by Leon, Judith
“And that means?”
“It means it will not respond to any automatic shutdown commands that might be sent from central control. The terrorists have, apparently, gained control of the engine car.”
“Is there any way Joe and I can stop the train? By pulling an emergency brake cord or something?”
“The conductor has a key that unlocks boxes that have the control for an emergency stop. But we can’t reach the conductor, either. Hold the line, please, for just a moment.”
She responded to Joe’s anxious look by shaking her head. “Not good.”
Cesare came back on. “You can find out for certain if you break into a box. The porter can direct you to one. If a green light is showing, then the function is working. If there is no light, the function has been turned off by either the conductor or the engineer. And the bad news is that central control says their instruments indicate that the emergency stop has been disabled. They say the only way to control the train now is from the engine.”
“We’ll check it out. I’ll get back to you.”
To Diego, she said, “Show us where the nearest emergency brake box is located.”
“It’s right there,” he said, pointing to a brown metal structure about the size of a big match box on the back wall of the end car gangway.
“Can you break it open, Joe?”
He grinned. “Sure. My pleasure. I’m throbbin’ with an urge to break something open.”
She smiled back. “Don’t destroy it. Just open it.”
He used the butt of the Glock. A forceful smack on the right side had no effect. A second forceful smack on the left side and the top of the box sprang open.
She saw a green tab inside on a digital pad—unfortunately not lit.
“So?” Joe asked.
Diego said, “We can’t stop the train.”
“Is that what they want?” Joe asked.
She answered. “They want to stop this damn thing at a spot twenty-five kilometers before we get to the next good-sized town. But they don’t have contact with the engineer. They don’t have control of the train.”
“Then we need to get to the engine cab,” Joe said.
She turned to Diego. “We’re going forward. You stay here. It’s as far away from harm as you’re likely to get.”
“This is a terrible thing.” The twinkle in Diego’s dark eyes had gone out some time ago. “If you need me, you call the number I gave James. I will come to you. If you need anything.”
She squeezed his arm in unspoken gratitude.
With Joe leading, they entered the end car and strode forward. Everything seemed almost creepily normal. People reading, several already curling against the side of the car in preparation to sleep, a mother helping her little boy color in his coloring book. In the next car, the same scene. A man she passed had just poured himself a cup of coffee from a thermos. God, I’d kill for a cappuccino.
They entered the gangway between cars No. 5 and No. 4. While the noise level here rose noticeably, the closed doors blocked out much of the sound of wind rushing along the train’s metal skin and the wheels gliding along the tracks at what she guessed was now about one hundred and forty miles per hour.
In the club car, business was slow; only eight people were nursing drinks.
They entered Car No. 4—and found chaos. The passengers in the last several rows at this rear end were seated, but staring forward. At the far end and even in the middle, people on their feet were exchanging excited gestures and ideas.
The first words she heard clearly, in Italian, were, “It was a gunshot. I’m sure.”
Chapter 38
A woman sitting near the front of Car No. 4 was weeping. Another woman held a comforting arm around her. Nova heard someone reply to the comment about a gunshot.
“You keep saying that. Think so? Then what do you want to do?” The question came from a wiry man wearing paint-stained jeans, an equally paint-stained brown T-shirt, and carrying a laborer’s hard hat.
She followed Joe past the seated passengers in the back, pulling out the ID Provenza had supplied that said she was a private investigator, Jane Blake. She held it up for inspection by the man who had claimed he’d heard a gunshot.
Joe said in Italian, “We may be able to help. We’re private security guards and we’re armed. What makes you think you heard a gunshot?”
The weeping woman turned around. Tears were digging rivulets through her makeup base. “My husband went forward after he heard the sound and he hasn’t come back. When I tried to go find him, a man at the door of the car said no one was allowed forward. He was dressed funny. He’s not a porter.”
Sticking to Italian, Nova asked, “Is your husband the only one who went forward?”
The man, about fifty-five, who claimed to recognize gunshots, wore dark brown slacks, an expensive silk short-sleeved tan shirt and a heavy gold cross on a thick gold chain around his neck. His neck made her think weight lifter. Perhaps guessing that Jane Blake wasn’t an Italian name and sensing that her Italian was accented, he said to Joe in strongly accented English, “You take my word. I know. Gunshot from a Beretta.”
That pretty much convinced her. The boy in the video had been holding an AK-74, but his sidearm had been a Beretta.
Switching to English, Joe asked, “Have you seen the conductor?”
Weight Lifter shook his head. “Nobody come into this car since the gunshot.”
She said to Joe, “We need to see whatever we can. I’ll go. I look less threatening.” This would irritate Joe. It was, of course, true, but he didn’t like it that just because she looked less of a threat, she often took point.
The weeping woman grabbed Nova’s hand, crying in Italian, “No! No! You really shouldn’t go.”
“I’ll be careful,” Nova assured her.
She stepped into the gangway. The windows in the end doors were small—a foot tall by half a foot wide. All she could see through the window into Car No. 3 was something black.
It moved slightly with the subtle movement of the train.
It was most likely the back of a man wearing black. Most likely the back of one of the terrorists.
He started to turn and she ducked back inside Car No. 4.
She stood still, staring and trying to think fast. What should she tell these people? Calm them? Tell them the truth, which would certainly panic them and was against orders? Joe was searching her face for a clue about what she’d seen.
She grabbed the man with the thick neck and gold cross, pulled him up to the door and planted him there. Even the people from the back of the car were now clustered in the middle and front.
In a calm, firm voice, she said in Italian, “I agree with this man that the sound from the next car may have been a gunshot. And I agree that it would be dangerous for anyone to try to go forward.”
Joe looked at the big Italian. “What is your name?”
“Gregorio.”
“Well, Gregorio, can you see to it that no one does go forward? And make sure that no one comes into this car, either?”
Gregorio grinned. “Right. No one out. No one in.”
Joe raised his hands and gestured. “Go back to your seats. No one is going to come in here.”
“We have to do something, now!” shouted the wiry, paint-splattered guy.
Nova pulled the Glock from her shoulder holster. The effect was as if she’d just sent a thousand volts through the car. Stunned silence. “If someone has a gun, what do you propose to do?” Nova countered. “We’re going to let the authorities handle this when we get to the next station.”
The paint-spattered man’s buddy pulled on his friend’s arm.
Slowly, and in some cases quickly, passengers returned to their seats.
Gregorio said, “No one in. But how do I persuade them…if I need to persuade them?”
She held the Glock toward him. “Do you know how to use this, and would you want to if necessary?”
He took the gun. “Sweeti
e, I’ve fought in Africa and Southeast Asia.” He looked at Joe. “I guarantee you and your girl—no one through the door.”
Joe took her arm. “We need to confer. We’ll get back to you, Gregorio. And thanks.”
He pulled her back down the aisle and out the rear door into the gangway, then called Cesare. “We’ve got a mess in Car No. 4. It seems the terrorists have taken over Car No. 3. Maybe everything forward of it as well.”
A pause, then Joe hung up. “Shit. Once again, he’ll get right back to us.”
Chapter 39
Cesare kept saying “Yes” and “I understand” as Nova explained again that the terrorists had taken over the train, at least Car No. 3, the status of passengers in the other cars, especially Car No. 4, and that the porter had tried but also could not contact the conductor. She ended with, “And since you say they also control the engine, what do the great minds there propose?”
“They are talking right now about landing special forces onto the train, between the engine and Car No. 1. They would take over the engine by force.”
She laughed. “You cannot be serious. This is a Eurostar. They don’t call them bullet trains for nothing. Every car is sleek and clean, including the engine. Given that you could lower someone onto the top, there’s absolutely nothing for a special ops guy to hold on to, on the cars or the engine.”
She imagined the black-clad boys slipping like so much grease off the top of a hot aluminum kettle. “They’re not going to be able to take over the engine that way. We’ve picked up speed. We have to be going about one hundred and forty miles per hour now.”
“Provenza wants to talk to me,” he said. “I’ll call you back.”
She leaned back against the door into Car No. 5 and sighed.
Joe said, “They could stop the whole thing pretty quick if they blow up the engine.”
She imagined the engine exploding in a yellow, red, and black cloud and the cars tumbling off into a desolate cow pasture. “Jesus, Joe.”
“Well, it would work.”
“Right. Keep thinking.”
He crossed his arms and leaned back beside her. They lapsed into concentrated thought.
“How about this?” she said, thinking aloud. “We separate the train from the engine.”
Joe didn’t hesitate a millisecond. “I like it. Cesare can find out how it’s done. Hell, maybe Diego knows.”
Her cell phone buzzed.
“Cesare,” she said quickly, “what we think will work is to separate the engine from the train. When that happens, Joe and I make sure the terrorists don’t bail out when the cars finally slow down enough for anyone so inclined to make a leap. We explain to the passengers beforehand that they have to stay on board to get medical help. Your forces can be there, waiting to secure the train and the passengers and to give medical aid. We can do it. It would work.”
“That is good. Wait a minute.”
The minute turned into more like four. She timed them.
Finally he came back on. “We can get you whatever you need, coordinate with you, and so on. But the trick is, you will have to act fast because to stop the train in a way that is relatively safe for bystanders, and to subsequently quarantine the whole affair, we’ve picked a desired spot and have a plan.”
“And that plan is…?”
“We will take out the track. Everything will be in place shortly to do it. The area has open fields and will do the least harm to people or property. Also, all the passengers who survive can easily be quarantined in tents in the open area. The train will arrive at that location in twenty-two minutes.”
He waited for her to say something. She was going to be in a massive train wreck in twenty-two minutes if she didn’t think fast.
“Did you hear me? You have twenty-two minutes. Can you uncouple the engine in that time?”
“We’ll have to try, won’t we?”
“What exactly will you need?”
“Give Joe and me a couple of minutes to figure out the logistics.”
Chapter 40
By the time she and Joe had worked out a plan, Nova’s watch indicated that they had eighteen minutes left until the train reached the detonation spot. She pulled out her cell and rang Cesare. “We will go to the end car and open a door. You will pick one of us up. We haven’t decided which one yet.”
“Me, me,” Joe said, batting his eyelashes like a woman wishing to be chosen. She loved that about him. In the worst imaginable situations, Joe was so cool he could manage to keep things light.
Nova continued, “We need to sandwich Car No. 3—one of us will cover its front end and one will cover its rear end as soon as we’re cut loose from the engine.” She turned to Joe. “What’ll we need?”
“Tell him we’ll need communicators, special ops jumpsuits and gloves for both of us. A couple of strong flashlights. Another Beretta to replace the Glock you loaned Gregorio. More ammunition.”
Joe went forward, she guessed to let people in Car No. 4 in on the plan. She passed on their needs to Cesare. Cesare offered automatic rifles. She declined. “They spray too much. We’ll want accuracy.”
He then offered to drop six HAZMAT-dressed Special Forces to work with them to secure Car No. 3. She said, “Only two, one to partner with me and another to partner with Joe. More will just get in our way. Guys wearing HAZMAT aren’t going to be able to move very fast in any event.”
Joe touched her arm. “I’ve told everyone in Car No. 4 that we’ll be back. Let’s go. Turns out that Gregorio’s an experienced mercenary.”
They rushed back through the train, a surreal experience because life in the other cars appeared to be proceeding pretty much as normal. Once seated, Eurostar passengers tended to remain in their seats or wandered no farther forward than the club car. This whole situation suddenly struck her as bizarre: the train sped through darkness, but the humans on it moved on human time, oblivious to the world rushing by outside.
When they reached the end car, Diego, with a grim look on his face, sat slumped in one of the seats in the car’s last row. Joe gestured for him to follow them out onto the gangway. They explained the situation—within minutes a helicopter would be overhead to pick up one of them and drop off one Spec Ops man.
Diego straightened, a spark of hope flickering again in his eyes.
“Okay, Joe,” Nova said. “You know I have more experience climbing.”
“But I think I’ve had more experience at insertion and extraction.”
“How much? Be honest.”
“Honest goes without saying between us.”
“So?”
“The usual one course.”
“We’re tied. Let’s toss.”
Joe turned to Diego. “Got a coin?”
He handed Joe a shiny euro coin. “Call it,” Joe said and flipped.
“Tails, I go,” she said.
It landed tails.
Cesare called and while they waited for their gear to arrive, he gave her and Joe directions for how to uncouple a car. They synchronized their watches.
She heard the sound of a helicopter approaching. Fourteen minutes to blowup time.
Chapter 41
The helicopter lowered the gear Nova had requested and Joe fished it into the gangway. Cesare said that as soon as the helicopter lifted her off a different helicopter would lower Joe’s HAZMAT-dressed partner. She snatched what she needed and rushed into one of the end car’s tiny bathrooms to change. When she came back out in a black jumpsuit and armed with a Beretta, Joe had already changed, as well.
Above the train, the helicopter had backed off a bit but still closely trailed them. Another call came from Cesare. “We have air support ready to pick you up when you give them the signal. They are hanging back so the terrorists can’t see them from their position in Car No. 3, but you have a swarm of helicopters on your backside. Do you want communication to be in Italian or English?”
She said, “Tell them I’m ready. And you call the language.”
&nbs
p; “Provenza says, English. You are Con 1, Joe is Con 2. Con for Containment. Your partners will be Con 3 and Con 4.”
Joe took her arm. “The timing is so damn close. As soon as you’re in place, contact me.”
The helicopter pulled up to the end car. Nova spoke into her microphone, positioned near her lips on the tip of a thin plastic tube that was connected to her communicator’s earpiece. “This is Con 1. Ready for pickup.”
Holding a handrail, she leaned out. At first, she couldn’t see anything but a big moon, scattered stars, and the blur of trees as the train raced forward. Then someone in the helicopter turned on a floodlight. A forty-foot long extraction rope dangled from the aircraft close to the train.
After one failed try, she grabbed the rope with a gloved hand, stepped into the foot loop, latched onto another loop with her left hand, gave the thumbs-up signal for them to lift her and stepped off the train.
The moment she put her full weight onto the rope, the helicopter reduced forward speed. Still, the wind pulled at her, threatening to pluck her off the line and hurtle her to the ground that rushed by below.
They reeled her in and immediately pointed to a guy wearing a white HAZMAT gear, his helmet still off, with the number 3 on his suit’s shoulder. “Con 3,” he yelled above the motor’s roar. “I’ll be going in with you.”
Seeing him, she still wasn’t sure just how helpful he could be given the physical restrictions of the HAZMAT suit, but an extra gun never hurt.
The helicopter pilot took them well away from the train, keeping all lights off. Then they zoomed forward until they were ahead of the engine. Joe and Con 4 would be moving into place in Car No. 4 now.
The pilot dropped back until they were right behind the engine. There was a good chance this maneuver, along with the cover of night, and the train’s own noise, had prevented the terrorists from becoming aware of their presence.
