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“Cornwall.”
I briefly close my eyes in relief and delight. My man’s voice sounds strong, confident, and oh so close. Being on Staten Island, Tom and my girl are safe—and only an hour away. Sixty minutes!
“Tom, it’s Amy.”
And I love the pleasure in his voice as he says, “Amy…I guess you’re back in the States.”
“I am…and let me tell you, here for good. No more foreign adventures for your second-best girl.”
“Serious?” he asks.
Jeremy is glaring at me and I pull back to reality. “Tom, that’s for later. I’m going to put you on speaker—please tell me you’ve found something out.”
“A fair amount,” he says. “Got a pen and paper?”
I open the center drawer of the gray metal desk, yank out a pencil stub, and start writing on a McDonald’s receipt.
“Go,” I say, as Jeremy hovers over me.
“All right,” he says. “I won’t go into the details of the ownership—it’s pretty tangled—but your man Rashad Hussain is linked with three hotels: the Nansen Arms, the Vantage Point, and the Excelsior Suites. There are also two townhouses in Greenwich Village, and two bodegas in Spanish Harlem.”
I scribble notes, my mood sinking with every pencil scratch. Good God, today is the day he plans to kill so many innocents, and already we have seven places where he might be hiding.
How in hell can we possibly investigate? With the two of us being smoked by our respective intelligence agencies? Do we dial 911 and say,Hey, NYPD, not for nothing, but there’s a deadly terrorist who might be hiding out in a bodega in Spanish Harlem. Mind stopping by to see if he’s there?
Tom’s voice cuts through my dark musings. “Oh, and I saved the best for last.”
“What’s that?”
Two Air Force officers are coming our way looking pissed, and I have a feeling one of them is the owner of the desk I’m using.
Tom says, “Your man owns a railway in New Jersey.”
It feels like the cement floor in this hangar has turned to quicksand.
“Tom, give me more,” I say. “It’s very, very important.”
“It’s called the Hudson Valley Railroad,” he says. “About four years old. Built up on old right-of-ways and some new track. It runs up and down the valley, has main terminals in Albany and in Hoboken. But here’s the funny bit.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
Tom says, “I managed to get some information on its financials. The railway consistently runs in the red. Almost like your Rashad wants to keep it running.”
Jeremy locks eyes with me. “Orneedsto have it running. Hoboken…”
I nod to him. “Yeah. Right across the Hudson River is lower Manhattan.”
The Air Force officers are very near. I feel sorry for the two men, because in about fifteen seconds Jeremy and I are going to blow right by them.
Jeremy says, “Rashad…explosions. There’s something he’s planning to do with his trains.”
“You know it.”
“But—”
From the speakerphone I hear some voices, a shout, and Tom says, “Amy, look, I gotta go.”
I’m about to say something loving and thankful to him, but he disconnects.
