Corsair

He almost dropped her when he started to laugh. He dumped her into the boxcar and nodded to Linda to slam the rolling door closed. “Murph, you set?” he called over the radio.

The sound of the approaching chopper grew by the second.

“I’m good to go.”

“Linc, get ready. We’re rolling in thirty seconds.”

On his way to the passenger’s seat, Mark Murphy flattened the Pig’s right-side tires. It took him two shots each despite the point-blank range. Linda had already helped Fodl into the rear cargo compartment, and Greg Chaffee stood with his head and torso thrust out of the open top hatch.

Juan threw himself into the driver’s seat. Ahead of them loomed a diesel-electric locomotive, a huge machine capable of hauling strings of ore cars up and down the mountain. He would have been concerned about it following them, but its engines were cold and would take at least a half hour to get running at temperature.

Max Hanley had designed the Pig with a twenty-four-gear transmission. Juan dropped it into low range and selected the lowest of the four reverse gears. Pressing his foot to the accelerator, he felt and heard the engine revs build while the twin turbos screamed. The railcar behind them weighed eighteen thousand pounds, according to the faded stencil on its side, and packed within was another five tons of humanity. From a dead stop, he had no idea if he could get such a load moving.

The truck shuddered as the deflated tires slipped against the slick steel rails.

Juan unclipped a safety device attached to the floor shifter and pushed down on a red knob. From the integrated NOS, nitrous oxide flowed into the engine’s cylinders, breaking down in the extreme heat and releasing additional oxygen for combustion.

The Pig didn’t have the torque, as Max had boasted, “to push the Oregon up Niagara Falls,” but the two-hundred-horsepower boost provided by the nitrous oxide was the kick Juan needed to overcome the train’s static inertia.

Starting out at barely a snail’s pace, the Pig started pushing the laden railcar along the track, and each foot gained increased their speed fractionally. The digital speedometer on the dash ticked to one mile per hour, and had reached three when the train began to pass under the skeletal support frame of the old coal-loading station where Linc had made his sniper’s nest.

When the Chairman had radioed they were ready to go, Linc had climbed down from the top of the rusted conveyor belt and stood poised over the open mouth of a coal chute straddling the tracks. The leading edge of the car rolled into view, and he dropped through space, landing and tumbling in one smooth motion. The coaling station had been designed for low-slung hopper cars, not the tall, boxy freight car, and as he pressed himself up to get to his feet he spotted the razor-sharp edge of another coal chute about to slice his head off.

He dropped flat, the chute passing an inch above his nose, and he remained perfectly still as they accelerated under a dozen more. Only when they had cleared the rusted bulk of the loading station did he dare draw a breath. “I’m aboard,” he radioed.

“Good,” Juan answered. “You’ve got more time behind the wheel of this thing. Get your butt down here and drive.”

For the first mile out of the mine, the ground was dead level, and the Pig was accelerating smoothly, so Juan hit the cruise control and unlimbered himself from his seat. In the cargo bed, he stuffed extra magazines for his Barrett REC7 into his pant pocket. “How are you two holding up?” he asked Alana and Fodl without looking at them.

“You have given me hope for the first time in six months,” the Libyan replied. “I have never felt better.”

“Alana?” he asked, finally able to give her his attention. He’d strapped a double holster around his waist for a pair of FN Five-seveNs.

“I haven’t done anything to deserve that fedora yet.”

“You’ve done plenty.”

“Ah, who’s driving the train?” Linc asked as he lowered himself past Greg Chaffee and spotted Juan.

“First corner isn’t for another half mile or more. We do this exactly like we talked about and we should make it. Oh, damn,” Cabrillo said, suddenly remembering something. He ducked his head back into the Pig’s cab. “Mark, the boxcar weighs nine tons. Throw in another five for the people. Math it.”

“I need its dimensions.”

“Guess.”

Mark looked at him, incredulous. “Guess? Are you kidding?”

“Nope.”

“ ‘Math it,’ he says,” Mark griped to Juan’s departing form. “ ‘Guess.’ Jeesh!”

Juan climbed out onto the Pig’s roof. He estimated they were up to fifteen miles per hour and continuing to accelerate. So far, so good, he thought briefly before looking up and seeing no sign of the helicopter.

He stepped aft and was bracing himself to leap up onto the boxcar’s roof when Greg Chaffee opened up with the M60. Cabrillo turned to see a camouflaged truck careen toward the stockyard. It was the first of the terrorists from the training camp. There were a dozen holding on to the rails of the truck’s open bed. Their gun barrels bristled.