Checkmate sc-3

by Tom Clancy

  “Roger, Federal.”

  The helicopter picked up speed and descended until it was ten feet off the roof of the second car A rope uncoiled from the helicopter’s open door and an officer climbed out, clipped onto the rope, and began descending. Fisher saw a figure appear on the coupler platform between the locomotive and the first car. There was a pinprick of light, then another, then four more in rapid sucession.

  Over the radio, the helo pilot’s voice: “… taking fire… taking fire. Get him back in!”

  The officer jerked as though hit with a current of electricity, then went limp, dangling sideways.

  “… hit… Christ almighty, he’s hit.” In the background Fisher could hear bullets hitting the helo’s windscreen. “I’m pulling up…!”

  The helicopter angled upward and banked over the trees, falling back until it was even with the Osprey. Fisher looked out the side window. In the door of the helo two men were struggling to reel in the dangling officer.

  “Federal, this is Humboldt SWAT. Be advised, I have one casualty and a heat warning on my cooling pump. I’m going to have to find a place to set down.”

  “Roger, Humboldt, understood. Luck. Federal out.”

  The helicopter dropped farther back, then came around and headed west over the trees.

  Bird turned to Fisher. “It’s your call, Sam.”

  “We’re going to take some fire.”

  Bird grinned. “It’ll take more than a little popgun to ground us.”

  “That’s what I thought. Give me two seconds over the roof and then get out of here.”

  * * *

  As the train entered the gorge, Bird climbed to a thousand feet and eased back on the throttle, letting the train get ahead. It burst from the far mouth of the gorge, chugging black smoke. Bird nosed over and dropped in behind the caboose, twenty feet off the track.

  “How tall you think that thing is, Sandy?” Bird asked.

  “Twelve feet — no thirteen. Why?”

  “I’m not giving any more of a target than I have to. Sam, you and Will get ready. Grab ahold of something. Gonna get a bumpy.”

  Fisher hurried back into the cabin, where Redding was checking the SC-20 and pistol. He handed them over. “Both loaded. Harness.”

  Fisher took it, slipped it on, adjusted the fit over his shoulders, then slid the SC-20 into its back holster and the pistol into its leg holster.

  Bird called, “Sixty seconds, Sam. Ramp coming down.”

  The ramp door groaned open. Wind whipped through the cabin. Over the drone of the Osprey’s engines, Fisher could hear the syncopated chug of the locomotive, could smell coal smoke. He walked down the edge of the ramp and crouched down. Twenty feet below, the track whipped past, a blur of steel rails and wooden cross-ties.

  “Stand by,” Bird called. “I’m moving ahead.”

  The caboose’s coupler slid into view, followed by the roof, and then the windowed cupola. Fisher kept his eyes fixed on it and tried to ignore the trees flashing past on either side.

  Fisher glanced back at Redding, who stood at the ramp’s control panel, and gave him the signal. Fisher braced himself. The ramp lurched down and crashed against the roof. The jolt was harder than Fisher had anticipated and it rocked him backward onto his butt. His left foot slipped over the edge. He jerked it back.

  Bird called, “Taking a little gunfire up here, Sam.”

  Wait… wait…

  He somersaulted down the ramp onto the caboose roof and spread himself flat. Redding gave him wave and then the ramp started closing. The Osprey nosed up, dropped back, then banked over the trees and out of sight.

  * * *

  Down the length of the train he could see two figures standing atop the locomotive’s coupler. Muzzles winked at him through the coal smoke. He couldn’t tell if the shots were accurate or wildly off, but it didn’t matter. He started crawling.

  The train lurched forward, picking up speed. Fisher felt his stomach drop and he realized they were going down a grade. He crawled to the edge of the roof, braced himself, then flipped his trident goggles into place, switched to NV, and ducked his head over the side.

  He was looking through a window. On the other side was a man holding a radio to his ear. He spun, saw Fisher, then raised a pistol and fired. The window shattered. Fisher jerked back, but not quickly enough. He felt warm blood trickling down his chin and neck. He plucked a frag grenade off his harness, pulled the pin, counted one-one thousand, tossed it through the window. There was a muffled boom. He peeked back over the edge. The man lay sprawled on the floor.

  Beside Fisher’s head, a bullet punched into the roof. He looked up in time to see a man running toward him down the second car’s roof. He rolled to the right, drew the pistol, and snapped off two shots. The first one went wide, but the second one hit center-mass. The man doubled over, dropped to his knees, then tipped over the side and tumbled down the embankment.

  Fisher crawled forward the last few feet, then turned and dangled his legs over the edge and dropped to the coupler below. As he landed, the door to the third car slid open. A man stood in the opening, a.357 Magnum leveled with Fisher’s chest. They stood staring at one another for a few seconds. And then, from behind the man, a face appeared. It was Zhao. “Shoot him, you idiot! Shoot…!”

  Fisher knew there was nothing he could do; he was going to take a bullet. He was about to give his tac-suit’s RhinoPlate a true-life test. Not wanting to give the man a chance to adjust his aim and go for a head shot, Fisher went for his pistol.

  The man fired. Fisher saw the muzzle flash, heard the blast, and felt a hammer-blow in the middle of his sternum. Even as he crashed backward into the door, he drew his pistol and shot the man in the throat. Behind him, Zhao dove to one side. Fisher adjusted aim and fired twice, but Zhao was gone.

  Fisher reached back, groped for the door handle, turned it. The door crashed inward. His pistol slipped from his hand and disappeared under the train. He sprawled onto the floor. He rolled over, crawled to the door, slammed it shut.

  The pain in his chest was crushing. He couldn’t catch his breath; it felt as though an anvil was sitting on his chest. Still alive, though. RhinoHide had done its job.

  He felt the floor tilt beneath him as the train started up a grade. He climbed to his feet and looked around. The hot spot had been here, somewhere in this car… The car was divided by a center aisle, with long, tourist-friendly benches on either side facing the windows. Ten feet away he saw the corner of a steel box beneath the bench. He rushed forward, dropped to his knees.

  Made of brushed stainless steel, it was no bigger than an average suitcase with a latching footlocker lid. He laid his hand on the steel. It was warm to the touch.

  Gotchya…

  The box shifted, sliding farther under the bench as the train chugged up the grade.

  And then a thought: What had Zhao been planning to do with the box? He would have worked that through, would have had a plan — and it would have been something more than simply dump the material into San Fransisco Bay. Something to maximize the spread…

  He pressed his ear to the lid and plugged his other ear with his finger. It took a few seconds to tune out the chugging of the locomotive and the wind whistling through the shattered window, but as those sounds faded, he heard something else. A faint mechanical whirring.

  Like a flywheel.

  And then another thought: Humiliated and hunted, his empire in ruins and his family dead, Zhao wouldn’t be satisfied by letting his revenge happen. His ego would demand that he do it…

  That he be the one to push the button.

  Fisher pushed himself to his feet. Pain shot through his chest, doubling him over. He straightened up and stumbled down the aisle, fighting the incline of the floor. He reached the door, threw it open.

  Across the coupler platform, he saw Zhao sitting in the doorway to the second car, legs splayed out before him. At least one of Fisher’s bullets had found its mark. The side of Zhao’s neck and
face were bloody and his right arm hung limb at his side. With his eyes locked on Fisher’s, Zhao reached his left arm across his body and into his jacket.

  Fisher lurched forward, but he lost traction on the sloped platform and fell to his knees. He got up, tried again. He grasped the hand railing and dragged himself forward.

  Zhao’s hand came out holding a cell phone. He flipped it open, starting working the keypad with his thumb. Fisher drew the Sykes from its sheath and plunged it into Zhao’s thigh. Fisher felt the blade hit bone. Zhao screamed and dropped the phone, which slid toward the edge of the platform. Fisher reached out, snagged it with his fingertips, drew it back. On the screen was a nine-digit number. Underneath it, the words “Send? Y/N?”

  He punched “No” and flipped the phone closed.

  Zhao lay curled into a ball, his face twisted with pain. With his good arm he was reaching feebly for the knife jutting from his thigh. Fisher knocked his hand away. He grabbed the haft and gave it a twist. Zhao screamed again and arched his back. Fisher jerked the knife free and resheathed it. He stood up and looked down at Zhao.

  “I think it’s time you and I say good-bye,” Fisher said.

  Zhao didn’t respond, but turned his head and glared up at him.

  “No arguments,” Fisher said. “Better we part company while we’re still friends.”

  He grabbed Zhao by the foot and dragged him farther out onto the platform. Using a pair of flexi-cuffs, he first secured Zhao’s left arm to the railing, and then his right, which made a sickening grating sound as Fisher manipulated it. Zhao set his jaw and said through gritted teeth, “Go to hell.”

  “Maybe someday,” Fisher replied, “but not today.”

  He leaned out over the railing and looked forward. Ahead he could see the locomotive was almost at the top of the grade. Fisher knelt down, reached between the platform joint, and grabbed the release lever. He jerked it upward. There was a steel clank-clank.

  “What are you doing?” Zhao said.

  Fisher didn’t answer. He stepped to the other side of the platform and knelt down. He grabbed the second release lever.

  “Tell me what you’re doing!” Zhao screamed.

  “To tell you the truth,” said Fisher, “I don’t know what they call it in China.” He felt the locomotive lose momentum ever so slightly as it topped the grade, then lurch forward as it started down the opposite slope. “But in this country, it’s called checkmate.”

  He pulled the lever.

  EPILOGUE

  KIEV, UKRAINE — SIX WEEKS LATER

  Fisher stopped before the seven-foot-tall figure. Above a hawkish nose and long bushy beard, his narrowed eyes gazed implacably over what Fisher imagined were the barren Russian steppes. In his left hand the giant carried a ruby-encrusted war club, twice as big around as a baseball bat and topped by a spiked steel globe the size of a miniature soccer ball.

  Beside the wax figure a plaque displayed a lengthy description in Cyrillic, but in English at the bottom, it simply said, “18th Century Slavic Warrior.” Behind him was a mural depicting a village in flames with women and children fleeing before horse-mounted soldiers.

  Another day in the life of your typical eighteenth-century Slavic Warrior, Fisher thought.

  The Kiev Museum of Wax Figures was a far cry from Madame Tussaud’s of London. There were no figures of Prince William or Brad Pitt or Richard Nixon, but plenty of Ukrainian and Russian historical figures, most of which the owners had classified as either a “Slavic Warrior” or a “Saint.” Whatever their avocation or history, Fisher had yet to see a smile, either from a wax figure or a patron — most of whom looked like locals. Apprently, the museum did not cater to many tourists.

  For all that, though, he was enjoying the downtime. It had been hard won.

  * * *

  After Fisher had lifted the second release lever, the coupler had given another metallic clank-clank. Then the caboose and the third car had begun sliding away from Zhao’s car. Fisher had timed it well. Now free of the third car and the caboose, and without a brakeman to control its descent, the locomotive rapidly picked up speed, hurtling down the slope. Spread-eagle on the platform of the second car, with his legs dangling in space and his wrists bound to the railing, Zhao never took his eyes off Fisher, even as Fisher’s car slowed at the top of the slope, paused, then began rolling backward.

  Fisher rushed down the length of his car, across the next platform, and into the caboose, where he found the brake controls. He leaned on the lever with his full body weight. The caboose continued rolling down the slope, but slowly the brake started to work, slowing the descent. The caboose filled with smoke and the lever grew hot in Fisher’s hand, but finally, two minutes later, the caboose slowed and came to a rest at the bottom of the slope.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, he heard the chopping of helicopter rotors echoing down the pass. A pair of Black-hawks swooped in and stopped in a hover above the track. Men in standard-issue blue FBI windbreakers jumped down and rushed toward Fisher, guns drawn.

  An hour after that, a fourth Blackhawk arrived and disgorged a NEST team, which cordoned off the car and the caboose and took charge of Zhao’s container.

  When it was opened two days later at a secure facility, they found 245 pounds of nuclear debris.

  A Blackhawk was dispatched down the track to look for Zhao’s locomotive and the first two cars. They had jumped the track at the bottom of the slope and tumbled down the mountainside. Zhao’s arms were found still bound to the platform’s railing. The rest of him lay two hundred feet away, crushed under one of the locomotive’s wheels.

  * * *

  In the Persian Gulf, the fragile truce between U.S. and Iranian forces continued to hold as the Reagan Battle Group withdrew farther into the Arabian Sea and the Iranian Air Force and Navy continued to stand down units. A week after the Saudis had delivered the President’s message to Tehran, alert levels on sides were back to normal.

  As analysts and anchors for round-the-clock news channels pondered and speculated how and why the two countries had pulled back from the brink of war, both governments continued talking through the Saudis. The U.S. was not anxious to admit it had been duped into nearly starting a third war in the Middle East, and Iran wasn’t anxious for the world to know that one of its own zealots had not only been instrumental in the scheme, but had also been directly responsible for the deaths of the 5,289 Americans at Slipstone. More importantly, for both Presidents the near-war had been a preview of sorts, and neither man had liked what he saw.

  According to Lambert, an argument was raging in the Oval Office about when and how the details of the near war would be revealed to the world. There was no one left alive to blame, which, Fisher knew, would not sit well with the American public. Predictably, the Iranians and Chinese had moved quickly to paint Abelzada and Zhao as rogue criminals, who had acted with neither the support nor the knowledge of their respective governments. Fisher suspected in the end the crisis would be portrayed as a “fine example of a multi-national, cross-culture cooperative effort that defeated a massive terrorist plot.” From there, the media would do the rest, filling in the gaps and assuaging the public’s curiosity with a slew of books, movies, and documentaries.

  Fisher couldn’t care less. He’d done his job and come out the other side. The rest was trivia.

  * * *

  Fisher glanced to his left and saw a man enter through an arch and stop beside the dwarfish figure dressed in Eastern Orthodox garb, one hand carrying a giant Bible, the other a bronze censer. Fisher had already read the figure’s biography. He was an “18th Century Saint.”

  The man who had just entered stopped before the saint, studied him for a few seconds, then sat down on the bench before it. After a few minutes he got up and walked away, leaving behind his brochure. Fisher walked over and took the bench. The man’s brochure had been folded in half, with the upper left-hand corner turned down twice. If it had been folded any differently, it would
have been the “wave off” signal for Fisher. Not safe; leave.

  Whether the man was an agent or a CIA case officer Fisher didn’t know, but he’d done his job, which was all that mattered. Their target had been tailed and found clean of surveillance. Fisher unfolded the brochure. Written on the inside cover in block letters were two words: COSSACK ROOM.

  * * *

  Fisher saw her seated on a bench before what he assumed was a Cossack: knee-high leather boots, handlebar mustache, mouth frozen in mid-scream as he charged toward nothing.

  Fisher walked up behind her and stopped. “If you ask me, he looks angry at being fed substandard borshch,” he whispered.

  Elena turned in her seat. Her eyes went wide and her mouth worked several times, but nothing came out for a few seconds. “What…? What are you doing here?”

  “Taking in the wax figures, what’s it look like?” He sat down next to her.

  “I was told to meet my… friend here.”

  “He couldn’t make it. Asked me to fill in for him.”

  Elena’s brow furrowed with worry. “What’s happening? I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  Fisher pulled an envelope from his pocket on the bench between them. “Open it.”

  She did, and stared at the contents for a few moments, then said, “It’s a passport.”

  “Not just any passport,” Fisher corrected. “Your passport. You did say you wouldn’t mind coming to the U.S., didn’t you?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Our plane leaves in two hours.”

  Elena frowned, then sighed. She laid the envelope back on the bench, hesitated for two beats, then snatched it up again. “I can’t just leave.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just… just… I don’t know.”

  “It’s your choice, Elena. I have a few connections; I’m sure there’s a job somewhere in the government for a biologist slash borshch connoisseur.”

  They sat in silence for five minutes, during most of which Elena seemed to be having a whispered argument with herself. Abruptly she turned to him and said, “Okay.”