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CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Crouched behind a boulder the size of his dad's vintage T-Bird, Sergeant Chick Grey didn't actually see Squires or Newmeyer toss their grenades through the windows of the train. But when the pride of Long Island, Valley Stream's South High School track and field team saw the snow turn from charcoal to magnesium-white, it was as if a starting gun had gone off. He'd already snatched a look at the engine, and now he spun around the boulder, legs churning, body bent low as he raced toward it through the snow. He saw Squires and Newmeyer pull themselves up through the respective windows of their boxcars. He listened for the distinctive sound of the Berettas, didn't hear it, then saw smoke pour from the back door of the second car, then caught a glimpse of Newmeyer bent over the coupling between it and the caboose. A moment later, the red car came free, leaving a soldier firing helplessly from the cupola.

Grey felt a rush of pride for what Squires had orchestrated: if no one was hurt, this would be an operation for the special forces time capsule.

Jerk-hole! he thought, and veered to the left, then to the right as he ran. He realized he'd courted doom by anticipating success, and atoned in crude but accepted Striker fashion.

When he was still several yards from the train, Grey saw a flare-cast shadow moving toward the front of the engine on the other side. Someone was coming around and, not wanting to stop, Grey leapt toward the injector pipe that ran perpendicular to the cab, just above the trailing truck. He grabbed it, swung his legs sideways into the window, let go of the pipe, and landed inside, squatting.

The engineer turned in surprise. Grey curled the fingers of his left hand tightly, hardening the outside of his hand, and drove it up under the soldier's nose. He followed that with a hatchet kick, driving the side of his left foot into the man's knee and dropping him to the floor.

The Sergeant didn't want the man unconscious, just cooperative, in case he couldn't figure out how to start the train. But the throttle and floor brake were easy enough to operate, and after kicking the latter so it was in the upward, off position, he pulled the vertical throttle toward him from the left. The train lurched forward.

"Out!" Grey barked at the soldier.

The peach-faced young Russian was fighting to get his legs under him but gave up, settling on his knees.

The Striker gestured roughly toward the window. "Dah— dosvedahnya!" he said, using the only Russian he knew. "Yes— so long!"

The Russian hesitated, then made a sudden grab for the Beretta in Grey's left hip holster. The Striker cocked his left elbow back hard, into the Russian's temple. The soldier hit the comer of the cab like a fighter caught by a ghost uppercut.

"You dog!" the Sergeant snarled. Pushing the throttle higher, Grey scooped the Russian onto his shoulder as if he were a sack of flour, hoisted him to the window, and dumped him back-first into a passing snowbank. He took a moment to look back and saw Russian soldiers running to try and catch the train. But gunfire from the two cars drove them back, and soon the Striker express was running into the night at three-quarters throttle.

When the train started up, Nikita was just coming around the cowcatcher. Jumping back off the track, he grabbed the handrail of the ladder behind and above the cowcatcher and walked up the three steps to the platform. Crouching there, his back against the boiler plate, he held his AKR submachine gun tight against his side and watched, with rising anger, as Private Maximich was hurled from the window and the other Americans fired to send his men, the rightful owners of the train, rushing behind trees and rocks for cover.

These are the men my father courted! he seethed as the last of the tear gas curled from the windows and the locomotive picked up speed.

Still crouching, Nikita switched the short-barreled gun to his left hand and stepped two feet up from the platform onto the ledge above the air reservoir. The narrow walkway ran above the injector pipe midway up the boiler, and as he held onto the narrow handrail that ran along the top of the engine, the Junior Lieutenant held the short-barreled submachine gun toward the cab.

And as Nikita passed under the steam dome, just eight feet from the cab, the unsuspecting American soldier looked out.