Countdown, page 29
Perfect.
Everything on HV414-29 is running as smooth as it could. As they approach a crossing, Brian pushes the square yellow button for the train’s horn, giving it a quick four blasts. A couple of kids at the crossing wave at him, and he waves back. A few years ago, a cute young woman was holding hands with her boyfriend at a crossing; as Brian sped by, she let go of her boyfriend’s hand and gave him a wave.
Everyone loves trains.
They are south of Albany, passing through Glenmont, when Brian says, “Hey, Alvi.”
Alvi turns from his vantage point on the fireman’s chair. “What’s up?”
Brian says, “We’re going to be passing the northbound to Albany at a little past 11 a.m. Wanna moon them as they go by?”
Alvi shakes his head, smiling. “Nah. I don’t want to get into trouble.”
Chapter 98
JEREMY WINDSOR clutches the side of the door as Amy roars the Impala down Lefante Way in Bayonne, New Jersey, passing through what looks like an industrial dumping ground of junk, warehouses, and parked tractor trailers. As they quickly approach a small gatehouse of stone and wood, a man in a security officer’s uniform steps out and—
Amy lays on the horn, the man jumps back, and now they’re passing through an improved area: the road curves and sways, and up ahead is what looks to be the main building of the golf club—a two-story Victorian-style building with a lighthouse stuck to one end.
The cars parked here are Jaguars, Porsches, and Range Rovers. Amy brakes the Impala hard, shoves it in a parking space near the building, and throws the car into Park as privileged men and women golfers casually stroll by.
“I’m out of here,” she says. “You get your Brit ass across the river and try to stop Rashad. I’ll take care of the railway.”
“How?” Jeremy says, scooting into the driver’s seat.
Amy says, “By following your lead: relying on steel-hard friendships, always ready to do a mate a favor.”
“The time,” he says. “Eleven-oh-nine. I puzzled it out. Reverse it. It’s nine-eleven. Bastard.”
She’s out on the pavement, borrowed iPhone in her hand, and leans down. “Get the job done, Jeremy. I don’t care what day he’s commemorating. We’re depending on you.”
He says, “On it,” but she has already slammed the driver’s door shut.
Jeremy is about to back up the Impala when he spots one, then two police cruisers pull up before the clubhouse, lights flashing. Two cops jump out and—
Start running across the nearby practice green.
Like they’re chasing Amy.
Not the Impala.
Jeremy calmly reverses, then puts the car in Drive and gets the hell out, glancing at the dashboard clock.
It’s 10:27 a.m.
He has a tiny hope that maybe, just maybe, Gus the train enthusiast has raised the alarm.
Chapter 99
AT THE dispatch center for the Hoboken Police Department on 106 Hudson Street, Sergeant James Washington is sitting in his chair, left foot aching, looking forward to the end of his shift as a dispatch supervisor.
Not that he minds being here, but he’s been in dispatch since surgery to remove a cyst from his foot, and even though it hurts like a son of a bitch this morning, he’s determined to tell his doc tomorrow that everything’s okay so he can get back on the streets.
Tony Russo—young, heavyset, wearing a civvie dispatch uniform and holding a slip of paper in his hand—pokes his head in and says, “We got another train call a few minutes ago.”
“What kind of call?”
Russo glances down at the paper. “Like the previous dozen we’ve gotten the past two weeks: explosives have been set on the southbound and northbound trains of the Hudson Valley Railroad.”
Sergeant Washington groans, picks up his coffee cup. “Not again. Christ, first and second calls, we sent the bomb squad in and there was nothing. Damn hackers. I can’t imagine anybody getting their jollies making prank calls like this.”
“Yeah, but this one’s different,” Russo says. “The caller didn’t use a spoofing program. Made the call legit. Some guy from Bayonne.”
“Great,” the sergeant replies. “Call Bayonne PD and tell them to pick that guy up. Maybe he can tell us why we’ve gotten so many goddamn fake warnings about bombs on trains.”
Chapter 100
I’M RUNNING across the perfectly manicured grass of the Bayonne Golf Club’s practice green as the perfect men and perfect women with their golf gear look at me, wondering if I’m some crazed groundskeeper, or perhaps a clubhouse manager gone rogue. Among the thoughts and possibilities racing through my mind, one stands out:
There’s a police cruiser coming up on us.
And not just one. Two rolled in and stopped behind Jeremy and me when we got to that ghastly country-club building. And when I started racing across the beautiful greens, two cops bailed out and began running after me.
Why two? Because I was speeding on a New Jersey highway? That’s practically the state sport.
No.
The cops are after me.
How?
I plow through some low brush, hit the ground and roll, and—
Yep.
Stupid me.
Gassing up the Impala earlier, I was standing outside, in full view of a surveillance camera, if only for a few seconds.
But those few were plenty for somebody who’s very pissed off at me.
Ernest Hollister.
I get up, spare a glance at the gently rolling fairways and little flapping triangular golf flags stretching into the distance.
A number of cops—some in SWAT battle rattle—are stretched out in a line, coming my way.
I take out my borrowed iPhone, start punching in numbers.
It’s 10:31 a.m.
Chapter 101
IT’S A beautiful May morning and Lisa Bailey is madly, deeply in love. She’s in the right-hand pilot’s seat of a Bell 429 helicopter, call sign Aviation 19, and with her copilot and fellow New York Police Department officer Joe Woods, she’s flying near the southern end of Manhattan, with the best view in the world.
At six thousand feet in this crisp weather, it’s CAVU—ceiling and visibility unrestricted—and Lisa’s love affair is with this gorgeous flying machine. Its latest police surveillance and tracking equipment includes radiation-monitoring devices, a TrakkaBeam searchlight, and the MX10 EO/IR camera system, which can zoom in and read the numbers on a license plate or the logo on some perp’s baseball cap, day or night.
Through the helicopter’s intercom, Joe says, “Stop smiling so much, Lisa—you’ll ruin your resting bitch face.”
Lisa laughs, her left hand on the collective lever and her right on the cyclic stick, both booted feet on the control pedals. “Can’t help it. This beauty beats that flying Greyhound bus I’m used to.”
That “bus” is the heavy-lift Chinook CH-47 helicopter, old and clunky, prone to leaking hydraulic fluid but otherwise a solid workhorse that Lisa flew many times when she was active duty U.S. Army, performing missions in Iraq and Afghanistan: most of the time delivering troops and supplies through the Chinook’s rear ramp, sometimes getting shot at, a couple of times seeing the smoky trail of an RPG wavering up to her.
“Center to Aviation 19,” comes a message from dispatch, audible through her heavy crash helmet.
She toggles a switch. “Aviation 19, go.”
“Hold one,” the woman’s voice says.
As Lisa takes in this gorgeous view of south Manhattan—the tall firm buildings, the water of New York Harbor and nearby Governors Island—she thinks of the desert, jagged empty mountain peaks, the small villages of huts and poverty and—
“Aviation 19, Center,” the voice goes on. “Switch to Channel 99. We have an incoming telephone message for you.”
She looks over at Joe, who shrugs beneath his heavy flight jacket. Channel 99 is encrypted, meaning scanner snoopers can’t overhear sensitive traffic. It feeds in only to the pilot’s communications system.
“Roger that,” says Lisa. She goes to the cluttered dashboard and makes the necessary adjustment, then says, “This is Officer Bailey, NYPD Aviation. Go ahead, caller.”
And a voice from the past and the harsh desert slips right into her ears.
“Hey, Fly Girl, this is Captain Cornwall, so glad I caught you.”
“Amy!” she answers. “Captain? Heard you went over to the dark side—that agency beginning with the letter C.”
Lisa’s happy and surprised to hear from Captain Cornwall, and she’s expecting a hearty laugh and an explanation for why Amy’s calling her at this time and place. So her hands tingle with apprehension at what she hears next.
“Lisa, I need your help,” Amy says, voice low and firm. “There’s an emerging terrorist threat coming from a railway on the other side of the Hudson, south of the Hoboken Terminal. Bombs have been set on two trains that will cause a cloud of poison gas. I don’t have time to go through channels. I…I’ve got less than half an hour. In thirty minutes, there’s going to be a terrorist attack that will kill tens of thousands. I need you, Lisa. I need you bad.”
She keeps quiet. Talk about the goddamn bolt from the blue.
Amy says, “You’re the best I knew back in the ’stan. Anywhere and anyplace you’d fly, no matter the mission. Lisa…this is irregular, I’m putting you in a world of hurt, but please…trust me. I need you.”
Lisa looks over at south Manhattan, sees the shining spire of One World Trade Center, remembers her now-dead uncle—also a helicopter pilot in the Aviation Unit. Whenever he got drunk at family get-togethers, he would sit in a corner and quietly weep, recalling the desperate people leaning out of the shattered and smoking windows of WTC One and Two, waving at him, beseeching him to help.
“You got it,” she says. “Where are you?”
Amy says, “Bayonne Golf Course…near the eighth hole. In a line of trees.”
Lisa says, “There’s a helipad on the river’s edge.”
Amy says, “Great idea, but I got some police on my ass. I can’t make it there without being arrested, and I can’t be arrested.”
Holy shit, Lisa thinks. What am I getting myself into?
And the weeping of her uncle comes to her.
“Be there in less than five. Aviation 19 off.”
She switches the communication system so that her copilot can hear her. Then she takes a breath and gently banks the Bell helicopter to the left.
“Joe?”
“Right here, Lisa.”
She talks slowly and plainly. “That was a CIA officer I served with in Afghanistan, when she was in Army Intelligence. I trusted her with my life then and I trust her now. This…is outside channels, but she needs me to pick her up to prevent a terrorist attack in less than thirty minutes.”
The deep thrumming of the two Pratt & Whitney engines is the only thing Lisa hears.
“She’s hiding out at the Bayonne Golf Course. We’ve got no authority, no orders. If this goes south, we’ll probably both lose our shields—if we’re lucky. So…you can get out in New Jersey when I pick her up.”
A second passes.
“Lisa?”
“Yeah, Joe.”
“Fly the goddamn bird,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter 102
JEREMY WINDSOR walks briskly along the floating docks of the Freedom View Marina—don’t run; running always raises attention and suspicion—until he sees what he’s looking for: a lovely 48-foot bright-red speedboat that he knows can reach 80 miles per hour with its twin 500-horsepower Mercury outboard engines.
The trip here after he dropped off Amy took about five minutes, and he feels the weight of time and pressure on his shoulders as he leaps into the boat.
Work, he thinks. Work fast.
He pulls apart a section of the dashboard next to the boat’s steering wheel, reaches in, and yes…
The ignition wires.
He pulls the red and yellow ones out, thinking how fortunate he is that most boats still depend on 1960s ignition technology—nothing like the latest models of cars and trucks. In a few seconds of flicking the raw ends of the wires together, both engines roar into life, throbbing with a noise that instantly relieves him.
Jeremy climbs out of the open interior, unties the stern line and bowline. A man yells, “Hey, hey—who the hell are you?”
He jumps back into the boat, pushes away from the dock. Two men are running down after him, one in khaki shorts and a pink polo shirt, the other in a security guard’s uniform. Jeremy waves a hand and says, “Just borrowing it for a few minutes, fellows! I’ll do my best not to prang it!”
Jeremy maneuvers the boat through a narrow channel clustered with sailboats and other powerboats of all sizes and shapes—their obscene cost the common denominator—then shoves the twin throttles forward and powers his way out to the Hudson River. It’s a gorgeous late-May morning and there’s lots of marine traffic out here, from ferries to sailboats.
Jeremy stares ahead. Based on the quick research he did on the new iPhone, there’s the Nansen Arms Hotel, rising up near Rockefeller Park, almost directly opposite him. Getting across this stretch of river with the powerboat should take less than five minutes.
But what will be waiting for him when he gets there?
Is there another information source he can tap?
With one hand on the steering wheel, Jeremy keeps the powerboat roaring along on a straight course. With the other he grabs the iPhone and makes a call. After a brief discussion, thankfully, the call goes through.
“Amanda Trevor, agricultural attaché,” comes the familiar voice.
“Amanda,” he says. “It’s Jeremy Windsor. I need your help.”
And without a word, she disconnects his call.
Chapter 103
I HEAR it before I can see it—my airborne savior and salvation. I break from the narrow stretch of trees and start running.
The noise of the approaching blue-and-white Bell 429 helicopter with the New York Police Department seal on its hull approaches, but even the sound of its engines can’t drown out the yells and shouts coming from the police officers who’ve spotted me running across the greens.
I wave with both arms—my stolen 9mm Beretta bouncing up and down in my waistband—and Lisa Bailey up there must see me, for the NYPD helicopter swerves and then flares out for a descent.
I hear barking.
Glance back.
Dogs—for real?
Yeah: two Belgian Malinois have been let off their leashes and are running after me with full strength and righteous fury.
Damn it!
The helicopter is on the ground, the stern rotor facing to my left, the main hull to the right, and a familiar face is peering at me through the side pilot window. Never have I been so happy to see another woman.
The roar of the chopper’s engines drowns out the shouts and the barking dogs.
Close.
Closer now.
I duck my head, the prop wash hitting me hard, and skid to a halt as I reach the hull. I grab the door handle and tug it open, imagining sharp teeth about to sink into my calves. Then I toss myself into the rear passenger compartment as Lisa lifts us up.
I roll on the floor, get up, and sit down in a rear-facing padded seat. I fasten the seatbelt, locate a headset with mic, tug it over my head.
Lisa’s voice comes to me, sharp and to the point.
“Where to?”
“Railway near the south side of Hoboken Terminal. Freight train heading north. Carrying chemicals. It’s been sabotaged. In about—”
I check my watch.
Damn it again.
“Twenty minutes, it’ll pass a southbound train on the adjacent tracks. They’re timed to explode at the same time, and when the chemicals mix…”
“Got it,” Lisa says. “Should be there in less than five. We’ll see if we can’t stop it.”
I settle back in the seat with blessed, sweet relief.
We just might make it—just might make it.
Through the helicopter’s side windows, I think I catch a glimpse of Staten Island, far away there in the south, and my sense of relief increases.
Thank God my family is safe.
Chapter 104
TOM CORNWALL spots a familiar rusty blue Ford F-150 pickup truck coming down Fulton Street. He waves at his uncle John and the truck comes to a halt. John lowers the window and says, “All right if I drop off your cutie and get going? You know how I hate driving here.”
“Not a problem,” Tom says, and goes around the rear of the truck—with its faded bumper sticker that says LIVE LONGER, EAT MORE FISH—and opens the passenger door, helping Denise out. She’s carrying her heavy, multicolored Vera Bradley backpack.
Oh, he’s angry at her, but seeing her smile—and her eagerness at being with Daddy—douses his anger. As Uncle John’s pickup slides back into the westbound Fulton Street traffic, Tom takes Denise’s backpack in one hand and her hand in the other and says, “Hon, you should have stayed home with Uncle John.”
“But you promised me!” she says, words angry but face still smiling. “Today is that day everyone is supposed to bring his or her daughter to work…and you promised. I wanted to see where you worked…”
He hugs Denise and thinks, What am I going to tell her: “Daddy doesn’t work here anymore”?
There are shouts.
Yells.
Even screams.
From the nearby doors, people are running out of the Fulton Street entrance to One World Trade Center.
Denise notices the people running out of Tom’s old workplace.
“Daddy,” she says, voice suddenly scared. “What’s wrong?”
Chapter 105
THERE.
Mike Patel smiles with satisfaction, picks up the M4, and pulls back the action, putting a .223 cartridge into the chamber.
