Iron Dove

by Leon, Judith

  The conductor or porter—whoever he was—simply stared at them.

  She hit a rock; the front wheel of the bike jerked left. She nearly lost it. She gunned the gas and leaned hard to stay upright. Half a foot more to the right and she would have spun down the embankment into the muddy water of the murky, weed-lined ditch.

  The uniformed guy shook his head, lifted his palms up and shrugged in what was probably a universal gesture meaning, “I don’t get it.”

  And then he pulled a phone out of his pocket.

  He listened for a few seconds, then he closed the phone and gestured toward the last door and then withdrew into the train, heading toward the rear. He must have gotten the message that there was an emergency, that two agents were to come aboard and take charge.

  She throttled back a bit. So did Joe. The silver door at the rear entry slid open revealing the three steps and then the platform of the gangway, upon which stood their thin train employee. Joe yelled in Italian, “I am going to jump on.”

  With no further explanation, Joe steered his bike onto the ties close up to the door, lifted his outside leg over the seat, and jumped onto the first, lowest, step. With an angry roar, the bike spun off behind him, somersaulting with a great, brown, muddy splash into the ditch.

  Her turn.

  She imitated Joe’s moves, got close to the door, saw him grinning and holding out his arms, ready to catch if she should miss the step or failed to grab the handrails.

  She leapt.

  Chapter 34

  Khangi slid his hand inside his dust coat and rested it on the butt of his Beretta. He felt reassured, and he needed that sense at the moment. Clearly something had gone wrong at some level because Ali’s picture had been on the kiosk TV. The announcer had described Ali as extremely dangerous, to be reported at once but not approached. When a guard approached as they were leaving, he and his men had fired. At least four guards had been killed or wounded.

  So how much did the authorities know? That was the question.

  This Eurostar stopped in Florence and then Milan before going on to Munich. Their original plan called for them to get off and circulate in the stations of all three cities, and then buy tickets to Paris.

  Two of the men carried backpacks with a change of clothing for each of them. That’s what he’d do next. He’d have Ali and then the others change clothes, discreetly, one at a time, Ali first. Then, in Florence they would get off separately. Buy tickets to Milan separately. In fact, he should probably have them separate right now. Why hadn’t he thought of that at once, when they were buying the tickets for this accursed train?

  Having come forward from the rear of the car, his second-in-command, Talha, squatted beside him and spoke in Italian. “There’s a boy right behind me. He has one of those satellite TV things and he just saw Ali’s picture. I heard him say to his girlfriend that the person on the TV is on the train. They are talking right now about who they should call.”

  Khangi leaped to his feet, Beretta in hand. “He can’t be allowed to call anyone. Which one is he?”

  Following Talha, Khangi strode to the car’s rear. People they passed, seeing the Beretta, murmured in alarm. When he reached a red-headed youth and Talha nodded, Khangi stuck the gun in the boy’s face and snatched the mini-TV receiver out of his hands.

  Looking around the car, Khangi yelled in Italian, “We are taking over this car. Don’t anyone move.”

  His soldiers all leapt up and drew their weapons, including the four who carried the automatic rifles under their dust coats.

  “Don’t anyone move,” Khangi repeated.

  He ordered three of his men, including Ali, to search every person for a cell phone or any other means of outside communication while the other five stood guard.

  A man near the rear door leaped up and started to run out. Khangi shot him in the back. He fell facedown into the aisle.

  The passengers sucked in a collective breath. A woman screamed and stood; Talha silenced her by hitting her with his Beretta. She fell back into her seat, unconscious. The man on the floor didn’t die at once. Blood oozed out of the entry wound in his light pink shirt. Other women sobbed. Of course, within forty-eight hours virtually all of these people would be dead anyway and he’d given the man a quick and clean death—something they might all soon envy.

  “Silence,” he shouted. He had to shout it several more times and threaten with the Beretta to get the terrified passengers to shut up.

  To Talha he said in Arabic, “Change of plans. They might be waiting for us in Florence. We must take over the train and stop it before it gets there. Get off at a place we choose, God willing. We’ll take the whole train hostage. You take two men. Go forward and find the conductor. Don’t alarm the passengers in other cars. We don’t want them agitated. Any passenger that comes in here, they will stay. No one will go back to the rear. Understood?”

  Talha nodded, signaled to two others, and the three of them went forward to find the conductor.

  Chapter 35

  Nova caught the first step and the handrails, and threw herself into Joe’s arms. He hugged her tight. The rear door slid closed behind them.

  She clung to him like a tango dance partner, her right leg between his thighs. With the train’s gentle swaying, she could feel his every movement as if they were dancing—or making love. She couldn’t look at him, but for a long moment she felt and thought nothing else, just his body and that she didn’t want to let go.

  Joe let go first. He climbed backward up the two steps to the platform, holding her hand to lead her up with him.

  In English, their trainman said, “I understand we have a problem. I am to give you whatever assistance you need. What is wrong?”

  “Are you the conductor?” she asked.

  “No. I’m a porter.”

  Joe said, “So where is the conductor?”

  “He is in the first car, dealing with first-class passengers. Taking their tickets and so on. He said there is an emergency. He instructed me to aid you. Can you, please, I would like to know, what is happening. He said he was told only that we are to do whatever you wish.”

  “We can’t say just yet what’s happening,” she offered, realizing that would hardly satisfy him.

  Joe punched in Cesare’s number and asked for an update. When he hung up he said, “We do nothing yet. Just wait for instructions.”

  “Why isn’t the train stopping?” she asked.

  “He just said, wait.”

  “I want some privacy,” she said, knowing that Joe would understand that she meant privacy from the porter. She stepped from the gangway through the door into the compartment of the end car and found herself by lavatories. Picking one, she closed the door behind her at the same time punching the number Star had given her.

  Maggie’s sweet voice answered. “Maggie, love,” Nova said. “It’s your aunt Nova.”

  “Auntie Nova! It’s great to hear from you. I’m in Italy, you know.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you. So has your mom.”

  “We just got back from dinner. I was just going to call Mom.”

  “I’m also in Italy—”

  “Oooh. Neat.”

  “Maggie, hon, I can hardly explain anything, but I’m going to tell you to do something and you have to do it. No questions. Just do it.”

  “Sure, Auntie Nova, okay. What’s the deal?”

  Nova asked where Maggie and the Robertsons were located exactly. It was an inn in a village not far north of Amalfi. They were on the third day of their trip and expected to leave tomorrow to go to the next town. When Nova explained that she wanted Maggie and all of the Robertson family to buy food and water for fifteen days, pay for rooms at the inn and go into those rooms and refuse to come out or have contact with any other living human being until news on the TV said it was safe to come out, Maggie fell dead silent.

  “Did you hear me?” Nova asked.

  “You gotta be kiddin’, Auntie Nova.”

 
“No, love, I’m not. Is Mrs. Robertson there with you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  When Gayle Robertson came on the line, Nova said, “Gayle, you must do what I say to save Maggie and your family. Literally save them from death.” She lied, saying she was on a tour. No choices about that. She still could not tell all. She said she knew someone with inside information in Italy, explained what she wanted them to do and added that it was too late for them to fly out of the country.

  Gayle’s voice was full of doubt. “I just find what you’re asking, well, are you serious? Why?”

  “Gayle, do it. Your family’s lives depend on what I’m asking of you. I know it’s a lot to take on faith. But please, I beg you, do it.”

  To her credit, and perhaps due to the fact that Gayle had long been an admirer of what she called Nova’s adventurous lifestyle, Gayle said solemnly, “I’ll do what you say. For Maggie’s sake, and for my own.”

  Nova rang off. Would holing up in an inn provide enough safety? Would they really do what she’d asked soon enough? What more could she do?

  You need to stop thinking about Maggie now! Concentrate on what must be done right here in order to save thousands if not millions. Maybe including Maggie.

  Chapter 36

  “Man, I can’t wait any longer,” Joe muttered when Nova returned to him and the porter. “I have to know why we aren’t stopping. This feels bad.”

  Exactly Nova’s own sentiments.

  Joe called Cesare and listened, tapping a finger against the phone the entire time.

  “The plan,” Joe said when he finished, “is to let the train reach a remote, depopulated area, and then have the engineer stop it. We’ll surround it and quarantine everyone until the disease runs it course. They’ll also do that with the other trains that recently left Termini Station.”

  The porter, a distressed wrinkle in his brow, echoed Joe. “Quarantine?”

  She asked, “We don’t do anything?”

  “Not until we’re given a go-ahead. About fifteen minutes before the train is supposed to stop, we find the carrier and the thugs and make sure the carrier doesn’t escape from the train. That’s the main thing he emphasized. We keep the carrier from getting off the train at all costs. Period. His exact words were, ‘If you alarm the passengers or stir up anything prematurely, before we can get a quarantine in place, God knows what might happen. We can’t risk it.’”

  The porter grabbed her arm. “Now! I must know what is happening.”

  “This is Diego,” Joe said, introducing the porter to her officially. “I’ve told him who we are, Jane and James Blake. I’ve also explained that we’re armed because we’re private security guards on vacation who just happened into the middle of some very nasty stuff. We’ve agreed to leave it at that.”

  She smiled at the porter, a man with a twinkle in his eye who probably had four kids and a wife who loved him. There was a fairly good chance that he had come in contact with Ali at some point. Maybe not. She hoped not. But then, many people on this train might very well die and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

  “Well, Diego. We need your help, and I’m opposed to lying to people if I can avoid it. You do deserve to know.”

  She explained about Ali and that anyone in contact with him could fall deadly ill.

  “You can, if you like, stay here at the back for as long as possible. I suppose that’s what I’d do.”

  With eyes now as big as pasta plates, Diego said, “So, you two are going to die?”

  “We’re vaccinated against it. It’s a long story that I can’t share.”

  “Sweet Madonna.” The man slumped against the gangway wall. “What about the rest of the crew? Can’t I tell them?”

  “Not yet,” Joe said. “We let them behave normally until my partner and I receive instructions.”

  Diego stepped as far away from them as he could, probably not even aware of it, and probably because subconsciously he wanted to run as far as he could as fast as he could. But there was no place to run to.

  Khangi had cleared passengers out of the front two rows of seats. The conductor in his dark blue uniform, beads of sweat on his upper lip and trickling down his forehead, sat in one of them, in front of Khangi. Talha held the conductor’s fingers spread apart on the arm of the chair. From the sheath strapped to his calf, Khangi pulled out a knife with a seven-inch, serrated blade, designed for gutting or skinning.

  “If I don’t believe any of your answers, I’m going to cut off a finger,” Khangi explained, his voice soft, calm, and firm. Given that the conductor had seen and reacted with appropriate fear to the dead man’s body, left to lie where it had fallen, Khangi hoped he could easily obtain the answers he needed.

  The conductor simply pressed his lips firmly together.

  “How many porters are on this train, and do they know how to operate the emergency brakes?”

  Those pressed lips failed to move.

  Khangi pressed the sharp edge of the blade over the conductor’s thumb. “I’m in a hurry. I’m not going to start with your little finger. I’ll cut off your thumb and for the rest of your life you’ll find out how impossible it is to do much of anything without one.”

  Rapid eyeblinking from the conductor.

  “So I ask again, how many porters are on this train, and can they operate the emergency brakes?”

  He pressed down on the blade and a little line of red appeared on the top of the thumb.

  “I—I—I’ll tell,” the conductor blurted, then licked his lips.

  “So?”

  “There are six, one for each car. Some may know how to operate many things, but only I can order an emergency stop without an obvious cause, and only I have a key.”

  “A key. Let me have it.”

  With his left hand, the conductor pointed to one of the keys on a key chain that had already been taken from him.

  Assured now that none of the train personnel could interfere with his plan of action, Khangi said to Talha, “Take Faroud with you, and take this man forward. Get control of the engine. Threaten to kill this conductor if the engineer doesn’t want to let you into the engine cab. Have Faroud stay in the engine.”

  Saddoun said, “Let me go with Talha.”

  Khangi snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re too young.”

  Khangi turned back to Talha. “Once in the engine cab, Faroud is to take orders only from me. You come back and let me know when it’s done.”

  Talha yanked the shaking conductor to his feet, and he and Faroud shoved the man toward the door leading to Car No. 2.

  Khangi looked at al Hassan’s eager son. Saddoun would have made a fine warrior, much against his father’s wishes, but Allah had chosen otherwise. At three o’clock, just before they were to leave for Rome, Saddoun had shown up at the apartment and demanded to be included in the guard. He had simply walked inside. It was he who had listened from the bedroom to learn the time of meeting. There had been no chance to stop him. He had walked in and announced that his father had sent him.

  For a moment, Khangi had been so shocked, as they all had, that nothing had been said. But then Khangi found his voice and had almost called Saddoun a liar. Sadness overcame anger however, and tamed his tongue. “You should not have come,” he’d said. “And your father did not send you. But now that it’s done and cannot be undone, let me explain exactly what is happening.”

  To his credit, Saddoun had taken his death sentence bravely. He had learned the time of the meeting, but nothing of the actual nature of the mission. “Then I will honor Allah and my father with a martyr’s death,” he had said.

  “I will call him.”

  “No,” Saddoun had protested. “Why anger or sadden him? Let him learn when we have achieved a great success. You can tell him then that I was brave.”

  Khangi smiled at Saddoun, sitting in his train seat with a sullen pout on his face. “So you want to do something? You get all these
cattle,” he gestured to the passengers, “to lie down on the floor.”

  Chapter 37

  She had waited with growing impatience for more than ten minutes. Finally, Nova punched Cesare’s number. He answered so fast she was certain their tiny electronic lifeline to him must be glued to his palm.

  “What’s happening, Cesare? We have to do something.”

  “They are trying to stop the train. But there seems to be a problem. I’ll get back to you the moment I know something, Nova. I give my word. The train authorities say that the porter can contact the other porters using text message. Have him tell them there is an emergency and for their safety, they must not move about the train. They must sit tight wherever they are currently located. Unfortunately, we can’t reach the conductor.”

  He hung up on her.

  They must be very worried, she thought, for Cesare to sound so shaken.

  Talha came through the door from Car No. 2 alone and immediately sent Khangi a clenched fist, the hand signal they used to indicate success. He said, “We can stop the train to get off whenever you say. Just tell Faroud and he will make the engineer do it.”

  Khangi strode to Ali and put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. Ali was not a trained soldier, but he was doing his share to guard the passengers and had shown no signs of fear. Khangi admired him. Would have been proud to have a son like him. “We will get off just outside of Milan,” he told Ali, sharing in the way of one man to another. “It’s not a big change of plans. We will still succeed.”

  “God’s will be done,” Ali said.

  Nova’s cell phone buzzed. She picked up. Cesare spoke quickly, his voice taut and under control.

  “We tried to pass word to the train’s engineer to stop the train twenty-five kilometers short of Orvieto,” he said. “But no one in the engine cab is responding now. And worse, the train will not respond to command directions from central control. It is on manual.”