Parallel Lies

by Ridley Pearson

Tyler wore a pair of NUR maintenance coveralls over black slacks and a white shirt and tie. With a navy blue knit cap pulled down low over his ears, he exposed as little of his face as possible. To complete the disguise, Priest had suggested he carry an aluminum clipboard. She said all NUR maintenance guys carried them. The idea was for Tyler to have the run of the place; he’d seen Alvarez on the Crawfordsville Amtrak, however briefly, and felt hopeful he might identify him from the man’s build or the way he moved. In the early morning half light, with only six security personnel working the site, it seemed doubtful much attention would be paid to one more maintenance man walking around with his clipboard.

  Tyler’s knees ached, and whenever he opened his eyes the claustrophobia got to him. With his leg muscles cramping and his stomach sour, he held the demons at bay through concentration and determination; this minor victory felt to him like a major accomplishment.

  Nell had been gone from the car for at least ten minutes. It felt much longer to him.

  First, she would explain her unscheduled arrival at Raritan. Her line would be that as Gretchen Goheen’s personal bodyguard for the test run, she had arrived to take a firsthand look at security preparations. She believed her recent promotion, along with the early hour, would limit the opposition she encountered—she would outrank anyone here.

  Minutes later, Tyler twitched as Nell knocked on the trunk. He threw it open and sucked in the fresh air as he slipped out, his cramped legs failing him as he sank to a crouch. Priest kept watch, scanning the area.

  Her voice sounded like a clenched fist. “Go!” she said.

  The calling of geese drew attention to the black V as it arced out over the river and a hundred birds set their wings for landing.

  Clipboard in hand, Tyler hurried to the far side of a line of abandoned train cars, dropped into a lazy walk, and slowly approached the F-A-S-T Track, a sleek, silver monstrosity, looking like a space shuttle without wings.

  The closer he came, the more people he spotted: a pair of uniformed security guards to his left but walking away from him; a pair of maintenance men inspecting the suspension of a forward car. Tyler stopped beneath the huge locomotive with its angular twin windshields of tinted glass. Its sleek design lent it a menacing presence.

  He kneeled by and stuck his face half under its frame, as if inspecting. Only then did he realize its huge electric diesel engine was idling, its gentle rumble barely a purr.

  Though dressed in maintenance coveralls, he had no desire to encounter other maintenance personnel. He hoped to reach the boss first and make his case. He circled around the front of the locomotive and walked down the busier side of the train, his heart pounding, his stomach still upset.

  Everyone had a job to do, and this helped him. The area hummed with activity. Maintenance personnel, inside and out, inspected various elements of the train while just behind them a team of security guards made a final sweep of each car. This task completed, the guards applied Day-Glo stickers to the train car doors, sealing them.

  At the far end of the train, Tyler spotted a guard handling a German shepherd, presumably a bomb-sniffer. Tyler glanced up at the first passenger car and quickly lowered his head, tricked briefly by the eerie, unflinching eyes of crashtest dummies. Only a few rows of seats in this forward car were occupied, but their presence gave him a chill. Male, female, children, and infants, the effect was too real not to be jarring: some publicity person’s idea of lending realism to the “test run,” the effect was haunting.

  Tyler kept his head bent, his clipboard out in front of him. He kept walking, knowing that moving targets were more difficult to hit. He could not afford to be identified as an imposter.

  He picked up movement to his left and glanced up to see Nell Priest carrying a large pink box that he knew contained doughnuts. She approached an abandoned train car being used as a temporary office. With its lights powered by a noisy generator, its windows were fogged, obscuring any of the activities inside. A moment later, a man whistled loudly and announced, “Doughnuts and coffee for anyone who wants them!”

  The diversion worked brilliantly. At five-thirty in the morning, most, but not all, made for the temporary field office.

  Tyler attempted to put himself into Alvarez’s head, looking for a hiding place despite the security. According to Nell, no train had ever undergone this kind of security and thorough maintenance inspection. As he witnessed the sealing of each of these cars, Tyler became convinced that Alvarez would have to try to board the train, probably in disguise, just as Tyler was. He assumed this attempt would come on the platform at Penn Station—perhaps Alvarez intended to assault and take the place of a reporter, or a caterer. Or perhaps he, too, was dressed in maintenance coveralls and carrying an aluminum clipboard.

  As the doughnut feed went on, Tyler noticed a small group of maintenance personnel gathered below the door of the locomotive.

  Among these three was a tall, burly man who wore khakis and a dark blue jacket bearing large yellow lettering on the back: F-A-S-TTRACK CREW CHIEF. One of the three looked down the line, noticed Tyler, and signaled him. Tyler lifted his clipboard, returning the wave. The crew chief was just the man he wanted.

  The most effective place to hide is out in the open, the cop in Tyler reminded. This had been drummed into him as a rookie patrolman—suspects were typically not found hiding in basements or crawl spaces, more often they were standing on the street corner or occupying a bar stool. He walked toward the locomotive, closing the distance with the maintenance men, his stomach in a knot. As the maintenance team, including the crew chief, climbed a ladder into the locomotive, Tyler thought through his approach. Maintenance would not be too surprised by the arrival of an NTSB agent. Nor would they expect to have been forewarned. Surprise inspections were commonplace. By now they might have been shown a photo of Alvarez, being asked to keep a weather eye out. But they wouldn’t know Tyler’s face, nor should they be shocked to learn the feds had sent in an undercover agent.

  Cupping his federal shield in his right hand, Tyler stepped up to the two maintenance men still on the ground and displayed it. “I need to speak to your crew chief,” Tyler announced. These two looked him up and down, that badge and his NUR coveralls clearly convincing. One of the two nodded.

  “Sure thing,” he answered.

  “Without a fuss,” Tyler said. “We want to keep this as low profile as possible.”

  “No sweat,” the man returned. “You are?”

  “NTSB,” Tyler replied. Of all the federal agencies he might have mentioned, none would sound alarm in a maintenance crew more than this one.

  The man climbed the ladder—aerodynamically built into the side of the huge locomotive—and opened the door. A moment later the crew chief appeared and said down to Tyler,

  “What’s up?”

  “In private,” Tyler said quietly.

  The man nodded. “Come on up.” He, and the man who had announced him, switched places.

  Tyler climbed into the cab and closed the door. The space was warm, the engine’s satisfying purr felt as a slow rumble in his legs. The forward panel, a mass of small lights—LCD and LED indicators—reminded Tyler of a commercial jet cockpit.

  The driver, a thin-faced man in his late thirties, wore corduroy pants, a white shirt bearing the Northern Union Railroad F-A-S-T Track logo, and a company tie—a far cry from the soot-smeared face and goggles of steam engine days. He was flanked by a skinny, fortysomething Frenchman wearing an Armani suit, a brakeman, and the big bear of a crew chief.

  All four of them wore laminated security tags either clipped to their clothing or hung around their necks. Tyler did not, and he wondered if this might stop him before he ever got started.

  The crew chief said, “You’ve got some ID?”

  Tyler passed him the shield and then unbuttoned the coveralls and withdrew his fed creds. The crew chief looked them over and then introduced himself as Coopersmith. “So what’s an NTSB agent doing dressed as one of my team?”r />
  “In private,” Tyler reminded.

  The crew chief looked irritated but acquiesced. “Engine room.” He showed Tyler into a loud room filled floor to ceiling with complex machinery. It smelled bitter, of electricity, not diesel fuel. “Now what the hell is going on? You’re pulling a surprise inspection at five on the morning of a test run?” the man asked angrily.

  “I’m a criminal investigator, not an inspector,” Tyler corrected, watching as the man’s anger subsided into a stunned surprise. “You can verify my presence here by calling Deputy Director Rucker. I’m sure you and your crew have been briefed to keep watch for the Latino, Umberto Alvarez,” Tyler said. “That’s what this is about, and it’s crucial that Northern Union Security not know I’m here, which is why I’m wearing the maintenance coveralls.” He was making this up on the fly, but it sounded convincing, even to him. He pressed on. The crew chief nodded, clearly somewhat overwhelmed. Tyler began to sense he was in control. “To pull this off, I’m going to need a little cooperation out of you and your men,” he said.

  “Why not security?” Coopersmith asked, regaining his composure and sounding somewhat suspicious.

  “Are you familiar with the term Need to Know?” Tyler asked.

  “Don’t hand me that shit. I need to know, or else security is going to know, pal. Count on it.”

  “I have reason to believe Alvarez will attempt to board this train,” Tyler said, “if he hasn’t already.” Hurrying, to stay ahead of the other man’s thoughts, he continued, “And if that has happened, or if it is even possible, then which department would have to be part of his plans?”

  Coopersmith’s face blanched and his eyes went wide. “You’re bullshitting me!”

  Tyler shook his head, his chest in a knot. The walls of the engine room began to move toward him. He felt hot and short of breath. He pushed against this, and it eased. It was the first time in many months that he had controlled it, not the other way around.

  “I need two things out of you and your people,” Tyler said.

  The big man nodded.

  “One is to get a message to the woman who just arrived on-site: Ms. Nell Priest. She is security, and she’s the only one who knows I’m here. She’s expecting to hear from me, through you. The second job is for you and your men to find a place on this train where I can hide until it’s under way, preferably in the passenger cars, because that’s where we believe Alvarez is most likely to strike.” For authenticity, he tried to sound like he knew what he was talking about. “The rear dining cars should have been sealed by now. But if so, they’ve been sealed by security personnel, so you can see the reason for our concern.”

  “Holy shit!” the big man barked. “You’re telling me this guy may already be on board?”

  “Security is the last to check the cars before sealing them,” Tyler replied. Fueling this man’s paranoia, he added, “How perfect is that?”

  “We can break any seal we want,” the crew chief advised Tyler. “We have full access to this train.”

  Tyler found his first smile in days. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said.

  CHAPTER 31

  Suspended beneath the bullet train in what amounted to a hammock made of nylon strapping, Alvarez had a bad case of nerves. He heard the scurry of dog paws as well as the banter of excited voices nearby. The chassis shook. Excitement rippled through him. The bullet train was moving.

  He quickly worked to remove the window shade that concealed him. He rolled it up and stored it alongside himself, ready to deploy it at the next stop, whether the Meadows yard or Penn Station. He’d rehearsed this procedure many times, and he pulled it off smoothly.

  The train picked up speed, the railbed blurring only a few feet below him.

  If his plan held, he would remain in his hiding place until the bullet train entered the tunnel as it departed Penn Station.

  The train traveled at lower speeds for its short trip north; Alvarez’s handheld GPS, a satellite mapping device, indicated a ground speed of sixty miles an hour. As he’d anticipated, the train stopped in the Meadows yard to take on additional passenger cars. Taking no chances, he replaced the camouflaged window shade during this down time, although as it turned out, only the newly added cars were inspected. Shortly after its arrival at Meadows, the complete F-A-S-T Track departed for Penn Station. The gala test run was now only hours away.

  “What makes this work for you,” Coopersmith, the maintenance crew chief, informed Tyler, as the two stood in front of a passenger car’s mechanical closet in the forwardmost passenger car, “is that this space can only be locked and unlocked from the outside, the aisle side, meaning that the security guys will simply check to make sure it’s still locked. They won’t bother opening it. I’ve seen their routine.”

  The French-built passenger cars housed a mechanical room adjacent to the wheelchair-accessible lavatory. This mechanical space was itself divided into two sections by a thick plastic floor-to-ceiling barrier protecting a rack of sensitive electronics. Behind that divider there was just enough room for a man to stand.

  Coopersmith continued, “These goons? I doubt they’re even aware of these electronics compartments.”

  “So essentially I’m locked inside.”

  “Until me or one of my guys comes along and unlocks you. Yeah. But that’s the beauty of it, right? I mean, who would think to look?”

  “I’m claustrophobic,” Tyler explained. He wondered if Alvarez might know about these spaces. “This just isn’t going to work.”

  “Then you tell me,” an annoyed crew chief stated.

  “You passed my message along to the woman agent?” Tyler checked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Will you, or any of your team, be aboard the train during the test?”

  “Me, plus four. Two up front in the engine room, two back in car five. In case we’re needed.”

  “Can a person get between the locomotive and the passenger cars once under way?”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  Tyler suspected security would not pay much, if any, attention to a couple of on-duty maintenance men riding in jump seats in the engine room. Added to that, they were looking for Alvarez, a Latino, not an ex-cop working undercover, whereas anyone in the passenger cars—even maintenance men—were likely to come under more scrutiny. Tyler said, “Can you put me with your guys up in the locomotive?”

  “Claustrophobic or not, you’re way better off in this mechanical closet. It’s small, loud, and hot up in that engine room.”

  “Just the same, it’s the engine room,” Tyler said with finality.

  The crew chief viewed him oddly. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Tyler was tempted to give a snide answer, but he kept his mouth shut.

  CHAPTER 32

  15 Minutes

  Track 7

  Penn Station

  “I hesitate to attempt to rework well-worn clichés about breaking new ground or ushering in the new millennium, but the fact is, clichéd or not, this is an historic moment. We—all of us—stand on this platform, Pennsylvania Station’s track seven, about to embark on a journey made possible by a new technology that could revolutionize train travel both in the United States and abroad, for decades to come. I’m proud to say that Northern Union owns patents on the GPS gyro-stabilizing mechanism in the new F-A-S-T Track system, and that this technology, which allows high-speed trains to run on existing track, is, and will remain, uniquely American. But at the same time, I must tip my hat to our French consultants and manufacturers, Vitesse, as well as to the hundreds of Japanese designers who conceived of, and carried out, the dream of electric high-speed train travel decades ago.” Goheen’s voice reverberated into the chilly cement bunker in the bowels of Penn Station, furious that at the last minute the rail station manager had decided against letting his speech be delivered in the central concourse upstairs, where it belonged. The media, the mayor, the senator and her aides, the New York secretary of transportati
on, and a host of investors all shivered, pretending to look toward the podium with interest. Goheen realized brevity ruled the day and cut his speech short by nearly two-thirds.

  Keith O’Malley stood just behind Goheen and to the man’s left, his eyes roaming the crowd.

  Long ago, when William Goheen had realized the president of a national grocery distribution network could not rely upon public law enforcement to tend to the needs of private commerce, O’Malley had been called in to “be effective.” Collectively, corporations spent tens of millions on private security, and not all of it was clean. Lines blurred. Laws failed to protect. The Keith O’Malleys took charge. On occasion, people got roughed up, threatened, blackmailed, their private lives dragged in front of the media, but the trains kept running and thirty thousand miles of track remained open, just as the stockholders, the consumers, and the politicians demanded. Goheen intuited what went on without knowing the details. He had a railroad to run. From their inception, railroads had been tough. Not much had changed.

  For Goheen, this moment in Penn Station was the realization of a great dream, never mind that his speech was being given in an ugly, underground space. He felt shivers, and it wasn’t from the cold. He had brought his dream to fruition, overcoming a dozen obstacles that his critics had once claimed were insurmountable. Excitement stirred within him, and he saw it in a few of the faces out there as well. A rebirth. A reinvention. It had not been so very long ago that as a boy he had stood over a Lionel train set and had played with it to his heart’s content. Now, thanks to him, the dying industry of passenger rail travel was to be revitalized. Someday soon, people would ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in just under two hours; Portland to Seattle in forty-five minutes. Chicago to New York in five hours. A joint marketing program with Ford and Honda would put ticket-carrying passengers into electric cars in their destination city at a rate of ten dollars a day. Slowly—he knew it wouldn’t happen overnight—rail travel would regain acceptance, the commuter traffic on highways would lessen, and air quality would improve in major metropolitan areas. And all thanks to his wonder train.