“Nyet,” the controller said. “You have final weapons release authorization.”
“Roger,” Trofimo said, and he glanced over at his wingman, nodded, then turned back to his look-down shoot-down system, fired both rockets, and peeled off to the right.
At the last moment he thought he’d seen two people jumping from the rear car, while a third person was climbing up on the roof, but he wasn’t sure.
By the time he made his turn and lined up with his wingman for a second attack run, it wasn’t necessary. The train had literally blown itself apart at the seams, probably from ammunition and ordnance stored aboard. Every single car was burning furiously, and the locomotive was lying on its side in an embankment below an abandoned factory, flames and greasy black smoke shooting two hundred feet into the sky.
“Mission complete,” Trofimo radioed. “We’re returning to base now.”
“Roger,” his controller responded tersely.
McGarvey and his daughter crouched in a ditch less than fifty yards from the furiously burning wreckage spread out on both sides of the railroad right of way, as the two jet fighters that had caused the destruction screamed off to the south. The heat was so intense it made their eyes water.
“Time to go home, Liz,” he said.
Elizabeth looked at her father, and smiled. “I bet Mom won’t believe a word I tell her.”
McGarvey had to smile back. “I don’t think she will. This one will be our little secret.”
“And Jacqueline’s too. She’s in love with you, and I have a feeling she’s not the type who’s going to let you simply walk away.”
“Maybe you’re right, Liz,” McGarvey said as he heard the first of the helicopters coming up from the south. Time to get out? he wondered. Maybe. But then he’d been asking himself that same question for the past few years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Hagberg is an ex-Air Force cryptographer who has traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean and has spoken at CIA functions. He also writes as Sean Flannery, and has published more than a dozen novels of suspense, including High Flight and Kilo Option. He makes his home in Florida.
