“Lead the way,” he told Ahmed.
101
Rubens hovered over Chafetz’s shoulder, staring at her screen. The Eurostars received signal information through a special system that used the train tracks. The NSA had just been given access to the system and was looking at what had been recorded since the train had entered the Chunnel. There was a burst of gibberish, followed by a clearing signal that indicated there was no problem and then a series of what were being interpreted as shorts in the system.
The French and British engineers in charge of the signals had never seen such a sequence before. They believed at least part of the train was moving forward at a much reduced speed. They did not have direct communications with the train’s engineer.
“Tell them to get out if you can,” said Rubens. “Find a way to get them out.”
Special military response teams assigned to the Chunnel had been activated on both shores. They would be ready to enter the tunnel in a few minutes. Traffic through the other tube had been stopped and the few workers in the service tunnel between the train lines were being evacuated. Emergency procedures were being started in the coastal areas, though Rubens doubted there would be time to even get out an alert, let alone do anything constructive to deal with the danger.
People were scurrying. But it was too late, wasn’t it? His people, unaware of the plot, were probably already gone.
As originally composed, the NSA did not have an “action” side. Jobs such as planting bugs were farmed out, generally to the CIA, though the military services were also used. They were contractors in a way, specialists in their tasks and removed from the NSA hierarchy. It made it easier when something went wrong.
The General had pointed that out to Rubens long ago. He had chafed at the lack of an “action side,” but there was that plus.
Rubens knew he had made the right decisions. While he regretted that the analysts hadn’t been able to come up with the information more expeditiously, he did not regret the decisions that had placed his people in jeopardy and, in all likelihood, cost them their lives; these were the decisions he had to make. But he did feel the loss. It pressed its fingers against his skull. And the ache was amplified by the fact that they were impotent, observers only.
Do something, rather than nothing. That had been the General’s motto.
Ruben turned to Telach. “Have we prepared a plan to disable the weapon?”
“We don’t have information on how it might be armed or configured or anything,” said Telach.
“Let’s at least have theories ready,” said Rubens. “And bring Johnny Bib down here. As crazy as he is, he’s bound to have an inspiration.”
102
Dean stared at the far wall of the tunnel, trying to decide if what he saw there were real shadows of the gunmen moving inside the train or flickers of his imagination.
They had to be gunmen — he could hear the muffled sound of the submachine guns again.
They were moving toward the back of the train, in his direction. Each coach had doors at the side, but they appeared to be all locked closed. The only way in or out of the train was the passage at the end of the decoupled car.
If they came out he could surprise them, jump down on them from the top of the train.
But how many were there? One? Two? More?
Dean moved along the walkway next to the tracks, stooping and then crawling toward what had been the rear of the train. He couldn’t quite see in the windows, but as he came parallel to the middle car he saw two shadows prominently one car away. He slid down, flattening himself against the car at a space where there were no windows. He waited, taking the long, slow breaths he’d learned to take more than thirty years before, the calm, quiet breaths of a Marine sniper hunting his prey.
He heard the clack-clack of automatic weapons fire behind him, then beyond him. As the shadows moved through the car he had just passed, he started walking again, going as quickly as he could while remaining low, aware that there might be someone else in the train.
A voice echoed in the tunnel, distorted by an eerie echo.
Dean dropped to his stomach. The voice continued to speak — it was in French, he thought, and even if it had been in English it would have been difficult to understand because of the distortion of the tunnel.
The tone seemed unhurried. It was a matter-of-fact conversation, not a harsh bark of orders or worried alerts.
It was coming from the front of the train — from the tracks.
Dean crawled ahead to the last coach, the one that had been attached to the rear power car. He could hear footsteps and then saw a faint flashlight.
The engine had been pulled down the tracks thirty yards or so. The person with the flashlight was moving toward it, with another person, just one other person.
So at least two still in the train and two there, going to the engine. Maybe more in the power car itself.
The two figures climbed up onto the power car and disappeared. Dean slid around to the back of the coach. The doorway at the end was open, dim yellow light washing out. He waited, eyes sifting for shadows, ears perked to hear anything that would tell him someone else was aboard.
Nothing.
He moved back around to the side and peered in the window. Boxes sat in the aisle roughly in the middle of the car. Otherwise, it was empty.
Except for the dead.
He slid around the coach and pulled himself up onto the decking of the vestibule at the end of the car. People liked to talk about athletes who grew old and lost a step, saying they’d gotten wiser in the process and could use their intelligence to make up for the loss. But it didn’t feel that way to Dean. Fifty-some years dogged every movement, leaning hard against him, pulling him away from the train. He’d been a kid in Vietnam, and he’d trade anything to have that kid take over his body right now.
Or maybe just one of the kid’s weapons.
Dean craned his head upward just enough so he could see into the car through the door. He saw nothing — but his view was blocked by the boxes as well as his angle. There was no way to look in without going in — pushing his body across the space and exposing himself to whatever and whoever was there.
And so he did.
103
Lia grew more cautious as she came to the doorway, aware not just that there could be something lurking in the darkness but also knowing that the odd echoes of sound and the constant rush of air and sound filtered away soft noises, including her own footsteps. She had a tiny light on her key chain but didn’t want to use it; it would show anyone else in the Chunnel where she was. She assumed anyone else here would be her enemy, and whether that was a fair assumption or not — there had been policemen aboard the train — it was not something she questioned. As she reached the door to the access tunnel she stopped, hearing something behind her.
Lia froze.
Then she realized that she would be framed by the fluorescent light above the door. She took a step back into the passage.
Someone grabbed her from behind and threw her down. In the weightless second as she fell she was transported back to Korea, back to the instant when she was overpowered in the airport terminal. She fought, biting the hand — the déjà vu sensation disappeared and she was completely in the present, thrashing and wrestling and biting and rolling and lunging and not surrendering, never surrendering, because that wasn’t who she was.
104
Car eighteen had only dead bodies, some scattered luggage, and the large boxes blocking the aisle.
Dean took another step inside, trying to see around the boxes. They looked like the carts that the servers used as they brought refreshments to the first-class passengers; the carts had clearly been arranged like this on purpose, though Dean had no idea why. He tried to push one out of the way, but it wouldn’t budge; they were all linked together somehow. He had to hop over two sets of seats nearby to get around the boxes.
A man lay in a pool of blood near the end of the car. His skull had
been battered so badly it looked as if it had been made of sawdust and blood.
Dean moved on. The doorway to the next car was around a bend; he dropped to his knees and looked around the corner.
The doorway was open. The next car was empty.
He went in, stopping every few feet to listen. If someone came, he would hide in the seats, preferably next to one of the dead people, and spring out as the person moved past.
He didn’t hear any more gunfire. They’d have finished their work and would be returning.
Dean moved through two more coaches. In coach fourteen he spotted a briefcase made of metal in the overhead rack. Thinking he could use it as a weapon, he stretched up to grab it. As he did, he realized he was exposed to the outside window and casting a shadow, just as the gunmen had. He took the briefcase down and dropped to the floor, crouching his way to the end.
So where were the gunmen?
Maybe they’d gone outside the coach and were checking along the sides or top of the train.
Or maybe they’d gone after Lia.
Dean heard voices approaching as he moved toward the end of the car. He slid into the last seat, hunkering against the window, the briefcase ready.
Two voices.
Another? Were there three?
He twisted his head, let his hand hang down, playing dead.
He saw the side of a man passing, submachine gun hanging lazily in front of him.
Wait for the second?
Yes. Here he was.
Was there a third? No, he’d seen two shadows. And he couldn’t afford to, not if there were only two — they’d be too far away.
Go!
Dean leaped up, aluminum briefcase held out before him like the battering ram at the prow of an ancient galley. The man closest to him began to turn. The edge of the briefcase caught him on the chin; the gun began to fire.
Dean threw himself forward and they were rolling and there was more gunfire.
Dean pushed and punched, barely able to aim his blows. He could taste blood and heard bullets rumbling, but he had no sense of the fight beyond what his fists and head felt. The terrorist slammed and kicked, tried to wrestle the gun from under his body, tried to writhe away. Dean gripped him and pushed down, slamming at his head, wrestling and finding his enemy’s head in his hands.
Finally, there was no more fight left in the other man. Dean had no sense of whether he’d killed him or merely stunned him. He threw himself forward toward the gun that had fallen. He scooped it up, aiming down the car, but the other terrorist had fled.
Just as well. The submachine gun, an H&K MP-5, was empty.
105
The woman kicked and bit and punched at him. Donohue struggled, but her ferocity had caught him off-guard; he tripped and fell backward, managing only to push her away. He leaped backward, took two, three steps, and set himself for her attack.
Fortunately, she didn’t follow.
“Who are you?” the woman hissed between breaths. The accent was American.
“Who are you?” he answered.
“Why did you blow up the train?”
“I didn’t,” he said, surprised. “You’re not one of the terrorists?”
She was silent.
“Were you a passenger?” he asked.
“Yes. Are you one of the policemen?” she asked.
He considered how to answer the question. A policeman would have more authority, certainly, and pretending to be one now was tempting. But it might be difficult to explain later.
If it mattered.
“No. I’m just a passenger. I jumped off the train,” he said. “Terrorists blew it apart.”
“I know,” said the woman. “Why did you attack me?”
“I thought you were one of them,” he said. He wasn’t lying. “I didn’t see you until you were just about on me — I didn’t think anyone could be alive.”
“We have to get to help,” she said.
“How?” Donohue asked.
“Maybe there’s something inside this tunnel. Through the passage. There’s a service tunnel in the middle of the two tubes.”
“What about the people who blew up the train?” he said.
“They unhooked the engine. I think they left.”
“They left?” Donohue felt his anger flare, then drain away — Mussa had managed to escape.
Escape!
Better than he would do, unless he figured something out.
“Come on,” said the woman. “Let’s see if this entrance goes anywhere.”
“You’re hurt,” he said, noticing that she was limping.
“I’m all right.”
There were probably dozens of ways out of the service tunnel. If he lived, he would get Mussa. For that he would trade his life. He would strangle the bloody bastard with his bare hands. Oh, that would be delicious.
Who would blame him? He’d be a national hero. The Queen might even knight him… before throwing him in prison for the rest of his life.
“I’m sorry I hit you,” he said.
“You almost killed me,” said the woman, moving ahead in the passage. “I have a penlight on my key chain. Come on.”
106
Dean found a magazine for the submachine gun in the terrorist’s belt.
The man was still breathing; a quick kiss of the trigger took care of that.
Dean stepped over the body, moving in the direction the other man had gone.
Had he fled in fear? Or was he out of bullets, without even a spare like his friend?
Dean stopped at the vestibule, listening. When he thought he heard a creak in the next car, he threw himself inside, firing a burst from the gun as something flicked at the edge of his peripheral vision. In the same motion he dove to the ground, rolled, ready, waiting.
But there was nothing.
Dean got to his hands and knees and moved forward slowly. He paused about midway, listening. When he started again the front of the car lit up with gunfire. Diving into the nearby seats, he could almost feel the bullets zipping overhead.
The burst was long; Dean suspected it was covering an advance and got ready. When it stopped he made a feint with the gun toward the aisle and drew more fire. This time the burst was much briefer. When it ended he held the gun up and fired a few rounds toward the back of the car, then burst out into the aisle, gun blazing, throwing himself across to the other side.
As he landed on the floor he realized the terrorist had retreated. Dean jumped up and ran to the end, breath shallow, blood spurting from his head. He spun himself around the bend to the floor, ready to fire but not shooting this time. He had to conserve his bullets.
He waited a breath, two breaths, then began moving forward again.
Maybe the other man was out of bullets.
Why was he still in the train? And what were the boxes there for?
Another bomb.
Maybe the man was running to set it off.
As Dean reached the end of the coach he threw himself around the passage, diving headfirst into the other car. Dean began to run, racing through the coach. But as he sprang into car seventeen the air around him exploded with ricochets and shrapnel. He fired down the aisle of the car, the MP-5 shaking and then stuttering as he dove straight down to the floor, rolling and crawling and pushing behind the seats.
He was out of bullets.
Dean waited. When the terrorist didn’t come, he slid toward the aisle, gun-first. A fresh fusillade drove him back.
Sure that the man would be coming for him, he pushed against the bottom of the seat cushion, coiling his body, ready to spring out.
He’d use the gun as a battering ram, hope that he’d be lucky, or lucky enough not to be killed.
When the man didn’t appear, Dean told himself to wait — then changed his mind and slid the gun forward.
More rounds spat through the car, ricocheting and slapping around him. The seats were thick and the gunman had no angle, but the fact that Dean hadn’t been shot yet was
due largely to the gunman’s inexperience — if the terrorist had been trained better, he would have held his fire and closed the angle down patiently, relentlessly, seat by seat.
Dean glanced across the aisle at the acrylic shelving. He could see a reflection — the terrorist, lying at the end of the car, gun poised.
Why was he on the floor out in the middle of the aisle?
Dean slid his gun forward into the aisle. Another few rounds, poorly aimed.
There was only one reason he’d be on the floor — he’d been wounded so severely he couldn’t move.
But he had Dean pinned.
There were several bodies blocking anything but a shot from the aisle.
Dean climbed up into the seat, hunkering and gathering his breath. With a sudden heave he threw himself over the top of the chair, flying into the next row. The gunman didn’t catch on until Dean hit the cushion on the other side.
More gunfire — and then nothing, a click, the gun empty, a curse.
Had he heard that? Or did he want to hear that?
Dean jumped to his feet.
107
The gangway of the power car was claustrophobic and smelled like a burnt transformer. Ahmed sat in the engineer’s plush velvet seat and pushed the levers. The transformers behind them began to hum.
It was theoretically possible to escape at least the blast — they had less than ten miles to go and just over ten minutes to do it. They’d have to clear the tunnel by a good margin to escape the blast, but it was possible.
Did he want to live?
Allah was offering him a choice. If he escaped he might have other triumphs.
Or he might be captured. More likely the latter.
The train stuttered forward.
God wasn’t offering him the choice; the devil was. Mussa reached toward the red brake switch on the left. As his fingers reached it, he threw his body against Ahmed’s head and arms, grabbing for the gun with his other hand.
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