Resurrection Day by Glenn Meade Read Free Book Online

towards him was Tom Murphy, the head of the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Division. At six foot four, he was a big-boned man of fifty-three with a bushy grey moustache, and Collins's boss. Behind him came two senior agents from FBI headquarters whom Collins recognised. 'Jack, I see you've got everything under control.'
    'We're just about ready to open the locker.' Collins explained about the Amtrak security tapes and Murphy looked hopeful.
    'Let's keep our fingers crossed they turn up something.'
    'You mind telling me what the devil's going on, Tom? All I got was a call telling me to get a team down here fast, that someone may have left a dangerous package in the locker. I was to secure the station, liaise with Amtrak security about the locker, and have the bomb squad standing by to open it up.'
    Murphy nodded. 'That's all you need to do for now, Jack. I'll take it from here on in.'
    'What do you mean?'
    'Just do as I say, Jack. Get the bomb guys over here, then get your men together, stay on the periphery and make sure the cops keep well back out of the way. When we're done here, stand your men down. Then you go home, get some sleep.'
    Collins frowned, puzzled, as he stared at Murphy and the senior agents accompanying him.
    'What's the story here, Tom?'
    Murphy was grim, shook his head. 'Sorry, Jack. Orders from above. From here on, it's my baby.'
     
    An Arab man stood in the teeming rain, smoking a cigarette, watching the activity outside the Union Station from across Columbus Circle, two hundred yards away. Mohamed Rashid was in his late thirties, a tough-looking stocky figure with olive skin. His hair was cropped short, dyed blond. He wore a gold earring and a leather baseball jacket with 'Yankees' emblazoned on the back. He walked back to the blue Explorer parked twenty yards away at the kerb, yanked open the passenger door and climbed in. Nikolai Gorev sat in the driver's seat. 'Well?'
    Rashid grunted. 'They've found it. Now let's finish what we have to do.'
    Half an hour later, in heavy rain, the Explorer pulled off the main Baltimore highway and turned east, down a minor country road. There was no traffic at that hour of the morning. The road was deserted and badly lit, and in the rain and pitch darkness Nikolai Gorev carefully watched his speed. Five minutes later, on Rashid's instructions, he pulled in and halted beside a pair of chest-high wrought-iron gates with a low stone wall on either side. A plaque was fixed to one of the padlocked gates: Floraville Cemetery.
    'Wait here,' Rashid told him. He slipped on a pair of thin black leather gloves, took a bulky package a little bigger than a brick from under his seat, and stepped out into the downpour. Vaulting the cemetery's stone wall, he landed on a gravel path. He walked for over fifty yards across the crunching stones, passing dark legions of headstones, until he came to a polished granite slab. Inscribed on the stone was a name: Margaret Coombs. Taking a notebook from his pocket, Rashid recorded the woman's name, her date of death, and the exact location of her burial. The grave was neatly kept, with a granite border, limestone chips covering the ground inside, and several bunches of dead flowers lying withered on the tomb, the falling rain drenching the crisp cellophane. Rashid took a pearl-handled flick-knife from his pocket and clicked the button. The blade flashed. He knelt and scraped away a section of the limestone chips until the wet earth beneath was exposed.
    Then he began to dig with the knife, scooping out the moist topsoil, making a recessed hole no more than a foot square. When he had finished, he placed the package neatly in the hole, replaced the earth on top, tamped it down with his gloved hands, then covered it again with the limestone. Removing a pencil torch from his pocket, he briefly flicked it on, making sure there was no evidence of the grave having been disturbed. His task completed, he stood, his body drenched, then trudged back, vaulted the