by Abbott, Jeff
‘The train derailed!’ Kevin screamed. ‘Mom, I saw it, I saw it!’ His forehead trickled blood from a cut, Megan kept shrieking, Brandon covered his face with his hands, still clutching his brother’s Japanese game card. Ashley only had eyes for the children and she did not see the men in the rail yard - some of them men she had gone to high school with, to church with - staggering, dropping as they hurried toward the accordion of derailed tanks, as though slapped down by an unseen fist.
‘Mom! It hurts!’ Kevin started to cough, started to rub at his eyes.
‘What?’
‘Throat … my throat,’ Kevin moaned and then Ashley felt it too, a terrible burning in the back of her throat, her eyes. Her eyes, her throat, burned like matches had been jabbed into the skin. A heavy smell, like an ocean of bleach, swamped her. The children clawed at their eyes, their mouths.
Get out of here, Ashley thought. Something awful had been freed from the broken jumble of rail cars. A haze blanketed the ground, coiling, the green-yellow of a snake’s scales.
Oh my God. Not my kids, no, she thought. She managed to shift gears, her eyes and nose and throat aflame. Nausea gutted her stomach. Her upper airway constricted like a fist closing. She jammed the accelerator to the floor. Blinking and gasping through the agony Ashley saw the turn to her house, half a block away. Best sight in the world. Get home, call 9-1-1, wash the kids in the tub, everything would be okay, it would have to be okay.
She was dimly aware of people running on the streets, running from the rail yard. Collapsing as she roared past them.
Just get away, get away, get the kids inside, this can’t happen to us.
Ashley Barton took the turn too soon and far too fast, fueled by her blind panic. She missed the street and plowed through the front of a small liquor store. She went through the windshield and she thought not happening not happening and then the pain was gone, the screams were silent.
The explosion wasn’t as loud as he thought it would be; but then the bomb had to be calculated to precision. Big enough to rupture the chlorine tanks, but not so powerful for extreme heat to oxidize the chlorine, rendering most of the gas non-toxic or to burn up much of it. The shape of Snow’s charge was designed to puncture the tanks. Derailment was a given.
He could imagine the chaos in his mind’s eye: everything within a thousand feet of the derailment site would be enveloped in a choking cloud of chlorine. The cloud could expand, if lucky, to a mile and a half in width, and with the boost from the wind, carry close to eighteen miles.
Twenty thousand people would be within the cloud’s path.
The Beast would of course order evacuations, fight like the wounded giant that it was, but the death toll could easily be in the hundreds or even the thousands. He smiled.
He hoped, as a first shot, this would prove a great success.
He drove fast on the empty road, heading toward Houston. He had a gas mask but he didn’t feel he needed it; Ripley was far enough behind and he was driving into the prevailing wind.
He drove south back to Houston, to Snow’s house without calling, because he thought the Beast, with its thousands of eyes, would be tracking every cellular call made near Ripley as part of the town’s postmortem. He listened to the radio, the music interrupted by a news bulletin, the increasingly frantic coverage, and the order for immediate evacuation.
When he got back to Snow’s house, the yards were empty. He saw cars filled with families, heading out, even though the cloud was far away and the wind wasn’t moving the poison in this direction. People panicked so easily.
He got out of the car, breathed in the cool air, and walked inside the house.
Snow sat on her couch, watching CNN, eating pretzels and sipping a congratulatory beer.
He watched the coverage, the panic, the horror, thinking, I did that. Good for me.
She looked up at him. ‘I guess my baby delivered.’
Mouser had a sudden hunger to touch her throat, feel the taste of her skin. But he barely knew her, so it would be wrong. The mission first, the mission always. He went and got a glass of water.
‘Only one car punctured by the blast,’ she said, watching the TV coverage. A satellite image of the derailment was on the screen. ‘The cloud is going to be big. They’re evacuating everyone within twenty miles.’
He could see the dead by the rails, on the streets of Ripley. He counted a dozen bodies as the camera’s eye moved along the main drag. He saw a wrecked minivan, halfway in a storefront close to the rail yard, a flipped pickup truck. The chattering experts said the chlorine cloud was not likely to move south toward Houston and heavy rain pushing in from the Gulf would help ground the chlorine. But the situation was already being labeled a chemical attack. Not simply an accident, and the words al-Qaeda and terrorists were already on the commentators’ tongues.
‘Al-Qaeda. They always think of them first,’ Snow said.
My God, Mouser thought. That was simple. And cheap. What blows to the Beast could he inflict with real money, money to last him for years, now that he had proven his worth. He nearly laughed in joy.
The doorbell rang. Snow glanced up at Mouser. ‘You expecting anyone?’
‘Maybe my ex. We broke up, he might come here begging.’
Mouser pulled the gun, went to the window. ‘Answer the door. Move out of the way if you don’t know ‘em.’
‘If it’s police …’
‘I’m not being taken. You?’
She shook her head without hesitation.
Mouser positioned himself. Snow answered the door.
‘I thought you were in Washington,’ Snow said.
On the porch, Henry Shawcross said, ‘We have a serious problem.’
8
‘Please tell us you’re here to celebrate,’ Mouser said. He knew it wasn’t the case but he wasn’t ready to let go of the euphoria he felt.
‘No. My stepson has been kidnapped.’ Henry stood against the living room wall, arms crossed. Exhaustion marked his face.
Mouser sat on the edge of Snow’s couch. ‘And I care why? That’s not our problem.’
‘Wrong. Luke’s kidnapping affects everything - the first wave and the Hellfire attack.’ Henry told him about Luke, the demands of the kidnapper. ‘They want the fifty million for his safe return.’
‘Then no safe return. They can’t have it,’ Mouser said. An absolute statement, no room for discussion.
‘I am not going to let them kill my kid.’
‘I’m not going to let them have our money,’ Mouser said. ‘And he’s Warren Dantry’s kid, right?’
A long pause, a curled lip that told Mouser Henry was uncomfortable with Mouser’s knowledge of his family. Mouser studied the professor in front of him. Henry always looked like he was running late for a lecture and he looked the same now, except in his gaze an intense anger steamed.
‘Yes. He was Warren’s son.’ Henry folded his arms. ‘I think of him as my son now.’
‘Answer me one question. Do you have our money, Henry?’
Henry stared at him, as though anticipating the sight of a gun or a knife. ‘No. I tried to access the accounts; the passwords have been changed.’
All of Mouser’s pride, all his excitement over the mission well done, the blow against the Beast, turned to ash.
‘You can’t access the money?’ Snow asked, as though she didn’t understand.
‘Not for you. Not for anyone in the Night Road.’ Henry crossed his arms. ‘I rushed back here as soon as I could, so we can figure out what to do …’
‘No. No.’ Mouser lurched forward, to seize Henry. Henry raised a gun from under his own jacket. Mouser stopped.
‘Stop. We can’t fight amongst ourselves. What’s done is done. Listen to me. We’re going to fix this. We have to move forward with the first wave. And Hellfire stays on schedule.’
Mouser stopped himself. He wanted to strangle the life out of Henry Shawcross at that moment. Another betrayal, that’s all this was, just lik
e every other moment in his life where he approached greatness, only to see his glory snatched away. He forced calmness into his breath. He felt the pressure of a hand on his shoulder; he glanced behind him.
Snow said, ‘Was there any mention from the kidnapper about the first wave of attacks?’
‘No.’
‘Or of Hellfire?’ Her eyes were bright.
‘No. So the kidnapper is interested in the fifty million - not in stopping the attacks themselves,’ Henry said.
‘All right. They asked for a ransom of our money. What did you say?’ Mouser sat back down on the couch.
Henry returned his gun to his jacket. ‘I wasn’t willing to acknowledge that I had the money in case the conversation was being taped.’
‘So you refused to ransom your own kid. Your loyalty is an inspiration.’
‘I may have saved us all by doing so. Because I know who kidnapped Luke.’
‘Who?’
‘The banker who was in charge of setting up the financial accounts around the country for the fifty million is missing. Eric Lindoe. He hasn’t been at his job in the past three days.’
‘Who could have shut you out of the accounts?’
‘Only Eric. Only he and I had access. Mine is under a false name of course.’
‘You’re not making sense, Henry. If Eric Lindoe took the money, he has no reason to kidnap your stepson,’ Snow said in an even tone. She kept her grip on Mouser’s shoulder and he shrugged it off.
‘I think there is a simple explanation. If Eric was just a common embezzler, then he could simply steal the money and try to hide from us. There would be no reason to involve Luke. If the government - the Beast, as you so charmingly say, Mouser - has discovered us and turned Eric against us, again, there would be no need to kidnap my son. The FBI would freeze the funds, arrest Eric, and arrest me, try to force your names and those of everyone in the Night Road from me. And they would care about stopping the attacks, and then stopping Hellfire - they wouldn’t have the money as a focus. We face contradictory facts. Ergo, we must follow a third alternative: Eric wants everyone - us and our enemy - to think he doesn’t have the money, and our enemy is not the government.’
‘Ergo so who?’ Mouser asked, mocking.
‘Our enemy wants the fifty million for themselves. It might be someone in the Night Road, turning traitor against us, although no one in the group knows that Eric is our banker. Only I know him. So. I believe it’s an outsider, who has discovered the existence of the fifty million and knows we can hardly report the theft of it to the police.’
‘But why would Eric ask for a ransom that you couldn’t pay, if he knew you couldn’t access the accounts?’ Snow asked. A sharpness like a new-forged knife’s shone in her words. ‘What’s the point?’
‘The point of the ransom may have been to get me to agree to pay the money, get me on tape acknowledging that I knew about the money. Blackmail me. Maybe our enemy grabbed Eric, couldn’t get the money from him if he had changed the access codes to protect the money. He lied that he had no access to the money, and so the enemy panicked and grabbed Luke - or had Eric grab Luke - thinking I could still deliver the funds. And Eric let the enemy think he didn’t have the funds. But … this is all theory.’
‘You mean we can’t even confirm if our money is still in the accounts?’ Mouser said in a cold whisper.
‘No. Not without knowing what the passwords are now. He took my name off and changed the access. I’m sure he’s hidden the funds. With that much money, Eric can hide forever, he can buy serious protection.’
‘How could he … ?’
‘He’s an officer at the bank. He could manipulate the system to hide the money in a hundred places. I have one of our hackers trying to break into the bank’s database, so we can see if and where the money was transferred, but he’s had zero success.’
Mouser began to pace, a cold fury moving his legs. ‘Without the money, Hellfire doesn’t happen. Everything we’ve worked for doesn’t happen. Every risk we’ve taken … wasted.’
‘I want to aim you at the problem. Under one condition,’ Henry said.
‘What?’
‘No harm comes to my stepson.’
‘He can’t know about us, Henry. Not unless he joins us.’
‘I will deal with him. But you will not harm him. He could be very valuable to us.’
After a moment, Mouser nodded.
‘We need to find Eric and we need to find Luke.’
‘How?’
‘I’ve got a Night Road contact working on hacking the GPS system on Luke’s car, see where it is, see where it’s been. Then I want you to go find Luke and stash him somewhere so I can talk to him. Failing that - or if they’ve killed him - find his kidnappers. I will work on locating Eric.’
Snow said, ‘You turned down their ransom demand. They’ll have killed him.’
‘They won’t give up on fifty million just because I said no the first time. They might conclude I was worried about being taped or trapped. They’ll let me squirm, then send Luke’s finger to me, or an ear’ - Henry stopped a moment to steady his voice - ‘to prove the channels of negotiation are still open.’
‘All right.’
‘I am going to return to Washington. I’ll let you know what the hacker finds on Luke’s car. You are not to harm Luke and, if you find his kidnapper, keep him alive for questioning. Do you understand me?’
‘I’m taking an extra risk here,’ Mouser said.
‘And you’ll be rewarded with a greater share of money for your cause and glory.’
‘I need backup.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ Snow said.
Mouser made a noise in his throat, lowered his voice. ‘No offense, but you’re a tech-head, a bomb maker.’
‘I’m a soldier, same as you,’ Snow said. ‘I know how to fight and fight hard. And no one is going to derail Hellfire. No one. Not after all the work I’ve done. I risked my life, every day, for weeks to build the bombs.’
‘I would rather you stay here,’ Mouser said. ‘You’ve got more work to do for Hellfire.’
‘Let me help you. We can make quick work of finding these people together.’
Henry said. ‘I agree with Snow. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.’
‘You sure got here quick,’ Mouser said. ‘Maybe you took the money, fed us this story, and you’re walking off with it.’ He put his hand back on his gun.
‘I wouldn’t have built the Night Road if I was going to betray it,’ Henry said. ‘I have to be back in Washington immediately, I can hitch a ride back on … a friend’s plane.’ He shook Mouser’s hand, Snow’s hand. ‘We’re off to a brilliant start today. We’ll get the money back, we’ll make Hellfire happen.’ He stood, leveled a look at them both. ‘Take care of Luke. No harm to him. I have your word.’
Henry left.
‘He must be scared to death. He could have told us this over the phone.’
‘Better to tell us face to face,’ Snow said. ‘Especially since he’s asking you to save his kid.’
Mouser considered. ‘You have a point. Disappointment is always easier in person.’
‘You want something to eat? I’m hungry. Gonna make me a sandwich,’ Snow said.
Mouser shook his head. She went into the kitchen. He sat on the edge of the couch and thought how he’d sunk from the joy of the bombing to the anger of the missing money. Rescue a snot-nosed grad student who had been taught in the Beast’s tax-funded universities, where his mind had been poisoned to think the Beast’s system was good and noble. Did Henry honestly think he’d let the kid live? If the kidnappers knew about the Night Road, then they were all at risk and Luke Dantry was just an unfortunate witness. A risk.
He walked back into the living room. Snow had opened him a beer, left it for him on the coffee table. She was watching the coverage from Ripley. ‘I might have put too much oomph in the baby. Ruptured two tanks for sure, they say now, but a lot of the chlorine must’ve bur
ned off. It’s given them time to evacuate more people.’
‘Ripley’s served its purpose, drawn the Beast’s stare right where we want it to be.’
She glanced at him. ‘Poetic.’
Mouser made a face at the idea of being poetic, and she laughed. Quietly. He ignored it. ‘I need to crash here.’
‘Guest room’s down the hall.’ She put her eyes back to the television screen.
‘You sure you can help me if we run into trouble?’
‘I can be whatever life needs me to be,’ Snow said, watching the dying town on the television, not looking at him. ‘You’re gonna kill his kid.’
Mouser didn’t answer, and that was answer enough.
Henry Shawcross did not take a commercial flight back to Washington, as he had the day before. Rather, he returned to Washington the same way he’d flown down this morning: he went to the airport and boarded a Travport freight cargo jet by flashing an ID and driver’s license that confirmed him as a Travport consultant, entitled to fly at a moment’s notice on any of the carrier’s flights, domestic or international.
He sat in one of the few passenger seats, watched the plane fly over east Texas. He would be home in a few hours.
What’s wrong with you, Luke had screamed, give them what they want. His stepson’s pleas tore at his chest but he had to keep his heart of stone. I will get you back, he thought. I will get you back and I will make you understand, Luke.
He used the plane’s internet connection to watch the news coverage of the chlorine disaster in Ripley. The most visible attack so far in the first wave. The bomb had burned up more of the gas than it should have, but it had gotten the world’s attention. Security was being raised at chemical plants and railway stations and airports, analysts pontificated on news stations as to whether it was an al-Qaeda attack or another jihadist group or a domestic terrorist or an accident. Every chemical facility in the country would be on heightened alert. Too many cities, too many water treatment plants had massive stores of lethal chlorine and Henry had thought long that it was a terrible weakness of American infrastructure. He had written a paper about such a threat a month ago; he checked his email. Now his paper held an urgency it had not a month before. He’d been proven smart and in tune with terrorist thinking. He was being flooded with requests from new and old clients on how to deal with the threat, and what the next threat might be. He smiled, fleetingly, for the first time since Luke’s ransom call.
