Part 24 (1/2)
”I don't know,” she said. ”I didn't need to know. It's better that way.”
”So the van driver meets the freight barge, and then what?” I asked.
She smiled. ”He places the barrels in his van, triggers the system, puts on a gas mask, and drives around the city letting the gas escape, starting with Wall Street right after the markets close.”
I flashed on the freight train that I'd seen after Hala was caught, coming from that tunnel and heading toward the Ivy City Yard, and remembered how it had made me think that some semblance of normalcy had returned to Union Station.
Actually, I'd been watching a chemical weapon pa.s.s right under everyone's nose.
CHAPTER
98
I CHECKED MY WATCH: 12:31 A.M. CHRISTMAS HAD COME AND GONE, AND SO had my promise to Bree, along with an innocence that I had not known I had left to lose. But of course, although I'd heard testimony about it, had gathered evidence in its wake, I had never personally seen children tortured before.
The freight train had gotten at least a three-hour head start. But it was traveling in the wake of a nor'easter barreling toward New York. We'd catch the train, stop it, and disarm that triggering device.
Mahoney seemed to think the same thing. He got up and left the room to arrange for the Critical Incident Response Group to mobilize while he made plans to intercept the train.
I studied Hala, who was staring at the table as if she couldn't believe she was in this position: a traitor to her cause.
I said, ”Which freight car carries those organophosphates?”
Hala looked at me as if she had one last card to play. ”Twenty-ninth behind the engine,” she said. ”It's green with CSX and C. Itoh markings. You can't miss it.”
CHAPTER
99
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, AT A QUARTER TO ONE IN THE MORNING, I STOOD IN the snow on the roof of the detention center with Ned Mahoney, waiting for a U.S. Marine helicopter that was coming in from Quantico loaded with members of the Critical Incident Response Group.
”We've got a location on the train,” Mahoney said. ”It's almost to Trenton. We'll stop it somewhere north of there, someplace rural.”
”What if it's b.o.o.by-trapped?” I asked.
”Believe me, we'll be wearing full HAZMAT gear,” Mahoney said. ”Sounds sporty, doesn't it? I can't believe you don't want to be there to see this through.”
I'd known Mahoney for nearly fifteen years, worked side by side with him for several of those years, had been to his home too many times to count, knew all the doings of his wife and children. And yet right then, he seemed a stranger to me.
”I didn't like what went on in that room, Ned,” I said.
”You think I did, Alex?” he shot back.
”It's beneath us.”
”It is,” he agreed, pain rippling through his face. ”Shows you that you've got to meet people like that on their own turf, using their rules. It's a sad thing to say, but true.”
”They were kids.”
”They were leverage against an insane scheme.”
I heard the thumping of the helicopter coming, saw the spotlight on its belly. ”What if her attorney finds out, Ned? Demands to see a tape of the interrogation. Everything Hala told us will be fruit of the poisoned tree, disallowed in court.”
”Not everything has to play out in court,” Mahoney replied coldly. ”Besides, when I raised my hand there just before we began, the battery pack on the camera in the observation booth mysteriously fell off. Anything that went on beyond that is baseless hearsay on Dr. Al Dossari's part, her word against ours, and who is a judge going to trust, Alex? A twenty-year veteran of the FBI and the legendary Dr. Alex Cross, or a madwoman willing to send nerve gas into Manhattan?”
I gazed at him as if he were transforming before my eyes, seeing new dimensions to his character. ”I never pegged you as a master strategist, Ned.”
He raised his arm to block the snow being thrown up by the helicopter, yelled, ”I have my moments. You can take my car home if you're good to drive.”
”I'll make it,” I said and accepted the keys as the chopper settled into the snow. ”Ned?”
”What's that, Alex?”
”Be careful,” I said. ”You've got a lot of people to come back to.”
Mahoney locked gazes with me, understanding. He shook my hand. ”Thanks, Alex. It means a lot.”
CHAPTER
100
I MADE IT HOME AT TWO IN THE MORNING ON THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS. Everyone had gone to sleep, though the lights on the tree still glowed in the front window, a beacon left on for me, I guessed. Where had the holiday gone?
I kicked off my shoes, climbed the stairs, listened at the doors of my children and my grandmother, and felt drowsy at the rhythm of their breathing. Not even Nana's gentle snoring could keep me awake.