The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
John Godey
 It starts as a normal day on a subway, but the normality is interrupted by the hijacking of a subway train, on the number 6 train. Four men armed with submachine guns detach the lead car of the train and take it and 17 hostages into a tunnel. The hijackers are lead by Ryder, a former mercenary; Longman, a disgruntled former motorman; Welcome, a violent former Mafia thug; and Steever, a powerful, laconic brute. They threaten to execute the hostages unless the city pays one million dollars in ransom. While the city rushes to comply, transit police try to puzzle out the hijackers' plan. They don't realize that Longman has figured out how to bypass the "dead-man's switch", allowing the car to speed along the track by itself (with the police chasing it while driving on surface streets) while the hijackers escape through an emergency exit. As they prepare to leave, however, Ryder and Welcome begin to argue, ending with Ryder fatally shooting Welcome. The delay allows one of the passengers, an undercover police officer who jumped off the train as it started to speed away, to shoot Steever. Longman escapes while Ryder shoots the passenger. As Ryder is about to administer a fatal head shot, he is himself shot dead by DCI Daniels of Special Operations Division. The novel ends with Longman's arrest.