The only thing he’s seen is the depressing corridor between here and Albany, and with jobs tightening up and most of the railroads consolidating, Orrin’s been stuck here—and stuck here as well with his girlfriend, Kimmy.

  Another yawn. He had stayed out way too late with Kimmy and her posse of girls—tight clothes, fake nails and boobs, tramp-stamp tattoos—and once again, after a quick lay back at her place, she had gone on about how long they had been seeing each other, and wasn’t it time to set a date, and how it isn’t fair to lead a girl on like this…

  To hell with that.

  He looks up from his manifest and checks out his conductor, sitting across from him: Miguel Marcos, quiet guy from the Philippines, with dark-olive skin, brown eyes, and thick black hair, which he combs back in some kind of thick pompadour. Miguel is okay, but he sure is quiet in the cab—all business. Orrin’s not sure what kind of experience Miguel had back in Manila, but he’s quick on the job and is a good guy to have at your side.

  Orrin remembers being at a bar in Weehawken nearly a year ago with some of the other guys from the yard. Some big biker started giving Miguel crap and Miguel tried to ignore it, staying really calm until the biker just started grabbing him and pushing him. Then Miguel snapped and used some Filipino karate shit that left the guy bleeding from his nose and with two broken wrists.

  And never again did Miguel say a word about it.

  “Hey, Miguel,” Orrin says, kicking his conductor’s boot with his own under the table. “Ready for another day in paradise?”

  Miguel smiles. “Sure am, Orrin.”

  Orrin says, “I love my job. How about you?”

  His smile stays right there. “I sure do.”

  Orrin laughs, goes back to his manifest. He was lying to Miguel about loving his job, and the funny thing is—Orrin has a pretty good bullshit detector—he’s sure Miguel is lying, too.

  But why?

  At the Northern Terminal dispatch office for the Hudson Valley Railroad in Albany, Brian Lamott sits down near his conductor, Alvi Dudin, with that morning’s manifest for their trip south to Hoboken. Brian yawns, still not used to getting up at this ungodly hour, but happy in knowing that he’s exactly two months and three days from retirement. And at two months and five days he will take his wife, Elayne, on a long-promised second honeymoon across Canada aboard the TransCanadian Railway, relishing being a passenger on a train and not its engineer.

  Elayne has been patient in waiting for this honeymoon, but Elayne being Elayne, she announced last night that their twin granddaughters—Bridget and Lindsay—would be coming along as well. Brian had protested at first, but Elayne set him straight: “The girls hardly know you, and you don’t know them. You still can’t tell them apart.”

  “Not true,” he had said. “Bridget’s the one with the little birthmark on her forehead.”

  “Wrong,” Elayne had said. “That’s Lindsay.”

  Brian goes back to the paperwork for that day’s run, smiling to himself, content that Elayne would never know he had secretly wished she would do something exactly like that; the thought of spending a week with his wife and their granddaughters gives him a warm feeling indeed.

  “Hey, Alvi,” he says.

  “Right here, boss,” Alvi says, checking his phone.

  “Have you seen the manifest?”

  “Sure have,” he says.

  “You see anything out of place?”

  Alvi lifts his head from the phone, smiles. “You mean the fact we’re hauling more than we should, so Hudson Valley can squeeze more from us?”

  “Nah,” Brian says. “That’s typical. Did you see who the last four flatbeds belong to?”

  “Sure,” Alvi says. “Department of Energy.”

  Brian is pleased at his conductor’s response. Alvi is a Russian refugee—hardly an accent to his voice—but he has a good work attitude and a sharp eye, and he can memorize practically any document placed before him. Alvi had looked at the manifest more than an hour ago, but the kid could still recall what was listed.

  “What do you think the DOE is shipping to Hoboken?” Brian asks.

  Alvi shrugs. “Beats me. What do you think?”

  Brian makes sure they’re not being overheard. Paranoid, sure, but you didn’t want a reputation for being a gossiper. Even though Brian is pulling the pin in less than three months, he wants to go out as the pro he’s always been.

  “I tell you what I think,” Brian says. “Department of Energy means more than oil and wind. It’s nuclear, too, and think about it: we got two nuclear power plants in the upstate, at Ginna and Nine Mile Point. That nuclear waste’s gotta be transported somehow. Why not put it on trains? I’ve seen it done before on other rail lines.”

  Alvi says, “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  Brian shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. They’re packed in pretty secure casks. But still, you’d think they’d give the train crew a full brief before asking us to haul that dangerous crap a couple of hundred miles, right across from Manhattan.”

  Alvi smiles. “Yes, you would think.”

  Chapter 86

  IN HIS office at One World Trade Center, Tom Cornwall takes a swallow of cold coffee and gets right back to work. It’s dark in the other offices, and with the pressure knotting his forehead and the burning feeling in his belly after drinking all that coffee and pulling this all-nighter, he knows he will pay a price later today.

  But if he can help his wife, Amy, so what?

  He’s done a lot of digging online during the past few hours and has gotten a few hits about properties in the Manhattan area owned by this Rashad Hussain. But in his gut, Tom knows there’s more. Tricky rich people got rich and stayed rich because of how they gamed the system, how they hid their assets, and at any other time, Tom would spend long hours in front of his keyboards and screens, gently untangling lines of property ownership and offshore accounts. But the tone of Amy’s voice earlier tells him he doesn’t have the time.

  So he’s ventured into the dark web, armed with some cryptocurrency accounts that neither Amy nor his boss, Dylan Roper, knows he has. Tom has always been reluctant to wander the dark web—the favorite place for terrorists, drug dealers, and pedophiles to do their business—because he doesn’t want any three-letter federal agency to know he’s been in that nasty swamp.

  But the dark web has other places as well, such as information brokers with the skill sets to get what one needs, and fast.

  He yawns, stretches his back, feels a splash of guilt over the lie he had told Amy before.

  All right, not a full lie, but a half-lie, because at this moment Denise is slumbering peacefully at Uncle John’s place in south Staten Island. Yet Tom had told Amy that’s where he is, too.

  Instead he is here in his office, with the connections, hardware, and software to do what needs to be done.

  A soft rap on the side of his open office door makes him nearly leap from his chair.

  “Hey, Tom—sorry to scare you like that,” says a concerned-looking blond woman wearing tan slacks and a blue sweater. “But what the hell are you doing here so early?”

  He wipes at his crusty eyes. “Got a project that needs me, and now.”

  Stephanie Harris, an exile from the AP who works the night shift, nods and says, “Good luck. And I hope you’ve got something good. I just ran into Dylan, and he’s in one pissy mood.”

  “That’s his usual mood.”

  Stephanie smiles, steps back from the door. “But this morning it’s more usual than ever. Seems a group of investors have called an unscheduled meeting with him, and if it doesn’t go a certain way…well, I’ll finally have time to write that series of cozy mysteries about tai chi instructors. Hope you got something similar in your back pocket. Take care.”

  Tom nods, stretches his back again, goes back to the computer screen, checks the time.

  Nearly six hours have passed since his last call with Amy.

  Where could she be?

  Chapter 87

  AFTER SPENDING just over six hours in the rear cockpit of an RAF Typhoon, I’m walking on the tarmac of McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, about sixteen miles south of Trenton. I’m focused on one thing, and one thing only.

  Where the hell is the nearest bathroom?

  Under my left arm is a pilot’s helmet; in my right hand I’m carrying a Costcutter plastic shopping bag holding my civvies, shoes, and a heavy lump in the bottom—the 9mm Beretta. My flight gear feels like a four-layer fat suit: thermal underwear, a woolen “bunny suit,” and an immersion suit (to protect my sorry ass if we had ejected over the North Atlantic), all wrapped in a flying suit and G-pants. Various straps and hoses dangle from my person, and I’m wearing borrowed heavy black boots that hurt my feet something awful.

  Maverick from Top Gun I ain’t.

  Striding toward me like he was born wearing military clothes is Jeremy. As he gets closer, he calls out, “All right, I contacted an asset in Princeton who’s agreed to lend us a car and two cell phones. He’s en route.”

  God, do I need to find a bathroom. There are no bathroom facilities in fighter jets, especially for female pilots, and I wasn’t about to wear an adult diaper. And the past six hours over the North Atlantic were long ones indeed.

  I say, “You MI6 boys…girls in every port, assets in every city. Glamorous way of doing things.”

  “Not quite,” he says. “I told Captain Bloom back at RAF Northolt that MI6 would reimburse the RAF for the refueling costs over the ocean.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Of course it was a lie,” Jeremy says. “Meaning I’ll have to pay for it someday…probably by selling my little cottage if MI6 doesn’t come up with the funds. And as a hidey-hole, the poor place is now useless.”

  We walk to a wide-open hangar and I see lines of Air Force aircraft parked on the aprons: KC-10 refuelers, huge C-17 transport aircraft, and smaller, four-engine C-130s. Some Air Force personnel in work fatigues look at us with curiosity as we duck into the hangar and find a desk near the entrance. I dump my plastic bag and flying helmet, hold out my hand.

  “Let’s see what my local intelligence agency has found out,” I say.

  Jeremy digs through his flying suit and says, “My guy was Flight Lieutenant Gibbs. Chatted my ear off. How about you?”

  “Mine was Jenny Horton, pissed to be missing her son’s fifth birthday party. And you’re still mispronouncing lieutenant.”

  I use the desk phone to make the call.

  It’s picked up on the first ring.

  “Cornwall.”

  I briefly close my eyes in relief and delight. My man’s voice sounds strong, confident, and oh so close. Being on Staten Island, Tom and my girl are safe—and only an hour away. Sixty minutes!

  “Tom, it’s Amy.”

  And I love the pleasure in his voice as he says, “Amy…I guess you’re back in the States.”

  “I am…and let me tell you, here for good. No more foreign adventures for your second-best girl.”

  “Serious?” he asks.

  Jeremy is glaring at me and I pull back to reality. “Tom, that’s for later. I’m going to put you on speaker—please tell me you’ve found something out.”

  “A fair amount,” he says. “Got a pen and paper?”

  I open the center drawer of the gray metal desk, yank out a pencil stub, and start writing on a McDonald’s receipt.

  “Go,” I say, as Jeremy hovers over me.

  “All right,” he says. “I won’t go into the details of the ownership—it’s pretty tangled—but your man Rashad Hussain is linked with three hotels: the Nansen Arms, the Vantage Point, and the Excelsior Suites. There are also two townhouses in Greenwich Village, and two bodegas in Spanish Harlem.”

  I scribble notes, my mood sinking with every pencil scratch. Good God, today is the day he plans to kill so many innocents, and already we have seven places where he might be hiding.

  How in hell can we possibly investigate? With the two of us being smoked by our respective intelligence agencies? Do we dial 911 and say, Hey, NYPD, not for nothing, but there’s a deadly terrorist who might be hiding out in a bodega in Spanish Harlem. Mind stopping by to see if he’s there?

  Tom’s voice cuts through my dark musings. “Oh, and I saved the best for last.”

  “What’s that?”

  Two Air Force officers are coming our way looking pissed, and I have a feeling one of them is the owner of the desk I’m using.

  Tom says, “Your man owns a railway in New Jersey.”

  It feels like the cement floor in this hangar has turned to quicksand.

  “Tom, give me more,” I say. “It’s very, very important.”

  “It’s called the Hudson Valley Railroad,” he says. “About four years old. Built up on old right-of-ways and some new track. It runs up and down the valley, has main terminals in Albany and in Hoboken. But here’s the funny bit.”

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  Tom says, “I managed to get some information on its financials. The railway consistently runs in the red. Almost like your Rashad wants to keep it running.”

  Jeremy locks eyes with me. “Or needs to have it running. Hoboken…”

  I nod to him. “Yeah. Right across the Hudson River is lower Manhattan.”

  The Air Force officers are very near. I feel sorry for the two men, because in about fifteen seconds Jeremy and I are going to blow right by them.

  Jeremy says, “Rashad…explosions. There’s something he’s planning to do with his trains.”

  “You know it.”

  “But—”

  From the speakerphone I hear some voices, a shout, and Tom says, “Amy, look, I gotta go.”

  I’m about to say something loving and thankful to him, but he disconnects.

  Jeremy says, “How in hell are we going to find out what we need to know about that railway?”

  I point to the phone. “You’re going to call London—that’s how.”

  Chapter 88

  TOM CORNWALL hears Amy talking to someone on the other end of the call—a male Brit?—and there’s a hard knock on the side of his open door.

  His boss, Dylan Roper.

  “Tom?” he asks, face red, eyes angry, his usually fine seersucker suit looking like he’s slept in it for two nights straight.

  “Hey, Dylan,” Tom says. “I’m on a call here.”

  Dylan takes two steps into his office. “I can tell. I’ve been hearing it for the past couple of minutes.”

  “You’re eavesdropping?”

  “Listening,” Dylan says. “Looks like you got something big going on there. What is it?”

  “Can’t tell you,” Tom says.

  Dylan says, “The hell you can’t.”

  He picks up his phone, says, “Amy, look, I gotta go.”

  Tom quickly disconnects the call, wishing he had said something more sweet and loving to Amy before doing so. “I don’t have a story for you, Dylan.”

  His boss comes further into his office, and Tom can almost smell the fear and desperation coming off him. Dylan says, “You’re bullshitting me, and I won’t stand for it. I heard enough: a Saudi national in Manhattan…his real estate interests…something to do with a local railroad.”

  Tom keeps his gaze steady toward his angry boss. “Nothing newsworthy there, Dylan.”

  Dylan uses both hands to lean over Tom’s cluttered desk. “That’s even more bullshit. I heard your last message. You were saying goodbye to your wife, Amy. Am I right?”

  Tom keeps quiet.

  Damn.

  Dylan nods. “I thought so. What’s going on, Tom? You’re doing a favor for your wife, an intelligence officer—either CIA or some other agency, I really don’t give a shit. But you’re passing along something you’ve learned to your wife. That means you’re passing on something to the government.”

  “Dylan, I was doing a favor for Amy, yes, but I—”

  His boss is having none of it. “Stop it, and stop it right now. You listen to me, Tom Cornwall. I have first dibs on whatever it is you’ve just found out. Whatever you did for your wife, you did it here, in my office, using my equipment, my furniture—hell, even my electricity. That means your work product took place here. And you took that work product and gave it to the government. To hell with that. I have first dibs, Tom. Tell me: what the hell is going on?”

  Lots of responses tumble through his mind, but all Tom can think of is what he had earlier said to his wife:

  Nobody else will know.

  Dylan stands up with a start, and his manner changes. “Tom…please. I just had a brutal meeting with our investors. They’re going to shut us down in a month unless we get a turnaround. You’ve got something going on. I know it, you know it. You write me that story today—take even two days. If it’s something that gets the investors’ attention, it can save me.”

  Tom finds it hard to look at the desperate man in front of him. “I’m sorry, Dylan, I can’t say a word.”

  Dylan says, “You…all right. I know I’m a pain in the ass. A snob. A prick.” He waves his right hand toward Tom’s open office door. “But how about the rest of Criterion News? Your coworkers? The people out there who depend on this place for their livelihood, to support themselves, elderly parents, their kids? You know the state of journalism. Do you think it’s going to be easy for your friends out there to find a job next month?”

  Quietly and with heaviness in his words, Tom says, “No, it won’t be easy.”

  Dylan nods. “Then don’t do it for me. Do it for them.”

  Tom shakes his head. “Dylan…I can’t. I just can’t.”

  A quick snap of Dylan’s jaw. “Fine. You’re fired. Get the hell out of here. Now.”

  He closes his eyes for a moment.

  Nobody else will know.

  Amy, I promise.

  “Fair enough,” Tom says. “Give me an hour to gather up my—”