***
After the staff told the passengers that the train was intact and that there had been a problem at the Chernevo Train Station, the Orient-Express resumed its course with a thirty minute delay. The normal buzz of the passenger walking in hallways, opening and closing their compartment doors, returned soon after the departure.
Drake had crossed to my side of the compartment and was eyeing me with displeasure. Well, the feeling was mutual, and I was more than happy to comply with my imposed silence where he was concerned.
He was adamant in his ordering me to keep quiet about the dangerous situations until the DuPont Company received further instruction from the Interpol and local authorities. In my opinion, it was the same as not informing the passengers of the Titanic that it was sinking. My blood boiled as I struggled to contain my rage.
“But why can’t the authorities stop or divert it right before it enters the station? Maybe these terrorist messed up again like they did in Venice, and the bombs won’t go off. I think it’s worth trying.”
“Listen,” he said with a conciliatory tone, “it’s out of my hands now. This cap on information regarding the other passengers and staff is a formal request from the Interpol. I’ve been known to bend the rules on occasions, but this is a matter of international security and a direct order from the highest office. At least the train master has received the authorization to increase the speed of the train to arrive in Istanbul on time as much as possible.”
His voice was resolute, but as he stuffed his hand in his front pockets, the jiggling sound of his stress reliever emitted erratic bouncing pings.
“So, I’m supposed to sit here pretty while we wait to know if we all blow up in a few hours?” I asked, stretching on my toes to meet him at eye level.
Steinfield was saved from answering because his phone rang. At least, he didn’t leave the cabin to answer it under the pretext of confidentiality. This impending terror was as private to me as if someone had strapped me with a truckload of explosive on a suicide mission. Was I ready to die? That depressing eventuality, although real at the moment, seemed a moot point compared to how many people who would die if we didn’t find a solution to stop Rachid’s morbid plan.
I tried to understand the essence of his conversation from his answers to his caller. Lots of FBI jargon and technical terms. What I got was that Steinfield’s stance perked up as if he had just learned something interesting. I hoped the news were encouraging.
“So? Tell me,” I prompted, unable to stand it any longer after he hung up.
Still staring at his closed phone, he held a finger up, ordering me to be quiet. The deep frown on his forehead receded after a few seconds. His mouth moved as one does when performing mental calculation. When at last he lifted his head, a kind of clear revelation illuminated his features as if something had just struck him.
“I think I figured out how they operate. That was my partner Jeff on the phone. The Interpol have announced they apprehended a pair of Iranians near Bucharest train station a few hours ago. They were walking along the tracks toward Istanbul,” he explained.
“So?” I urged, not in the mood for a suspense.
“Now everything makes sense,” he added.
At the risk of sounding stupid or obtuse, I had to confess that I didn’t follow him.
“Don’t you see? Just think about it,” he prompted.
I was in no mood for guessing games either, no matter how much he seemed pleased with his new finding. My annoyance with his suspense must have been visible as he went on with his theory.
“I just realized that according to the pattern of the explosions there should have been one in Bucharest. There were no explosions because the bombers were caught by the police, a direct result of increased security around all train stations and tracks. With the same logic the explosion that just happened in Chernevo is the result of us being in the station for at least two hours because of the scheduled stop for the excursion.”
“So are you saying that there will be no explosion in Istanbul?” I asked, a burst of hope brightening my foul mood.
“No. But what I do know is that I don’t think they intended for you to carry a piece of equipment used for a bomb or even a detonator per se. Instead, I think they’ve fitted you with a relay transmitter connecting it with on-site detonators. It must be a cutting edge technology. It would be small enough and unassuming enough as to not to alert the scanner’s operator that there is something off with your belongings as you pass security checkpoints in airports. It allows them to plant in advance any kind of bombing device which they trigger at will when the relay passes in the vicinity of the pre-installed set-up. Pretty clever, actually. No wonder there are other terrorist groups who would love to put their hands on that technology. As a bonus, unless I’m wrong, since you work as a traffic controller, they may even plan to make good use of it in your work place to create disruption in the control tower where you work. Why highjack planes when you can create the worst imaginable air traffic disaster?”
“What kind of equipment are we talking about here?”
“Likely a microchip. That’s why you emitted that unusual low radio frequency when I ran my first search on you and your luggage in Paris.”
What good would it do us to know how Rachid organized his attacks if we couldn’t find the micro gadget? My helium balloon busted as soon as it had inflated. A glimmer of eureka was lifting his features just as one could imagine a detective solving, at the end of the novel, the whodunit. But we were still far from a happy ending. Figuring how they could arrange multiple bombings without killing the bomber was perhaps genius, but that didn’t change our impeding demise.
“So this micro chip is triggering a relay detonator?” I concluded.
“Yes, and until we find it, we’re done for,” he added with dark cynical humor.
“Is there any way they could bluff?”
“I doubt it. Looks like these two Bucharest bombers were last minute recruits. Still had their five hundred Euros bribe in their pockets.”
If I had any doubts about skipping lunch, they were gone.
“What are we going to do? I’ve been searched more times than I can count, been X-rayed from top to bottom—”
He raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“When they were checking me for injuries at Brasov hospital, I told them I had a rare bone disease, making my bones abnormally brittle, so they needed to do extensive X-rays and report any awkward findings. I figured that if they had implanted a piece of equipment, it would get picked up by an X-ray, no matter how small it might be. It was stupid, I know. Maybe I’ve seen one too many spy movies.”
Drake’s lips curled.
“When the results came out normal, they threatened to send me the bill for making a false medical declaration. I say it was worth the try.”
The glint in his eyes was a mix of pride, amusement and something else, I wasn’t sure what.
“What could we do?” Looks like we’d reached a dead end. “Can’t the local authority of Istanbul order an evacuation of the train station and extend it to a safe perimeter?”
“I’ve been asking the Interpol and Sirkeci Station to proceed with a preventive evacuation, but they have not agreed so far despite all my requests. However, there is a possibility, according to one of our contacts in Istanbul, that they will evacuate Sirkeci thirty minutes before the Orient-Express arrives. During that period, no other train will be allowed in the station. However, the mayor still thinks that since the two Iranians were caught in Bucharest that these explosions will stop. By the time the different levels of internal security and Interpol agree on the seriousness of this bomb threat, Rachid’s faction will have destroyed Sirkeci Station and all the district of Sultanahmet. Even if we stop the train ahead of the station, if we don’t find the trigger activating the relay, the bombing and destruction will go on as planned.”
So it looks like I was carrying some kind of micr
ochip which remains hidden despite the half dozen searches and X-rays. To say the situation was desperate was more than apt, and there was only one thing we could do, but I didn’t know what Steinfield’s disposition towards praying was.
“Why would Rachid risk getting this device destroyed with the explosions if his idea is to re-use it at will?”
“Good point,” he conceded before continuing. “His two sons won’t be released from US prisons because all the negotiations failed. He may be just vindictive enough to sacrifice the device and create a political incident capable of escalating into a full fledge international conflict between Iraq and Turkey, and this, regardless if the train arrived in one piece.”
“What about my sister? Any news?” I croaked, my voice breaking with despair.
I knew him enough now, since practically being together around the clock, to guess when he was editing himself.
He shifted his gaze down and dug in his right pocket. After a moment he lifted his eyes and met my anguished face.
“They may relish using American hostages to force the US government to release Rachid’s nephews from US prisons.”
At least we were in my cabin so our conversation had been private. However, there was no longer any point in looking courageous. My sister had become a pawn in their sick machinations just like I had been, and there was nothing I could do about it if the US government had no intention of accepting the terrorists demands. My spirit plummeted as my chest swelled from the intense dismay gripping me. There was no stopping the flow of useless tears that followed, fuelled by despair, outrage and horror. They burned my eyes by their sheer force while choking me from the torrent of pain tearing apart my spirit.
Remaining silent, he briefly touched my arm in compassion. There was nothing to say, and he let me be with my down poor of tears.
August 31st, Aboard VSOE, Heading to Istanbul, Turkey
I checked my watch. “Drake, we only have just over an hour till arrival,” I said, calmer now.
“Ninety minutes, to be exact.”
“No. We are thirty minutes late on our schedule because of Chernevo’s explosion.”
“You have a point.” He frowned.
Yes, I had to agree, I didn’t think Rachid factored that in when he planned his final bombing. I was going mad, sitting there doing nothing. We needed to approach the problem from a different angle. I could tell by Drake’s face he was also trying to figure out something. He was punching furiously on his laptop and rubbed his chin from time to time.
“You still have that gadget to test radio frequency with you?”
He lifted his head, arching one eyebrow.
“I’d like to make another kind of test.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ll walk down the corridor. We’d get a better idea of its range if you could calculate the distance it takes for you to lose the frequency.”
His head cocked on the side while his eyes brightened. Yes, a touch of pride and excitement lightened them up. I figured we had nothing to lose at this point. This could help to establish the radius of emission of my frequency. I prayed he did not see what was behind this request. To my relief, he opened his duffel bag and took out his gadget. I took my purse and exited the cabin.
“We’ll start at the head of the train,” I suggested. “This way it’ll give us the whole length of the train if this microchip has a long range. I might as well walk toward the back in the direction of the queue restaurant and get myself a chamomile tea to calm myself down”.
Followed by Drake with his device in hand, I headed toward the head of the train. Within five minutes, we reached our destination.
“Ok, turn it on; I’ll walk at a slow pace. Let’s count; every step I take should equal the distance of one foot. Shout when you lose the signal.”
“One, two, three—”
“Stop. I lost the signal,” he said. I had walked three quarters of the length of the car, about forty feet.
“Ok, so maybe you could report this info to your head office. It might be useful information. I’ll go get my tea then.
He was staring down at me, he eyes betraying mistrust.
“I hope everything works out fine with your report,” I said, taking off at a brisk pace toward the tail of the train.
I heard him behind me. “Hey, the restaurants are likely closed at this time!” he yelled.
I had already reached the end to this car and walked past one of the restaurant cars.
***
Drake rushed back to his cabin and contacted Jeff. As the latter was unavailable, he left him a message and instead got in touch with his contact at MIT by email. There was something messing up with his focused task at hand and as a result, he had trouble organizing his thoughts to finish the email. Damn, what was wrong with him? His neck was stiff as if someone had lodged an iron bar behind it. For an inexplicable reason, his body was in full emergency alert as if something worse than their arrival at Sirkeci was to take place. He’d had that before. A typical tension which he would get when he knew someone lied without being able to tell about what.
He replayed Mara’s request in his head, and something was not adding up. Although he couldn’t help but admire her sense of logic and testing the range of the microchip was brilliant—he should have thought about this sooner—there was an inconsistency. Her tone had been assertive and controlled. Her posture straight, without a trace of fidgeting. She displayed good eye contact although had been quick enough to divert it. Overall, her body language expressed confidence. Something was still odd. She had appeared calm and collected, so what was this with chamomile tea? She had never drank tea during this trip. And then, the closest restaurant was toward the front of the train, not the back.
That sorry excuse to get a tea was bogus, that’s for sure. The girl couldn’t lie even if her life depended on it. Her life… Fuck, no!
Shooting up like a bullet, he exited the cabin and dashed to the tail of the train. He should have guessed she’d want to do something stupid like this. The narrow corridor was cramped with people taking a stroll or blocking the access while chatting. His progress was too slow, so he took out his badge and held it up.
“FBI, move!” he yelled, pushing them aside while running at full speed.
He shouldn’t have left her out of his sight. What if he arrived too late? He couldn't bear to lose her. The last door toward the tail end was in sight now. He made a silent prayer for her to still be there.
She had opened the outside door and was leaning over the side of the train, looking at the speeding tracks while still holding the railing to the last step with one hand. If he called to her, she may get startled and let go. He had to slow down, although this was a huge risk. He was now only one foot away. She was mumbling a prayer, he guessed, since the sound of the strong wind and rolling wheels on the track made it inaudible. But her mouth was moving. She’d need more than a miracle to save her from this fall. He launched and reached her in one step, grabbing her by her midriff. Startled, she almost let go of the rails. He grabbed the rail and pulled her to him.
“Let go!” she fought, trying to remove his arm encircling her.
She was fighting while he had to pull her backward and up the steps without losing his footing and his grip on her or the railing. The little tigress was agile and feisty as a cat refusing to be held. She twisted and shoved enough, but he maintained his strong hold on her. Once back on the platform, he pulled her into submission by twisting her left arm behind her while keeping a strong one on her right.
“Stop it. Let me go.”
“You think jumping off the train will solve the problem?”
“Yes, and you know it.”
He dragged the still fighting woman back to her cabin. After closing and locking the door, he leaned against it, blocking the exit. She stood looking out the window. Per chance, they did not open wide enough to jump.
“I will not hesitate to cuff you if
it’s necessary. Understood?” he said, dangling the handcuffs he pulled out of his jacket under her nose.
She turned to him, a single tear fallen on her cheek. She was shivering, holding herself with her head and shoulders hung down. He kept wracking his brain to find an alternative solution but couldn’t come up with one. She may be a walking curse, but he didn’t give a damn now. All he wanted was to hold her in his arms and lose himself into the stormy blue of her eyes.
***
August 31st, VSOE, Cabin 3504, 10 Minutes Before Arrival to Sirkeci Station
As he embraced me, a discrete ripple of tremor ran through his chest. I couldn’t imagine how this tragic situation must have resonated with his childhood memories. For selfish and irrational reasons, I just wanted to stay in the illusion of the safety of his arms. Just a little longer. But after a minute or two, my sobs subsided, and he gently pushed me at arm’s length.
“We have only about ten minutes before arriving at the station. Would you like to call your folks? I can give you my phone since you don’t have one.”
I shook my head to the negative. Please, I pleaded in silence. I’m not asking for myself but for him, for his mother and my family along with all the passengers and travellers who will perish at the hands of a few terrorists. I also prayed that my sister was still alive. Please God.
His eyes held mine. Their deep emeralds were full of a raw fervour that went beyond the desperation of our imminent death.
“Mara, I…” He bent his head, and I closed my eyes, welcoming the kiss. The tender reverence of his lips soon transformed into such primal need it felt as if he had opened his emotional dam and now there was no stopping or denying him. The ferocity of his mouth surprised and delighted me. Our tongues danced a sensual tango as we explored each other. My hands, on their own accord, rummaged with delight in the texture of his tussled hair. It felt like he was trying to lose himself into his newly freed passion, unbridled by restrains. His left hand pushed my pelvis against his so I couldn't ignore the desire he harbored for me. His right hand pulled my head back, running his finger through my hair to deepen the kiss even further. He was hungry and insatiable. A moment later, against my expectations, he pulled away.
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