The other veterans and lawmen in his team lined up and stepped into the smoke.
Chapter 108
I’d freeze to death if I stayed where I was, and I hoped and prayed that’s exactly what would happen to that sonofabitch I was chasing. Close to hypothermia, I’d traveled way too far from the feed mill to walk back in a storm that didn’t show any signs of slacking off.
I needed to get somewhere warm and safe, fast. I had one remaining option, and that was watch for the rear-facing locomotive on the end and the shelter it would provide from the storm, if I could get inside the crew’s cabin.
The train was moving at a pretty good clip and that worried me. There was a good chance I’d slip on the slick rungs, and at that speed a slip could prove fatal.
It’s funny how your mind works. While I waited, I remembered a conversation I overheard up at the little wooden community store in northeast Texas. I hung around there a lot before we moved to Ballard, listening to the old men talk. One day the conversation drifted around to hobos and trains. A retired railroad engineer said that you never grab the ladder on the back end of a passing car, because if you miss, it’ll sling you around and under the wheels of the next one.
I heard him as clear as a bell in my mind. He spat a stream of tobacco juice and nodded as if explain some mystery of life. “Miss the leading end of a car, you’ll fall, but at least you’ll have the distance between the front and back wheels to roll out of the way.”
The coal train had picked up considerable speed by the time the rear of the bright yellow Union Pacific locomotive loomed like a giant ship. Finally wearing the gloves that were in my pocket, I grabbed the handrail on the approaching end and used the momentum to swing aboard the metal steps, praying that old man was right.
Chapter 109
The man in the hat was faster than DeVaca expected. He twisted and fired at the same instant DeVaca tripped over something buried in the snow and landed hard. A hot lance of pain almost made him pass out. He swept the muzzle of his weapon toward the coal car and held the trigger down until the magazine ran empty. Frightened that he might miss his final chance, he cursed at the shooting pain in his chest and side.
A voice that didn’t belong to his Demon kept demanding information. His head cleared enough to realize Chavez had no idea their once-successful terrorist attack was over. He’d had it with the obsessive little bastard. DeVaca ripped the earpiece away and flung it into a thicket of snow-covered prickly pear.
The world was blurry when he regained his feet. His glasses were lost under the snow somewhere in the vast, high desert. Shot, broken, in shock, and bordering on hypothermia, DeVaca grasped at thoughts that were fuzzy and disjointed. His breath was hot in his chest and throat despite the Arctic air.
The ever-present rumbling train was still there, appearing out of the swirling snow before fading from sight in a cloud of gauze. Despite the crushing pain, he broke into a trot and came within arm’s reach of the passing cars. The gravel underneath the snow played hell with his footing. Stumbling alongside, he struggled to focus on any handhold he could find.
A ladder passed and he made a lunge for it. His fingers slipped off the icy metal, and he grabbed again. The hand missing a finger was numb and didn’t cooperate when he seized another frozen ladder on the rear of a passing car.
The speed was too much. DeVaca’s feet flew off the ground. Flailing for balance, he hit and rolled. The Scorpion slammed into his face, breaking his nose and cutting a long slash in his forehead.
He cursed at a sharp pain in his right hand. He came back to his feet in a desperate run in the direction of the train’s travel. Snow crystals sprayed his face. Wheels clacked. He ran harder to match the train’s speed, determined to survive.
Throwing a frantic glance over his shoulder, DeVaca saw his last chance was the oncoming engine. A handrail and short stairway appeared. He lunged forward and missed. One more chance, and that was the steps on the nose of the rear-facing locomotive. He made a frantic grab and caught it with his left. The other refused to cooperate. With superhuman strength born of desperation, DeVaca jumped and pulled himself up with one arm until his feet found the icy rungs that were as easy to climb as stairs.
He reached for the other handrail and the stunned terrorist found his right hand was no longer attached to the wrist. His mind reeled as he gaped at the horrendous wound.
Chapter 110
I was surprised that swinging aboard was that easy. But there I was, climbing the engine’s icy steel steps. Despite another jolt of sharp pain in my damaged back, I whooped with joy, something I’d never done in my life. I was on the back end of the lifesaving locomotive that was moving in reverse. My muscles twitched and jerked from the effort and tension and I crouched on the landing until I could catch my breath and calm down.
In pretty good shape for the shape I was in, I rose and picked my way down the snow- and ice-covered steel walkway to the door at the locomotive’s nose. When I got there, disturbed snow and bright splashes of blood on the walkway proved my friend had been just as successful.
I was so mad I could spit nails. I had no choice but to root him out.
Chapter 111
DeVaca had no idea how he lost the hand.
He staggered around the nose of the engine. Blood stained the pure white snow. He wiped blood away from one eye and blinked it clear as he reached the steel door. Without hesitation, he turned the handle and found it unlocked. Unfamiliar with trains, he didn’t know if an engineer rode in the rear-facing locomotive. Unable to easily change magazines in the Scorpion with only one hand, he fumbled the pistol free with his damaged left hand and entered the dim interior.
The were no lights in the cab, but enough of a diffused glow revealed the elevated seats behind the control panel five feet above the entrance were empty. He was alone. He had to attend to the bleeding stump as fast as possible. The first door on the right opened into a disagreeable bathroom. He hit the light switch with his elbow, sending another howl of pain through his arm.
A stack of dingy hand towels on a shelf was what he needed. Wrapping one around the end of his stump, DeVaca used his belt both as a tourniquet and to secure the makeshift compression bandage in place. He dropped to the floor beside the metal toilet. Blowing bloody snot from his nose, he leaned back against the tiny room’s steel wall. The Demon fell silent, giving him peace for the first time in hours.
The pain from his grievous injuries was mind numbing. As his remaining hand warmed, the raw wound of his missing finger sent electric bursts of fire to his elbow. At the same time, the stump of his amputated hand fired white-hot flames of agony up his other arm.
Desperate for relief, DeVaca lowered one shoulder to slip the backpack off. He dug in an outside pocket until his remaining fingers closed on a bottle of painkillers. Thumbing the lid off, he shook half a dozen into his mouth and dry-swallowed them. He closed his eyes as the train rushed through the high West Texas desert. The pills hadn’t yet taken effect when Demon awoke and squirmed, giving him an idea.
At least he could take out a few more people if they boarded. Using two fingers, he unzipped the pack and rolled the steel canister of nerve agent onto the floor.
He cast the pack aside and heard the exterior door creak.
DeVaca snatched the pistol from the floor and waited.
It was’t long before the steel bathroom door cracked open.
Blood again filled one eye, but the other worked well enough to see where to aim. He fired twice at the crack and the door slammed shut. The train rocked along for several seconds before the door cracked open again and slammed before he could shoot again.
In the sudden quiet, a dark object rattled to a stop on the grimy floor between his legs. A hammer-blow concussion and bright explosion short-circuited all of DeVaca’s senses and silenced the Demon forever.
Chapter 112
The SCBA’s facemask was aggravating, but Ethan soon got used to it. He led the way down the hall past the
rotunda and into the first opening on his right, which he remembered was the elevator.
The door was open.
He stopped, swung his rifle’s muzzle toward the interior, and saw a female body slumped sideways in a chair. He reached in and tilted her chin upward. Blood matted her hair on one side where a bullet ripped a long furrow, exposing her white skull underneath.
He recognized Katie Bright, and his heart sank. The phone vibrated in his pocket. Without thinking, he put his hand over her chest and was shocked to feel a strong heartbeat.
Then she coughed again.
His phone vibrated again with a message alert.
Ethan spoke over his shoulder. “Got a live hostage here! Katie Bright, but she’s hurt bad.”
The hard, flat report of a gunshot rang out behind him, then others joined in, banging fast and loud.
Ethan whirled around. “Who’s shooting?”
Herman’s voice came back through the smoke. “Y’all keep an eye on that hole. Damn bad guy in a gas mask popped up like a jack-in-the-box. Gabe there was watching and put him down. I bet no more come up. He didn’t look like he felt good anyway.”
While Ethan’s team kept their rifles ready, Perry Hale and Deputy Frank Malone rushed the unconscious form of Katie Bright past the smoking hole and out of the building’s north entrance. Yolanda Rodriguez followed, watching for other dangers, covering for them as if she and Perry Hale had been a team for years.
Ethan watched them leave. “Y’all keep men posted here. The fire and smoke took the rest of them out, I ’magine, but there’s no tellin’. Good shootin’, Gabe.”
Herman slapped his friend on the back as Gabe grinned. He’d done something about one of the men who’d kidnapped his daughter. “Damn yeah.”
“Boy, you have got to learn how to cuss.”
Chapter 113
The terrorist was inside the locomotive. Streaks of blood froze on the deck, and a smear showed where he’d opened the door.
Railroad employees could be in there with him. No matter. I had to do something because I couldn’t stay outside.
Tensing for the bullet that would miss the ballistic vest and tear through my shirt, I squirted through the door, the .45 in my hand. A wave of delicious warm air smelling of diesel, oil, and grease wrapped around me as I swept the dark interior.
A set of steep metal steps led up to the empty driver and engineer seats. A groan from behind a door on my right caught my attention.
Nothing moved in the cabin, so I slipped the cell phone from my pack pocket and punched it alive. The glow illuminated fresh blood on the floor, the wall, and the door handles.
A clatter behind a metal door told me where the terrorist was hiding. Heart once again pounding like a jackhammer, I knelt and slowly cracked the door to peek inside. It was surprisingly light in what I realized was a tiny bathroom. He was alone, lying on his back with a pistol aimed at where my head should have been. The guy opened up on me. At least one round missed me by a hair and whanged off a steel wall behind me. I slammed the door.
“Sonofabitch!” I remembered a little gift from the previous owner of my ballistic vest. I slipped the flashbang out of the pocket. The primary ring was already gone. I pulled the secondary pin, pushed down hard on the lever to crack the door.
Pitching the flashbang inside, I slammed it back before he could shoot again. The explosion inside the steel box made my already damaged ears ring again.
The compressed detonation must have been enormous. I yanked the door open, feeling a quick gust of air sucking into the room. The terrorist sprawled on the floor beside a stained toilet. Despite the confined explosion in a four-by-four room, what was left of the guy still wasn’t dead.
He lay propped against the peeling wall, bloody bubbles popping on his lips. The flashbang must have landed right between his legs, because the insides of both thighs were cored out and blackened. His eyes and ears were bleeding, and he juked for breath. One hand was gone, the stump covered by a dingy towel. The other was whittled down to four fingers.
Even with all that, he had the muzzle of a Glock against a canister of gas and was trying to pull the trigger with what was left of his hand.
I followed my own advice and used enough gun, double-tapping the aggravatin’ son-of-a-bitch with the big .45. The hollow-points shelled out his skull, blowing brain matter all over the wall behind him.
The thing was over.
I latched the door and climbed the steps to one of the cracked leather seats on the platform above. The weak glow from the instrument panel was all I had to see by. A bottle of water vibrated in a holder attached to what looked to me like a dashboard. I cracked the seal and drained the whole thing in three long gulps. Feeling a little better, I took out my cell phone and it woke up to show one bar.
2% Power
Dismiss?
I typed one final message.
On train w drt bad gy. El P
I hit send even though the message was somewhat mangled. They’d figure out what train and where it was going by the shortened El Paso, and law-enforcement personnel across the state knew that DRT was short for “dead right there.” The blue bar shot across the top, and my phone died.
The train plowed through the gloom as snow swirled outside the thick window and the receding tracks disappeared into the gloom. At least Kelly wouldn’t be putting crepe on the door at our house, but it had been close.
The longer I sat there, the tireder I got. My eyes grew heavy.
I slapped my stained and dented hat on the dash and settled back in the seat. My adrenaline dump spent, I twitched a couple of times and drifted into a deep sleep as the locomotive traveled backward through the frozen desert.
Chapter 114
“My God.” No stranger to violence, Herman Hawke stopped at the top of the second-floor landing.
Ethan, Perry Hale, and the rest of the impromptu SWAT team looked around in awe. The devastation on the ground floor was stunning, but the destruction on the second level recounted the story of a desperate firefight. Spent shell casings littered the floor along with empty magazines. The paneled walls were splintered and full of bullet holes.
Perry Hale whistled. “Mr. Terrill said that him and Hawke held them from here ’til we blew the south end.”
Yolanda covered her end of the floor, never taking the AR from her shoulder. “This is unbelievable.”
“This whole day is unbelievable.”
Herman swallowed. “It don’t do to piss my boy off.”
Bodies sprawled beyond the landing, and another leaned against the railings. Herman made sure they were out of action and glanced downward. Keeping an eye on the next level above, his energy drained as if someone had pulled the plug on a bathtub.
He lowered his rifle and squeezed Gabe’s arm. “You know, if it’s all the same to y’all, I’d just as soon stay right here. I don’t need to see no more.” He made his slow way down the stairs.
* * *
Sheriff Ethan Armstrong took a breather two hours later at the Posada’s command post and checked his messages. The building was cleared and the living were safe. With one arm around his daughter, Gillian, he thumbed the screen to find Sonny’s texts.
A train whistle sounded at the same time Ethan reached for a landline and called El Paso.
Two hours later, a heavily armed SWAT team raced off an Amtrak passenger train at the Ballard depot to find they were late to the dance.
Chapter 115
I woke up when the train slowed, then stopped. The clouds were still heavy and dark, but we’d traveled out of the storm. I glanced out the window when we came to a stop to see an army of law-enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents waiting on both sides of the track.
Ethan had gotten my last message.
I took off my coat, pinned the badge back on my shirt so it would show, slid the window open, and stuck both hands outside toward the nearest hard-eyed officer dressed in combat gear. “Good to see you, boys.”
; His rifle snapped to his shoulder and the men around him followed suit. They reacted as if I were aiming a pistol. “Don’t move! Don’t move!”
Footsteps thundered up the outside steps and the door slammed open. The cab filled with shouting, combat-ready young men aiming automatic weapons. “Don’t move! Don’t move! Hands! Hands! Hands!”
I remained still and gave them a grin. “Wouldn’t think of it. Name’s Sonny Hawke. Texas Ranger.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Though I’ve been writing novels for the past five years, this first Sonny Hawke adventure came about due to a chance meeting with bestselling author John Gilstrap, who has become a great friend and mentor. Without John’s friendship, guidance, and wisdom, Sonny Hawke would never have been born, and my writing career wouldn’t be where it is today. He also provided the answer to the mystery in the basement. Thank you, my good friend.
I’d also like to thank the good people of Marfa, Texas, who will realize their town and wonderful courthouse are the foundation for my fictional Ballard.
Sincere thanks go to my college buddy Captain Landon McDowell, UP Railroad (Ret.), who provided valuable advice on trains, railroads, and schedules.
Chief Channel 5 meteorologist in Dallas, David Finfrock, opened his home to me while a thunderstorm raged outside and we pored over Texas and North American maps to create the super-snowstorm that covers the town of Ballard in this volume.
Dr. Curtis Culwell helped create the character Congressman Don Bright and his committee charged with border security. You’re right, Cap’n: Life’s one big adventure!
I always appreciate my sister-in-law Sharon Reynolds, Mike Miller, Buddy Minett, Steve Brigman, and my best friend of forty years, Steve Knagg. All caught issues and offered excellent suggestions.
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