Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

CHAPTER 77

Omar Nazad moved easily in the space between the freight cars and the tunnel wall, listening to the dry crunch of the coarse gravel under his boots, such a change from the snow. The soft echoes of Aman’s footfalls came to him from the other side of the train. Aman wore a headlamp that glowed a soft red, just enough for him to see the way ahead, not quite strong enough to attract attention.

The Tunisian, however, carried Robby’s flashlight and wore the dead rail worker’s hat and coat. He wanted to attract attention. He wanted Tony, who he figured was the engineer in the locomotive cab, to be focused on him and how at ease he seemed.

Nazad had no choice in the matter. The original plan had called for leaving the train intact and letting it chug north with the engineers having no idea that the load had been hijacked and substituted. But the dead railroad worker had changed everything. They needed to improvise, make sure that the freight train continued north.

He and Aman kept pace in the tunnel, adjusting to each other when they passed between cars. At last Nazad saw the halo of light thrown from the cab. He did not hesitate but went straight to the ladder and began noisily climbing up the side of the locomotive to the narrow steel platform by the door. A soft light in a metal protective housing glowed above and to the left of the door.

The dead rail worker had had a key card in his pocket, and Nazad had given it to Aman. He prayed the fool of a Turk was climbing quietly. Keeping below the window, he got to the left of the cab door. Nazad reached up, twisted the bulb dark, and then knocked.

“Use your key, for Christ’s sake, Robby,” a voice yelled back. “I’m pouring us some holiday grog here.”

The Tunisian rapped his knuckles on the glass again.

“For Jesus’s sake, Robby, I love you, but you’re an imbecile sometimes.”

He heard a creaking noise and thought he saw a shadow before a pie-faced man wearing a white shirt, Christmas-green suspenders, and a Santa hat appeared in the door window. He was carrying a coffee cup and a fifth of Johnnie Walker, and he peered out with confusion before he flipped some kind of switch or pressed some kind of button.

The door slid back with a sigh. Nazad flipped on the Maglite and swung it and the gun around and into the doorway, expecting to find Tony on the other end of the muzzle. But in the next instant, he realized that the engineer had stepped back and to the right.

The Tunisian also saw that there was a second man in the cab, sitting in front of what looked like the instrument panel of a modern jet airplane. Instinct took over. Nazad began to pivot the pistol toward Tony, yelled, “Down on the-”

But the engineer was too quick for him. With a flick of his wrist, Tony hurled scalding-hot coffee at Nazad’s face.

Blinded in one eye, the Tunisian screamed and dropped the gun. The pain was excruciating, far worse than the knee to the stomach and the blow to the back that quickly leveled him. He heard Tony say, “Call Union, Pete. Tell ’em we’ve got our own nutcase down here. And a man missing.”

A whoosh. “Drop the gun, or I blow your brains out!” Aman shouted.

Nazad heard a gun clatter to the floor. He raised his head, looked around with his good eye. Aman stood in the doorway, shaking from head to toe, swinging his pistol from one railroad worker to the other, screaming, “And no one calls anyone!”