by James Hunt
“No!” Sarah said. “If I don’t get to do my jokes, then you don’t get to do yours.”
“Check under the beds,” Grace said, changing the subject quickly. “They would have believed that anything that needed protection should remain close to them, and that room was where they felt the strongest connection.”
Sarah flipped up the mattress on the left side, finding nothing. She did the same to the mattress on the right and uncovered a brown envelope that had indented the bottom portion of the mattress with its thickness. “Jackpot.” She tore the top open and dumped the contents on the bedspread.
Crude drawings and handwritten lines of code were sketched in pencil, some of the images smudged. “It’s either the device they created for Grimes or the world’s most elaborate double-sided dildo.” Sarah flipped the sketch to its side, tilting her head.
“I’m one hundred percent certain it’s the device they created for Grimes,” Bryce said, manipulating the display on her arm. “There’s a safe house a few miles from your location. You can upload the sketches there, and I can start deciphering whatever type of Frankenstein-like monster they created, but—”
The earpiece crackled, then whined a high-pitch squeal that nearly left her deaf. “No need to shout about it, Bryce,” Sarah said.
“Did you enjoy your trip to Tehran, Agent Hill?”
Grimes’s voice didn’t even cause Sarah to break her stride out of the bedroom. Sarah rolled up the papers and headed for the front door, her boots smashing into the stained carpet. “Let’s just say I’ll never use Airbnb again. Three-strike policy.”
“I saw the report on those Mossad agents,” Grimes said. “It’s good to know you can still walk the walk after talking the talk.”
“It’s gotta be driving you crazy that you still haven’t found a way to beat me.” Sarah stepped out of the house and squinted from the bright and sunny afternoon. “But don’t be too hard on yourself. I know what stress can do to performance.” She quieted her voice to a whisper. “I’ve heard they have a pill for that if you’re interested.”
“You are not as good as you think you are, Agent Hill.”
Sarah pondered that for a moment, tilting her head from side to side as she made her way toward the safe house. “No. I’m definitely as good as I think I am. So what do you have for me next, Grimey? Another assassination attempt? Preventing a military coup? Finally breaking that stick off that you’ve had shoved up your butt for the last twenty years?”
“I’ve arranged for the release of a prisoner held by the French. He is a high-level official for the Islamic State and will be deported back into Syria. He was the mastermind behind plots that killed thousands. The French weren’t happy to see him cut loose, but their alternative was much worse.”
“I’m not some gopher that will run your errands for you, Grimes.” The playfulness had waned, and Sarah felt the hot rush of anger flood her veins as she neared the safe house. “There isn’t any scenario in which you come out on top.”
“We’ll see about that.”
The call ended, and with her hand on the door to the safe house, Sarah paused, then stepped inside and exchanged her civilian clothes for her regular tactical gear. “He’s making it personal.” Sarah loaded her Colts. “This isn’t about the GSF. This is about me.”
“I think it’s about both,” Grace said.
“Holy shit, Grace, you scared me.” Sarah’s eyes widened, and she let out a long breath. “I forgot you were even there, you sneaky minx.”
“Sorry,” Grace said. “He does sound stressed, and that added strain could make him increasingly volatile.”
“He hasn’t been willing to pull the trigger yet,” Bryce said.
Sarah zipped up her jacket and cracked her knuckles. “That’s because he’s waiting on something. Whether that’s for me to fail or us to find him, we’ll know soon enough.” She stepped back out into the sunlight, shutting the door behind her. “I’ve got a train to catch.”
7
The gravel along the road that ran through the densely covered forest was loose. The tires of the four-wheeler slid precariously over the road, kicking back small geysers of soil. Sarah, dirt and mud streaks along her arms and legs, turned a sharp right, two of the tires momentarily lifting off the ground as she rounded the corner. “Do we know which train car he’s in?” Sarah shouted over the whine of the four-cylinder, working overtime on the steep terrain.
“From what Mack was able to get out of Mallory, it looks like the French put him somewhere in the middle,” Bryce answered.
The four-wheeler leapt over a small hill of dirt, tree roots, and grass. The shocks bounced upon landing, absorbing the majority of the impact. “And how many boxcars does this train have?”
Bryce paused. “Twenty.”
“Nothing like a good game of hide the terrorist.” Sarah twisted the throttle on the handlebars hard. Vibrations from the acceleration rattled both arms. The chug and clack of the train suddenly overtook the noise of the four-wheeler, though Sarah still didn’t have a visual. “I feel like one of those bank robbers from the old western movies. Except I’m riding a four-wheeler instead of a horse. And I’m in Turkey instead of California. And I’m trying to kidnap a terrorist instead of stealing gold.”
“Yup,” Bryce said. “Exactly like those old western movies.”
On the next bend, Sarah veered off the dirt road and aimed straight for the train tracks. The four-wheeler’s tires slipped and spun on the loose mountainside gravel, but as she twisted through the thick forest, the noise from the train grew louder, and after a few minutes, the bright headlight of the train’s engine barreled down the tracks.
Sarah’s knuckles blanched as she revved the engine, the seat between her thighs rattling and shaking like an earthquake. The train sped quickly over the rails, and Sarah pulled up along the side, dodging tree trunks and ducking below branches in her pursuit.
As she drew up parallel to the train, it started to pull away along the curve of the mountain. Sarah inched closer, looking behind her to the caboose but still staying under the cover of the trees. She spied an opening next to the tracks fifty feet ahead and flattened herself against the four-wheeler, gaining speed.
Wind whipped Sarah’s face and hair, the throttle fully open, and she coiled her body to anticipate the jump. She moved her feet from the side wells onto the seat, balancing like some kind of circus performer. The clearing appeared, and Sarah turned a hard left, the four-wheeler catapulting over the train tracks. Still in mid-air, Sarah jumped from the four-wheeler and landed on the back of the caboose.
Sarah thrust her hand into the air victoriously. “And she sticks the landing! Let’s see what the judges say.” She turned around, nodding. “A perfect ten!”
“Yes, yes. Very impressive,” Bryce said, sounding like a complacent father who just wanted to appease his child so he could move on.
“I think I might have a career as a stunt performer in my retirement years.” Sarah gently tugged on the back door of the train, which was locked. “What’s our pension plan look like these days anyway?”
“A lot worse if you can’t get Muhammad Ali Sharief off that train,” Bryce answered.
A blast of wind whipped Sarah’s face as she leaned over the side railing to get a look ahead at the boxcars in front. “I can’t even remember the last time I checked my 401k.” She swung her leg over and ascended the ladder to the caboose’s roof.
“You have a 401k?” Bryce asked, genuine shock in his voice.
“Of course,” Sarah answered. “And I never touch it. I just let it collect value under my mattress.”
“I don’t think you understand how investments work.”
Once on the roof of the caboose, Sarah sprinted along the top, struggling against the wind tunnel that kept trying to knock her down. “If Sharief is in the middle, then he’s probably going to be with the largest group of bodies. What’s the guard count inside?”
“Thermal scans are showing forty, half of whi
ch are located in car number six.”
“I think we found our boy, then.” Sarah continued her trek along the rooftops, leaping the spaces between the train cars, and stopped at car number seven. She crouched low at the rooftop’s end, glancing at the narrow platform below, and removed both Colts. She descended, catching a brief glance through the back-door window of the number-seven car and the ten jihadists positioned inside.
The narrow train rocked back and forth on the rickety rails, and Sarah stepped right alongside the door. “So what I’ve heard about this Sharief character is that he’s a pretty bad dude.”
“The number-one ISIS official for their theater in Europe,” Bryce answered.
“And the people he’s with right now have killed innocent civilians too?”
“Yup.”
Sarah cracked her head to the left and then the right, the joints popping like bubble wrap under a steam roller. “Time to shorten the naughty list.” Sarah shot the lock off the train door and shoulder checked it open in one swift motion.
Each of the ten terrorists inside snapped his head back toward the commotion and all at once reached for the rifles they’d laid down just out of arm’s reach, which cost six of them a bullet to the head before Sarah had to duck behind one of the seats for cover.
Bullets thundered inside the narrow tin box that was the train car, the jihadists screaming at one another while Sarah remained crouched behind the seat cushion waiting for a lull in gunfire. When the bullets ended and the mags dropped from the mixed bag of AK-47s and M-4s, Sarah jumped from cover, both arms extended, her aim switching among the four remaining targets, and squeezed the triggers.
Four brass .45 shells hit the floor, and the remaining terrorists started that eternal nap. Sarah stepped into the aisle, which was barely a foot wide, and walked toward the front of the car. “Ten down. Thirty to go.” She holstered the Colts and snatched one of the AK-47s from the lifeless grip of one of Sharief’s men. “Did they move him yet?”
“I’ve got a cluster of ten moving toward the front of the train,” Bryce answered. “I think they know you’re here now.”
Sarah brought the butt of the rifle to her shoulder, aiming for the next car. “No sense in knocking then.” With one pull of the trigger, the rifle rapidly thumped against her shoulder, the bullets tearing through the flimsy walls of the old train cars.
Debris and smoke drifted through the air as Sarah emptied the clip. The moment the click of the firing pin sounded, she ditched the rifle, grabbed the handles of her Colts, and fired on the run into the next boxcar.
Sarah kicked the door down. The bloodied bodies of eight ISIS fighters sprawled along the first few rows of seats, and the remaining six were aiming their rifles right at Sarah as she rolled left, evading the gunfire and propping up a dead terrorist’s body to block the bullets.
The lifeless, bearded face of the man Sarah had used as her human shield grazed her cheek. She repositioned his head away from her mouth and moved his dangling arms and hands from her ass. “At least buy me dinner first.” Still on the floor, Sarah splayed out into the aisle, her right arm steadying her shot and her left aiming the Colt’s sight.
Three pops. Three drops. Sarah rolled forward two rows to another cluster of bodies and ducked for cover just before retaliatory gunfire erupted from the end of the car. Methodically, she continued her pursuit forward, picking off the terrorists one at a time on their retreat to the back of the boxcar.
Stuffing from the seat cushions floated through the air as Sarah ducked behind them for cover. One of the bullets connected to her left shoulder, the Kevlar absorbing most of the blow, but hitting her hard enough to feel it. She popped up, easily locating the shooter who had tagged her, and sent a bullet through his chest, then ducked back behind the seat. “Yeah! That’s what you get!”
“The group with Sharief is two cars ahead of you right now,” Bryce said, his voice fading in and out between the thunderous exchanges of gunfire.
“Relax,” Sarah said, reloading a fresh magazine into the Colt in her left hand. “It’s not like they have anywhere to go.”
“There’s a train station coming up in five miles,” Bryce replied. “And they have extraction vehicles waiting for them.”
“Well, fuck me.” Sarah craned her neck around the corner of the seat, taking a quick inventory of the remaining terrorists, then tucked her head out of the way before a piece of lead knocked it off her neck. She closed her eyes. Two on the left, one on the right. She raised the pistols to either side of her face, her body frozen even against the light rocking of the train on the rails.
The terrorists spat some gibberish amongst themselves, and that was when Sarah leapt from cover, knocking the two on the right down quickly but unable to shoot the last fighter before he pulled the pin on the grenade. “Ah, shit.”
Sarah sprinted toward the back of the car, the grenade thumping on the ground. The moment her hand touched the door to exit the car the explosion rocked the train from side to side, nearly tossing Sarah off before she could grab hold of the ladder railing on the side of the car.
Sparks sprayed from the wheels grinding against the tracks from the added weight and strain of the explosion, and she suddenly felt the car slowing down. “That doesn’t seem good.” Feet and hands smacked against the rungs of the ladder on her ascent, and when she reached the roof, she saw the next car pulling away. “That’s definitely not good.”
“The explosion separated your boxcar from the rest of the train,” Bryce said. “It’s pulling away from you.”
“I can see that, Bryce!” Sarah dashed across the broken rooftop of the train car, the wind blasting against her face, slowing her speed. The distance between the broken car and the speeding train grew with every step as she neared the end of the roof. With one final heave, she planted her foot on the edge of the roof and pushed off, flying into the air toward the fleeing train.
Sarah remained suspended in air for a few seconds, and then the harsh reality of gravity reared its ugly head as she smacked into the metal grate platform of the next car. Her cheeks flushed red and groaning from the harsh landing, Sarah lifted her head and glanced back at the rest of the train, now nearly out of sight behind the curve of the mountain. She reached for one of the explosives in the rear compartment on her belt and caught her breath. “How many of these bastards are in this next car?”
“Hmm, looks like ten. The last six are in the first car, waiting to get off at the next station. And I’m betting that’s where Sharief is. Why?”
“So you’re confident Sharief isn’t in this car?”
“… Why are you asking me that?”
Sarah plucked the explosive from the belt and swung to the side ladder on the back of the car, climbing to the roof. “Let’s just say I’m going to take a page out of the ISIS play book.” Once on top, Sarah removed the Colt and fired into the roof, creating a small hole.
The return gunfire sprouted through the flimsy wood and metal of the roof as Sarah sprinted past the tennis ball-sized hole she had created and dropped the explosive inside. Screams penetrated the walls, and Sarah shoved off the edge of the roof, the car behind her erupting in a fiery blast as she rolled onto the roof of the next car, clinging to the top with all her strength.
Sarah craned her head around and smiled as the flaming car flipped off the tracks and tumbled down the side of the mountain. “It’s messy, but my God, is it effective.” Only two more cars separated her from the front, and Sarah could see the lights of the train station in the distance.
“Less than a mile,” Bryce said.
Sarah frowned in frustration. “Thank you, Captain Buzzkill.” She danced along the rooftop, leaping over the last two barriers before landing on the final car. She inched close to the edge. “Bring up the thermal scan of this car on my display.” Bryce quickly obliged, and when Sarah glanced down, she saw the image of six bodies huddled together toward the front side door of the car. She glided toward their position, her gaze swi
tching between the thermal scan and the side of the car.
“And remember, you need to keep him alive,” Bryce said. “So no grenades on this one.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Sarah positioned herself right above them, smiling. “The rest of them won’t be so lucky.” Sarah leapt off the side of the car, turning a one-eighty in the air, catching the ledge of the roof, swinging into the door where the cluster of terrorists had huddled.
Flesh and bone smacked and cracked against one another as Sarah leapt to her feet, reaching for the first terrorist within an arm’s reach who aimed the barrel of his rifle at her. She snatched the muzzle, yanking both the rifle and the man forward, launching his face directly into her fist.
Cartilage crunched, and blood sprayed from the terrorist’s nose as his head rocked backward from the vicious blow. A pair of hands grabbed her from behind, and Sarah smacked the back of her skull into the combatant’s face. His grip loosened, and she spun around, connecting her fist into his side and then a quick uppercut that knocked him backward and onto his ass.
Sarah glanced toward the back of the car, where Sharief scurried to escape, opening the door and fleeing to the last boxcar on the train. The three remaining fighters bottlenecked the aisle, each of them with a blade drawn, waiting for Sarah’s approach.
The fighter with the broken nose in the adjacent seat lunged for the rifle next to him, but Sarah caught it in her peripheral vision and slammed her palm into his throat then twisted his neck in a vicious snap. The second fighter reached for her ankle, but she stomped on his neck and felt the crunch of his windpipe.
The three remaining fighters took a step back. Sarah smiled. The train slowed, and Sarah lurched forward, knowing that the station was close. A flurry of knives slashed through the air in wild strikes, Sarah evading each with ease.
She snatched one wrist from the air, twisting left until she heard the crack of bone, then slammed her foot into his chest and sent him to the floor. The remaining blade slingers stood on either side of her. While they hesitated, she didn’t. Her fists blurred from her own unnatural speed and connected with cheek and chin, followed up with a foot to the inside of a knee and then the groin, dropping both fighters to their knees. She stole one of their own knives and then jammed the blade into one’s throat and snapped the neck of the second.