Irish Throwdown (What Happens In Vegas Book 4) by Matt Lincoln (short books for teens .TXT) 📕

on the desk could be used to review older footage, so we repositioned ourselves in a way that would allow the five of us to review the tapes as efficiently as possible. Seamus watched the first monitor, Junior was on the second, I was on the third, and the two police officers shared the fourth and final one.

I kept my eyes peeled for any suspicious behavior as I rewound and fast-forwarded through the security footage of platform four. Even playing the footage at twice the normal speed was slow going, as there were multiple camera angles to look through, and I didn’t want to go so fast that I accidentally missed something.

My eyes were stinging by the time I got through all the footage of platform four from the day before, and I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. We couldn’t be sure exactly how long ago the bomb had been planted. For all we knew, it might have been placed days before the broadcast even aired, so we needed to be as thorough as possible.

“You find anything?” I turned to look at Junior, who was still staring intensely at the screen before him.

“No,” he sighed as he paused the recording. “I’m pretty sure I saw a drug deal go down between a couple of teenagers, but nothing actually related to our case.”

I frowned, disheartened as I turned to my other side to ask the two police officers if they’d noticed anything peculiar. I paused as I caught sight of the footage playing on their screen, which was going so fast I could barely make anything out.

“That’s a little fast, don’t you think?” I remarked as I continued to watch the screen. “Aren’t you worried you might miss something?”

“Oh,” the shorter officer said as he looked up at me in surprise. “No, not really. Once you’re used to reviewing these kinds of tapes, you get good at speeding through them.”

That seemed like a dumb response to me. We were trying to find a bomb. Surely this wasn’t the time to be cutting corners.

“Hold on a minute,” I snapped as I saw something dark flash around the corner of the screen for a second. “Rewind the footage. I think I saw something.”

“What?” the taller officer responded, looking affronted at my outburst. “I’m perfectly capable of reviewing the tape. I have over ten years of experience. I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I ignored him as I shoved my way past him toward the monitor. I rewound the tape myself before slowing down the speed to its original velocity. I waited with bated breath as I watched the throngs of people milling around the train station, hurrying to rush onto and off trains as they all headed toward their destinations. Just as I thought, just a few seconds in, I noticed a figure in a dark blue hoodie casually make his way onto the tracks. The station was busy enough with people so focused on their own business that no one noticed him quietly ducking behind the edge of a wall and into the train tunnel.

“I have something!” I called to Junior and Seamus as I kept my eyes glued to the monitor. The two huddled around me to peer over my shoulder as the man emerged from the tunnel just a few minutes later and walked out of view of the camera.

“We need another angle,” Junior declared as he jumped to the next monitor. “What platform is that?”

“Six,” I responded and watched as Junior pulled up the right footage from the hallway outside platform six. I could see the man on camera walking away from the platform and toward the station’s entrance.

“He walked onto the tracks for just a minute before walking back off and leaving the station completely,” I concluded. “Seems pretty suspect to me.”

“Good work, gents,” Seamus grinned. “The turnstiles at the front of the station should have a record of who walked through at that time, assuming he used a train pass. I’ll let them know to start pulling those records.”

“Good,” I nodded. “In the meantime, we need to go find out what he did while he was down there.”

I gestured for Junior to follow me before taking off out of the security room and down the hallway. I’d never been in this train station before, but the hallways and platforms were well-marked and easy to navigate, and just a few moments later, we were descending the stairs onto platform six.

There were a few officers already down here, and they looked up at us as we approached.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?” one of the officers said as he stepped forward.

Junior stopped to explain who we were and what we’d discovered, but I barely slowed down as I continued my way through the platform and toward the tracks. As I jumped down off the smooth, polished tile and onto the soot-covered steel tracks, my mind was flooded with flashbacks from my mission in Japan, when I’d grappled with a suspect on tracks not unlike these.

I shook my head and refocused on my current mission. The tunnel was pitch black and foreboding. Seamus had said that the station had been completely cleared in preparation for us to conduct a search. I assumed that meant the trains weren’t running as well, but I still couldn’t help but feel small and vulnerable as I stared down the wide, cavernous train tunnel.

I used the light on my phone to illuminate my way forward as I explored the tunnel. I didn’t immediately spot anything out of place. I’d been expecting to find a bundle of wires covered in blinking lights and fuses, but instead, my eyes landed on a small black box covered entirely in tape. It was tucked against the wall just a few feet away from the entrance of the tunnel, and if it hadn’t been for the tiny scrap of parchment paper stuck to it, I might have missed it completely.

I walked toward the box and leaned down