Hope Is The Thing With Feathers

A Picture of Calm

3:13 PM, 276 miles from the coast of France

The french countryside is not enjoyable when your vantage point is from inside a train car.

Trees, hills, and the flora and fauna seem gray and colorless when viewed from a fog spotted train window.

Nevertheless, she is not on this train to view the landscape.

This train is getting her to where she needs to go.

She opens her satchel. After rumbling around in the depths of the bag for a while, she comes up with a few euros.

Gripping them in the cup of her palm, she slowly stands up and yanks open the sliding door.

Her neck swivels as she looks down the long hallways in search of the snack trolley.

Her three-inch heels clack against the wooden floor in the hallway.

Peering around a wall into the area where the trolley stays when it isn't trundling through the train, the girl smiles at the trolley woman, who has fallen asleep next to her wares.

The girl slips past the snoring woman and takes off her heels, slinging them over her shoulder.

She walks purposefully but silently, nearing the conductor's car.

When she reaches the door, she takes out a paperclip.

While she unfolds the small piece of metal, she hums Beethoven's Flight of the Bumblebee.

A panicked tune to opposite the picture of calm.

With no hesitation, the girl carefully inserts the jagged paperclip into the locked door.

She twists the makeshift lock-pick and listens for the turning of the tumblers inside the door.

After hearing the telltale whirr of the metal gears, the girl slightly smiles to herself.

She silently opens the door.

Inside the conductors cabin, there are a thousand buttons and knobs and levers that do millions of different things.

The girl needs to know only two.

And she does.

Placing one foot into the warm little room, the girl pulls out a small metal tube from under her belt.

She observes the back of the unsuspecting conductor's head for a few still seconds.

Dipping a sharp dart into a tiny canister, she deftly loads the tube and places it to her lips.

Sucking in a deep breath, she puffs on the tube.

When the conductor wakes up a number of hours later, he will sit up in the train cabin with a wicked headache.

He will wonder why the train is stopped.

And he won't think about the girl.

She will be long gone.

*****

The girl enters the conductor's cabin fully, slowly walks over to the red lever.

She pulls it with a red-polished fingernail.

As she increases pressure on the piece of metal, she can feel the hulk of the train around her slowly coming to a stop.

She knows from past experience that if she yanks on the breaks too suddenly, the passengers begin to ask questions, the kind normally dangerous for the girl.

Once the train comes completely to a stop, she pulls out a lighter and turns an almost invisible dial on the side.

She presses a smaller button next to the microphone and flicks on the lighter.

What comes pouring out of the small machine isn't fire, though.

A man's voice, sounding rough from years of cigarettes, is heard by all of the passengers on the train.

They look up from their books, or papers, or daydreams to listen to the voice of the conductor.

"Passengers, this is your conductor speaking. Due to an unforeseen natural gas explosion .7 miles ahead, this south-bound train to Nice will be delayed approximately 3 hours. Complimentary suppers will available. The cart will come to each cabin. Thank you for your patience."

The message was repeated in French and Spanish.

After a burst of static, the message was over.

Most passengers went back to their books, newspapers, and daydreams without any care toward this new development.

Others appeared slightly annoyed at the lengthy delay; still others were bemused at the cause of the stoppage.

But none of them saw a girl, probably nineteen years old, dressed in a blue turtleneck sweater and black jeans get off of the train at the last car emergency exit (for which she had disabled the alarm while it was still at the train station in Paris).

None of them saw her open her bag and slip a Heckler and Koch Mark 23 pistol into the waistband of her jeans.