The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

  She kept running along the tracks until the sound of the motorcycles became little more than a distant echo. Her heart was beating so hard, and her lungs burned. Adrenaline surged through her body and she could hear the pounding of her heart in her ears. She bent forward, resting her hands on her knees, breathing deeply in an attempt to catch her breath. In the distance, she imagined the ruffled motors of the bikes chasing her. She needed to keep going, but her body refused to move.

  They would be in the tunnel, any minute now.

  In front of her there was nothing but darkness. She kept going, using only the railway tracks for guidance. Those tracks now started to vibrate. At first, she thought it might be the motorcycles gaining on her, but then she put her hand on the cold steel of railway track.

  A fine vibration ran through her hand. She looked behind, but there was nothing to see. Even the speck of light from the opening far behind had become nothing more than a distant speck. She turned to run again, and spotted something up ahead – a tiny shaft of light with dust swirling in it.

  No, it can’t be possible!

  Motorcycles, and now a train? She couldn’t escape. She couldn’t hide. And soon, someone would discover the body of her captor, if the motorcycle riders hadn’t already done so. She was done for. The only thing left to do was ask the question, which she did out loud.

  “Where the hell did that come from?”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  The deathly apparition ahead took Sam by surprise. They’d been traveling for a little over three days now without seeing anything other than the almost perfectly straight tunnel and railway tracks. Even though he and Tom had traded sleep shifts, the hours in the darkness of the railway tunnel, lit only by the old train’s headlights had taken their toll on Sam’s grasp of reality.

  This section of the track had a slightly upward gradient to it, forcing them to travel only a little faster than a walking pace.

  Matvei asked, “What is that…?”

  The elderly driver’s voice was creaky from disuse, as he’d refused to talk about his masters and they’d run out of things to talk about otherwise. He hadn’t spoken for hours. He was looking in the direction of what Sam had seen, however.

  Sam said, “You saw it too?”

  “I saw something,” the driver answered.

  Sam pulled the throttle to the right, bleeding the steam and removing energy from the pistons. A moment later, he pulled the airbrake and the wheels of the train screeched to a halt. Despite their already slow movement, the train took every foot of track between it and the person to come up to a stop.

  He leaned out of the locomotive and peered down the tracks. There! Sitting slumped beside the tracks, a human form.

  “Hey! Are you all right?” he called. He ducked back into the cab of the locomotive and grabbed his shotgun, then stepped down. His weapon was trained on the figure. It stood.

  “I surrender,” a soft, female voice answered. “I’m unarmed. Please don’t shoot.”

  Sam’s mouth dropped open. He lowered the shotgun, but kept it clutched in his hands. Behind him, he heard Tom.

  “What’s going on? Why are we stopped?”

  “There’s a woman on the tracks up ahead,” Sam said. Even to him it sounded strange. Where could she have come from? Who was she? She’d raised her hands over her head and begun walking toward them.

  “Be careful, Sam,” Tom warned.

  “Says she’s unarmed.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s telling the truth.” Tom stepped out from behind him, his shotgun leveled at the approaching figure.

  They waited until they could see her clearly in the yellow light of the train’s headlights. She was clearly unarmed. She wore jeans and a short-sleeved plaid shirt, a pair of hiking boots, and something around her neck that Sam couldn’t identify. But it was too small to hold a weapon. Her eyes were wide, as if she was in shock, her dark hair pulled back but strands escaping from whatever held them. And she was covered in what looked like… blood. She was about ten feet away when her legs suddenly folded and she fell to her knees.

  Sam handed his shotgun to Tom and ran toward the woman. “Are you hurt? What happened to you?”

  She looked up at him with huge brown eyes. “No. I… I escaped. I’m tired. Kill me if you have to, but I’m done running and I don’t want to be taken hostage anymore.”

  Sam drew back, startled. “Kill you? Why would I do that?” His voice held genuine curiosity.

  “I killed your friend. I know you’ll kill me for that. Just get it over with.”

  “Lady, my friend is alive and well and standing back there a few yards. Want to tell me what this is all about?”

  Up ahead, a roar sounded. Sam looked up. “What the hell is that?”

  “Motorcycles,” she answered. “I thought you were with them.”

  Sam’s eyes darted farther up the track, at the motorcycles approaching fast. “All right, everyone back on the train!”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Sam climbed into the train’s engine cab. His intelligent blue eyes determined, and his jaw set firm. He released the two engine brakes on the left-hand side of the control panel and opened the throttle to full. There wasn’t a lot of steam available to send to the pistons, but it was enough to start the forward movement. He opened the damper and switched on the blower to increase steam generation.

  Matvei looked up. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve got company. A number of motorcycles.”

  Matvei’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”

  Tom pointed the shotgun down range and fired three rounds. The train started to creep forward at a slow walking pace. It wasn’t much, but still no one was going to want to get in the way of it, and there wasn’t a lot of room in the tunnel.

  Sam looked at the woman he’d just met. Her brown eyes were wide, but her face was full of defiance. “You might want to take cover over here in the engine bay.”

  The woman moved quickly, but said nothing.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. I’m Sam and this is Tom.”

  “Jenn.” She smiled at him and her eyes darted toward the prisoner, with his wrists bound sitting next to the coal tender. “Who’s that?”

  “That’s the train driver. Right now, he’s our prisoner.” Sam took aim with his shotgun and fired once down the line. “It’s a long story and I’d love to tell you all about it, but right now we’re a little busy.”

  “I can see that.” She glanced at his weapon. “Got another one of those?”

  “Can you shoot?”

  “You bet I can.”

  He handed her the shotgun and picked up the Kalashnikov machine gun that Tom had secured in the engine house earlier on.

  Extensive gunfire erupted from farther down the tunnel. The riders were pelting the steam engine with maintained bursts of machine gun fire. Sam ducked down and Tom stood up toward the left side of the engine cab and released several shots down the railway tunnel. To the right of him, Jenn started to shoot.

  The incoming shots slowed and the riders appeared to back off. Sam leaned to the right side of the engine house, spotted two riders turning in somewhere to the right. He fired a quick burst of machine gun fire with his Kalashnikov.

  When he released the trigger, the tunnel went quiet.

  And the train continued to move forward at a walking pace.

  “Where’d they go?” Sam asked.

  “There’s a crossroad another hundred feet up ahead. The tunnel to the right leads to the surface and the one to the left, deeper in the cave system.”

  The headlights of the bikes suddenly went out, as the riders must have turned to speed out of the tunnel rather than be run down by the train. Sam saw one go down and disappear from view as the train reached their spot. Another’s motorcycle fell over as the rider took a shot in the back and flew off. Moments later, the train crushed the bike under its monster wheels. He’d counted five to begin with, but only by their headlights. Was tha
t all of them?

  “How many were there?” he shouted over the noise of the slowly moving train.

  “Five,” Jenn called back. “I think there were five.”

  “Two down,” Tom said, calmly reloading again. “But they’re faster than we are. I spotted two head to the right tunnel and one to the left. What do you want to do?”

  Sam looked at the crossroad slowly approaching. “Jenn and I will take out the single rider to the left tunnel as we go past.”

  Tom grinned. “Sure. The two of you against one rider and I’ll take out two riders on the right myself.”

  “You got it.” Sam matched his grin. “Only, I think you should race back to the trailing carriage and take a seat in the machine gun turret. That way, once we’re past the crossroads, you’ll be able to hold off against anyone else who comes down this tunnel.”

  “Now I like your plan.”

  Sam watched Tom start to make his way quickly to the trailing carriages.

  He loaded another magazine into the Kalashnikov and looked at Jenn. “Are you ready?”

  She fired two shots down the tunnel, sending a spread of shotgun pellets toward the crossroads. It would be enough incentive to make any of the riders think twice before doubling back to attack them. “I’m ready.”

  “Good.”

  Matvei said, “I can’t believe what you’re doing to my girl!”

  “Hey, I’m not the one shooting at her!”

  A moment later, the front wheels of the steam train reached the crossroads and machine gun bullets began to spray the smokebox. Steam whistled at a crisp pitch from the holes. Jenn emptied the remaining twenty odd rounds from her shotgun as they reached the crossroad.

  The three motorcycles were arrayed in the cross-tunnel, two on one side of the track, and one on the other. Bullets flew through the locomotive’s windows as they entered the crossfire, but the momentum of the locomotive carried them into the mouth of the other side of their own tunnel. Sam squeezed the trigger, and held a sustained burst from his machine gun, killing the rider down the left-hand side tunnel.

  Sam pulled back on the throttle and let the train coast. They couldn’t afford to just keep going and leave those guys on their tail. They’d have to run back through the other cars and finish the fight.

  A moan from the driver caught his attention.

  Sam glanced at him. “What happened?”

  Matvei coughed. Blood frothed at his mouth. His breathing was labored, and Sam saw he’d been shot multiple times in the chest. Sam cut the old man’s bindings and pressed his hands to the wound.

  “It’s no good,” the driver wheezed. “I’m dying. Listen… important. The Stone. It will… will answer. When… time comes… train will lead you. To salvation.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Tom ran through each of the carriages, racing against the speed of the train. With his shotgun over his right shoulder, he held a flashlight in his right hand, it’s powerful beam reflecting off the narrow carriageway and the glassy volcanic stone of the outside tunnel.

  Gunfire sprayed the front of the train behind him as it passed the crossroad. The sound quickly became intermingled and lost with Sam’s machine gun fire and Jenn’s shotgun blasts. He reached the third carriage, squeezing between the stockpile of weapons and the Death Stone. At the very end, he jumped across the coupling, onto the fourth carriage, containing the machine gun turret.

  It took him two more steps to reach and climb inside. The machine gun turret appeared to have been appropriated from the tail-gunner’s compartment of a disused B52 Stratofortress Bomber and specifically modified to rotate in a 270-degree arc at the end of the rail-cart. It was one of the original versions used, utilizing a Browning M2 quad .50 caliber machine gun, not the electronically remote controlled M61 Vulcan used on the later models. Tom sat down, flicked on the power switch for the rotating turret, and gripped the two sets of triggers.

  Tom shoved his foot on the left pedal and the heavy machinery whined like something out of Star Wars as it rotated to the left in an instant. He lifted his foot again, and the guns locked into place, now perpendicular with the railway track. Perfectly set up to fire down the tunnel leading to the surface, he relaxed and adjusted his grip on the two-firing hand holds, until the quad .50 caliber machine guns became extensions of his hands.

  The turret carriage slowly rolled into place and the view of the tunnel to the surface opened up. Tom jammed his thumbs on the twin-firing triggers. The electric-boost, mechanically fed ammunition belt whirred into life.

  Flame erupted from the four barrels.

  And from the cold, dark steel of the four muzzles, .50 caliber M33 shot left at a speed of 2910 feet per second. Tom held his thumbs on the firing trigger, and the lethal barrage continued at a rate of 1200 rounds per minute.

  Seconds passed, and it was over.

  The train rolled by the tunnel and he released the triggers. Smoke vented from the heated barrels. Tom could no longer see into the tunnel, but he knew that anyone who’d been there was now dead. He pressed his foot on the right peddle until the machine gun turret once again faced the railway tracks directly behind the carriage.

  Two motorcycles sped across the railway track at the crossroads.

  Tom squeezed the triggers and the machine of war fired again. He held them for a few seconds and let go. There was no sign of the riders on the track. Which meant he reacted too late and they’d cleared the tracks.

  Tom lifted himself up out of the turret and jumped off the back of the slow-moving train. He bolted to the crossroad twenty feet away. Shining his flashlight to the right, he spotted the dead rider that Sam or Jen must have killed earlier, lying in a pool of blood next to his bike.

  Confident he wasn’t going to be shot from behind, Tom turned his focus to the tunnel leading to the surface. There were two riders racing out. He pointed the shotgun down the tunnel and squeezed the trigger multiple times until the last round was finally emptied.

  He stared at the smoke-filled tunnel. The weapon was lethal at close range, but lacked power and accuracy from such a distance. As the dust cleared, he watched the two riders disappear at the end of the tunnel.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  The enclosed space held an acrid bite of propellant that was rapidly dissipating with a fresh breeze blowing in from the opening a few yards beyond.

  Sam looked at the four bodies, three one side of the track and three on the other, and said, “I thought we counted five.”

  Tom shook his head. “There were another two. They must have been searching for Jenn farther down this side of the tunnel, deeper into the cave system. When they heard the gunfight, they must have returned and made a B-line for the surface. I saw the taillights disappearing around the outside of the opening. At least one got a way.”

  “That was bad luck.” Sam said, without heat.

  “Yeah.” Jen cast her eyes over the dead bodies. “Now they know we’re in here, there’ll be more coming. We need to get out.”

  Sam nodded, deep in thought and turned to Jenn. “Are you from around here?”

  Jenn smiled. There was a youthful honesty in it. “I don’t know where here is. But yeah, I walked through this tunnel, so we can’t be too far from my home. If we can reach the surface, I’ll be able to figure it out.”

  “Tom, go with her and cover her while she looks outside. I think we’re going to have to abandon this old train.”

  “Aw, and I was just getting fond of it.” Tom’s eyes glanced toward the engine cab. “What about Matvei?”

  “He took a few bullets in his chest. I’m afraid his own men killed him.”

  “Tough break.” Tom climbed back onto the train and grabbed another twenty-eight-round magazine for his shotgun. “All right. Let’s go see where this strange portal has taken us.”

  Tom jumped down from the train and chivalrously held out his hand to help Jenn. She took it and sprang lightly from the carriage, then strode off with Tom following.


  Sam considered his options. If the riders were out there preparing to come in and attack again, it wouldn’t work. But at this point, a way out seemed like the right time to offload the Humvee, get the stone, and disappear.

  He started by deploying the ramp. Before he’d finished, Tom was back.

  “There’s nothing around here for miles. Just mostly flat sand and sandstone, with some taller mesas in the distance. Jenn thinks she knows where we are, and she thinks she can find a road to take us back to the ranch she’s from.”

  “Good to know. Help me get the Humvee off here, and then we’ll back up and load the stone onto her.”

  Tom backed the Humvee down the ramp into the relatively large area of the crossroads, the wide track of the vehicle straddling the rails. He steered it toward the opening to the outside and bumped it over the track. He came to a stop just beyond. Sam backed the locomotive up, with Tom signaling him to stop when the stone was next to the Humvee. By the time Sam climbed out of the locomotive and made it back, Tom had the forklift started.

  Working like the team they’d always been, the pair still took nearly an hour to get the stone situated on the Humvee and tied down, though if something bad happened, the tie-downs wouldn’t be adequate to prevent it from rolling and either crushing them or falling to the ground, potentially breaking.

  Jenn had come back in about twenty minutes before they finished and asked when they’d be ready to go. Sam watched her eyes widen when she saw what they were doing.

  “What the heck is that?” she asked. “And why are you taking it? Those guys could be on their way back right now.”

  “That’s why we’re taking it,” Sam answered.

  When everything was ready, Tom gallantly handed Jenn into the front passenger seat, while he took the jump seat most recently occupied by the unfortunate Gallagher. At least the blood was dry now.

  “Everybody ready?” Sam asked cheerfully.