If they send dogs, she thought, then dogs will die.
CHAPTER
75
“ROBBY? YOU BY THE CHANNEL?”
Frantically, Nazad dug in the snow around the rail worker.
“Robby?”
“Brother?”
The Tunisian looked back and saw the three other Family men, eyes wide at the sight of the body. “Not now,” he barked, feeling something in the snow.
An antenna!
The Tunisian jerked it up, brought the radio to his lips, triggered Transmit, coughed, went nasal, and said, “Dropped the goddamned radio in the snow and I think I’m coming down with a frickin’ cold. Come back.”
“We got Nyquil and other stuff in the locomotive cab up here. Ice building on them rails?”
“Nothing to worry about,” Nazad said.
“You better start heading this way, then,” Tony said. “Union Station’s saying we might be able to move along here at some point.”
“They say what’s going on?”
“Some nut’s loose in the station, but they’re bringing in dogs after her.”
Dogs? Nazad flashed on Hala, begged Allah to have mercy on her, and then responded, “Be right along. Fast as I can get through this snow.”
The Tunisian stuck the radio in his coat, looked at the three men. One said, “Everything is in the van, brother. We are good?”
Nazad thought about that, shook his head, pointed at the other two men and then the dead body. “Bury this one in the snow on the other side of the tracks, where he won’t be seen from the freeway when it melts.”
He looked back to the third man. “You come with me, Aman.”
“Where are we going, brother?” Aman asked, confused.
Nazad said, “To see this Tony who drives the train before he comes looking for his friend.”
CHAPTER
76
THE SECOND HAND ON MY WATCH SWEPT PAST TWELVE. A MINUTE HAD elapsed.
“Her call,” I said, and then I nodded to Mahoney, who spoke into his radio and ordered the dog team at the far west end to pick up her scent.
From my position midterminal on the rear platform, facing the locomotive for the Crescent train, I saw a rottweiler, as dark as Jasper was white, leap off the postal loading dock on a leash. His handler let him sniff the jacket and boots Hala had left in the ventilator duct.
Flanked by FBI HRT personnel, three to a side, the dog started to arc northwest and quickly disappeared from my view. I looked to Officer Carstensen, who was stroking Jasper’s head.
“Will we know when he’s got the scent?” I asked.
Before she had time to answer, an excited howl rose and then broke into baying.
“That Pablo’s a good dog,” Carstensen said.