  “Well, that was painless,” his mother said.

  Steel felt drenched with sweat.

  “Are you feeling okay, sweetheart? You’ve gone pale as a bedsheet.”

  “It’s my stomach,” he complained, despite feeling fine.

  “It’s the fumes from the train. Ever since we stopped, I can hardly breathe,” she said.

  Steel didn’t smell much of anything. Maybe some disinfectant and a trace of kerosene, but that was hardly the cause of his current state.

  “Okay, they’ve seen us. All present and accounted for,” his mother said. “If you want to check on Cairo, you’re free to do so.”

  “I…ah…” He had no desire to risk running into that guy again.

  “Are you telling me you don’t want to? Sweet boy, you must not feel well. Oh, poor thing. First you bother endlessly about seeing Cairo. Now I let you see her, and you’re not sure you even want to.”

  “I do want to see her…but…I don’t,” he said, rubbing his stomach for effect.

  “Which is it—because one of us has to take her out.”

  The thought of his mother se
eing the briefcase at the back of the dog crate provided a miraculous healing. “No! No! I’ll do it,” he said, jumping up. He hoped by now the marshal and the K-9 team had left the train car.

  16.

  U.S. Marshal Larson spotted yet another teenage boy—that made five in this car. Hampton had been right about the train being crowded with school-age kids. Larson was glad his focus now fell entirely on Grym. But he had a cop’s instincts, and he couldn’t help but keep an eye out for the briefcase, the kid, and the woman—everything he’d seen on the security tape. Trouble was, there were dozens of briefcases in the overhead racks, more than that many teenage boys, and no time. He disciplined himself to stay on track.

  The police dog followed just behind Larson, and behind the dog, the dog’s handler. They passed through the first car into the second, where Larson again met with a sea of expectant faces and much of the same confusion and questioning he’d faced in the first car. Twice he stopped and asked for a passenger’s photo ID; both licenses had looked legit, and the passengers in question didn’t look enough like Grym for Larson to make a fuss. A logjam of irritated passengers clogged the car. The trio eventually reached the third car, Larson checking his watch in desperation.

  Larson spotted the man at the window seat right away: he was about halfway down the car, with a pair of eyes that intentionally avoided him. Larson signaled the dog handler, and she picked up on it. Larson walked past the suspect. The handler and the dog moved closer to the subject but stayed in front of him. They had him boxed in. The only way out was through the window; and beyond the window there were TPD police officers stationed.

  The suspect sat next to a middle-aged woman with graying brown hair. The last thing Larson wanted was a hostage situation. His heart raced painfully in his chest as he considered how to handle this.

  17.

  Grym’s insides twisted: the cop—or fed—wearing blue jeans and a blue blazer seemed to be looking right at him. What to do? All the windows were emergency glass; he could get out if he had to. But how far would he get?

  They’d squeezed him: the fed on one side, the K-9 on the other. A federal agent with brains—just his luck.

  Again he considered the breakaway window. But no: they were likely to have the train surrounded.

  He ignored the fed, keeping an eye instead on the dog handler, and watching for any reaction from her.

  Without looking, he felt the fed’s attention on him.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the fed said. And there it was.

  Dread surged through him. Not outright panic. Not yet. But a clear sense of dread. Grym turned his head slowly.

  The fed wasn’t looking at him—wasn’t talking to him—but instead to a man in the seat directly behind him.

  “Identification please,” the fed asked.

  Grym turned back around, his nerves quickly restored.

  The fed continued questioning the passenger. Out of the corner of his eye, Grym saw the fed studying the man’s wallet.

  The fed said, “I’d like to speak with you a minute in private, please.”

  The dog growled as the man came out of his seat.

  The passenger was frisked. A rumble passed through the car as he was discovered to be carrying a gun. “I have a permit for that,” the passenger complained. “You’re making a mistake.”

  The fed said, “Yeah? Well, it’s mine to make. Follow me.”

  Grym smirked. He contained his impatience, wanting a look at the passenger but not wanting to show his own face. He waited a few seconds and, as the passenger was about to be led away, caught a look at the man.

  His breath caught: it was the man from the dining car.

  The man who’d been staring at him.

  18.

  Larson led the suspect to a more private area where the cars met. He spoke quietly.

  “What’s the FBI doing on this train?” Larson asked in a hoarse whisper, still holding the man’s wallet.

  “What’s a U.S. marshal doing blowing my cover?” the man asked.

  “Explain yourself. I ask for your driver’s license and you hand me your federal credentials. The K-9 alerted on you—so I knew you were carrying a weapon. What was I supposed to do?”

  The FBI man crowded Larson’s space by putting his face into Larson’s. “You were supposed to figure it out and leave me alone.”

  The man was working undercover, Larson realized.

  The FBI man said, “Get your people off this train now. You are interfering with an active investigation.”

  Larson said, “You bear an uncanny resemblance to a terrorist suspect. I’m Fugitive Apprehension.” He let this sink in. Fugitive Apprehension was among the most elite and respected units within the Justice Department; only a handful of agents were ever selected to serve on the task force.

  “Your search of the train could interfere with a three-year investigation,” the agent complained. “And don’t ask me what I’m doing on this train, because I am never going to explain it. My SAC will talk to your SAC, and he’ll never explain it. So forget about it.”

  “I’m not worried about your case. I’m worried about my suspect. If your case involves my suspect, tough luck. I’m taking my guy off this train.”

  “Actually, you’re getting off the train. And you’re doing it right now.” He pulled out a cell phone.

  “Can’t do that,” Larson said, grabbing for the man’s wrist.

  The man pulled away. “You’re going to force me, I suppose? Trust me: you don’t want me to make this call.”

  Larson said, “I have ten minutes to sweep this train—five now, if I’m lucky—and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Engaged in the phone call, the FBI man explained his situation…listened…then glared at Larson with intense and angry eyes. He cupped the cell phone and said, “You got a name for this suspect?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “What’s the name?”

  “It’s need to know,” Larson said, “and you aren’t on my need-to-know list. And your boss isn’t either.”

  The FBI agent shoved his cell phone at Larson, who reluctantly accepted it.

  “Larson,” he announced himself.

  The tense voice on the other end ordered Larson off the train.

  “I’m running out of time here. I’m not leaving this train until Amtrak forces us off.”

  Five minutes later, Larson, Hampton, and the dog teams were back on the platform.

  Larson reeled with anger. “This is wrong.”

  “Yes it is,” Hampton agreed.

  “If I hadn’t pulled this guy out of the crowd,” Larson explained, “I don’t think he would have stopped us.”

  “Their case—whatever they’re doing on this train—it’s gotta be our case. Right?” Hampton asked.

  “Not necessarily. I would doubt it. Theirs was probably planned way ahead of time. Ours was last minute.”

  “So what’s going on? What’s next?”

  The train started up and pulled away.

  Larson said, “I make some calls of my own. But I’ll tell you one thing: we’re not done with this train. Not by a long shot.”

  19.

  Grym decided not to leave the train in Toledo, afraid authorities might catch him.

  He knew better than to test his luck. He needed the briefcase; the briefcase was everything.

  And a briefcase didn’t just disappear out of a baggage car, no matter what the conductor had said. If the bag didn’t turn up by Cleveland, it would be time for a little one-on-one chat with the boy. He’d carefully watched departing passengers in Toledo, and he hadn’t seen the boy or the mother among them. They were still on the train.

  A person had to eat. Grym would watch for them in the dining car.

  He’d look for them everywhere. He wasn’t in any great hurry. He knew not to force the matter. The boy would show himself.

  D.C. was still a long way away.

  20.

  Natalie Shufman had no idea what th
e contact looked like. The whole idea of a dead drop was that she could leave the briefcase without ever meeting the contact. Likewise, she doubted the contact had any idea what she looked like—unless he’d already been on the train watching her at the time she’d made the drop, and that seemed possible, but unlikely.

  She’d returned to the train after the awful conversation with her contact in the station, having come away from it with the sense that someone might hurt the boy. She knew better than to involve herself with these people, but it was much too late for that: she was in this knee deep. There was no quitting, no going back. But the boy…His only crime was trying to do a good deed. He didn’t deserve any trouble.

  But how to find him and warn him? Where was he? She’d searched the train top to bottom a number of times, walking from one end to the other with no sight of him. She might have passed his mother or father, for all she knew—but that was just the point: she didn’t know. She had no clue what anyone looked like beyond the young man who had approached her on the platform.

  Frustrated and angry at herself for not having handled the situation on the platform better, she kept looking, walking the entire length of the train a sixth time.

  And then she saw him: only the back of a head, but she was pretty sure it was the same boy. A moment later, when he happened to glance over his shoulder, she knew she was right. But there was one slight problem: he recognized her as well.

  He took off like lightning.

  Natalie hurried to follow, one car to the next. But the boy was shorter—harder to see—and fast.

  Gone.

  She stopped at the end of a sleeper car and turned around.

  He had to be in here someplace.

  21.

  Steel knocked on the compartment door.