McGarvey turned and fired two shots, hitting the commando in the chest, driving him backwards.
Tarankov clawed his gun from its holster and he was raising it, a wicked gleam in his eyes, as McGarvey turned back and fired one shot at nearly point blank range into the Tarantula’s forehead just above the bridge of his nose, killing him instantly. His body, suddenly limp, slid off the couch and landed in a heap on his side.
McGarvey checked out one of the windows. They were accelerating through an industrial section of the city, and going far too fast for them to jump.
He snatched Tarankov’s gun from the dead man’s hand and gave it to Elizabeth. She was badly shaken, and an angry red welt had formed on her cheek, but she had a determined look in her eyes.
“What about the jets?” she asked.
“They’re going to attack, which means we have to get off. I’m going upstairs to see if I can get the engineer to slow down. In the meantime if anyone comes through the door, shoot.”
McGarvey checked the corridor, then stepped over the body of the dead commando, and cautiously took the stairs two at a time. At the top he swept the cramped nerve center left to right with his gun, but the compartment was empty.
The radar screen on one of the consoles showed the two incoming jets, but he ignored it as he desperately studied the electronic panels, finally finding the handset that connected with the locomotive.
He yanked it off its cradle. “This is the command center!” he shouted in Russian. “Stop the train now! Emergency stop! Emergency stop!” Several gunshots were fired from below.
McGarvey tossed down the phone as the train gave a huge lurch, sending him sprawling, the brakes on the locomotive and all twenty armored cars locking up simultaneously.
Before he could recover, a hatch in the ceiling clanged open and a figure dropped down on top of him, smashing his head against the bulkhead, knocking the wind out of him
“McGarvey,” Chernov snarled. He batted the gun out of McGarvey’s hand, and smashed a roundhouse blow into McGarvey’s jaw, snapping his head back again against the bulkhead, his vision momentarily dimming.
Chernov swung again, but McGarvey ducked the blow and Chernov’s fist smashed into the bulkhead.
With a mighty heave, McGarvey shoved the Russian away, and scrambled to his feet.
Chernov recovered almost instantly, and he stepped back as he snatched his pistol from the shoulder holster, a look of victory in his eyes. But McGarvey was on him before he could fire, smashing his shoulder into the man’s chest, sending him back against one of the electronic panels. He held Chernov’s gun hand off with his left, and smashed a fist into the man’s chest with every ounce of his strength. Chernov grunted in pain, and McGarvey hit him in the same spot again and again and a fourth time, until the Russian’s eyes fluttered, and his body went slack.
McGarvey snatched the gun from his hand, shoved him aside and bounded drunkenly down the stairs, the train still decelerating at a terrific rate.
“It’s me,” he shouted as he hit the bottom. He fired four shots down the corridor and then dove into the sitting room, answering fire tearing into the bulkheads and furniture.
The moment he was clear, Elizabeth raised her gun hand up over the back of the couch and emptied Tarankov’s pistol down the corridor.
McGarvey made it to where she was crouched, grabbed her arm, and together they crawled to the rear platform door.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded.
He popped back up and emptied Chernov’s gun down the corridor at the same moment Elizabeth hauled the door open, and they scrambled outside.
Above Moscow
“Orlov leader, do you have visuals yet?” the controller said.
They had come in low directly over the top of Leningrad Station, the square still busy with people. The train was about three kilometers ahead, and was definitely coming to a stop.
Captain Trofimo dialed up two R85 air-to-ground missiles and armed them.
“We have the target in sight. We’re starting our attack run now.”
“We’re showing no enemy weapons radars,” said his controller circling high over the city in an AWAC Ilyushin Mainstay-B.
“We’re showing no response either,” Trofimo responded. “Do you wish us to abort?”
“Nyet,” the controller said. “You have final weapons release authorization.”
“Roger,” Trofimo said, and he glanced over at his wingman, nodded, then turned back to his look-down shoot-down system, fired both rockets, and peeled off to the right.
At the last moment he thought he’d seen two people jumping from the rear car, while a third person was climbing up on the roof, but he wasn’t sure.
By the time he made his turn and lined up with his wingman for a second attack run, it wasn’t necessary. The train had literally blown itself apart at the seams, probably from ammunition and ordnance stored aboard. Every single car was burning furiously, and the locomotive was lying on its side in an embankment below an abandoned factory, flames and greasy black smoke shooting two hundred feet into the sky.
“Mission complete,” Trofimo radioed. “We’re returning to base now.”
“Roger,” his controller responded tersely.
Trackside
McGarvey and his daughter crouched in a ditch less than fifty yards from the furiously burning wreckage spread out on both sides of the railroad right of way, as the two jet fighters that had caused the destruction screamed off to the south. The heat was so intense it made their eyes water.
“Time to go home, Liz,” he said.
Elizabeth looked at her father, and smiled. “I bet Mom won’t believe a word I tell her.”
McGarvey had to smile back. “I don’t think she will. This one will be our little secret.”
“And Jacqueline’s too. She’s in love with you, and I have a feeling she’s not the type who’s going to let you simply walk away.”
“Maybe you’re right, Liz,” McGarvey said as he heard the first of the helicopters coming up from the south. Time to get out? he wondered. Maybe. But then he’d been asking himself that same question for the past few years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Hagberg is an ex-Air Force cryptographer who has traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean and has spoken at CIA functions. He also writes as Sean Flannery, and has published more than a dozen novels of suspense, including High Flight and Kilo Option. He makes his home in Florida.
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Assassin km-6 Page 48
