Don't Blink

by James Patterson; Howard Roughan

  The train fell nearly silent, the only sound the low hum of the idling engine. I didn’t dare look at Torenzi as he came toward us, not even a glance. All I wanted was for him to get off the train, even if it meant he’d never be caught.

  But as he reached the open door right by us in the vestibule, he kicked me in the ribs. “Get up!” he said.

  He kicked me again even harder, to make sure I had heard him and was getting up.

  Slowly I began to stand, and before my knees could even straighten, Torenzi pushed the engineer down and grabbed me in his place. I was his new hostage, his ticket off the train, and of course I was his target as well.

  But Keller had other ideas. What was he doing now?

  His gun gripped tight in his outstretched hand, he began walking toward us down the aisle.

  Torenzi barked. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”

  Keller didn’t. He kept walking, his mouth clenched so tight I could see his jawbone rippling along his cheeks. He seemed like a man possessed. What was he doing? Didn’t he see the gun to my head?

  In fact, that’s all he saw.

  Right before Keller shot me in the chest.

  Chapter 96

  THE FORCE OF the bullet’s impact knocked me out of Torenzi’s grasp. It happened so fast that even if he’d pulled the trigger and tried to blow my brains out, he probably would’ve missed. Besides, what was the point? Why bother killing me when the FBI was doing it for him?

  As I fell to the ground, Torenzi thrust his gun forward and opened fire on Keller. I couldn’t see much, though. Shit! Did he get Keller? Did Keller get him?

  No! And — no!

  I saw Bruno Torenzi dive behind the row of seats across from where I lay wounded. I looked over at Elizabeth. “Don’t move!” I said to her.

  She nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I won’t, Uncle Nick. Are you okay?”

  Next to her was the engineer, clinging to the floor. Our eyes met for an instant and it was as if I could read his mind. I should’ve called in sick today!

  I hear you, buddy. Me too.

  I could see enough of Torenzi to tell he was reloading. One hand was holding his gun, the other removing the magazine.

  Wait! Where is the detonator?

  My eyes searched the seat next to him. There it was.

  I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t stop at all. I pushed off the floor with both hands. Then I lunged for the detonator, scooping it up in my hands.

  I had it! But now what could I do?

  Torenzi turned to me and I was maybe four feet away from him — point-blank range.

  That’s when Keller shot him for the first time.

  Blood sprayed as Torenzi took a bullet above his elbow. He let out a horrific grunt and spun around to shoot back at Keller, only to take another bullet higher on the arm, some-where just below his shoulder.

  But the killer didn’t go down. Instead, he fired back at Keller.

  Then Torenzi bolted off the train. The last sound I heard was his footsteps on the gravel around the tracks as he raced into the woods.

  Chapter 97

  KELLER LOOKED LIKE a blur in a comic-book-inspired movie as he came sprinting down the aisle.

  “I’ve got the detonator!” I yelled, holding it up. With the other hand I was pointing out the door of the train. “Don’t let him get away!”

  But Keller went nowhere except down on one knee, right by my side. “Suspect armed and on foot,” he announced into his radio. “You okay?” he asked me.

  My chest felt as if I’d just danced with a wrecking ball, but all things considered? “Yeah, I’m okay,” I said. I handed him the detonator.

  Then I lifted up my shirt and we both stared at the bullet lodged in the Kevlar vest that he had insisted I wear.

  “Bull’s-eye,” he said with a smile.

  “Oh, that’s funny,” I said. “You could’ve killed me!”

  “You’re right, I could’ve,” said Keller. “But Torenzi? He would’ve for sure.”

  “Uncle Nick?”

  We both turned to Elizabeth, who was still on the floor about six feet away. She was still wearing a bomb.

  Keller went over to her and helped her to her feet. “Honey, that’s Agent Keller, with the FBI,” I said. “He’s going to get that bomb off you.”

  My eyes went to Keller. He gave me a nod somewhere between hope and confidence: I’ll do my best.

  Then he held the detonator up like a Fabergé egg, quickly studying it front and back. It actually was a flip-top cell phone without the flip top.

  “So he dials some numbers and we all go boom — is that how it works?” I asked.

  “Only one number … speed dial,” said Keller. He motioned to Elizabeth. “Somewhere on her is the ringer of another phone that’s wired to a detonating cap. Simple. ETA pioneered it before it was adopted by jihadists, and now apparently Italian hit men.”

  Keller assumed I knew what ETA was, given my profession. He was right, and it didn’t stand for “estimated time of arrival.” ETA was Spain’s homegrown terrorist network.

  “Uh, excuse me, but shouldn’t we be calling the bomb squad or something?” asked the engineer. He was still sitting on the floor of the train, a little dazed but clearly comprehending the situation.

  “Trust me, they’re already on their way,” answered Keller. “The problem is, we can’t wait for them.”

  It wasn’t exactly the answer the engineer was looking for. “Why not?” he asked, half a beat before I did.

  “Because right now any phone can detonate this bomb,” said Keller. “All Torenzi has to do is get to one.”

  “So what do we do?” I asked.

  “We don’t do anything,” said Keller. “I need both of you guys to clear out of here right now. A hundred yards, no less than that. Move it. Go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said flatly. “I’m staying right here. Period.”

  It was the easiest decision I’d ever made, and it didn’t seem to surprise Keller that much. He didn’t bother fighting me on it. Instead, he turned to the engineer and cut straight to the chase.

  “You married?” asked Keller.

  The guy wasn’t quite ready for a pop quiz, easy as it was. He was still rocking and reeling from all the action he’d had in the past hour.

  “I said, are you married?” repeated Keller.

  “Yes,” said the engineer.

  “Any kids?”

  Keller didn’t say another word.

  He didn’t have to.

  “I’m out of here. Good luck,” said the engineer. “I’m praying for you.”

  Chapter 98

  I WATCHED THROUGH the window for a few seconds as the engineer did the right thing and got the hell away from the train. Then Keller got down to business. Very tricky, very risky business.

  “Okay, Elizabeth, all you need to do is relax,” he said in a soft voice. “The first thing we’re going to do is take off the sweater you’re wearing. Okay with you?”

  She clenched her fists and nodded. “Okay.” What a trouper. Like I said, the bravest kid I know.

  Ever so slowly, Keller unzipped the rest of Elizabeth’s green sweater, past the little embroidered flower and all the way to the bottom. The farther down he went, the more I had to stifle my urge to gasp at all the wires — and the bomb attached to them.

  “You’re doing great, Elizabeth, really great. This should be no problem at all,” said Keller. He wasn’t about to scare her any more than she already was, but I could tell from his face that the “no problem” talk was just that. Talk. Probably to keep Elizabeth’s and his mind off what was actually happening.

  Of course, the one thing he hadn’t factored in was Elizabeth’s amazing sense of smell. As in, she could smell bullshit from a mile away. Even more so when the person was right in front of her.

  “It’s worse than you thought, isn’t it?” she finally asked.

  “Not necessarily,” said Keller, peeling the sweater off her shoulde
rs. Then he pushed around a few of the wires for a better look at the explosives. They literally crisscrossed the front of Elizabeth’s undershirt like an X.

  “Are you sure you should be doing this?” I asked.

  Keller kept poking and prodding while answering me, as if to make his point. “This C-4 stuff is as stable as it comes. You could shoot it with a gun and it wouldn’t explode.”

  You learn something new every day. Even when it could be your last.

  “So, what does make it explode?” I asked.

  “A shock wave combined with extreme heat,” said Keller, “created by triggering these wires connected to the detonators imbedded in C-4.”

  “Couldn’t we just slip everything off her? Right up over her head?”

  “That’s what I’m checking to see,” he said as he continued to poke and prod. “The way whoever built this has it configured, though, I’m not sure —”

  Keller suddenly stopped cold, and he looked as if he’d seen a ghost.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Tell me.”

  Instead, he showed me. He pulled me closer and pointed at it, clear as could be.

  It was worse than a ghost, actually.

  It was a timer — ticking backwards.

  Chapter 99

  “UNCLE NICK? WHAT’S happening? What’s going on? Why aren’t either of you talking?”

  Elizabeth reached out for me, her pale, slender hands waving helplessly in the air. She started to move toward me but Keller held her back.

  “Nick, come hold Elizabeth,” he said. “Can you do that? Keep her hands up.”

  I swung around behind Elizabeth, doing exactly as Keller said. “Don’t move,” I whispered in her ear. “I’m right here with you.”

  Over her shoulder I could still see the timer, a cheap plastic stopwatch that was taped to the cell phone behind one of the blocks of C-4.

  Fifty-four seconds!

  And heading in the wrong direction …

  Keller had no time to think. He was winging it, fast and furious. Then, like a switchboard operator on speed, he began pulling out the detonator wires one by one.

  “How much time?” he asked.

  “Forty seconds!” I said.

  He pulled out another wire. There were three to go. Then two. My eyes were pinballing back and forth between the timer and his hands.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  “Thirty seconds!”

  Keller was down to the last wire. “Just one more,” he said under his breath. “C’mon, now …”

  He gripped the C-4 to hold it steady. All he had to do now was pull on the wire and ease it out like he’d done with all the others.

  “Shit!” said Keller.

  The wire wasn’t moving.

  “Pull harder!” I yelled.

  “I am!” he yelled back. “He must have glued it.”

  Twenty-five seconds!

  Keller looked at me and then out the door of the train. I saw the spark of an idea light his face. A last-gasp idea? Probably.

  “Wait! Where are you going?” I said.

  He was already sprinting toward the front of the car, heading for the engineer’s cabin. Seconds later, the train jerked and sputtered. It was moving along the track again.

  “Pick her up!” he barked, running back toward us.

  “What?”

  “Lift her off the ground! Do it! Right now!”

  “Please do it!” Elizabeth joined in.

  I grabbed Elizabeth by the elbows and hoisted her up. Suddenly Keller pulled the bomb over her waist and down her legs, sliding it off her feet.

  Damn it! I couldn’t see the timer anymore. All I could see was Keller pointing out the door of the train at the green of trees. The train was gaining speed.

  “Jump!” he yelled. “Jump now!”

  I scooped up Elizabeth, cradling her in my arms as I turned toward the door — and then leaped through the air after him.

  There was no tuck and roll, only a thud — my feet barely hitting the ground before I fell onto my back to shield Elizabeth. The snap! I heard was another one of my ribs, the pain shooting through my body like an angry rocket.

  Still cradling Elizabeth in my arms, I turned to watch the train zoom by us, the head car that was carrying the bomb getting smaller and smaller. But not small enough.

  “Get up!” barked Keller. “Run!”

  I scrambled to my feet with Elizabeth as Keller grabbed my arm to lead the way. We raced along the tracks, putting as much distance as we could between us and the —

  BOOM!

  Chapter 100

  “DARK SIDE OF the Moon or Wish You Were Here?” asked Anne Gram, one of the two surgical technologists prepping the OR at Jacobi Medical Center. She was cueing up the iPod of Dr. Al Sassoon, the attending surgeon — and massive Pink Floyd fan — who was still scrubbing.

  Ruth Kreindler, the frick to Anne’s frack, looked up from the sterile surgical drape she was laying over Joseph D’zorio’s groin area. It was the only part of the guy that wasn’t broken, punctured, lacerated, or ruptured.

  “The way this is shaping up,” said Ruth, shaking her head, “we’ll hear both albums and some of The Wall as well. Al and his Pink Floyd.”

  “Hey — he’s good, and he’s fun to work with.”

  The two women, both in their early forties, were done with their pre-op checklist, even twice testing the suction machines as they’d been clogging as of late. All in all, it was business as usual, although they both knew that the man on the table, unconscious and breathing oxygen, was no ordinary patient.

  “Do you believe all people deserve to be saved?” Anne finally asked.

  Ruth looked over her shoulder to make sure the two of them were still alone with the infamous mob boss. They were. “Are you speaking medically or spiritually?” she asked. “It might make a difference in my answer.”

  Anne shrugged. “Medically, I suppose.”

  “I know what you’re saying, but a hospital isn’t a court-room. Know what I mean?”

  “I do. Still.”

  Ruth glanced down at D’zorio. “I’ll put it to you this way,” she said. “A guy like this puts my faith to the test. It’s righteous anger versus forgiveness.”

  “Who wins?” asked Anne.

  “Forgiveness, I suppose. Spiritually, all people can be saved.”

  Anne nodded but there was little belief in her eyes. She could never say it out loud, but she was secretly hoping that Dr. Sassoon would have an off day, or at least not bring his “A” game to the table.

  “What did you say?” asked Ruth.

  Anne hadn’t said anything. She was too busy envisioning Dr. Sassoon “accidentally” leaving a sponge in D’zorio’s chest.

  But she’d heard it, too. Someone had said something in the operating room.

  Simultaneously, they both looked down at D’zorio on the table. His thin, bluish lips were moving. He was mumbling.

  “What did he say?” asked Anne.

  “I’m not sure,” said Ruth, leaning down toward his mouth. Anne joined her.

  “Sorr —” said D’zorio, his voice barely above a whisper. “Sorry.”

  At least, that’s what the two heard.

  “He’s confessing his sins,” said Anne.

  “Or trying to,” said Ruth, walking over to the phone on the wall.

  She called down to the staff chaplain’s office to see if D’zorio’s priest had arrived yet. They had been told he was on his way to administer the anointing of the sick, otherwise known as the mob boss’s last rites.

  Apparently, D’zorio was starting without him.

  Ruth was still waiting for someone in the chaplain’s office to pick up when the heart monitor alarm sounded.

  “Oh, Christ!” said Anne, back at the table with D’zorio. “He’s flatlining!”

  Ruth hung up the phone and ran out to where Dr. Sassoon had just finished scrubbing.

  But it was too late. There would be no Pink Floyd played in the OR
that afternoon. Joseph D’zorio had receded into death.

  Like a distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.

  Chapter 101

  BRUNO TORENZI WAS steamrolling his way through the brush and branches, his hands clearing the way forward while his ears listened for anyone coming up behind him.

  He was waiting for the explosion back on the train tracks, and with a quick glance at his watch he knew it wouldn’t be much longer. Any second now, really. It was so close to happening, he could practically hear the entire sequence in his head — a symphony of sounds, from the initial thunderous clap to the seemingly endless echo to the relentless squawking of every bird knocked off its perch within a square mile.

  Finally, it came. The bomb, the echo, the birds … everything. Almost exactly as he’d imagined it would be.

  But Torenzi didn’t stop and look back, not for a second. He had no interest in taking it all in. He didn’t feel the need.

  He didn’t feel anything.

  There was no glee, no satisfaction, and certainly no remorse — not even the slightest twinge of guilt over the innocent little girl. She had flushed out her uncle as he’d planned. She’d served her purpose from his viewpoint. That was all there was to it.

  As for the Rambo who’d crashed the party on the train, Torenzi still had no idea who he was. In hindsight, though, the guy must have known Daniels was wearing a bulletproof vest. There was no way his aim was that bad, the two shots he tagged Torenzi with being evidence of some skill on his part.

  Speaking of not feeling anything …

  Torenzi had yanked the black leather belt from his pants, making a tourniquet and cutting off the circulation directly below his shoulder. For now, his arm was as numb as rubber in December. Later, he’d tend to it. He’d dig out the bullets with the stiletto blade he kept strapped to his shin and then stitch himself up with a dime-store needle and thread, leaving two more scars on a body littered with them. No big deal. Just another day at the office.

  As Hyman Roth said to Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part II, “This is the business we’ve chosen.”