SIXTY-SEVEN
Atta Zimler was still holding the detonator in his left hand. With his right he set his little laptop and the titanium briefcase on the ground, robotlike, emotionless.
Then with the speed of a coiled snake his right hand struck out at Joshua’s neck and grasped it, squeezing with the strength of a vise grip until Joshua couldn’t breathe.
Joshua dropped his briefcase to the floor and took both of his hands and tried to pry Zimler’s grasp off his larynx. He struggled but wasn’t able to loosen Zimler’s grip. Joshua was astonished at his opponent’s strength and was gasping for air.
Then Zimler let him go and stepped back. He raised the detonator high enough so that Joshua could see it.
“Say good-bye to your son—”
“No, you’ll have to get the data directly from me. I can give it to you…”
“How? You fool…”
“I will give you my password…you’ve got your own laptop there,” he said pointing. “You can access the documents directly from my computer remotely…”
“I told you I wanted the documents…”
“This is better. You will have electronic access. To all of it…”
Joshua looked down at the video image on the Allfone. The timing clock on the bomb read: 00:49…00:48…
Zimler was staring at Joshua with the look of a killing machine considering its options.
Then Joshua looked at the LCD screen on the Allfone again. It still read: 00:48. Joshua looked a third time. The clock had stopped. He realized what had just happened. The bomb squad made it to Cal.
He glanced down at the image on the screen of the Allfone again. Now he saw hands reaching over the timing device this time and pulling wires out.
Joshua looked up at Zimler. The assassin saw something in Joshua’s face. Not the look of a victim. But of someone who now was thinking himself to be the victor.
Zimler gave a crooked smile and held the detonator in the air. He was now no longer concerned about the RTS documents. He was going to make a point.
“My reputation is priceless,” Zimler said. “Can’t have dolts like you thinking you’ve won the game…”
He pushed the trigger of the black detonator remote. And waited.
No sound.
Zimler grabbed the Allfone out of Joshua’s grasp and looked at the screen. He saw the hands of bomb-squad officers untying Cal Jordan.
Zimler stared him in the eye with the look of dark fury. Joshua stared back. In his face was the iron resolve of a father.
“You don’t get my son,” Joshua said. “Not now. Not ever…”
“Joshua. Joshua.” It was Gallagher yelling to him through his earpiece. “We’ve got Cal. He’s safe. Did you hear that? He’s safe.”
Joshua whispered a single word. It was barely audible. Only he knew what that meant.
“Isaac.”
Zimler heard it and looked Joshua in the eye, stone cold.
Gallagher announced, “Now we’re coming after you. We’ve been tracking the ear bug we gave you. They have a fix on your location…”
There was something in the tilt of Joshua’s head as he listened to that. Something that gave himself away.
Zimler saw it. He yanked a 9mm pistol out of his pocket and stuck it against Joshua’s cheek.
Then he stuck his finger in Joshua’s left ear. Finding nothing, he did it to his right ear. He fished out the earpiece. Zimler threw it to the ground and stomped on it.
“I may not have your son,” he said to Joshua. “But I still have you.”
Still pointing the handgun at Joshua, he took his titanium briefcase and pulled out a pair of handcuffs and clicked one end through the hand grip opening in the molded titanium case. Then he clicked the other handcuff onto Joshua’s left wrist.
Zimler pulled a second little remote, this one stainless steel, out of his pocket. He pushed the Start button on the countdown clock of the bomb he had inside the titanium briefcase now locked to Joshua’s wrist.
The LCD screen on the edge of the briefcase read: 03:00…02:59…02:58…
“Hey, Joshua, we lost your signal. What happened? Where are you?” Gallagher was yelling into the microphone, but no one was listening. Then he turned to Detective Cramer and cried out, “Okay, this is it. You gotta get Joshua out of there now!”
Standing next to Joshua, Zimler demanded, “Give me the password for your email system.”
“No, my son’s safe now. The rules of the game have just changed…you lose…”
“Are you insane? I’ve got this briefcase rigged to blow in a few minutes. Give it to me, and I’ll stop it…”
“You’re not getting my RTS documents.”
That was something that Joshua had prepared for down in his gut, all along. But he was anguished. His world was collapsing. He wanted to say good-bye to Abby. To say something to Cal and Deb. But no time…
Joshua looked down at the briefcase and ran his hand along the surface. He recognized the material.
“Yes, titanium,” Zimler said. “Nearly impossible to break into from the outside. But at the temperature of eight hundred degrees Fahrenheit—when a bomb explodes in it—it breaks apart into shards rather well. So if you’re going to be a hero, you may want to avoid crowds. Difficult, though, in a place like this. Good-bye.”
Zimler tucked the gun in his pocket and fled the room. Fifty feet away he ducked into a men’s room and into one of the stalls. He ripped off his theatrical beard and his Amtrak coat and tinted glasses. He looked at his watch. Now he had to get out of the station.
The LCD screen on the briefcase handcuffed to Joshua said: 02:05…02:04…
Joshua burst out of the utility room, yanking wildly at the handcuff on his wrist. He couldn’t squeeze his hand out. He looked for a knife, something sharp somewhere. Couldn’t he cut his hand off?
He started running down the corridor leading to the trains.
He started yelling, “Bomb, bomb, get away from me! There’s a bomb in this case! Get away…”
Crowds around him started screaming and tripping over themselves to get out of his way.
He saw a tunnel leading to the tracks. Away from the building. Away from the masses. He had to get there. Joshua was sprinting with the briefcase dangling from his wrist. An Amtrak security guard lunged at him. Joshua knocked him backward and kept running.
Now he was breaking into the train yard. Trains were lined up on several tracks with passengers climbing in.
He whipped his head around looking for a vacant space. He looked down at the LCD screen. It said: 00:56 seconds.
Abby, I love you. Cal and Deb, I love you.
He spotted an empty track at the far end. He sprinted over toward it. Then he heard someone calling his name.
It was Agent John Gallagher, running and shouting, “It’s Agent Gallagher, FBI!” He was about a hundred feet behind him and had spotted him.
“Joshua, wait…,” the Agent yelled.
“This is a bomb…,” Joshua yelled back. “Stay away.”
“We can help!”
“No time…”
The LCD screen said: 00:36…
A train engine pulling a single empty car was approaching. Joshua rushed up to it on the platform overlooking the track.
Something triggered in Joshua’s brain.
Caught in the thicket.
He looked back at Gallagher. Then Joshua made a frantic decision. When it happened Gallagher saw it and his jaw dropped open.
Joshua leaped down into the path of the oncoming train engine.
Someone on one of the other passenger platforms screamed out.
Down on the railroad tracks, Joshua draped the five-inch chain of the handcuffs over the metal rail with the briefcase laying on the other side of the track. Then he jammed his body as far as he could away from the oncoming train, over against the side of the retaining wall.
With a deafening screech the engineer slammed on the train’s brakes. The train kept sliding forward, spitting sparks, passing inches away from Joshua’s left hand, over the handcuff chain on the rail, smashing it apart and separating him from the briefcase bomb.
The train was slowly grinding to a halt, its metal brakes locking down against metal. The train came to rest with the back half of the empty passenger car directly over the suitcase bomb. Joshua scrambled wildly to his feet and leaped up to try and grab the upper platform and pull himself up. To get away from the force of the blast that was only seconds away. But he missed. He jumped up again, catching the platform above him with his fingertips. He yelled out in an animal grunt, bringing his knees up and trying to push up with his knees.
It’s going to blow.
Arms aching, he made one last exhausted effort, kicking, pulling, fingernails digging into the cement platform. Now his hands were flat on the surface of the platform and he was pulling himself up. His head. His torso. Then up to his waist. He belly-flopped onto the platform. Joshua stumbled to his feet and started running toward the station and away from the bomb.
Faster. Faster.
Then it happened. An unearthly roar of smoke and fire and percussion blew up from the tracks. The blast of the bomb picked up the passenger car and jackknifed it into the air and heaved the car and the locomotive against the cement embankment with a hellish, crashing groan of smashing steel and sparks.
Still running on the platform, Joshua caught the full force of the combustion and was catapulted into the air, flipping and tumbling along the platform like a rag doll. Screaming passengers on the parallel train platform panicked and ran into each other and tripped over their baggage while others threw themselves to the ground. Down on the tracks, black billowing smoke poured out from the train engine, which was now on its side as diesel fuel spilled over the scene. The engineer pulled himself out of the open window and then leaped down to the tracks in a frenzy. He was hobbling in pain as fast as he could down the track away from the demolished train. Then the diesel fuel caught fire and a ball of flames enveloped the train and the empty passenger car in a raging inferno.
John Gallagher had been thrown to the ground by the outer cyclone of the blast. When he picked himself up and stumbled to his feet he looked down the platform and spotted the familiar body that was now tangled in a heap. Gallagher bellowed out a single word in a hoarse cry.
Joshua!