Trigger Page 12

  “We need to get moving,” he said.

  Without waiting, he ran toward the rail station. Anna was staring dumbstruck at the wreck. Tugging at her arm, I got her up and moving. As we neared the decimated BMW she turned her face away, allowing me to lead her. Up ahead, Chase dove for cover near the bottom of the steps.

  “Get down!” he yelled.

  Dragging Anna with me, I ducked behind the wreckage of the BMW. Two men were running toward us from down the street, both had guns and they were shooting at Chase, who opened fire. He had only squeezed off a few rounds when I heard a curse and saw him put the pistol away. With a sinking feeling, I realized he was out of ammunition.

  Weaponless, he looked at me with frustration in his eyes as he calculated his options. The sharp wail of police sirens sounded in the distance, further complicating the already dire situation. The sirens were briefly drowned out by the staccato whistle of a train at the platform above. That was the train we needed to be on and that whistle meant it was preparing to leave. We had only minutes to get up there and on that train.

  The dead man on the ground in front of me still had his pistol in his hand. I looked from the gun, to Chase, to the men who were twenty yards away and closing in fast. In an instant I was resolved to my chosen course of action—to what I knew was the only course of action.

  “Stay here!” I ordered Anna.

  I reached down to pry the weapon from the dead man’s fingers. As I yanked the gun clear, the body rolled so I could see the man’s forearm and his face. I paused fleetingly when I saw a tattoo of a hand holding a bloody dagger. Glancing at his face, I confirmed that it was the man from the restaurant in Rome; the one I had thought looked like a bad, unwashed version of George Clooney.

  In that instant everything came together in my mind.

  The gun, still warm from its previous owner’s body heat, was heavy in my hand. Gripping it tightly I stood up from behind the car, pointed it at the two assailants and pulled the trigger. The first shot went wide and startled everyone except me.

  The element of surprise gone, I had to act fast and with better precision. Time slowed and everything faded out of focus except for my targets. My mind, my body and my surroundings flowed together in flawless cohesion as I moved around the vehicle. I had rarely, if ever, experienced such precise clarity or finite precision in every fiber of my being as I did in that moment.

  A look of complete horror flashed across Chase’s face as he watched me. His mouth formed the word ‘No!’ but I couldn’t hear any sound. It wouldn’t have stopped me anyway.

  Nothing could have stopped me.

  I was completely committed because it was the only option if we were going to get out of there alive. Clear of the smashed car, I ran directly at the assailants with the pistol raised. Every fluid movement brought me closer to my goal. There was no wasted thought or action. There was nothing but the ultimate purpose: kill or be killed.

  The two thugs were so shocked by what I was doing that they slowed their charge. Everything seemed sluggish and unwieldy in comparison to my speed and grace. Not knowing how many rounds were left in the clip, I couldn’t waste any bullets. With this in mind I took careful aim while at a dead run. My second shot was closer than the first but still wide.

  It was positively exhilarating how in sync my entire being was with my environment and my purpose. I had never felt so in control.

  In mid-stride, my hand found the niche in the air that felt right, and I knew that this shot would not miss. Exhaling, I squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit the closest guy in the shoulder, knocking him down. Still running, my hand found the spot again and, without hesitation, I fired off a round. This shot hit the injured man in the torso as he fell down to the ground.

  I shifted my aim to the man who was now shooting at me without breaking stride. Somewhere it registered that there were bullets flying at me. However, this did not deter me in the slightest. Still running directly at him, I fired for the fifth time, hitting him squarely in the chest. He fell to his knees still, shooting at me. Pulling the trigger again, there was a loud clicking sound. I was out of bullets.

  I changed course abruptly to avoid getting hit. He didn’t get another shot off. With me taking out one shooter and distracting the other, Chase was able to get close enough to plant a running kick to the head to knock the last assailant out. He checked to make sure both men were out of commission and quickly stripped them of their weapons. The entire altercation had taken minutes only.

  Everything around me snapped sharply back into real time as I came to a standstill. The intense synchronization I had been feeling evaporated. Then the gravity of what I had done hit me like a ton of bricks as I stared down at the man I had shot. My whole body went from a humming livewire to completely numb.

  A loud rushing noise filled my ears and my legs felt like lead as I moved to stand by the body. I had seen that face before. It was Spiky from the Colosseum and the Vatican. Spiky and Tattoo Man by the BMW had followed me here from Rome. Already knowing I would recognize him, I glanced over at the last body. It was the guy with the pockmarks from the previous evening. These men were obviously associates. More importantly, their presence and their attacking us validated everything Chase had told me.

  Gazing down at the vacant stare of the man I had killed, I didn’t feel anger or fear. I felt no emotion, only emptiness.

  Anna slowly came forward until she was just a few feet away, her mouth hanging slightly open.

  “What just happened?” Her voice was high-pitched and shaky. She was looking at me like I had grown horns.

  Chase walked up to me as if he was approaching a wild animal. He had a pistol in both hands and, while they were pointed at the ground, I had the distinct impression he was a millisecond away from pointing them at me. He stopped very close to me, his body tense and his arms flexed as his eyes locked with mine.

  “Who are you?” His voice was low and steady but brokered no nonsense. He wanted an answer and he wanted it now.

  Something had set him on a very dangerous edge, so I stood stock-still as I held his gaze.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said truthfully.

  My brain was firing on all cylinders as I eyed him warily. I wasn’t sure what had just happened or how exactly I had done it. In fact, I wasn’t sure of anything, even who I was, but I didn’t know how to explain that to him. It felt like I was walking around in someone else’s skin while at the same time it was very much my own skin. Those two things were difficult to reconcile in my own mind, let alone articulate.

  Long seconds passed as he continued to study me. Somehow I knew I shouldn’t move, so I simply stared back at him. The sound of approaching sirens signaled that more trouble was on the way. With the shadow of uncertainty still in his eyes, he pocketed the weapons he held before gently taking the one in my hand. He quickly rubbed the handle and barrel of that one with the hem of his shirt before dropping it on the ground by the dead man.

  The whistle from the train waiting above shattered the air again. Springing into action, Chase helped hustle Anna up the stairs with me right behind them.

  “Move!” he shouted with urgency, and I strained to be faster.

  Chase and Anna reached the top and headed toward the train. The station itself was small and carved out of a hillside, so the platform ended abruptly at a tunnel cut into the hillside. Just as I cleared the last step, the train we needed to be on started to move.

  Down below, the squealing tires of multiple vehicles was followed by car doors slamming and shouting in Italian. It wouldn’t take the police long to come up the steps to see if anyone associated with the bloody debacle on the street was up here.

  The train was steadily accelerating as the engine started disappearing into the tunnel. We had to reach the train before it cleared the entrance to the passageway.

  Worried that the police were already coming after us, I glanced over my right shoulder. Not looking where I was going, my toe snagged on a
crack in the ground and I sprawled flat on my face. I jumped up with aching knees, berating myself for being so clumsy.

  Neither Chase nor Anna had seen me fall. In fact, they had reached the last rail car. Chase jumped onto the steps, hauling Anna up with him as though she was a sack of flour. He pushed her up further on to the landing before spinning to help me. That was when he realized that I was not right behind him. I saw panic in his eyes as they found mine.

  By this time the majority of the train had been engulfed by the passageway. While I was fast enough to catch it, I saw there was a chance that I would run out of real estate before I could actually reach it.

  “Come on!” Chase yelled.

  My lungs were bursting as I pumped my arms faster. I can make it, I told myself. I have to make it!

  The last car was all that remained outside the passageway and I had only yards to reach it. Chase was leaning down from the last step with one hand grasping the hand rail and the other stretched toward me. If he didn’t step back by the time the train was swallowed by the tunnel, the wall could separate his arm and shoulder from the rest of him.

  I could easily visualize the steps and angle I would need to take to make this difficult leap. Everything dropped out of focus except the wall at the edge of the platform, and Chase’s outstretched hand. There was no room for doubt, and I felt none. Gauging the distance to the wall and the train one last time, I knew it was now or never.

  “Do it!” Chase shouted.

  One stride from smashing into the wall, I pivoted toward the train. Using all my strength, I pushed off of the edge of the platform like a long jumper. Chase’s hand clamped down on my forearm and mine closed on his. My momentum carried me in an arch to the back of the car where the side of my body slammed into the unforgiving metal as the train was consumed by the blackness of the tunnel.

  As I bounced painfully around on the back of the train, I heard someone shout my name. Twisting my head to look back, I saw Marcello at the far end of the platform running toward me. He had his left hand raised as if trying to halt the train and the other gripped his gun. He shouted again as the train turned a corner and he was lost from sight.

  CHAPTER 9

  WITH A HEAVE, Chase pulled me up and over the railing. He wrapped his arms around me, clutching me to him, as I rubbed my sore shoulder. Leaning back, he gazed down at me and there was relief in his eyes. With his arms still locked around my waist, Chase helped me inside, shutting the door behind us. Anna had collapsed onto a seat and was massaging her bad ankle. With the door secure, Chase let me go and I sat down. Chase went to look out the back window as if expecting someone to be running down the tracks after us.

  “Ok.” Anna’s voice was high-pitched. “That was by far the most jacked-up situation I’ve ever been in.” Her eyes were wild as she looked back and forth between the two of us.

  “That’s putting it a little lightly,” I said, more calmly than I felt.

  “I cannot believe the way you jumped onto the train. That was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen anyone do.” She was looking at me like she didn’t recognize me.

  Chase was eyeing me critically now.

  “You know what was even more impressive? When I fell flat on my face at the station and then had to get up and run even faster to try to catch up with you.”

  “Are you hurt?” Chase had a funny look on his face.

  “Skinned my knees a little, maybe jammed my wrist,” I said dismissively. Compared to what else had gone on, my bruised knees seemed a small detail.

  Chase sat down across from me, looking at me like I was a bug to be studied.

  “I think you handled that pretty good,” he said.

  “Handled it well?” Anna was incredulous. “I was scared out of my mind. My main goal was to not get killed while GI Jane over here was grabbing guns and shooting at people!”

  Chase turned his penetrating gaze to me. I knew that with his previous remark, he had been referring only to me.

  “That was very interesting. May I ask why and how you were able to do that?”

  I looked back and forth between the two of them.

  “I just did it.”

  “You just did it?” His tone was skeptical.

  “I knew that I had to do something; you were out of ammunition, those guys had guns, the police were coming, and the train was leaving. What do you want from me—a detailed essay on what just happened and what I was thinking?” Frustration made the words harsh.

  “Why did you run at them like that while you were shooting?” he pressed.

  “Isn’t that what you are supposed to do? If you run right at someone you are more difficult for them to hit, right?”

  “HOW do you know that is what you are supposed to do and, more importantly, why were you able to actually do it? Shooting moving targets at a dead-run is a very difficult thing to learn to do.”

  When I had no response, he continued.

  “Where did you learn to run at a target while you’re shooting at it?” he asked again. “You seem to be one thing, but then you say or do something that practically screams that you’re something else entirely.”

  He was watching me closely as he waited for my answer

  “I read it in a book.” I was blunt.

  “You read it in a book?” He sounded unconvinced.

  “I’ve picked up all sorts of random bits of information from books, doesn’t everybody?” I was exasperated.

  “What the hell kind of books teach you how to do what you just did?”

  “All kinds,” I shrugged.

  “She does read a lot of books,” Anna interjected, mechanically. She looked bewildered as she tried to process everything that had happened as well as the current conversation.

  “I read about running while shooting at someone in a book about a Mossad spy,” I offered.

  “Really?” The word was drawn out as he thought about it. “They aren’t the only ones trained to do that and that doesn’t explain how you were able to do it so handily.”

  “Were you trained to do that?” I asked.

  “That’s not the point.” His response was flat.

  There was an awkward silence before he spoke again.

  “You seem to be pretty good with guns.”

  “I grew up with guns so I am comfortable with them.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “My dad taught my brother and me to shoot when we were young. My family has always had guns and they all went hunting. My dad made me take a handgun safety course so I could get a concealed weapon permit after my cousin was mugged. I am comfortable with guns.”

  “What you just did goes way beyond comfortable. How do you explain that?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know! All of a sudden everything just came together, it all clicked into place and I felt this…synchronicity. I knew what I had to do. I knew how to do it. I knew that I could do it. The next thing I know, I was doing it!”

  “Synchronicity?” He sounded confused.

  “Do we know where this train is headed?” Anna cut in, still looking more than a little dazed.

  “Genoa,” he answered without taking his eyes off of me.

  “Ah, Genoa, that was our next stop.” Anna sounded strangely satisfied, as if we were normal travelers who just confirmed we had made it on the right train. I was starting to wonder if I needed to worry about her losing her mental grip on things.

  He didn’t say anything more even though I could tell he wasn’t satisfied with my answers. I knew that the conversation was done for now, but not over.

  A thought popped into my head. “Don’t you think the police are on the radio right now trying to stop this train, or that they are on the way to meet it?” It wasn’t like train schedules were classified.

  “The police will be waiting in Genoa, which is why we’ll be getting off the train before we get there.” He checked his watch.

  I knew there were no train stations between Monterosso and Genoa. Si
nce it was my habit not to reveal everything my perfect memory allowed me to recall, I didn’t mention this fact directly. It occurred to me that if there were no stations for the train to stop at, then that could mean only one thing.

  “We’re going to jump off the moving train we just jumped onto?” After the events of the day, I should have expected something like this.

  “It is much easier to jump off a moving train than onto one.”

  There was no trace of humor in his voice.

  Realizing it was pointless to argue, I decided now was the time to push for more information on another subject.

  “You started to explain things to us earlier; I think it’s time you tell us the rest.

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “I want to know it all. Who you are, about this company you work for, and exactly why you were sent to follow me. I want details, no vagueness.” I was firm.

  “My company has been around a long time, so it will take a while to give you the whole picture.”

  I stared steadily at him in answer.

  He looked thoughtful as he let out a deep breath. I could practically see him transition into professional mode. That capable, almost mechanical demeanor of a trained expert that he usually displayed had cracked and faded once we made it on the train. In fact, he had shown serious emotion multiple times; first, when I had almost missed the train, and second with his frustration with me. Now, his entire bearing was back to being proficient and automated. He was the trained operative again as he started talking.

  “With the establishment of the United States as the major superpower following the two World Wars, along with the advent of truly global journalism, things were changing. Even though the internet hadn’t been invented yet, the ability to circulate information worldwide was an effective tool available to governments, news media, influential corporations and even prominent individuals. Information was the most powerful weapon available and people were using it to manipulate the media to further their own or their countries’ agendas. In this emerging environment, it became clear that the US Government could not participate in or condone, even peripherally, certain practices which would not be considered advisable for a country trying to set the global standard.”