Cindy tried to move her head, but couldn’t. A wave of panic welled up from deep within her. Instinctively, she lashed out, trying to push the man off her, but with each movement, sharp slicing pains radiated through her body.
Suddenly, there was a momentary dimming of the lights. Hiccock stopped speaking, the chandelier in the center of the room rattled, liquids in cups rippled, then the whole room jolted. A percussive wallop attacked the eardrums of everyone in the room, followed by a sound like rolling thunder. The excitement felt just seconds ago morphed into stunned silence.
Cindy realized that her head was turned toward the window while her body faced the other way. There was a momentary stillness within her, a split second of painless neutrality, a warm silence and quelling calm. In her mind, she wondered if this was death, numbing her in preparation for the transition from this life to … something caught her attention. She was pinned between the two men, just barely able to see over the shoulder of the one on top of her. In awe, she marveled as she saw a white light coming through the window of the tilted car. The White Light, she thought as a reassuring blanket of peace covered her while she attempted to focus her tearing eyes on the bright glow approaching outside the cracked window.
Distracted by the huge flash off to his right, the engineer of the northbound New Haven express did not see the derailed cars of the local train at the station. Not that it would have made any difference. At 90 miles per hour, there was only time enough to brace himself.
Cindy watched as the bright light’s halo gave way to a black hulk in the shape of the oncoming express train that rapidly filled her view through the window. The last things she sensed were a bludgeoning jolt and a cracking sound as she and her two row mates were crushed together for all of eternity.
As it slammed into the deadweight of the derailed train, the front of the onrushing express crumpled like a beer can under the 133-feet-per-second momentum of a million pounds of railcars behind it. The ten gleaming silver commuter cars piled up and crunched with horrendous metal groans and muffled screams. Explosive, electrical arcing from the ruptured 22,000-volt overhead catenary wires eerily illuminated the scene.
The spreading pileup sent the commuter cars, weighing 100,000 pounds each, sweeping over the platform, flattening and crushing departing passengers and collapsing the station structure. The force of the blast continued outward in an ever-widening concussive wave, eventually leaving Cindy, and 600 other commuters, dead in its wake.
A mile away, a small suburban neighborhood was rocked as all the windows of the two-story houses lining the street first deflected out and then imploded simultaneously as the shock wave hit. Car and house alarms were triggered instantly.
At the offices of Delta Home Security Services, a dispatcher sat in his usually catatonic state before a huge display of Westchester County. Suddenly, in a fast widening circle emanating from the exploding building’s location on the map, he saw the red lights, denoting tripped alarms.
“Holy shit!” he muttered as he watched the crimson circle grow.
“Holy shit!” Mike Casigno said. “In all the years I’ve been hacking for this car service, I never saw so many flashing lights.” His cab crept toward the sea of red, yellow, and blue emergency vehicle strobes that were scattered over every conceivable inch of space surrounding the train station and the industrial park beyond. From the backseat, Hiccock noticed the rising column of dark smoke, just visible against the inky black suburban sky. “This is as far as I can go. I got a cop waving me off already,” Mike said.
“Thanks, I’ll hoof it from here,” Hiccock said as he handed him a twenty-dollar bill and slid across the backseat, not waiting for change. As he walked toward the scene of mass destruction, he noticed two areas of concentration. One was at the site a few hundred yards away that looked like it was once a building. The other was at the train station to his right. Train cars were strewn across the tracks and some had jumped the platform and collapsed the station structure. Firemen, police, and EMTs scurried all over. Guys in hard hats and cops in helmets were already cutting into the steel cars with big gas-powered saws, spewing golden sparks in firework-type arcs as they bit and chewed into the twisted metal. There was the constant chatter of police radios coming from every direction. Adding to the cacophony was the staccato interruption of “squelch,” the rasping static noise from scores of transmit buttons being triggered and released.
Hiccock was impressed by the response. It had been less than thirty-five minutes since the blast and already hundreds of emergency workers were on the scene. He noticed that the ambulances and fire trucks around him were from places further out like Stamford, Connecticut, and Rescue 1 from FDNY Manhattan. This, no doubt, was an infamous benefit from the heightened alert status and coordinated efforts of all first responders in this New Age of Terrorism. He approached a cop trying hard to direct a snarled knot of ambulances, fire trucks, and other emergency vehicles. Hiccock saw the familiar metal numbers 47 on the cop’s collar and realized he was NYPD, the 47th precinct, where Hiccock grew up, being the nearest Bronx cop house to Westchester County. Hiccock reached into his tuxedo back pocket and flashed his ID.
“What kind of …” was all the distracted cop could muster.
“It’s my White House ID. I work for the president.”
“I dunno what I’m supposed to do with that. Wait here.” He then turned and yelled, “Come around him, come on … let’s go!” at an ambulance squeezing by a rescue truck whose crew was probably atop the pile of railcars. He then keyed his radio mic, which was attached to a belt slung over his shoulders. “4-7-Charlie-portable to Central K.” There was some more squelch and he added, “I need a supervisor at the north end of the station. I got a VIP here from the White House.”
A noise pricked at Hiccock’s right ear, turning his attention from the cop to part of the collapsed station and he wandered off in that direction. It was like a hideous light show. The arcing and sparking from the torches, saws, and short circuits made the shadows jump and images shake. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he made out a shape. He started toward it double time. At the sloping end of the fallen station roof, down in the crook created by the flattened end, was a woman screaming for help. She was in agony. He saw that her right leg was pinned under the rubble. He removed his tux jacket and covered her. “I’ll be back with help. You’re gonna be okay.” He ran back toward the traffic jam and grabbed an FDNY Rescue 1 officer, “I got a woman pinned under the station. Come on.”