Алистер Маклин: Death Train

‘I thought he was dead but he moaned when I touched him. Probably drunk. I can’t have him lying there.’

‘So you said. Thank you for your assistance, we’ll take it from here.’

The man saw the determination in Mauer’s eyes and returned to the kitchen, closing the door behind him.

‘Looks like a vagrant,’ Richter said. ‘The overcoat doesn’t look very old. Probably stolen.’

‘More than likely,’ Mauer replied, then squatted down beside the body. He screwed up his face at the appalling stench but made no move to draw back.

The vagrant’s hands were covered by woollen gloves and his face was hidden underneath a navy-blue balaclava.

‘Can you hear me?’ Mauer asked, prodding the vagrant with the tip of his baton.

Tesselmann’s fingers twitched but when he tried to speak it escaped from his lips as a gurgle. Mauer unmasked him.

Richter stumbled back and retched against the wall. Mauer jerked his hand away. His legs were trembling as he ran back to the police car to radio for immediate medical help.

Whatever did happen to chivalry? The question crossed Sabrina Carver’s mind as she stood with her left hand looped through the handle hanging from the rail above her in the aisle of the packed subway train as it hurtled through the cavernous tunnels beneath New York. Her attitude towards feminism was ambivalent. She certainly believed in equality between the sexes, especially in the work place, but felt there was always room for courtesy and manners in what was becoming an increasingly uncaring society. As she looked around she felt a twinge of sadness that in a carriage where 70 per cent of the commuters were men there were five women forced to stand in the aisle.

She had a sneaking suspicion that she knew why the men had not given up their seats.

From where they sat they were able to study the women in detail. Especially her. She was twenty-eight years of age with the kind of breathtaking allure normally associated with the cover of a glossy fashion magazine. Her features were classically beautiful: the perfectly structured high cheekbones, a small nose, sensual mouth and mesmerizing oval-shaped green eyes. Her shoulder-length blonde hair, tinted with auburn highlights, was pulled back tightly from her face and secured at the back of her head with a white ribbon. Her designer clothes were from the pages of a glossy fashion magazine. A Purification Garcia (her favourite designer) white cotton Jacquard tabard, a knee-length black cotton skirt and a pair of Kurt Geiger black suede high-heeled shoes. She hated excessive make-up and had applied just enough to emphasize her striking looks. Her one fixation was fitness and she kept herself in peak physical condition by attending aerobic classes three times a week at the Rivereast Health Club on Second Avenue, where she also helped put housewives through their paces in the basic skills of karate. She had successfully gained her own black belt four years previously.

Although ever watchful of her enviously slim figure she was not obsessive, and loved to dine out. Once a fortnight she and a gaggle of friends would go Dutch at one of their three favourite restaurants: either steaks at Christ Cella’s, cordon bleu cuisine at Lutece’s or her own personal favourite, a tandoori mixed grill at Gaylord’s. This was invariably followed by a session of late-night jazz at Ali’s Alley downtown in Greenwich Village.

As far as her friends were concerned she worked as a translator at the United Nations. It was the perfect cover story. She had a degree in Romance languages from Wellesley and after doing her postgraduate work at the Sorbonne she had travelled extensively across Europe before returning to the States where she was recruited by the FBI, specializing in the use of firearms. She had joined UNACO two years ago.

She alighted from the train at East 74th Street and whistled softly to herself as she walked the two hundred yards down 72nd Street from the subway to her ground-floor bachelor flat. The concierge doffed his hat to her as she crossed the black and white tiled foyer and after smiling at him she unlocked the door of her small flat and entered directly into the sparsely furnished lounge. She kicked off her shoes then crouched down in front of the stereo and traced her fingernail along the impressive collection of compact discs, selected one, and fed it into the machine. A David Sanborn album. It immediately reminded her of the unforgettable night at Ali’s Alley when she had met Sanborn, her jazz idol, who had then discreetly found out from her friends which of his songs was her favourite and made an impromptu appearance on stage to play it especially for her.

The telephone started to ring. She turned the music down and picked up the receiver. Her only contribution to the phone conversation was an occasional monosyllable. After replacing the receiver she sat down on the edge of the coffee table and smiled to herself. An assignment. The team was now officially on standby with a briefing session scheduled for later that afternoon.

Of the other two operatives making up the team, she had always enjoyed a special rapport with the phlegmatic C. W. Whitlock. His equanimity was legendary amongst his colleagues and he had gone out of his way to make her feel a part of the team when she first arrived at UNACO. Furthermore, he had always related to her on an intellectual level, unlike the majority of men she knew who saw her as just another pretty face (to try a line on), and although she and Whitlock never mixed socially, only ever meeting up at work, she had come to regard him as one of her few real friends.

After turning the volume up again she disappeared into the kitchen to make herself a pastrami on rye.

New York was swathed in sunlight and the heat would have been stifling had it not been for a gentle easterly breeze blowing in from the Atlantic. The perfect weather for a barbecue.

C. W. Whitlock emerged from the living-room on to the balcony of his sixth-floor Manhattan apartment, picked up the pair of tongs hanging beside the portable barbecue and prodded the simmering charcoal briquettes through the bars of the grill. It was hot enough. He placed the marinated chops and sausages on the grill then stood back and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the towel draped around his neck. A loud guffaw boomed out from the lounge and he glanced through the doorway, thankful to be out of the way. Dr Charles Porter was, as usual, centre stage. He didn’t dislike the man; he just found him a bore. Porter, one of the country’s most respected authorities on paediatrics, had taken a shy Puerto Rican intern called Carmen Rodriguez under his wing twenty years ago and given her the confidence to start up her own practice soon after graduating from medical school, and she was now one of New York’s most popular and in demand paediatricians. She had become Carmen Whitlock six years ago. Whitlock looked at his wife sitting at an angle to the doorway, her face in profile.

Someone had once described her as ‘willowy’, a description he thought suited her to perfection. Her eyes flickered towards him and she playfully stuck out her tongue. Whitlock smiled at her then looked beyond her at the couple on the sofa. Carmen’s sister Rachel and her German husband, Eddie Kruger. The sisters had similar features but Rachel was shorter and stockier. Kruger was typically Teutonic. Blond hair and blue eyes. They had remained firm friends ever since their first meeting.

Whitlock turned his attention back to the barbecue and prodded each chop with a steak knife to find out if they were properly cooked. After turning the sausages and prodding the briquettes again he rested his arms on the railing and looked out over Central Park, his eyes screwed up against the sun even though he was wearing a pair of prescription sunglasses. It was that kind of day.