The first vehicle to arrive on the scene wasn’t a police car or an ambulance.
It was an Escalade.
The Little Beast plowed through the six-foot chain-link fence and skidded to a stop inches from the open door of the train, where I was sitting. The interior sliding doors on either side of the vestibule were locked. I’d peeked through one of the windows, hoping to converse with the conductor or the café attendant. Employees and passengers were bent over in their seats, heads between their knees, hands covering the backs of their necks. Waiting for the all-clear from law enforcement.
Steve hopped out of the driver’s side door. He left the SUV idling. “Is Dan—”
“Neutralized,” I said, nodding over my shoulder. “Hit by another train.” The Acela that hit Dan had finally come to a rest farther down the tracks. I didn’t know where it threw his body, and I didn’t care. The cadaver dogs would be around soon enough to start the search for what was left of him.
“Help is on the way,” Steve said, examining the bulge on my temple. He looked like he needed help more than I did. He had a shoulder sling on his left arm and was still wearing his hospital bracelet.
“Barack got my message,” I said. A slight breeze blew through the vestibule.
Steve moved a finger back and forth in front of my face. I followed it with my eyes. “You didn’t leave a message, so the president didn’t think anything of it, really. In the meantime, though, I contacted the DEA to straighten some things out. They told us they were investigating Detective Capriotti. That, of course, raised some red flags, and when we couldn’t reach you, well…”
“How’d you find me?”
“Traced your phone, of course.”
“That takes a court order, doesn’t it? You can’t do it in real time.”
“If you’re suggesting President Obama has some sort of backdoor into the officially dismantled NSA surveillance program—”
“Say no more,” I said. They’d had the train stopped. That was what mattered. If it hadn’t been for them, Dan could have slipped away when the conductor opened the cabin doors at Wilmington Station.
“There’s a man,” I said. “Jeremy. A Drug Enforcement agent, undercover. He was the biker we chased yesterday. Dan threw him off the train a couple of hundred yards back.”
“There’s a medical helicopter on the way,” Steve said. “We’ll have them look for him.”
Barack stepped out of the SUV. He was wearing the Phillies cap again.
“What did we miss?” he asked. “Did you and Dan fight it out on the top of the train?”
I climbed down onto the rocks and pointed to the electrical cables running over the tracks. “Touch one of those, and you’ll be fried to the tune of twenty-five thousand volts.”
“Guess they don’t call you Amtrak Joe for nothing.”
“I know some things,” I admitted.
A trio of cop cars pulled into the gravel parking lot on the other side of the fence, lights flashing. They killed their sirens. A police helicopter circled overhead.
“They’re not going to give us a hard time, are they?” I asked.
“Lieutenant Esposito’s in charge,” Steve said. “So maybe.”
Barack ran his hands over the Escalade’s bumper. The Little Beast had sustained minor damage in the weekend’s festivities. There was a scratch or two on the hood. A minor dent on the front side panel if you looked at it in the right light. Other than that, it could have been fresh off the lot. “We’ll run through a car wash on the way home,” Barack announced to no one in particular.
Steve answered his phone. He waved up to the helicopter, letting someone—Esposito?—on the other end of the line know that they could call off the SWAT team.
There was a loud clank behind me. I turned in time to see a bloodied, mangled figure entering the train vestibule through the far door that was stuck open. There was nothing human about the creature except for the whites of its eyes.
It was Dan.
He’d been torn to shreds.
Somehow, despite it all, he’d found a way to gather his broken limbs into something resembling a human form. His breathing was shallow, ragged. In his right hand he held a snub-nosed pistol, which he must have hidden in a holster.
I realized he could have pulled it out and shot me during our standoff, but he hadn’t. Perhaps he’d had second thoughts about killing me. Perhaps he’d simply known it was futile. Now, however, he was past rational thought. He was fueled by rage. A thirst for revenge.
“Gun!” I yelled. I launched myself shoulder-first into Barack, knocking him to the ground and out of harm’s way. Steve dropped his phone and pulled out his own piece.
The smell of gunpowder was in the air. Shots had been fired. I hadn’t even heard them. All I could hear was the ringing in my ears. I was lying on top of Barack and rolled off onto the rocks. Steve was racing for us, gripping his smoking SIG Sauer with his one good hand. The shootout was over.
Dan was finally dead.
Barack and Steve helped me up into a sitting position. Barack showed no signs of injury. It took a lot more than an old man to knock the wind out of him.
I grabbed my aching love handle, and my index finger went through a tiny hole in my bomber jacket. A bullet hole. I’d been hit.
Barack threw open my jacket and patted me down. There was no blood, no entry or exit wound on the pink skin of my abdomen. “It went through your jacket but missed your body,” he said, his voice muffled. My hearing was slowly coming back. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“It wasn’t luck,” I said.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bullet. Its nose was bent at an angle. I tossed it into the sand. There was a small dent almost dead-center in the Medal of Freedom, with cracks in the enamel overlay radiating around it. The dent would need to be pounded out, and the paint would need touching up. I knew my auto-body guy would fix it for a pittance, especially compared to what a jeweler might charge. All in all, the medal wasn’t in bad shape.
And, all things considered, neither was I.