Dark Zone

ready to enter the tunnel in a few minutes. Traffic through the other tube had been stopped and the few workers in the service tunnel between the train lines were being evacuated. Emergency procedures were being started in the coastal areas, though Rubens doubted there would be time to even get out an alert, let alone do anything constructive to deal with the danger.

People were scurrying. But it was too late, wasn’t it? His people, unaware of the plot, were probably already gone.

As originally composed, the NSA did not have an “action” side. Jobs such as planting bugs were farmed out, generally to the CIA, though the military services were also used. They were contractors in a way, specialists in their tasks and removed from the NSA hierarchy. It made it easier when something went wrong.

The General had pointed that out to Rubens long ago. He had chafed at the lack of an “action side,” but there was that plus.

Rubens knew he had made the right decisions. While he regretted that the analysts hadn’t been able to come up with the information more expeditiously, he did not regret the decisions that had placed his people in jeopardy and, in all likelihood, cost them their lives; these were the decisions he had to make. But he did feel the loss. It pressed its fingers against his skull. And the ache was amplified by the fact that they were impotent, observers only.

Do something, rather than nothing. That had been the General’s motto.

Ruben turned to Telach. “Have we prepared a plan to disable the weapon?”

“We don’t have information on how it might be armed or configured or anything,” said Telach.

“Let’s at least have theories ready,” said Rubens. “And bring Johnny Bib down here. As crazy as he is, he’s bound to have an inspiration.”

102

Dean stared at the far wall of the tunnel, trying to decide if what he saw there were real shadows of the gunmen moving inside the train or flickers of his imagination.

They had to be gunmen — he could hear the muffled sound of the submachine guns again.

They were moving toward the back of the train, in his direction. Each coach had doors at the side, but they appeared to be all locked closed. The only way in or out of the train was the passage at the end of the decoupled car.

If they came out he could surprise them, jump down on them from the top of the train.

But how many were there? One? Two? More?

Dean moved along the walkway next to the tracks, stooping and then crawling toward what had been the rear of the train. He couldn’t quite see in the windows, but as he came parallel to the middle car he saw two shadows prominently one car away. He slid down, flattening himself against the car at a space where there were no windows. He waited, taking the long, slow breaths he’d learned to take more than thirty years before, the calm, quiet breaths of a Marine sniper hunting his prey.

He heard the clack-clack of automatic weapons fire behind him, then beyond him. As the shadows moved through the car he had just passed, he started walking again, going as quickly as he could while remaining low, aware that there might be someone else in the train.

A voice echoed in the tunnel, distorted by an eerie echo.

Dean dropped to his stomach. The voice continued to speak — it was in French, he thought, and even if it had been in English it would have been difficult to understand because of the distortion of the tunnel.

The tone seemed unhurried. It was a matter-of-fact conversation, not a harsh bark of orders or worried alerts.

It was coming from the front of the train — from the tracks.

Dean crawled ahead to the last coach, the one that had been attached to the rear power car. He could hear footsteps and then saw a faint flashlight.

The engine had been pulled down the tracks thirty yards or so. The person with the flashlight was moving toward it, with another person, just one other person.

So at least two still in the train and two there, going to the engine. Maybe more in the power car itself.

The two figures climbed up onto the power car and disappeared. Dean slid around to the back of the coach. The doorway at the end was open, dim yellow light washing out. He waited, eyes sifting for shadows, ears perked to hear anything that would tell him someone else was aboard.

Nothing.

He moved back around to the side and peered in the window. Boxes sat in the aisle roughly in the middle of the car. Otherwise, it was empty.

Except for the dead.

He slid around the coach and pulled himself up onto the decking of the vestibule at the end of the car. People liked to talk about athletes who grew old and lost a step, saying they’d gotten wiser in the process and could use their intelligence to make up for the loss. But it didn’t feel that way to Dean. Fifty-some years dogged every movement, leaning hard against him, pulling him away from the train. He’d been a kid in Vietnam, and he’d trade anything to have that kid take over his body right now.

Or maybe just one of the kid’s weapons.

Dean craned his head upward just enough so he could see into the car through the door. He saw nothing — but his view was blocked by the boxes as well as his angle. There was no way to look in without going in — pushing his body across the space and exposing himself to whatever and whoever was there.

And so he did.

103

Lia grew more cautious as she came to the doorway, aware not just that there could be something lurking in the darkness but also knowing that the odd echoes of sound and the constant rush of air and sound filtered away soft noises, including her own footsteps. She had a tiny light on her key chain but didn’t want to use it; it would show anyone else in the Chunnel where she was. She assumed anyone else here would be her enemy, and whether that was a fair assumption or not — there had been policemen aboard the train — it was not something she questioned. As she reached the door to the access tunnel she stopped, hearing something behind her.

Lia froze.

Then she realized that she would be framed by the fluorescent light above the door. She took a step back into the passage.

Someone grabbed her from behind and threw her down. In the weightless second as she fell she was transported back to Korea, back to the instant when she was overpowered in the airport terminal. She fought, biting the hand — the deja vu sensation disappeared and she was completely in the present, thrashing and wrestling and biting and rolling and lunging and not surrendering, never surrendering, because that wasn’t who she was.

104

Car eighteen had only dead bodies, some scattered luggage, and the large boxes blocking the aisle.

Dean took another step inside, trying to see around the boxes. They looked like the carts that the servers used as they brought refreshments to the first-class passengers; the carts had clearly been arranged like this on purpose, though Dean had no idea why. He tried to push one out of the way, but it wouldn’t budge; they were all linked together somehow. He had to hop over two sets of seats nearby to get around the boxes.

A man lay in a pool of blood near the end of the car. His skull had been battered so badly it looked as if it had