Chapter 11: Bianca

T’was the season for holiday travel. Be it planes, trains, or automobiles—people were hell-bent to make it somewhere in time to celebrate. I had been on the road for 5 hours trying to get to the Train Depot before she arrived. Not only had Sam been able to track her movements—so too had the assholes who were trying to end the Carbone family line.

There is a contract killer after her and he has instructions to meet her at the depot and take her out.

Once she got a tag on Hondo’s heir, she was able to map out her entire itinerary up to the point that she left Italy. Bianca had traveled discreetly and covered her tracks well, using multiple accounts and IDs to throw off her pursuers. The open borders of the European Union enabled her to travel all the way to Denmark before she had to cross her first checkpoint (into Norway) and then across the Atlantic to Labrador via Iceland.

With my limited acumen for geography, I just took Sam’s word for it as she went on and on about the eccentric route the heiress had taken. All I cared about was that I had to get to that train station before she arrived or she was as good as dead. Everyone on the road had their own reasons for being in a hurry and the troopers were out in force to remind them that they didn’t really care.

It didn’t help that I had my own back-seat hacker to constantly advise me that I would never make it unless I put the pedal to the metal or sprouted wings. I pushed it when I could and let my instincts take over. I managed to pull into the short-term parking lot with 15 minutes to spare. I let Travis out and ran for the depot, trusting him to manage his affairs on his own.

The train station was packed. Luggage of every sort could be found piled hap hazardously along the platform where passengers set it, before wandering off to shop the variety of stores or grab something to eat in the busy café. I knew the assassin lurked nearby and I only had about 10 minutes to find him before her train arrived.

I studied the various individuals standing about outside on the platform either smoking or studying their phones intently. None of them felt like the target so I hurried along peeking into the shops that lined the loading/offloading deck. I passed a Candy shop and another selling books, magazines, T-shirts and cigarettes. Nope.

I approached the restaurant and looked inside intently, presumably checking for an empty table or to see what they offered. There he was! Right in front of me, sitting alone in a booth next to the large pane-glass window overlooking the platform. He was so obvious I could’ve laughed. The dark jacket with the collar pulled up and the gray felt Scally cap pulled low. He tried so hard to be innocuous that he stood out like a beacon.

Glancing back at the platform I studied all the scattered luggage for a weapon. There were hiking backpacks (surely a knife in one of them), duffle bags, ski bags, snowboards, fly-fishing kits, and archery..., I stepped up to the bow case with the hunting tip arrows clipped to the side. Interesting.

Discreetly liberating one of the 30-inch hunting shafts, its triple razor tip protected in a protective plastic clip, I casually turned and entered the busy restaurant, spinning the missile in my fingers as I looked about. It was packed and loud, with all the diners either stuffing their faces or web surfing with their phones. As luck would have it the booth directly behind the assassin was empty so I calmly walked over and sat down with my back to him. The long seat was thickly upholstered with dirty orange vinyl covering it. The back cushions transmitted every movement to the adjacent chair.

As I was preparing to make my move, a middle-aged waitress approached and asked if I’d be dining in or taking it to go. The train was only 5 minutes out. She started to hand me the tall plastic-coated menu when I glanced back at her sheepishly. “I hate to be a nuisance,” I whined with a nasal flair, “but do you have a gluten-free menu?”

She huffed and said she’d go look before turning away.

‘Dang, these seats were so uncomfortable!’ I shuffled about, moving my body to the right so that I wasn’t seated so precisely behind him. Tucking the arrow under my left arm I pressed the point into the vinyl back and gripped it firmly near the fletchings, with my gloved hands. The 50’s era music was repeatedly interrupted by the annoying overhead PA system providing passenger updates. I took several shallow breaths and centered myself as I waited.

Another loud static squelch announced a new message and I pulled the shaft backwards with a violent jerk plunging it cleanly through my seat as well as the one behind me. I barely felt the resistance as it pierced the killer’s back and lodged into his sternum. The trembling of his heart muscle and the spasm of his body transmitted through the arrow as he died, stuck in a sitting position. With a twist of my wrist, I bent the aluminum shaft to make it less apparent.

A quick scan of the room told me that nobody was any the wiser of the brief disturbance. So, I turned to my victim and called out a cheerfully surprised greeting.

“Oh, man! Danny, is that you?” I called, “It’s been ages.” I spun excitedly out of my seat to join him in his, giving him a hearty slap on the back and a hug as I lifted his wallet, cell phone, and a very long pistol from within his coat. A loud horn sounded outside. “Hey man, that’s my train. Sorry, I didn’t run into you sooner! We’ll talk again K?”

I was out of the restaurant and back onto the platform just as the train came to a halt and began unloading passengers. Moments later the deck was filled with people and I disappeared into the crowd, scanning each face as I reached out with my senses trying to determine where she could be.

My phone buzzed 3 times.

Damn! That was slick!

I frowned, if she had seen it then there were cameras...

Relax, I wiped the footage, go get our girl.

Besides the engine, there were 7 cars. I figured she would avoid the first two as I moved back. She probably would avoid the rear pair as well, which only left three cars as her likely place. She would probably not be the first off or the last, so chances were that she was only just now getting ready to depart.