Chapter 21 - The Gambit on the Tracks
The red targeting reticles burned against Lily’s soaked woolen coat like drops of fresh blood. The freight train’s iron wheels screamed over the rails behind us, throwing off sparks that flared and died in the blinding rain. Madame Victoria de Saint-Cloud stood unmoving, her silver chignon untouched by the gale, flanked by Marcus Vance and his cadre of immaculate executioners.
"You have five seconds, Julian," Marcus Vance called out, his voice sharp and metallic over the storm. "Put the bag down, step away from the girl, and we might allow you a quiet death in a federal holding cell. Refuse, and the child's heart stops before your next breath."
My knuckles went white against the grip of my weapon. Lily was trembling, clutching the hem of my jacket with her tiny, freezing hands. "Daddy..." she whimpered, her voice barely audible over the roaring locomotive.
"Keep your eyes on me, baby," I whispered, not daring to shift my gaze from Victoria. "Don't look at the lights."
I had only one advantage: the terrain. We stood beside track four, where an automated pneumatic switch sat under a junction box just two feet to my left. The freight train was lumbering past on track three, its deafening rumble vibrating through the soles of our boots.
I slowly lowered my gun toward the muddy gravel, feigning defeat. "The bag is all you want," I shouted, my voice trembling with calculated exhaustion. "The documents inside, the biometric ledger—it's all yours. Just let her live."
Victoria smiled, a thin, triumphant curve of pale lips. "A reasonable man at last. Toss it over."
I reached into my overcoat with my left hand, pulling the waterlogged floral handbag into view. The embroidered silk roses caught the pale amber glare of the yard floodlights. Marcus took half a step forward, his eyes greedy.
Instead of tossing it to them, I hurled the bag with all my strength toward the gap between the churning steel wheels of the passing freight train.
"No!" Marcus bellowed.
In that split-second of visceral panic, the laser sights flickered, every marksman reflexively tracking the arc of the bag that carried billions in sovereign authority. That fraction of a second was all I needed. I kicked the emergency pneumatic release lever on the ground switch with my heel and grabbed Lily around the waist, throwing our bodies sideways into the water-filled concrete culvert beside the tracks.
A hail of suppressed gunfire shredded the air where we had stood an instant before. Metal chipped, gravel exploded, and the heavy iron rail of the shunted track slammed shut under the train's wheels with an apocalyptic screech. The derailment safety mechanism engaged instantly, and a trailing flatbed car violently shuddered, jumping the rail and crashing into the concrete stanchion of the railway bridge.
Tons of splintered masonry and twisted steel collapsed directly between us and Victoria’s firing squad, throwing up a blinding curtain of dust, steam, and fire. Screams echoed on the other side of the debris.
I dragged Lily through the freezing mud beneath the collapsed girders, coughing through the acrid smoke. Before the flatbed had completely overturned, I thrust my hand into the dark void beneath its chassis, my fingers catching the familiar rough texture of the embroidered floral strap. I pulled the bag to my chest, wrapped Lily tight against my ribs, and hauled her into the narrow inspection hatch of a rolling boxcar just as it cleared the wreckage.
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We tumbled into the pitch-black belly of the moving freight train, the iron door slamming shut as the train accelerated into the northern night.
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