Michael Prescott - Next Victim

He glanced around at the other people gathered on the subway platform of the Hollywood/Highland station, waiting for the next northbound Metro Red Line train. Ridership was high on a Saturday night, and on the return trip-the run south into Hollywood from Universal City-there would be even more people, families returning from movies, couples finishing their dates.

There would be many people to kill on the southbound train.

"We’re putting out an alert," Larkin said. "Trouble is, he could be anywhere."

"Maybe not." Tess was thinking hard. "Michaelson told you to check Hayde’s background. Did you?"

"Sure. He told us the truth. Used to live in Colorado Springs. Moved here to-"

"Work on the Metro."

"Shit."

"It’s an ideal environment for a chemical attack. Sealed off from the outside, lots of people, public access…"

"I’ll tell LAPD to focus on the Metro stations. Call you back."

Larkin ended the call, and Tess stood there with the phone in her hand, still thinking.

She was right about this. She was certain of it. Not only was the Metro a logical target, but it was something Hayde was familiar with, something that had a personal association for him.

And for Mobius, she knew, it was always personal.

At 10:15 the train pulled into the station, six heavy-rail cars bearing the logo of a red M. Each car was seventy-five feet long and had a maximum capacity of 169 riders. One thousand passengers, more or less. It was crowded now, and on the return leg it would be full.

Mobius boarded with the others, choosing the central car, grabbing one of the few empty seats. He sat there with a paper bag on his lap, looking like any ordinary man.

The train started moving, and the dim walls of the Red Line tunnel blurred past. Other parts of the subway system had been drilled through loose sediment, but the segment from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley penetrated solid rock.

In the seventeen-mile network of subway tunnels, the Hollywood/Highland station was the westernmost point on the south side of the Hollywood Hills. From that station, the Metro Red Line proceeded northwest through the mountains toward its next stop, Universal City, a trip of a little more than two miles that would be covered in about four minutes.

The train accelerated, hitting its top speed of seventy miles per hour. Mobius and his fellow passengers were deep under the mountains now. At certain points in the trip the train would be nine hundred feet below the surface.

Nine hundred feet was not quite deep enough for Hell, but for the riders on the southbound train, it would be close enough.

Casually he reached into the brown paper bag and removed the device.

It would attract no attention even if someone looked his way. He had wrapped it in aluminum foil to resemble a sandwich. He made a brief show of starting to open it, then allowed it to drop on the floor under his seat.

Was anyone watching him? No.

He reached for the package. Instead of retrieving it, he pressed it to the underside of the seat, securing it with loose strands of duct tape he had left in place for that purpose.

Duct tape was such useful stuff. It bound wrists, sealed lips, and affixed a package of death to its hidey-hole.

Before straightening, he rustled the paper sack as if stuffing the package back inside. Anyone who had glanced at his little drama would have seen a man drop his sandwich on the floor, retrieve it, and shove it back into the bag in disgust.

Everything was set.

Minutes from now, after the train had reached its northernmost point and turned around to head south again, after it had picked up riders at North Hollywood and Universal City, after it had reentered this long stretch of tunnel under the Santa Monica Mountains-when the cars were crowded with distracted, tired, intoxicated people, people who were heading home early, frightened by the media reports, jamming the train to full capacity-then there would be an outbreak of chaos.

He could imagine it in clear detail-the screams, the bleeding arms and legs cut by flying glass.

And all the while, the invisible, odorless fumes of VX fanning out, entering the intake ducts of the air-circulation system, traveling throughout the train, until all six cars were filled with gas.

A fully loaded train meant roughly one thousand people.

The ones in the central car would be first to die. But others in the adjacent cars would follow.

Not all of them, of course. Some would be far enough away to escape the worst of the fumes. They would inhale a nonlethal dose of the gas and escape onto the platform of the next station in time to rid their bodies of toxins.

Unless the train stopped in the tunnel, under the mountains.

That was possible. The trains were designed to cease operation automatically during an earthquake. There might be other emergency protocols, including one for a terrorist attack, that would initiate a shutdown of power.

He hoped so.

Because if the train did stop somewhere deep in the heart of the mountains, then no one- no one — would survive.

Mobius smiled, a calm, almost beatific smile that felt rare and beautiful on his lips.

It was all coming together. Everything was falling into place.

Tess bent over the corpse of Detective Jim Dodge, going through his pockets, feeling like a grave robber.

Well, there was no time for the respect ordinarily afforded the property of the dead. She needed a vehicle, and her bureau sedan was too badly damaged to be dependable. In Dodge’s pants pocket she found his car keys. She needed a cell phone also, and her own had been sacrificed back at the motel. She took Dodge’s phone out of his jacket.

She tried not to look at him. She wanted to believe he’d been unconscious the whole time. But she knew he hadn’t been. He’d died with his eyes open, and the duct tape binding his wrists to the headboard had been creased and twisted by the straining of his arms.

A phone rang-not the cell phone, but a landline. She answered and heard Larkin’s voice. "Found the car."

"So soon?"

"You were right about the Metro. LAPD found the Firebird illegally parked outside the Hollywood/Highland station."

"You have to stop the trains. Get the passengers off."

"I know that, Tess. We’re on it."

"It has to happen now. He has nerve agent; he can take out an entire train-"

"Tess. Chill. We’re on it. You’re not the only brain in this outfit. Subway operators are under orders from the dispatchers to stop at the next station and empty the trains. Everybody out. All Red Line traffic shut down, all sixteen stations evacuated. LAPD’s coordinating it with the ROC-Rail Operations Center, the Metro’s command post."

"Any idea which train he took?"

"There’s a couple that departed Hollywood/Highland at the right time. Could’ve gone east toward the center of town, or north into the Valley."

"The Valley," she said instantly. "He’ll want as long a stretch of uninterrupted travel as possible."

"In that case, he’s pulling into the Universal City station right now. And some friendly folks in blue are waiting for him. They’ve got Hayde’s DL picture, and they’ll be on the lookout."

"Then we’ve got him?" Tess could hardly believe it. "We’ve got Mobius?"

"If he’s on that train," Larkin said, "he’s fucked."

The platform of the Universal City station slid into view. Mobius was already on his feet and heading for the exit.

The train stopped, the doors eased open, and his breath caught in his throat.

They had caught him. Somehow they had tracked him here.

Two LAPD police officers waited directly outside the train.

Only two. He might have a chance to fight back.

He tensed his body, then heard the loudspeaker reverberating through the station, and he knew he was safe for the moment.