Red Notice

76

The object of that admiration was still crouching in the darkness. Tom watched through the carriage windows, in the dim glow of the emergency lighting, as one of Laszlo’s crew dragged something heavy along the aisle. The man’s shoulders jerked from side to side as he shuffled backwards with his load.

Then Laszlo himself came into the picture. By the far end of the second coach he was just a pace behind whoever was being dragged. Tom was in no doubt about the purpose of this performance. Laszlo wanted everyone to see the body, to smell the blood it smeared along the passageway. Pour encourager les autres… It was an all-too-visible warning to the surviving passengers of the fate that might await them.

Tom followed in the shadows, searching constantly for Delphine. As Laszlo and his shuffling sidekick reached the third carriage — the last one occupied — he took a deep breath and tried to cut away from the thought that he might already have found her.

The body of a white-haired old man tumbled like a rag doll through the remains of the door at the far end of the carriage, and hit the concrete with a dull thud no more than three metres from Tom’s hiding place. Ashamed that his first reaction was relief rather than anger, Tom looked up as Laszlo pulled Colin, the head steward, away from his stress position against the first window.

His instructions were clearly audible in the tunnel. ‘Give the hostages something to eat and drink from the buffet car. But make it water and sandwiches only, no hot food and no alcohol.’ He turned towards the hostages. ‘If you co-operate with us, you will be treated with respect and you will survive. If you resist, you will be shot and tossed from the train like that pathetic old man. Bon appétit.’

As Laszlo propelled the head steward towards the buffet car, Tom followed once more. And once more he checked each window for a sign of Delphine, desperate to know that she had survived the fuck-up with the kids.