Donohue passed through the next car and then the next and the next; a policeman shouted at him, but Donohue didn’t pay any attention, driven as much by his curiosity and his anger at Mussa. When Donohue reached car nine, he saw that the vestibule at the back of the car over the coupling area had been blown off and the rest of the train left behind. The train remained on the tracks.
He guessed that Mussa would be back with the other cars.
With luck he’d blown himself up.
That would do Donohue little good now. The police would swarm over the train, collect everyone’s passport — then check the identities thoroughly. Donohue had no doubt he could get past a cursory screening, but if his fingerprints were taken it would be a different story.
And they were sure to take fingerprints, weren’t they?
“You, who are you?” barked a policeman behind him.
Donohue’s anger sprang out of control. He moved without thinking, spinning and striking the policeman so quickly that the man did not manage to say a word before he fell to the ground. The assassin spun and, despite the fact that the train was still moving at a pace of twenty miles an hour or so, jumped out onto the tracks.
* * *
As Dean sensed he was nearing the end of the train the cars above him started to move. He froze, then realized that if he didn’t get away, whatever he’d bumped up against going forward would eventually reach him. He pushed back, scraping both sides of his body.
The cars stopped in a second or two. The power car had nudged them against their set brakes as it uncoupled. It was now moving away at a slow pace.
Dean kept moving. When he finally reached the end of the train he pulled himself out. His arm scraped against the jagged end of the mangled coupler assembly as he got up. The pain took him by surprise and he cursed loudly, unable to stop himself.
Unwise, but too late to do anything about it.
He stuffed the collar of his shirt into his teeth against the pain and climbed up onto the car, whose door had been blown open by the explosion. The emergency lights turned the coach a very dull yellow, as if Dean were wearing sepia glasses.
Bodies were scattered across the seats, blood everywhere. He looked at each one only long enough to make sure that it wasn’t Lia, then continued through to the car where she’d been sitting.
* * *
All her life she’d fought. Losing one battle — losing this one — didn’t make her a coward.
Lia pushed to get away from the black cloud that sucked at her. She pushed and fought and clawed. She would not give up. Lose, maybe, but not give up.
“Where are you, Charlie? Where are you when I need you?” she mumbled.
“Here.”
Lia turned her head to the left, then to the right. The darkness moved away like a cloud of mist clearing a lake. Dean was leaning over her.
“Are you OK?” he asked her.
“No,” she said, managing to pull herself up into a half-sitting, half-leaning position.
She forced herself to examine her wounds. One of the bullets from the submachine gun or perhaps just a piece of metal from the floor had ricocheted and lodged in her calf. The bleeding had already slowed to an oozing trickle. Another bullet had hit her midsection, but it had only grazed her side, leaving a large red welt that hurt to touch but was otherwise not painful.
Bullets had riddled the table between the seat, along with the cushions nearby. Lia had been saved, at least temporarily, by the configuration of the coach, as well the inexperience of the terrorists.
And luck. Never forget luck.
“Can you walk?” Dean asked.
“Maybe.”
“They unhooked the power car and took it away.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Maybe they’re going to ram into the next train. Or maybe they’re going to use it somehow to escape.”
Someone moaned at the other end of the car.
“There’s a light on the side of the tunnel about fifty yards that way,” said Dean, pointing toward what had been the front of the train. “I think it’s one of the crossover points to the service tunnel in the middle. Maybe there’s a phone there. We can get help and warn them.”
“Shouldn’t we pull these people out?”
“Let’s see if we can get help first.”
“All right,” she said, rising and testing her leg gingerly. It wouldn’t take much weight, but she could probably hobble.
She would hobble.
“All right,” she said. “Lead the way, Charlie Dean.”
* * *
The cabinet took forever to hit the ground. Mussa tried to close his eyes but could not.
He felt the vibration, felt the shock, knew the horror of death. But he didn’t die. The explosives had not gone off. As the chemist had said, the material was exceedingly stable.
By the time Mussa realized it hadn’t exploded, he had already reached to pull it into the proper position. Now time began to speed up, and he found that his hands and legs couldn’t move quickly enough. Kelvin recovered from his own shock and helped move the unit into place. Mussa pulled the panel off, then barked at the others to get the next units in. The next one was placed without a mishap.
Now the device itself had to be placed. Again the cart had to be tipped, but this time they were ready. Despite the weight and Mussa’s trembling hands, it snapped into place. Surely God was helping him now. There was no longer a question of failure — there had never been a question of failure. He climbed over the seats to guide the last steps, confident, even awed. The greatness of what he was to accomplish pushed him on. The next units snapped down — there were two left now, two — and then he had merely to punch the buttons and wait.
But as he waited for the last cabinet, something made a thud behind him. He turned and saw a man crawl out from the seats. Mussa reached desperately to his belt, grabbing for his pistol, but it wasn’t there; he’d put it down when he started to move the cabinets.
Mussa ran and kicked the man in the back, stopping him. He stepped to the man’s side and launched another kick to the back of his head, then another and another and another, dashing the man’s skull against the floor of the train. Rage welled in him, and he screamed at the man, asking who he was to try to prevent his triumph.
“Satan? Are you Satan?” he yelled.
Finally, he saw that the man was dead and stopped kicking.
The others were staring at him from behind the half-assembled bomb.
“You were to kill everyone in the train,” he told them. “Everyone.”
“We did.”
“You will go back and make sure. For the glory of God! Now!”
97
When Deidre Clancy finally managed to get out of bed, her chest begin to shake. She felt as if all the blood had rushed from her head and refused to come back.
She went to the bathroom and ran water on her face, then saw the pile of towels she’d left on the floor. Her stomach turned, but this time the urge to vomit was gone; the worst of her illness had passed.
Deidre turned on the bath and took off her robe and got in, spraying herself with the wand as the tub filled up. When she was finished, she threw the soiled towels into the tub and filled it with water again, poking them a bit before letting it drain; she had no washing machine in the small apartment and couldn’t face the idea of going to the Laundromat today, and maybe not tomorrow, either. After a few rinses the towels were clean enough to be hung on the rail and ledge outside the window. That done, she cleaned the tub and took a proper bath, the water as hot as she could stand it.
A half hour later, she got out, wrapped herself in a thick terry-cloth robe — she was now out of bath towels — and walked to the tiny kitchenette to measure out coffee for the ancient pot. When it was ready she poured herself a cup without her usual cream and went to the small living room, intending to veg out until her senses recovered sufficiently for her to come up with a plan for the rest of the day.
Afte
r a few minutes, she turned on the television, expecting to flip absent-mindedly through the offerings.
The first image she saw looked like something from a James Bond movie or maybe Schwarzenegger — helicopters buzzing in the air, circling a tower of smoke.
The Eiffel Tower, she realized.
A very good model, she thought. She punched the button for the next channel, but the image remained.
She glanced down at the remote, making sure she had pressed the proper button. The image remained.
It was the real Eiffel Tower.
Two more presses brought her to CNN. She watched the screen as a breathless correspondent based in London announced: “These are live pictures from Paris, where a group of terrorists has attempted an attack on the Eiffel Tower. Police and local military units are battling them now. The American President landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport just a few minutes prior to the attack, and sources close to the French police say that American intelligence agents provided a last-second warning against the terrorist strike. As you can see, the operation is ongoing. . ”
Deidre watched as one of the news helicopters zoomed its camera in on the grid work of the tower. A man was hanging upside down near the side, his leg caught in a cable. Two French policemen were climbing up from below; another was trying to get to him from above.
The large man didn’t look like a terrorist. He had blond hair and was in jeans and—
Deidre dropped the remote as the man’s face briefly came into focus.
It was Tommy Karr. And he was smiling.
98
“Are you sure about this?” demanded Hadash. He was essentially translating what the French President had just asked Rubens.
“Oui,” said Rubens, speaking French so there would be no doubt in the foreign leader’s mind. “L’Eurostar. They’ve found some way of getting the bomb on board the train. We believe they’ve fashioned something similar to C-4 to use as a kind of explosive lens and detonate the atomic warhead. We don’t have all of the data, but I guarantee that they’ve done this, and that at a minimum an attempt will be made. Our best guess from the power fluctuations we’ve detected on the system is that it’s already under way. Their models for the impact of the explosion predict a tidal wave that will engulf the low-lying areas along the Channel. We’re still trying to interpret the data, but you must stop traffic through the Chunnel and get response teams in. I assure you, even if they fail, they will make an attempt.”
The French President replied in French that what Rubens was saying seemed incredible and beyond belief. Rubens agreed but added that until an hour ago the same might have been said about an attack on the Eiffel Tower, and here he was watching a feed from French television showing it in broad daylight.
“A great tragedy for the world had it succeeded,” added Rubens, who, despite his disdain for the French, meant it.
President Marcke came on the line, asking Rubens if he had any other information. Rubens told him that he had summarized the relevant findings and would share whatever details were needed with the French intelligence and military.
“Do it,” said Marcke.
Rubens looked up at the screen. While the Eiffel Tower had not been completely secured, all of the terrorists near the bomb were either dead or severely wounded. Tommy had disabled all of the explosive packs, apparently made into vests that the terrorists had worn and then attempted to assemble on the structure.
French gendarmes had finally reached Karr, who was suspended above the iron latticework by one of the power cables from the lighting. Tommy seemed to be smiling, undoubtedly making one of his irreverent wisecracks to his rescuers.
Thank God.
Hopefully it wasn’t X-rated. The French television crew aboard the helicopter caught the entire sequence before being warned away by one of the military aircraft. Undoubtedly a lip-reader back in the studio was already trying to work out what Karr had said. Knowing the French, it would be inscribed at the base of the tower by morning.
Several dozen people had lost their lives, and the structure had surely been damaged. But compared to what might have happened, the cost had been relatively minor.
One disaster staved off. And a much greater one looming.
“There is one other thing I should mention,” Rubens told President Marcke. “Two of my people were aboard the train that is currently in the Chunnel. They were following a man we think might have been involved in the assassination of Monsieur Ponclare, the security chief. We haven’t heard from them since the train entered the tunnel.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the President. “We’ll stay on the line.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The upstairs operator has a woman named Ellen McGovern on hold,” Telach told Rubens as he turned from the screen. “She’s an attorney. She said that you would want to speak to her, and that the operator was to mention her name.”
Rubens realized that she had news about the General.
“I’ll get back to her,” he said.
99
Dean’s eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the darkness as he climbed out of the yellowish coaches; even when they had, the tracks remained a muddy gray beneath an even darker black. A fluorescent light flickered at the side of the tunnel in the dimness ahead. It marked the doorway to the service tunnel that ran between the two railroad tubes. As Dean stared he made out small green arrows on the side of the tunnel wall in the direction of the door.
“That’s the service tunnel back there,” he told Lia. “Come on.”
The air smelled damp and metallic. He’d taken off part of his shirt to tie around her injured leg, and he felt so cold he began to shiver.
“Let me help you; come on,” he told her as she lagged behind.
“I’m fine.”
“Can’t admit you need help?”
“I’m fine, I said.”
“We have to watch for the third rail.”
“The train uses an overhead wire,” said Lia. “Didn’t you see it at the station?”
A stuttering crack snapped through the air: a muffled gunshot.
“They’re still in the train,” said Lia, stopping. “Look.”
Dean turned and looked at the train as the crackle reverberated again. Shadows moved against the wall toward the back of the gray hulk.
“Go see if you can find a phone,” Dean told her, starting toward the train.
“Charlie!”
“Do it,” he snapped. “If you really are OK, just go do it.”
100
Mussa wheeled the last cart out, then slipped around it and climbed on the seat nearby, walking the cart into place.
He expected a sharp snap as he pushed it into place. Instead, it barely clicked. Thinking he had failed to get it in properly, he pushed against it, but it refused to budge. Mussa leaned over, examining the seam at the top. It was tight; he couldn’t get his fingernail inside.
He climbed up and pushed from every direction, just to make sure it was locked. It didn’t budge.
One more task — the timer. He pulled the top panel off, revealing an oval inset.
“I devote myself to the one true God,” he said, beginning one last prayer before setting the weapon. He pulled off his watch as he prayed and pried it from its band, then took off the face and the back.
Something moved at the end of the car. He glanced up and saw a submachine gun entering the car. The timer, which initiated and controlled the internal firing mechanism, dropped from his hand and bounded to the floor.
Mussa saw only the gun.
Ahmed, returning.
Cursing, Mussa hopped off the seat and dropped to the floor, hunting the watch piece.
“Where are the others?” asked Ahmed.
“Finishing their work,” said Mussa. He put the clock piece in and twisted. The bomb was now set; it could not be stopped. But either when he dropped it or when he set it in, the switch at the side that selected the timer mode had slipped from nine seconds to n
ine hundred — the device’s default, a hundred times longer than intended.
It began draining off, the seconds kicking down to oblivion.
“Is it ready?” Ahmed asked.
“Yes,” said Mussa. He smiled at the other man.
“Let’s go then.”
Mussa looked at him in surprise. Where did he want to go?
“Aren’t we going to take the engine?” asked Ahmed. “Arno said that was the plan. That’s why I was to detach it and move up the tracks.”
Arno had told him that?
Mussa stared at Ahmed incredulously. How could he believe that they would be spared? Why would he even want to be spared?
“You don’t want to taste the joy of Paradise?” asked Mussa.
“Arno said we were to leave.”
That was like Arno: he told everyone what he thought they wanted to hear.
Including him?
Ahmed pointed the gun at him haphazardly. At this point, Mussa wasn’t afraid of being shot, but he worried that the bomb, despite the guarantees of the engineers, would somehow be damaged if the idiot fired.
Should he explain that the engine was only to block others and help deflect the blast upward if it was not to specifications?
“Aren’t we leaving?” asked Ahmed.
“Yes, of course,” said Mussa. As he began climbing over the seats, he heard more gunfire from a distant coach.
“The timer is running. We’d better hurry,” said Ahmed.
“There’s time. We can wait for the others,” said Mussa.
“No, we should leave now. Let them fend for themselves. They can leave through the access tunnels. The engine will take us out.”
Mussa thought it wise to humor Ahmed until he could wrestle the gun away. What was the worst that could happen? The bomb would explode now, no matter what.
Dark Zone db-3 Page 30