James Patterson - Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

“Brother,” he heard one of his men say with a gasp. “It is too much!”

The Tunisian grimaced, looked around the door, and saw the other two men with him at the bottom of the bank, a blue fifty-five-gallon drum half submerged in the snow between them.

“We can’t lift it!” the other man said. “Without the snow, yes, we could use the dolly, but it’s too much.”

Nazad lost it. Livid, he ran to them, down the path that had begun to form. “Too much?” he said, slapping one man and then the other. “It’s too much for you to get six barrels one hundred feet through the snow, and not too much for Hala to risk her life to stop this train for you? Think of where she is, brothers. Think of what she’s doing for you and for Allah right now.”

Hala shifted uncomfortably. Her hip was throbbing again, and she’d just taken another painkiller, since she’d been forced to adopt an incredibly awkward position in order to remain up on the axle housing of the rear passenger car of the Crescent.

Melting snow and water dripped all around her. The axle itself was greasy and slick, and it stank of oil. But the metal was surprisingly warm, and she’d been able to straddle the axle, the gun and the tool bag stuffed on a flange above her. She held tight to what looked like part of the brake.

They might come and shine their lights up under each carriage, she thought. But that would take awhile, certainly long enough for Nazad and his men to complete their part of the mission. She could almost hear Alex Cross and the FBI men thinking, She’s booby-trapped the place. Who knows how many devices she’s set up?

They would be slow now, methodical. Hala closed her eyes, praying that Nazad and his men would have enough time.

Nazad and the three other men strained against two nylon straps he’d wrapped around the second barrel that had come down from the truck. They pulled the heavy, awkward load over snow that was becoming packed down and more navigable despite the flakes still falling all around them.

Grunting, they made one last heave, slid the barrel up against the green railcar, and tipped it upright. It had to weigh three hundred pounds, at least.

“Third one comes out first,” the Tunisian said with a gasp as he climbed up onto the buckles that held the train cars together and then up over the transom into the container itself. He flipped on a headlamp and saw three blue barrels that looked almost exactly like the substitutes he’d brought to the door. They were sitting up on a pallet.

Each barrel had a plastic sleeve glued to its side that held documents identifying its manufacturer as Pinkler Industries, and its contents as organophosphates. Nazad carefully stripped the sleeve label off the far right barrel, set it aside, and then, together with his men, muscled the barrel to the door. They wrapped the nylon moving straps beneath the barrel and then eased it out of the container car, two men holding the straps, two men guiding the barrel down.

When they had it sitting upright beside the container, Nazad said, “Hurry. We rest when we are finished.”

In seconds they had the straps beneath the first substitute barrel from the van, and then they reversed the process and loaded it inside. Feeling like he’d soaked his clothes with sweat despite the cold weather, the Tunisian nevertheless pushed on, dancing the replacement barrel up beside the two on the pallet. He got out glue, smeared it on the back of the plastic sleeve, and affixed the sleeve to the substitute barrel.

And so it went, Nazad and his men moving each barrel loaded with organophosphates out of the railcar and putting in its place a look-alike barrel filled with sand. With the lading documents attached to the containers, no one would figure out the organophosphates were missing until it was far too late.

Nazad gestured with his chin toward a cardboard box at the rear of the pallet and said, “Take that one too. Then we’ll lock up and leave.”

One of the men picked it up with a grunt and waddled toward the door.

The Tunisian checked his watch. They’d been working nonstop for almost an hour and a half. Hala had done the impossible, he thought. Hala had stood up for God, and the One had rewarded her for her boldness, rewarded all of them for their boldness. Their purpose was, clearly, a sacred-

The light nearly blinded him.

“What the hell’s going on in here?” a man’s voice demanded in English. “And who the hell are you?”

“Can you get him to speak when we get in there?” I asked Jennifer Carstensen, the officer who handled Jasper, a huge white German shepherd. Jasper was one of three police dogs who, along with their human partners, had responded to my call, the officers leaving their homes and families on Christmas to help us track down a terrorist.

We were on the stairs that led down to the terminal. Above us, people who an hour before had been standing in line frantic to get tickets were now standing in line frantic to be released from the station.

“We can absolutely get Jasper to speak,” Officer Carstensen replied. “He’s been taught to vocalize an alert bark, an attack bark, and a gathering howl. Which one do you want?”

Jasper panted with excitement. He could tell a hunt was about to begin. With every breath the dog took, his powerful shoulder and neck muscles rippled. It almost felt unfair to turn a beast like Jasper loose on someone who was deathly afraid of dogs.

But Hala Al Dossari had killed seven people, two of them FBI HRT specialists. Unfair did not even begin to describe the lengths we’d take to apprehend her and make her face justice. We had the terminal surrounded. We had also sealed off the opening into the Ivy City Yard and the First Street tunnel. We had two bomb teams on hand as well, one Metro DC Police, the other FBI. And we had Jasper and his two eager pals.

“I want him howling,” I told Officer Carstensen. “I want all three of them howling like a pack of wolves when it’s time.”

“Ready and waiting, Alex,” she said, and she slipped Jasper a treat.

“Al Dossari really that scared of pooches?” Mahoney asked.

“I’m counting on it,” I said.

An ironic smirk appeared on his face. “You know, Alex, what you’re about to do could be construed as psychological coercion.”

“Torture?” I replied skeptically. “No. This is just a way to flush her out quicker and prevent further bloodshed.”

“Exactly,” Mahoney said.

I was too damn tired to argue the point. “We ready, Ned?”

“Five minutes,” Mahoney said. “Bomb squads are moving into final position at the east and west ends of the terminal.”

I glanced at my watch. Half past eight. With luck, this would all go smoothly, and I’d get home in time to kiss my wife good night before Bree put on her kerchief and I put on my cap and both of us settled down for a long winter’s nap.

For a second, with the brilliant light shining in his eyes, and the commanding voice of a stranger he could not see ringing in his ears, Omar Nazad felt bewildered, foiled, perhaps a martyr for nothing.

Where had the man come from? Who was he? Police?

Then training took over. He and Hala had gamed almost every scenario, including being spotted in or around the train.

“CSX Nashville asked us to check on this shipment,” Nazad said, holding his hand up to block the light, seeing the silhouette of a burly man standing in the doorway. “Could you put that down?”

The light was directed down, and the Tunisian saw a bearded male in his late forties wearing a snowy CSX coat not that dissimilar from his own. The rail worker held a flashlight in one hand, a radio in the other.