In the Wind: Out of the Box, Book 2 (16 page)

“Okay, so, he’s from Florence,” J.J. says. “Mea culpa. Wait, is that Italian? Never mind. I’ve got an address—”

“Save it,” I say, and take off at a run again, “give me an update on Perugini’s phone position.”

“She’s in the train station,” he says. “Uhh … hold on, the map is focusing in … looks like she’s at the seventh platform from the left, and standing still for the moment.”

I make a jump across a long roof gap only having to use a little wind to pull it off. “So, probably platform seven.”

“Probably,” he says, still cool. “So you think the bad guys got the Doc?”

“Pretty sure,” I say.

“You think she’s all right?”

“I damned well hope so,” I say, shoving the phone into my pocket and making another jump. This time I don’t have to use my powers at all.

“My estate is really quite impressive,” Anselmo says as she sits on the bench before him. They wait on the platform, the doors to the train not yet done disgorging their passengers. The platform number only appeared on the lighted signs around the station moments earlier, but Anselmo already knew. They stand at the far end of the platform, near the front of the train, waiting for the first-class car to open. Lorenzo has already bought the tickets.

“Mmm,” the woman says. He has yet to catch her name, but in the scheme of things it’s not really important. “Tell me more.”

“
Capo
,” Lorenzo says, and Anselmo looks over at him. The boy looks irritable, some blister in his shoe, perhaps. He nods his head at the train door, which is now clear of departing passengers.

“My dear, it is time to show you a wondrous ride,” Anselmo says with just a hint of suggestion. No need to come on too strong.

“I can hardly contain my excitement,” she says, still cool.

Lorenzo takes another step at her, menacingly, but Anselmo holds him back with only a hand. “
Capo
, she—”

Anselmo frowns at Lorenzo. “You read too much into her words. Calm yourself.”

Lorenzo’s face diffuses none of the anger, but a mask of resolve slips over him that tells Anselmo the argument is over. “Yes,
Capo
.” The honorific is something that Anselmo never tires of hearing.

Anselmo extends his arm once more to help her off the bench, and she takes it, stone-faced. “Let us go, my dear,” he says, and together they walk toward the train.

I burst through the doors of Termini station. People are going in every direction with luggage and carts and the other assorted detritus of travel. Some lady comes up to me and asks if I need help. She acts kind of official but she’s wearing a yellow t-shirt that tells me she’s just some tick here to suck fat tourist blood, so I brush past her without a word.

I make my way through the maze of shops and billboards ahead, dodging past automated kiosks toward the back of the station. I’ve been here before, and I know where the trains are, somewhere behind the passenger lounges for frequent travelers and the news stands.

It’s a sea of color, a pure travel-Europe experience you don’t get in the U.S. I stick my hands in my pockets and lower my head when I see the first man in a suit watching the area like he’s looking for trouble. He’s as obvious as a giant nipple in the middle of someone’s forehead, and I steer right to avoid him and almost run into another one.

It takes me a second—and a near-collision with the second of these clowns—to realize that they’re just watching the crowd for general threats; they’re not looking for me specifically. I can spot them dotted throughout the massive area as I make my way toward the seventh platform. I see a few of them malingering at the end of the giant, pier-like structure that’s surrounded by tracks on either side, and I have a moment’s doubt that I’ll make it through the two sentries without raising some suspicion.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and plaster a smile on. I’ll blend in if it kills me. I talk in a whisper and try to slur my words just slightly. I watch the sentries as I pretend to pace toward platform nine. “When does the next train to Florence leave?”

“Uhhh,” J.J. says. “Gimme a minute.”

I resist the urge to frown. “You haven’t looked this up already?”

“Dude,” J.J. says, “I am a little busy right now handling my own job in addition to your personal crisis, okay?”

I pause. “Were you looking at cat pictures on the internet again?”

“Forgive me for finding humor in Grumpy Cat, okay?” J.J. says. “I wasn’t thinking ahead, I guess. That’s on me, I’m sorry.” He sounds mildly contrite. “Looking it up now.” He pauses for about ten seconds in which I let him work. “Umm, it says it’s leaving like … now.”

I turn my head and see that, yep, that particular train is in fact leaving right this minute. It’s pulling out slowly, and I’m not two platforms away. I swear and pocket the phone again, then sprint for platform eight, which is sidled up on the right side of the train. I run like hell, even though it’s not moving very fast. The guys who have been watching platform seven are gone, but there’s no way I’m going to make it to that platform in time.

I realize in a moment of utter clarity—and exhaustion—that in my rush to catch Perugini, I bypassed the ticket kiosks. Which was dumb. Because now I’m about to get on a train that I don’t have a ticket for. I imagine that scene from
Indiana Jones
and keep running, catching the last car as the platform ends.

I say screw it and jump, using my power to boost me onto the roof of the last car as it chugs down the tracks. All aboard.

I hit the steel roof of the car and make a hell of a noise. The wind is just barely rushing through my hair, the train moving at like five or ten miles an hour as we pull out of the station. I hear shouting behind me and glance back.

Gulp.

There’s a guy in a black suit, one of the watchers, and he’s caught my one-man stunt show. He’s talking urgently into his phone, making hand gestures, and I get the feeling my cover is pretty well blown.

Shit.

I fish out my phone. “Where is she, J.J.?”

“First car,” he says, and I wish—hopefully not for the last time—I had earbuds or a Bluetooth. I put the phone away again. How deep is the U.S. in debt? Maybe paying my phone bill will help clear a trillion or so.

I sprint down the train car. It’s rocking a little on the tracks, that satisfying thumping sound that rails make. If I was in a seat in one of the cars below, it might actually be soothing enough to put me to sleep. Then again, right now I’m tired enough I could go to sleep on the tracks with a train passing overhead, so …

We pass aging apartment buildings whose construction is so bland I think for a minute I’ve entered the old U.S.S.R., save for the fact that they’re resplendent in oranges and pinks that wouldn’t be out of place in Las Vegas. We wend our way onward as I leap to the next car, and I catch sight of a bevy of flat-topped pines, like a large-scale version of the bonsai that sits on Sienna’s desk.

The train shifts with the tracks to go left and picks up speed. I’m forced to drop to one knee as it does so in order to keep from toppling off. I don’t have much in the way of grip up here, and I’m thankful we’re still in the city and moving relatively slowly.

Then, all of a sudden, somebody mashes the accelerator to the floor, and the train lurches into full throttle. I barely catch myself on the edge as I fall over the side, the tracks flashing past so fast I can’t even see the individual wood slats that join them together.

The wind rushes past my face and I cling tightly with four fingers, my back against the steel train car as my legs dangle down the side, and I hope—just hope—I can hold on long enough to get back up top.

“To maximum speed,” Anselmo says, shaking his head to ward off an attack of pure fury. “Tell the conductor to do it.”

“Si, Capo,”
Lorenzo says, and moves back to the front of the compartment. The train is already accelerating past the legal limits allowed on the city tracks, but it is not enough for Anselmo. The call was quite clear; the boy is on top of the train, is trying to insert himself into this one more time.

Anselmo smiles at the woman. Trying to reclaim what he has clearly already lost. “My dear, it would appear your boy is reluctant to allow you to be exposed to the charms of a true man.”

Her lips press together in a thin, alluring line. “Oh?”

“Si,”
Anselmo says, nodding in resignation. “A man would realize when he is truly outmatched.” This causes her eyebrow to arch, a most appealing look upon her.

“Capo,”
Lorenzo says as he pushes past the cabin attendant to re-enter the compartment. “He is speeding up as quickly as he can. There is a station ahead, however, and—”

“Yes, yes,” Anselmo says, waving a hand. “Tell him to speed right through.”

Lorenzo hesitates, and Anselmo can see the hint that he wishes to make perhaps another argument. “Yes,
Capo
,” he says instead.

The woman speaks, a soft-hearted inquiry. “What will happen to the train conductor once you have made him do these things?”

Anselmo shrugs. “His livelihood is not my concern.”

“And if he fails to do what you ask?” She still wears that expression that hints at nothing.

“That would be a personal tragedy for him,” Anselmo says, waiting to see if she shows any sign of horror at the thought. She does not, raising his opinion of her still higher. “You disapprove?”

“My approval is hardly going to change your course, is it?” she asks with a shrug of her own.

Oh, yes, this one is quite impressive. Cold-hearted and pragmatic, such a rare combination with true beauty. “You have the face of an angel,” Anselmo says with a grin, “and the mind of an animal, I think.” He considers what other attributes she might share with an animal, and feels a thrill of excitement.

The train blows through a station without even slowing down, passengers scrambling to give it a little distance from the platform as it shoots through at top speed. The tracks are clattering loudly now, and I’m still barely hanging on. A seemingly pointless metal crossbar passes overhead, and I’m suddenly thankful I’m on the side of the train, because it would performed a rapid reduction of my height—by taking me off at the waist.

I study the tracks ahead and decide I’m safe for a moment before I roll hard against my arm and blast a little gust at the ground below. It gives me a boost, just enough to get myself back on the roof of the train car in time for another of those damned crossbars to pass about twelve inches over the top of my nose. I lie flat on my back on the metal car and feel the motion of the train. It’s definitely progressing to “bat out of hell” speeds in a hurry, and I suspect that the company that runs the train is no longer in charge of it.

We’re out of the city now. A glimpse ahead suggests that my next obstacle is a tunnel. It’s coming up fast, but doesn’t look to be too low of a clearance. Which is fortunate, because I need to move my ass up to the first car.

I decide crawling forward is the right move, and I start scrambling like I’m climbing a horizontal mountain. The train alters course often enough that going over the side again is a distinct possibility. That’s not something I want to risk, especially with a tunnel ahead. Who knows how much room I’ll have on each side to keep from getting scraped off like a bug?

The world darkens around me and the staccato rhythm of the tracks increases in volume. I’m in a tunnel, and there’s only a faint light for about a second before we burst out the other side into blinding daylight. I blink a few times to clear my vision, and then we’re thrust into another tunnel. I curse into the wind, to little effect.

I crawl on through the dark until I reach the edge of the next car. This process is maddeningly slow, but the train has got to be going seventy or eighty miles an hour—whatever that is in kilometers per hour. I pull ahead, foot by foot, and finally decide to risk walking upright when I see someone on the car ahead already doing it.

Uh oh.

Yeah, they’ve sent thugs after me. I’m sure this isn’t the smartest strategy, but then I see the guns and realize I’ve got pretty much no defense. I crouch, ready for them to open fire, and wonder exactly how the hell I’m gonna get myself out of this mess.

“Go after him yourself,” Anselmo says to Lorenzo. The boy does not take it well, exhibiting the first signs of—yes, fear.

“Capo—”
he starts to protest.

“Do not
‘Capo’
me,” Anselmo says, an undercurrent of menace in his voice. “Be a man, and stop playing with yourself. He is up there, and he needs to be dispatched. Should you fail in this basic endeavor, with the aid of our soldiers, then I have to ask myself if you are truly ready to be my lieutenant, my right-hand man as we move into the completion of the plan.” The message is clear.

“Si,”
Lorenzo says and disappears into the next car without another look back. Good. The boy needs to develop this toughness. Anselmo knows he is just the man to teach him.

“Now, where were we?” Anselmo asks the woman. He feels slightly rude for interrupting their conversation, but like a good woman, she has waited patiently while the men discuss important business.

She tilts the eyebrow again, clearly a favored expression, and Anselmo enjoys the look it puts upon her face. “You were telling me all about your estate,” she says.

“Ah, yes,” Anselmo says, and hears the thump of footsteps on the top of a train car somewhere behind them. He frowns and hopes for Lorenzo’s sake that he does not fail this time.

They go for the hail of bullets, and I go over the side. It’s easier than trying to soak up gunfire with my head, and I manage to catch a jutting window frame a few feet off the ground. It’s not fun, hanging there, but it beats the hell out of hitting the ground or getting sucked under the train to be turned into Italian sausage.