“Perm Station. I like crowds.”
“So do I.” Bane heard papers shuffling on the other end. “Now follow me closely, Josh. The Metro-liner leaves New York for Washington from Track 10 at 4:45. We’ll pick you up there.”
“How many men?”
“Four’s still the standard. Let’s keep it at that to eliminate confusion. Should be strictly routine from here.”
“How will I know them?”
“Newspapers under the arms too mundane?”
“Too easy to spot and too common at five o’clock in the afternoon, Arthur. Have your men dress in business suits with their shirt fronts out. White shirt fronts.”
“I like it. Makes spotting them from a distance a bit easier for you.”
“My point exactly.”
Jorgenson sighed. “I’m almost at the White House, Josh. If you listen hard enough you’ll be able to hear the wind ruffling the marines’ dress uniforms. I need to give the President more than we’ve already got. Why was the Center hit, Josh?”
“The people behind it have a long reach, Arthur. This line may be untraceable but that doesn’t mean somebody’s not listening.”
Jorgenson hesitated. “I understand. I’ll cover for you with the White House until we bring you home.”
“The President’s been informed?”
“The Watergate age is long over. He’s the first to learn everything now. You called the right people.”
“I hope so.”
“It’s just past one-thirty. We’ll talk as soon as my men pick you up at Penn Station.”
“Shirt front out.”
“Right. Stay on your toes, Josh.”
“Count on it, Arthur.”
There was no reason for Bane to arrive at Penn Station too early. In fact, doing that might prove the worst security measure possible because it would give the COBRA forces more time to spot him. A shootout between Jorgenson’s men and Chilgers’ was not what he had in mind. So he waited until four-fifteen to leave the Bat’s, allowing an extra fifteen minutes for rush-hour traffic and not worried about Harry because he had the best camouflage possible: the opposition thought he was dead.
As it turned out, Bane’s timing was perfect. He cut a sharp, direct route through Penn Station, relieved to be in the presence of thousands of commuters. It would be impossible to spot one face in the crowd, even his. He reached the entrance to Track 10 just as the red light flashed its boarding signal and a moderate throng of people began to descend a staircase into the bowels of Penn and the tracks that ran through them like intestines.
He quickened his pace slightly to join the crowd at its center, sneaking past the man checking the Metro-liner tickets and already scanning for men with their shirt fronts out.
Two of them were mingling with the passengers at the bottom of the steps, businessmen in no particular rush to board the train after an extremely hectic day that had left them unkempt and not concerned about it, nor too eager to make a three-hour journey to Washington at speeds exceeding one hundred miles per hour. The men were good, nonchalant enough to make Bane wonder if perhaps he had chosen the wrong signal. How many other men about to board the Metro-liner might have lost track of their shirt fronts as the day drew to a close? Bane stopped himself from considering the question further.
He noticed a third man with a freed shirt front conversing with the conductor. That still left one, probably behind him now guarding his rear. Jorgenson wouldn’t have left anything to chance.
Bane passed the two DCO men at the bottom of the steps without exchanging so much as a glance. Contact was up to them at this point, everything routine. He was home free. Washington might not be able to find out precisely what Metzencroy had been up to, but they could certainly put a stop to it. Chilgers’ operation, whatever it was, would be finished by tomorrow.
Bane neared the train. Still no contact from the DCO escorts. Should he risk boarding it? No. That would represent a deviation from the stated plan, at least an addition to it, and all DCO operatives worked within a narrow rule plan. Bane slowed his pace.
His eyes met those of a man standing by the entrance to one of the cars, saw a professional spark in them he recognized immediately. Surely this was the fourth operative, except he didn’t have his shirt front out which made no sense unless he didn’t want Bane to pick him out. The man looked away, his eyes darting back toward the two men standing at the bottom of the main stairway.
Bane sensed the message in them and swung at the instant the two operatives by the steps were drawing their guns. By the time their pistols were ready to fire, Bane’s already had. Twice. The men were tossed backward, the bullets tearing half their chests away.
The shots sent panicked passengers scurrying everywhere. One woman darted across the path of the fourth man whose eyes had betrayed him. She took a bullet in the throat that otherwise would have found Bane. Confused, the man lost sight of his target at the same instant the last of the exposed shirt fronts ripped an Uzi machine pistol from under his coat and sprayed the area where Bane had been.
In fact, Bane was still there, but hugging the cement now, smelling hot tracks and the terrible stink of fear as the Uzi spit its fury and bodies fell writhing near him.
Bane’s next bullet carved a neat hole in the butcher’s forehead and roared from the back of his skull carrying fragments of brain with it.
The fourth team member had turned to flee by this time. Bane’s bullet was off the mark, a bit low, hitting the hamstring area and pitching the man sideways, feet flying, down onto the tracks where a combination of live juice and an oncoming train finished Bane’s job for him.
The screaming had intensified as he pushed himself to his feet. People trampled over each other as they rushed for the stairs, clawing at whatever their fingers could find. Others clung to the cement platform, frozen by fear, not even feeling the feet that stumbled over them.
Bane joined the chaos, forced himself to moan, to tremble, to waver. He pressed up against a hesitant group to better cover the holstering of his Browning, then joined the mad rush up the stairs past city and transit police, screaming with the crowd, pushing back when he was pushed. His calm had not deserted him, but he knew that nothing stands out more in a panicked crowd than one calm face. Bane forced fear onto his features, uncertainty.
And a measure of it at least was genuine. Either Jorgenson had betrayed him or the men he’d sent had been given a kill order by someone else. Bane didn’t particularly like the prospects of either alternative. In both cases, escape from the city would now be a difficult task, more so because he wasn’t sure he had anywhere safe to go.
Penn Station felt hot and steamy to him, not unlike the bug-infested jungles he had spent ten years of his life in, and suddenly he felt at home. They were on his turf now, and he welcomed any attempt at taking him out. Just let them try. Bane fingered the two spare clips within his jacket. It had all come back to him, not just the rage but the sharp senses and ice-cold thinking that fueled his desire. Word of the shootings had preceded him up the stairs and an already hectic Penn Station was now heading toward utter chaos. Only the track announcer’s booming voice coming from a booth well removed from the violence and terror remained as a calm and routine counterpoint. Everything else was bedlam.
Bane steered clear of it, down a less congested corridor and past a natural-snack booth, starting to relax.
A tall man sprang out in his path, gun leveled.
Bane knew it was Scalia, had barely touched his own pistol when the shot came, just a spit to the ear, and it was over just like that. I’m dead, he thought, looking up one last time at his killer.
Crimson painted Scalia’s face red, running from a hole in his forehead. The killer wavered, a drunk devoid of balance, and then dropped facedown to the Penn Station floor.