Chapter 74 - The Boarding at Milepost 390
The transition from the heated sanctuary of Car 49 to the forward walkway of Engine 101 was like stepping through the gates of an Arctic inferno.
The wind screamed with a feral, deafening fury, whipping ice crystals against my tactical goggles like handfuls of crushed glass. The roar of the diesel engine beneath our boots was a subterranean thunder, shaking every bone in my body. To our right, the sheer rock wall of Devil's Crag flashed past in a blur of black shale and icicles; to our left, the sheer drop into the gorge was an abyss of swirling white fog.
Up ahead, cutting through the snow squall, appeared the blood-red marker lanterns of Ghost Train 884.
She was an iron leviathan. Twenty-four cars long, she looked less like a commercial freight and more like a rolling fortress, caked in black grease and frozen frost. She was hurtling down the canyon grade, her steel wheels spitting blue fire as her air lines hissed under the strain of the curves.
Mack was a madman at the controls. Inch by agonizing inch, Engine 101 closed the distance. Seventy miles an hour. Eighty. Eighty-five.
The gap narrowed. Twenty feet. Ten feet. Five feet.
Through the howling storm, I saw the rear platform of the armored caboose. A heavy steel door was set into the bulkhead, flanked by narrow slit windows. The hydraulic ram on the tail gleamed with frozen slush just inches from our steel plow.
Suddenly, the roof hatch of the caboose slammed open against the wind.
A mercenary clad in white winter camouflage emerged, hauling a belt-fed light machine gun onto the pintle mount. He spotted our headlights and began swinging the heavy barrel down toward Engine 101’s cab.
"Down!" Jonah roared.
He drew his sidearm with lightning speed, firing three rapid rounds over the hood. The sharp cracks were swallowed by the engine's roar, but the kinetic impact was undeniable. Two rounds sparked off the gun shield; the third struck the gunner’s shoulder, knocking him backward off balance.
"Now! Nina, jump!"
Jonah grabbed my harness tether, his immense strength launching us both across the terrifying three-foot void just as Mack surged Engine 101 forward.
My boots hit the iced steel of the ghost train's rear footplate. For one horrifying second, the ice offered no purchase; my legs slid out from under me, and I felt the sickening pull of the frozen abyss rushing beneath the couplers.
"I've got you!" Jonah bellowed.
His iron grip locked onto the d-ring of my harness, hauling me upward with a single, brutal pull. He slammed me against the rear bulkhead, shielding my body with his own as a hail of automatic gunfire shredded the steel plate above our heads.
The mercenary on the roof had recovered, leaning over the catwalk to spray the platform with a submachine gun.
Jonah didn't flinch. Unclipping the tactical shotgun from his back, he swung around the corner of the cupola and fired upward. The blast tore through the rusted catwalk grating. The gunner let out a choked scream and plummeted off the side of the train, his body swallowed instantly by the black chasm below.
"Breaching!" Jonah yelled above the storm.
He produced a magnetic thermite block from his tactical pouch, slapped it directly over the heavy padlock securing the caboose door, and twisted the ignition ring. An intense, blinding flare of white magnesium fire hissed into the steel, liquefying the lock in three seconds flat.
Jonah kicked the door inward with a thunderous boot strike.
Inside, the cabin was illuminated only by red tactical dome lights. Two armed guards were scrambling up from their bunks, raising short-barreled rifles.
"Drop the iron!" I shouted, stepping through the doorway with my weapon raised, two hands locked on the grip, just as Jonah swept left.
The lead guard made the mistake of raising his muzzle toward me. Jonah closed the distance in two blurring strides. He grabbed the barrel of the man's rifle, twisting it violently to dislocate the guard's wrist, then drove a vicious right elbow into his temple. The guard crumpled to the diamond-plate floor without a sound.
The second man froze, looking at the barrel of my weapon leveled dead center at his chest, then at Jonah standing over his unconscious partner like an enraged titan.
Slowly, his hands went into the air. "Don't shoot. I'm just contract security out of Thunder Bay."
"The dead-man control," Jonah barked, his voice vibrating with lethal authority as he stepped forward, crowding the mercenary against the wall. "Who has the override for the lead locomotive?"
The man swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward the forward door that led out to the catwalks of the twenty-four freight cars. "Nobody has it. The lead unit is running on fully automated drone lock. The cab is sealed with bulletproof titanium plate and welded shut from the inside."
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"What did you say?" I stepped closer, my gun never wavering.
"You don't understand," the guard stammered, terror turning his face gray under the red lights. "The Vance syndicate never intended to stop this train in Canada. The cargo isn't just thorium. It’s a kinetic dirty bomb. If this train doesn't cross Milepost 400 at precisely ninety miles an hour, the radio altimeter triggers an explosive derailment on the high bridge. It’s designed to collapse the international gorge span and wipe the border clean!"
