Meanwhile, in the changing room, Danny Slater opened his eyes and drew in a deep breath. It hurt. He was lying, crumpled, in the shower cubicle. Slowly, he dragged himself to his feet, staggered out and looked in the mirror. His throat was swollen and there was a livid discolouration in the flesh. His head felt as if it had been beaten with a baseball bat. He could barely swallow. But he was alive.
As Bond abandoned the digger and set off with Jeopardy on foot through the woods, he recalled the final second when he had changed both the direction and the velocity of his strike and had knocked the boy unconscious instead of killing him. What had made him change his mind? Bond was one of three agents who had been given the double zero assignation – a licence to kill. But that didn’t mean he had to kill or that he would ever enjoy killing. Somewhere inside him he felt a measure of satisfaction. A great evil had been done to him but it had not made him evil. Sin might claim that what had happened at No Gun Ri had turned him into the monster that he undoubtedly was but Bond had escaped from the hell of a living grave and he had left nothing of his inner self, not an inch of his humanity, behind. That was the difference between them. It was why he would win.
TWENTY-ONE
The Million-Dollar Train
The fence, topped with barbed wire, stretched in both directions, a point of no return for the city which had crept almost to the very edge and then fallen back, knowing it was beaten. On the other side, there was a wilderness of gravel, discarded oil drums, concrete blocks, telegraph poles with drooping wires and seemingly abandoned pieces of industrial equipment. And railway lines, miles and miles of them, a labyrinth of intertwining metal that seemed to have been laid out almost randomly, a vast playset that had run out of control as more and more pieces had been added. The empty space was somehow all the more shocking on the edge of Brooklyn. It was as if the fence divided two quite separate worlds. Bond could imagine the distant apartment blocks, filled with families, all of them crammed into small, dark rooms, one on top of the other. They would look out onto the Coney Island depot, forbidden to them, except as a view through a grimy window pane, offering more space than they would ever enjoy in their lives. It was almost like the difference between life and death – with a cold, white moon bathing both in its spectral glow.
The break in the fence was exactly where Jeopardy remembered it. It had been repaired, then broken again, repaired, broken, then finally abandoned in a tangle of redundant wire.
The two of them squeezed through the gap and examined the landscape around them. The nearest buildings were about two hundred yards away: a line of workshops made of brick and corrugated iron, tall and rectangular, with the tracks disappearing inside. There didn’t seem to be anyone in sight but as they watched, crouching in the shadows, there was the sound of an engine and a lone motorcyclist appeared, rattling to a halt. Bond recognised the oversized nacelle and the chrome, ‘mouth organ’ tank badge of the 650cc Triumph Thunderbird. He couldn’t help smiling. This was the bike that had fuelled the hopes and ambitions of a generation of GIs after the war. It wasn’t enough that it was faster and lighter than the old Speed Twin, it had to be gaudier too; shouting to the world with its bright colours and chrome. He watched as the driver dismounted and strolled nonchalantly through a sliding door and into the workshop. Was he just a railwayman or did he work for Sin? Bond hoped it was the former. Let him have his innocence and his simple pleasures and at the end of the day let him get back on his bike and go home to his wife or his girlfriend. Enough people would die tonight without him.
‘These sheds are all private contractors,’ Jeopardy whispered. She was crouching beside him, gazing through the darkness. ‘Anyone working here at this time of the night . . . it’s got to be Sin.’
‘I’m going in,’ Bond said. ‘You get out of here, try and find a phone.’
‘I’m not leaving you.’
‘We don’t have time to argue, Jeopardy. I wouldn’t have got here without you. But now it’s my turn. I’m going to stop Sin’s train from leaving.’
‘How? You don’t even have a gun.’
‘I’ll find a way. And if I fail, you have to talk to the Secret Service and get the entire railway network shut down. What are the substations? Fifty-ninth Street? Long Island?’
‘James – I’ve told you. It’s too late.’ Jeopardy looked at her watch. ‘Fifty minutes to launch.’
‘Find a phone. Call your people.’
He was off before she could say any more, running beside the tracks towards the workshop that the motorcyclist had entered. The tracks ran all the way to the sliding doors and then, presumably, continued on the other side. At least there didn’t seem to be too much security – but why should there have been? This was nothing more than a railway depot, grimy and uninteresting except perhaps to the local kids who might sneak in for a dare, just as Jeopardy had done all those years ago. Nobody saw him as he reached the brick wall with its evenly spaced windows, the glass panes frosted to allow no view in or out. Bond didn’t want to risk the sliding door – not until he knew what was on the other side. A spiral staircase led to a platform with a smaller, wooden door tucked away to one side. He edged his way along the wall and climbed up.
The door was locked. But the bolt was old and rusty and Bond decided to risk breaking it open with his shoulder. Hopefully, there would be enough activity inside the workshop to cover the noise. He took one look back. There was no sign of Jeopardy and he hoped she’d had the sense to get out while she could. There was no time for delicacy. Bond slammed into the door and felt the lock give way. It swung open. At once he heard music – a radio playing – the clang of metal, men shouting, the whine of an electric motor. If anyone had been looking up they might have seen him enter but there was no chance of his being heard. He eased himself inside. The first person he saw was Jason Sin.
He was surrounded by his men, a whole squadron of them, this time predominantly Korean. Well, it was an unusual American who would willingly participate in the destruction of New York’s most famous landmark and the hundreds, even thousands, of deaths that it would bring. They were all dressed as railwaymen, gathered together as if for one final briefing in a vast hangar of a place with railway lines stretching from one end to the other. Neon lights hung on chains, casting a harsh, unforgiving light over the assembly. Each of the men cast five shadows, spilling out from beneath their feet. All of them were armed. Bond couldn’t hear what Sin was saying. There was at least a hundred yards between them and he was concealed behind a latticework of criss-crossing steel girders. In fact, nobody could have seen the door as it crashed open. Even as Bond watched, Sin came to the end of his peroration. As one, the group moved towards the waiting train.
Bond recognised it at once. The R-11 cars, built at the end of the forties, were among the most beautiful that had ever been rolled out on the New York City Subway. With their shot-welded stainless steel body and distinctive porthole windows, fluorescent lighting and steel strap-hangers, they had caught the spirit and the dynamism of the age and as each car had cost $10,000, they had inevitably come to be known, together, as the Million-Dollar Train. Of course, this one had been bastardised by Sin who had reshaped the whole thing, engine and carriages, for the operation that was about to take place. No train like this had ever entered the subway system. Nothing like this would ever run again.
First there was the engine. The driver, a Korean, was already climbing up, letting himself into the front cabin with Sin right next to him. He was evidently going to ride with him, perhaps fulfilling some childhood fantasy – didn’t everyone want to drive a train? Next came some sort of maintenance vehicle, a flat car that resembled the lowboy that Bond had seen earlier that evening but on rails, not on the tarmac. It had no roof. A series of short, steel pillars surrounded a load which had been covered in tarpaulin to conceal it as it made its final journey. It was the fake Vanguard. There could be no doubt about it. Bond noticed that it had been secured with dozens of thin, lightweight chains. Pre
sumably they would melt in the explosion, leaving no evidence behind. It was attached to another R-11 car which contained the bomb. Bond could see the bulk of it behind the windows. Two men were climbing in to accompany it on the journey, one small and wiry, the other corpulent, both dressed as railwaymen, both Korean.
There was another car right behind it and this was where the rest of Sin’s men would ride. Bond counted seven of them as they climbed in, making eleven in all, including Sin and the driver, against just one of him. Not great odds. Finally, at the back, there was an empty car and a second engine. Bond was puzzled by that, but he quickly worked it out. Sin would ride into the tunnel. His men would arm the bomb and uncouple the car that contained it. Then they’d travel back the way they had come in the rear engine, leaving a scene of devastation and the wreckage of a train behind them. Nobody would know what had really happened.
And somehow he had to prevent it. Standing on the gantry, looking down on the train, Bond made a cold-blooded assessment of the situation as he saw it. There were only forty minutes until the launch of the real Vanguard at Wallops Island. Sin was overseeing the operation himself. Bond was unarmed and alone. Jeopardy might be on her way to a telephone and there was still a chance she would be able to alert the authorities, but it was only a small one and anyway, he still couldn’t assume they would have time to act. The R-11 would have to travel through Brooklyn before it reached the network of tunnels that would take it under the East River and up, into the heart of Manhattan. At what station would it go below ground? Fifteenth Street? Seventh Avenue? Or later? If Bond could reach the train and detonate the bomb while it was still on the surface, in Brooklyn, the damage would be minimal (though possibly not to himself). Once the train reached Manhattan, it would be game over. Bond had to move now.
He was already too late. Sin and his team were inside the train. He had left the rest of his men behind him in the workshop and they had pulled back the oversized doors to reveal the tracks that stretched across the depot on the other side. Suddenly, without warning, the train jerked forward. Bond cursed and at the same moment set off, back through the door and down the spiral stairs. There was nothing for it now. He had to reach it before it picked up much more speed.
And he might have made it. But as he got to the bottom of the stairs, an American appeared, bald with tattoos on his neck and shoulders, coming out of nowhere. Suddenly the two of them were face to face. Somehow, he must have seen Bond. Perhaps, after all, he had heard the door crash open. He was armed with a knife, and even as Bond fell instinctively into a defensive position, the blade slashed down. Bond was ready for it. He used a simple forearm block, then reached up under the man’s knife arm and grabbed his wrist, jerking it down to break the bone. The tattooed man screamed. Bond followed through with a single, vicious blow to the chin. The lights went out in the man’s eyes and he crumpled. Bond reached down and snatched up the knife, wishing it had been a gun. He tucked it into his waistband, the blade against his skin.
He had only been delayed for thirty seconds but it had been enough. Already the train had cleared the entrance to the work shed and it was picking up speed, the rear lights dwindling into darkness. Bond began to run. The nearest coach – in fact, the driver’s cab which would be used for the return – was about a hundred yards away and the distance was growing with every second that passed. At least it was empty. There was nobody who might look out and see Bond as he pounded down the railway line, all his energy focused on the task of catching up. Part of him was dimly aware of the third rail, elevated and somewhere on the right of the line itself, which carried the electricity supply. If he accidentally stepped on it, it would kill him instantly. Bond was already sweating in the heat of the night. The clothes he had stolen fitted him badly and the synthetic cloth was cutting into him. The Coney Island depot seemed to stretch on for infinity and no matter how fast he ran, the R-11 wasn’t getting any nearer. Bond’s breath was rasping in his throat. His foot came down on a loose piece of debris and he was almost sent sprawling. He passed a maintenance vehicle with a crane looming over him. He couldn’t run any faster but he forced himself on, his arms outstretched, willing himself onto the train. But the train was accelerating. Bond’s nostrils were filled with the stench of dust and defeat.
The R-11 pulled away, measuring out the space between them, and Bond came to a stumbling halt. It was hopeless. Sin had got away. But for the American with the knife he might have had a chance, but those lost thirty seconds had made all the difference. And what now? He had failed! He accepted the inevitable with a sense of closing darkness. How could he have expected otherwise? He was only human. So many missions in the last ten years . . . Could he really have believed he would succeed in every one of them? As he stood there, hunched over and gasping for breath (all those cigarettes – he was feeling them now), watching the tail lights of the train as they slid away from him, there were black spots of anger in front of his eyes. He could already see himself sitting at his desk in London. ‘Having made the decision not to alert the authorities, I attempted to head off Sin Jai-Seong at the Coney Island depot but, despite my best efforts, regrettably I arrived too late. The subsequent explosion, the major damage inflicted on Manhattan and the attendant loss of life all resulted from this failure on my part.’ No matter how he couched it, he wouldn’t come out of this well. Would he be typing a report or a letter of resignation?
The R-11 had gone, the lights swallowed up in the dark. About a dozen stations, without stopping, of course, and it would plunge into a tunnel. Bond straightened up even as the sound of the OHV vertical twin engine came roaring in from behind and he turned to see the Triumph Thunderbird race across the gravel, sliding to a halt beside the track. Jeopardy was in the driving seat.
‘Get on!’ she commanded.
Bond didn’t argue. He slipped his arms around her, feeling the warmth of her body against his, and then they were off, not in the direction of the train but crossing the depot diagonally towards the fence. He could tell at once that Jeopardy was in complete control of the bike and he remembered what she had told him of her experience at the Wall of Death. Well, it was certainly coming into its own now. God! What a girl!
But where were they going? With no helmet or goggles and the wind and dust buffeting his eyes, Bond found it easier to bury his head behind Jeopardy’s shoulders and trust to her good sense. They came to an open gate. There was a night watchman stationed here but he had been half asleep in his cabin and shouted at them uselessly as they stormed by. And then they were out, away from the rails, accelerating up a deserted, four-lane avenue with patches of scrubland and low-rise buildings, mainly industrial, on both sides. There was almost no traffic at this time of night and the sidewalks too were deserted. Jeopardy opened the throttle and the bike surged forward, the tarmac sweeping past beneath the wheels. Now the sky was cut off by a steel construction, a sort of tunnel resting on pillars and stretching in a dead straight line far into the distance. It was carrying train tracks and Bond looked up, wondering if he might catch sight of the R-11, but his geography told him that they were far to the east of the depot and he wondered if it was part of Jeopardy’s plan to intercept it somewhere up ahead. If so, what would they do then? A motorbike would be no match for a speeding train. Could they derail it? First, they would need to get access to the track and that depended on how familiar she was with the area.
She certainly wasn’t hesitating as she gunned the bike on. They left the steel tunnel behind them and swung right onto the Bay Parkway, a more residential street with solid-looking houses and decent cars neatly parked. So far the traffic lights had all been green but Bond doubted that Jeopardy would have stopped anyway. He was quickly proved right. At the next crossroads, a garbage truck pulled out across their path. She didn’t even slow down. Leaning to the right, she swerved round the obstacle then ducked back, just in time to miss the oncoming traffic. Bond smiled to himself. Instinctively, he had tightened his hold around her waist. Although imme
diate danger was past, he didn’t relax his grip.
The buildings were still low-rise. The sky was empty, washed through by a pale moon. They were speeding through some sort of village with a few more signs of life: an old man sitting on a bench, a deli still open late into the night, a couple walking a dog. Jeopardy pulled out to overtake a beat-up roadster and Bond caught a glimpse of the driver, hugely obese, jammed behind the steering wheel. They came to their first traffic jam at the lights at 60th Street and ignored it, overtaking the cars that were waiting and dodging between the cross-traffic with horns blaring. Suddenly there were gravestones all around them, hundreds of them stretching out to another elevated section of the railway, but no sign of any train. Make room for two more, Bond thought to himself, as Jeopardy overtook one truck and missed another by inches. And then they had hit Ocean Parkway, a much more serious road with six lanes of traffic.
There was another snarl-up ahead of them, a policeman waving the traffic around a roadwork and at last Jeopardy was forced to slow down. Bond took the opportunity to shout in her ear.
‘Where are we going?’
She twisted round. ‘Fourth Avenue. There’s a subway station there. They’re doing repairs. We can get there ahead of them.’
‘And then?’
‘You tell me!’
The traffic cop waved them on. They rocketed forward.
All the way up Ocean Freeway and onto the new Prospect Expressway, still under construction, now heading north on the last run up to Manhattan. However fast Sin was travelling in the R-11, the Thunderbird had to be going faster, but he had the more direct route with no obstacles in the way. Had they got ahead of him? They were rushing past the traffic on the expressway, smashing through the wind and the glare of the oncoming headlights. They came off at Prospect Parkway, skirting the park, then swung a hard left onto 10th Street, a narrow thoroughfare hemmed in by warehouses and dominated by a massive steel structure that loomed over the houses on the right-hand side. Looking up, Bond saw the railway. And there was the R-11! There could be no mistaking the sleek, aluminium shell streaking along. They had caught up with it and the two of them were level. But where was the station? If there was any traffic ahead of them, if a single junction was blocked, they would be too late. It was going to be a damned close thing.
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