“Listen,” she said to Clark on her tail, “I need you to do something for me.” She gave him his instructions. “Got it? Think you can do that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Where are you going?”

“Just something I got to do.” She ran upstairs back to the control room and found Lisa Frieze, gasping for air and losing blood, holding her bunched-up jacket against the wound. She was trembling, although Alex didn’t know whether it was from cold or shock.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Dan Morgan’s daughter, Alex. I’m here to help.” She took over the compress, letting Frieze relax her slack hand. It frightened Alex how pale she looked.

The tri-tone of the PA played over the loudspeakers, and Alex heard Clark’s voice begin. “I, uh . . .” Then, with a burst of confidence, “Help is on the way. The police are going to get everyone out of here soon. But for now, we need everyone to get away from the big steel doors. Please help anyone who needs it to stay clear of them. You should put at least thirty feet of distance between yourselves and the doors. I repeat, for your own safety, stay away from the doors.”

Alex cradled Lisa Frieze’s head. Her lips curled into a smile of pride. Well done, Clark.

“It’s going to be okay,” she told the FBI agent. “Help is on its way.”

“You’re a good kid,” pronounced Frieze.

4:42 p.m.

Morgan made his way toward the front of the train at a half-crouch. It was him against seven remaining men, and the element of surprise was all he had to keep him and the President of Iran alive.

He saw the movement two cars ahead. People. Gunmen.

He had to wait. He stood no chance without help and without a plan. He sat in the corner seat and waited for two minutes until, from the darkness of the tunnel, the train emerged out into the blue light of evening.

He took out the flip phone and dialed Conley.

“It’s Morgan,” he said when his friend picked up. “I need your help. Soroush sent out lots of decoy trains. I’m on the right one—the one Ramadani is on. Can you trace my location from this call?”

“No problem,” said Conley. “I’ll have Zeta run it and send the choppers to converge on it.”

“No!” said Morgan. “Do that, if you want to get a whole bunch of children killed.”

“What should I do, then?” he asked.

“Find the train first,” said Morgan. “But don’t move in. Leave it to me, at least for now. If I don’t contact you within ten minutes, that means I’m dead, so by all means, send in the cavalry.”

“Okay,” said Conley.

“Meanwhile, I need you to do something for me.”

4:58 p.m.

Alex Morgan felt more than she heard the serial blasts that brought down the emergency doors. A cheer from the concourse filtered in dim and faraway through the service hallways to the control room.

“Hear that?” she said to the delirious Frieze. “That’s our rescue. That’s the sound of us being saved.”

Frieze mumbled something through pale, trembling lips.

It was some three minutes before Alex heard the sound of heavy boots approaching. Three firemen appeared at the door carrying a stretcher.

“Here,” called Alex, waving to get their attention. They tramped over to her and laid Frieze on the stretcher. They lifted in a smooth practiced motion and carried her out. These guys weren’t wasting time, and she felt like she shouldn’t, either. She walked after them, keeping pace. Once they emerged into the concourse, they ran into the crowds, which were packed at every exit. The firemen moved toward the Lexington passage, Alex following. The crowd parted for the stretcher to pass, but Alex didn’t feel right taking advantage, so she hung back. She looked backward toward the main concourse, where the last stragglers were moving into the passage. She ran back to help usher everyone out to the exits.

That’s when she saw him. A little boy, about six, wandering out from the ticket machine nook across the concourse. Somehow, he’d been missed, left behind, and he was ambling toward the giant clock. The bombs would go off at any moment.

There was no time to think. Alex tore out at a dead run toward the kid. Hardly slowing down, she bent down to pick him up. She grunted and he squealed at the impact. He was crying as she ran after the evacuees in the Vanderbilt tunnel. The kid wailed in her left ear. She was sweating, her legs feeling heavier and heavier.

She was within sight of the outside doors, people still funneling outside, when the blast knocked her off her feet and sent them both sprawling. She looked all around her, woozy and disoriented, but in one piece. The child she had saved was a few feet ahead of her, sitting down, crying, but there was no blood. She looked back at the main concourse, where concrete and twisted brass littered the ground. No one was there.

A fireman helped her to her feet while another scooped up the child. They ran together until she finally reached the street, into the blessed cool air and the darkness of the city illuminated in yellow light.

5:13 p.m.

Morgan stood against the far wall of the train car, next to the door that would lead to the restaurant car. From what he’d gathered, the children were being held there, guarded by two men. The phone vibrated in Morgan’s pocket. He flipped it open and held it to his ear.

“The chopper is ready to broadcast the signal you asked for,” said Conley. “Are you ready?”

“Just waiting for your okay.”

“Ten seconds,” said Conley.

Morgan hung up and turned the volume to his radio receiver to the lowest setting short of muting it. He put the MP7 in his right hand.

The noise came as a quiet high-pitched hum—a feedback loop broadcast to every one of Soroush’s men’s communicators, each, if turned to a reasonable volume, now playing an intolerable loud feedback tone. He pushed the handle on the first door between cars, which sprung open on its own, then the second.

The two men, as expected, were distracted by the noise. One of them was to Morgan’s right, having looked up from tapping the device just long enough to see down the muzzle of Morgan’s handgun as he fired two bullets right-handed. With the MP7 in his left hand, Morgan took aim at the other, who was near the middle of the car, behind the bar. He had removed his earpiece, which he dropped onto the counter as he reached for his gun. Morgan already had the MP7 trained on him, and released a burst, hitting the man full in the chest.

That’s when he registered the high-pitched screaming of the hostages.

“I’m here to rescue you,” he said. “I need you to do what I say. Go back the way I came, all the way to the back of the train as fast as you can.”

One girl, taller than the rest, got up with a determined look on her face. “Come on, everyone,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Morgan kept an eye on the far door, edging his way toward it against the current of children. Someone was bound to come investigate the noise. He crouched behind the bar for the inevitable. It was thirty seconds before he heard the door to the front of the bar car sliding open.

All he had to do was wait. He felt their footsteps on the floor as they passed him. He stood once their backs were to him and shot two bursts from the MP7. The men fell to the floor of the train.

Two were left, one of them Soroush. Who would be expecting him, with the President of Iran as a human shield. The odds were stacked against him, and Morgan couldn’t trust this to chance.

He dialed Conley again.

“Conley? Surprise is blown. We’re going to have to take this in a different route. This is going to require some preparation.”

5:31 p.m.

Morgan, still crouched behind the bar, shifted his weight from his right to his left. He had spent a long time crouched here, waiting as the gears turned outside the train and as everything was being made ready for the plan. Soroush didn’t come, as Morgan had expected. It was too big a risk. All that was left was him and his second-in-command. He was scared and cornered, which made him equal parts vulnerable and dangerous.