There was no parking on the right side of the street, but cars were at the curb on the left side. Jake hung a U-turn, hoping no city cops were sitting around unnoticed to see him do that. He didn’t need any distractions or delays if he got pulled over.
Nothing of the sort happened as he eased the old panel truck to the curb beside what appeared to be a one-story office building. From where he sat, he could see the freight yard office building and the long warehouse extending from the back of it, as well as part of the yard itself.
According to the timetable, the freight from the north that Carlos Molina had been interested in was due at 8:17. It was a little after seven now. A little more than an hour away . . . enough time to plant the explosives Molina had stolen from Fort Bliss if the terrorists hurried.
Jake’s eyes narrowed. The terrorists might still have time, yeah, but how could they plant the C-4 in broad daylight? When he and Barry had tried to figure out the plan, they hadn’t known the layout of the freight yard or the conditions under which the terrorists would have to make their strike.
Another thought occurred to him. They had no way of knowing when the Zaragosa cartel had turned over the explosives to the terrorist cell. That exchange could have been done earlier in the night. In fact, that was more likely. So the odds were that Bandar al-Saddiq and the other fanatics from Lashkar-e-Islami already had the C-4.
Had, in fact, in all likelihood planted the bombs before now, so they were just waiting for the targeted train to get here.
Jake opened the truck door and stepped out. He needed to get a look at those tracks. If BNSF security caught him snooping around, he could always play the ace up his sleeve—his standing as an FBI agent.
Of course, he wasn’t here officially, and when his superiors found out what he’d been up to—especially if he roped the bureau in on it—he was liable to be in a lot of trouble. But if he and Barry stopped a terrorist attack, it would be worth it.
He left his backpack and the gear it contained in the truck, but he had both pistols, one in a belly holster, one at the small of his back, both hidden by the tails of his shirt. He ambled to the corner and paused, taking out his phone and pretending to look at something on it while actually he was studying the layout in front of him.
The entrance to the yard had four broad lanes, two going in, two coming out, where trucks could drive. A small, shedlike office for the yard attendants sat between the entrance and exit lanes, surrounded by low concrete barriers painted bright yellow. Just beyond the shed was a large sign with the yard’s rules and procedures printed on it. The gates on both sides were wide open.
A man wearing a hard hat and carrying a clipboard came out of the shed. Jake thought the guy might intend to come over and ask him why he was hanging around, but instead the man barely glanced in his direction, then walked briskly toward the main office building. Jake waited until the man had gone inside, then slipped his phone back in his pocket.
There might be another attendant in the shed, and there were windows in the main building that looked in this direction, as well. For all Jake knew, there were eyes on him right this minute. But he had to get in there and take a look around, so he started walking briskly toward the nearest gate, which happened to be the exit side.
Act like you’re supposed to be there, like you know what you’re doing, like you’re just doing your job . . . That attitude worked a lot of the time. Not as much as it used to, according to conversations he’d had with Barry about the old days. People were just too paranoid in the twenty-first century for it to be effective all the time. But it was still the best bet.
Jake strode purposefully into the railroad yard, and nobody tried to stop him.
He might not know the official designations of the tracks and sidings, but he had his eye on what he believed would be the terrorists’ target and headed in that direction.
A man driving a forklift passed him and gave him a curious glance. Jake paused, took out the timetable he had gotten from Anita Molina, and unfolded it to look at it. That was for show, more than anything else, and it seemed to work because the guy on the forklift went on and didn’t look back.
Jake made a mental note of the numbers that had interested Carlos Molina, though. Maybe he would see some signs that matched up with them, and that would confirm his guesses.
Other men were around, but none of them paid any attention to him until he came even with the end of the string being put together four sidings deep into the yard. Without pausing, Jake started across the empty sidings toward it.
“Hey, buddy, what are you doing?”
The voice made him pause and look around. A guy in a hard hat was walking quickly toward him. Jake lifted the piece of paper in his left hand, thumped it with his right middle finger, and said, “Just got to check on something real quick.”
“Not without a hat. You know the rules.”
Jake made a face. “Yeah, when I came out here I wasn’t planning to go on into the yard. I just happened to remember—”
“All right, all right, it’s your butt, not mine.” The man pointed an admonishing finger at Jake. “But if anybody asks you, I told you—you got that?”
“Sure,” Jake agreed with a grin. “I’ll make it fast. No problem.”
The man shrugged and turned away. Jake watched him walk off for a second, then headed for the freight cars again. The line of them already stretched for a long way down the yard.
He moved around the one on the end and looked along the empty tracks between this siding and the next one over, where the other string was being assembled. He heard faint clanking noises from the far end of the string.
More cars being coupled on? He supposed that was possible. He didn’t know anything about trains. Barry seemed pretty knowledgeable on the subject . . . but then, Barry knew a lot about everything.
Between the two lines of freight cars like this, Jake suddenly felt a little cut off from the rest of the world. Not claustrophobic, exactly. He didn’t suffer from that, and the cars weren’t that close together. But he couldn’t be seen up in here, except through the narrow gaps between the cars.
He moved along the rails, his eyes darting back and forth studying each one, searching for anything that looked odd or out of place. C-4 could be molded against the rails, but it still had to have a detonating mechanism attached to it, so something ought to be visible if the explosives had already been planted. Jake still felt that it was more likely the terrorists had gotten in here and done their evil work under cover of darkness.
He had gone about thirty yards along the narrow canyon between the looming freight cars when he spotted a small, oblong shape against the outside of the right-hand rail. He went to a knee to examine it more closely and wished there was more light. The sun wasn’t high enough for its rays to penetrate directly into the space between the lines of cars.
He didn’t know what sort of equipment might legitimately be attached to the rails, but he figured he would know a bomb when he saw one. And as he bent closer, his heart began to slug harder in his chest. It didn’t take an expert to know that what he was looking at wasn’t right. Wasn’t right at all.
“Don’t move! Put your hands up and then get down on your belly!”
The sharp command possessed the unmistakable tone of having a gun to back it up. Jake recognized that, too.
What surprised him was the fact that a female voice had just issued that unexpected order.
CHAPTER 33
Jake didn’t get down on the ground, but he did raise his hands so they were in plain sight. The woman didn’t shoot him, so he supposed obeying half of the order was better than none.
“Hold your fire,” he said in a calm voice. If she actually was pointing a gun at him, he didn’t want her getting jumpy. “How about if I stand up and turn around, and we’ll talk about this?”
“I said get on your belly, and I meant it!”
“Okay, okay. Take it easy. A filthy railroad yard isn’t a very good place t
o be lying down, though. My clothes are gonna get pretty dirty.”
“I don’t care. Do what I told you.”
Jake lowered himself to a knee, then stretched out on his stomach next to the rails. He didn’t care for being that close to the explosives. He didn’t like the way the cinders poked against his skin through his clothes, either.
He heard her feet crunching on the gravel as she approached. She didn’t get too close but stopped far enough back that he couldn’t take her legs out from under her with a quick sweep of his leg. Evidently, she wasn’t a total amateur, anyway.
“You have a gun at the small of your back,” she said. “Reach around with your left hand, slowly, and take it out, then toss it out of reach.”
“Sure,” Jake said. He didn’t mind all that much giving up one gun, as long as he had another. He reached back with his left hand, eased the 9mm out of its holster, and tossed it gently to the side.
“Roll over now, away from the gun,” she told him. “And keep both hands where I can see them while you’re doing it.”
“This is really uncomfortable—”
“Not as uncomfortable as a bullet.”
“Nice hard-boiled line. You delivered it well, too.”
“Shut up and roll over.”
“And now you’re trying to sweet-talk me,” Jake said.
She didn’t shoot him for that crack, so he supposed he ought to count himself lucky. He turned over onto his back. Some of the gravel and cinders clung to his clothes.
“Now the other gun,” the woman said. “I figure you had one in a belly holster, too.”
Jake was considerably more reluctant to follow that order. He had thought at first that the woman might be one of the terrorists. Most of the time, Islamic terror groups used females as couriers or suicide bombers, but occasionally they toted guns just like the men.
This one didn’t look like an Islamic terrorist, though. In boots, jeans, and a black T-shirt that showed off an excellent figure without being overly tight, and with blond curls falling to her shoulders and part of the way down her back, she looked more like a Texas cowgirl. All she was missing was the hat.
She held the Glock in her hands like a Texas girl, too, one who knew how to use it.
He was stereotyping, he told himself, and racially profiling, too, but both of those things had some basis in fact to them, no matter how much the progressive, politically correct crowd liked to deny it. Technically, he was even assuming her gender, but the way she was built, it was difficult not to.
Still, quite a few all-American-looking kids had gone to the Middle East over the years to join up with ISIS or al-Qaeda or whatever the terrorist group of the month was. Assuming too much about this woman might get him killed, Jake warned himself.
“Where did you come from?” he asked. “I didn’t see anybody around.”
“Maybe I’m just that good,” she said with a faint smile, then turned serious again. “And you’re still being slow to do what you’re told. I don’t like that.”
“What gives you the right to give orders, anyway? Are you a cop?”
“I’m the person pointing a gun at you, that’s who I am.” Her shoulders rose and fell maybe an inch. “But I guess I should identify myself. My name is Gretchen Rogers. I work for the Department of Homeland Security.”
Jake couldn’t help but frown a little in surprise at that revelation—assuming she was telling the truth, of course. At the moment, she didn’t look like she’d be too receptive to a request for identification.
She was sharp enough to take note of his reaction. She said, “That’s right, you’re in trouble, mister, so don’t make it any worse on yourself. You’ll be better off if you cooperate and do as you’re told.”
“All right, all right,” he muttered. “But here’s the thing . . . I’m not giving up my other gun.”
She looked angry and jabbed the Glock at him. “You’d better—”
“What I’m going to do,” Jake overrode her, “is stand up, and then you and I are gonna talk about this. Time’s too short and the stakes are too high for you to be showing off how tough you are.”
This time it was her eyes that widened in surprise.
“Why, you—”
Jake sat up. He kept his hands in sight and well away from the gun at his waist. Just because he wasn’t going to let her ride roughshod over him didn’t mean he had to give her a good excuse for shooting him.
He put his left hand on the ground to brace himself and climbed to his feet. Gretchen Rogers kept the gun pointed at him and said, “Stop! Stop what you’re doing. Throw your gun away and get back down on the ground! Do it now or I’ll shoot!
“Stop it,” Jake said. “My name is Jake Rivers. I’m FBI.”
Her head jerked back slightly as if he’d just slapped her.
“You expect me to believe that?” she demanded. “Why would an FBI agent plant a bomb on a railroad track?”
“I didn’t. It was already there. But I’m glad you realize it’s a bomb, because we need to get this rail yard shut down and a demolitions team in here to check for explosives all over the place.”
Making it official like this would shut down the independent investigation he and Barry had been carrying out. Barry was convinced they were more effective as lone wolves, and most of the time Jake thought he was right. Bringing in other agencies might make it harder for them to find Bandar al-Saddiq and discover what else he was planning, but they couldn’t let this bombing succeed, either.
Gretchen Rogers shook her head, though, and said, “I’m going to have to see some ID, Rivers . . . or whatever your name really is.” Then she frowned. “Wait a minute. Rivers . . . Seems like I’ve heard that name before.”
Jake wasn’t going to mention Barry. Only a very few select people within the government knew that Barry Rivers—the legendary “Dog”—was still alive.
But he had his own degree of notoriety, so he said, “Kelton College a few years ago. I was involved in an incident there—”
“When terrorists took over the campus. I remember that. You were the one who stopped them?”
“A lot of people stopped them,” Jake said, remembering some of the unlikely heroes who had stepped up to do the right thing that bloody, fateful day. “I helped.”
Gretchen squinted at him and said, “Seems I remember hearing something about the fellow who was there going into federal law enforcement.”
“Walt Graham at the FBI will vouch for me.”
“I know the name,” Gretchen said. “One of the bureau’s top anti-terrorist people, isn’t he?”
“That’s right. He was there at Kelton that day. He helped me get into Quantico.” Jake had been keeping his hands partially raised. He went on, “Is it all right if I lower these now? Are you going to take a chance on believing me until you can check out my bona fides?”
“Maybe . . .”
“If you are, I wouldn’t mind moving a little farther away. Being this close to a chunk of C-4 like that is a little nerve-wracking.”
“You’re right about that,” she agreed. She lowered the gun, but not completely. She could still raise and fire it in less than the blink of an eye if she needed to. “Is this the only IED?”
“The only one I’ve found so far . . . but I suspect there are more.”
“We’d better have a look, then. Do you know who’s responsible for planting them?”
“I suspect it’s a group calling themselves Lashkar-e-Islami.”
“The Army of Islam,” Gretchen translated. “The ones who claimed responsibility for the train derailment in Nevada.”
“That’s right.” They started walking along the tracks on opposite sides of the steel rails.
“So the bureau is working on that case? I hadn’t heard. But then, maybe I wouldn’t have. The bosses over there still like to keep things to themselves, like information . . . and glory.”
No matter what, Jake thought, interagency rivalries would never die out completel
y. He said, “And Homeland Security never plays anything too close to the vest in order to make themselves look better. Got it.” He paused. “How come you showed up here today?”
“And caught you skulking around, you mean? I got a tip. One of my sources got wind of something big that might be about to happen. She didn’t know what, but she thought it might involve this freight yard.”
That ambiguous answer made Jake a little suspicious, but he had to admit, what Gretchen described was a very similar situation to the way he and Barry had gotten mixed up in this. Law enforcement on all levels couldn’t function without shadowy sources and vague tips.
They walked another hundred yards along the tracks, passing some flatcars on Jake’s side that were loaded with lashed-down crates. Gretchen stopped short and said in a slightly hushed tone, “Look.”
Jake saw the same thing she had spotted: another lump of C-4 molded to one of the rails with a small detonator attached. The knowledge that all it would take to set off the explosives was a radio signal put his teeth on edge.
“We don’t need to keep looking,” he said. “I think we’ve found enough.”
“More than enough,” a harsh voice said behind them.
CHAPTER 34
Jake and Gretchen whirled toward the voice at the same time. A man stood there with a gun pointed at them. Jake could tell that the stranger had climbed over the load on one of those flatcars because two more armed men were scrambling over the crates, as well.
In a flash, his keen eyes and brain took in several more items of information. The pistols the men carried had suppressors on them, like the one Paco Reyes had used to kill Carlos Molina and his father.
These men weren’t Zaragosa cartel soldiers, though. At a quick glance, they might have been mistaken for Hispanic, but Jake could tell they were Middle Eastern.
Unless he missed his guess, he was looking at three members of the Army of Islam.
And those soldiers wanted to slaughter him and Gretchen Rogers.
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