Chapters (73)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Prologue
- Part IAnnie
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Part IIHarry
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Part IIIAnnie
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Part IVHarry
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Part VAnnie
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Linwood Barclay
- About the Publisher
Harry was almost to the floor.
And then, with his last dying breath, he shot himself forward, throwing his arms around Nabler in a half-assed tackle that, while hardly worthy of a linebacker, was enough to throw Nabler off balance. Nabler managed to shove Harry off him, and when the chief hit the floor he did not try to get back up.
Nabler staggered as he regained his balance and threw an arm out instinctively to steady himself. His hand came down hard on one of the ribbons of track five feet above the floor, suspended by wires that went to the ceiling. Nabler hit it hard enough that the track and the thin strip of wood to which it was nailed down buckled sharply. A second before one of Nabler’s many trains was approaching. The engine hit the gap, jumped the rails, and plummeted to the floor, hitting it with a splintering thud, bits and pieces of its plastic-and-metal shell scattering everywhere.
What really mattered, however, was not the engine but what came down in its wake.
Coupled to the engine was a long trail of tanker cars. At least twenty of them. Detailed replicas of the freight cars that carried hazardous chemicals from one side of the country to another, often passing through the heart of Lucknow.
One car hit the floor and practically disintegrated. Then another, and another, and another, and before Nabler could catch even one of them, they had all landed on the concrete and shattered into hundreds of pieces.
Nabler worked his way through the jungle of tracks to the control panel that powered everything and shut it down. For the first time, the room went eerily quiet.
“What a fucking mess,” he said, looking at Harry’s body, the blood on the floor, the busted trains scattered helter-skelter.
He took a long breath, dreading the tasks ahead. Sure, the chief’s remains would make an excellent addition to the layout, but slitting open his torso and limbs to retrieve what he could best make use of was not something he felt up to at the moment. And he was going to have to repair that broken stretch of track if he—
Nabler heard something.
A distant rumbling. Minor at first, but then it began to build. Nabler could sense it coming up through the walls and the floor, and if he didn’t know better, he would have thought Lucknow was in the throes of an earthquake.
But Nabler did know better, and had a strong suspicion that this was not an earthquake, which were not common to this area of Vermont, anyway. What he believed he was hearing was, potentially, something far more serious.
He left the back room, made his way through his shop, turned back the front door lock, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The rumbling persisted, and it was coming from the direction of the rail line that ran straight through the center of town.