28

Dammit, Scotto,” Banzer’s voice crackles over the cellular. “I thought you were coordinating?” Scotto’s car phone is an amazing gadget by Russian standards, with a hands-free mode that allows both of us to listen and respond via a tiny speaker and microphone.

“Makes two of us,” Scotto fires back. “But they pulled a couple of fast ones. For openers, what am I bid for four eighteen-wheelers and four containers with the same number?”

“Geezus. Why didn’t you call me?”

“What for? We had enough units to sustain pursuit. Each one took a rig.”

“God help you if we lost track of the cash.”

“No way. We had the plate number of the rig that’s carrying it.”

“Ah, and you just happened to tail that one?”

“Hey, I got lucky. The recycling plant was a decoy too.”

“Great. Any idea where the cash is headed?”

“For a train ride.”

“A train ride.”

“Uh-huh. Me and Katkov are sitting on it in the Atlanta yards right now. The eighteen-wheeler’s crew dropped it off, trailer and all, and split.”

“What’s the drill?”

“Nutcracker wanted to take it down before it gets out of his jurisdiction, but I got Krauss to talk him out of it. The money’s going to end up on somebody’s doorstep, and I want to know whose.”

“You and me both. What about the rig’s crew?”

“We’re holding off on them too, for now. Better if they think it’s all going according to plan.”

“Good. You have backup?”

“Uh-huh. Nutcracker’s got a couple of units covering us; they’re also putting a chopper on standby. Too chancy tailing a truck by air, but a freight shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Yeah, but why standby? I mean, it’s going to be moving. We know that.”

“But we don’t know when, Joe. Nutcracker said it could sit here for weeks. The chopper’s a National Guard loaner, and they can’t tie it up that long. I couldn’t argue.”

“Well you’re a loaner too, and I can’t tie you up that long either. And don’t argue.”

“Joe.”

“Hold on a sec. I know a guy on the Amtrak PD. Maybe we can find out where it’s going and when.”

Scotto does a slow burn and waits, listening to the hum of the line.

I keep the binoculars trained on our target. Container 95824 is one of hundreds in the section of the train yard where long lines of flatcars wait to be loaded with containerized cargo. A gargantuan bridge crane straddles them, gliding back and forth on tracks of its own as it goes about transferring two of the forty-foot-long aluminum boxes to each flatcar.

We’re parked on an overpass at one end of the yard. It arches between the deserted hulks of once thriving mills and factories that crowd the right of way. Like most of the streets in this desolate area, the graffiti-covered span is littered with abandoned vehicles. Dents, dings, faded paint, and a heavy coat of road grime keep Scotto’s Buick from standing out.

From this vantage point, the entire network of track stretches out before us. Several husky diesels patrol it, picking up their charges. One by one each railcar is guided to a central spur, where it joins others moving up one side of an incline and down the other. Trainmen, working in a control tower atop the hump, open and close combinations of switches, directing each car to the proper train.

“It’s still sitting there, huh?” Scotto prompts, squirming in her seat impatiently.

I nod and lower the binoculars. “What’s Amtrak?”

“National train system—for passengers.”

“National?” I echo, astonished at this breach of capitalist ideology. “You mean it’s run by the government?”

“Subsidized.”

“Still, whatever happened to free enterprise?”

“It ran into the Wright brothers. The airlines were putting passenger trains out of business, so the government got into it, bought ’em all out, and merged ’em into one.”

“And it has its own police department?”

“Uh-huh. Covers about twenty thousand miles of track, everything within a couple hundred feet on either side of it, and everything that travels on it. Passenger, freight, whatever. Carved it out of FBI turf back in the seventies. A little before my time.” She’s smiling, savoring the thought, when the cellular comes back to life.

“Gabby?” Banzer’s voice crackles. “Good news and bad news. According to my guy, whoever’s running this show is pretty damned sharp. Atlanta is the hub for the entire southeast. More than a dozen railroads run in and out of there.”

“Great,” Scotto groans sarcastically. “The target could be going anywhere, on any one of ’em, at any time. Now, give me the bad news.”

Banzer laughs. “Listen, it’s a computerized yard. They use these scanners to read a code on each railcar. It’s racked up in a sleeve on the side. You get me the code, my guy can get into their data base and find out date and time of departure and destination.”

“Way to go, Joe. One little problem. The container’s not on a flatcar yet. We’ll have to hang in here until it is.”

“I thought Nutcracker said that might take weeks? Listen, Scotto, I think you ought to get your butt back here and let his people . . .”

Scotto’s eyes bug. She scoops up her radio and holds down one of the buttons. It emits a constant stream of loud, scratchy static that’s picked up by the cellular’s mike. “Joe? Joe? We’re losing you, Joe. Say again? Joe? Joe, do you read?” She sets down the radio with a little smile and flicks the cellular to off. “Satellite must be picking up some kind of interference.”

It’s been at least thirty-six hours since either of us have had any sleep. We take turns napping and keeping an eye on the target. There’s nothing terribly demanding about it. Nothing that tests one’s skills or acuity. Nothing vital, other than remaining awake. Container 95824 spends the afternoon sitting in the yard on its trailer. Before we know it, darkness is falling and our stomachs are growling. The Buick’s trunk seems to have an inexhaustible supply of junk food and beverages, but we’re both craving a hot meal. I volunteer to take the car and get us something.

“No, I gotta go,” Scotto protests. “You stay here and mind the store.”

“Really, I’d be more than happy to—”

“You didn’t hear me, Katkov,” she interrupts urgently, pressing her knees together. “I said I gotta go.” She digs a pager out of the glove box and hands it to me. “That container starts moving, hit this button. We won’t be able to talk, but the radio’ll pick up the signal, and I’ll come running.”

The Buick’s taillights are soon red specks in the darkness. I’m fine-tuning the focus on the binoculars when the screech of grinding metal raises my pores. Far below, a long freight enters the yard and snakes through a series of switches, filling the air with the harsh scent of burnt steel. Containers come and go; but 95824 isn’t one of them. About a half hour later, headlights appear at the far end of the overpass and come toward me. It’s Scotto. She gets out of the sedan with an ear-to-ear grin on her face and a flat, square box in her arms. Bright red letters that slash across the top proclaim PIZZA HUT.

I break up with laughter. “In honor of my homeless status?”

“By default. I spotted this neat-looking Texas Chili joint across from where I gassed up, but decided against it.”

“Doesn’t agree with you?”

“Hell no, I could live on the stuff. Did live on it when I was working the border down in Brownsville. It was the thought of running into our favorite trucking crew that gave me a pain in my gut.”

“You mean the two who were—?”

“Uh-huh. Mr. Don’t Touch My Rig, Bitch and his shotgun-hugging flunky. Their tractor was parked right outside the place.”

“Any chance they saw you?”

Scotto shrugs. “Hard to say. I didn’t see them.” We settle on the tailgate of an abandoned pickup truck and dig into the pizza. She devours the first piece, then stares off into the darkness, ignoring the rest.

“Rather tasty. Come on, have another.”

“Lost my appetite,” she mutters, preoccupied. “I keep thinking about this thing . . . you know . . . with my husband. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“As a very smart person once told me, ‘Just be your pushy, pain-in-the-ass self. You’ll do fine.’”

“Very funny.”

“You will.”

“How the hell do you know? You write a column for the lovelorn in your spare time?”

“No, but I could. It seems everyone I know in Moscow is either divorced or on the verge of it.”

“No kidding? It was like that in the seventies here. We raised our consciences so high, we lost sight of what really counted. What’s the problem in Russia?”

“High unemployment, long winters, alcoholism.”

“Not exactly a prescription for wedded bliss, huh? What’s yours?”

“Political activism. It had a rather negative impact on my ex’s medical practice. That was part of it, anyway.”

“And the other part?”

I lower the binoculars and look Scotto square in the eye. “I’m an alcoholic.”

Her face falls. “Gosh, I feel kind of funny about before. I mean, I wouldn’t have . . . I’m really sorry.”

“I could’ve said no. I decided otherwise.”

She smiles sadly. “That’s what they all say, isn’t it?”

“Classic denial. I know. Strange as it sounds, the cravings seem to have diminished as of late.”

“As of late? Very strange. I mean, this job drives people to drink, not the reverse.”

“Not at all surprising. But since leaving Moscow, I don’t know, I feel different.”

“Well, change of environment sometimes—”

“Hey?! Hey, it’s moving!” I interrupt, raising the binoculars.

“What?”

“The container, it’s moving!”

Number 95824 hangs in a crossfire of work lights beneath the bridge crane’s boom. A rectangular frame of massive beams and pulleys grips the perimeter at the roofline. With surprising speed and precision, the huge, articulated structure rolls on its tracks, then stops, swivels, extends, and deftly deposits the forty-foot-long aluminum box in the bed of a flatcar.

“Can you see the code?” Scotto prompts anxiously.

“No, the angle’s all wrong.”

“Come on,” she orders, jumping from the tailgate. “We better find one that’s right.”

I keep my eyes pressed to the binoculars for a moment. One of the patrolling diesels hooks up to the flatcar and starts moving the two-billion-dollar cargo through the yard. “Hold it. I’m afraid we’re not going to have time.”

Scotto fetches the radio and thumbs the transmit button. “Nutcracker . . . Nutcracker, this is Shell Game. It’s moving. The target’s moving; we need that chopper.”

“Copy that. Bird is on standby as planned. ETA your location . . . twenty minutes. Any fix on target’s destination?”

“Negative.”

“That’s a copy. Be advised max range for chopper is three hundred miles.”

“Yeah, yeah, just make it fast, dammit.” Scotto clicks off the radio with an angry scowl.

The diesel negotiates a combination of switches and maneuvers to the incline, where the flatcar begins its ascent. Moments later, it rolls down the other side and couples to a long freight that’s being assembled. A half-dozen more railcars swiftly follow. The last one is a caboose. Within minutes, the three-unit diesel at the head of the train unleashes its awesome power and lunges forward. The grinding of drive wheels on rails, the angry creak of stressed metal, the rapid-fire bang-bang-bang of engaging couplers blend with haunting blasts from air horns that announce the fifty-plus-car freight’s departure.

“I don’t know about you, Scotto, but after coming this far, there’s no way I’m stopping now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Following the money. After what’s happened, even if we knew the destination, where that container goes, I go. You coming?”

Scotto glances to the sky forlornly. Still no sign of the chopper. I dash to the Buick and climb behind the wheel. I’ve just started the engine when she comes after me and rips open the door. “Scoot over, Katkov.” I hesitate. “Scoot over, dammit. Now!” I clamber over the transmission console. She shoves the shift lever into drive and takes off. The acceleration pins me to the seat. She weaves between the abandoned vehicles to the far end of the overpass. The cross street runs parallel to a concrete embankment that slopes sharply to the yard. Scotto puts the Buick into a high-speed slide and fishtails through the corner. As the car is settling down, long-haul halogens suddenly blast from between the vacant factories. An all-too-familiar tractor charges into view and tries to cut us off. Scotto instinctively snaps the wheel right-left-right. The sedan responds and slithers around the tractor. It’s so close I can read PETERBILT on the cowl.

“What are they doing here?!”

“Waiting for us. What else? One of ’em must’ve spotted me before.”

I look back for the tractor. It swerves to avoid going over the embankment, then comes out of it and pursues. The entrance to the train yard is dead ahead. Scotto blows past some slow-moving trucks and rockets into the access road. The steep incline leads to a network of service roads. One parallels the tracks. She races the length of the yard—past the control tower, past lines of railcars, past signal towers and distance markers—in pursuit of the departing train.

I’m watching with wide-eyed amazement.

She senses it and grins. “Driving school. They teach us how to handle everything from motorcycles to that thing that’s trying to kill us.”

I glance back over my shoulder again. The tractor is gaining. It’s a hell of a lot faster without that forty-ton trailer behind it.

Scotto is radioing the backup units for help. A blast from an air horn interrupts. One of the other diesels is coming toward us on an intersecting spur, pulling a long string of boxcars. The engineer leans on his horn again. Scotto flicks a glance to the mirror and curses. The tractor is still coming like a runaway freight. So is the thundering diesel. The word CONRAIL is stenciled across its stubby snout. My heart’s climbing into my mouth. My brain’s screaming, Hit the brakes! Hit the brakes! The air horn’s still blasting. Scotto’s still ignoring it. She steels herself and stands on the gas instead. The Buick zips across the tracks. The onrushing train misses us by millimeters and roars across the service road, blocking the pursuing tractor.

The freight carrying container 95824 is up ahead, traveling at the posted yard speed of 5 mph. We overtake it easily. Scotto keeps the pedal to the floor, racing along the service road that parallels the outbound spur. Railcar after railcar flashes past. The numbers on the target go by in a blur. She keeps going until we’re so far ahead of the train, it’s completely out of sight by the time she stops.

We waste no time getting out of the car. Scotto starts stuffing a nylon gym bag with things from the trunk. I’m pulling my typewriter from the backseat with one hand and a suitcase with the other. Headlights sweep through a distant turn, startling us. If it’s the train, it’s moving so fast we’ll never get aboard. I’m not sure if our luck is holding or running out, but it’s not the train—it’s the tractor! Tinted two-piece windshield bridging its cowl like a pair of Ray-Bans, engine snarling behind vicious chrome teeth, stacks snorting fire into the darkness, the monster-on-wheels comes at us at high speed.

We literally run for our lives, putting as much distance as possible between us and the Buick that blocks the narrow service road. The driver redlines every gear. The speeding tractor closes the distance in an eyeblink. It’s heading right for the sedan.

“Shit!” Scotto exclaims, glancing back. “That son-of-a-bitch is gonna total my car!” She drops her bags, then pulls her pistol, steadies it with both hands, and coolly fires at the on-rushing vehicle. The windshield shatters. The engine growls like a broken lawn mower. A tire blows. The tractor swerves wildly out of control, narrowly missing the Buick. It rockets across a median, sending up a shower of gravel, and crashes into an embankment.

“Yes!” Scotto whoops, pumping a fist in triumph.

Despite the circumstances, I can’t help thinking it’s amazing the things people become attached to.

“Stay back,” she orders, pushing me aside before advancing on the tractor cautiously. The door cracks open before she gets there. The shotgun emerges. She advances swiftly, then grasps the barrel and pulls hard, yanking Harlan from the cab. He gets a face full of gravel. Scotto gets his weapon. “Police officer! Don’t move!” she commands sharply, pressing a foot against the back of his neck. He remains facedown on the ground. She hands me the shotgun. “Shoot him if he moves.” She swings the door open wide, leveling her pistol at the driver. “Police! Out. Now. Move it!” He stumbles from the cab, blood trickling into his beard from a cut on his cheek. “Hit the deck,” Scotto orders, holding the pistol on him as she steps back.

The wail of sirens rises as he flops facedown in the gravel next to his colleague. The backup units race along the service road and converge on the tractor. Krauss and Nutcracker are at the forefront of the agents who pile out of the vehicles, guns drawn.

“All yours, Tom,” Scotto says coolly as they move in around the two truckers. Then, noticing a single headlight streaking through the darkness, she breaks into a cocky grin and adds, “Come on, Katkov. Don’t want to miss our train.”

The long freight seems to be picking up speed as it exits the yard. At the least, we’re going to need a running start. Krauss and the other agents are wide-eyed as we scoop up our bags and start sprinting parallel to the tracks. The ground shudders violently as the throbbing diesel approaches, pushing air with jolting force as it passes.

We’re running clumsily with our cargo alongside an empty boxcar. I toss the typewriter and suitcase through the open door. Scotto does the same with the canvas sack and her shoulder bag. There’s a boarding handle welded to the doorframe. It takes me several tries, but I finally get hold of it and belly flop aboard. The train is moving faster. Scotto is running like crazy to keep up. She accelerates and makes a desperate headfirst lunge for the doorway. I manage to get hold of her wrist. She hooks a leg over the sill—half of her in, the other half hanging perilously out—and claws at the floor for a handhold. I grab the seat of her pants with my free hand and drag her inside. We stumble away from the door and fall against opposite walls of the boxcar, gasping for breath.

“You . . . you okay?” I finally ask.

She nods, unable to speak.

“I . . . I . . . think . . . I’m starting to understand.”

“You . . . you mean about . . . getting back into the field?”

“Uh-huh. . . . You’re . . . you’re amazing.”

“I know . . .” she wheezes with a grin. “But I think . . . maybe . . . I’ve lost a step or two. . . . Gotten a little . . . broad in the beam.”

“I believe . . . I mentioned that when we first met.”

“A born diplomat.”

“Think positively. . . . It gave me something to hang on to.”

“That’s what my husband says. Don’t start getting sexual on me, Katkov.”

“Thought’s never crossed my mind.”

“Nice to know I can always count on you for an ego boost.”

I smile. So does she. We’re sitting there like rag dolls, watching the city go by, when it dawns on me we haven’t the slightest idea where we’re going.