from his cell on the right, dazed and gunless.
West went back to work on Wizard’s chains with his blowtorch. He had to do this fast.
Another grinding groan. More snow sailed past the window.
The train dropped another three feet.
The blowtorch cut farther through the chains before—shwack!—the flame sizzled through the final section of chain and Wizard was free.
“Come on, old buddy,” West said. “We gotta move.”
They looked up to see Stretch and Tank disappear through the interconnecting door at the top of the carriage—but also in time to see the Guard Captain step across their line of sight, staring daggers at West, blocking the way.
“This way,” West said, leading Wizard down.
“Down?” Wizard asked.
“Trust me.”
They came to the bottom door of the third carriage just as another metallic groan squealed out from nearby and—crack—the coupling connecting their car to the carriage beneath them broke loose and the bottom two carriages of the train, plus the rear engine car, just fell away into the void.
The three cars fell forever, soaring silently down into the great mountain chasm before they smashed violently against the jagged rocks at the base of the ravine, the engine car exploding in a cloud of flames and black smoke.
“No time to waste,” West said to Wizard. “This way.”
Dangling by their fingertips, they swung out along the underside of their carriage, their feet hanging a thousand feet above the world, before they turned upward, climbing up the outside of the third suspended prison car, using any and every protrusion on it as a handhold—the bars on the windows, hinges, handles, anything.
Up the side of the third carriage they went, moving quickly, Jack helping Wizard. They reached the gap between this carriage and the next one just as the Guard Captain and his companion did—moving inside the train —and so Jack and Wizard just kept on moving, scaling the exterior of the second carriage as quickly as they could until they reached its summit and clambered onto its flat upper surface—
—just in time to see the Guard Captain climb up into the safety of the next (and last) carriage above them, his junior companion still waiting to climb up after him.
It was at that moment that the Captain saw West—and something evil gleamed in his eye.
He reached for the coupling, despite the fact that his own man was still standing on the lower carriage. The junior guard yelped “No!” when he saw what was going to happen but West just moved, leaping for a grille on the upper carriage, calling to Wizard as he did so: “Max! Jump for my legs!”
Wizard jumped immediately, reaching for Jack’s waist as—
The Guard Captain disengaged the coupling.
The second carriage dropped instantly.
It took the junior guard with it, his wide eyes receding into the chasm, his mouth open in a silent scream all the way down.
But West and Wizard were still in the game: West now dangling from the bottom of the first carriage, with Wizard hangingfrom his belt!
“Max, quick, climb up my body!” West yelled, as Wizard quickly and clumsily climbed up the length of West’s frame, at one point using the folded carbon-fiber wings on Jack’s back for handholds.
The look on the Guard Captain’s face said it all. He was furious. He wouldn’t let that happen again.
He ducked back inside the carriage and started climbing—fast.
Jack knew what was happening instantly.
It was now a race to the next coupling.
“Go, Jack! Go!” Wizard yelled. “I’ll catch up!”
West charged up the outer wall of the final carriage, while the Guard Captain raced up its internal aisle.
They both moved quickly, clambering up the vertical carriage.
“Stretch!” West called into his radio as he climbed. “Where are you!”
“We’re up, on the precipice, but we got a prob—”
West knew what that problem was. He could see it.
The Hind chopper was hovering directly above him, a short way out from the cliff top, not far from the sharply tilted engine car hanging out over the edge—waiting for them, if they made it up.
Stay alive,he thought.As long as you’re alive, you have a chance.
Up he climbed, up the outside of the vertical carriage, moving like a monkey.
Then he rose over the final lip and stood…just as the Guard Captain emerged from the doorway there.
Jack had beaten him in this race, got there first by a bare two seconds. He stepped forward to unleash a fierce kick at the Guard Captain—
Only to see a gun appear in the Captain’s hand.
