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Still blocking their way.
“Miguel!”
He turns and his conductor is standing up, holding something in his hand.
Damn it, he was carrying a pistol after all.
Orrin literally cannot understand what’s happening.
“Miguel?” he says, looking down at the pistol and then back to his conductor. “What the hell is going on?”
Miguel cries out something Orrin can’t understand, then opens the cab door and runs onto the narrow catwalk at the rear.
The phone receiver to contact Dispatch is right there, but to hell with it.
Gripping the familiar handles in front of him, Orrin throttles back and starts applying the brakes.
He may not know what the hell is going on—either with Miguel or with the NYPD—but Orrin’s bringing things to a halt, right now.
Once the train slows enough so he can jump without hurting himself, Miguel Marcos leaps from the catwalk at the rear of the diesel electric locomotive and lands in the crushed stone and gravel between the two sets of railroad tracks.
Tossing the pistol aside, Miguel starts running away from the train. He crosses the other set of tracks and starts climbing up a brush-covered, trash-filled embankment to get away.
The truth is, the Abu Sayyaf terror group had recruited Miguel in error months ago in the Philippines, mistaking him for his cousin Carlos. He’s been living in fear ever since, looking for a way to break free but never having the courage to do so.
Until now.
Both of his grandfathers had served as stewards in the U.S. Navy, and Miguel has always loved America, thinking of it as a benevolent if sometimes grumpy grandfather living far, faraway. Seeing the New York police helicopter show up, well, now he’s found the courage to run away.
He just hopes he can run away far enough before the bombs go off.
Chapter111
“DADDY…”
Instinctively, Tom pulls Denise close to him as more and more people run out of the Fulton Street entrance of One World Trade Center, a faint haze of smoke coming out. A man runs by with his briefcase bouncing against his right leg, screaming, “There are bombs going off in there! Bombs! The whole building is coming down!”
Tom yells, “No, that can’t happen,” but quickly realizes he’s wasting his time. The people running out of the building—crowding Fulton Street, flowing into the nearby memorial park—are no longer stockbrokers or administrative assistants or hedge-fund managers. They are a fearful, crazed mob, and at this moment, with adrenaline flowing through them and only thoughts of running and surviving going through their minds, they won’t listen to facts.
Tom knows the facts: OWTC is the safest building in the world. It was built with high-strength concrete. Most metal rebar in buildings is the circumference of one’s finger. In this beautiful building, the rebar is as thick as a forearm. No explosives are taking it down.
So what’s going on?
Ticonderoga.
“Come on, Hon, let’s get out of here,” Tom says. The fear that he’s too late comes to him as the crowds get harder and harder to move through.
Freddie Farrady of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch feels a savage bit of glee when he dives into this van and shoves his pistol in Mike Patel’s ear.
“Drop the goddamn rifle or I’ll blow your head off,” he says.
The rifle falls to the floor.
Patel raises his hands.
“Now, you’re going to—”
Patel’s left elbow flies back, catching Freddie under the chin. In any other time and place, a blow like that would merely stun him. But he’s standing on the edge of the doorframe, and the shock makes him fall out of the van.
