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“Do you know who owns it?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know, don’t care. All I know is, the pay is good and so are the bennies.”
Freddie summons his best friendly cheerio and pip-pip smile. “Mind if I go in and take a poke around?”
The guard smiles wider. “You’re one of those train fans, right? From England? Train spotters, am I right?”
Freddie sees his opening. “That’s right, good sir. A train enthusiast. I would dearly love to go in and see what’s what.”
Now the smile is gone and the guard shakes his head. “Sorry, man—no can do. Only folks in there are ones with a job to do. No tourists. Sorry.”
He goes back into the guardhouse and Freddie steps out onto the road, in front of the gate.
So Patel—an HVAC worker at One World Trade Center—is in this rail yard, “with a job to do.”
Damn it, what kind of job?
Chapter60
IN LONDON,Rashad Hussain relaxes at the head table of the function room at Quayle Hall on Uxbridge Road in the west of London. The air is thick with smoke and conversation among old friends dressed in formal evening wear, and the Union Jack bunting along the walls frames photos of some of these old friends when they were younger and tougher, as well as a large photo of the Queen under a banner noting theQUEEN ELIZABETH II RAILROAD SOCIETY.A table covered with a white cloth displays models of 1940s locomotives and rolling stock, and there are several framed photos of the Queen taken in World War II, when she was Princess Elizabeth Windsor and a second subaltern in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service.
A tap on his shoulder. He turns and Marcel Koussa is there, also dressed in black-and-white attire, and Marcel whispers in his ear, “Sir, your ride is waiting.”
“Very well.”
He pushes back his chair and the oldest man he knows—sitting slumped next to Rashad—clasps his arm and croaks out, “A delight, my dear friend, a true delight.” The man is shrunken, loose leathery skin wrinkled on his face, his dentures very white and his black-rimmed glasses very thick.
Rashad smiles at the old man with true affection. “I will see you next time, my dear friend.”
The old man hacks and coughs in what may pass for a laugh and says, “Don’t bet on it—God, don’t bet on it.”
He pats the thin shoulder, which feels like old sticks under parchment. Along the man’s left breast pocket is a line of miniature medals from his service in World War II.
“The two of us, we will beat the odds, as we always have,” Rashad says. “Always.”
One more loving smile, then Rashad Hussain strolls with confidence out of the hall, giving a cheery wave as well to Sir Mark Robathan, second-in-command of this old nation’s utterly useless armed forces.
Mike Patel is done, pleased with his work, pleased that he’ll be heading back to his flat in Queens in a little while. The day is hot, his water bottle is empty, and he’s sick of the smells of oil, diesel exhaust, and old trash and debris. Walking and stumbling among the freight cars and the tankers, checking their serial numbers, making sure the equipment is installed correctly and in the right position…grueling but necessary work.
The two satchels are folded into his knapsack, which feels light on his back, and—
“Hey! You! Stop right there!”
Mike freezes, then lets his hands rise a bit—not too much, not too far, you don’t want the man back there to know that you have experience in being arrested—and he calls out, “May I turn around? Please?”
“Slow,” says another voice, and Mike thinks,Damn, there are two of them.
He turns and two security guards, both white, are staring at him with flushed faces. Without their saying another word, Mike knows they must be ex-cops or ex-military, looking to bank another salary following their retirement. They have the same uniform as the man in the guardhouse, except these two are also wearing billed caps.
The one on the left is fat and sweating heavily, with crescents of moisture under the armpits of his light-blue uniform shirt. His pistol is out, held at his side.
“The hell you think you’re doing here, hunh?” he demands.
“What’s wrong?” Mike asks, trying to keep his voice gentle and nonthreatening.
The guard on the right is taller and skinnier, with thin brown hair. “What’s wrong is we’ve been getting a lot of junkies and homeless in here,” he says, “trying to steal anything that can be hocked for a buck.”
Mike shakes his head, “No, I’ve been working. That’s what I’ve been doing.”
