Fear the Night

62

The Sniper ran stumbling along the tracks, staying close to the tunnel’s dark concrete wall, occasionally bumping it with his left shoulder. He knew that though the stop was closed, the E and V trains still roared through the tunnel. Now and then he thought he could feel the wind pressure of an approaching train shoving cool air ahead of it in the narrow tunnel. But there was no thunderous, clacking roar that accompanied the trains, and no approaching brilliant eye of light.

He knew he could find shelter in the occasional tile maintenance alcove along the tunnel, where he could press himself back while a train passed a few feet away from him. He’d done it more than once during his time as a street kid, and more recently while using the tunnels to get around the city undetected. It was a convenient and private way to move about, once you learned the train times and layout of the underground maze.

What he feared more than the trains was what he knew would soon be pursuing him. There’d been an army of cops in the area, and they’d see where he entered the tunnel. As soon as they’d tended to their burned comrade, and the fire blocking the stairwell was extinguished, they’d be after the cop’s killer.

And they’d be motivated.

He could hear his rasping breath, and every few steps feel the bite of sharp or angled rock beneath his soles.

What if I turn an ankle now, fall, and become immobile? They’ll have me. Here in the tunnel they’ll do what they choose, their own notion of justice.

He ignored the rifle barrel bumping his leg beneath his coat and ran harder, careful to avoid the live rail. Like everyone who’d spent time in the subway system, he’d seen the dead rats on the tracks that had died by electrocution, and it was obvious they had left this world in agony.

His right side began to ache with each step. The intermittent, piercing pain grew sharper, slowing him down, making his stride erratic.

This is insane! Don’t panic! Don’t!

Think! Plan!

He made himself slow to a brisk walk and worked to regulate his breathing. From a pocket he withdrew a fresh magazine for the rifle. He stopped completely for a moment, removed from the rifle the magazine that was missing the bullet he’d fired at Amelia Repetto, and replaced it with the fresh magazine. Soon, any second, every shot might count. The magazine a bullet short went into his pocket. He fitted the rifle back on the sling beneath his coat.

Under way again, breathing more rhythmically, he picked up his pace and rounded a bend in the tunnel. After another hundred yards he reached a shallow alcove and pressed himself back into it. He switched off the flashlight and tucked it in his belt, then brought the rifle up from beneath his coat.

Shifting position and bracing himself against hard tile, he raised the rifle and peered through its infrared scope. Whoever was after him would soon be rounding the bend in the tunnel.

It felt good to be taking the initiative instead of acting, feeling, like a hunted animal. He had options other than mindless flight. He could plan. He could act.

He could shoot.

Oh, he could shoot!

The Night Sniper felt confidence swell in him like a warm revelation. He’d stopped playing their game.

Now they were playing his.

Their flashlight beams became visible first. Now that he had a fix on his pursuers, the Sniper raised his eye from the scope and waited.

Yellow fingers of light played over the tracks and tunnel walls. Then the figures holding the flashlights came into sight in dark silhouette, one quite a bit taller than the other. One of the yellow beams darted close and momentarily reflected off the damp tunnel wall to reveal two uniformed cops. They appeared to have their flashlights in their left hands, their handguns in their right. Their body language gave away their fear.

The Night sniper squinted again through the night scope and took careful aim. He felt solid, steady, and the moment arrived as he knew it would.

His first shot took down the tall cop, who seemed to melt into a dark heap.

The Sniper worked the rifle’s bolt action smoothly, and before the startled shorter cop could get off a shot, sent a bullet into him.

Through the scope, he studied the two still forms on the ground. The tall one had rolled against the tunnel wall and lay motionless. The short one hadn’t moved since he’d fallen and lay on his back near the tracks. The Sniper knew he’d hit both targets, and considered sending a shot into each of them to make sure they were dead.

Then he decided against it. If they weren’t dead, they were surely wounded, probably unconscious, and couldn’t keep up with him.

More confident now, he lowered the rifle and hooked it into its sling, then resumed his journey through the dark tunnel.

He’d taken only a dozen steps before he felt the cool rush of air that told him a train was bearing down on him, coming toward him.

No mistake this time.

Without hesitation he ran back toward the alcove where he’d shot from to bring down the two cops. The rifle bumping against him slowed him down, and he slipped on something and almost fell. He could hear the train now, and feel its subtle vibration. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a pinpoint of light staring at him like an unblinking hunter’s eye.

He reached the alcove, ducked into it, and stood with his back pressed tightly against the tile wall as the train roared toward him. The tunnel shook. The wall at his back trembled.

Then the train was passing him.

Only a few feet away. How near the passengers were as they blurred past in the lighted cars. He knew he wasn’t visible to them in the black tunnel as they ticked by unaware, kept company by their reflections in the dark glass.

He’d watched carefully and was sure the conductor in the lead car hadn’t seen him.

He could still feel the vibration as he listened to the roar of the train become fainter.

Danger past.

He let out the breath he’d been holding, though even as he did so he knew something wasn’t right.

It was the way the train sounded, fainter yet no farther away. And he’d heard an underlying metallic squealing.

When he stepped from the alcove, he was surprised to see that the train had slowed almost to a stop only a few hundred feet away.

Okay, he could start running in the opposite direction and there was little chance anyone inside the last car would notice him even if they could see out into the close and ominous darkness.

Another metallic squeal, and the train began gradually building speed.

The Night Sniper realized what must have happened; the train had made contact with one or both of the dead cops. He remembered the short one who’d fallen near the tracks. Now the train had worked its way beyond the obstruction and was picking up speed.

The Night Sniper was amazed how opportunity, fate, always turned out to be his unexpected ally. Amazed but not really surprised. Fortune favored the brave.

He sprinted toward the last car that was now traveling about five miles per hour. He was aware of something soft beneath his foot as he passed the place where the cops had fallen, and caught a glimpse of the tall cop’s body still huddled against the tunnel wall. He didn’t have time to think about it. The train was picking up speed and he had to lengthen his stride to keep closing the distance to it.

The pain in his side flared again, threatening to stop him, bend him, break him. He refused to let it. He strained even harder, lifting his knees higher, pumping his legs beneath the tattered coat, ignoring the pain that was like fire in his ribs.

He was gaining on the car now. Slowly, but he was gaining.

Lunging, he reached out his hand toward the metal rail on the car’s rear platform. Missed it, stumbled, and almost fell. Ran even harder, reached again, closed his hand over the rail, and squeezed it in a grip that matched its steel.

With a shout of pain that no one heard, he closed his other hand on the rail, lifted his feet, and dragged himself up onto the car’s narrow back platform.

He lay there gasping, feeling the train gaining speed, aware of something hard beneath his right hip.

The rifle! Thank God he hadn’t lost it in his wild dash for the train. The most important train he’d ever caught.

Rather, it would be if his luck held.

He rolled over so he could kneel on the lurching platform, then crouch, then slowly stand. He peered through the dirty back window into the lighted subway car.

His luck hadn’t deserted him!

There was only one passenger in the rear car, a fiftyish woman slouched in one of the bench seats and reading a paperback book. She was wearing a gray blouse, dirty and wrinkled jeans, and her mouse-colored hair was lank and unkempt. Her ankles were crossed so her knees were separated in a posture that might have been obscene on a younger, more attractive woman. Her shoes were practical black lace-ups that were scuffed and badly worn. There was a faded red scarf or shawl over her shoulders that had fringe on it.

The woman’s eyes appeared to be closed. At first the Night Sniper thought she might be asleep; then her right hand rose and went to her book, slowly turned a page, and returned to her side and was still. The rest of the woman hadn’t moved.

Deep into whatever she was reading, the Night Sniper thought. Good.

He stood all the way up and opened the door.

At the motion and sudden rush of sound, the woman raised her gaze from the book and turned her head to look at him. He closed the door and met her bleary-eyed, baleful stare.

She knows something, everything. On a certain level, she knows.

He opened his coat and raised the rifle from its sling, bringing it to his shoulder. The woman’s expression remained the same until an instant before he squeezed the trigger. There was a slight change in her eyes-perhaps they widened-and she opened her mouth to speak.

The train was traveling fast now, making a racket. The shot was barely audible over the clatter of steel on steel. When the bullet tore into the woman’s heart, her body jerked and her book dropped to the floor. She slumped lower on the bench seat, as if settling down awkwardly for a nap.

The Night Sniper went to her and pulled her up so she was seated somewhat straighter. It was surprising how light she was. He retrieved her book from the floor, glancing at the cover. Six Secrets for Sexual Success. That didn’t seem at all like the woman. He placed her fingers around the cover and propped the book in her dead hands. Her heart had stopped pumping immediately, so there wasn’t much blood. He arranged her fringed red scarf so it tumbled down over her chest, concealing the glistening scarlet stain. With a deft, brushing motion of his fingertips, he closed her eyes.

Gripping a vertical bar for support, he moved back and surveyed what he’d done. The woman appeared much as she had when he entered the car. She might be sleeping or reading.

Or dead.

He glanced again at her book and found himself wondering, what were the six secrets?

The train rattled on through the dark tunnel toward its next stop. When it arrived, if the platform looked clear enough, the Sniper would get off and make his way up to the street. As sparse as subway passengers were these dangerous nights, it should take quite a while before someone discovered the woman slumped in her seat was dead and not reading or sleeping.

Whatever the situation at the train’s next stop, the Sniper was sure that if he needed an alternate plan, one would come to him.

He was confident in a new way and with a new knowledge. It was going to be impossible for Repetto and his minions to bring him down. He understood that now, and the understanding was like a gift granted at birth and finally found. He couldn’t fail and he wouldn’t.

God or the devil was with him, and he didn’t know or care which.