Knockdown

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  All three men sprawled on the cab’s metal floor in a tangle of arms and legs.

  Barry hung on for dear life with both hands. The conductor triggered the pistol twice more, and again the slugs bounced around the cab. There was no telling what damage they were doing to the locomotive’s control board, but it wasn’t enough to stop the train. With its low, throaty rumble, the locomotive continued pulling the lengthy line of freight cars along the tracks.

  Barry writhed out from under the corpse and saw an opening to headbutt the conductor. Blood spurted from the man’s nose under the impact, and he stopped his feverish struggles long enough for Barry to bang his gun hand twice against the floor. The man’s fingers opened involuntarily. The pistol with its attached suppressor skittered across the cab.

  The terrorist recovered quickly, lifting his knee toward Barry’s groin. Barry twisted aside to take the blow on his thigh. He pulled the man up by the throat and bounced his head off the metal floor. The man was starting to look pretty groggy. Barry let go of him and hit him twice on the jaw, short, sharp blows that made his eyes roll up in their sockets. He went limp.

  Barry pushed to his feet and picked up the man’s pistol. He had been certain already that there was nothing he could do for the engineer, but a glance at the back of the man’s head where the bullet had gone in confirmed it. There was no exit wound, which meant the slug had bounced around inside the skull, turning the man’s brain to mush. He’d been too dead to feel it, though.

  Barry’s lips pulled back from his teeth in anger. A part of him wanted to plant a bullet in the middle of the terrorist’s forehead. The guy had it coming. But he might have valuable information, so killing him out of hand could turn out to be the wrong move.

  It was still frustrating and annoying to let a criminal like that continue drawing breath, though.

  He turned to the control board and started trying to make some sense of it. Barry could fly a plane and he had cut his teeth on the big rigs, but he’d never operated a massive locomotive like this before. Still, he asked himself, how hard could it be?

  A lot harder than it should have been. At that moment—just before he could press the right button to stop the train—the door into the cab swung open and a gunshot blasted. No suppressor this time, so the report slammed painfully against Barry’s ears in the cab’s close confines.

  The bullet went over his right shoulder, narrowly missing his right ear. It struck the windshield and punched through, leaving a hole and a star shape around it. The glass didn’t shatter.

  Barry still had the conductor’s gun in his hand. He returned fire without thinking about it, triggering two shots from the semi-automatic pistol. The bullets punched into the chest of the man who had just tried to kill him and drove the guy backward against the short railing around the platform. He flipped over it, his legs going high in the air for a second before he vanished.

  In the split second Barry had gotten a good look at this second would-be killer, he had recognized another Middle Eastern face. Obviously, Jamal had friends on board. Most freight trains operated with only two-man crews. Barry wondered if the unfortunate engineer had been aware that his conductor had smuggled a passenger on board the train. Probably not.

  Passengers, Barry corrected himself. The second man wasn’t alone. A third terrorist leaned forward far enough to snap a shot through the open door, then ducked back. This one missed Barry and hit the windshield, too.

  Barry fired but knew he had missed. In a burst of anger, he threw the suppressed pistol out the door. It sailed away from the train. It was just a cheap piece of crap for his warm-up.

  He reached under his jacket and drew the 1911 and the Browning, confident that he had just improved his firepower immensely.

  But they weren’t going to help him against what came next. A small canister flew into the cab from the train’s outside walkway that ran to the rear of the locomotive. As it started spewing noxious fumes, Barry cursed under his breath. Tear gas? What were his enemies doing with tear gas?

  He supposed one of them believed in being prepared for any eventuality. What mattered was that the stuff was here, filling up the cab, and in an instant, he began to choke and his eyes watered. He had to get out of there.

  The terrorist—or terrorists, he didn’t know how many more were out there—would be watching the door, though, ready to open fire at the first sign of movement.

  He might pass out if he stayed in there, and he couldn’t afford to do that. Holding his handkerchief over his mouth and nose, for what little good that did, he sat down on the console in front of the controls, drew his legs up, turned around, and lashed out at the windshield with both feet.

  Weakened by the bullets hitting it, the glass gave way, shattering and spraying outward onto the platform attached to the locomotive’s nose. That newly created opening caused enough wind to blow through the cab that the fumes from the tear gas canister were whipped away. Barry’s eyes, nose, and throat still smarted miserably, but at least he could breathe again without choking and kind of see.

  He didn’t know if any of the terrorists were lurking on the platform at the locomotive’s nose. He lifted both guns, ready to blaze away through the opening if anybody opened fire on him.

  Nothing happened, though, leading him to believe that the enemy was still on the walkway, farther back on the locomotive. He used the 1911 to rake shards of glass out of the windshield frame, then stuck his legs out.

  Jake was too big to have made it out this way; his shoulders probably would have gotten caught. Barry was built leanly enough that he was able to wriggle through the opening and drop to the platform.

  The train had left Las Cruces behind and was rolling south through semi-desert covered with scrub brush. Interstate 10 was visible several hundred yards away, running parallel with the railroad.

  The racket from the engine was too loud for Barry to hear anything else, so he risked a glance around the corner of the cab, along the walkway. As he suspected, he saw three men at the far end of the narrow path, all of them armed. More of Jamal’s friends. Judging by their angry expressions and gestures, they were arguing about who was going to ease along the walkway and take a look to see if the hated infidel was dead.

  Quickly, Barry pulled back out of sight before they spotted him. He drew in a couple of deep breaths, then wheeled around the corner of the cab with both guns thrust out in front of him, the 1911 in his right hand, the Browning in his left.

  The gun-thunder that rolled from both weapons added to the cacophony filling the air. Barry emptied both guns. The storm of .45 and 9mm slugs ripped through the terrorists and slammed them off the walkway. Their bullet-riddled bodies sailed through the air and crashed to the ground alongside the tracks, rolling and flopping limply.

  The dead men soon faded out of sight as the train continued rolling.

  Barry had spare magazines for both guns in his pockets. He swapped them out quickly, then moved toward the still-open door into the cab. He had left Jamal in there unconscious, but the man might be coming to.

  On the other hand, breathing all that tear gas could have caused some serious damage to Jamal’s lungs. It was possible he wouldn’t wake up again after being exposed to such a high concentration of the gas.

  Barry was ready for either of those possibilities.

  He wasn’t prepared for Jamal to attack him like a red-faced berserker, screeching like a howler monkey. But that was what happened, and the unexpected impact drove Barry back against the railing. He had to drop the Browning to grab the rail and keep himself from going over. The gun fell at their feet and began to slide around as the two men kicked it while they struggled.

  Barry chopped at Jamal’s head with the 1911. Hate, rage, and desperation gave the terrorist strength and speed he might not have possessed otherwise. He avoided the blow and rammed his shoulder against Barry’s chest, trying to knock him off the train.

  Barry hung on and struck Jamal a glancing blow with the .45’s barre
l. Jamal sagged. That put him in position, though, to clamp both arms around Barry’s knees. With an incoherent cry, Barry lost his grip on the railing and went up and over, pinwheeling through the air.

  The ground came up and crashed into him, knocking all the air out of his lungs and stunning him. The world spun crazily around him. He had fallen beside the tracks, rather than landing under the train’s wheels, but that was the only bit of luck he’d had.

  He was able to lift his head for a second and peer after the locomotive. His vision was blurred, but he was able to make out Jamal staggering back into the cab. The train was still headed for El Paso, but now a terrorist was at the controls.

  And Barry was losing consciousness. It slipped away from him, despite how desperately he tried to cling to it.

  CHAPTER 37

  There was nowhere for them to go except up, Jake realized as he fired again through one of the gaps between freight cars. Metal ladder rungs were attached to the side of the car next to him. He called to Gretchen, “Climb! I’ll cover you!”

  She immediately grasped what he meant and shoved her gun into its holster at the small of her back. She grabbed one of the rungs, got a foot on the lowest one, and started hauling herself up. Jake sent a couple of rounds along the tracks to make the guys who’d tried to climb over the freight car keep their heads down, then swiveled and shot a man off the car opposite just as he was trying to draw a bead on the climbing Gretchen.

  When she reached the top of the car’s ladder, she rolled onto the roof and jerked her gun out again.

  “Come on!” she shouted to Jake as she fired across the tracks toward some of the other cars.

  He holstered his gun and started climbing, going up the ladder with a lithe agility unusual in a man of his size. Gretchen continued twisting, rolling, and shooting.

  If he had seen her in other circumstances and she’d claimed to work for Homeland Security, he would have figured she was a pencil-pusher or at best some sort of cyber-warrior. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. She was a good shot and apparently had nerves like ice.

  Right now, that was helping to keep them alive.

  Jake heaved himself onto the top of the freight car beside her. Her deadly accurate fire had driven the terrorists off the other cars, but they were still surrounded.

  “How many guys do they have working in this yard?” Gretchen asked in frantic exasperation as she paused to reload.

  “Too many,” Jake said. “Listen.”

  Sirens wailed somewhere not far away. The sound of a small war breaking out in the freight yard had drawn the attention of the cops, just as Jake had known it would.

  The terrorists who had infiltrated the workforce at the yard must be hearing those sirens, too, and they knew what it meant. They were running out of time to wreak the havoc they had intended.

  “They’ll go ahead and blow those bombs instead of waiting for the train,” Jake said, “unless we keep them too busy.”

  “You mean we take the fight to them?”

  “Yeah. You ready?”

  Gretchen looked a little pale and scared now, but her nod was decisive enough as she said, “Let’s do it.”

  “We’ll clean out this side first. Ready . . . go!”

  Jake sprang to his feet, leaned out, and opened fire on the three gunmen he spotted running along the siding to a new position. They weren’t expecting the counterattack. Jake drilled all three of them cleanly and sent them spinning off their feet.

  Gretchen turned the other way and fired as a man sprang onto the roof of the car across the tracks. The bullet struck him in the chest and drove him backward off the car. He plummeted out of sight.

  Jake ran back toward the flatcars, near where the first bomb he’d located was placed on the tracks. He saw a man pointing a gun at him from behind one of the crates and fired at the same time. The enemy’s bullet whined past Jake’s ear, but his shot struck the terrorist and knocked him off the flatcar.

  Jake went to the ladder on the side of the freight car and scrambled down a few rungs, then let go and dropped the rest of the way. His legs bent under him as he landed, absorbing the shock of his weight. He heard Gretchen continue firing as he ran to the bomb and dropped to a knee beside it. He was relying on her to keep the terrorists off him while he disarmed the bomb.

  He had worked with C-4 plenty of times before and recognized the type of detonator attached to this one. Unlike the complicated gizmos popular on TV and in the movies, detonators were simple in real life because the people who used them knew that the more parts there were to something, the more things could go wrong.

  In this case, all Jake had to do was yank a couple of wires loose from the detonator’s power source. As soon as he had done that, the C-4 was rendered harmless. He could shoot it, pound on it with a hammer, or jump up and down on it, and it wouldn’t go off.

  He sprang up and ran toward the next bomb. Above him, Gretchen raced along the tops of the freight cars, bounding from car to car, only pausing to trigger another shot at any of the terrorists daring enough to stick up a head.

  Jake dropped to a knee next to the second block of C-4. While he was disarming the first bomb, he hadn’t taken the time to think about what he was doing, but with this one, the thought of how close he was to the explosive crowded its way into his mind. Hovering over it like this, if the stuff went off, there wouldn’t be enough left of him to scrape up with a spoon.

  Jake shoved that image out of his head and pulled the wires loose from the detonator. The bomb hadn’t blown up, he was still alive, there was no point in brooding about it.

  And there were more bombs waiting for him to find, he suspected.

  “Jake!” Gretchen called from the top of a nearby freight car. “The rest are running away!”

  “They’ve given up,” he responded as he stood up.

  “Or they’ve started a timer to set off the rest of the charges!”

  Jake’s heart slugged hard in his chest. He hadn’t thought about that. The seconds might be counting down right now. Logically, he and Gretchen ought to put some distance between themselves and this set of tracks, too, in case the blasts were about to go off.

  But that would mean abandoning the freight yard to any more damage that might be done. That rubbed Jake the wrong way.

  He waved an arm at Gretchen and told her, “Go on, get out of here! Meet the cops and stop them from coming in here.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “See if I can find any more bombs.”

  “You’re crazy! Head back down the tracks, or climb over one of these cars.”

  Jake ignored her and started trotting along the tracks, his eyes darting back and forth between the two rails as he searched for more explosives. He heard Gretchen mutter something. Then, when he glanced up, he saw that she was running along the tops of the cars, keeping pace with him.

  “Get out of here!” he yelled at her.

  “Then you come, too!”

  Instead of answering, he ran faster as he spotted something else attached to the outside of the right-hand rail. It was another of the C-4 charges, he confirmed as he came closer. He waved his arm at Gretchen again and told her, “I’ll just get this one and then leave. Go on, I’ll catch up to you!”

  He could tell that she was torn about what to do, but sheer stubbornness won out.

  “Just go ahead and disarm it! I’ll wait.”

  It was Jake’s turn to mutter now. He knelt next to the rail, studied the deadly little package to make sure it was set up the same way the others had been, and took hold of the pair of wires and ripped them loose.

  A noise made him look up. A wiry figure stood beside the tracks about fifty yards away, where he had just jumped down from one of the freight cars. He jerked a gun up and threw a shot at Jake, who dived forward so the bullet went above him, through the space where he had just been. Not all the terrorists had fled, he thought as he tilted his gun up and pulled the trigger.

  The slu
g punched into the man’s midsection and doubled him over. He dropped the gun as he collapsed. Jake sprang to his feet and raced forward. If he could force this guy to talk, he might find out how many of the C-4 charges had been planted.

  The man was extending a shaky hand toward his fallen gun when Jake got there and kicked the weapon out of his reach. Jake hooked his toe under the terrorist’s shoulder and rolled him onto his back. The man’s shirt was soaked with blood from the belly wound.

  “Listen to me,” Jake said as he bent over the man. “You’re hurt bad, but you’ll be all right. We’ll get you to a doctor. You just need to tell me how many of these bombs you guys planted.”

  The man’s eyes were unfocused. Sweat coated his face. He rasped something in a foreign language—Jake was almost certain it was Pashto—but his voice was so choked that Jake couldn’t understand the words.

  Then he picked up the man repeating the word “Allah” several times and realized the guy was praying. Under these circumstances, most likely he was praying for a swift passage to paradise, where all those unlikely virgins would be waiting for him.

  The man had one hand pressed to his bleeding belly. The other came out from under him clutching something—a cylinder with a button on the end. Jake would have tried to slap it out of his hand, but the man’s fanaticism gave him a final burst of speed. He rammed the detonator button down.

  Jake was already turning and running, yelling, “Fire in the hole!,” hoping Gretchen Rogers would have the sense to jump off the other side of the freight car so it would shield her from the blast.

  Then the world came apart behind him in flame and noise, and the explosion’s force picked Jake up and flung him forward through the air.