Chapter 75 - The Spine of the Ghost Train
The air inside the caboose felt colder than the blizzard outside.
"A scorched-earth fail-safe," I whispered, the sickening scope of Sterling Vance’s final revenge crystallizing in my mind. "If he couldn't keep the rail empire, he was going to incinerate the northern corridor, poison the Great Lakes watershed, and frame the Sovereign Trust for the greatest industrial catastrophe in human history."
Jonah hauled the trembling guard to his feet by the collar. "How do we disarm the altimeter trigger?"
"You can't do it from back here!" the guard cried. "The main controller is mounted on the firewall inside the lead engine's electrical locker! But between here and the lead cab, there are twenty-four cars covered in four inches of black ice, running at terminal velocity! You'll never make it!"
Jonah shoved the man into the small detention cell at the rear of the car and slammed the latch shut. He turned to me, his jaw set like an iron anvil. "We have seven minutes before this train reaches the south approach to the high bridge."
"Then we have seven minutes to cross twenty-four cars," I said without an instant of hesitation.
"Nina, you stay here. Use the caboose emergency brake lever—"
"Did you hear what he said?" I cut him off, grabbing Jonah’s lapels, pulling his face down to mine so he could see the unyielding fire in my eyes. "The emergency brakes will trigger the altimeter! If you cut the air pressure, the train senses a derailment and detonates the charges! The only way to stop this is to reach the front cab and pull the master computer fuse. We do this together, Jonah. You don't leave me behind."
Jonah stared down at me. For a heartbeat, the warrior melted away, and the man who loved me with every beat of his fierce heart took over. He reached up, cupping the back of my neck with a scarred, warm hand, and pressed his forehead against mine.
"If we fall, Nina, we fall together," he whispered fiercely.
"We’re not falling," I answered.
We kicked through the forward hatch and climbed out onto the freezing spine of Ghost Train 884.
The run across the roofs of those twenty-four boxcars was a nightmare of wind, iron, and velocity. The storm had reached peak fury, howling through the canyon at sixty miles an hour, threatening to tear us from the catwalks with every gust. Ice coated the steel walkways, turning every step into a lethal gamble.
We moved with desperate precision. Jonah led, using his heavy frame to break the windward gusts, his hand constantly checking back to ensure my grip was secure on the frost-covered safety cables.
Below us, between the cars, the knuckles slammed and groaned with terrifying violence as the train leaned hard into the curves of the mountain pass. The spray of snow from the trucks stung our skin, while the darkness above was broken only by occasional flashes of winter lightning.
Car ten. Car twelve.
At car fourteen, the hatch above the refrigerated thorium container blew open.
Two more Orion syndicate operatives climbed onto the roof, armed with assault weapons and wearing night-vision goggles. They spotted us through the driving snow and immediately opened fire.
Bullets tore through the howling night, punching jagged holes through the metal roof sheets near my boots.
"Get down!" Jonah threw himself backward, dragging me flat against the catwalk.
He rolled onto his stomach, resting his forearm on the icy steel to steady his aim, and fired two rapid shots with his service pistol. The first operative pitched backward, falling between the cars into the grinding wheels below. The second gunman lunged forward, discarding his rifle to draw a heavy combat blade, diving straight toward Jonah with the momentum of the moving train behind him.
Jonah met him head-on.
The two massive men collided on the icy roof, sliding dangerously close to the unguarded edge of the catwalk. The mercenary drove the knife downward toward Jonah’s throat, but Jonah’s left hand caught the man's wrist in a vise-like grip.
The wind tore at them. The train lurched violently as it hit an s-curve. The operative swung a wild left hook that caught Jonah across the jaw, splitting his lip and sending blood flying into the snow.
Jonah didn't flinch. His eyes went completely dark with feral rage. With a terrifying roar that echoed above the storm, he bucked his hips, flipped the operative onto his back, and slammed his steel-toed boot into the man's sternum with the force of a pneumatic hammer.
The mercenary gasped for air, his grip failing. Jonah grabbed the front of his tactical vest and hurled him sideways off the roof. The storm swallowed the man instantly.
Jonah rolled over, wiping the blood from his mouth with his sleeve. He reached out his hand to me. "Nina! Come on! Three cars left!"
I scrambled to my feet, my muscles screaming with exhaustion, but the adrenaline surging through my veins was pure liquid fire.
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Ahead of us, through the swirling curtain of white, the massive, squared silhouette of the lead locomotive loomed. And beyond her glowing high beams, the canyon opened up into a terrifying void.
The high bridge of Milepost 400 was dead ahead.
