The basics of a simple plan already clear in his mind, Clark returned to his roomette. He needed practice defeating the lock on his own door.
Clark had thought Kang might come out for supplies or even to leave the train for good in Denver, but he stayed in his room with the curtains drawn during the fifty-minute stop. Clark and a few others stayed on the platform enjoying the last moments of mountain air until the whistle blew and the conductor waved them aboard. The Zephyr began to slog steadily upward after leaving the city, slowing periodically when wires along the tracks registered rocks or trees from the steep mountainsides that might have fallen across their path. Snow and evergreens covered the slopes, falling away to a winding river below. An hour and a half later, the conductor announced that they would soon cross the Continental Divide through the six-mile-long Moffat Tunnel. He asked that everyone remain in their assigned car during the ten-minute trip under James Peak.
Two of the roomettes in 531 were vacant, allowing Clark to leave his roomette in 532 and step next door five minutes before they entered Moffat Tunnel from the east.
The train slowed some inside the narrow tunnel but still moved fast enough to double the noise level from what it had been outside now that they were in the belly of the mountain.
Clark waited a full minute, then made his move.
Peeking out the door of the roomette, he looked up and down the corridor one last time before he committed, then made his way quickly past the stairwell to the end of the car with the bedrooms, where he paused in front of Bedroom A. He knew the layout. The couch would be facing forward. A single chair near the window would face aft. He didn’t know where Kang would be sitting, but consoled himself that the room was so small it would hardly matter. He’d wrapped his handkerchief around the knuckles of his right hand, then held the Glock in his left, shooting two quick shots at the glass on the door, just above the lock. There was a chance he’d hit Kang, but he didn’t have a problem with that.
Moving purposefully once he began, Clark punched the glass away with the wrapped hand. The locking mechanism was relatively simple, a hooking metal latch with a second metal piece that swung down over the top, jamming the latch in place. Clark put two more rounds through the door to keep Kang on his toes as he pushed the metal tab out of the way. In less than three seconds from the time he first pressed the trigger, he stood to the side, pulling open the door and curtain in one movement.
Kang was seated on the couch, facing forward, which put his left hand nearer the window, forcing him to scramble for the pistol with his nondominant hand and bring it across his body to engage Clark. Still, he was incredibly fast for someone dazed and startled at the sudden attack. Fights in a room not much larger than a phone booth unfolded quickly. Clark rolled in, on top of Kang by the time he put a round in the top of the man’s knee. Kang tried to bring the Beretta around, but Clark’s left hand deflected it as he knelt on top of the injured hand. Kang let loose a ragged scream, almost too high-pitched to hear.
The Beretta slipped out of Kang’s hand, bouncing on the couch before falling to the floor.
Clark pushed off the couch cushion with his free hand and stood back, bracing himself against the curved swell of the bathroom door, his own pistol tucked in tight against his side.
“You speak English, Mr. Kang?” Clark asked, throwing in the name to keep the man guessing.
Kang nodded, chest heaving. His gun hand was busy clutching the bloody stump of the other.
“What’s your problem with Peter Li?”
“Who are you?”
Clark ignored the question. “Why attack the man’s family?”
Kang shook his head. Thinking. Stalling. Catching his breath.
The roaring noise of the train passing through the tunnel had covered the suppressed gunfire, but they were more than halfway through by now. The window was shot out, there was glass in the hall, and passengers would start to move around again as soon as they came out.
Clark tried again. “Who sent you?”
Kang shook his head.
Clark nodded to the bandaged hand. “I can get you some help.”
“A scratch,” Kang said.
“Are there more of you?”
Silence.
“Listen, pal,” Clark said. “Your friends are dead. You’re done. I can get you something for the pain, but I need to know who else is coming after Li.”
Kang glared, seething rage flashing in the otherwise dark pools of his eyes. “I have nothing to say.”
“You know,” Clark said, “I believe you.”
Kang was a germ, a bacterium that if not absolutely destroyed would only come back stronger. Still, to some — most, really — killing an injured man who was sitting, blinking up at you, was the act of a brutal barbarian. It was a point of fact that Clark could not argue. At the same time, he admitted another truth that civilized people almost always chose to ignore: Sometimes, the world needed a few barbarians.
