The Speed of Sound (Speed of Sound Thrillers #1)(33)

“I am. All my students bailed on me except one. His girlfriend is joining us, and I was wondering if I could convince you to make it a foursome.”

“Wish I could, but I’m still at Harmony House.”

“Okay, just thought I’d ask. Don’t work too late.” Jacob, Barry, and his girlfriend, Tatiana, who happened to be a model, descended into the station.

Tatiana asked Barry, with a slight Argentinean accent, “Do we really have to take the subway? Why don’t we just take the car?”

The professor interjected. “He’s traveling with me, not the other way around. Professors don’t do limos. Especially when they belong to their students.”

Jacob could see that both his student and his girlfriend truly hated the subway, but neither said anything further. The professor regretted his insistence almost immediately when he noticed the homeless guy following them. The man was in really bad shape. He walked with a severe limp. His tattered clothing was filthy. Jacob figured the guy had probably targeted them because of Barry’s girlfriend. Not that she was his objective, but no woman like this would be with a guy like Barry if he wasn’t filthy rich.

They turned a corner as they made their way through the station. Jacob used the opportunity to glance behind them to see if the bum was still following them. He wasn’t. Jacob was just being paranoid. At least, that was what he told himself.

Arriving at the uptown platform, he glanced at Tatiana. “Have you ever seen a French film?”

She responded in French. “Professeur, ce n’est pas parce que je suis mannequin que je suis inculte.” (Professor, just because I am a model does not make me illiterate.)

He responded in kind. “Je n’ai jamais dit ?a. La majorité des Americains n’en ont pas vu un seul.” (I never said you were. Most Americans have never seen a foreign film.)

Barry interjected. “English, please, or I’m going to start getting jealous.” He smiled playfully.

Tatiana glanced at him, then at Jacob. “I am not American.”

“Yeah, I gathered that. I was only offering to give you some background in case you weren’t familiar with what we’re about to see.” Jacob said it without any airs. He was genuinely trying to be helpful.

“I have seen many French films, but never an avant-garde one.”

“Well, you’re in for a treat,” he said loudly over the cacophony around them. “That or you’re in for the most god-awful time you’ve ever experienced, in which case I’ll buy you both a drink.”

Barry chimed in, practically yelling over the noise of the approaching train. “In that case, I’ll be calling a car.”

“Maybe then you’ll have to bring the professor out clubbing with us.”

“Who said we were going out?”

“Who said we weren’t?” she purred.

Considering the possibilities of where this night might go, Jacob didn’t notice the homeless guy making his way toward them again.

Ever since the Twin Towers went down, New York City had been on constant vigil for the next terrorist attack. The subway system was widely considered one of the most likely targets, simply because of the scale of the thing. There were 468 different stations along 842 miles of track. Over five million passengers rode the trains every weekday, making it the seventh-busiest subway system in the world, behind Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Guangzhou, Seoul, and Moscow. The points of vulnerability were simply too many to count.

Jacob, Barry, and Tatiana listened as a train neared the station. Local trains slowed their approach and weren’t nearly as piercing as express trains, which zoomed right on by. The approaching train was clearly not going to stop.

The homeless guy yelled as loud as he could above the shrill of the approaching train. “It is time America paid for its sins!”

Nobody gave much attention to him until he put on a gas mask, which had been hidden beneath his tattered coat. The gas mask looked brand new.

By the time he held a canister high above his head, he had the attention of every single person on the crowded platform.

Most were frozen with panic. One woman screamed. Another man raced up the stairs, knocking over several kids. A businessman close to the bum charged toward him, trying to tackle him. But not before the homeless guy pulled the pin on the canister and dropped it to the cement floor.

Fsssssssss. It was a horrifying sound.

The gas dispersed rapidly. This was really happening.

Smoke immediately filled the subway tunnel as the screeching express train entered the station. It was hard to see anything. People’s eyes were burning. So were their lungs. So were their minds.

They thought they were dying.

Passengers scrambled over each other to get out of the station. Many went the wrong way. It was pandemonium.

In the middle of the melee, just as the express train reached the platform, the bum lunged for Jacob, grabbing the back of his coat. The grungy man’s grip was incredibly strong. Much stronger than it should have been.

In one swift, violent motion, he hurled Jacob onto the tracks in front of the express train traveling at thirty-eight miles per hour.





CHAPTER 27

Sheridan Square Subway Station, New York City, May 24, 7:13 p.m.

The screech of the express train passing in front of the platform jumped several decibels the moment the conductor hit the emergency brake. He’d worked for the MTA for twenty-three years and conducted for the last eleven. The only other time he’d pulled the emergency brake was also for a body on the tracks. That one was a suicide. This one was different.