The Edge

He had caught Alpha and Bravo staring at him, at different times, but he had made no reaction. These were known, in Devine’s world, as target glances. Charlie, who was wearing a Madrid Real ballcap, had never looked at him, but she had surreptitiously eyed the two men while getting something from her bag. Her movements were mildly tensed, even robotic, he’d observed. She was trying overly hard to appear normal, which was causing her anxiety. Stress activated the sympathetic nervous system, the flight-fight-or-freeze part of the body that present-day humankind could thank its cavemen ancestors for. Fear did things to a body physiologically. The mind could screw with you in ways you could hardly imagine. In trying to save you, its stressor signals could actually kill you with a heart attack or render you incapable of saving yourself. Or, in his case, blow a plan to kill someone right out of the water, and give the potential victim a chance to survive.

Devine analyzed the situation exactly as he had been trained to do, every contingency, every weak point. The men had never removed their overcoats even though the climate inside was quite comfortable. In fact, Devine had taken his parka off because he had felt warm.

Keeping their hands in their pockets, in particular, was an informed tell of malevolent intent, because hands were a necessary accompaniment to a primary weapon, usually a gun. And they had target-glanced Devine not once but twice. Finally, they had never left their seats as far as he could tell. There were no food or drink containers at their tables. That completed the Rule of Three for Devine. A trio of behavior patterns that were out of the ordinary meant you needed to come up with a plan if you wanted to walk away under your own power.

Well, I’ve got at least four warning signs here, because of what I saw on my gear bag, so I need to get my shit together.

Devine checked his watch once more and then eyed his bag. After he’d gone to the dining car he’d come back to find that the zipper was three teeth above where he had left it; and, in just the right light, he had seen the whorls of a thumbprint on the pull tab, a thumbprint that was assuredly not his. There was nothing in his bag other than clothes and a toiletry kit; otherwise, he never would have left it unguarded. He was also kicking himself for not bringing a gun with him on this trip, but that would have been problematic for a number of reasons.

At the border station of Domodossola a contingent of the Swiss Guard boarded to do a customs check. Devine was asked if he had anything to declare and how much cash he had on his person, and he had to show his passport. He watched carefully without seeming to as they asked the same of the other three passengers. He couldn’t see the passports of the two men, but the woman’s appeared to be a post-Brexit UK blue and gold, which mimicked the original colors that had been in place on British passports since 1921.

Later, he eyed the window as the train began slowing. They pulled into the town of Brig. No one got on in first class, and no one got off, except for the Swiss Guard contingent. For a moment Devine thought about exiting the train, too, or telling them of his concerns with the other passengers. However, he had his plan now and he was sticking to it. And he wasn’t trusting anyone right now, not even the Swiss Guard. The opponents he was battling had the resources to buy pretty much anyone and anything.

And these foes of his had great incentive to wish Devine harm. Working on behalf of the United States, Devine had helped foil a ballsy attempt by some powerful if unscrupulous interests to promote global unrest for pure profit, with the added kicker of overthrowing several governments hostile to the players behind this scheme. It seemed as long as people lusted for wealth and power, this crap would just keep happening. And one day they might just succeed in taking over the world, thought Devine.

The train glided away from the station. The two attendants came through, and then, seeing no new passengers, or anything that needed their attention, other than Devine handing one of them the trash from his meal, they left through the opposite end of the train car to do whatever attendants did when their official work was done.

The train speed was posted on a digital screen attached to the bulkhead at the front of the car. Devine watched it rise to 180 kilometers an hour before it started to drop. He did the mile-to-kilometer calculation in his head to arrive at the length of time the train would be in the Simplon Tunnel.

Twelve miles is nineteen kilometers. Doing that in eight minutes would mean a constant speed of... right.