Checkmate (36 page)

“And they’re missing a train?”

“ ’Fraid so. A locomotive, three cars, and a caboose. Eureka PD’s not sure how long the guard’s been dead, so there’s no telling what kind of head start the train’s got. Grim’s putting an overlay of the track on your map. It runs north to south only and ends at Olema, just north of San Fransisco.”

Zhao’s roundabout method of reaching San Francisco made sense, Fisher decided. After 9/11, dozens of port cities, including San Francisco, had installed a network of radiation detectors. Slipping Jintao’s yacht past them would be impossible.

“Detonate a couple hundred pounds of radioactive waste in San Francisco, and it’ll make Slipstone look like nothing,” Fisher said. “It’d be a wasteland for centuries. Are there controls on the line? Shunts or spurs they can divert it to?”

“Fifty years ago, yes, but not now. It’s a straight run down the coast. We’re retasking a Keyhole to look for her, but we’re talking about a three-hundred-mile stretch of track, most of it running through heavy forest and mountain passes. It’s going to be hard to spot—plus, this isn’t your run-of-the-mill locomotive. According to Grim, it’s been converted to run faster so it can make more round trips. Top speed: sixty miles an hour.”

There was only one way to stop it, Fisher realized. An F-16 or an F-15 could be overhead in minutes with a laser-guided Paveway missile, but the resulting wreck would spread radioactive material for miles. Better than it happening in San Francisco, but still unacceptable as far as he was concerned.

“Then we do it the hard way,” Fisher said. “We fly down the track until we overtake her.”

“And then?”

“And then we improvise.”

“
WE
got her, Sam,” Lambert said. “She’s eighty miles south of Eureka between the towns of Cedar Creek and Blue Flats. Satellite image is on your monitor; we’re streaming it real-time.”

The screen showed a stretch of heavily forested moutainous terrain. At first Fisher saw nothing, and then, breaking from a line of trees, a locomotive appeared, followed by three passenger cars and a caboose. A plume of black smoke trailed from the locomotive’s stack. The train rounded a bend in the track and disappeared into forest again.

“Grim, do you have infrared?”

“Yep, here.”

The train reappeared. In the center of the third car, just ahead of the caboose, was a reddish-yellow oval.

“How far away are we, Bird?” Fisher asked.

“Twenty minutes.”

Lambert said, “Humboldt County Sheriff’s has a SWAT team. They’re airborne and a few minutes ahead of you. They’re going to try and put men onto the train’s roof.”

 

 

 

FIFTEEN
minutes later, Bird called, “Got a visual. Descending to five hundred feet.”

Fisher trotted to the cockpit and peered through the windscreen. Ahead and below, the Humboldt SWAT helicopter was trailing behind the train’s caboose as the train chugged up a hill. The helo’s spotlight was focused on the locomotive, but Fisher could see no one moving in the cab. On either side of the track, redwoods and pines crowded the embankments, so close their branched seemed to almost scrape the sides of the cars.

“Humboldt SWAT, this is Federal zero-nine,” Bird radioed. “Taking station on your six o’ clock high. Ready to assist.”

“Roger, Federal, stand by. We’re going to make a pass, see if we get an officer onto the roof.”

The Oprey’s console monitor was in FLIR mode, showing an X-raylike image of the scene below. Fisher reached out and tapped a spot on the screen. Bird nodded and keyed his microphone. “Humboldt, be advised, you’ve got a narrow gorge ahead. Two miles.”

“Roger, Federal.”

The helicopter picked up speed and descended until it was ten feet off the roof of the second car A rope uncoiled from the helicopter’s open door and an officer climbed out, clipped onto the rope, and began descending. Fisher saw a figure appear on the coupler platform between the locomotive and the first car. There was a pinprick of light, then another, then four more in rapid sucession.

Over the radio, the helo pilot’s voice: “. . . taking fire . . . taking fire. Get him back in!”

The officer jerked as though hit with a current of electricity, then went limp, dangling sideways.

“. . . hit. . . . Christ almighty, he’s hit.” In the background Fisher could hear bullets hitting the helo’s windscreen. “I’m pulling up . . . !”

The helicopter angled upward and banked over the trees, falling back until it was even with the Osprey. Fisher looked out the side window. In the door of the helo two men were struggling to reel in the dangling officer.

“Federal, this is Humboldt SWAT. Be advised, I have one casualty and a heat warning on my cooling pump. I’m going to have to find a place to set down.”

“Roger, Humboldt, understood. Luck. Federal out.”

The helicopter dropped farther back, then came around and headed west over the trees.

Bird turned to Fisher. “It’s your call, Sam.”

“We’re going to take some fire.”

Bird grinned. “It’ll take more than a little popgun to ground us.”

“That’s what I thought. Give me two seconds over the roof and then get out of here.”

 

 

 

AS
the train entered the gorge, Bird climbed to a thousand feet and eased back on the throttle, letting the train get ahead. It burst from the far mouth of the gorge, chugging black smoke. Bird nosed over and dropped in behind the caboose, twenty feet off the track.

“How tall you think that thing is, Sandy?” Bird asked.

“Twelve feet—no thirteen. Why?”

“I’m not giving any more of a target than I have to. Sam, you and Will get ready. Grab ahold of something. Gonna get a bumpy.”

Fisher hurried back into the cabin, where Redding was checking the SC-20 and pistol. He handed them over. “Both loaded. Harness.”

Fisher took it, slipped it on, adjusted the fit over his shoulders, then slid the SC-20 into its back holster and the pistol into its leg holster.

Bird called, “Sixty seconds, Sam. Ramp coming down.”

The ramp door groaned open. Wind whipped through the cabin. Over the drone of the Osprey’s engines, Fisher could hear the syncopated chug of the locomotive, could smell coal smoke. He walked down the edge of the ramp and crouched down. Twenty feet below, the track whipped past, a blur of steel rails and wooden cross-ties.

“Stand by,” Bird called. “I’m moving ahead.”

The caboose’s coupler slid into view, followed by the roof, and then the windowed cupola. Fisher kept his eyes fixed on it and tried to ignore the trees flashing past on either side.

Fisher glanced back at Redding, who stood at the ramp’s control panel, and gave him the signal. Fisher braced himself. The ramp lurched down and crashed against the roof. The jolt was harder than Fisher had anticipated and it rocked him backward onto his butt. His left foot slipped over the edge. He jerked it back.

Bird called, “Taking a little gunfire up here, Sam.”

Wait . . . wait
. . . .

He somersaulted down the ramp onto the caboose roof and spread himself flat. Redding gave him wave and then the ramp started closing. The Osprey nosed up, dropped back, then banked over the trees and out of sight.

 

 

 

DOWN
the length of the train he could see two figures standing atop the locomotive’s coupler. Muzzles winked at him through the coal smoke. He couldn’t tell if the shots were accurate or wildly off, but it didn’t matter. He started crawling.

The train lurched forward, picking up speed. Fisher felt his stomach drop and he realized they were going down a grade. He crawled to the edge of the roof, braced himself, then flipped his trident goggles into place, switched to NV, and ducked his head over the side.

He was looking through a window. On the other side was a man holding a radio to his ear. He spun, saw Fisher, then raised a pistol and fired. The window shattered. Fisher jerked back, but not quickly enough. He felt warm blood trickling down his chin and neck. He plucked a frag grenade off his harness, pulled the pin, counted
one-one thousand,
tossed it through the window. There was a muffled boom. He peeked back over the edge. The man lay sprawled on the floor.

Beside Fisher’s head, a bullet punched into the roof. He looked up in time to see a man running toward him down the second car’s roof. He rolled to the right, drew the pistol, and snapped off two shots. The first one went wide, but the second one hit center-mass. The man doubled over, dropped to his knees, then tipped over the side and tumbled down the embankment.

Fisher crawled forward the last few feet, then turned and dangled his legs over the edge and dropped to the coupler below. As he landed, the door to the third car slid open. A man stood in the opening, a .357 Magnum leveled with Fisher’s chest. They stood staring at one another for a few seconds. And then, from behind the man, a face appeared. It was Zhao. “Shoot him, you idiot! Shoot . . . !”

Fisher knew there was nothing he could do; he was going to take a bullet. He was about to give his tac-suit’s RhinoPlate a true-life test. Not wanting to give the man a chance to adjust his aim and go for a head shot, Fisher went for his pistol.

The man fired. Fisher saw the muzzle flash, heard the blast, and felt a hammer-blow in the middle of his sternum. Even as he crashed backward into the door, he drew his pistol and shot the man in the throat. Behind him, Zhao dove to one side. Fisher adjusted aim and fired twice, but Zhao was gone.

Fisher reached back, groped for the door handle, turned it. The door crashed inward. His pistol slipped from his hand and disappeared under the train. He sprawled onto the floor. He rolled over, crawled to the door, slammed it shut.

The pain in his chest was crushing. He couldn’t catch his breath; it felt as though an anvil was sitting on his chest. Still alive, though. RhinoHide had done its job.

He felt the floor tilt beneath him as the train started up a grade. He climbed to his feet and looked around. The hot spot had been here, somewhere in this car. . . . The car was divided by a center aisle, with long, tourist-friendly benches on either side facing the windows. Ten feet away he saw the corner of a steel box beneath the bench. He rushed forward, dropped to his knees.

Made of brushed stainless steel, it was no bigger than an average suitcase with a latching footlocker lid. He laid his hand on the steel. It was warm to the touch.

Gotchya
. . . .

The box shifted, sliding farther under the bench as the train chugged up the grade.

And then a thought: What had Zhao been planning to do with the box? He would have worked that through, would have had a plan—and it would have been something more than simply dump the material into San Fransisco Bay. Something to maximize the spread. . . .

He pressed his ear to the lid and plugged his other ear with his finger. It took a few seconds to tune out the chugging of the locomotive and the wind whistling through the shattered window, but as those sounds faded, he heard something else. A faint mechanical whirring.

Like a flywheel.

And then another thought: Humiliated and hunted, his empire in ruins and his family dead, Zhao wouldn’t be satisfied by letting his revenge
happen
. His ego would demand that he do it. . . .

That he be the one to push the button.

Fisher pushed himself to his feet. Pain shot through his chest, doubling him over. He straightened up and stumbled down the aisle, fighting the incline of the floor. He reached the door, threw it open.

Across the coupler platform, he saw Zhao sitting in the doorway to the second car, legs splayed out before him. At least one of Fisher’s bullets had found its mark. The side of Zhao’s neck and face were bloody and his right arm hung limb at his side. With his eyes locked on Fisher’s, Zhao reached his left arm across his body and into his jacket.

Fisher lurched forward, but he lost traction on the sloped platform and fell to his knees. He got up, tried again. He grasped the hand railing and dragged himself forward.

Zhao’s hand came out holding a cell phone. He flipped it open, starting working the keypad with his thumb. Fisher drew the Sykes from its sheath and plunged it into Zhao’s thigh. Fisher felt the blade hit bone. Zhao screamed and dropped the phone, which slid toward the edge of the platform. Fisher reached out, snagged it with his fingertips, drew it back. On the screen was a nine-digit number. Underneath it, the words “Send? Y/N?”

He punched “No” and flipped the phone closed.

Zhao lay curled into a ball, his face twisted with pain. With his good arm he was reaching feebly for the knife jutting from his thigh. Fisher knocked his hand away. He grabbed the haft and gave it a twist. Zhao screamed again and arched his back. Fisher jerked the knife free and resheathed it. He stood up and looked down at Zhao.

“I think it’s time you and I say good-bye,” Fisher said.

Zhao didn’t respond, but turned his head and glared up at him.

“No arguments,” Fisher said. “Better we part company while we’re still friends.”

He grabbed Zhao by the foot and dragged him farther out onto the platform. Using a pair of flexi-cuffs, he first secured Zhao’s left arm to the railing, and then his right, which made a sickening grating sound as Fisher manipulated it. Zhao set his jaw and said through gritted teeth, “Go to hell.”

“Maybe someday,” Fisher replied, “but not today.”

He leaned out over the railing and looked forward. Ahead he could see the locomotive was almost at the top of the grade. Fisher knelt down, reached between the platform joint, and grabbed the release lever. He jerked it upward. There was a steel
clank-clank
.

“What are you doing?” Zhao said.