cat, I find myself in a footrace. We run down the sidewalk on First Street dodging tourists and government workers.
Thorn is maybe two hundred feet ahead of me, running at full speed. He reaches Independence Avenue and doesn’t even slow down. He runs out into the intersection against a red light, dodging cars with honking horns.
By the time I get there, he’s opened up a lead of almost half a block. I continue running. I can see him in the distance. Suddenly a car pulls up next to me. It’s a cab and Joselyn is in the back. She opens the door. “Get in!” she says.
I turn and look back at Thorn just as he runs between two barricades blocking cars from turning onto First Street across the intersection up ahead. “Go around and head him off,” I tell her. “Don’t get out of the car. Use the phone to call the police.”
She nods, slams the door closed, and the cab speeds away.
I continue running down the block until I reach the traffic barricade, then step between the two gates and start to jog again. I am in a canyon between two House office buildings, in the shade. I catch a fleeting glimpse of Thorn as he steps off the sidewalk to the right and disappears somewhere beyond the next intersection up ahead. I begin to wonder if he has a car parked in a garage or a lot. I pick up the pace and start to run.
As I clear the barricade at the other end of the block, I see the yellow cab coming this way. Now if he has a car we can follow him and call in the location to the cops. The cab screams up the street and stops at midblock. A few seconds later I reach it just as Joselyn is getting out of the backseat.
“I hope you have some money. All I have in my pocket is some change, a credit card, and my Metro pass,” she says. “And we’ll need that.”
“Why?”
“Hurry up. Pay the driver,” she says.
I do it and she grabs me by the hand, pulling me across the street. Then I realize where we’re going. The sign says CAPITOL SOUTH. It’s an open, cavernous concrete hole in the ground with escalators. We jump on the one going down.
“You sure he went in here?”
“I saw him,” she says. “I just hope he hasn’t gotten on one of the trains yet or we’ll lose him for good.”
The escalator drops into the bowels of the earth, maybe two hundred feet belowground. When we reach the underground station, it’s a milling madhouse with vending machines and a ticket kiosk that has a long line in front of it.
“Follow me.” Joselyn reaches into her pocket.
I stay right behind her.
She reaches the turnstile and slips a plastic card into the slot then steps through. She grabs the card as it’s spit out on the other side then reaches and hands it to me. I do the same and within seconds we’re running for the platform. I’m looking both ways, scanning the crowd to see if there’s any sign of Thorn.
Joselyn sees two uniformed cops patrolling the station on the other side of the tracks. “Give me a moment, I’ll have to go back up and over the top so I can tell them what’s happening. I’ll be right back.” She leaves me standing on the platform as she heads back toward the ticket area.
I turn again and look for Thorn, but I don’t see him. I am beginning to think that he caught one of the Metro trains and disappeared before we got down here.
I look back toward the ticketing area where Joselyn was headed and notice that she’s still on the platform, and she’s not moving. She is stopped near a pillar, standing there motionless, not saying anything and not moving.
I start to walk in that direction and suddenly Thorn steps out from behind the pillar. He has one hand on her arm and the other in his coat pocket. The way he holds it there I can tell he’s handling some kind of weapon.
“Never mind that your friend’s seen us,” said Thorn. “This way.” He held her arm, gripping it hard above the elbow, and pulled her behind him, retreating toward the far end of the platform.
Thorn had already seen the two cops on the other side. He got up close in Joselyn’s ear from behind. “Don’t say anything,” said Thorn, “just motion with your hand. Tell him to stay away. Do it or I’ll kill you right here. Trust me-I can shoot you and nobody’s even going to hear it.”
Joselyn moves her right hand out, her palm facing me, away from her waist, her fingers open and extended, and while Thorn grips her arm tightly, she waves me off, a sign that I should keep my distance.
All I can do is stand there and watch as Thorn, with his hand around Joselyn’s arm, retreats toward the other end of the platform.
Suddenly I hear the rush of air coming from the open tunnel behind them. A train pulls up and stops at the platform. The automatic doors open and a flood of passengers disembark while others wait to get on. In the press of bodies, the invasion of a new army onto the platform, I lose sight of Thorn and Joselyn. Then I see his head. I move a few feet toward one of the open doors of the train in case he tries to get on.
He sees me and stops. Before he can move again, the doors close and the train starts to move. Thorn realizes that his best chance to escape has just pulled out of the station. Instead he backs up toward the open tunnel, pulling Joselyn along behind him. As I stand there and watch, he pushes her off the platform, down onto the tracks, and then jumps down behind her.
In the rush and commotion of the train pulling out, I look across to the other side. The two uniformed cops are gone. When I look back at the tunnel, both Thorn and Joselyn have disappeared into the darkness.
I run for the end of the platform, lean over, and try to peer into the tunnel, but I can’t see a thing. I hear footsteps shuffling in the gravel along the bed near the tracks, somewhere off in the distance.
I jump down and enter the darkness. It takes a minute or so for my eyes to begin to adjust. I can make out warning signs, red lights facing in this direction in the distance. I start to make my way deeper into the tunnel. Every few seconds I stop and listen for the shuffling of feet on the gravel. And I keep moving. I worry that if I get too close and a train comes, Thorn may throw Joselyn in front of it and try to escape amid the screeching steel wheels and chaos that follows.
I look down. There are two sets of tracks. One on this side and one on the other, three rails for each set. Two of them are safe, the third one, off center and just inside the rail nearest me, carries high-voltage electricity for the train. It is deadly. Touch it, even wearing a rubber-soled running shoe, and you’re toast.
As soon as they were enveloped in darkness, Thorn pulled the silenced Walther PPK from his coat pocket and held it firmly against the side of Joselyn’s head as he pushed her through the tunnel. He kept her moving as fast as he could.
He had no idea how far it was to the next station. His plan was to kill her with a single silenced shot to the head the moment he saw any light at the end. That way he could emerge alone into the station, where he could take the escalator up to the street and disappear. He wasn’t sure what he would do about his passports or his luggage. That he would have to think about, and figure it out when he got there.
As all of this was running through his mind, Thorn looked up and saw a bright light in the distance. For a moment he thought it was the next station coming into view. Then he realized it was a train coming his way.
I see the lights approaching. I jump the two rails next to me, skip over the other rail, and then clear the opposite set of rails carrying traffic in the other direction. I want to get to the far side of the tunnel before the train lights me up for Thorn to take a shot. With me on one side and him on the other, the train will be between us, at least momentarily. If I can move fast enough, running down the other side of the track, I can be on top of him before he realizes it.
I wait until I feel the rush of the wind, the pressure wave in front of the train as it fills the tunnel. Then I start to run full tilt down the other side of the tracks. I hear the squeal of the wheels on the steel rails as the headlight flashes in the darkness. The noise of the train drowns out everything except the pounding of my heart in my ears.
As the train reaches me, I sprint as fast as my legs can carry me. My feet kick up gravel. But Thorn won’t be able to hear a thing, not with the sound of the speeding train in his ears. The lighted windows race by, like a falling ladder. The instant they pass I am once more immersed in darkness. But the sound of the retreating train still covers the noise of my feet on the gravel.
