Challenge Read Free Page B

after me with it. Out onto the platform.”
    He seethed next to her, blood coloring his face in anger. “Go on.”
    She spoke quickly, hoping the explanation might satisfy him. “I told him he was mistaken. That it wasn’t mine and he should put it back where he’d found it. I’m sure he did.”
    “Did you get his name?”
    “His name? No, of course not. I told him to put it back, and that was the end of it.”
    “Describe him to me.”
    “Why?”
    He stared silently at her, and she felt he might hurt her if she didn’t do as he said.
    “Thirteen, fourteen. Thin. Kind of nerdy. He’s wearing a sweatshirt for the National Science Challenge. That’s why he’s going to Washington—this challenge. He’s not going to be a problem. It wasn’t anything. Really. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
    “No, you did right. Go on. Get outta here. Head back as planned,” he said. “You can go.”
    As she walked away from him, her stomach turned. Why had she mentioned the boy? What had she started?
    She thought of the train ticket in her pocket. She checked the huge board listing all the trains and tracks, the departures and arrivals.
    The train to Washington was still in the station.
    What if they now planned to hurt the boy? Wouldn’t that make whatever happened to him her fault?
    She eyed the gate to track seven, then stole a glance back at the man she’d just spoken to. He was talking on his cell phone, his back turned to the gate.
    If she hurried, she might have a chance.

3.
    “Wait a second! Back it up,” Roland Larson instructed. He and Trill Hampton, both United States marshals assigned to the Fugitive Apprehension Task Force, occupied uncomfortable chairs in a cigarette-soured windowless room with TERMINAL SECURITY written on its door. Between them sat a security guard who controlled the video.
    Hampton, an African American with a kind face and a football player’s neck, smacked loudly as he chewed french fries laden with ketchup, withdrawn one by one from an oily paper bag. Larson battled impatience. He had a rugged face, sharp blue eyes, and dirty-blond hair. He was too big for the chair.
    Chicago’s Union Station had trains coming and going at all hours. As part of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Apprehension Task Force, Larson’s present assignment was to track down and capture a suspected gang leader, a man believed to have ties to a terrorism cell in Chicago. A joint FBI and Secret Service investigation had uncovered the gang’s connection to a series of minor bank robberies. It was now believed that stolen money had reached the terrorist cell. The disappearance of a small plane over Lake Michigan had given rise to the discovery that a much bigger plan to raise money for the terrorists was currently underway. Larson had never seen the man he was after. There were no existing photographs of him. All Larson had was a vague description provided by an undercover agent: broad-shouldered, five feet eleven inches, intense eyes, and a possible name that could easily be an alias: Aaron Grym. It wasn’t much to go on.
    They were reviewing train station surveillance video. The known gang member was approached by a woman, possibly in her mid-twenties. Her face had not been caught by the overhead camera. The two spoke with an undeniable intensity. Then the gang member used his cell phone, and shortly thereafter left the station.
    “The only train boarding at that time is the overnight to Washington.” The station’s security man pointed to the television monitor. The smell in the room was mostly his. “There is one that leaves for St. Louis ten minutes later. Another for Minneapolis on the half hour. But at that time, it is Washington, D.C.”
    “Can you give us any platform cameras you might have?”
    It took the security guard a few minutes to organize himself. Hampton finished the french fries. Finally the video started, and Larson went back to watching the small screen. The camera looked out from the