The Empire Runaway

by Vincent Zandri

  Table of Contents

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  1

  2

  3

  4

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  8

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  About the Author

  Copyright

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  PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI

  “Sensational . . . masterful . . . brilliant.”

  —New York Post

  “(A) chilling tale of obsessive love from Thriller Award–winner Zandri (Moonlight Weeps) . . . Riveting.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “. . . Oh, what a story it is . . . Riveting . . . A terrific old school thriller.”

  —Booklist “Starred Review”

  “Zandri does a fantastic job with this story. Not only does he scare the reader, but the horror

  Show he presents also scares the man who is the definition of the word “tough.”

  —Suspense Magazine

  “I very highly recommend this book . . . It's a great crime drama that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists . . . Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one best seller after another.”

  —Life in Review

  “(The Innocent) is a thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion.”

  —The Times-Union (Albany)

  "The action never wanes."

  —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  "Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting."

  —Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Six Years

  "Tough, stylish, heartbreaking."

  —Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of Savages and Cartel.

  “A tightly crafted, smart, disturbing, elegantly crafted complex thriller . . . I dare you to start it and not keep reading.”

  —MJ Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Halo Effect and Closure

  “A classic slice of raw pulp noir…”

  —William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob

  “Boy, I guess you guys picked the wrong train."

  —Runaway Train (1985 feature film)

  1

  Washington, DC

  Present Day

  “You have got to be shitting me!” an annoyed Sam Savage barks. “I just saved the lives of two-hundred innocent souls from a terrorist and his explosive-filled laptop computer bent on blowing up a jetliner, and you’re busting me to Amtrak train duty? It doesn’t make an ounce of sense, Dater.”

  “Calm yourself down already, Sam,” responds his boss, Carl Dater. “My damned hands are tied. We’ve got at least two Bravo Air attendants who witnessed you banging that Mary broad in the lavatory while cruising at thirty thousand feet. You’re lucky to still have your job as an air marshal regardless of how many souls you saved. You know the way the Federal Government works. You never get fired, but you do get busted.”

  A fuming Sam sits in an uncomfortable wooden chair inside the spacious, brightly lit federal office building office. He’s dressed in his usual uniform of Levi jeans, worn combat boots left over from his Navy SEAL days, and a denim work-shirt under an old beat up black leather coat he purchased years ago in Paris while he was still working as a freelance war correspondent and missing the one true love of his life—Lauren.

  She was a dark-haired beauty Sam had met in a coffee shop in Albany during one of his extended breaks from the field. They enjoyed a whirlwind romance and married within the year. While he was on assignment for a European English speaking twenty-four-hour cable television news station, Lauren was hit by a tractor-trailer being piloted by a trucking trainee while she was out for a jog one morning. Sam never forgave himself for not being there for her. Now, his work for the NTSB is as much atonement for his failure to save Lauren as it is a job.

  Dater, five years older than the forty-something Sam, is dressed in tan slacks and a white button down, the top button of which is undone to accommodate his thick neck. Bald, round-faced, and bespectacled, Carl Dater also possesses a barrel chest. Something that came in handy when he was center for the high school football team back in the late 1970s. But some of that barrel chest has sunk to his gut, and he always has to watch his calories these days, or so it seems.

  He pulls down on the ball knot of his black and red necktie, sits back hard in his swivel chair. Mounted to the wall behind him is a photo of the current president.

  “Listen, Sam,” he says, “I know it sucks. But you only have to do the Empire State run for a month, and then I’ll see about you getting back into the air. It’s easy work. Nothing ever happens on that run. The train is usually filled with Upstate New York residents vacationing in the city for the weekend and commuters who can’t bear to live in Manhattan or can’t afford it anyway.”

  Sam throws up his hands. “Great,” he says, leaning forward, stuffing his fingers into the pewter bowl of multi-colored peanut M&Ms Dater has set out on his desktop, more for himself than the guests. “Boredom. Just what I like.” Sam shoves three or four M&Ms into his mouth. Chews.

  Dater purses his lips.

  “Look at it this way, Sam,” he says. “You’ll get lots of reading done. Oh, and the view of the Hudson River and the Valley is spectacular. Think of it as a stay-cation. Tomorrow, you’ll hop a short flight up to Albany, and from there you’ll head immediately to the Albany/Rensselaer train station. Your Jeep will be waiting for you in the long-term parking garage. Grab your ticket from my secretary before you leave.”

  Sam stands. “Who do I report to?”

  “Amtrak engineer in charge of North East corridor security by the name of Fawcette.”

  “How will I know him?”

  “Her,” Dater insists. “Fawcette is a her. Maureen Fawcette. She’s maybe five-three, a pair of stunning hazel eyes that seem like they change color depending on the light, and a shoulder-length dark hair.” He comes around the desk, pats Sam on the arm. “She’s a bit of a ball buster.” He smiles. “And did I mention she just happens to be single too?”

  Sam looks into his superior’s eyes, and he sees more than irises and whites. He sees a man who is trying to set him up with something more than just another NTSB assignment.

  “I’ve been known to be a bit of a ball buster myself,” Sam says. “And have I mentioned that I’m also single?”

  “Great,” Dater says. “I have no doubt that you and Maureen will get along swimmingly.”

  2

  Sam cracks open a beer inside his small NTSB-appointed extend-stay efficiency hotel room. Knowing he will be spending a whole lot of nights in New York City for the foreseeable future, he stuffs his decade-old North Face backpack with the clothes he brought with him for the few days of meetings he was required to attend in DC. He also sets out his running shoes and a sweat-suit for the morning jogs he plans on taking along lower Manhattan’s East River.

  He and Lauren loved to jog along the river all those years ago. They would start their run at East 23rd Street and take it all the way down to the Williamsburg Bridge where they would stop and stare up at the massive bridge’s underside. They would marvel at the old bridge’s engineering and solid metal construction and feel the cool breeze against their heated, sweat-soaked skin. If they were feeling especially good, Sam might steal a kiss from his her.

  As Sam packs, he sees her bright-eyed face in his head once more. Even though she’s been gone now for more than a decade, his eyes still brim with tears
when he thinks about Lauren. About her quirky laugh, her shy smile, her adventurous spirit, her quick wit, her gentle touch, and even the way she would sometimes gently snore when she slept on her back. He would have no choice but to nudge her so that she would turn over onto her side. How he wishes he could get in bed with her again and just for one single precious night, hear those snores, feel his fingertips against the naked flesh on her arm when he nudged her.

  Sam wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands.

  “Come on, Savage,” he says, “pull it together. Lauren wouldn’t want you dwelling in the past now, would she? You’ve got a job to do tomorrow, so focus. It’s gonna be a hell of a long day.”

  His bag packed, he drinks down his beer and stares out the bedroom window onto the green Washington, DC grass now obscured by the dark of night. The wind blows a lonely howl as if a million ghosts were trying to whisper in his ear all at once.

  “Shit,” he whispers. “I so, so miss you, Lauren.”

  Heading into the kitchenette, he opens the fridge, grabs another beer.

  The next morning, Sam is up extra early to get in a workout before he expects his driver to arrive and transport him to the airport where a private plane will be waiting. He pulls a pair of running shorts out of his backpack and slips them on before grabbing the running shoes he laid out the evening before. Finally, he pulls on a black T-shirt, the letters CBGB emblazoned across the front in white block letters. He’s cut the sleeves off the T-shirt because he not only likes it when his muscular biceps and triceps are exposed, but it makes him feel more like the punk rocker he was back in his youth. In those days, he was a drummer who played the local clubs at the young age of sixteen and seventeen. Then school and sports got in the way, and he eventually gave up the punk rock circuit for college life and after that . . . the battlefield.

  After stretching, he takes to the open road, beginning with a slow jog. Now that the spring has arrived in DC, and the warmth along with it, he’s able to work up a sheen of sweat almost immediately. The cool breeze feels good against the heat of his strong body, and in the distance, he can see the mall and all the white-marbled monuments that adorn it. The Lincoln Memorial, Freedom Plaza, and of course, the Washington Monument.

  “Freedom is worth protecting,” he whispers to himself. “Freedom at all costs.”

  Soon, he’s beginning to feel good about his himself, the past he shared with Lauren before she was unexpectedly snatched from his grasp, and even about the new assignment to babysit the Amtrak Empire Service run he’s just been handed from Dater.

  “How hard can the assignment be?” he poses silently to himself while he veers off the road onto the Brant Lake State Park property where he makes his way to one of the two wood docks that access the glass-surfaced lake. Breathing in deeply, he drops and proceeds to pump out one-hundred military style pushups. He might be in his late forties, but he doesn’t even begin to feel the burn in his arm muscles until he arrives at number seventy. But that doesn’t stop him from completing all one-hundred without hesitation or any break in rhythm.

  Jumping back up onto his feet, Sam heads back out to the road and begins the long jog home, not as a sad and winded man, but a man who’s entirely sound in both mind and body.

  Half an hour later, he is showered and dressed in his brown leather boots, Levi jeans, khaki work-shirt over a black T-shirt, and topped off with his worn leather coat. Closing the door to his room, he heads down to the lobby where his driver is already waiting for him. The drive to the airport is short and uneventful, and before Sam knows it, he’s airborne for the two-hour ride to Albany. Two hours he uses to sit back, close his eyes, and fade to black.

  Arriving in Albany a few minutes ahead of schedule, he makes his way quickly through the airport to the connecting long-term parking garage. His burnt-red 2012 Jeep Wrangler—not only his pride and joy but also his bug-out vehicle—is parked directly across from the sliding glass doors. The door is unlocked, and per SOP, he finds the key stored under the driver’s side seat. Tossing his backpack in the back cargo area, he gets behind the wheel, fires up the powerful V6 engine, and pulls out of the garage. After paying the attendant, he turns onto the road that will take him across the Hudson River to the Albany/Rensselaer Train Station where he will meet up with his contact Maureen Fawcette, the hazel-eyed security chief who, according to Dater anyway, can be a real ball buster.

  “Better be on you’re A-game, Savage,” he whispers to himself while crossing the massive Patroon Island Bridge and making his way from Albany to Rensselaer County. “Or this girl could tear you to shreds.”

  He finds himself smiling, not because he’s talking to himself, but because he’s looking forward to the challenge of working with a woman who’s supposed to be as attractive as she is witty. Makes life more interesting if not spicy. But then, in full discloser, Sam knows he’s smiling not because he’s mulling things over in his head, but because he’s also contemplating what Ms. Fawcette will be like with his other head. Sure, he misses Lauren like nobody’s business. But life goes on. And Sam intends to live it to the fullest.

  He pulls into the train station lot and heads for the long-term parking garage located directly beneath the big, brick, concrete and glass station. Killing the Jeep engine, he gets out. Retrieving his backpack, Sam forgoes the elevator for the concrete staircase. Like his construction worker/fitness buff dad always said, “Son, why take an elevator when your body wants to take the stairs?” Words of wisdom the sky marshal has never forgotten. How strange that his dad, who never had an out of shape moment in his 76 years, would suddenly die of a massive coronary one day after a three-mile run.

  You can’t fight genetics, Sam contemplates as he bounds up the stairs two at a time. All you can do is have as much fun as possible along the way. Have fun and do as much good as you can.

  Sometimes doing good means saving lives. That’s what he’s all about these days, protecting the public modes of transport from evil men and women bent on killing for the sake of killing. It’s a dangerous world out there in the twenty-first century, and nobody knows this better than veteran war correspondent and Navy SEAL, Sam Savage.

  Coming to the top of the stairwell, he enters the main train terminal. It’s a cavernous, four-story space constructed of marble floors, tall glass walls, a four-story vaulted ceiling supported by thick concrete pilasters. The many people coming and going from the train platforms create a low-toned cacophony. It’s a busy place, and its energy is palpable.

  Sam has always loved airports and trains stations . . . even as a kid, back when his parents took him on some of his first trips. Excursions to California and Florida. Trips to Italy, Germany, and even Turkey. His parents met while backpacking across Europe after college, and it was a goal of theirs to instill not only the spirit of adventure in their son but also an appreciation for foreign cultures, a respect for religions different from their own, and an appetite for strange foods like dried crickets, boiled snake, and even the camel burgers he devoured as a young teen in Morocco.

  Stopping in front of the ticket booths, Sam looks around. It seems as good a place as any to search for Maureen Fawcette. If she’s in charge of security, then she’s no doubt gazing upon him in real time. In fact, Sam is so sure of this, he raises his eyes toward the ceiling, spots just one of the many ceiling-mounted security CCTV cameras. He smiles, winks, and waves at the camera. The backpack slung lazily over one shoulder, he waits for Maureen to arrive, knowing she will be front and center in a matter of seconds.

  True to his instinct, he spots a well-built woman moving toward him. He knows it must be her because her eyes immediately lock onto his. She’s on the shorter side, but not too short. She’s wearing tight tan slacks, brown flat-toed cowboy boots, and a blue blouse under a thin brown leather jacket. Her thick, brunette hair is parted just to the left of center and somewhat wavy where it meets her shoulders. She’s got a nametag attached to the lapel of the pocket that rests against her pronounced left brea
st.

  She holds out her hand.

  “Sam Savage,” she says, “I’d know that handsome face anywhere.”

  Taken aback, Sam can’t help but smile.

  “You know who I am?” he asks, taking her hand in his, feeling her warmth and strength.

  “I saw what you did for all those passengers on that flight to Rome. You saved a whole lot of people, which means your reputation precedes you.”

  He looks into her eyes and finds himself mesmerized by them. Her smile is genuine and just as inviting as her eyes.

  “I’m Maureen Fawcette, Amtrak engineer in charge of North-East corridor security.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Maureen,” Sam says, in a daze.

  “Ummm, you may let go of my hand now, Sam,” she says. “People are starting to stare.”

  He finds himself shaking his head as if to wake himself from his trance.

  “Sorry about that,” he says, embarrassment evident on his scruffy face. Then, “They said you’d be like that.”

  “Like what, Sam?” Maureen asks.

  “That you’re a . . . how shall I say this?”

  “A ball buster?” she offers.

  Sam makes like a pistol with his right hand, points it at her, drops the thumb.

  “That’s it precisely,” he says, nodding.

  “Well, what can I say?” she states. “I grew up around the railroad yards. My father was an engineer as was his father before him. It runs in the family. And trust me when I say the railyards are tough places to survive. A quick wit helps.”

  “How’d you end up being transferred to security detail?”

  “Not sure, really,” she says. “Must be my built-in-crime detector. I also have a built-in-bullshit detector, but since everyone who works for the federally subsidized Amtrak is a bull shitter of one kind or another, it doesn’t really come in that handy.”