Lou took in a deep breath and vowed he would not let them die. It was his fault that their lives were on the line. Cap had been there for him since the day the two of them had met. George had already pulled himself out of a situation that had buried many others. He was a role model—an important role model to kids from the inner city. His future was full of productivity and service—if he lived. At this point, it seemed like the best Lou could hope for was to find a weakness in William Chester—some miracle negotiation that would save their lives.

No matter what, he wasn’t going to go down easily.

The two-hour drive to Monroe felt interminable. His mind wandered through the Frankencorn transmission conundrum and the solution that had to be right. The quiet, tree-lined streets of the village, with its clapboard houses, white picket fences, and old town general store, glided past and vanished in his rearview.

William Chester was nearby now, waiting.

Lou followed the twin rail beds out of town. The trees thinned out and then disappeared altogether. Dusk settled into twilight as the GPS in Renee’s car instructed him to turn onto a rutted single-lane road. Lou kept the BMW’s speed down, just in case a police cruiser lurked behind a billboard.

It was nineteen minutes until eight o’clock.

Still no plan.

Outside of Monroe, the terrain became flat. The two sets of tracks were on his left, perhaps thirty yards away. In the distance, through the deepening gloom, he could see the silos, brightly illuminated by spots, rising like a mystical metropolis from the tableland. On the far track, the one that he guessed handled westbound traffic, was a train—almost certainly, the train. It was a colossus stretching toward the horizon as far as he could see, perhaps a mile or more long with what seemed an infinite number of cars.

As Lou rolled past the caboose, he could see two men inside. They were at a table, drinking or playing cards, or perhaps both. He chose not to cut his lights. There was no need to call any unwanted attention to himself, and he was far enough away from the train, on the opposite side of the other track, that he could have been any traveler heading west.

Lou drove until he was five or six cars past the caboose, then slowed almost to a stop. The behemoth shook as its rusted wheels struggled to inch forward. Then it stopped for a time before inching forward again.

Is it loading?

Lou’s heart sank. He had no idea how enormous Chester’s train was going to be. Even if he were able to sneak aboard, it would be nearly impossible to locate the car where Cap and George were being held. Then he remembered the number, clearly visible in the photograph.

Fifty-eight.