The Land Rover’s door!
It skidded down the hill in a flurry of dust and gravel, Chase clinging to it like a child on a speeding sled.
He knew it wouldn’t take him far—the slope was too rocky. But he didn’t need it to. He just needed the extra yards it could give him before the soldiers reached the edge and fired down after him.
A boulder loomed ahead, poking out of the hillside like a bad tooth. Chase jumped again, throwing himself sideways and hitting the ground hard as the door smashed into the rock and crumpled like cardboard. He tried to use his feet to brake himself, but he was moving too fast and tumbled helplessly down the hill. Grit spat into his face, blinding him.
Gunfire from above!
Something whipped against him. Not a bullet, but plants, tough grass and scrubby bushes. That meant he was near the bottom. But how near?
He forced his eyes open against the stinging dust… and saw the ground drop out from under him.
With a yell that echoed all the way back to the top of the slope, Chase fell into empty space.
One of the soldiers winced. “Ow. That’ll hurt.” The foreigner had shot right over the top of the entrance to the railway tunnel and plunged out of sight onto the tracks.
“Serves the bastard right!” snarled the man next to him. Special forces or not, a drop that high onto the unforgiving steel and concrete of a railway line would break a bone or two, maybe even kill a man.
Mahjad strode over to them and looked down. The Englishman’s route down the steep slope was easy to follow, a trail of drifting dust winding down to the tunnel. “Get the ropes,” he ordered. “I want three men to go down there and find him. If he’s dead, take his body to the train yard. If he’s alive …” his face twisted with a mix of anger and sadistic humor, “take his body to the train yard.”
“Sir!” The soldiers saluted, three of them preparing to descend the slope.
Mahjad walked back to Hajjar. The fleeing Russian had been recaptured, and now stood under guard with the other prisoners. “This is all your fault!” Mahjad snapped, jabbing a finger into Hajjar’s face. “You didn’t tell me he was some sort of trained assassin!”
“I didn’t know myself!” Hajjar blustered. “I thought he was just an ex-soldier she’d hired as a bodyguard!” He gestured at Kari, who glared back with chilly disdain.
“I’ve got four dead men and another three wounded! How am I going to explain this? How?”
Hajjar licked his lips nervously, sweating even in the cool breeze. “Perhaps … a donation of some sort to their families? And their commanding officer?”
“I’ll tell you what sort of donation, Failak,” snarled Mahjad. He paused for a moment. Hajjar’s nervousness grew. “A very large one.”
“I’ll make the arrangements as soon as I return to my home,” said Hajjar, relieved.
Mahjad regarded him coldly. “You’d better.”
“You have my word. Now,” he said, giving Kari another look, “I have to leave. There’s some urgent business I need to take care of—and it would be best if we’re not seen together at the scene of this … unfortunate incident.”
Mahjad nodded reluctantly, and his soldiers drew Nina, Castille and Hafez away while the others boarded the Jet Ranger. Volgan, now too scared to protest, sat in the center rear seat, one of Hajjar’s bodyguards on either side, while Kari was forced onto his lap. With her hands cuffed behind her back, there was little she could do to resist as the seat belt was tightly secured around her waist, effectively tying her to Volgan.
Hajjar took the copilot’s seat. “Oh, Ms. Frost,” he said, reaching back to take her chin in his one hand, “no need to look like that. You won’t be mistreated—you’re far too valuable. As long as your father cooperates, at least.”
Kari jerked out of his grasp. “You’ve made the worst mistake of your life, Hajjar.”
He gave her a smug smile. “Now, now. There’s no need to make this unpleasant. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. And if you want to help Yuri relax …” he glanced at the ashenfaced Volgan behind her, “then by all means wriggle about. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it. The last pleasure of the condemned man, hmm?” The smile turned cold. “Just don’t wriggle too much. It would be unfortunate if my bodyguards thought you were trying to escape and shot you.” One of the men poked the muzzle of his gun into her side for emphasis.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she sneered.
“Good!” Hajjar turned to his pilot. “Let’s go.”
Nina watched in shock and disbelief as the helicopter took off and wheeled away. From New York academia to Iranian prisoner in the space of two days—what the hell had happened to her life?
And now Kari was being held for ransom, and as for Chase …
She couldn’t understand much of what the soldiers were saying, but from their unhurried pace it was clear they thought he was dead.
A large military truck arrived at the farmhouse. As the soldiers shoved her, Castille and Hafez aboard, she had to fight not to cry.
Chase took a last deep breath and braced himself.
He had just managed to twist around as he plunged over the edge and caught a small outcrop of rock with one hand. Dangling like a puppet, it took him almost a minute to bring up his other hand and fully secure himself.
Not that it helped.
He was hanging directly above one of the railway lines. The tips of his toes were a good eighteen feet above the track, which even for an SAS man wasn’t a drop to be taken lightly, and there was absolutely nothing to soften the fall. About the only way his landing could be any nastier would be if he were over a bed of spikes.
But he had no choice. Shouts and a warning rattle of stones skittering down the slope told him he was about to have company.
So—drop!
Even though he was ready for the impact, bending his knees and rolling, pain still ripped through his legs as if they’d been hit with an iron bar. He fell heavily, gasping in agony as the unyielding metal of the railway track smashed against his chest. Fighting through the pain, he forced himself to crawl off the line.
Damage assessment. Both legs hurt like hell, and his left ankle had taken the brunt of the impact, but nothing was broken. He knew what that felt like.
He sat up, grimacing at another throb of pain from his ribs. On the plus side, it would have been a lot worse if he hadn’t been wearing his tough leather jacket. After a few deep breaths, focusing himself, Chase got to his feet—
And let out a roar of fury.
It wasn’t so much an expression of agony as a way to release it, to control it. Some of the SAS’s pain management techniques were rough and ready—but they worked.
“Oh, now I’m pissed off,” he rasped.
A noise from above attracted his attention. Not the soldiers coming after him, but Hajjar’s helicopter, disappearing over a ridge. The hook-handed bastard was taking Kari away, planning to force a ransom from her father.
What to do?
Kari Frost was his employer—and he doubted her father would be very understanding if he let anything happen to her. A failure like that would probably end his career on the spot. Nobody would ever hire him again.
On the other hand, as his employer she had given him a very specific order—the reason he’d been hired in the first place.
Protect Nina Wilde.
And if the soldiers had her, they probably had Castille and Hafez as well. The truck he’d seen could only go one way, back down the road past the train yard.
The train yard …
If he could get there in time, he might be able to find another vehicle, a way to follow them.
And rescue them.
Gritting his teeth as pain jabbed through his ankle, Chase ran along the railway line.
SIX
Don’t worry,” said Castille to Nina as the truck lurched down the dirt road, “we’ll be okay.”
“How?” she demanded, holding up her handcuffed wrists. “We’ve been arrested,
Kari’s been kidnapped, and Chase is dead!”
She was taken aback when both Castille and Hafez made amused noises. “Eddie has survived worse,” Hafez told her.
“What could be worse than being shot at and then falling off a cliff?”
“Well, there was this time when we were in Guyana—” Castille began, before one of the soldiers shouted at him in Farsi, jabbing the gun into his stomach as a final punctuation. “Ai. It seems these idiots would prefer us not to talk.”
“These idiots,” snapped another soldier, “speak English too.”
“But I bet they don’t speak French,” Castille smoothly continued in one of his native languages.
“I bet they don’t!” Nina replied in kind. That earned her an angry shout from one of the soldiers, and Castille another jab in the gut.
The rest of the uncomfortable journey took place in silence. Nina kept her eyes fixed on Castille, rather than on the bodies lying on the floor.
Eventually the truck came to a stop with a squeal of brakes. Nina blinked in the harsh daylight as the troops pulled her out.
They were at the train yard she’d seen earlier, four long parallel tracks running alongside the main lines and feeding back into them at each end. There was a short train on the nearest siding, three passenger cars headed by an idling diesel locomotive. A much longer freight train waited on another track. She could hear the bleating of sheep or goats coming from the wagons.
Captain Mahjad stood before his prisoners, hands on his hips. “What are you going to do to us?” Nina asked.
“Take you to trial for the murder of my men,” he said. “You’ll be found guilty, and put to death.”
“What!” she shrieked. “But we didn’t even do anything!”
“Don’t argue,” said Castille. “He’s crooked, you won’t be able to talk him—” A soldier savagely swung his rifle and smashed it into Castille’s back, dropping him to the ground.
“You’re lucky I don’t just shoot you right now and say you were trying to escape,” snarled Mahjad. For a moment he seemed to be considering it, but then he issued more orders. The soldiers pulled Nina and Hafez to the train’s front car, another pair hauling Castille up by his arms and dragging him after them.
The car’s interior was of an old-fashioned design, a narrow corridor running down one side with a row of eight-seater compartments on the other. Castille and Hafez were shoved into the rearmost compartment, four soldiers going in with them. Nina’s guard started to push her in after them, but Mahjad said something to him. The guard suppressed a nasty smile, then brought her to the compartment at the far end of the corridor. It looked as though it had once been the first-class section, but those days were long gone, the seats threadbare and grubby.
“Sit down,” said Mahjad, following her in. Nina thought about refusing, but before she could open her mouth he forced her down onto the seat by the window, then sat facing her. The soldier took up station outside the door, visible through its narrow window.
She thought Mahjad was going to speak, but instead he simply sat there, his unreadable gaze slowly passing over her body. She touched her hair self-consciously; the movement instantly caught his attention, eyes locking onto her face.
Nina grew horribly aware that not only was she alone in the compartment with Mahjad, but also that the soldier outside would undoubtedly turn a blind eye to anything that happened.
Or worse still… take part.
She shuddered. Mahjad picked up on the tiny motion, one corner of his mouth creeping upwards malevolently as the train jolted, then started to move.
Long forced runs were nothing new to Chase. But doing one in this much pain was something else entirely.
Every fifty yards he looked back at his pursuers. By the time they reached the tunnel, he had built up a lead of about four hundred yards. But they were catching up: younger, fresher, unhurt.
He was still out of the effective range of their G3 rifles, and from what he knew about the training of the average Iranian soldier, he would be at low risk of being hit even once he entered it. But eventually they would get close enough to bring him down. Unless he reached the train yard first.
What he would do when he got there was still a mystery.
Wing it, he decided.
Waiting on the sidings were a freight train and a shorter passenger train. Parked next to the latter was a military truck.
Adrenaline pumped into his system, revitalizing him. It was the same truck he’d seen heading for the farmhouse! It must have brought the soldiers—and presumably their prisoners—back to the yard … which meant they were going to board the train.
Chase quickly looked back. The three Iranians were two hundred yards behind and still gaining. That wouldn’t give him much time when he reached the yard to—
Shit!
The passenger train was moving! The gravelly rasp of the diesel’s engine reached him, dirty exhaust fumes spewing into the mountain air.
He was too late! Considering the state of the road above, he had no chance of keeping pace with the train even if he stole the truck.
But somehow he had to find a way to rescue Nina, to say nothing of his friends.
The train was still moving slowly to negotiate the points that would put it onto the main line. One by one the cars snaked through the turn. Chase pushed himself harder, ignoring the pain. Maybe there was still a chance that he could catch up …
There wasn’t. He had barely reached the points at one end of the yard by the time the train pulled out of the other, the locomotive’s noise rising to a throaty roar as it accelerated.
Now his options were the truck … or the other train.
A lone soldier stood by the back of the truck, watching the train depart. He heard footsteps crunching over ballast behind him and looked around—taking a flying kick right in his chest. Chase followed up the move by punching the fallen man in the face.
Grabbing the soldier’s gun, Chase glanced back down the track at his pursuers, then ran towards the front of the freight train.
He heard the first bullet hit one of the wooden trucks just before the crack of the gunshot reached him. Animals bleated in fear. He dropped and rolled underneath the nearest truck, emerging on the other side. He had a few moments of cover, but it wouldn’t take long for the soldiers to reach the back of the train and run around it.
The locomotive was just ahead, a dirty slab of metal with a cab at each end. But there was something he had to do first…
He ducked into the gap between the loco and the first truck. The coupler was a standard “knuckle” type; he pulled the lever to unlock it with a heavy clunk. Now, when the engine set off, it would automatically disconnect and leave the rest of the train behind.
He looked back down the length of the train. Two of the soldiers had followed him down the left side, which meant there was only one on the right. He jumped up onto the coupler and leapt across to the other side of the truck, whipping around its corner with his gun ready. The third soldier was racing towards him.
In a single smooth movement, Chase dropped to one knee, took aim and fired. Three shots cracked from his rifle, but he scored a hit with the very first one. The soldier tumbled to the ground.
Chase ran to the front of the locomotive. A head popped through the open door, the driver leaning out to see what was going on. He figured it out very quickly.
“Afternoon,” Chase panted, pointing his gun up at the driver. “I need to borrow your train.”
The shocked man raised his hands, looked around desperately, then turned and with an ululating shriek threw himself out of the other side of the cab.
“At least I asked,” Chase muttered as he climbed the steps. The cramped cab was empty, the rattling chug of the engine at idle echoing from behind a narrow access door in the back wall. Through the windscreen he saw the fleeing driver running towards a signal cabin near the end of the sidings.
The largest lever on the control panel had to be the throttle.
Which meant that the next largest was the brake.
He hoped.
Chase pushed the throttle lever forward experimentally. The loco lurched as the engine noise rose—but the brakes held it in place.
He released what he thought was the brake lever. There was a piercing metallic squeal, and the loco jolted. He immediately rammed the throttle forward. The big diesel engines behind him shrilled, needles on the control panel’s gauges shooting into their red zones, but he ignored them and looked out of the open door.
The engine had indeed disconnected from the rest of the train, so at least he wouldn’t be dragging several hundred animals along with him. The running soldiers had almost reached the front of the first wagon—
He brought the G3 around and switched it to full auto, unleashing a blaze of fire down the side of the locomotive. One of the men dropped instantly, a cloud of blood spraying from his chest. The other hurled himself onto the track in front of the stationary wagons. Chase’s line of fire was blocked by the boxy engine’s body.
He grunted in annoyance, then returned his attention to the controls and the track ahead. The first set of points was approaching fast.
Chase knew from playing with his dad’s model railway as a kid that points were supposed to be taken at low speed. In fact, he’d been banned from the train set after his curiosity about what would happen if they weren’t caused a Great Western express to take a flying diversion to the floor.
But he didn’t have much choice—he had to catch up with Nina’s train.
Chase braced himself. The whole locomotive rocked as it crashed through the points too fast, metal screaming against metal. The violent move was repeated as the six wheels of the rear truck ground over the switch as well. Then the loco straightened, but the next points were already coming up fast.
Another howl of metal from beneath the engine set Chase’s teeth on edge, but he kept pushing the throttle forward even as the sharp turn threatened to pitch him out of the driver’s seat.
One more set of points and he would be on the main line, following the other train. If he forced every ounce of power out of the locomotive, it shouldn’t take too long to catch up—and if he judged it right, he could match speeds and automatically couple his own engine to the back of the train, then climb out of the cab and jump aboard.