by Ben Coes
An eerie silence inhabited the train now as passengers huddled in fear, most with their eyes closed, parents holding children, women crying.
The two men passed quickly through the car, barely looking at the bloody carnage in the front—a woman riddled with bullets piled awkwardly atop the man in the orange jacket, whose head was smashed at a horrible angle into the wall, his face, hair, and jacket covered in blood.
They kept moving toward the front of the train. Kyrie began a fast-paced jog down the aisle as Fortuna trailed him just behind, both men clutching handguns.
In the middle of the next car, Kyrie stopped. He looked around, his eyes darting wildly about, a slightly bewildered look on his face—a look that soon turned maniacal.
He looked at Fortuna.
“I said I would find him,” said Kyrie.
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Fortuna.
“Listen,” said Kyrie, pointing at the roof of the car as he started walking forward.
“I don’t hear anything—”
“Listen!”
It was, at first, nearly impossible to discern, but then Fortuna’s face took on a look of recognition. It was the faint clomp of footsteps.
“How do you know it’s him?” said Fortuna.
“I don’t,” said Kyrie. “But I’m guessing that’s how they killed your other men. Someone on the roof to mark your men, someone in the car to kill them. Besides, there aren’t many people who could get on the roof of a moving train, especially in this weather. It’s him.”
Fortuna paused, then slowly nodded.
“If you want my advice, take him while he’s on the roof,” said Kyrie. “It’s the last thing he’ll expect.”
* * *
Fortuna entered the next restroom and locked the door. He slid open the window. A wall of wind and cold air struck him. He stuck his gun in a holster attached to his belt, strapping it in. Cold air pummeled his face as he climbed onto the sill and then raised his right hand and reached around to the roof, grabbing a piece of thick steel bracing. As he hoisted himself up, he saw Andreas. He was on the car in front of him, his back to Fortuna, leaning over as he moved slowly toward the front of the speeding train.
It was snowing fiercely and the wind had picked up. Fortuna crawled to the middle of the roof, fighting to keep from being blown off. He paused a few seconds to get acclimated to the wind shear and to the steady gale-force winds. He stood up and removed his gun from the holster. He raised the weapon and aimed it at Dewey.
“Andreas!” he screamed.
Dewey stopped moving. He turned his head around and looked at Fortuna.
Dewey’s hair and face were rimmed with white. What skin was visible was red from the wind and physical exertion. He stared at Fortuna, who held him in the crosshairs of the gun.
Fortuna’s arm wavered in the wind as he struggled to keep the gun aimed at Dewey.
“Nebuchar,” yelled Dewey. “The ugly one!”
“You killed my father!” screamed Fortuna. “You killed my brother!”
Fortuna fired. The bullet went flying past Dewey, who reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his gun just as Fortuna fired again, this time hitting Dewey on the left hip. The force of the bullet kicked Dewey to his left and he lost his footing. He let out a pained grunt as he tumbled to the cold steel of the railcar roof. He slid toward the edge, trying to find something—anything—to hold on to. He let the gun go just as he reached the very edge, his two hands, racked with cold, grabbing the slat of steel bracing just as he was about to go tumbling into the mountainous oblivion.
Dewey looked down for a moment as he struggled to catch his breath. He felt the burning of the bullet wound. He looked up at Fortuna, who was inching closer, weapon out and trained on him.
“They deserved to die!” said Dewey.
“It doesn’t matter!” screamed Fortuna as he neared. “A son avenges the killer of his father!”
Dewey clung to the side of the train, his legs dangling in the air. He glanced behind him, seeing nothing but the tops of pine trees covered in snow and the dark walls of mountains in every direction. The running lights of the train illuminated tracks covered in white, and steep, sharp slopes on both sides.
Dewey felt weak. The pain at his side was horrible. He let his left hand go, moving it down to his hip. He brought it back up. The snow was dark red.
Dewey and Fortuna stared at each other for several moments. Then Dewey’s eyes shot behind Fortuna.
“Duck!” he yelled.
Fortuna swiveled around, looking for what was coming. In the same instant, Dewey swung his right leg back onto the train. Fortuna’s sudden movement was met with a brutal wall of wind. He fell backward just as Dewey climbed onto the roof and charged directly at him.
On his back now and sliding, Fortuna grabbed a piece of steel near the middle of the roof with one hand to keep from slipping any farther toward the edge as, with his other hand, he clutched the gun and tried to find Dewey. As Dewey came closer, Fortuna fired—but the bullet missed. Dewey took three running steps and lunged though the air, tackling Fortuna and wrestling him off his mark, both men now skimming down the slippery railcar, Fortuna’s gun falling from his hands as he screamed and tried in vain to find something to grab.
The two men were interlocked as they tumbled and slid, Dewey on top of Fortuna, punching Fortuna in the face as Fortuna held Dewey’s jacket with both hands now, pulling Dewey with him as they tumbled toward the dark, snowy abyss. They picked up speed, slipping inescapably toward the edge. Fortuna was first to slide over the edge, screaming and clutching Dewey’s jacket for dear life.
As Dewey was pulled closer to the edge, his hands grabbed at the roof of the train, searching for something to hold. They found a piece of steel bracing just above the windows. With Fortuna tugging him from below, Dewey clutched the bracing with both hands, even as Fortuna fought to pull him down with him.
The two men now dangled over the side of the fast-moving train as wind and snow pounded and whipped them from all sides, Dewey holding the rail, Fortuna with both hands clutching the neckline of Dewey’s jacket. They remained like that for several seconds, until Dewey felt he couldn’t hold on any longer. Steeling himself, he took his right hand off the bracing, groaning as he felt his left fingers about to break from his weight and Fortuna’s. He reached to his neck with his free hand, numb now, and felt for his zipper. He pulled the zipper down, and the jacket opened up. The material where Fortuna was holding on abruptly slackened, though Dewey’s left arm was still inside the jacket.
Dewey let the jacket fall from his right arm.
“No!” screamed Fortuna as he bounced several inches.
Dewey thrust his right hand back to the edge of the roof, grabbing the steel bracing. Fortuna wrapped his legs around Dewey at the knees, struggling to keep hold. Dewey gritted his teeth as he prepared to rely solely on his weak shoulder. Gripping the steel with his right hand, he let his left hand fall. For a few brief moments, the jacket remained tight on his arm. Then it slid off, and with it went Fortuna, who somersaulted into the icy oblivion, his screams echoing until they were gone.
* * *
Kyrie grabbed a ski hat someone had left on a seat and pulled it on. He tucked his gun between his belt and waist, inside his pants, then entered the car just behind Romy’s. He walked up the aisle, studying the pair of armed guards positioned outside the first-class car.
He came to the front of the car and kept walking toward first class. Both gunmen looked up, though they kept their weapons trained at the ground. As he came closer, Kyrie pulled his gun out and, in one rapid motion, fired two shots. Each man was hit in the center of the forehead, falling as Kyrie reached for the door handle that would lead him into first class.
* * *
Romy was taking a sip of wine when the sound of gunfire exploded from the back of the car. Everyone in the dining area looked around in silent shock. Romy stood up and glanced down the aisle. Walking towa
rd the door to first class was a large man, his hair longish and blond. A cold, terrible shiver shot out from the base of her neck.
Kyrie.
She turned and ducked, running to her compartment. She shut the door and stared at it, not knowing what to do. The old woman who shared the compartment looked up at her.
“Is everything all right?” the woman asked.
But Romy didn’t answer. She didn’t have time to answer.
She went to the window and unlocked it. She held the handle for several moments. Then she heard another gunshot. She slid the window open. Wind and snow poured inside. The woman on the seat shrieked in terror. Romy climbed to the window, standing on the ledge, looking down on trees and snow, and the precipitous edge of the mountain below the tracks.
She looked back. Kyrie was standing in the doorway, his gun trained on her. He had a furious look in his eyes, part anger, but also something else, a look she’d never seen before, as if he might apologize.
That was the look of a monster.
Suddenly, Romy’s eyes went wide in horror. Her mouth opened. She pointed behind Kyrie, trying to warn him.
“Behind you!”
He swiveled, leveling the gun, but there was nothing there. When he turned back to the window, Romy was gone.
Kyrie ran to the window and dived through, disappearing into the blackness.
* * *
The violent staccato of weapon fire cut above the deafening wind.
Screams could again be heard from inside the train.
Dewey climbed back up on the roof and started running. He got into a low crouch, ignoring the pain at his hip, leaning into the wind, charging toward the gunfire.
Dewey came to the front of the train. He heard screaming—piercing above the howl of the wind—coming from the woman’s car. He dived down toward the edge of the roof, grabbing steel just as his feet, legs, and body went sliding over the edge behind him, swinging out. Looking inside the first-class car, he saw chaos. People hiding in their compartments, in the aisles, as a state of panic took over. He looked toward the front of the car. In the space between the two cars, he could see the dead guards. A large splash of blood covered the glass door behind them.
The woman’s head suddenly appeared in an open window. He was about to yell, but then she jumped out of the train. Dewey tried to look back to see where she was falling, but her silhouette was quickly lost in the snow and wind.
A moment later, a man soared through the open window, giving chase.
Dewey moved to the next car and climbed back into the restroom. He removed his gloves and opened the cabinet, grabbing the other weapon. He opened the restroom door and charged left just as he heard his name being yelled from somewhere behind him.
“Andreas!”
A man’s voice, with a thick Middle Eastern accent.
Dewey stopped and turned, sweeping his pistol down the aisle. Katie was standing in the aisle in front of a man, her mouth gagged. The man had dark, oily skin, a ring of gray and black hair around his scalp, and a savage scowl on his round, ugly face.
The man was shielded by Katie. He held a silenced pistol to the side of her head.
“I knew you’d come back,” he said. “Now drop the gun, or she dies.”
Dewey thought back, for a brief instant, to the range.
“Putting my gun down,” he said calmly.
He moved his arm ever so slightly to the right, then fired. The bullet ripped into the Iranian’s right eye, kicking off the side and back of his skull.
He walked to Katie and wrapped his arms around her.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Go find Rob.”
“Where are you going?”
“It’s not over. Get that chopper up here as soon as you can.”
Dewey turned and ran to the front of the car.
He found the ski bag and removed the skis, placed them on the floor between the two cars, facing out the door at the top of the steps. He kicked his boots off and quickly put on ski boots. He took a tactical jacket from the bag, zipped it up, grabbed the ski poles, then stepped into the ski bindings. He punched a small red button near the door. The door slid open.
He looked back at Katie. Then he leaned low and tilted the ski tips down the steel stairs, pushing off with his feet and the poles, jumping from the speeding train into the dark, precipitous void.
74
RESTON, VIRGINIA
Kopitar stared helplessly at his computer screen. It was 6 A.M.
He was looking at one of the directories in a database which, technically, he didn’t have access to. It was a State Department directory—a real-time list of all employees of the Department of Consular Operations.
The list was top secret. While there was little about Consular Operations that warranted such a classification, Bruner had long ago managed to get it classified this way.
Someone was downloading the list.
Kopitar clicked on the user profile of the person or entity doing the download. He was immediately hit with a demand for a password. He typed in a sequence of eight numbers and was let in. The user was someone named Jesus June at Fort Meade, Maryland. NSA.
He picked up his phone.
“Mr. Bruner, it’s Hans.”
“Yes, Hans.”
“Someone is downloading the list of Consular Operations employees. Someone at the NSA.”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” said Bruner. “Is there any way to stop it?”
“No.”
“What will they do with it?”
“My guess is, run it against the various NSA algorithms like PRISM. The good news is, they’re still on a fishing expedition.”
“And the bad news?”
“The bad news is, these programs are state of the art,” said Kopitar. “PRISM, DS-300—they use a lot of very cutting-edge technology. AI, context-based parameters—”
“Stop,” said Bruner. “Just tell me what it means.”
“It’s the facial recognition algorithms I’m worried about. Everything else is sanitized. But you can’t sanitize someone’s bone structure.”
“It happens today, Hans,” said Bruner. “Hours, not days. Just a little while longer. Is there anything you can think of to slow them down?”
Kopitar paused, watching as his screen became populated with a tile of photographs of a young, handsome Hispanic man. At the top of the screen was his name:
JESUS JUNE
DOB:
9-2-86
ADDRESS:
14 Whitney Avenue, Apt. 4H Roslindale, VA
Kopitar glanced at his watch.
“Yes, Mr. Bruner, I have an idea on how to slow them down—for a few hours, anyway.”
75
PRIVATE RESIDENCE
THE WHITE HOUSE
The president stepped into the bedroom, wrapping a towel around his waist as he entered. He was barefoot and dripping wet.
The second floor of the White House served as the private residence of the first family. The rooms were luxurious and intimate. On the third floor, a promenade at the perimeter of the roof surrounded the rooms, partly for security and partly to allow for strolls, its outermost edge a seven-foot-high balustrade and railing, preventing anyone from seeing in.
Dellenbaugh toweled off near the window. A pair of pants—khakis—and a shirt—blue-and-red flannel—were on a hanger. Dellenbaugh dressed and crossed to the walk-in closet. The light was already on and Amy Dellenbaugh was standing inside, looking in a drawer.
“Hi,” he said, buttoning the shirt. “What are you doing?”
“I’m helping you get dressed,” she said, looking at what he was wearing and shaking her head scornfully. She pointed her finger at him and drew it up and down. “No. Definitely not.”
“Why not? It’s Saturday. This is what Americans are wearing today.”
“What are you running for?” she said. “President of the lumberjack society?”
Dellenbaugh shoo
k his head, a tad upset.
“I’m not wearing a suit,” he said.
“It’s an important day, J.P. You’re announcing that you’re running for reelection. You’ve never done that before. Millions of people will be watching.” She handed him a pair of dark slacks. “Suit pants, white shirt, sleeves rolled up, tie, no jacket. A hint of casual but presidential.”
“Fine,” said Dellenbaugh, unbuttoning his shirt. He smiled. “The lumberjack society? Maybe I will run for that someday.”
Amy Dellenbaugh handed him a white button-down shirt.
“Good luck,” she said, grinning. “Maybe your second wife will cheer you on?”
76
JOINT BASE ANDREWS
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MARYLAND
Air Force Two, a modified Boeing 757, stood with its light blue nose just inside the large hangar. Portable air stairs were positioned next to it, leading to an open door.
For the past hour, a variety of people had been climbing the stairs. This included the flight crew, along with reporters and staff members of the vice president of the United States, Daniel Donato.
At 6:20 A.M., the vice president’s limousine pulled up next to the jet. The back door opened and Donato climbed out.
He was dressed in blue suit pants and a white button-down. A couple of senior staff members got out of the limousine as well and followed him toward the stairs.
Donato’s family was already in Hawaii—on the Big Island, in a private villa owned by a hedge fund manager whom Donato had become friends with during his time in the Senate, where he served on the Banking Committee. Donato was a few days behind his family, having spent the week raising money for various Republican House and Senate candidates in Colorado, Washington State, and California. He was a little tired. It would be the Donatos’ first family vacation in more than a year.
Donato climbed the stairs and stepped into the cockpit, where three pilots were preparing Air Force Two for takeoff.
