the young Russian soldier had found cover as Poli’s men chewed up the ground at his feet with a steady barrage. He reached the pile of crushed rock and ducked his head around the slope. Mercer cursed.
Poli was directing his men and there wasn’t a scratch on him. Mercer was a fair shot with a rifle but he was unfamiliar with the AK and hadn’t compensated for the wind’s effect on the light 5.54-millimeter bullet.
Mercer glanced back and saw that Sasha had reached the first row of small mine cars and settled his rifle on the side of one. He fired, picking targets who were covered from Mercer’s position but exposed to his. He dropped two of them before half the force swung their aim and raked the ore car. He ducked behind it as rounds ricocheted off the thick metal. Mercer and the young soldier named Ivan opened up, hosing the trucks with little regard to how much ammo they were using up. Ivan had managed to keep his rucksacks of magazines as well as the RPG-7.
Poli’s men sought cover behind their trucks as Cali and the heavy-set Russian woman, Ludmilla, added their guns to the attack. Three of the terrorists were down, two dead, and one had half his jaw shot away. Using all the cover fire, Federov ran from behind the train car, eating ground to reach one of the ore chute’s support pylons.
The forklift emerged from the mine once again. Judging by how the truck had settled, Mercer believed this was the last barrel Poli would load on it. He thought about using the rocket grenade but he only had the one, so he could only take out one truck, not both, and he had no idea how many barrels had already been loaded onto the train.
Poli’s men had no such shortage. A pair of RPGs streaked from behind one of the trucks and exploded on the far side of the gravel pile where Mercer and Ivan crouched. The fifty-foot-high mound of mine waste absorbed the twin explosions as though they were nothing, but a moment later the top of the pile shifted and a hissing avalanche barreled down the slope. It came down so fast that Mercer didn’t have time to shout a warning as he jumped out of the way. Ivan looked up and screamed as a towering wall of fist-sized rocks pounded into him. The sheer weight of rock crushed him flat and the rough edges tore away his clothes and flayed great sheets of skin from his body. He was dead before he was fully buried, but that didn’t stop Mercer from trying to reach him as more rock shifted and slid down the hill. Mercer recklessly waded into the avalanche, getting buried up to his knees in seconds and up to his thighs in just moments more. But there was nothing he could do. The barrel of the RPG launcher poking up from the ground was all that marked the young Russian’s grave.
Another RPG arced from behind the truck. Mercer watched its path as it slashed through the cold mountain air. Sasha Federov was behind one of the pylons and had just a couple of seconds to run before the rocket exploded against the metal stanchion. He was thrown fifteen feet by the blast, landing in a tangle of loose limbs, and when the smoke cleared he wasn’t moving.
Mercer fought to lift himself from the avalanche debris, tearing at the stones with his bare hands until his fingers bled. He heard the trucks’ engines fire. With Cali so far to the left, Poli had a clear path down the hairpin road to the railhead. The convoy would pass no more than twenty feet from Mercer, and if he didn’t get himself free he was dead.
Frantic now, he kicked and struggled, his heart hammering painfully in his chest. The trucks grew louder as they started across the facility. They fired barrage after barrage in Cali’s direction to keep her pinned. Mercer had seconds at most, and rather than loosening, the rubble seemed to be solidifying around his legs. What a stupid way to die, he thought fleetingly-standing thigh-deep in a pile of mine tailings so trained gunmen could use him like kids with BB guns going after soda bottles.
In one desperate heave he managed to free one leg. He lurched to his right, painfully wrenching his trapped knee to tear it from the earth. The lead truck rounded the massive pile as Mercer dove flat. His movements caused the heavy aggregate to shift again, and a small wave of rock slid down the mound and buried him under a foot of loose stone.
The trucks roared by, doing forty miles per hour, and while a couple of the terrorists noticed the rock slide, none saw the man hiding under the veneer of rubble. Moments later the vehicles turned down the first hairpin and vanished down the hill.
Mercer began to heave himself from under the rock, moving slowly because his body had taken a beating by the stones. He was almost free when Cali raced up to him, the two Russian scientists in tow. The man was catatonic, while the woman scanned the grounds warily.
Cali threw herself into Mercer’s arms, tears on her cheeks. “I thought you were dead.”
“The boy is,” Mercer said grimly, holding her tight. He wanted nothing more than to stand there forever, forget about Poli, the plutonium, and everything else and simply surrender to the embrace. Pulling his arms from around her neck took a force of will. “Sasha?”
“We haven’t checked.”
“See to him. I’m going after Poli.”
“How? They’ll have the barrels loaded before you get halfway to the train.”
Mercer looked over his head. “Like hell they will.”
He grabbed the RPG from where it stuck up from the tailings, checked that it hadn’t been damaged, and slung the long tube over his shoulder. The steady growl of the locomotive at the bottom of the valley deepened as the engineer made ready to pull from the ore depot.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to catch a train.”
The pylons supporting the ore chute had integrated ladders so workers could access the half-mile-long slide for maintenance. The metal was scaled with rust and the paint was badly flaked. With the RPG and an AK over his shoulder, Mercer climbed the ladder, wincing with the pressure of each step on his strained knee but thankful it would take his weight.
No sooner had he cleared the ground than he felt movement below him. Cali was climbing on his heels. He wasn’t going to make any chivalrous remarks. He could use all the help he could get.
The support column was eighty feet high and it took them nearly two minutes to climb. Their hands were cramped from the cold metal rungs, and Mercer’s eyes teared up because the wind was gusting to thirty miles an hour.
From the top of the stanchion they could see the ore-loading hoppers and the train far below, although their vantage wouldn’t let them see what was happening on its far side. The twisty road down to the depot looked clear. Poli would have had more than enough time to reach the rail spur.
Mercer helped Cali up onto the small platform next to the chute. “You sure about this?”
She threw him her trademark saucy grin. “As sure as you are.”
The chute was more than twenty feet wide, with curved sides to prevent ore from tumbling to the ground. The decades of rain and snow hadn’t rusted the metal. It was still bright from years of being polished by ore headed to the hoppers down below. Mercer repositioned the RPG so it was across his chest and cinched the AK-74’s sling around his arm before he and Cali climbed over the rim. The angle was steep and they had to hold themselves in place by planting their rubber-soled boots and holding on to the edge. Just before he sat, Mercer saw the locomotive lurch and heard the rail car’s couplings crash together as the train started to leave.
“Shit! Come on.”
When they sat, their view was blocked by the sides of the chute so it was like looking down a ski lift or a bobsled run. Mercer could feel gravity sucking at his chest as his eyes adjusted to the vertiginous scene. He took Cali’s hand and they eased their feet off the bottom of the chute. They began to slide immediately, slowly at first but the speed built quickly. Too quickly. Mercer tried to apply pressure with his feet to slow himself. Cali did the same and for a moment it was working. Then her shoe caught a seam in the metal chute and she flipped head over heels. As Mercer made to grab her, Cali careened into him and he too began to tumble out of control.
They somersaulted down the chute for fifty feet before Mercer managed to grab Cali’s collar. The move vaulted him over her prone form and he slammed into the chute hard enough to make it vibrate, but the maneuver stopped her from flipping again. Now flat on his back, Mercer eased his heels against the metal, careful to lift when he neared a seam, and had himself slowed enough to regain control of the slide.
“Are you okay?” he called over his shoulder, feeling Cali’s presence right behind him.
“I think so,” she answered.
“We’re almost there.” Mercer was glad she hadn’t asked about his condition. His back ached from the impact and he’d have a bump the size of an egg on his forehead if he survived the next few minutes.
They’d descended two thirds of the way to the ore hoppers, and now that they knew how to handle the slide, they rocketed downward, crisp wind whipping at their faces so their eyes streamed tears. With thirty feet to go,
