27.
AT THE TRAIN STATION in Amsterdam, Anthony asked Alek to take candid pictures of him looking off into the distance. “They’re not candid if you ask me to take them.”
“Just get me from the side.” Anthony was in a pensive mood, or at least trying to look like he was in a pensive mood. He put his arms across the bench and gazed off into the distance. When he lifted his arms, his fleece hiked up and Alek could see the purple of the T-shirt he was wearing underneath.
“Anthony, you’re not wearing a Lakers shirt are you? We’re in Europe, wear a soccer jersey! Borrow one of mine. Or borrow one of Solon’s, I have extras.”
“I’m good, no shame in it! I’m proud to support Kobe.” Anthony looked off across the platform and said, as if to himself, “The Black Mamba.”
“The what?”
“The Black Mamba.” Alek was still confused. “It’s Kobe’s nickname. You didn’t know?”
“That’s weird, I went on this roller coaster in Cologne called Black Mamba. All Africa themed.”
“No shit?”
The train finally dinged into the station, and Alek picked up his bag, but as he moved toward the train, a woman approached. “Excuse me,” she said with a British accent, and an arm out toward him, “would you boys help my father board the train?”
Behind her, a frail old man with wisps of white hair offered an embarrassed smile.
“Sure, ma’am.” Alek held the man by his elbow while Spencer got the other, and Anthony grabbed their suitcase with his free hand. When the train doors whisked open, Alek helped him up the high stairs, then helped them get settled in their seats while Anthony loaded their luggage.
“Bless you, boys,” the man said. “Thank you for your help.”
“No problem,” Alek said. He turned to Spencer. “You know where our seats are?”
“We have first class. I think it’s up there, but this seems fine to me.”
“Yeah, fine by me.”
They sat down and settled in.
Fifteen minutes passed.
Half an hour passed.
SPENCER GOT UP.
“All right, tired of this,” he said. “I’m bored. I’m gonna go check Wi-Fi on the other cars.”
Spencer disappeared into the forward cars. More time passed. Spencer burst through the door with his fists in the air.
“Found it! First class is that way. And the Wi-Fi works there.”
They waved to the elderly man and the woman who’d diverted them from their reserved seats up front, and moved forward through carriage fifteen, through carriage fourteen, up to carriage twelve.
Up in first class, a train attendant brought them snacks and tiny Coke cans. “Oh my God! So adorable!” Alek was in a bored, giddy mood and found the smaller than average soda endlessly funny. “They’re so cute! Spencer, look at this baby soda!”
Spencer groaned. “Alek, shut the fuck up.”
“Well, Spencer’s in a grumpy mood.”
“All right, I’m putting my headphones on.” Spencer, the noise canceling headphones firmly affixed to his head, slumped back in his seat and closed his eyes.
THE TRAIN SLOWS. People rise, people reach for their bags, a sea swell of arms and leather and canvas. Spencer and Anthony don’t stir.
Alek watches absently as passengers get off, passengers get on. Brussels. He takes a picture of the station. He decides it’s boring.
Then, out of corner of his eye, a person on the platform catches his attention.
A curl of blond hair, a confident walk: the attractive train attendant he flirted with earlier, leaving the train. No!
Alek looks around and sees more people in uniforms leaving. Crew change, he thinks. Damn, she’s gone. She probably thinks we’re a bunch of idiots. Then, We are a bunch of idiots.
He watches her leave with a hint of disappointment. He does not see that as she walks away, a North African man passes going in the opposite direction, approaching the train.
The man crosses the platform, angling just out of Alek’s field of vision, and boards behind Alek.
He has enough firepower to kill nearly everyone on board.
ALEK TAKES PICTURES as the train pulls out of the station. He thinks about waking up Spencer. He wishes something would happen. He tracks on his phone how far they are from Paris; he follows on Google Maps to see what route they’re taking, and if he recognizes the names of places they pass. He looks out the window, watches more countryside pass by. He messages the girl in Germany. He messages a friend from his deployment. He messages a girl in Oregon. He looks out the window some more. He looks down at his phone again, playing a little game with himself, trying to predict exactly what time it will be when the train crosses the next border. He texts the two girls. He tells them where he is; he watches the route he is taking on his cell phone.
At approximately 5:55 P.M., just after the little blue dot moves across the screen into France, everyone stops receiving messages from him.
ALEK HEARS LUGGAGE DROPPING off a shelf behind him. Something with a weighted base, because the sound is extremely loud and he hears a tremendous cascade of broken glass. Before he can turn around, a man in uniform blows past his vision at a full sprint, and without thinking, Alek falls to a crouch and turns in the foot space, looking back through the gap between the seats where he can see, swaying in and out of his narrow alley of vision, like some kind of specter moving through a nightmare, a shirtless man with a machine gun, walking slowly toward them.
Adrenaline hits. His vision narrows. The train evaporates around him and all that exists in the whole world is one man with a weapon thirty feet in front of him. Alek’s vision is a single sphere, like looking through binoculars; he is watching a video game through a gun sight. He thinks, Go—let’s go, but means it only partly, feebly; a message to his friends next to him whom he can sense are now awake, he only knows he’s said it aloud because he feels it vibrating from his lungs, hears the words returning as an echo. Then Spencer blurs across his vision and Alek realizes he’s sent his best friend to charge the gunman.
Another clear thought: that Spencer is defenseless, exposed, and alone.