Horns blared as Maggie dodged cars, crossing the hectic thoroughfare to the Metro station. Fat drops of rain were falling steadily out of a dark sky.
The area underneath the elevated station was a mass of cardboard and discarded mattresses. Dozens of homeless were now on their feet, moving about in agitation.
Maggie tore her veil and hijab off as she approached, gun in hand.
“Police!” she shouted. “Looking for a tall, slender man. Carrying a pistol possibly. Wearing a dark car coat. Dark hair. Arab.”
“That way,” an old woman said, pointing up the stairway to the elevated station entrance.
Overhead, Maggie heard a train screech onto the outbound platform.
“Did he go through the turnstiles?” she asked.
“He did!”
Christ. Maggie flew up the stairs, spoke to the station agent, a sour-looking man with short gray hair and a sleepy stare, who let her through.
She arrived in time to see the train screeching off.
No one around. Kafka must have gotten on that train.
This couldn’t be happening.
Back down to the station agent. “How far is the next station?” She pointed in the direction of the outbound train.
“Less than half a kilometer. Stalingrad.”
“You need to stop that train. A man who boarded is a known terrorist.”
“I’ll need proper authorization.” He gave a squint. “Badge?”
She had no badge on her. “No ID. I’m working with SDAT—anti-terrorist police.”
He shook his head. “You’re not French. That train is full of commuters. I need authorization.”
She was wasting time. Maggie pivoted on her heels, thundered down the stairs as she engaged the team on her Rino while she undid her abaya with one hand. “Bellard,” she said into her throat mic. “Kafka’s on the train headed to Stalingrad station. Do whatever you can to stop that train.”
“Will do,” Bellard said. “We’re headed there now. But traffic is a mess.”
“Stalingrad,” she said again. “On my way.”
On a good day she could clock a quarter-mile in less than a minute and a half. Seventy-three seconds to be exact. She stepped out of her abaya and took off, dodging through the mattresses and cardboard and people, pumping her fists, the Sig Sauer in one. An earbud fell out.
Halfway to Stalingrad she crossed over the train tracks leading to Gare du Nord, underneath the elevated road she was on. She split a pair of strolling lovers apart.
“Ah, la vache!” the man shouted after her. Then he saw the gun in her hand.
Maggie shot up Boulevard de la Chapelle, stretching out her limbs, picking up speed, even with the wet sidewalk. Back home in San Francisco, it was five miles a day, rain or shine. This wasn’t shine. She planted her feet firmly as she ran.
“Some good news,” Bellard said, his voice coming in through one ear. “They stopped the train at Stalingrad.”
“Good work,” she gasped, the elevated Metro station ahead of her. She was moving fast.
“But some of the passengers were able to disembark before they could close the doors.”
That wasn’t good.
“Got it,” she said.
She raced across the street, horn blasting as a car swerved around her on wet asphalt.
And then she was under Stalingrad station.
If La Chapelle was a homeless encampment, Stalingrad was a city. The number of migrants and refugees milling about required elbows and shouts for her to get through to the stairs up to the platform. Her blood was pumping between her ears.
She reached the top of the stairs, across from the turnstiles, and saw the man she most wanted to see just exiting a turnstile.
Kafka. More than a little surprised to see her. He wasn’t carrying his gun but the moment he saw Maggie, he reached inside his coat.
She was less than a dozen feet away. He wouldn’t be able to draw in time. He knew it too. She had the gun in her hand.
“Stop right there!”
But she wasn’t about to shoot him and lose that precious information hidden in his brain.
He turned back around, attempted to push his way through the turnstile. A piercing alarm sounded as tall Plexiglas doors blocked his path.
Maggie closed the distance, slamming into Kafka, shoving him hard against the Plexiglas doors. He twisted around, teeth bared, and managed to smack her in the face with a fist.
It smarted. She dropped the gun. Head ringing, she grabbed his coat collar with both hands. Dara’s death erupted inside her, a wellspring of fury rising like a geyser. She hauled him out and hurled him back into the turnstile doors with a crash. He grunted as she burrowed in, kicking and punching. She kneed him in the groin. Then she pulled a breathless Kafka back out, using centrifugal force to fling him back onto the elevated platform. He tumbled, landing on his hands and knees with a shout of pain.
A gun went off, barking like a metal beast, reverberating through the station, taking them both by surprise.
“Stop!” John Rae yelled in English, storming up the stairs, gun aimed at Kafka.
On his knees, Kafka pulled his own pistol, began to raise it.
John Rae walked up calmly, his face glistening. His beret was gone. His Sig Sauer was pointed directly at Kafka’s chest.
Kafka seemed unsure of what to do, his pistol halfway up.
“Go ahead,” John Rae said through his teeth. “Point that fucking thing at me. I’d love to shoot you right about now.”
Kafka’s face became a tortuous mask of indecision before he finally nodded in defeat, put both hands up, the gun hooked on one thumb, in surrender.
Bellard and another SDAT agent came pounding up the stairs, running over to make the arrest.
Maggie moved in, took Kafka’s gun.
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve done all day,” John Rae said to Kafka.
Kafka got to his feet, one knee of his slacks torn.
“Keep your hands up!” Bellard shouted, he and his man coming in with pistols aimed. Commuters spread around the far edges of the station as announcements reverberated.
Kafka complied, his shaking hands going into the air above his head.
His mouth fell open. He had gotten his first good look at Maggie.
“Where’s Dara?” he said in Arabic, eyes wide in surprise.
“Dead,” Maggie panted. “Dara’s dead.”