Chapter 45 - The High Desert Ambush
"He's bluffing," Jonah growled, his gray eyes burning with raw, untamed fire. "Croft would never blow two billion in gold and bonds into the bottom of the Great Salt Lake."
"He isn't bluffing about sinking us, Jonah," I countered, looking down at the digital timer mounted beside the front bulkhead of the vault car. The crimson LED readout was already counting down: *03:42... 03:41...* "Croft has an escape engine. The lead diesel can decouple on the fly. He intends to sever the freight cars, trigger the charges on the trestle, and let the shockwave blast Engine 101 into the lake while he rides clean into Nevada on the western spur!"
Jonah turned to me, his broad hands gripping both of my shoulders with an intensity that sent heat coursing through my veins. "I won't let him take your father's legacy. And I won't let him touch you. We break the air lines between Car 2 and Car 1 right now. If we trip the emergency pneumatic reservoirs, the brakes will weld to the drums on every freight car, locking Croft's lead engine in place before he reaches the switch."
"The air bleed valve is on the outside catwalk," I said, meeting his fierce gaze without a shred of fear. "Under sixty miles an hour of sub-zero crosswinds."
"Then we do it together," Jonah whispered, his thumb brushing against my lip before he pulled his tactical wrench from his belt. "Just like Palmer Divide."
We burst out of the vault car's forward hatch onto the open coupling gangway. The freezing wind hit us like a wall of broken ice. Ahead of us, the lead diesel locomotive roared, its exhaust manifold glowing cherry-red against the desert darkness. On the catwalk above the coupling, two of Croft's surviving enforcers stood waiting, leveling automatic submachine guns.
Before they could squeeze their triggers, a thunderous roar ripped through the night from behind us.
*BOOM!*
A blinding flash lit up the trestle as Mack, perched atop Engine 101's cab roof two hundred yards back, discharged his heavy twelve-gauge shotgun loaded with solid copper slugs. The blast shredded the handrail inches from the first gunman, sending him sprawling across the metal grating.
Jonah lunged forward like a striking predator. He closed the distance in two strides, tackling the second gunman into the steel bulkhead with bone-cracking impact. The man’s weapon went flying over the side, clattering into the black lake. Jonah drove a vicious short hook into the man's ribs, followed by a knee that dropped him lifeless to the deck.
I dropped to the floor grating, ignoring the biting spray of salt mist, and jammed the heavy wrench onto the high-pressure pneumatic bleed valve.
"The bolt is rusted solid!" I shouted through the deafening roar of the rails.
Jonah fell to his knees beside me. He wrapped his massive, gloved hands over mine on the handle of the wrench. His chest pressed firmly against my back, his heat shielding me from the bitter gale, his breath warm against my neck.
"On three, Nina," Jonah growled in my ear, every muscle in his corded arms straining with monstrous power. "One... two... PULL!"
With a synchronized surge of fury, we threw our full weight into the wrench.
*CRACK.*
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The brass valve sheared open. A deafening, apocalyptic shriek of compressed air erupted from the severed lines. White clouds of pneumatic vapor blasted across the gangway. Instantly, eighty brake shoes throughout the ten freight cars slammed against the spinning steel wheels with ten thousand pounds of hydraulic force.
Sheets of white-hot sparks showered across the causeway, lighting up the Great Salt Lake like midday.
