Corsair of-6

by Clive Cussler

  “I need its dimensions.”

  “Guess.”

  Mark looked at him, incredulous. “Guess? Are you kidding?”

  “Nope.”

  “ ‘Math it,’ he says,” Mark griped to Juan’s departing form. “ ‘Guess.’ Jeesh!”

  Juan climbed out onto the Pig’s roof. He estimated they were up to fifteen miles per hour and continuing to accelerate. So far, so good, he thought briefly before looking up and seeing no sign of the helicopter.

  He stepped aft and was bracing himself to leap up onto the boxcar’s roof when Greg Chaffee opened up with the M60. Cabrillo turned to see a camouflaged truck careen toward the stockyard. It was the first of the terrorists from the training camp. There were a dozen holding on to the rails of the truck’s open bed. Their gun barrels bristled.

  The road they were on clung to the side of a hill running a little above and parallel to the rail line. Chaffee had been quick with the machine gun, firing at the truck’s tires before the driver had regained full control of the vehicle. Rounds peppered the area near the front tire until it exploded, shedding rubber like a Catherine wheel throws sparks.

  The truck swerved when the mangled rim gouged into the soft gravel shoulder. The men in back started to scream as the vehicle tipped further. Still moving dangerously fast, the truck flipped onto its side, skidding down the hill. Some of the terrorists were thrown clear, others clutched the supports to keep themselves inside when it rolled onto its roof. The cab plowed a furrow into the earth before it flipped again, barrel-rolling violently, sheet metal and men peeling away in a cloud of dust.

  A second desert-patrol vehicle appeared before the first had settled back on its ruined undercarriage. The driver of this one caught a break. Greg Chaffee had blown through the last of the ammunition in the belt and stood impotently as Linda showed him how to swap it out. The truck dashed down the hill and braked for cover behind the hulking shadow of the locomotive. The men in the bed opened fire at extreme range, and a few lucky hits were close enough to make Linda and Chaffee duck.

  Cabrillo had lost precious seconds watching the spectacle and roused himself with an angry shudder. The boxcar’s roof was four feet above his head, and he needed a running start to launch himself so he hit the edge with his chest. Kicking at the smooth metal sides and straining with his arms, he hauled himself atop the car and looked forward. The first curve was a quarter mile away, and they had sped up to at least twenty miles an hour.

  He knew from the map Eric had e-mailed from the Oregon that this was a long, sweeping corner taking the tracks around the very top of this mountain and that the grade started to fall away as soon as they entered it. Twenty miles an hour was okay going in, but if they continued to accelerate eventually they would lose control of the boxcar.

  Juan moved all the way to the front of the car where a rusted, four-spoked metal wheel gave him control over the car’s mechanical brakes. In the days before George Westinghouse invented his fail-safe pneumatic-braking system, teams of brakemen would ride atop trains and turn devices like this one to squeeze the pads against the wheels in an uncoordinated and often deadly ballet. Cabrillo prayed as he grasped the wheel that it wasn’t frozen solid by rust, and that after the decades the car had been used on the line there were any brake pads remaining.

  Prepared to heave with all his strength, he cursed when the wheel spun freely in his hands. It felt like it wasn’t connected to anything, but then he heard the squeal of metal on metal as the old brakes clamped over the top of the car’s wheels. They worked after all and had been recently greased. Grinning at his luck, he cranked the wheel another half turn, and his elation turned to dismay. The added pressure should have tightened the brake pads further and changed the pitch of the screech coming from the wheels. It didn’t happen.

  They had brakes, yes. But not much.

  The Pig pushed the freight car into the turn, and Juan lost sight of the ore-loading superstructure as it vanished around the hilltop. To his right, he had a commanding view over another valley and, as if to remind him of their predicament, a string of ore cars that had left the tracks a hundred years before at its bottom, looking like discarded toys. If he had to guess, the steam engine that had gone over with them probably had five times the Pig’s horsepower.

  “Linc, you there?” he radioed.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s our speed?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Okay, don’t let it go past thirty. We don’t have much braking left on the boxcar.”

  “Is that bad?” Linda asked over the net.

  “It ain’t good.”

  There were ladder rungs welded to the front of the car, so Cabrillo climbed over and down. Next to him was the shaft that linked the wheel above to a worm gear that activated the brakes. Juan hooked his legs around the forward coupling and braced one hand on a stanchion so he could peer under the edge of the car. Creosote-blackened railroad ties zipped by inches from where he dangled. A stone was lodged between the turning rod and the worm gear. When he twisted the wheel, the stone had kicked the gear’s teeth out of alignment so it turned without activating the brakes. Redoubling his grip, he stretched until his chest was under the car. Weeds growing in the old railbed whipped his cheek and face.

  His fingers sank into the grease that coated the gear, but no matter how he tried he couldn’t get a grip on the tightly wedged stone chip.

  “Screw this,” he muttered, and reached behind his back for one of his automatic pistols.

  His body swayed as he drew it, and for a moment he was looking up the tracks. A metal jerry can had fallen from an earlier train or been left between the rails by one of the work crews. Juan was hurtling toward it at more than thirty miles per hour and didn’t have the time or leverage to pull himself clear. Hanging practically upside down, he aimed at the can and opened fire as fast as the gun would cycle. The high-velocity bullets from the FN Five-seveN punched through the can’s thin sides without moving it. He was ten feet from having his face smashed into the container when a round caught on one of its corner seams and sent the can skittering harmlessly away.

  He twisted back and fired the last round at the worm gear. The rock popped free and fell away.

  “Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” he crowed, high on accomplishment and adrenaline.

  “Repeat that, Chairman,” Linc asked.

  “Nothing. I think I’ve fixed the brakes.” He straightened himself up and reached for the ladder. “What’s our speed?”

  “Thirty-four. I’m using the Pig’s brakes, so that carbon-fiber dust is blowing off the pads something fierce.”

  “No problem. This is why we started in reverse. Throw her into first gear and start slowing us using the engine. I’ll get on the brake up here, and between the two we should be okay.”

  Juan reached the top of the boxcar. They had dropped a hundred feet or so from the mountain’s summit as they curled around its flank. Above them, the hillside was sparse scrub. Then he saw that there was a road that ran parallel to and slightly higher than the railbed. He only noticed it because of the dun-colored truck that emerged from around a bend and started pacing the train as it glided down the tracks.

  A man with his head wrapped in a ubiquitous kaffiyeh stood bracing himself in the back of the truck. Cabrillo had left his REC7 on the boxcar’s roof when he’d crawled down to fix the brakes. He lunged up and over the front of the car at the same instant the fanatic leapt from the speeding truck.

  His defiant scream was lost in the wind as he arced though the air. Juan’s fingers had closed around the rifle’s barrel when the man crashed onto the roof close enough to send the weapon skidding toward the side. Jacked up on even more adrenaline than Cabrillo, the man shouted a battle cry and kicked Juan full in the face.

  Cabrillo’s world went dark in an instant, and only started returning in painfully slow increments. When Juan was somewhat conscious of what was happening, the terrorist had pulled his AK-47 from
around his back and was just lining up. Juan rolled over and scissor-kicked his legs, twisting on the hot steel roof enough to catch the man in the shin. The AK stitched four holes into the roof next to Juan’s head, and inside the car someone screamed out in pain.

  Goaded beyond fury, Cabrillo reached up and grasped the weapon by its forward grip. As he pulled down, the gunman reared back and actually helped pull the Chairman to his feet. Juan fired two punches into the gunman’s face. The Arab was so intent on keeping his weapon that he didn’t defend himself. Juan landed two more solid blows, and over the terrorist’s shoulder saw two more men preparing to leap for the train.

  He rammed his elbow into his opponent’s stomach as he rolled into him, turning them both so that when he grabbed at the guy’s right hand and forced his finger onto the trigger the AK’s barrel was pointed back at the truck. The spray of tracers caught one of the men just as he gathered himself to jump. He fell out of the side of the truck and vanished under its rear wheels, his body making the vehicle bounce slightly on its suspension.

  The second man flew like a bird and landed on the roof with the agility of a cat.

  Cabrillo continued to spin the first terrorist, and when he let go the guy staggered back one pace, two, and then there was no more train roof. He went cartwheeling into space, his headscarf coming unwound and fluttering after him like a distracted butterfly.

  Juan threw his empty pistol at his new opponent and charged him before the man could pull his assault rifle across his body on its canvas sling. Juan hit the guy low and reared up, lifting him nearly five feet into the air before letting go. The gunman crashed onto the roof, his breath exploding from his body in a rancid gush. If his back wasn’t broken, he was still out for the duration.

  Unless Linda or Linc had noticed the first guy go over the side of the boxcar, they weren’t at the right angle to see what was happening behind them, and with Juan’s radio dislodged from his ear he had no way of warning them. The Pig was giving its all to slow the train, but without the addition of the car’s brakes they continued to accelerate. Juan guessed they were nearing forty-five miles an hour. The grade remained at a constant downward slope and the curve was still gentle, but if they got going much faster he feared that they wouldn’t be able to slow when they hit the first sharp corner.

  Three more terrorists jumped for the boxcar. Two landed on the roof. A third smashed into its side, his fingers clawing at the edge of the roof to keep himself from falling off.

  One of the gunmen caromed into Juan when he landed, grabbed him tight, and slammed a hardened fist deep into the Chairman’s kidney. Cabrillo’s grunt at the staggering pain drove the man into a frenzy. He fired two more punches, grinding his knuckles into Cabrillo’s flesh with each impact. Juan then felt his second FN Five-seveN being pulled from its holster. He shifted violently just as the man fired at his spine. The bullet singed the cloth of Cabrillo’s shirt and hit the second terrorist in the throat. Blood fountained from the wound in time to the man’s wildly beating heart.

  The sight of his comrade’s life pumping from his body might have distracted the gunman, but it held no sway over Cabrillo. Juan yanked his pistol free from the man’s slack grip, stepped back a pace, and put two through his heart.

  Both bodies hit the roof at the same instant.

  “Juan? Juan? Come in.”

  Cabrillo reset his earpiece and adjusted the mike so he could communicate. “Yeah.”

  “We need brakes,” Linc was shouting. “Now.”

  Juan looked forward. They were coming out of the turn, and the tracks dipped for a hundred yards before another sharper bend to the right. He ran for the brake wheel and was nearly there when the terrorist who he thought had a broken back threw out an arm and tripped him. Cabrillo went sprawling and didn’t have time to recover before the guy was on him, throwing punches with abandon. There was no power behind the shots, but all Juan could do was defend himself while the train hurtled for the corner.

  He felt the sudden dip in the line and knew he had seconds. He tucked his legs to his chest, managing to plant his feet on the terrorist’s chest, and in a judo move threw him over his head. The guy crashed down onto the roof on his back. Juan spun and, using his right hand to power his left elbow, drove it into the man’s throat. The crushing of cartilage, sinew, and tissue was nauseating.

  The instant Juan’s fingers grasped the metal wheel, he started spinning it with everything he had. They were doing fifty on a corner meant to be taken at thirty. The brakes screamed and threw off showers of sparks as they entered the turn. Too late, Juan knew. Way too late.

  The centrifugal force made the boxcar light on its outside wheels, and despite its massive weight they started losing contact with the rails. Juan cranked the brake wheel until it was locked tight. Behind him, the Pig’s engine roared with the flood of nitrous oxide Linc had dumped into the cylinders, and rubber smeared off the deflated tires when they spun against the steel tracks. The freight car’s outside wheels bumped and lifted, bumped and lifted, gaining centimeters with each judder. He wished there was some way he could communicate to the men and women inside the car. Their weight could make all the difference.

  Inspiration born of desperation made Juan snatch up one of the terrorist’s AK-47s and step to the outside edge of the car. The valley stretched below him seemingly forever. He aimed along the length of the train and loosened a full magazine. The bullets hit the steel flank at such an angle that they all ricocheted off into space, but the din inside was enough to frighten the prisoners over to the opposite side of the car above the bouncing wheels.

  Their weight cemented the train back to the tracks.

  The boxcar shot out of the turn and onto another gentle stretch of line. Juan shook his head to clear it and was about to sit down to give his body a rest when Mark’s panicked voice exploded in his ears. “Take off the brake! Hurry!”

  Cabrillo started turning the wheel to take pressure off the pads and chanced a look behind them. The road was no longer visible, the truck loaded with flying terrorists out of the picture at least for now, but farther up the line, barreling down the tracks, was another truck that had been modified to run on the rails. Unburdened by thirteen tons of train car and people, it came toward them at breakneck speed. Over its cab, Juan could see more men eager for the fight, and even at this distance he could tell they were armed with rocket-propelled grenades.

  The Pig’s windshield was so badly cracked, it wouldn’t hold up to autofire, so he had no illusions what an RPG would do.

  Linc had the transmission back in reverse, forgoing the low-range gears for the higher ones in hopes that the truck’s power and the rolling stock’s momentum would be enough to buy them some time. So long as they continued to sway through the gentle bends, the terrorists couldn’t take a shot.

  “When’s our next tight turn?” Juan asked. He knew Mark had a scrolling map going on his laptop slaved to the Pig’s GPS tracker.

  “Two miles.”

  “Missiles?”

  “Only one.”

  “Keep it. I’ve got an idea.”

  Juan raced aft, leaping from the train car onto the Pig’s roof. Linda had replaced Greg Chaffee on the M60. Chaffee was sitting down in the cargo area with Alana and Fodl. He looked spent. “The instructors at the Farm would be proud, especially . . .” Juan mentioned the name of a legendary staffer at the CIA’s training center, a name known only to those who’d gone through it.

  Chaffee’s eyes widened. “You’re . . . ?”

  “Retired.”

  Juan popped the hinge pins from one of the cabinets built into the inside wall of the Pig. The door was three feet square and weighed about sixty pounds. He passed it up through the hatch with Linda’s help and then crawled onto the Pig’s cab. His timing didn’t necessarily have to be that good, but his luck had to hold. The train-truck was a quarter mile distant, gaining fast. Someone on it spotted Cabrillo out in the open and fired with his AK. Juan hauled up the metal do
or, using it like a screen, and bullets pinged off it like lead rain, their kinetic energy like sledgehammer blows.

  The Pig went into another shallow curve, just enough for their pursuers to lose sight of them. Juan slid the sheet steel down along the retreating truck’s nearly vertical windshield and let go.

  The metal plate hit the outside track with a ringing crash and slid for several long seconds before its lip caught a tie and it spun to a stop. It came to rest across one of the rails.

  Thirty seconds later, the truck showed itself from around the corner. It had to be doing sixty miles an hour. This time the Pig was too tempting a target for the men with the RPGs, and several made ready to let fly.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE DRIVER OF THE HYBRID TRAIN-TRUCK HAD JUST SECONDS to react, and in saving his life he saved Cabrillo and the others. He spotted the piece of sheet steel sitting on the track and recognized immediately that hitting it would cause a derailment. Stomping the brakes, he yanked a lever on the floor next to his seat. Hydraulics raised the train wheels that sat just inside the truck’s regular tires, and as the wheels tucked under the chassis the outside tires made contact with the railroad ties.

  Between the brutal deceleration and the staccato impact of running over the raised ties, the gunmen leaning over the cab readying their RPGs had no chance to accurately fire. Rocket contrails arrowed away from the truck in every direction—skyward, where they corkscrewed like giant fireworks, or into the valley below, where they detonated harmlessly in the desert.

  The truck bounced over the metal plate, and once they were clear the quick-thinking driver had to slow even further in order to mate the steel train wheels with the track once again.

  Cabrillo’s idea had gained them only a half mile or so, not the outcome he had hoped. The next tight corner was coming up, and he had to return to the brake wheel. He climbed over the back of the Pig, nearly gagging at the smell of burning rubber from the shredded tires. They were at forty miles an hour again, and the wind made leaping up to the boxcar a tricky maneuver. Below him, he could see the darkened ties blur by in the tight gap between the Pig and her ponderous charge.