Eddie tried to move, but his jacket was still snared on the vent cover. Face red with rage, Walther reached out, thick fingers grasping at the Englishman’s neck . . . and squeezing.
The choking Eddie had received from the guard in the treasure wagon had been a light tickle by comparison. Walther’s grip felt as if it could crush steel. He realised he had no hope of prising open the Nazi’s fingers – so instead he attacked. With his other hand holding on to the carriage, the German couldn’t defend his face. Eddie stabbed at his eyes—
Walther simply raised his head, his longer reach putting him beyond the other man’s strikes. All Eddie could catch was his chin, but even that was too far away for him to do more than bruise it. ‘Now you will die!’ the SS thug snarled. ‘Die, you English bastard, die!’
Eddie thrashed and kicked, but couldn’t break free. Never mind suffocation; Walther was about to snap his neck. He made one last hopeless swing at the Nazi’s jaw as something loomed behind it . . .
The punch was abandoned mid throw as he saw what it was – the bridge, the train looping back around to pass beneath it. Instead he braced both hands palms up under Walther’s chin, forcing his head back. The Nazi grinned malevolently at the futility of this final action—
The back of Walther’s skull burst apart as it smacked into the unyielding end of a rusty girder.
The big man instantly went limp, collapsing on top of Eddie before sliding off the roof. His body bounced off the side of the cutting and fell under the train’s wheels, mangled pieces being dragged along before the gory mush was finally spewed out over the side of the track.
Eddie kept his head down until the train was clear. ‘Like a bridge over troubled Walther,’ he wheezed, even a bad joke feeling necessary to celebrate his survival.
A metallic squeal from above. He looked back to see the brake van pass over the crossing and start around the loop. With the train still slowing, Nina and Zane were quickly catching up.
Too quickly. If the train stopped, the van would smash right into it . . .
The Nazi leaders had realised the same thing. Kroll screamed ‘Schnell! Schnell!’ – and the man in the cab released the brakes, the carriage shuddering as the train rolled freely once more. A moment later, a bellowing huff of smoke burst from the chimney as the soldier opened the throttle. The wheels spun wildly before finding traction, and the locomotive lurched forward.
The jolt of acceleration kicked Eddie backwards. Fabric ripped. He struggled, finally pulling free and exhaustedly standing. As the loco came out of the bottom of the loop, the brake van screeched around the tighter upper section, descending to pass under the bridge. Even with the train picking up speed, it would catch it in seconds.
He retrieved the gun. A moment of indecision – then with deep reluctance he turned and ran back down the train, vaulting over the gaps between the cars. He felt disgusted at himself for abandoning Banna, but he knew that climbing into the carriage to rescue him would result only in his death. Also, without the relic, the Nazis needed the young Egyptian to find the spring. They would keep him alive . . . until he was no longer needed.
The train emerged on to the next leg of the track. The brake van rounded the loop behind it. He jumped on to the last remaining wagon and pounded along its roof. Shouted German came from below – then geysers of bullets erupted behind him as the enraged Nazis opened fire. The brake van was thirty feet behind the train, twenty, Nina and Zane urging him on . . .
Eddie reached the rear of the wagon, shots bursting up at his heels—
He didn’t stop.
The track blurred below as he made a running jump off the back of the train, the brake van rushing at him.
Falling short—
He threw out both arms – and hit the veranda with an agonising bang. But he couldn’t get a firm hold. He clawed at the wood – then fell towards the track . . .
Hands grabbed his wrists.
‘Got you!’ Zane grunted. Eddie swung his feet before finding the coupler and using it to push himself upwards.
Behind the Israeli, he saw Nina standing at the brake. ‘You got him?’ she shouted.
‘Yeah!’ Zane replied, hauling Eddie over the barrier.
‘Great – ’cause we need to duck!’ She twisted the wheel and dropped, the two men hurriedly doing the same—
Bullets hammered against planks as the Nazis opened fire. But the train was pulling away. The fusillade died down, a few last rounds smacking home before the gunmen were carried out of range.
Eddie shook off broken wood and looked at Nina. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘Jesus, what about you?’
He realised he was covered with Walther’s blood. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not mine. Well, most of it.’ He noticed a lump of grey matter stuck to his jacket. ‘Looks like I finally got some brains,’ he said as he flicked it away.
Nina made a disgusted face. ‘Gross. What about Ubayy?’
‘I couldn’t get to him. I’m sorry. But,’ he added on seeing her dismay, ‘they’ll need to keep him alive for now.’
‘Why?’ asked Zane as he went to the brake column.
‘’Cause I’ve got the fish.’ He proudly produced it from his trousers, to his wife’s amusement. ‘So they need him to find the spring.’
‘That’s assuming we let them get away,’ Zane said, determination returning to his voice. He released the brakes.
‘How’re we going to stop ’em?’ Eddie said. ‘There’s three of us, and a gun with,’ he slid out the magazine to count, ‘two bullets. They’ve still got two trucks full of arseholes with automatic weapons.’
‘I don’t know how! But we can’t let them escape.’
‘Not after what they did to Macy,’ said Nina. Her voice was quiet, but the anger behind it was clear.
Eddie shook his head wearily, then rose. The train was still drawing away as it headed for the trestle bridge. He glimpsed Rasche shouting orders from the carriage.
Wait – what orders? The brake van was now beyond an MP5’s effective range, and all the heavy weapons had been in the destroyed ammunition truck. But the soldiers in the last wagon were leaning from both doors as if preparing to attack . . .
His gaze snapped past the train. It was almost at the crossing—
‘Shit!’ he gasped. ‘Put the brakes back on, quick!’
‘What’s happening?’ Nina asked in sudden concern.
‘They’re going to blow up the fucking bridge!’ The soldiers were being passed objects by their fellows inside the wagon: grenades.
Zane hurriedly spun the wheel back the other way. The brakes wailed again. ‘We’ll never stop in time!’
‘We’d bloody well better!’ Eddie tossed the relic to Nina, then joined the Israeli and added his weight. The stench of burning reached them as flying sparks set light to splintered wood.
The train crossed the bridge – too quickly, parts of the track bed shaking loose as it thundered over the ravine. The men leaning from the rear wagon stretched out further, others inside holding them steady . . .
Arms swung in synchrony, tossing grenades on to the line.
The train continued. Seconds passed, two, three—
The explosions came so close together that they seemed like one single blast. Sleepers flew like scattered toothpicks, the central section of the bridge rocking wildly before support beams broke and a full third of the old structure collapsed into the canyon. The train was already safely across, carrying on down the hill.
Eddie and Zane watched the disintegration in horror. ‘Benzonah!’ exclaimed the Israeli.
‘That, and fuckery!’ Eddie added as they both hauled harder on the wheel. The piercing screech of the brakes grew even louder—
Then abruptly stopped at a crack of shearing metal. The wagon
picked up speed again.
Zane gave the wheel a last useless spin. ‘We’ll have to jump!’
‘We’ll be killed!’ Nina protested. The ground was littered with rocks.
‘It’s our only chance!’
‘We’re going too fast,’ Eddie said. He looked back, but jumping from the van’s wrecked rear on to the track would make little difference—
The roof. The piece that had fallen into the cabin was curved metal, somewhat wider than the track and about five feet long . . .
He ran to it. ‘Give me a hand!’ he yelled as he strained to lift the roof section.
‘What are you doing?’ Zane demanded.
‘You ever been surfing?’ The steel plate shifted; Nina joined her husband to help turn it over, the concave underside now facing upwards. There was a chain with a hook at one end amongst the debris. Eddie made sure it was firmly attached to the chassis, then fixed it to the roof’s cross-brace.
The Mossad agent watched in disbelief. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘After six years with Eddie, this is normal!’ Nina assured him. She helped her husband to push the roof piece off the rear veranda. As it slammed down on the track, the chain jerked taut, and the steel plate lashed from side to side before stabilising, dragging along behind the runaway wagon with a nerve-shredding shrill.
‘Climb on to it,’ Eddie told his wife. He held her hand as she cautiously stepped down. The horrible noise worsened as she put her weight on the roof, the chain straining – but holding. ‘Jared, come on!’
Zane looked between the rapidly approaching bridge and the makeshift sled, then shrugged. ‘You’ve stayed alive this long, old man,’ he said. ‘I guess you know what you’re doing!’
‘Oh, fuck no,’ said Eddie as the Israeli clambered down beside Nina. ‘I’m still making this shit up as I go.’ A small grin as he readied his gun and followed Zane on to the roof, which shimmied under the extra load before straightening out. ‘It’s worked so far, but,’ he took aim at the chain, ‘there’s always a last time!’
He fired—
Sparks flew – but the bullet glanced off the chain without breaking it. ‘And this might be it,’ he added with considerably less humour. ‘Okay, and – now!’
The final shot – and the chain snapped.
Friction instantly snatched at the improvised sledge, almost pitching Eddie off before Zane caught him. The brake van raced away on to the bridge. The broken structure shook beneath it – then the wagon sailed off the end of the track, arcing down across the ravine to carve through the trestlework on the far side like a wrecking ball. What was left of the other half of the crossing came down on top of it.
‘We’re not stopping!’ Nina cried as the skidding roof section reached the bridge.
‘Jump!’ Eddie yelled. They all flung themselves off the back of the sled—
Even after losing most of their speed, the landing on unforgiving wood and steel was punishing. Nina, the lightest, was the first to roll to a halt, still clutching the bronze relic.
But Zane and Eddie tumbled onwards, the sledge flying into the void ahead of them as they reached the end of the line . . .
The Englishman splayed himself flat, the wooden sleepers scraping painfully against his back – but the extra drag stopped him. Zane bowled past, screaming as he went over the drop—
Eddie caught his leg. The Mossad agent’s wail was abruptly cut off as he swung back and hit the trestlework below the broken track. He hung upside down for a moment before the realisation sank in that he was not falling to his death, and twisted to take hold of the wooden beams. ‘You okay?’ Eddie gasped, straining to hold him.
‘Yeah,’ came the breathless reply, ‘but get me up, quick! This thing’s going to collapse!’ A sonorous creak as the bridge swayed queasily emphasised his point.
Bloodied and bruised, Nina nevertheless limped to aid them. They dragged Zane on to the bridge, then helped him up. ‘Come on!’ she cried, running back along the shuddering span. Sleepers dropped away in her wake, forcing Eddie and Zane to vault over the gaps.
A loud crack – then a sound like the clatter of giant dominoes falling. Eddie glanced back to see the entire track bed disappearing plank by plank into the ravine after them. ‘Shit! Leg it!’
Nina reached solid ground. The two men hurled themselves into dives to land beside her as the bridge cascaded into the canyon in a huge cloud of dust and flying debris.
Eddie stared at the destruction, then looked up at the now-distant train as it continued down the hill towards the dry lake – where he saw movement. ‘Over there!’ he said, pointing.
An aircraft, a large twin-prop cargo plane, was coming in to land on the desiccated lake bed. A second aircraft followed it a few miles distant. ‘Leitz’s transport,’ Zane muttered. He shakily pushed himself upright, then slammed a frustrated fist into his palm. ‘Damn it! We’ll never catch them now. They’ll be long gone by the time we get to the lake.’
‘We know where they’re going, though,’ said Nina as she helped Eddie up. ‘Northern Iran.’
‘That doesn’t help us! They’ll have a head start – and we don’t know exactly where they’re headed. But they’ve still got Banna, and he can take them to the spring.’
‘We can locate it too,’ Nina reminded him. She held up the relic. ‘I can make the same calculations that he did. But first we need to contact the Argentinian authorities, the IHA – and the Mossad, too. If we act fast enough, we might be able to catch them before they leave the country.’
Zane did not seem confident of success. ‘Maybe. But I think Leitz will have arranged something special for them.’
‘Leitz was the guy you went after in Italy, wasn’t he?’ Nina said. ‘What happened there?’
‘Long story,’ said Eddie. He looked towards the distant town. ‘I’ll tell you all about it on the way down.’
32
The Caspian Sea
A day later, Nina was on the opposite side of the globe.
She thought it was a day later, at least. Exhaustion and emotion had screwed up her body clock even without factoring in the confusion of multiple time zones. But one thing she was sure of was that while it might help her physically, she had no desire to sleep. Every time her eyelids closed, she glimpsed the horrors she had witnessed in the Enklave. Macy’s murder, Zane’s torture, the burning building with terrified children trapped inside . . . and the crowd of frenzied Nazis baying for her death as the noose tightened around her throat—
Nina drew in a sharp breath. For a moment, she had felt the rope’s strands cutting into her skin. She touched her neck to reassure herself that there was nothing there.
She tried to force the jumble of memories following the escape from the Nazi compound into a coherent timeline. On arriving in Lago Amargo, Eddie had got a policeman named Miranda to call the Argentinian federal police, who arrived in force a few hours later. Not long after that, the survivors from the Enklave were secured, Roland and Julieta having a joyful reunion. Julieta’s father, the mayor, had turned himself in to the federales over some connection with Kroll and his people; two badly beaten local cops were taken into custody far less willingly.
By then, Nina had contacted Oswald Seretse in New York. That in turn led to a conference call with the FBI and Interpol in which Zane’s fears were confirmed: the surviving Nazis had indeed left Argentina undetected. ‘How the fucking hell do thirty Aryan shitheads with guns stroll through customs without being spotted?’ had been Eddie’s incredulous contribution to the discussion, and Nina’s own response had been scarcely less restrained.
But she knew where they were going. Iran.
She recalled from her time as the IHA’s director that the Iranian government would not cooperate with the agency, considering it too closely tied to the United States, and it was barely more wil
ling to work with international law enforcement. Seretse relayed the news that the Iranians had been warned about the Nazis, for which Interpol was thanked and assured that the elite Revolutionary Guard would detain them. Zane, silently sitting in on the call, responded only with a sardonic shake of his head. ‘Leitz will already have paid off the local Revolutionary Guard commander to act as their escort,’ he said when it concluded. ‘The Guard like to parade themselves as the moral guardians of the Islamic revolution, but they’re corrupt from bottom to top. Especially the top.’
So now, instead of returning to New York as she had told Seretse, she was in a fishing boat that had set out from Astara at the southern tip of Azerbaijan, heading south-east across the Caspian Sea.
Eddie entered the small cabin. ‘I wouldn’t bother getting up,’ he told his wife as she sat up on the narrow bed. ‘It’s dark, and it’s pissing down.’ He wiped a hand over his damp hair and took off his ravaged leather jacket.
‘How long before we get there?’
He perched beside her. ‘A few hours yet. This isn’t exactly a speedboat.’
‘Unlike those things the Mossad brought.’ Zane was aboard the old trawler with them – along with a small squad of young and determined-looking Israeli agents.
‘Yeah. I’m still not Mossad’s number one fan, but they’ve got some pretty cool gear.’ He smiled, then rested a gentle hand on her stomach. ‘How are you faring?’
‘Fine. A little Dramamine works wonders.’
Another smile, but his eyes were serious. ‘I didn’t mean seasickness. I meant . . . everything else.’
‘I’m trying not to think about it,’ she said. ‘It’s . . . it’s too much to process right now. Especially . . .’
‘Macy?’
She nodded. ‘Seretse will have told her parents by now, but . . . I’ll have to talk to them when this is over. I’ll have to. But what am I going to say? “I’m sorry for your loss – oh, and by the way, it was all my fault your daughter was murdered”?’
Kingdom of Darkness Page 40
