Takedown (6 page)

“What do you think, Joe?” Sterling asked. “Could they do that?”

“You can bet your complimentary tickets they can communicate, and a whole lot more.”

“Shut up! You’re not really talking!” Davis screamed, again punching the radio with his fist, his knuckles sore and bleeding.
He wanted to throw the crate out. Kick it out on the side of the road.
Leave it there. Get rid of the evil, mind-reading homing device inside the tortoise. But what good would that do? For surely
the tortoise would be killed, the demon would get out, and come right back after him. He could only think of one solution.
One answer. Buck. And fast. He could see Buck’s face in his mind. Feel his confidence, his faith. More speed. He had to get
the tortoise to Buck fast.

Davis gasped. The red station wagon had reappeared outside the driver’s-side window. There they were, the demon’s friends,
still grinning and waving. More gas… more weaving. Sweat from his forehead was dripping into and stinging his eyes. New York
State Thruway, one half mile, right lane. He swerved right. There they were again, tailgating, laughing at him, enjoying his
fear, feeding off him. How could they be keeping up with him so easily? He heard a banging noise in the back. Now what? The
crate? Was the tortoise trying to get out?

“The oh-one,” Sterling said, now doing play by play. “Swung on and missed. Two strikes. He’s down to his last strike.”

Davis ran his fingers nervously through his hair, wanting to pull it out. His eyes were darting everywhere, heart pounding,
breathing heavy. He turned onto the entrance ramp to the thruway. Looked in the mirror. The red station wagon was right on
him.

Bam.

His neck snapped backward. They’d hit him. He couldn’t go any faster up the ramp, his foot already on the floor, the pedal
buried.

Bam.

“Uhhh.” Davis tried swerving like a snake as he came close to the right turn that would point him north. His fingers dug into
the steering wheel, the turn was sharp, sharper than he’d remembered.

“The oh-two.”

Bam.

They hit him hard, but this time they were still touching… accelerating,
pushing, driving. The minivan’s wheels drifted and hit the guardrail. He slammed on the brakes. Didn’t help. In fact, it made
things worse.

“Nooo!” Davis screamed. Screeching. Scraping. Sparks. A steep embankment to his left. Suddenly the world outside the front
window was rolling. No more scraping. No more sparks. Just weightless silence. The world was upside down. Echoing inside his
mind was John Sterling’s perfect radio voice, and somehow he knew it would be the last play he would ever hear.

“It is high… it is far… it is… gone!”

W
alter Hess hid just inside the treeline below a train track that cut through the Shu-Swamp Bird Sanctuary. The stretch between
Locust Valley and Oyster Bay spanned several scenic preserves and sanctuaries. The most picturesque view for the train passengers
would be seen crossing the bridge over the brackish waters of Beaver Dam, about a hundred yards away.

Hess liked to think of himself as a student, a disciple, a servant on a mission for his master, but the one portrayal he felt
closest to in his elite calling was
soldier
. The word had come to him through a prophecy spoken over him at the Arm of Yahweh Christian Church. He had never served in
the armed forces, but that didn’t take away from who he really was. Inside, he knew he possessed the God-given mind and ability
to have landed him in the Special Forces, but his calling had never been the calling of his country. Quite the contrary. His
country had betrayed its godly roots, oppressing its own for the sake of foreign minorities who would soon be in total control
if they weren’t stopped. No, he was a soldier, a specialist in God’s kingdom, and as his pastor had just told him—actually,
told the congregation, but he knew it was meant specifically for him— “The time to act is now.”

He checked his new, black, digital wristwatch. 5:15 P. M. The Long Island Railroad’s new double-decker diesel train was scheduled
to leave Locust Valley at 5:22 and would pass him about four
minutes later, full speed, on its way to a 5:34 arrival at Oyster Bay station, the end of the line. Then it would leave Oyster
Bay at 5:52 on a return trip and pass by him again at about 5:58. That gave him about a half hour, plenty of time.

He patted his left chest pocket, pulled out a soft pack of Camels. One more cigarette before the train came would help him
relax. He crumpled the empty pack, threw it into some weeds, and did the same with the spent match he used to light up. He
took a long drag on the cigarette, closing his pale-blue eyes.
Must relax.
This wasn’t his first mission, but at twenty-eight years old it was by far his biggest to date.

Fingerprints, the crumpled pack.
Little things,
he reminded himself. A moment later the empty pack was retrieved and back in his pocket.

He listened, straining to hear through the stillness. The new trains were much quieter. Two bumblebees fought, or were mating,
as they flew by. A dog barked in the distance. Closer, a crow cawed and was answered a moment later by another crow. They
were probably talking about him, the stranger in the trees. Crows did that. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t hunting crows.

Hess checked his watch again, the black strap a sharp contrast to the blond hair on his forearm. So blond it was almost invisible,
like his eyebrows. He imagined himself putting his ear to the shiny rail. Just a thought, an impatient one.
Soldier. Relax.
A drop of salty sweat off his forehead burned the corner of his eye. He took off his glasses and camo-bandana, dried his
face, cleaned his glasses, recovered his crew cut.

He glanced at the black duffel bag next to him. Everything he needed was in there. He felt his back pocket for the gel. Still
there. He felt his other pocket for the— He jerked his head left. The train.

He flicked his cigarette and exhaled completely.
Okay, okay, remember to relax,
he told himself. Nobody around. Plenty of time.
Think. First, the gel.
He reached into his back pocket and found the small tube of Vaseline petroleum jelly, unscrewed the top, squeezed a generous
dab on each fingertip of his left hand. He held the tube in his mouth and found a pair of latex gloves in his other back pocket.
He put them on, first the left hand then the right. He felt the gel surround the fingertips inside the left glove, studied
it for a brief moment, and was satisfied.

The massive, two-tiered, bright silver-and-blue train crossed over the small bridge at full speed.
Perfect.
He counted five cars, the track clacking as they passed. He reached for the duffel-bag strap and pulled, flexing the inside
of his right forearm and the lightning-bolt tattoo.
Too heavy.
He rearranged his stance and pulled again, this time onto his shoulder.

Hess waited for the train to flow safely out of sight.
Go.
He struggled through the treeline and hurried up the steep, heavy-gravel incline toward the track. The climb, unrehearsed,
was harder with the weight of the duffel bag than he’d expected. His feet dug deeply into the gravel. He slipped, then again,
cursing each time his right knee hit the large gravel. Why hadn’t he practiced this?
Relax and think.
He swung the duffel bag around to his rump, slipped his left arm through the strap, and pulled the bag to the small of his
back.
Better.

When he reached the top he was breathing heavily. He hurried down the middle of the track, taking the timbers two at a time,
steel bars in the black bag banging together and hurting his back with each step. He glanced to the left. A marshy pond surrounded
by dirt paths and trees. Birdhouses were propped up on poles by the tall-grass shore, but there were no signs of people. Sundays,
there was always at least one person there. Never on Mondays near dinnertime. To his right was the much larger Nassau Pond,
tranquil, and again, not a person in sight. Just a little farther and he would be at the—“Ohhh.”

He tripped and hit the gravel and a creosote timber. Both palms stung; the gloves were slightly ripped, but good enough. The
occasional unequal spacing of the timbers required more attention. He cursed in pain as his knee, the
same
right knee again, bled, darkening his pants. He winced getting up, but continued.
Suck it up, soldier.

Finally, he unshouldered the heavy black bag, metal clanging. He was some fifty feet from the start of the bridge. He checked
his watch. Still enough time, though not as much as he thought he’d have.

He put on a pair of dark sunglasses and unzipped the duffel bag, his sore hands shaking and searching until he felt the cutting
torch. A moment later the torch, attached to a small duel-rubber line fastened to two small canisters of acetylene gas and
oxygen, was lit, propped on its side, the super-hot blue flame focused on the steel rail.
Perfect,
he thought as the steel began to glow. Back in the duffel bag he found a heavy-duty hand file and a pair of large C-clamps
attached to each other by a nine-foot-long, half-inch-thick steel cable. The cable ends had been welded to each clamp to ensure
conductivity. He quickly filed the side of the steel rail until the dirt was gone and raw metal was exposed.

The high-pitched shivering squeal of the filing caused him to pause for a second to survey the area. The pond was still as
glass; the bird sanctuary had the addition of a skinny white crane standing like a statue by the shore. Excellent. A sentry.
A guardian angel. As long as that bird was content to be there, he could rest assured the sanctuary was void of onlookers.

He attached one clamp, cranking as tightly as he could to the raw metal, angling the top of the clamp for lower visibility,
touching the top of the rail. He repeated the same procedure six feet away with the file and another clamp, taking care to
loop the steel cable far enough away from the cutting flame of the torch. With his
first task completed, he could now safely cut the rail without sending a warning signal to the train.

Hess took a quick glance at the contented crane standing guard, then pulled the first hydraulic jack from the sack. The jack
was rated for sixteen tons and had a three-inch-diameter heavy-gauge steel pipe welded to its bottom. The overall length was
exactly fifty-seven and a half inches. He placed it between the two rails, three feet before the molten hole the torch was
burning. The jack fell perpendicularly into place between the parallel rails with an eighth of an inch to spare. Another quick
search in the bag found the lever. He quickly inserted it into the jack and pumped until the lever became difficult to push.
He didn’t want to force it, blow a seal. The rail had not moved at all, as expected.

Hess carefully repositioned the torch at arm’s length, cautious not to look directly into the bright flame and the popping
embers. Satisfied, he retrieved the second jack, an exact duplicate of the first, placed it just closer to the torch. He took
a quick look around to see if the smoke had caught anybody’s attention and felt a sudden dizziness. He needed to slow his
breathing. He had never been so nervous. According to his plan, at this point he was supposed to relax by singing “I’ve been
working on the railroad,” but he couldn’t, his mouth too dry to even whistle and his mind racing too fast to hum. Again, he
pumped the jack lever until it became difficult, then reinserted the lever into the first jack again and managed another three
pumps. With the extra pressure the rail had begun to move fractionally, but more important was the tension at the seam he
was creating.

Again he repositioned the torch, taking a little time first to cut away a glowing corner. The gauges on the small tanks told
him there was plenty of acetylene, but he cursed when he saw that the oxygen was running low. He looked at the rail again
and then back at the gauges. Thinking, thinking. To focus on the cutting would
economize the oxygen, but the pressure of the jacks… When he reached over for the third jack, he noticed something in his
peripheral vision that hitched his chin—a man in a rowboat on Nassau Pond, his face turned in his direction, but too far to
tell if he was actually looking at him.
Probably came out to fish. The smoke from the torch. Jerk!
The fishing was lousy in Nassau Pond.

He checked his watch. 5:50. The train would be leaving Oyster Bay in two minutes and be here in eight.
Move, move, faster, faster.
He set the jack, pumped it up, and then pumped the other two. A lot of popping and squeaking but not much more movement.
Maybe an inch and a half.

He grabbed the torch and aimed it, shielding his face with his left hand. The cutting went so much faster when he held the
torch. He glanced up through the smoke. The man in the boat was rowing toward him. He cursed. 5:54.
Move, move.
He grabbed at the large gravel stones and stacked up a small pile to set the torch on, again refocusing the flame. Oxygen
was getting very low. He yanked the final fourth jack out of the bag, wishing he had brought a fifth. If this didn’t work,
he wouldn’t likely get a second chance in the near future. The jack fell into place just before the flame, with more room
to spare than the others had had. Pump, pump, pump. More popping and squeaking. Pump, pump, pump.

“Hey!” the man in the boat yelled, rowing faster. “What are you doing up there?” The guy was close enough to see, big and
strong, rowing for exercise.
Great, a jock,
Hess thought.
Worse, a hero jock.

Pump, pump. Back to the first jack, two more pumps at the second, then the third, back to the first again, more on the fourth.
Steel creaking, squeaking, wood splitting, cracking, the rail slowly widening. He grabbed the torch again and aimed it, the
flame losing blue, gaining yellow, the roar quieting. The oxygen. He cursed and bore down, the gap in the rail substantially
cut through but still holding on.

“What?” He heard an engine. The train. 5:56. Early. He cursed, dropped the torch, attacked the jacks, his hands shaking as
he pumped. The rail was still glowing red but jack seals were going to give out. How could sixty-four tons of pressure not
be enough? Why hadn’t he brought five jacks? Why hadn’t he brought a bigger tank of oxygen? Why hadn’t he…

Pop, pop.

At first he thought it was a seal, but no, the rail was wider… separated. He looked down the track. The engine was louder,
closer, but still no visual. He kept pumping. The rail was widening easier now. Pump, pump, pump. Wider, wider. “Come on,
come on,” he said.

One jack maxed out, then another until they were all extended as far as they could go. Good. But the hero jock was no longer
yelling, just rowing harder than ever. Getting close to the shore. Hess looked toward the bird sanctuary and saw that the
crane was still there. At least his escape route was clear.

One last thing.

He struggled to take off his left glove. The stupid thing had gone on easily enough. He pulled on each fingertip.
Come on.
He looked up. The big guy in the rowboat was almost at the bridge, headed for the shore. The glove finally came off, the
Vaseline still on his fingers. He found a small tin of thumbtacks in his right front pocket. He clumsily emptied the tacks
on the gravel, dropped to his knees, and pinned the glove onto a timber with the middle finger extended and the others curled
up. Hopefully this little message would survive.

Hess looked at the rowboat and cursed. The boat was empty and slowly floating away from the shore. Scrub trees moved and the
jock appeared—shorts, muscular legs, sweat-drenched gray tank top, fighting branches and running. Hess’s hand reflexively
went to his side, feeling for his jagged-bladed knife. His fingers slipped
around the handle and through spiked steel rings. The grip felt good, just as it had so many times in his bedroom. The jock
was much bigger and stronger, but Hess was a soldier, a
called
soldier with a destiny yet to be fulfilled.

The train.
The yellow nose of the locomotive with its four bright headlights led the way as the double-decker train steamed around the
bend, full of rush-hour passengers on their way home from work. The hero rowboat man was halfway up the gravel hill, grunting,
moving fast, carrying nothing but anger. He was a witness and needed to be dealt with, but not in front of a possible trainload
of witnesses. Hess took one last look—the bag, the torch, the tanks, hoses, jacks—then ran down the gravel embankment toward
the bird sanctuary, his heart pounding, the jock right behind him. He ran into the trees, stopped and turned to fight, but
the man hadn’t followed. Instead he’d stayed at the rail and was trying to remove the jacks. Hess cursed that he hadn’t thrown
the jack lever away and wondered if the rail had enough tension to spring back to its original alignment.