Part 15 (2/2)
The grate didn't budge. I used Mahoney's flashlight and shone it through the slats before looking back at him, Bobby Sparks, and Captain Johnson. ”Where do these ducts go?” I asked Johnson.
The Amtrak cop squinted at me in disbelief. ”You think she got in there?”
”I don't know how else to explain that the grate's been wired shut from inside. So where do they go?”
Johnson looked confused. ”I don't know. And I don't think there's anyone from maintenance who can tell us until-”
”Wait, why don't you know this?” Bobby Sparks asked incredulously.
”We control the gate areas and the tracks,” the Amtrak cop retorted hotly. ”The station's interior is the responsibility of a private management firm in Virginia, but everyone there's got the night off. It's Christmas, for G.o.d's sake.”
I gestured angrily at the duct. ”Where could could it go? Or, better, what places would be vented by this ductwork?” it go? Or, better, what places would be vented by this ductwork?”
Captain Johnson thought a second, said, ”Sbarro, the pizza place that's around the corner here, and then the U.S. Postal Service facility, I guess.”
”How big is that?” Bobby Sparks asked.
”Big enough to handle everything coming off Capitol Hill, House and Senate side, and all the federal agencies around here.”
”There's no chance anyone from the U.S. Postal Service is working on Christmas,” Mahoney said.
”As a matter of fact, there's a skeleton crew in there right now,” Johnson said. ”I saw them on the loading dock. They're on until ten.”
I thought about that a second, then said, ”Does the loading dock face First Street or the terminal?”
”Both,” the Amtrak officer said. ”There's a single steel roll-up door facing the street, and a double that allows access to the tracks.”
”She's either escaping to the street or trying to get to the trains,” I said, moving toward the door. ”Get men to the west end of that terminal, inside and outside. Tell them she's dressed as a male, an Amtrak worker, and should be considered armed and dangerous.”
Captain Johnson began to sweat again as he barked orders into his radio. So did Mahoney and Bobby Sparks and I as we all sprinted to the security entrance that led down to the terminal, the loading platforms, and the train tracks.
CHAPTER
61
FEWER THAN FOUR MILES TO THE SOUTH, ACROSS THE RIVER IN ANACOSTIA, A white panel van sporting a sign that said CSX TRANSIT SUPPORT CSX TRANSIT SUPPORT crept through the snow toward the Eleventh Street bridge, heading north into Was.h.i.+ngton. crept through the snow toward the Eleventh Street bridge, heading north into Was.h.i.+ngton.
The driver was dressed in work boots, a blue one-piece work suit similar to the one Hala wore, and a dark blue insulated Carhartt coat. There was a patch on the chest of the coat that said CSX MAINTENANCE SERVICES. CSX MAINTENANCE SERVICES. Below that patch, the name Below that patch, the name HERB HERB had been embroidered. had been embroidered.
His real name was Omar Nazad, but he carried the Maryland driver's license and employee ID of Herbert Montenegro of Falls Church, Virginia. A Tunisian who looked more Eastern European than Maghrebian, Nazad had entered the United States on a student visa to study for his doctorate in chemical engineering at Purdue University. But he had left the school almost immediately, disappearing into this new ident.i.ty courtesy of Al Ayla and Hala Al Dossari.
They'd met six months before in a safe house run by a theater major at Syracuse University. Hala was older than Nazad by almost ten years, but she captivated him with her beauty and her pa.s.sion for the cause. This plan had been their idea, conceived during the long, wet upstate New York spring and expanded and refined during the summer and early fall. Tonight they and the others would see it through, no matter the consequences.
”Brother?” came a male voice from behind Nazad, back in the interior of the van, which was dark but for the glow of a computer screen.
”I hear you, brother,” Nazad answered.
”Six minutes,” the man replied.
”We'll just make-” Nazad stopped, cursed.
”What is wrong?”
”Police ahead. They've blocked off the left lane to the bridge. Quiet now.”
Nazad pulled shut dark drapes that separated the front seats from the van's rear. He rolled slowly by a police officer waving a flashlight.
”Officer,” he called. ”Is the exit plowed down onto Twelfth Street? I have to check the tracks as it enters the tunnel.”
”Exit's plowed, but nothing beyond it,” the officer replied. ”Hope you've got chains. It's a mess down in there.”
”I take my chances,” Nazad said, and drove on.
CHAPTER
62
THE PAINKILLERS HAD KICKED IN. HALA POCKETED THE SPOOL OF THIN, ultra-strong fly-fis.h.i.+ng tippet line, picked up the tool bag, and limped in the dark shadows on the other side of the suburban MARC trains, heading toward two longer Amtrak trains that were sitting dead and barely lit in the middle of the huge terminal.
She heard screeching and rumbling at the east end of the station. A freight train was leaving the First Street tunnel, which ran under Capitol Hill toward the CSX tracks and the Navy Yard. She felt a thrill go through her at the idea that this might all proceed according to plan, snow delay or not.
Hala made it to the northernmost end of the first dead Amtrak train, more than one hundred and fifty yards from the U.S. Postal Service loading dock. She rested for a second against the snub nose of the ma.s.sive locomotive, watching the last few cars in the freight train disappear through the terminal mouth, heading toward the Ivy City Yard that was somewhere out there in the snowy darkness. Another train approached the station now.
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