I could tell, or at least sense, that she was fighting back tears. Her voice was cracking. Quivering, actually.
“Elizabeth, what happened?” I repeated.
I pressed the phone hard against my ear as I exchanged looks with Sorren and Keller. They’d been talking, not paying any attention to what I was saying. Until now. Now both of them were staring at me. Who? Sorren mimed.
“I got into a bad fight with Mom and I’m really upset,” said Elizabeth. “I need to talk to you. You’re the only one I can talk to.”
A fight with her mother? It was certainly within the realm of possibility, I guessed. Elizabeth was a teenager and her mother was … well, her mother. Normally they were the best of friends, but even best friends fight.
So why wasn’t I buying any of this? Probably because Elizabeth wasn’t sounding like … Elizabeth.
“Where are you now?” I asked.
“I had to get out of the house, I was so mad,” she answered. “So can I please come into the city to see you? Please, Uncle Nick.”
“Here’s the deal, honey,” I said. “Any other time I’d probably say yes, but right now is really bad for me. I can’t get into the details, but you may hear about it on the news later.” I paused to put a little extra emphasis on my next sentence. “In fact, maybe you’ve already heard about what happened to me today. Is that true?”
Elizabeth was silent for a few seconds. “No, I haven’t heard anything,” she said.
But it was what she didn’t say — she didn’t ask me what had happened.
“This is what I think you should do,” I said. “You need to go home and try to patch things up with your mom. Whatever it was you were fighting about, I’m sure you both can work it out. It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it won’t be,” she said, adamant. “She’s going to tell my father and I’m afraid of what’s going to happen when he gets home.”
She was flat-out crying now, and I wasn’t sure what to say next because I was about to throw up. Elizabeth wasn’t alone. I was sure of it — as sure as the sound that came next. Someone was grabbing the phone away from her.
“That’s a smart little niece you have there, Nick. But we all know her daddy’s dead,” he said. “And unless you come alone to Grand Central Station in one hour, this little girl will be dead, too. And remember this, Nick. I have no reason to hurt her. She hasn’t seen a thing.”
Chapter 92
I COULD FEEL the blood forcing its way through the butterfly bandages on my head and arm as I walked into Grand Central Station a little less than an hour later. But I could give a damn about needing more stitches. What I really needed was Elizabeth back safe and sound. Nothing mattered more. How could it?
Above me in the Main Concourse of the station was the giant display board listing the arrival time and track information for every train. Scores of people were stopping to look up at it.
Not me. I never even gave it a glance as I kept walking, fast. That board couldn’t tell me anything that I didn’t already know.
An unidentified man with an unidentified teenage girl in tow hijacked the 5:04 southbound Metro-North train from Westport, Connecticut. Instead of taking hostages, he let everyone else go. Except for the girl and the train’s engineer … My mind had raced. Jesus, what kind of plan is that? What does it tell me about Bruno Torenzi?
That had been the gist of the first report from the local police in Westport, the sister town to Weston, where Kate and Elizabeth lived. The only other thing they could tell Agent Keller on the phone was that the train was heading into New York City.
Yeah, we know. The unidentified man told us. He also said that the train was making no other stops.
It was hurry up and wait as I stood on the empty platform of track 19. The image of Bruno Torenzi had been seared into my brain so deeply that I could hardly focus on anything else. I could see him at Lombardo’s, and I could see him in the lobby of my apartment building. Now I was about to meet up with him again. One way or the other I figured this would be the last time. But what the hell was his plan? I just couldn’t figure that out.
I definitely wanted to kill the bastard, though. Never in my life had I felt such hatred, such loathing, toward anyone.
Easy, Nick. Keep it in check.
But it was near impossible. Not when I thought about Elizabeth and how scared she must be, or, for that matter, how absolutely terrified her mother was. Only minutes after bolting from the hospital I had reached Kate on her cell phone. She’d been food shopping, a simple half-hour errand, and then back home in a jiff to Elizabeth. Solemnly, I broke the news that Elizabeth wouldn’t be there when she arrived.
“My baby!” she said over and over. It was just crushing.
That’s when I called Courtney to ask a favor that wasn’t really a favor at all, not as she saw it. As soon as I had told her what had happened, and she knew there was nothing she could do for me here in the city, Courtney had immediately read my mind. My sister was in the good hands of the local police while she waited for this all to play out.
“But she needs to be with someone she knows, a familiar and friendly face,” said Courtney. “I’m on my way, okay?”
Yes, thank you! And when this is all over, I need to be with you, Courtney. Okay? Nothing and no one is going to stop me.
Right on cue, I heard the rumbling in the distance. Then I saw it.
The 5:04 train from Westport was pulling into the station like a slow-moving snake made of metal and steel. As the air brakes grabbed the rails, a piercing hiss echoed between my ears.
This is it. The end of the road, tracks, whatever.
Immediately, the sliding doors opened in unison. But the familiar sight of lots of people bustling out didn’t follow. There was only silence, creepy as hell. I held my breath. I could barely stand it. And then —
Tap. Tap-tap-tap …
I finally saw her all the way down the platform. Elizabeth was stepping off the first car of the train, her cane leading the way. My niece was dressed in faded jeans and a lime green zip-up sweater, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Everything about her looked so young and innocent — except her face, her expression. Her mouth was closed tight, her freckled nose scrunched in fear — she looked petrified.
Still, I was so relieved to see her — to see her alive — that the incongruity didn’t dawn on me at first.
She was alone. No Bruno Torenzi.
“Elizabeth!” I called out.
I started running toward her, flying down the platform. It was a knee-jerk reaction. There was no thought, only instinct. How could I not go to her?
She was about to tell me why. My niece stopped, raising her palm. “Wait, Uncle Nick!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “Stop right there! I’m serious!”
Chapter 93
OH GOD NO. This can’t be happening. Only it definitely was happening. I was watching it happen from maybe fifty feet away.
All I needed to see were the red wires peeking out of her sweater. My mind connected the dots from there. Just like the red wires are connecting the blocks of C-4 explosives strapped to Elizabeth’s chest.
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” I yelled, or more accurately screamed. I couldn’t see him but I knew Torenzi was there. Somewhere. Then, suddenly, he was everywhere.
The air crackled with the sound of the train’s public-address system, a thick static followed by a thick Italian accent. “What did I say about you coming alone?” he asked, sounding like the voice of God.
“I did come alone!” I shouted.
“Lie to me one more time and you watch your niece die. In a horrible way.”
I stared at Elizabeth. Her eyes were staring right back but I knew of course she couldn’t see me. That only made things worse, made my guilt worse.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “You’re not going to die.”
Then I turned around, looking at nothing but the empty platform behind me. But it wasn’t empty. I knew it, and Torenzi sure as
hell knew it.
Slowly, the six-man SWAT team that Keller had employed stepped out from the shadows and the rafters, one by one. They were armed with assault rifles equipped with high-power scopes. The original plan had been to take out Torenzi the second he stepped away from Elizabeth.
But now Torenzi was calling all the shots. “Get on the train with the girl,” he ordered. “First car.”
It was so damn unnerving not being able to see him. I could still see just Elizabeth, standing up ahead with her walking stick. What an unbelievable coward this bastard was and had been, right from the start. And not just Torenzi, because D’zorio had to be involved in this. His people, anyway. Torenzi couldn’t be working alone here. Could he?
I walked down the platform, reaching for Elizabeth’s hand. “I’ve got you,” I said.
“Don’t let go,” she whispered.
“I won’t,” I said.
Together, we stepped back onto the train, the doors immediately closing behind us. The idling diesel engine kicked in, shaking the wheels into motion. And then we were off.
To where, though?
Not to mention, where the hell was Torenzi?
“Welcome aboard,” came his voice suddenly. Only it wasn’t over the PA. It was from the front of the train.
I turned in the vestibule to see him standing about a dozen feet away, next to the conductor’s cabin. He was wearing the same suit, same sunglasses, same “don’t screw with me” attitude. In one hand he was holding a small device that looked like a flip-top cell phone without the flip top. It was the detonator.
In the other hand was a gun. It was aimed at the conductor’s head.
“What now?” I asked Torenzi.
He nodded slowly. “You’ll see. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Chapter 94
TORENZI WAS CERTAINLY on top of everything, and that was really scary. He’d kept a watchful eye on the security monitors inside the conductor’s cabin, checking every camera focused on every door of the train. There would be no uninvited guests stepping on board with him, no front-page heroes. It would be just the conductor, Nick Daniels, and Daniels’s niece. A nice little trio, neat and manageable. That is, until he no longer needed them.
Yeah, Torenzi was on top of everything. Except the train itself.
That’s where Agent Keller was.
There were no cameras pointed up there. Better yet, there was a ceiling panel on top of the engine car that could be opened from the outside. At least that’s what the Metropolitan Transportation Authority official had assured him while presenting a crash course outside Grand Central Station on the M7 electric multiple-unit railroad car, otherwise known as the 5:04 from Westport.
“Trust me, you’ll see the panel once you’re up there,” said the MTA official.
The guy was right.
As soon as Plan A had fizzled, Keller had rappelled down from the rafters above the train on track 19. The last time he had done anything like it was twelve years ago during his training at Quantico. “You never know,” his instructor had said.
That guy had been right, too.
Keller had landed on the roof less than a minute before the train had sputtered forward, pulling out of the station. Unclipping his rope, he crouched down low, something like a surfer riding a monster wave. There was no turning back now.
Next, Keller spotted the roof panel. It was no more than ten feet away. Edging toward it, he reached for the two tools given to him by the MTA. The first was a 3200-rpm power screwdriver equipped with a half-inch flat-head bit to maximize the torque. The second was a tad more primitive: a crowbar.
“Once you remove the four screws you’re going to need some elbow grease prying open that panel,” an MTA engineer had warned. “It’s a heavy mother.”
It was also the only way to get inside that train undetected. “Anything else I need to know?” Keller had asked the engineer.
“No, I think that’s it.”
Think again.
Channeling his inner carpenter, Keller quickly dispatched with the four screws holding down the panel. No problem there. The real trick was keeping his balance on top of the train. It was zipping along at full throttle, relentlessly rocking back and forth on the tracks. Still, he was managing. So far, so good.
“Crowbar time,” Keller mumbled, hoping he had a good supply of elbow grease.
Immediately, he knew that the MTA mechanic hadn’t been kidding around. The panel was a heavy mother, all right. It wouldn’t budge. Not an inch. Was it stuck?
Maybe.
Keller tried again. He could almost hear the clock in his head ticking away as he pressed down hard on the crowbar.
“Shit!”
The panel still wouldn’t budge. This was definitely a problem, a big one.
Then, turning his head, Keller had an even bigger problem — if that was possible.
A ray of light had caught the corner of his eye. It was literally the light at the end of the tunnel, which also marked the end of the underground tracks. So much for that old cliché meaning good things were coming his way. That MTA official had forgotten to mention a little thing called clearance.
There wasn’t any.
The loading gauge of the tunnel looked to be only a few inches higher than the train itself. Even if he lay flat, he still wouldn’t clear it. It was either jump or splat!
Or get inside that damn train in a hurry.
Keller shifted his body alongside the panel, desperately throwing his weight into the crowbar as the tunnel kept getting closer and closer to its end. The vibration of the train felt like an electric shock through his body as the air whipped over him, blasting his face, pushing the beads of sweat off his brow like rain on a windshield.
“C’mon, you son of a bitch!” he yelled at the panel. “Move!”
Chapter 95
TIME WAS MEANINGLESS — and I had no idea how many minutes, how many seconds, had actually passed so far. A burst of late afternoon sun hit my eyes as we shot out of the underground tunnel leaving Grand Central Station. It felt like we were practically flying off the tracks.
Torenzi had barked at the engineer to “gun it” and that’s obviously what he was doing. Given that the poor guy had a gun aimed at his head, I could hardly blame his accommodating nature. Funny how that works.
I squeezed Elizabeth’s hand. “Stay behind me,” I whispered, stepping between her and Torenzi.
I wasn’t expecting any small talk or chitchat from the bastard. Whatever his plan was, it didn’t include telling me all about it. He’d come to kill me, and the only reason he hadn’t done it yet was to make sure he wouldn’t get caught. But I had to die — I knew too much.
I figured we weren’t about to pull into some town in Westchester and step off the train, la-di-da. Agent Keller had seemed sure of it, too. Still, he had plotted every scenario the moment Torenzi had hung up on me at the hospital and had arranged for local police to be camped out at every station all the way up to New Haven, the end of the line.
“Just in case Torenzi’s stupid,” Keller had said.
But we both knew he wasn’t. He was daring as hell, and he was smarter than I would have thought. Actually, I’ve noticed that before about professionals in Europe. They work hard; they learn their craft — even the hit men, apparently.
Torenzi turned to the engineer less than a minute later. “Stop the train,” he ordered. “Right here! Now.”
The engineer slammed the brakes like … well, like a guy who still had a gun aimed at his head.
We skidded along the rails, the train wheels scraping like countless fingernails on a blackboard. I spun around to catch Elizabeth, who was hurtling toward the ground. Not a good thing when you’re wearing a bomb, I was thinking. All I’d been focused on while on that train was how to make sure Elizabeth survived this. I was the reason Elizabeth was here, and so far there was nothing I could do to help her.
Torenzi held every advantage, literally. The gun. The detonator. A p
lan to kill me. I held nothing. Except a very scared little girl’s hand.
Out the window I could see dense trees on both sides of the track. We were shielded from view and it wasn’t by accident.
“Please, leave the girl alone!” I shouted. “You’ve got me. I’m the one you want.”
“You’re right,” said Torenzi calmly, reaching into the engineer’s cabin.
He hit the button for the doors to open. Then he raised his gun and aimed it dead center at my chest. For the first time, I let go of Elizabeth’s hand.
“GET DOWN! GET DOWN, DANIELS!”
Out of nowhere came a voice from the back of the train car. I didn’t know who it was at first, and I didn’t care. It was someone!
And suddenly that someone was shooting at Torenzi! I grabbed Elizabeth and yanked her down to the floor with me as Torenzi fired back. Bullets whizzed over our heads as I connected the voice to Agent Keller. But how did he get on the train? And did I really care how?
Looking up from the floor I saw Torenzi grab the engineer in a choke hold. Next, he jammed his gun right into the man’s ear.
Keller stopped firing.
“Stay where you are, asshole!” Torenzi warned as he forced the engineer up the aisle in front of him. The closer he got, the more I tried to cover up Elizabeth with my body.
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.