No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 (27 page)

About midnight, Ernie came
to check on me. I heard a muffled noise and started, my eyes
instantly open.

“Just me, kid. I wanted to
make sure you were okay,” he whispered.

“Thanks,” I nodded, grateful
that he cared enough to keep an eye on me.

“Any time.” As he turned to
go, I spotted Meredith’s hand waving to me. Scott’s head was on her
shoulder as he slept. “My relief. We’re taking two hour shifts.
She’s up next.”

I finally did nod off about
twenty minutes later, my purse tucked under my seat. About three, I
woke up briefly, looked around me, and closed my eyes again,
falling back into dreams that were ethereal. In one, I was floating
up by the ceiling of the train, looking down on my body as I sat in
the seat. I could see a dark shadow in the corner, but I couldn’t
tell if it was man or beast. I only knew it didn’t belong
there.

At quarter to seven, I
bolted upright in my seat as something brushed against my leg. It
was the tote bag of my seatmate with the hot pink cane.

“I’m sorry,” she told me.
“My leg is dragging today. It’s hard to sleep in that
seat.”

Recovering from the sudden
awakening, I shook myself with deliberate effort and mustered a
smile.

“I know what you mean,” I
told her. “I’m a little stiff myself.”

“You were having bad dreams
last night, dear?” she asked me. “I don’t mean to pry, but you
seemed frightened.”

“Someone grabbed me last
night when the lights went out. My purse was stolen.” Now, in
daylight, the terror seemed to dissipate. In less than two hours, I
would be back on the road, far away from last night’s attack. I
would be headed to St. Michaels to save my job.

“That’s terrible,” the
elderly woman declared. “You poor thing! No wonder you had
nightmares.”

I waited my turn in line for
the restroom, with my toothbrush and toothpaste in hand. Once
inside, I splashed cold water on my face before brushing my teeth.
I sat down on the toilet just in time to be jolted by an unusual
trembling of the train as it unexpectedly lurched, brakes
screaming.

“What the....” I was
beginning to feel cursed. It seemed like every time I used the
restroom, something unusual happened. This time I hit the tiny sink
with my knee as I nearly slid off the seat. “Damn!”

I finished up as the train
rolled slowly to a stop. As I leaned over the sink to wash my
hands, there was a deafening explosion and the world seemed to
shatter into a thousand fragments. I covered my head as the tiny
window beside me disintegrated into an airborne shower of glass
that tinkled merrily as it fell to the floor. My eyes stared at the
gaping hole where the window was only seconds ago. I tentatively
peeked out, afraid of what I would see. There were men with
weapons, their faces obscured by black bacalavas, dressed in combat
fatigues. I could hear screaming in the corridors.

“Oh, dear God,” I heard
myself say above the din. “Am I dreaming?”

A head appeared in the place
where the window used to be. All I could see of the man behind the
mask was his tan skin and brown eyes. He glowered at me.

“For God’s sake, duck down
and stay the hell out of sight! And keep that door locked!” he
commanded me. “Now!”

I dropped to my knees on the
glass-covered floor, quivering as I forced myself to lean up
against the exterior wall. I could hear voices outside, shouting. A
couple of shots added punctuation to the tension that filled the
air. Were we being robbed? Was this a hold-up?

I stayed there as the
minutes ticked on, the sound of panicked voices outside in the
corridor. There was shouting and crying, too, but it seemed to fade
quickly. And then a hushed silence crept in like fog, blanketing
the sound of the terrified passengers. I wondered if anyone had
been killed in the mayhem. From far away came the shrill peal of
sirens racing to the scene, and for a few moments, I could hear
sporadic gunfire.

Ten minutes later, a tiny
coiled cord was threaded through the gaping hole where the window
once was. I shivered as I watched it turn this way and
that.

“All clear!” shouted a
voice. Seconds later, I heard a key in the lock of the restroom
door and it popped open. A man all in black stood there, his weapon
pointed at me.

“Stand up, show me your
hands!” As I started to rise, I lost my balance and fell back
against the wall. Reaching out to block my fall, I leaned against
the smooth metal wall. “Hands! Show me your hands!”

“Don’t shoot me!” I cried.
“Please!”

Chapter Four --

A second head appeared in
the doorway.

“Put your hands on top of
your head and slowly come out here,” said a female voice. I felt
hands steer me. “I’m going to pat you down, so just relax.
Okay?”

I nodded. My knees were
cramped from my effort to camouflage myself in the restroom and I
was afraid I wouldn’t be able to remain upright much longer. I
could feel my heart pound inside my chest as I stood with my
fingers locked together on top of my head. Hands moved over every
inch of my body. It felt like I had little mice crawling on me, and
when those hands reached my crotch, I involuntarily
twitched.

“Relax,” a deep voice
demanded. Easier said than done. I looked up and realized I was
surrounded by what appeared to be an army of Ninjas, and they were
all carrying very large weapons. “Kelsey Dunham?”

I tried to say something,
but my voice wasn’t working.

“Are you Kelsey Dunham?” the
figure in black asked me again. This time I nodded. “Come with
me.”

I was led down the corridor
and through the next three passenger trains. Some people were
chattering loudly, excitedly. A few were quietly sobbing. A handful
of children were standing on their seats to catch a glimpse of the
uniformed force. I felt myself propelled along by a fist in my
back.

“Just keep moving!” I had
little choice but to obey. There were lots of people standing
around the train. Some had vests that said “Homeland Security.”
There were also uniformed Virginia state troopers and a couple of
representatives from local police forces.

“We’re exiting the train,”
said another voice. “Be careful when you step down,
okay?”

A couple more ninjas stood
on the ground and reached up for me. I found myself standing beside
the tracks in the middle of nowhere, with a group of people dressed
in black. All I could think of was that I was about to be carted
off, never to be seen again. And this idea seemed to bear fruit
when an all-terrain vehicle scooted through the brush and arrived
in rush.

“This her?” said the driver
to one of his colleagues.

“Yes,” said the
female.

“Hop on,” the driver
demanded. I froze in my tracks. There was no way I was going to
voluntarily get on the back of that thing. “Hurry up!”

Hands shoved me, pulled me,
pushed me into place as I struggled.

“Hold on,” the driver told
me as he took off in a spray of gravel. “Cover your
face!”

The next thing I knew, we
were flying through the brush. I could feel the prickers slapping
against my skin as we went. It was pure torture. For the next five
minutes, I buried my face in a stranger’s back, my arms wrapped
tightly around his firm, muscular waist. The ATV bounced all over
the rough track like a gasoline-powered bronco driven by a
modern-day cowboy. At last we came to a clearing, and there stood a
caravan of military-looking vehicles. A group of people in street
clothes were waiting for us. As the ATV rolled to a stop, an older
man stepped forward.

“Ms. Dunham, I’m Special
Agent-in-Charge Dirk Devry of the DEA. Sorry for all this
subterfuge. We have a serious situation. Come with me and we’ll get
you some medical attention.”

A couple of people in street
clothes helped me get off the ATM. As I found my legs again and
tried to remember how to walk, the driver took off his mask and ran
a hand through his brown, shaggy hair. I looked up to see the
palest pair of blue eyes I had ever seen. They were almost the
color of frost on a window and they were staring at me. I was
mesmerized as I stood there.

“You two want to get a room
or can we get on with this?” a voice behind me asked. A scowl came
over the face of the ATV driver and those eyes disappeared from
view as he turned his attention to his machine.

“Shut up, Chen,” he growled.
“The lady’s just been through hell.”

“Sir Lancelot to the
rescue,” laughed a good-looking Asian man. He seemed to be enjoying
the opportunity to rile up his colleague.

“Knock it off, you animals,”
said their leader. “You’ll have to excuse those two, Ms. Dunham.
They were separated at birth. Their mother was a wolverine. God
only knows who the father was.”

There was an ambulance
waiting nearby. Chen led me over and introduced me as the victim of
the attack on the train last night. The attendants sat me down on a
bench in the back of the emergency vehicle to examine my injuries.
Careful fingers probed. I winced as they located a tiny shard of
glass stuck in my knee and then another.

“We’ve got embedded glass,
but it looks superficial. Slight concussion, probably from last
night. Lots of scratches. She’ll live.”

“Why do you know my name?” I
asked Agent Devry. Not how, but why. I couldn’t imagine any reason
for the DEA to care about me. I’m a law-abiding citizen, a real
stand-up kind of girl. The fact that I was surrounded by government
agents charged with fighting a war on illicit drugs made me
extremely nervous and not just a little determined to know what
made them so interested in me. Agent Devry’s eyes widened as he
watched my reaction and then he seemed to nod his
approval.

“I can see you’re quick on
your feet, Ms. Dunham. You remember that gecko you bought at the
art gallery.”

“Yes.” I waited, curious
about what that had to do with what happened on the auto
train.

“The store employee gave you
the wrong package. Or rather, he gave you a package, but not the
one containing your gecko.”

“I don’t understand,” I
replied.

“There was another man in
the gallery at the time, a Mr. Cañizo. Do you remember
him?”

“Yes. Why?”

“He was in the shop to
collect a package also, and the shop employee happened to be one of
our undercover people. Diego put Mr. Cañizo’s heroin into your
package, and your gecko into his, before he fled. It didn’t take
Mr. Cañizo long to figure out what happened. He actually thinks you
and Diego are working in cahoots and that your purchase of the
gecko was just a ruse. He sent his men to follow you on the auto
train and to get the heroin back. He also plans to kill Diego when
he finds him.”

“That can’t be good.” Even
as I uttered those words, I knew how dumb they sounded. But I was
still in shock from the discovery that I had gotten mixed up in a
drug battle.

“But why did Diego put the
package containing heroin in my car?”

“He was desperate. We’ve
spent the last two years trying to take down Mr. Cañizo’s
organization. He needed to buy time, so he deliberately screwed up
the packages. As soon as he got back to the shop, he told his boss,
Raul, that he had made a mistake. But Cañizo already knew the
packages had been switched, and he tried to kill Diego, who got
away. We brought him in for safekeeping, but now Cañizo thinks you
and Diego are looking to hook up and sell that heroin. He sent his
men to the train to collect it. We stopped the train with the
intention of interrupting their plan. The passengers think this was
a possible terror attack and that we’re part of a response by
Homeland Security, since it happened on Amtrak. We’d prefer to let
them believe that’s true.”

“So, when I was attacked
last night, that was all because they thought I was working with
Diego?”

“I’m afraid so. This thing
has started to take on a life of its own, Ms. Dunham, and if we let
you go now, with the way things stand, they’ll continue to believe
you’re a part of the plot to steal their heroin. Don’t forget they
have your credit card information, so they can show up on your
doorstep. We need to convince them that not only are you just an
innocent art patron, but also that Diego was just a kid who made a
mistake.”

“What does that
mean?”

“We’re going to put you back
on the train, but we’re going to also leave the package with the
heroin in your car and let them steal it. First we have to convince
them that you got the wrong package,” said Agent Devry. ‘They won’t
move in if they think this is a DEA operation. If they think they
triggered a terror alert, they’re much more likely to pick up the
trail once you’re off the train and snatch the drugs back, only
this time our people are ready. We’ll add a tracking device to your
shoe, so we can follow you.”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier
to arrest them?” I asked. After all, Warren was going to fire me if
I wasn’t back in time. I really didn’t want to lose my
job.