James Patterson - Don’t Blink

Yes, thank you! And when this is all over, I need to be with you, Courtney. Okay? Nothing and no one is going to stop me.

Right on cue, I heard the rumbling in the distance. Then I saw it.

The 5:04 train from Westport was pulling into the station like a slow-moving snake made of metal and steel. As the air brakes grabbed the rails, a piercing hiss echoed between my ears.

This is it. The end of the road, tracks, whatever.

Immediately, the sliding doors opened in unison. But the familiar sight of lots of people bustling out didn’t follow. There was only silence, creepy as hell. I held my breath. I could barely stand it. And then -

Tap. Tap-tap-tap…

I finally saw her all the way down the platform. Elizabeth was stepping off the first car of the train, her cane leading the way. My niece was dressed in faded jeans and a lime green zip-up sweater, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Everything about her looked so young and innocent – except her face, her expression. Her mouth was closed tight, her freckled nose scrunched in fear – she looked petrified.

Still, I was so relieved to see her – to see her alive – that the incongruity didn’t dawn on me at first.

She was alone. No Bruno Torenzi.

“ Elizabeth!” I called out.

I started running toward her, flying down the platform. It was a knee-jerk reaction. There was no thought, only instinct. How could I not go to her?

She was about to tell me why. My niece stopped, raising her palm. “Wait, Uncle Nick!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “Stop right there! I’m serious!”

OH GOD NO. This can’t be happening. Only it definitely was happening. I was watching it happen from maybe fifty feet away.

All I needed to see were the red wires peeking out of her sweater. My mind connected the dots from there. Just like the red wires are connecting the blocks of C-4 explosives strapped to Elizabeth ’s chest.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” I yelled, or more accurately screamed. I couldn’t see him but I knew Torenzi was there. Somewhere. Then, suddenly, he was everywhere.

The air crackled with the sound of the train’s public-address system, a thick static followed by a thick Italian accent. “What did I say about you coming alone?” he asked, sounding like the voice of God.

“I did come alone!” I shouted.

“Lie to me one more time and you watch your niece die. In a horrible way.”

I stared at Elizabeth. Her eyes were staring right back but I knew of course she couldn’t see me. That only made things worse, made my guilt worse.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “You’re not going to die.”

Then I turned around, looking at nothing but the empty platform behind me. But it wasn’t empty. I knew it, and Torenzi sure as hell knew it.

Slowly, the six-man SWAT team that Keller had employed stepped out from the shadows and the rafters, one by one. They were armed with assault rifles equipped with high-power scopes. The original plan had been to take out Torenzi the second he stepped away from Elizabeth.

But now Torenzi was calling all the shots. “Get on the train with the girl,” he ordered. “First car.”

It was so damn unnerving not being able to see him. I could still see just Elizabeth, standing up ahead with her walking stick. What an unbelievable coward this bastard was and had been, right from the start. And not just Torenzi, because D’zorio had to be involved in this. His people, anyway. Torenzi couldn’t be working alone here. Could he?

I walked down the platform, reaching for Elizabeth ’s hand. “I’ve got you,” I said.

“Don’t let go,” she whispered.

“I won’t,” I said.

Together, we stepped back onto the train, the doors immediately closing behind us. The idling diesel engine kicked in, shaking the wheels into motion. And then we were off.

To where, though?

Not to mention, where the hell was Torenzi?

“Welcome aboard,” came his voice suddenly. Only it wasn’t over the PA. It was from the front of the train.

I turned in the vestibule to see him standing about a dozen feet away, next to the conductor’s cabin. He was wearing the same suit, same sunglasses, same “don’t screw with me” attitude. In one hand he was holding a small device that looked like a flip-top cell phone without the flip top. It was the detonator.

In the other hand was a gun. It was aimed at the conductor’s head.

“What now?” I asked Torenzi.

He nodded slowly. “You’ll see. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

TORENZI WAS CERTAINLY on top of everything, and that was really scary. He’d kept a watchful eye on the security monitors inside the conductor’s cabin, checking every camera focused on every door of the train. There would be no uninvited guests stepping on board with him, no front-page heroes. It would be just the conductor, Nick Daniels, and Daniels’s niece. A nice little trio, neat and manageable. That is, until he no longer needed them.

Yeah, Torenzi was on top of everything. Except the train itself.

That’s where Agent Keller was.

There were no cameras pointed up there. Better yet, there was a ceiling panel on top of the engine car that could be opened from the outside. At least that’s what the Metropolitan Transportation Authority official had assured him while presenting a crash course outside Grand Central Station on the M7 electric multiple-unit railroad car, otherwise known as the 5:04 from Westport.

“Trust me, you’ll see the panel once you’re up there,” said the MTA official.

The guy was right.

As soon as Plan A had fizzled, Keller had rappelled down from the rafters above the train on track 19. The last time he had done anything like it was twelve years ago during his training at Quantico. “You never know,” his instructor had said.

That guy had been right, too.

Keller had landed on the roof less than a minute before the train had sputtered forward, pulling out of the station. Unclipping his rope, he crouched down low, something like a surfer riding a monster wave. There was no turning back now.

Next, Keller spotted the roof panel. It was no more than ten feet away. Edging toward it, he reached for the two tools given to him by the MTA. The first was a 3200-rpm power screwdriver equipped with a half-inch flat-head bit to maximize the torque. The second was a tad more primitive: a crowbar.

“Once you remove the four screws you’re going to need some elbow grease prying open that panel,” an MTA engineer had warned. “It’s a heavy mother.”

It was also the only way to get inside that train undetected. “Anything else I need to know?” Keller had asked the engineer.

“No, I think that’s it.”

Think again.

Channeling his inner carpenter, Keller quickly dispatched with the four screws holding down the panel. No problem there. The real trick was keeping his balance on top of the train. It was zipping along at full throttle, relentlessly rocking back and forth on the tracks. Still, he was managing. So far, so good.

“Crowbar time,” Keller mumbled, hoping he had a good supply of elbow grease.

Immediately, he knew that the MTA mechanic hadn’t been kidding around. The panel was a heavy mother, all right. It wouldn’t budge. Not an inch. Was it stuck?

Maybe.

Keller tried again. He could almost hear the clock in his head ticking away as he pressed down hard on the crowbar.

“Shit!”

The panel still wouldn’t budge. This was definitely a problem, a big one.

Then, turning his head, Keller had an even bigger problem – if that was possible.

A ray of light had caught the corner of his eye. It was literally the light at the end of the tunnel, which also marked the end of the underground tracks. So much for that old cliché meaning good things were coming his way. That MTA official had forgotten to mention a little thing called clearance.