One
ONE
The train whipped past the platform at a hundred miles an hour, blowing up skirts, sweeping up luggage and scattering passengers on the platform in its wake. The public address system blared its overly-polite warning much too late.
“PLEASE KEEP BACK FROM THE PLATFORM EDGE. WE HAVE AN UNSCHEDULED ARRIVAL. PLEASE KEEP BACK FROM THE PLATFORM EDGE...”
A motorbike roared out of the station house, breaking through the turnstiles and screeched to a halt on the platform. A thin man, wearing a black duster and a red helmet, sat astride the chopper’s hardtail frame taking stock, gripping the high ape hanger handle bars with leather gloved hands. The rogue train had raced clear of the platform. The thin man gunned the engine and accelerated up the platform, knocking over the last passengers lucky enough to remain standing. A prone old woman muttered under her breath and made crude hand gestures after him as he disappeared into the distance. Her husband staggered to his feet, shaking his stick furiously, his cheeks a rich beetroot red.
“You goddamned animal! Young people these days! Well, I never...”
The bike tore up the concourse and leapt into the air as the platform abruptly ran out beneath it, clearing the black iron railings that marked the station boundaries by several feet and landed with a jolt on the gravel path that ran parallel along the tracks. The thin man managed to hold the back-end steady as he felt it begin to slide out from beneath him; not this time. He had business to attend to before he took that final ride out into the great beyond, bound and gagged business that was fast disappearing around a bend in the track up ahead, behind a steep embankment.
The thin man did not turn as the tracks bore left; he just held his line straight ahead as he accelerated up the embankment. The bike soared into the air, easily clearing the muddy river on the other side and fell back to earth with a nasty jolt. He steadied the bike and found himself tearing blindly through a bumpy field full of rows of tall, plump corn, the ears slapping and breaking against his helmet, obscuring his view. He concentrated on what he could hear instead as he held his course. The sound of the train bore away left, becoming fainter. He tried to tune out the rustling corn, the growl of the motorbike engine; the rhythmic chugging grew louder again somewhere up ahead. Any moment now...
He stood forward on his haunches, crouching low over the handlebars and opened the throttle as far as it would go. The chopper hurtled faster and faster and then the corn slapped no more. The thin man hit the embankment at top speed as he broke free of the field and the chopper leapt into the air once more. The train emerged around the bend beneath him, clattering along the tracks; he could hear it creaking in protest as it juddered along the track at constant high speed. It sounded as though it was shaking itself to pieces. He added to its woe as the bikes tyres bit into the thin metal, leaving two round dents behind him as he tore along the roof of the speeding train, clearing the narrow gaps between the carriages. It wasn’t long before he ran out of roof.
The thin man half-jumped, half-fell backwards from the chopper as it cleared the engine cab and caught beneath the front of the train, sending up great showers of sparks as it dragged along the tracks. He wobbled on the edge of the roof as the train ground to a halt, clutching on with his gloved hands. A man wearing a blue cloth cap stuck his head out of the engine cab window beneath him. A frantic, hurried discussion took place inside.
“What the heck was that?”
“Shut up and keep going. Who told you to stop?”
“I can see a tyre down there, some metal...”
“Hey! Who told you to stop? Dan, did you tell this motherfucker to stop the train?”
“Nah boss, I didn’t say a thing.”
“I can’t run the train with that thing stuck down there! It’s a breach of health and safety regulations!”
The guy leaning out of the window must be the driver, a friendly. The barrel of a silenced pistol crept out of the window behind him and pressed lightly against the back of his head, beneath his cap.
“Just keep going Mother Theresa and I won’t blow that dumb cap off your dumb head. That’s right, back in the cab, there’s a good boy.”
The driver’s head disappeared back into the cab and the engine rumbled back into life. The thin man removed his red helmet, swung it downwards as hard as he could and launched it in through the open window at a vicious pace. He heard a satisfying fleshy ‘thunk’ accompanied by a scream as he clambered down past the door on the opposite side of the train and peered in through the dirty window.
The man with the gun was holding a thickset man, Dan presumably, up by his lapels and screaming at the driver to open the door.
The thin man smashed his black gloved fist through the closed cab window, grabbed the boss-man’s jacket collar from behind and hauled him out through the open window, knocking the pistol from his hand against the frame. It clattered down out of sight beneath the striped seats of the cab.
The boss-man’s chubby face turned white as the thin man pushed his head towards the broken window, a sharp glass shard glittering just inches from his eye.
“Who...who are you?”
“Where is she?”
“What do you want? Are you a cop?”
The thin man pushed the boss-man’s head further down, stopping just short of the glass puncturing his eye. He was in charge here. The boss-man whimpered like a bad puppy.
“Where is she?”
“What do you want? I’ve got money. Lots of money”
“Last chance Jack, where is she?”
He put more pressure on the boss-man’s neck and positioned his foot against the back of his knee. With just the slightest push, the glass would make short work of his eye and, with any luck, penetrate his brain. A sudden smell of urine told him that the boss-man had had enough. His voice broke as he surrendered.
“Ok, ok, tough guy, you win. She’s in the middle carriage, but she’s being watched. I got four of my best guys in there. You won’t get in there without one of them pulling the trigger.”
“That’s why you’re coming with me, Jack”
“I’m not going any..”
His defiance ended mid-sentence as the bullet ripped through his jaw, tearing it from his face. Blood sprayed from his open throat like a macabre water-feature; the thin man released his grip and the boss-man’s body fell by the trackside. The driver stood shaking in the cab, the pistol limp in his hands.
“I’m s-s-s-sorry. I just... I don’t know what happened.”
“Give me the gun please, sir.”
“Yes, yes, the gun. Of course, here, please take it. Thank you.”
As he handed it over, a look of doubt crossed his face.
“Are...are you a cop?
“I’m a force of nature, pal. What’s your name?”
“Michael, well, Mike really.”
“Well, thanks for the gun, Mike Really. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The thin man held his hand out and, as Mike moved to shake it, he leant into the cab past him and fired two rounds one-handed into the back of henchman Dan’s shaven head. The good old double-tap, just to make sure; the sight of more blood sent poor Mike the driver over the edge. He curled up into a ball, sobbing, wiping his face over and over with his cap.
“Sorry about that bud, the pipes were calling. Better Danny boy than you.”
“Oh god, oh god, I killed him. They’re dead. I shot him...”
The thin man left him to cry it out; he felt sorry for Mike. He hadn’t expected things to go all Jack Bauer while he was tucking into his cornflakes that morning; just another day. But that’s all it was, just another day; someone lives, someone dies, it’s all just blood under the bridge.
He clambered up onto the carriage behind the engine cab and peered in through the window; all clear. He slowly pushed open the door.
There were bodies in the seats and in the aisle, men and women in bloody business suits lying amongst scattered laptops and phones. The sad remnants of a final early morning run into the city; just Joe and Josephine Average on their way into the office. It had just been another day, but there would never be another for these poor souls. The thin man checked the gun; it was a silenced Glock, six rounds left in the clip. He stepped over the fallen and peered through the little foggy window in the connecting door. Someone was headed his way.
He quickly stood to the side of the door as it opened and an enormous Asian man stepped a long, loping pace through into the carriage, his shaven head bobbing from left to right. The thin man looked back through the open door behind him, holding his breath. Just maintain, a moment longer... There she was! The blonde, bound and gagged, sat between a fat guy in a creased suit and some weird–looking asshole in a full-face balaclava. The thin man pointed the silenced pistol at the back of the big Asian guy’s thick neck, squeezed the trigger tight and stepped into the open door-frame before the body hit the floor.
The fat guy in the suit went to pull something from beneath his shoulder but took a round full in his shocked, pudgy face before he could make it. Balaclava dropped beneath the level of the seat as the door at the other end of the carriage opened and a skinny black guy carrying an assault rifle entered the fray. Moments later, he too fell where he stood, clutching at his throat. The thin man heard the blonde screaming through the cloth wadded in her mouth. Not long now, love...
The balaclava guy suddenly leapt out at him from his left, bearing a knife. He ducked and moved lithely aside as balaclava landed on his feet and swung the blade wildly in his direction. It was more machete than knife. The thin man knew what to do with an idiot like this. He rolled backwards, stood and put on his best Australian accent.
“That’s not a knife.”
Balaclava stood, confused a moment.
“What?”
“That’s not a knife, mate”
“What’s your name? Crocodile...”
The bullet took him by surprise, lifting him from his feet mid-sentence and sent him sprawling against the side of the train. The thin man towered over him as he spluttered and clawed at the air.
“Isn’t that just like a ninja? Brings a knife to a gunfight.”
The thin man knew the quote was inaccurate, but that was the least of his worries. When he was sure it was over, he rushed to free the blonde. He used balaclava’s knife to cut her free and pulled the gag from her mouth.
“You came!”
“You know that’s never been a problem for me, doll”
She looked up at him, doe-eyed.
“My hero.”
He swept her up in his arms and gave her a kiss. A big wet kiss, very sloppy, not that pleasant; her tongue felt enormous. She was being a little rough to be honest, and, what was that, stubble? Something rumbled near his groin.
The thin man opened his eyes to see a cow’s face mere inches from his own, its dirty stinking tongue pressing into his mouth as it leant over the stall. He leapt groggily to his feet and backed away from the bovine.
“Christ! What the hell?”
He realised there was nobody there to hear him; he was alone in the barn, just him, the stink and the cows watching him suspiciously from their enclosure. He spat and wretched as the slutty one looked coyly at him, fluttering her eyelashes. No one must know of this. He cancelled rubbed the sleep from his eyes, trying desperately to remember how he’d ended up in this compromising position.
The thin man turned and stumbled out of the barn into an empty, soggy overgrown field; his rust-bucket car was parked up by the gate, the driver’s side door wide open. His phone rumbled in his pocket. He took it out as he walked, kicking up the dew, looked at the clock and groaned. There was no rest for the wicked; it was time to solve a murder.