‘Get ready,’ Cobb told them all. ‘This promises to be interesting. Oh, and pass the word not to shoot us.’
‘Why would they?’ Sarah asked.
Cobb replied, ‘We’re dressed as Black Robes.’
‘Maybe that’ll make them hesitate as well,’ Jasmine said.
‘Exactly,’ Cobb said.
The train was running hot and hard. In the glare of the single headlight, Dobrev could see a log fence where the track supposedly ended. He throttled up and tore through the barricade, then hit the end of the two-foot-high berm. Sparks spit from the wheels and lit the ground that was still dark beneath the dawning sky. The metal shrieked and the three occupants were jerked forward as the train slowed — but it did not stop. Like a snowplow it pushed through the sunbaked soil, which blew apart in clods. They heard the dirt crunch under the wheels, saw it fly like thousands of gnats in both directions. The screeching was terrible. Cobb hoped that the Black Robes were close enough to be deafened and pelted by BB-fast grains of dirt. It might not penetrate those robes, but it sure as hell would slow them down.
‘Don’t derail, don’t derail, don’t derail,’ was McNutt’s mantra for the seeming eternity it took to cover what was, in fact, less than a half-mile. The longer they moved, the leveler the ground and the easier it was to push through the mound.
And then the village came into view.
62
Garcia saw the Black Robes before anyone else did.
The attack started as distant black dots on a postage-stamp-sized section of his crowded computer screen. They emerged from the grove line bathed in the dull red, orange, and yellow glow of coming sunrise. The tech looked above his computer to the lip of the bluff itself.
‘They’re coming from the grove, three o’clock east!’ Garcia yelled, pointing.
Cobb ran through the engine to the command center and found the screen showing the northeast view. It was getting lighter outside every minute, and the train was picking up speed.
‘They either want to follow us or escort us in,’ Cobb decided. ‘Either way-’
‘They ain’t,’ McNutt seethed, charging past him toward the freight car.
‘What are you going to do?’ Cobb demanded.
‘Welcome them with open arms, and I do mean
Cobb ran back to the cab. He and Dobrev exchanged intent glances, then both watched as the village came closer through a line of trees — one that would just allow the train to squeeze through. They also saw the honor guard horsemen waiting with their rifles.
‘Other side!’ Cobb yelled at Jasmine. ‘Have them ride along the far side. Let the train take the brunt of the attack!’
‘Viktor is way ahead of you,’ he heard Jasmine say in his ear.
Cobb smiled grimly, gripped Dobrev’s shoulder reassuringly, then ran to the gap between the engine and the command center. He balanced there, staring carefully off to the east. He saw the Black Robes coming around the sloping bend in the distance.
They were on IMZ-Ural ‘Cossack’ motorcycles, each with a sidecar. They were made in Russia, based on the superior BMW sidecar cycles of World War II. They were designed to battle storm troopers and Panzer tanks in the brutal terrain and climate of the Eastern Front. They could easily take this landscape and this ancient train.
Cobb recognized some of the weapons in the riders’ hands: machine guns, fifteen-round automatics, even the shotgun he had declined all those hours ago. He looked at the Uzi, essentially ineffective at this range.
The horsemen who were unlucky enough to be within range fell under a peppering of fire.
As Cobb watched, McNutt shot the motorcycle driver closest to the back of the train. The man’s head erupted like a popcorn kernel and the cycle veered off, the sidecar passenger shrieking.
The shooting had the proper effect. Now that they knew they were in range of McNutt’s weapons, the cyclists slowed down and fell back.
Cobb raced back to the cab. Through the windshield he could see the village up ahead as if it were a diorama model. He could actually pick out Jasmine and Garcia at the front of a long line of rifle-toting villagers. He saw Borovsky astride a horse, pointing and barking out orders to the riders. He saw all the people start to surge forward as the train entered the trees.
He motioned for Dobrev to slow to allow people to get onboard. The Russian understood. They would be safer hunkered in the command center or armory than they would anywhere else. Those who could grabbed the train and climbed on. Those who couldn’t tried to keep up for protection. The rest sought cover wherever they could find it. It had been explained to them that the train would be coming back this way shortly.
At least they hoped.
Cobb knew where everybody was except for one person.
‘Sarah!’ he shouted. ‘What’s your status?’
There was no answer. Cobb stared slack-jawed at the cave entrance just a few hundred yards away.
‘Jasmine, Garcia, where’s Sarah?’
‘We don’t know!’ they yelled back.
Cobb felt a familiar, unpleasant burning in his gut.
Meanwhile, some younger, stronger villagers had hopped onto the slowing train to help their elders aboard. They started filling the command center, the freight car, and the flatbed as McNutt kept up a steady stream of defensive fire behind them. More men joined him with their old carbines.
Cobb ignored it all. He just stared straight ahead as they passed through the village. There was enough light now for him to make out the geography ahead. He saw, about a mile in the distance, the back end of the tunnel. He grabbed the binoculars and looked ahead, focused. The wall was still intact. If Sarah had fallen, or if the unstable explosive had knocked her out or even killed her, this was going to be a very short trip.
Borovsky rode alongside, his head bobbing in the cab’s east window.
‘Go back!’ Cobb shouted, pointing hard. ‘Protect the rear of the train!’ The colonel nodded and set off to do just that. Now, Cobb knew, if the train crashed, at least they would be in a better position to mount a last stand.
Cobb felt a hand on his arm. He turned to see what Dobrev wanted. Cobb saw something he wasn’t expecting: the engineer staring straight ahead in amazement. Cobb followed his gaze and saw her.
Sarah was fifty yards away, running from the stone wall, wearing only the long-sleeved T-shirt and matching leggings. Having removed her shoes for the climb, her feet were bare and her toes were bleeding. Her face was smeared with dirt. Her blond hair was wet with sweat, hanging down in ringlets around her burning eyes.
‘I couldn’t blow it from the inside!’ she panted through his earpiece. ‘That much dynamite … my ears …’
‘Right, of course,’ Cobb grinned. ‘So how …?’
‘The rocks were loose on top,’ she said. ‘I pushed one out and climbed down. Sorry I didn’t answer.’
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘So how about-’
‘Blowing this sucker?’ she said. ‘I’d rather not get buried. Give me another few seconds.’
Cobb motioned for Dobrev to slow the train. He did a quick calculation and took Ludmilla to half-speed, about thirty-five miles an hour — still fast enough to keep cutting through the dirt embankment. It was falling apart easily now that the terrain was level.
Sarah was still running. Her right hand was up, the red button on the end of a detonator stick just beneath her raised thumb. The expression on her face was one of exhausted madness.
Her lips moved as she ran.
‘Sure hope this works, Jack,’ Cobb heard in his ear. ‘In three … two … one …’
And then her thumb went down.
Twenty yards away, Sarah disappeared in a billowing cloud of white as the hill behind her exploded up and outward, as if it had been shot from the center of the earth.
