Dark Zone

96

Mussa permitted himself a moment to gather his breath after the train had been successfully stopped by Ahmed, who had slipped into the rear power car before the bombs went off. Running through the cars with their submachine guns, Muhammad and Kelvin had killed the passengers. Mussa himself had shot the French border policeman who’d had the bad luck to be on the back half of the train.

The man had turned to Mussa at the last moment, as the blood burst in a cloud from the side of his head. The look bothered Mussa — it was the expression of a man not ready to die.

Undoubtedly he’d seen that expression often, certainly in his early days. But he could not remember it bothering him as much as now.

A test from Allah of his resolution.

The floor shuddered and a hiss rose from beneath him. Ahmed was unhooking the power car from the rest of the train. He would drive it down the track about thirty yards, providing a barrier to anyone who happened to pursue. The engine would also have a very minor role in helping to deflect the explosive blast upward, in case the yield of the weapon was less than calculated. The track communication system, which used the tracks to convey signal and other information, would be jammed from the car with an electrical interference device.

God was great.

“We are done,” said Kelvin, entering coach eighteen with Muhammad.

“The carts will be set up here. Come.”

Lia’s mind retreated as the punches landed against her. She stepped back, cowering.

Had she always been a weakling? Had she simply fooled herself into believing she was strong?

So many times she’d been faced with danger — in the Army as well as working with Deep Black — and she’d never felt fear like this, never been paralyzed.

All her life she’d lived by the belief that cowards died. She felt herself melting toward the darkness, a trapped mouse waiting to be exterminated.

Muhammad and Kelvin slammed the carts over the transom as they pulled them from the storage area where he had hidden them.

“Careful!” Mussa yelled. “Careful! One at a time. Both of you. Use caution!”

Assuming the calculations on his stopwatch were correct, they were roughly eight and a third miles from the French side of the tunnel, perfect — or as close to perfect as possible. All he had to do was set up the device.

The emergency lighting system bathed the coach a fitful reddish yellow. Mussa had night-vision glasses but opted not to use them; they were clumsy and there was more than enough light to see what he had to do. He directed the others to bring the first cart forward. One of the women they had shot lay in a pool of blood at the middle of the car, the point where the engineer had calculated the bomb should be placed. Mussa stepped over her and then guided the cabinet against her prone body before twisting it around. The cabinets had to form a tight box around the device.

Mussa removed the painted aluminum cover and false drawers and hinges from the cabinet, then reached to the bottom to clear out the connecting tabs. The final move was the most difficult — the explosive box sat on a wheeled tray that had to be pushed out toward him while the explosives unit remained in place. The dead body behind the cabinet helped the process; it gave them something to steady the cabinet against and then ease it to the floor. With the tray in place, he removed the plastic panel at the top, removed the wheels, and cleared the circuit units that connected it to the others and the timing circuitry.

Perspiration beaded down the side of his face as he finished. Kelvin approached with the second cart, which had to be lowered and wedged precisely against the first. This was a problem not only because it weighed nearly two hundred pounds but also because of the narrow squeeze in the aisles where it had to be placed.

Kelvin had begun huffing as they stopped. Grunting, he started to tip it and then lost his grip; for a moment Muhammad held it balanced precariously on two wheels. Mussa threw his own hands out to grab it, pushing at the top to send it back the other way, but it was too heavy — the chest fell backward toward the floor as Mussa felt the air vanish from his lungs.

Mussa stared at the space before him, sensing that he was about to be vaporized but unable to act. And then he felt himself falling straight backward, the sensation of horror mixing with weightlessness.

Donohue leaped out of his seat, forcing himself upright against the force of the train’s braking. He couldn’t decipher what had happened. There’d been an explosion, several explosions — Mussa undoubtedly was behind this, the demented slime. Donohue would strangle him with his bare hands.

The police would be all over this.

One of the train workers was sprawled across the aisle, knocked out but breathing. Donohue pushed the woman aside and strode to the rear of the compartment. The train had been traveling at something over one hundred miles an hour when the explosion occurred; the automated emergency braking system had not kicked in and the engineer had hesitated at first to apply full brakes, unsure what was going on. They were rolling to a stop but still moving at a decent pace.

Donohue passed through the next car and then the next and the next; a policeman shouted at him, but Donohue didn’t pay any attention, driven as much by his curiosity and his anger at Mussa. When Donohue reached car nine, he saw that the vestibule at the back of the car over the coupling area had been blown off and the rest of the train left behind. The train remained on the tracks.

He guessed that Mussa would be back with the other cars.

With luck he’d blown himself up.

That would do Donohue little good now. The police would swarm over the train, collect everyone’s passport — then check the identities thoroughly. Donohue had no doubt he could get past a cursory screening, but if his fingerprints were taken it would be a different story.

And they were sure to take fingerprints, weren’t they?

“You, who are you?” barked a policeman behind him.

Donohue’s anger sprang out of control. He moved without thinking, spinning and striking the policeman so quickly that the man did not manage to say a word before he fell to the ground. The assassin spun and, despite the fact that the train was still moving at a pace of twenty miles an hour or so, jumped out onto the tracks.

As Dean sensed he was nearing the end of the train the cars above him started to move. He froze, then realized that if he didn’t get away, whatever he’d bumped up against going forward would eventually reach him. He pushed back, scraping both sides of his body.

The cars stopped in a second or two. The power car had nudged them against their set brakes as it uncoupled. It was now moving away at a slow pace.

Dean kept moving. When he finally reached the end of the train he pulled himself out. His arm scraped against the jagged end of the mangled coupler assembly as he got up. The pain took him by surprise and he cursed loudly, unable to stop himself.

Unwise, but too late to do anything about it.

He stuffed the collar of his shirt into his teeth against the pain and climbed up onto the car, whose door had been blown open by the explosion. The emergency lights turned the coach a very dull yellow, as if Dean were wearing sepia glasses.

Bodies were scattered across the seats, blood everywhere. He looked at each one only long enough to make sure that it wasn’t Lia, then continued through to the car where she’d been sitting.

All her life she’d fought. Losing one battle — losing this one — didn’t make her a coward.

Lia pushed to get away from the black cloud that sucked at her. She pushed and fought and clawed. She would not give up. Lose, maybe, but not give up.

“Where are you, Charlie? Where are you when I need you?” she mumbled.

“Here.”

Lia turned her head to the left, then to the right. The darkness moved away like a cloud of mist clearing a lake. Dean was leaning over her.

“Are you OK?” he asked her.

“No,” she said, managing to pull herself up into a half-sitting, half-leaning position.

She forced herself to examine her wounds. One of the bullets from the submachine gun or perhaps just a piece of metal from the floor had ricocheted and lodged in her calf. The bleeding had already slowed to an oozing trickle. Another bullet had hit her midsection, but it had only grazed her side, leaving a large red welt that hurt to touch but was otherwise not painful.

Bullets had riddled the table between the seat, along with the cushions nearby. Lia had been saved, at least temporarily, by the configuration of the coach, as well the inexperience of the terrorists.

And luck. Never forget luck.

“Can you walk?” Dean asked.

“Maybe.”

“They unhooked the power car and took it away.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Maybe they’re going to ram into the next train. Or maybe they’re going to use it somehow to escape.”

Someone moaned at the other end of the car.

“There’s a light on the side of the tunnel about fifty yards that way,” said Dean, pointing toward what had been the front of the train. “I think it’s one of the crossover points to the service tunnel in the middle. Maybe there’s a phone there. We can get help and warn them.”

“Shouldn’t we pull these people out?”

“Let’s see if we can get help first.”

“All right,” she said, rising and testing her leg gingerly. It wouldn’t take much weight, but she could probably hobble.

She would hobble.

“All right,” she said. “Lead the way, Charlie Dean.”

The cabinet took forever to hit the ground. Mussa tried to close his eyes but could not.

He felt the vibration, felt the shock, knew the horror of death. But he didn’t die. The explosives had not gone off. As the chemist had said, the material was exceedingly stable.

By the time Mussa realized it hadn’t exploded, he had already reached to pull it into the proper position. Now time began to speed up, and he found that his hands and legs couldn’t move quickly enough. Kelvin recovered from his own shock and helped move the unit into place. Mussa pulled the panel off, then barked at the others to get the next units in. The next one was placed without a mishap.

Now the device itself had to be placed. Again the cart had to be tipped, but this time they were ready. Despite the weight and Mussa’s trembling hands, it snapped into place. Surely God was helping him now. There was no longer a question of failure — there had never been a question of failure. He climbed over the seats to guide the last steps, confident, even awed. The greatness of what he was to accomplish pushed him on. The next units snapped down — there were two left now, two — and then he had merely to punch the buttons and wait.

But as he waited for the last cabinet, something made a thud behind him. He turned and saw a man crawl out from the seats. Mussa reached desperately to his belt, grabbing for his pistol, but it wasn’t there; he’d put it down when he started to move the cabinets.

Mussa ran and kicked the man in the back, stopping him. He stepped to the man’s side and launched another kick to the back of his head, then another and another and another, dashing the man’s skull against the floor of the train. Rage welled in him, and he screamed at the man, asking who he was to try to prevent his triumph.

“Satan? Are you Satan?” he yelled.

Finally, he saw that the man was dead and stopped kicking.

The others were staring at him from behind the half-assembled bomb.

“You were to kill everyone in the train,” he told them. “Everyone.”

“We did.”

“You will go back and make sure. For the glory of God! Now!”