Parallel Lies (44 page)

“What if we uncoupled these rear cars on the fly?” Tyler suggested. This was exactly what he thought Alvarez had in mind, and he wanted to test its feasibility on Coopersmith.

The big man shook his head. “Can’t be done. There has to be slack, no tension, in the coupling.” He added, “But I see your point, if we could get the guests back of here
before
trying to slow the train, that’s a hell of an idea.”

“What are the mechanics of this? Help me out here.” He dug into Alvarez’s duffel bag and produced the come-along, a hand-operated winch. “Could I take enough pressure off the coupler with one of these to uncouple two cars?”

Coopersmith took his hand off the emergency brake, stunned. “That was part of his plan? But why would a terrorist want to uncouple the cars?”

“In order to escape.”

Coopersmith nodded, picking up on the thought. “Uncouple nine, yeah, and watch as the train runs off without you.” Coopersmith hurried to the front of the car, opened a box, and picked up the phone that connected to the locomotive. “This is Coopersmith,” he said. “Maintenance Crew Chief. Listen up. We’ve got a situation back here.”

Coopersmith hung up, looking bewildered. He told Tyler, “The driver won’t do it. Won’t disengage.”

“He’s
got
to!”

“Says he’s not stopping the train based on a door being glued shut. He wants Goheen making the call.”

As if on cue, a woman’s voice came over the public address system, announcing that Goheen’s press conference would now take place in the press car and would be carried live on the in-seat videos in all cars, for those interested.

“Goheen is not going to stop this train,” Tyler realized aloud. “Not after that. He’s not going to move his guests. He’s not going to do anything.”

Coopersmith, still reeling from the driver’s refusal, mumbled, “I should have told him something different. Should’ve handed him a lie.”

Tyler glanced at his watch. “How soon can you get this door open?”

“We could drill it. Jig it around the lock. Ten… fifteen minutes.”

“Make it five,” Tyler urged.

Tyler stared at the small door that had been jammed shut. The train was set to derail—he knew this beyond all doubt.
He couldn’t ignore this closet, but at the same time, he pondered at its obviousness. What if it was nothing but a diversion? He asked Coopersmith, “You said each car separately tracks its own location?”

“Yeah.”

“Speed. Direction.”

“Right.”

“And the stabilizers react accordingly,” Tyler said.

“Which is what keeps it on the tracks.”

Again, Tyler felt the pressure of the approaching river crossings and Goheen’s upcoming press conference. Time was running out. He shut his eyes and tried to focus. He tried to see the train’s design in his head. “The guidance systems must report to each other.”

“Of course.”

“And to the locomotive.” Tyler continued, “So our guy not only knocks out the guidance on a couple of the cars but does something so the driver never knows about it.”

Coopersmith shook his head. “A server in the locomotive constantly monitors the data lines. Anything goes south, the engine does an auto-shutdown. We checked those systems again at Penn Station, full data port checks. Everything was go.”

“But if he knew that would be your last inspection, it would explain why he risked boarding. Right? He did whatever he did while under way so as to avoid detection.” Tyler suggested, “With the sabotage in place, he disconnects car nine and rides it to safety.”

Coopersmith stood absolutely still, drained of color. “Who the hell
are
you?”

Tyler replied, “You’ve got to inspect all the data cable, the guidance systems, the server in the locomotive, anything that’s part of the control of these stabilizers.”

At that moment, a repeat announcement about the press conference was made.

Tyler said, “Whatever we do, we’ve got to be fast.”

Alvarez froze at the sight of Jillian. Had Goheen or O’Malley identified her, managed to lure her here? Coercion? False promises?

In her eyes, he saw concern and fear. Upon his making eye contact, she immediately looked away. She appeared either angry or under guard or both. He turned back, took two steps, and through the vestibule spotted the man he believed was a federal agent coming at a run up car six. To his right, Jillian had now turned her back on him.

He stepped into the dining car. The lavatory’s indicator read
Vacant.
It described how he felt. Her being here started him on a new train of thought: she somehow represented a future; his Goheen vendetta pointed to no future whatsoever, only a past of grief and anger and a need for revenge. Could he drop all that for a woman he hardly knew?

He went into the lavatory dizzy with anxiety. He pulled the door shut and threw the lock.

A knock came almost immediately. This, despite the
Occupied
sign.
The fed,
he thought, pondering violence or surrender. And he had come too far to surrender.

“Please,” came Jillian’s muted voice through the door.

Alvarez reached for the lock. Was he being set up? Were they using her? His fingers found the cool metal lock and twisted. The door opened a crack, and Jillian slipped inside.

She pulled the door shut and deftly locked it, the two of them standing in the cramped space. She looked stunning:
the velvet dress, her hair up. Her eyes shone. “I didn’t believe them,” she said, staring at him.

He opened his arms and they embraced, and briefly he felt peace. “How?”

“I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, at the restaurant or the apartment.”

“Quickly,” he urged.

“When I saw the article in the paper, I called the police to say I’d seen you.” She seemed to be fighting to hold herself together. “Later, this man came. With the railroad. He said that if I took this trip, if I rode this train, I might save hundreds of lives. I told him you wouldn’t, couldn’t possibly, do what he said you were planning to do.”

“But you came,” he said, standing her up, releasing the embrace. “You didn’t believe that.”

“So why are
you
here?”

“Yes. It’s interesting, isn’t it?”

“It’s over, Bert. It has
got
to be over.”

“No one’s getting hurt. No one but this bastard and his company.”

A heavy pounding on the bathroom door. They both tensed. Alvarez pointed to his lips and then to Jillian. He wanted her to answer.

“Busy!” she called out.

“No problem. Sorry.” A male voice. The fed he’d seen? One of Goheen’s guards? By coming in here with him, by her answering, she might have just saved him. Or trapped him. He couldn’t be certain of anything.

“I can’t expect you to understand,” he whispered.

“So many lies.” She considered this. “So many
lives.”

“The lies started with them.”

“Listen to you!” she exclaimed.

He checked his watch. “Any of the cars behind the dining cars will be safe.” He added, “Go there now.”

“No.” She stared at him. “I won’t.”

In the near silence, Alvarez became aware that there was no rhythm to this bullet train, no cadence. They had robbed train travel of its soul. They had robbed
him
of his soul.

He checked his watch. “You have to decide if you’re turning me in or not. I’m on a tight schedule.”

“I won’t be in the back cars,” she affirmed. “Whatever you do, you do it to me. This is not a solution—whatever it is, it is not that.”

“It’s not your battle.”

“There is no battle. Your family is dead. None of this will help.”

Alvarez burned with resentment but spoke gently. “You compare us as if we’re the same.” He waited. “You have a decision to make,” he said flatly.

Jillian glared, turned around, and unlocked the door.

Wearing a hand-tailored blue suit and a red, white, and blue tie, William Goheen stood at the front of the press car at a small lectern before an improvised cluster of microphones and a slightly inebriated audience.
Dateline
was one of seven video cameras taping to run the event that evening. Installed into each seat back was a small liquid crystal screen that showed Goheen’s face as slightly pink.

Goheen offered a second hearty welcome to his honored guests. There would be even more food and drink right after the presentation. He won a light round of applause for that, which should have told him something about his audience.

“Before I take your questions,” he said, flanked by two attractive women from public relations, “we’d like to show you a short video on the F-A-S-T Track’s innovative technology and futuristic features. We have this information for you on pass-outs as well. They’re available in the catering car, along with some T-shirts and brochures we thought you’d enjoy. It’s only about five minutes. We’ll run it now.”

Behind Goheen and to his left, O’Malley stood facing the camera’s glaring lights wearing sunglasses, looking completely out of place. He wore a curly wire in his right ear and a scowl on his face.

One of Goheen’s aides spoke into her cell phone, and everyone’s attention fell to the video screens. Anticipation mounted as the screens remained black. Some sparkles suggested
tape might be running, but no image appeared. No sound.

A perfectionist, Goheen prided himself on presentation, a hallmark of Northern Union Railroad. This short press conference had been rehearsed several times, the equipment checked repeatedly. Sloppy performances had no place in his camp. He merely turned his head to send his people scampering to solve the problem.

Before his assistants had moved ten feet, a man’s blackened silhouette appeared on the small screens, as well as on the larger monitor set up to Goheen’s right. When this man spoke, his voice sounded electronically altered—like an imitation of a robot. “Welcome passengers of the F-A-S-T Track test run. If security personnel manage to stop this video, it is you, the passengers, who will suffer for it. Demand this video be played to its conclusion. As of this moment, your continued safety lies with me. I have a list of demands for Mr. Goheen.”

One of the two PR women frantically hoisted a cell phone to her mouth. O’Malley, his face suddenly ashen, had stepped around Goheen to view the screen. Goheen glared down at him from the podium with all the fury a man could muster.

The voice continued. “If these demands are not met, this train will derail in exactly seven minutes.”

Panic erupted. The next few seconds of video were lost to all but those closest to the monitor, among them, Goheen and O’Malley. “If the train slows more than ten miles an hour, it will derail automatically. Mr. Goheen, I trust I have your attention.”

The passengers roared out complaints—one of the more drunk shouted, “This is
not
funny!”

A full third of the reporters had their mobile phones out, already speed-dialing.

“First and foremost,” the voice said from the television monitor, “William Goheen and Keith O’Malley must confess
their crimes of fraud and cover-up and assume responsibility for the three deaths in Genoa, Illinois, which resulted directly from their decisions… ”

Goheen looked as if he’d seen a ghost.

As the video began, Tyler, making his way up car six, watched Alvarez’s silhouetted profile in silence. As on airplanes, each seat had a headset, without which there was no sound.

Without using radios, he’d been alerting Coopersmith’s men to start checking data cable and to recheck the guidance systems. But now he shouted for them to turn on the sound, and one of the men jumped up and did just that. The sterile, synthesized voice came across, making its accusations and announcing that the train was set to derail. The hundreds of mannequins, all seemingly watching their screens, lent it a surreal feeling.

The electronic voice declared, “CEO William Goheen, and Northern Union’s chief of security, Keith O’Malley, have perpetrated a crime against all customers and shareholders of Northern Union Railroad by diverting funds budgeted for regularly scheduled maintenance and later falsifying documents to affirm that that maintenance was carried out. These diverted funds, in fact, ended up as part of the F-A-S-T Track budget, the result of which is unsafe and poorly maintained rail lines, and crossings, nationwide.”