by Jack Du Brul
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, 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 loo
ks 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.
The gunman hit the coupling and rolled off to follow his partner as so much litter on the tracks.
Mercer heaved himself up and climbed the ladder. He waited while Cali fired off a three-round burst and then he shouted, “Cali. All clear.”
“What?”
He thought to himself that if he was calling out to her she should realize it meant he’d made it and it was clear to come forward. “It’s clear. I got them. Bring the RPG.”
He looked up as she scrambled onto the roof of the boxcar and he too climbed up. “Hurry,” he urged and she broke into a run.
“God, you’re filthy,” Cali said when she reached him. She gave him back his half-empty assault rifle.
“Yeah, but you should see the other guy.”
She made a face. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
On the last car before the locomotive, Mercer stopped and set his AK onto the roof. Hot exhaust spewing from the locomotive stung their eyes and made the air difficult to breathe.
“This is close enough,” Mercer said. Ahead of them they could see the tracks running down the valley. The rail spur was so straight that it looked like they could see forever.
He checked over the RPG, making sure he knew how to use it. “I think the train’s clear so why don’t you start back.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Blow the tracks a couple hundred yards ahead of the train and derail the whole thing. We can jump off the back.”
She looked him in the eye. “We go together.”
Mercer made to argue, but every second saw the train going faster and faster. A leap off the back of the train was dangerous enough. It would be suicide if it was traveling much faster. In fact just to be safe he would need to give the engineer time to slow down to avoid hitting the destroyed section of track.
Without a word he hoisted the rocket launcher onto his shoulder, aimed at a spot three hundred yards ahead of the train, and pulled the trigger. The eighty-five-millimeter missile shot from the tube and an instant later the motor ignited, blasting Mercer and Cali with a wave of hot gasses. The fins deployed as the missle rocketed ahead of the train, zeroing in exactly on the spot Mercer had aimed for. He had already dropped the tube and was turned to start the mad race to the end of the train when he saw the rocket motor cut out and the missile drop like a stone. It hit the tracks and exploded less than two hundred yards in front of the speeding train, sending up a shower of loose ballast stones and tearing one of the rails off the ties.
He and Cali started to run, lurching slightly as the engineer slammed on the brakes, creating a keening screech like nails across a blackboard amplified a thousandfold.
Mercer ignored the pain in his knee, sprinting on his toes, his lungs pumping in time with his pounding heart. Next to him Cali ran with the grace of a natural athlete, her head high, her lips only slightly parted. He knew she could have run even faster but she was determined to keep pace. They took the leap onto the next car like a pair of Olympic hurdlers, with barely a check in their speed.
Behind them, the locomotive barreled on toward the ruined track, her antiquated brakes fighting her massive inertia. It was a losing battle. The one-hundred-and-eight-ton TEM16 diesel-electric hit the broken rail doing twenty-seven miles per hour. When the right side wheels hit the ground, they dug into the hard earth, plowing a deep furrow for thirty feet before the entire locomotive tipped onto its side. The coupling to the first car in the train was wrenched to one side and the car jackknifed, splitting in half as it slammed into the back of the engine.
Cali and Mercer leapt onto the next car, feeling the vibrations of the destruction behind them through their feet. Neither dared look back.
The second car came loose and rode up and over the first, tumbling it like a log as the locomotive’s belly tank ruptured and the four thousand gallons of diesel fuel she carried spread out in a small lake.
They continued even faster, running beyond what either thought they were capable of, the sound of the awful destruction behind them never seeming to recede as they ran from it.
Even with the train slowing, they jumped to the second car from the end an instant
before the one they left slammed into the pileup. That car had a structural flaw of some kind because when it hit, the front of it accordioned, metal shearing and tearing as though it was paper.
The gaps between the trains were only about four feet but as Cali and Mercer neared the rear of the car Mercer shouted jump with five feet to go.
Cali did as he ordered, and as they launched themselves from the car, it hit the one before it. The coupling to the last car broke free as the second boxcar was pulled off the tracks and onto its side, falling as if in slow motion, spreading ballast stones in an arc as it tore into the ground.
They landed hard on the last car, both of them knocked off their feet by the impact. Mercer looked back. With the preceding car pulled bodily from the tracks, the last of the rolling stock had a clear path to the tangle of destroyed train cars. It had slowed enough so he threw an arm over Cali and together they held on as it hit. Most of the energy of the collision was absorbed by the squashed cars in front, so it felt like nothing more than a mild bump.
Cali and Mercer shared a surprised look, then burst out laughing.
“I think this is our stop,” Mercer quipped and Cali laughed even harder.
But their laughter was cut short when both smelled burning fuel at the same time. They scrambled to their feet and ran to the rear of the car. Cali descended the ladder first, with Mercer right behind, hooking his feet outside the rungs so he could slide down the ladder like a submariner. They ran for a couple hundred yards before turning back.
The railcars were piled three high in places. Two of them were flipped over on their roofs, and as Mercer and Cali watched, the spreading pool of diesel consumed the wreckage in a wall of flame that grew to a hundred feet.
Mercer put his arm around Cali’s slender waist and she snuggled into him as they watched the inferno mutely, confident that Poli was dead.