by J. B. Turner
A long sigh as he shook his head. “Martha, we need to shut this whole Metro and complex down, until we find him, that’s the only way.”
“I’ve asked for that. But sadly, that’s not an option, unfortunately.”
“Martha, so what are we looking for? Any six foot plus blond guy, carrying any sort of bag?”
Martha stared at the screen as her stomach tightened. “Doug, get your guys to start asking for ID. Now, I know that Caan and any accomplices may be carrying professional IDs. But they may not.”
“What about body searches? Pat downs?”
“That wouldn’t work. We’re looking for tiny vials, which might be disguised in another less obvious form. It would mean airport style scanning. We’ve got to just roll with it and try and use our eyes and ears.”
“This is insane, Martha.”
“Tell me about it. If anyone acts up, get them out of there.”
THIRTY-SIX
The sound of two chimes echoed around the platform before a station announcement. A woman’s voice boomed over the station tannoy. “See it? Say it. The Metro Transit Police would like to remind you if you see something out of the ordinary to please call the Metro Transit Police at 202-962-2121.”
Reznick watched the passengers thronging the Pentagon Metro platform. The smell from a cheeseburger being eaten by a young woman wafted his way. He felt sick at its odor. His nerves were jangling as he checked his watch. Where the hell was Caan? Had he escaped the Feds’ dragnet?
A buzzing noise in his earpiece.
“OK, people,” Stamper said. “We’re just being told that no man or woman is being allowed onto the platform without ID being checked, body searched and bags scanned. “Just so you know. Keep alert. And let’s keep our focus.”
Reznick knew from working with the Israelis that a cursory check of bags was pointless. It was all about profiling. While the Americans look for weapons, the Israelis look for terror suspects. Highly trained screeners interrogate El Al passengers at length as Israeli police watch for suspicious behaviour. But the Israelis follow this up with computerised passenger profiling, which checks for anomalies in a passenger’s travel plans, finances and profile.
The passengers on all El Al flights have to answer questions about why they are making the trip, where they are coming from and their occupation.
The chances of staying calm under such pressure were low.
Reznick scanned the platform surreptitiously and wondered what Scott Caan was thinking at that moment. If this indeed was a prelude to an attack, he would be wired. Psyched. But what were his motives?
The cameras, which were working around Crystal City, had not flagged up anything to the Feds’ face recognition software. Was Caan still in Crystal City? Had he slipped through the net? Shit, the guy could be anywhere.
His Red team was well spread out across the length of the platform as the rumble and roar of trains came and went. The pale red lights at the edge of the platform came on when a train arrived. The familiar two chimes echoed as passengers disembarked to the stairs and then the escalators. He could see crowds were bunching up as they came down the steps to the platform. The security checks were fraying nerves.
“What the hell’s going on?” a passing black man asked to his partner.
The crowds began to swell the platform, some people being squeezed up against the concrete pillars. The numbers kept on rising. Seventy, eighty, one hundred, two hundred and then well over three hundred.
A guy from behind him jostled Reznick. He spun around and a portly man in a suit was showing his hands. “Excuse me,” he said, blushing.
He had to push past a black woman with two children in a double buggy as the roar of a train sparked more jostling and pushing.
“Jon, let’s just ease up,” Stamper said.
Reznick didn’t feel like easing up, but he said nothing. He nodded to show Stamper that he had heard him. He had learned from his father that restraint was admirable and it was essential to think of the consequence of your actions.
The train approached the platform and screeched to a halt. The two chimes and the tannoy blared out instructions for the crowds to stand back as the doors opened. Hundreds of passengers streamed out into the large crowd of people gathered on the platform waiting to board the six-carriage train. Women in business suits talking into cell phones, a man chewing gum looking dead in the eyes with his sports bag over his shoulder, a couple of college kids wearing Georgetown sweat tops, talking and laughing loudly, blue collar guys, perhaps heading to or from their shift, soccer moms with their kids in tow.
Reznick took in each and every one in a microsecond whilst keeping one eye on those boarding. He tried to weigh up the way they carried themselves, how they related to other passengers, all in the blink of an eye.
The person who was attracting most of his attention was the young man wearing a white button down shirt, jeans and sneakers, chewing gum with a sports bag, standing at the far end of the platform. He had just got off the train and was lingering. Checking his watch. Twice. Thrice.
“Jeff,” Stamper said into his earpiece, “guy in the white shirt with the sports holdall. You got him?”
Reznick saw Jeff nodding.
“We have close-up cameras showing him looking highly agitated. His expression is changing from pained to paranoid, eyes darting real crazy. Escort him off the platform and find out what the hell is wrong with him. Something not right there.”
Jeff replied, “I’m moving in.” He stepped towards the well-built young man who looked around one hundred and eighty pounds, six foot plus, muscular build.
Reznick kept an eye on the guy as he glanced at those still boarding.
Stamper said, “He’s got a glazed expression, Jeff, what the hell is wrong with him? Get him out of there.”
Suddenly, the man groaned loudly and collapsed in a heap, clutching his chest, convulsing violently on the ground.
“What the hell…” Stamper said as Jeff crouched down to tend to the man.
“Call 911,” Jeff shouted as he saw a metal dog tag around the young man’s neck. “He’s epileptic. This man needs an ambulance.”
Slowly a crowd gathered round the man on the ground.
Reznick turned his attention back to the people boarding. It was at that moment that Reznick caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. A fraction of a second, if that.
A passenger with a black leather travel bag emerged from deep within the crowd, about to embark. The man studiously ignored the throng around the collapsed man and stepped onto the packed waiting train. It was a split second moment. Dark hair, Nike sneakers, jeans, grey hooded top, tortoiseshell glasses, carrying a bag. None of it matched the description they were given. But the way the man had glided past the concerned crowd without ever looking at the collapsed man grabbed Reznick’s attention.
Instinctively Reznick pushed through the waiting crowds before his earpiece crackled into life. “Jon! Jon! Guy wearing the grey sweatshirt. Recognition confirmed.”
“I got him.”
The doors began to close as Reznick shoved past the throng. Anguished shouts of protest. Four foot open, three foot open, two foot open, one foot.
The doors slammed shut.
“Goddamn,” Reznick said. He frantically pressed the button for it to open, but it stayed resolutely closed. He pulled out a slim flick knife he’d earlier hidden and jammed it into the doors. He worked it like he was working a lock. The passengers on the train looked horrified, some trying to get away from the doors. Reznick clenched his teeth. “Open you fucker!” he said. He felt some give. A centimeter. Then an inch. He managed to get his hands around each side of the door and pulled with every fiber of his being until he prized open the doors and stepped onto the train. He closed his knife and put it in his back pocket as alarmed passengers stared and the doors shut tight behind him.
The train pulled away and Reznick squeezed his way past the passengers around the doors and headed t
owards the next carriage up. But the passengers were packed in like sardines. The sound of banging on the window and he caught sight of Jeff running alongside, banging the glass as the train departed the station.
“Jon! Jon!” Stamper snapped.
“I’m on board.”
“Jon, you have no authority! I repeat, you have no authority.”
“I’m eyes and ears, remember?”
Stamper’s voice was crackling with tension. “Jon, can you eyeball the guy?”
Reznick looked down the carriage and squeezed past the standing passengers. “Negative. I’m in the sixth carriage, right at the back. I think he’s at the front.”
“Shit. Did you see him getting on the train?”
“Affirmative.”
“Eyes and ears, Jon. Do not approach Caan. We have two guys on this train and we have a reception party at the next stop, Pentagon City.”
Reznick ignored the instruction as he squeezed past more passengers and entered through into the second rear carriage of the train. He was sure the target had got on near the front of the platform, perhaps the first and most forward carriage. “Out of my way!” he roared, and he pushed through the throng again, but he wasn’t making the progress he needed.
The smell of strong cologne mixed with oil from the tracks lingered in the air as the train hurtled through the tunnel at breakneck speed. Deeper and deeper into the tunnel, closer and closer to the destination.
The seconds were fast disappearing.
Reznick rammed through the passengers into the third carriage from the rear, pushing and shoving anyone and everyone.
Three more to go.
He was only halfway through the third carriage as the train began to slow down.
Not going to make it.
He began to physically push passengers aside as he barged into the next carriage, the second from the front. He was stopped in his tracks. There were a hundred or so people standing in his way. The operator’s voice over the tannoy announced, “Pentagon City Station. We will shortly be approaching Pentagon City Station.”
The train’s brakes began to screech.
He pushed past a few archetypal military types wearing ID badges, some holding briefcases. They were going to get off at the Pentagon Metro, the next stop but one. No question. “Negative.”
The darkness of the tunnel seemed to go on forever.
Reznick’s mind went into tight focus mode. He was still in the third carriage and once the train stopped at the next station there would only be a minute till the target destination. He wondered if he shouldn’t just get out of the emergency doors in the middle of the second carriage and out onto the platform, and enter the first carriage from the platform. But the throng inside was too much. Besides, there was no guarantee he would get into the first carriage with hundreds of people from the platform possibly trying to get onto the train.
He had to push on through.
“Out of my fucking way!” he said.
A huge white guy stood up and blocked his way. Short haircut, smart suit, and shiny black shoes. Pentagon type.
“Hey, buddy, you wanna try and cool it down,” he said. “There are women and children in the carriage if you hadn’t noticed.”
Reznick pushed past him but felt himself being pulled back by the collar. He swung round and kicked the guy hard between the legs. The man groaned and scrunched up his face in agony. Then he crumpled in a heap on the carriage floor as a couple of women began screaming.
“What the hell is that?” Stamper asked.
Reznick ignored Stamper and brushed past more people. “Out of my fucking way!” he shouted again. Twenty or more people were between him and the doors to the first carriage.
“Jon, what the hell is going on?”
Reznick moved forward. As he made it to the door of the first carriage, he heard a man shout, “FBI, freeze, put your hands in the air!”
Reznick stood still. All around shocked and scared faces. Time seemed to slow.
Then the sound of semi-automatic gunfire and screaming rang out, as mayhem ensued.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Meyerstein and her team stood and listened in horror as the intermittent bursts of gunfire and high-pitched screaming from the Metro train cut the air like a knife as it sped towards Pentagon City Metro. The real-time feed from inside the carriages had gone down and the screens were blank.
“OK, talk to me people, who’s doing the shooting?” she asked, looking around at her team. “I need a visual from the carriages. All we have is audio. What the hell has happened to the on-board feed?” She pointed across to the IT specialist. “How close are we to getting the on-board video feed back up and running?”
The senior FBI computer guy, Gus Shields, punched in keys as he tried to get a connection to the feed.
Meyerstein turned and looked across at Roy Stamper. “I’m staring at static and listening to gunshots. Do we still have people on that train? I specifically said I wanted two people per carriage. And what has happened to Reznick’s feed? Goddamn it!”
Stamper pressed his earpiece. “Hold on, Martha.” He shook his head and looked across the room at Martha as he received an update. “Martha, this train was delayed from starting on the Blue Line. The guys we have riding on the trains were placed there within the last hour. We have only two agents on this train.”
“But I asked for two per carriage. What the hell happened?”
“Christ knows.”
“Who are our guys on the train?”
“Special Agents Jacobsen and Meigle. They’re relatively inexperienced. ID’d the target shortly before the feed went down.”
Meyerstein pointed at a female IT specialist. “Play the last sequence we have of them. I can’t believe they gave a verbal warning, what the hell were they thinking? We are facing an imminent threat. Didn’t they have full authority to use deadly force, Roy?”
Stamper nodded, grim-faced. “They were all given specific instructions to use deadly force.”
The young woman punched in a few keys on her desktop. Then the sound boomed out across the investigations room. “Jacobsen, here. I got a visual. I repeat, I got a visual. Front carriage.”
Meyerstein began to pace the room. “Talk to me about the video feed. Do you think the signal is being jammed? Have our guys been taken out?”
Shields shrugged. “Ma’am, we’re trying to get an override feed in. Gimme a couple of minutes.”
“Soon as you can.”
“Working on it,” he said, frantically punching away at the keys of his laptop.
The shooting had stopped, but the panicked screams and shouting continued. The sounds from the carriage added to the febrile atmosphere in the conference room. She sensed it and felt all her team were locked in that moment as the train hurtled through the tunnel. A couple of phones started ringing as Stamper barked out orders telling the FBI’s SWAT team to hold fire.
Meyerstein zoned out the noise and adjusted her headset. “Special Agent Jacobsen and Special Agent Meigle, do you read me, this is Assistant Director Martha Meyerstein, do you copy, over?”
High-pitched screaming from a woman on the train pierced the chatter in the command center.
“Jacobsen and Meigle, do you read me, respond urgently, what is going on? Jacobsen and Meigle, this is the command center, do you read me, over?”
Meyerstein stood shaking her head, hands on hips. She looked over at the computer guy. “We have an audio feed, so why can’t I hear my two Special Agents in the first carriage?”
Suddenly three of the plasma screens came into life. The room fell silent for a few moments. Half a dozen men and women and a couple of children were writhing and moaning in agony. A couple of tiny bloody hands moving at the edge of the picture. Blood splatter on seats and floor. Abandoned bags and coats strewn over seats.
Slowly, the camera panned around. The slumped bodies of the two FBI agents sprawled on the floor of the carriage, blood and grey brain matter all around, some sme
ared on the windows.
“Oh my good God,” Shields said, wincing in horror. An audible gasp went round the room as some covered their mouths at what they were witnessing.
Meyerstein felt her stomach churn. “Oh shit, Roy, are these our guys?” She turned to look at Stamper whose eyes were dead.
“Affirmative, Martha. That’s them.”
“OK, we need to concentrate, people. We’ve got a job to do.” She pointed to the screens. “Top right, behind the operator’s compartment, that’s Scott Caan, staring out of the window, his back to us. Middle left there is a guy with a gun. Could this be the wingman, people?”
Stamper just nodded. “Has to be.”
“Freeze the camera right there!” she shouted. “And run the face recognition software.”
Shields nodded. “I’m on it.”
“Roy, alert the three teams on the platform at Pentagon City Metro right away. OK, computer guy, let’s pan around the rest of the carriage.” A few moments later they saw that around a dozen terrified passengers were huddled, some seriously injured, a couple not moving, some still screaming, squashed in the corner. “We’ve got to predict what Caan’s next move will be. And we also need to get those people out of there.”
Stamper adjusted his headset, “Martha, SWAT team leader is just waiting for the green light to go in.”
“This has to be about containment, just now.”
“Martha, we need to get these people off the train!”
“Roy, they are not top priority. We can’t risk them releasing material. We’ve got to watch and wait. We’ve got to think of the big picture.” She turned round and looked across at the SWAT expert, a former Marine, Eric Holden, who was nodding. “Eric?”
“If we go in, we’ll free most of the hostages from the rear of the train. We could set off a flash bomb and stun grenades and recover the passengers, no question. But the situation is all wrong. I say the same. Watch and wait.”
Meyerstein felt her heart racing. “I also want to know where the hell Reznick is. Where is he when all this is happening?”