The Empire Runaway Page 3

  But right now—right this very minute—Sam’s going to engage in a different kind of operation. He is about to get to know his new pretend wife, Maureen Fawcette, just a little bit better.

  He knocks on the door. He’s so excited, he feels like a little kid about to enter a candy store.

  The door opens, and Sam slips inside the brightly lit lavatory.

  “Quickly,” Maureen says.

  He steps inside, and she locks the door behind him.

  “Anyone see you?” she asks.

  “I don’t think so,” Sam says. He feels a hand rubbing his erection. “You don’t waste any time do you, wife?”

  “I’m trying to make up for being so bad,” she says.

  Turning, she pulls off her jacket and her shirt, hangs them on the metal hooks on the back of the door. Sam grows more excited just looking at her beautifully shaped back and the black lacy bra that comes together at her spine. Maureen unbuckles her belt, unbuttons her jeans, pulls them down revealing a black lace thong that is buried deep inside one of the most beautiful heart-shaped bottoms Sam has ever witnessed. Her jeans now down around her ankles, she spreads her legs as far as she can manage.

  “Punish me, Sam Savage,” she says. “Spank me hard.”

  Sam can’t help but smile. He’s been in some interesting sexual situations before but never has such a beautiful and intelligent woman ever asked him to spank her.

  What the hell, Sam thinks. There’s a first for everything.

  He approaches her, places his left hand over the hand she has pressed against the lavatory wall. He then opens his right hand wide and gives her a slap. He feels her shudder and moan with both pain and pleasure.

  “Again,” she says, her voice taking on a deeper sultrier tone. “Please.”

  Sam slaps her again, just a little harder than the first time.

  “Yes,” she says. “Again. Just like that.”

  He complies, slapping her firm ass not once but three times. He’s a little concerned about the noise of the slapping being heard outside the lavatory door. But at this point, he’s so excited he’s nearly bursting out of his jeans.

  “Time is getting short,” he says.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” Maureen says, about-facing. “I’m being bad again.” Dropping to her knees, she makes quick work of undoing his jeans. Pulling Sam out, she looks up at him. “Is this better?”

  She takes him in her mouth, works him with her magical tongue and lips. Between the motion of the train, the bucking and bouncing, Sam feels like he’s died and gone straight to heaven. She uses her hand to pump him while he’s buried in her mouth. He knows if things go on like this, it won’t take him very long to arrive at that very special place. But he doesn’t want to come to it all that fast. Sure, time is tight, and they have a very important job to do, but he wants to savor the moment for as long as he can.

  He helps Maureen back up to her feet and begins to kiss her on the mouth, hard, passionately. Their tongues play, and they nibble one another’s lips. He unclasps her bra and pulls it off, exposing her firm white breasts and pointed nipples. He suckles them with his mouth while he uses both his hands to gently pull her panties down to around her knees. He then turns her around once again and enters her from behind.

  She cries out, and Sam has no choice but to place his hand over her mouth. He is indeed gagging her, although gently. He knows that should her cries of passion be heard outside the door, it would mean both of them being busted. If that were to happen, Sam would be lucky to get a security job watching over a convenience store.

  He thrusts himself into her, feeling his heart pound, a sheen of sweat now covering his bare backside, his breathing labored and quick, his head throbbing with adrenalin. He might be riding this train because he’s there to protect the passengers from all sorts of unknown dangers, but for a brief moment in time, he’s forgotten where he is or that he’s speeding more than one hundred miles per hour along uneven rails so that maintaining his balance has become a challenge. And when the time comes for him to release, he does so with all the strength left in him. She thrusts herself against his thrusts, and together they make it to that special place that is nirvana. For the briefest of seconds, he has become her, and she has become him, and all is perfect with the world.

  Slowing their movements like a locomotive pulling into a station, Sam retreats and begins to redress himself. But Maureen pauses. Standing there with both her hands pressed up against the wall, her underwear and jeans pulled down around her ankles, her bottom red from where Sam’s hard, lower belly was colliding with it, she looks lovely, but at the same time, almost comical.

  “Sam,” she says. “You hear that?”

  “Hear what, baby?” he says, buckling his thick leather belt.

  The train moves under their feet, the horizontal sway making it almost impossible to stand without holding onto one of the wall-mounted emergency grab bars.

  Maureen quickly redresses herself. She’s gone from playful and passionate to all business in the flip of a switch.

  “The engine,” she says. “The RPMs. Way too high. Way, way, way, too damned high.”

  Sam’s pulse picks up speed. He now knows something is not exactly right with the train.

  “What are you trying to tell me, Maureen?”

  “We’re going way too fast. These tracks aren’t high-speed rails. These tracks are no different from what trains were riding fifty, or even one hundred years ago. They’re not designed to accommodate this kind of speed.”

  She pulls out her radio. “Morgan, this Maureen, do you read me. Over?”

  Nothing but static comes over the radio.

  “Morgan, come in, this is Maureen. We’re going too fast. Over.”

  More static. She gazes at Sam with wide, overly concerned eyes and bites down on her bottom lip so hard he wouldn’t have been surprised if it started to bleed.

  “Sam Savage,” she says, “we’ve got ourselves a big fucking problem.”

  She opens the door, steps out into the narrow corridor. Sam follows. A man is standing just outside the door. He’s a short man, middle-aged. He’s tan-skinned, and the hair on his head is receding. He also bears a thick black beard.

  Muslim, Sam thinks cautiously. Doesn’t mean he’s hostile. Could mean very much the opposite.

  “Pardon me,” the man says. “But I saw you speaking on your radio earlier. You do not work for the train company?”

  So much for being incognito, Sam whispers inside his head.

  His voice is accented. Middle Eastern. Maybe Moroccan, Libyan, or Tunisian. Or so Sam deduces.

  “Why you asking, pal?” Sam says, feeling the too fast train speeding along unsteady, the wheels slapping violently against the rails.

  “The passengers,” Little Bearded Man says, grabbing hold of the luggage rack for much-needed balance, “they are growing concerned with the speed of the train. The car is swaying too much. Some of the passengers are getting sick.”

  “We’re looking into it, sir,” Maureen says. “Please return to your seat at once.”

  “Very well,” he says, his face masked with concern. “I am Safraz, and I am at your service should you require my assistance.”

  “Thank you, Safraz,” Sam says. “Like the lady just said, please return to your seat.”

  Safraz does as he’s told, heading along the corridor toward his seat, bumping into the seat backs as he tries to counteract the unsteadiness of the train car, once nearly falling into someone’s lap. Sam steals a quick second to gaze into the faces of the many passengers. Maybe no one is crying out in fear or shedding tears for that matter, but all the expressions look terribly tight, wide-eyed, and afraid.

  Sam places a hand on one wall and the other on the opposite wall. He feels like at any minute, he’s about to be thrust onto his backside. He turns back to Maureen.

  “This is your show, doll,” he says. “What do we do?”

  “We head back to the locomotive,” she says, “find
out if our conductor is still alive or if he’s suddenly dropped dead from a heart attack.”

  The train takes on more speed. As Sam and Maureen pass through the many cars, some of the passengers who aren’t buying their incognito act reach out for Amtrak security professional or shout their concerns at her. She ignores them all, her focus is on getting to the locomotive as fast as humanly possible.

  When they come to the first car, they step into the coupling enclosure and come to the metal door that separates the car from the locomotive. The door is secured electronically, and Maureen must punch in a five-digit code for the lock to release. Once the door is unlocked, she opens it, and together they step onto the metal gangway.

  The cool wind slaps them in the face. The noise of the wind combined with the locomotive’s thundering engine is deafening. Stepping over the gangway onto the metal grate-like platform that accesses the locomotive door, Maureen attempts to open it. But she can’t. The door is locked. She turns to Sam, once again biting down on her bottom lip.

  “The damn door is locked,” she barks, her voice barely audible over the tremendous noise. “It’s not supposed to be locked.”

  “Somebody had to have locked it,” Sam shouts, recalling what sounded like a deadbolt being engaged upon his exiting the locomotive earlier. “Maybe Morgan installed a lock on the door as early as this morning. You’d have no way of knowing if it was there or not.”

  She pulls out her radio, brings it to her mouth.

  “Morgan,” she spits. “Morgan, do you read me? Over.”

  It’s impossible to make out the static that is surely coming from the radio. She tries once more.

  “Morgan, come in. Come in this instant. We’re going too fast. Do you read me? We’re going too damned fast. Over.”

  She presses the radio to her ear and relays a bitter expression that can only mean one thing. Morgan is either incapacitated or ignoring them entirely. As a sky marshal and former Navy SEAL, Sam has been trained to trust his instinct, and go with his gut. And his gut is telling him that the latter is truer. Conductor Morgan has locked himself inside the locomotive and is presently ignoring Maureen’s radio transmissions.

  Question is . . . why?

  The train speeds wildly down the tracks. It’s going so fast, at times Sam swears the cars are actually lifting off the steel rails, almost like a speeding jet plane taking off. He might not be an expert on trains and how they work, but he senses that all it will take to run this train off the tracks is a sudden curve or deformity in the rails. His number one priority is to figure out a way to get inside that locomotive. Do it now.

  Maureen tries the door again, but it appears to be bolted shut.

  Damn, Sam thinks. Maybe there is no way inside that locomotive.

  Bending slightly at the knees, Maureen cups her hands around her eyes, peers into the small, narrow safety glass that’s embedded in the door.

  “What do you see?” Sam inquires.

  She straightens back up, faces Sam.

  “He’s in there,” she says. “He’s seated there at the instrument panel, his left hand gripping the throttle. He’s doing this on purpose, Sam.”

  “Is there any other way inside the locomotive?” Sam begs.

  She shakes her head and purses her lips.

  “No goddammit,” she snaps.

  Sam’s worst fears have come true.

  Maureen’s eyes suddenly go wide. She returns the radio to her belt, then digs into her pocket for her smartphone.

  “There’s a new text,” she says. “It’s from him.”

  “Who’s him?” Sam asks.

  “The conductor,” she says. “Morgan.”

  6

  The two head back into the first car while remaining inside its coupling enclosure. The noise coming from the speeding train running over the rails is still loud, but not as deafening as it was outside. Maureen pulls up the text. It’s a multi-media text, meaning Morgan hasn’t sent a plain word text, but instead a video.

  Turning the volume up all the way, she holds the phone so that both Sam and she can watch it at the same time. Morgan, the conductor, appears on the screen. He’s seated in the pilot’s seat before the instrument board. Judging by the stillness outside the windshield, he made the video while still parked in Albany. He smiles for the camera.

  “By the time you see this video,” he says, calmly, almost pleasantly, “you’re minutes alive will be numbered. Everyone on board The Empire Run will perish when we derail over the Catskill Gorge Bridge. If my timing proves correct, we will enter the Catskill Gorge Bridge at precisely ten-twenty-two AM. The train will be traveling at such a high speed, the old bridge rail bed will be incapable of keeping the train on the tracks. Of course, in order to guarantee that the train runs the rails, I went to great pains to make certain a long section of track was removed. If you’re looking for motivation for my actions, look no further than the teaching of Allah, who tells us that the infidel must be crushed and killed by every available means possible. Some brothers choose bombs, others guns, yet others trucks and cars. I choose trains. Allah Akbar.”

  The video ends.

  “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Sam says. “I certainly didn’t take Morgan for a member of ISIS. He doesn’t look the part. Doesn’t fit the damned profile.”

  “But he’s the one we’ve been looking for,” Maureen says. “The one we were warned about. For the love of Jesus, Sam, he was right under my nose the entire time. A man who fit in entirely with western society but who was in fact, a mole. A member of one of those most murderous organizations the modern world has ever known.”

  “You must have suspected him all along,” Sam says. “Why else would you have told him I was a reporter when you could have just as easily admitted I was a sky marshal.”

  She nods.

  “I’ve had my doubts about Morgan for a long time,” she says. “He was always going on about how America is a cesspool of greed and injustice. He was once overheard telling someone he considered 9/11 to be justified. Rumor was, he was praying for an entire radical transformation of the country during the Obama years.”

  “You might have said something earlier,” Sam says. “Now look at us.”

  “I just didn’t want to go spouting off about my suspicions until I was sure, Sam. This is America, after all. We live in a free, tolerant society.”

  Sam glances at his watch. No use arguing over details beyond my control at this point, he thinks.

  “I hate to be the bearer of even more bad news,” he says, “but if we’re about to plunge off a trestle bridge to our deaths at exactly ten-twenty-two, we have only thirty minutes to stop this runaway train.”

  “Thirty minutes,” Maureen cries. “That’s barely enough time for Amtrak line crews to divert our course and clear the tracks.”

  “That is, Amtrak is aware of what’s happening.”

  “They monitor our every move. They certainly know we are a runaway train by now. Or suspect it anyway. I didn’t want to alarm them until I knew for certain what we were dealing with.”

  “Now we know,” Sam says. “Radio them.”

  Pulling out her radio, Maureen speaks into it.

  “Attention, attention, Albany/Rensselaer, we have an onboard emergency. Over.”

  It takes an agonizing few seconds for the station to respond. But when they do they naturally ask for the nature of the emergency. Maureen tells them. Sam is a little surprised because her voice is shaky, nervous, and anxious. But then, he can’t exactly blame her either. Maureen Fawcette is responsible for more than one-hundred innocent passengers—women and children among them. She knows that in a matter of minutes, they could all be dead. She could be dead.

  “Is there enough time for you to remotely divert us from the Catskill Gorge Bridge?” she goes on. “Over.”

  Another few horrible static-filled seconds pass.

  Then, “We’ve alerted the Hudson Train Station. But unless they can stop you as you pass through, I�
�m afraid there’s no way to avoid the bridge. The tracks don’t divert until after the gorge, further south along the run.”

  “So, we’re royally fucked then!” Maureen barks.

  “Please refrain from using that kind of language on this band, Maureen,” the Amtrak support staffer scolds. “Please follow emergency protocol for stopping the locomotive externally. I suggest you begin now, Maureen. God speed. Over.”

  “Over,” Maureen says. “Over and fucking out.”

  Replacing the radio on her belt, Maureen looks at Sam with her mesmerizing hazel eyes.

  “We’re on our own,” she says.

  “I’m used to it,” Sam says. “So, what are these emergency procedures they’re talking about? And will they work?”

  “I’ve never tried them before.”

  “No better time, Maureen,” Sam says.

  She inhales and exhales. “First, we try to stop the train by the emergency brake located in the first car—this car. If that doesn’t work, we can apply the hand brakes on each of the cars. If that doesn’t work either, then someone has to find a way inside the locomotive and stop the train by applying the universal E-brake or emergency brake.”

  “And if that also doesn’t work?”

  She cocks her head over her shoulder like she’s running out of options.

  “You can always throttle down. But if that’s useless there is always trying to apply maximum pressure to the dynamic brake. But then, if we’re going too fast, it could blow out altogether, and besides, you need the skills of a trained conductor to accomplish these tricks of the trade.”

  “And if a blowout happens?”

  “One must deprive the locomotive of its electrical power,” interjects the voice of another. Sam and Maureen turn. It’s the little Muslim man who greeted them both outside the lavatory a few minutes before.

  “I worked for the railyards in Tunisia and Libya before coming to America,” he says. “I know quite a lot about stopping a runaway train.”