they could see the top of the train through the open hopper. It was still moving slowly but the last car was halfway through the loading trough. They had seconds or they’d drop twenty feet to the hard rails below.
“Hurry,” Mercer shouted and he and Cali took their feet off the chute completely.
They shot down the last section of the ore slide like arrows, the metal walls becoming a blur as they focused on landing atop the last rail car. Cali pulled slightly ahead.
The ore hopper was a long metal trough with steeply angled sides and an open bottom that allowed the crushed rock to stream into rail cars. Cali braced her feet when she reached the end of the slide, slowing herself just enough so when she was launched off the lip she didn’t crash into the far side of the hopper. The impact was still brutal, but she absorbed the blow and fell easily to the roof of the rolling boxcar.
Mercer had to contend with the RPG-7 as he came to the end of the chute, tugging the weapon back over his shoulder at the last second. He was in an awkward position when he shot off the end of the slide. Cali screamed his name. He slammed into the opposite side of the ore hopper, knocking the air from his lungs in a painful explosion of breath. He looked down to see that the rear of the train was almost past him. He pushed off from the hopper and fell through empty space.
His timing was a fraction off. He dropped clear of the chute and hit the very end of the boxcar, further bruising his aching ribs. With his legs dangling off the edge of the train, he struggled to find something to grab, but there were no handholds and he began to slide off. He looked down. Railroad ties emerged from under the car like an ever-lengthening ladder as the locomotive accelerated down the valley.
He slid farther, clamping onto the edge with just his elbows, his legs bicycling against the rear of the car as he fought to find purchase. He couldn’t support himself much longer-his body had taken too much punishment and he just wanted to let go. Instead he fought harder, kicking at the rear of the boxcar with his steel-toed boots, using his chin and the muscles of his neck to give him an ounce more leverage. Cali was running toward him. He had to hold on for a few more seconds, but he wasn’t sure he could.
A head emerged between their boxcar and the next one in line. Mercer saw it through Cali’s long legs. Then he saw a torso and an assault rifle.
“Behind you,” he gasped. Cali kept coming. Mercer managed another hoarse bellow: “Behind you!”
She barely slowed as she whirled around, flipping her Kalashnikov off her shoulder and under her arm in a fluid, almost well-practiced motion. She fired from the hip, sweeping across the gunman’s midsection, and continued to spin so she was still running toward Mercer. The three bullets that hit the gunman passed clean through, tumbling as they transited his body and tearing fist-sized chunks of tissue from his back. He fell between the two cars and hit the tracks.
Mercer glanced down as he felt Cali’s hands on his jacket collar. The gunman had landed across the tracks and the train’s steel wheels had sliced his corpse into three pieces.
“Hold on,” Cali panted, struggling to haul him back aboard the boxcar.
“If you insist,” Mercer said, knowing she had him. She heaved and he rolled over the edge of the car and onto his back, not caring that the RPG’s pistol grip was digging into his flesh.
Mercer gave himself just a second before getting to his feet. Poli wouldn’t just post one man to guard the train’s roof. And with the train continuing to accelerate down the valley, they didn’t have much time to stop it before it was going too fast for what he had in mind.
“Are you okay?” Cali asked. She’d seen Mercer wince when he put weight on his bad knee.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said grimly. “Come on.”
In a crouch they padded forward, and as they neared the coupling to the next rail car Mercer cautiously poked his head over the gap. It was clear. They leapt in unison and continued forward. The train was starting to vibrate as it sped past twenty miles per hour.
“Watch our backs,” Mercer said, fearful now that one of Poli’s men could still emerge from between the cars.
They leapt four more cars without seeing anyone and were a quarter of the way down the sixth car when three men began to climb up from between it and the next car. They spotted Mercer and Cali instantly. Mercer opened fire and saw an explosion of pink mist blow away in the wind as one of his rounds found its mark, but the other two men vanished back into the gap. Without cover, Mercer had to turn back and run. He grabbed Cali’s arm and they raced to the end of the car, scrambling down the ladder before the gunmen at the front of the car recovered. This situation was exactly what Mercer didn’t want. It was a standoff, and every second that passed meant the train was going that much faster.
He didn’t think through his decision. He just went for it. He handed Cali his AK-74 and hung the RPG from a tear in the boxcar’s skin. “Act like we’re both still here. Fire both weapons and weave back and forth so it looks like two people pinned here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Outflank them.”
Mercer ducked around to look up the length of the train. With the exception of the big door in its middle, the side of the railcar was a featureless wall of steel. The tracks ahead ran straight down the valley floor, boxed in by mountains on both sides.
“They’ll see you on the side of the train if they look around the corner,” Cali said, desperately trying to stop him.
“I know.”
Without another word, he climbed the rest of the way down the ladder and crawled onto the heavy coupling securing this car to the next. The tracks were only two feet below him, a blur of wooden ties and gray ballast stones. He ducked lower still and peered under the railcar. Beyond the bogie trucks that anchored the wheels was a series of girders and beams that gave the boxcar its strength. It would be difficult but not impossible.
Mercer moved the Yarygin pistol from his back into the front of his jeans and slung himself under the coupling. An occasional weed growing between the tracks whipped at his head. Ignoring the distraction, he reached forward and grabbed the bogie truck, feeling the power of the train’s engine through the cold metal. He shifted his weight, using the muscles of his legs and stomach to keep his body from sagging onto the ground, and slowly inched himself into the space above the axles.
He heard Cali fire a couple of shots as he eased himself above the whirling axles. Grease coated everything, but the railcar was so old it was sticky rather than slick. He flipped onto his stomach to jam his feet against one of the longitudinal beams and hold on to the other with his arms. Inch by inch he shimmied down the length of the car, his stomach quivering with the strain of holding his body in a shallow arch. The ground whizzed by a foot under his nose. He could no longer hear Cali because of the noise generated by the boxcar, but when he reached the forward set of bogies he caught the sound of the gunmen. He torqued a leg over the top of the bogie assembly, felt the axle spinning against his skin, and yanked the leg back. One hand slipped from the beam and for a precarious moment he was suspended over the tracks by one hand and a foot and felt himself tipping over.
Mercer scrambled to right his grip and keep his heart from exploding from his chest. He took a couple of breaths before trying again. This time his foot landed on one of the axle’s supports and he managed to awkwardly climb onto the truck. The front of the car was only a few feet away. He could clearly hear the men shooting back at Cali, precisely timed shots that made him think they had ammunition to spare.
He eased forward again and was reaching for the coupling when he felt the mechanism vibrate. One of the gunmen had jumped off the ladder and onto the coupling. Hanging one-handed like a gibbon, with his shoulder no more than an inch from the wooden ties, Mercer pulled the Yarygin pistol just as the gunman got on his knees to see if he could pull off the same trick Mercer just had.
In the microsecond of shock, Mercer saw he was Middle Eastern, hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and had perfectly capped teeth. He put a bullet through the man’s skull and swung out of the way as his body fell onto the tracks and vanished.
The gunman still on the ladder heard the shot and looked down just as Mercer swung back, extending the pistol over his head. He fired as fast as he could, absorbing the recoil with a stiff elbow to keep the barrel pointed at the assassin. He had to give the man marks for courage, because even as a wall of lead flew around him he tried to bring his gun to bear. He had the barrel pointed downward when he ran out of time. One of the nine-millimeter rounds entered his stomach just below the diaphragm and shredded his left lung before emerging out the top of his shoulder, nearly severing the arm. The next two hit him in the upper chest as he lost his grip on the railing and started to fall. Another punched through his head as the Yarygin locked back empty.
