Mirror Image

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

The Mosquito had slashed overhead like a time-lapse thundercloud, dark, powerful, and silent. Squires followed the helicopter with his eyes as it passed the engine and coal tender, then stopped, pivoted 180 degrees, and began inching back toward them.

The ladder dropped fast and straight and Sondra came down several rungs. Holding tightly to one, she leaned back, her arm stretched down, ready to help.

"Come on!" she cried.

"Newmeyer!" Squires yelled over the roar of the engine.

"Sir?"

"Let go of the Russian and get Grey out of here. You too."

Newmeyer obeyed without hesitation. Like any special forces team, the Strikers had been trained to take orders implicitly and immediately in a crisis situation, however those orders went against their instincts or emotions. Later, when he thought about it over and over, Newmeyer would Monday-morning-quarterback the entire evacuation process, whether he was in bed, drilling, or talking to psychologist Liz Gordon. Now, though, he did what Lieutenant Colonel Squires had ordered.

Releasing the Russian, Newmeyer put his shoulder back under Grey. The helicopter arrived directly overhead as he stood, the pilot coming down a foot to bring the bottom of the ladder level with Newmeyer's knees.

The Private put his foot on the second rung and began to climb. As soon as he was within range, both Sondra and Private Pupshaw reached down to haul Grey in.

Even as she allowed Pupshaw to finish bringing the Sergeant inside, and extended her hand to Newmeyer, Sondra's eyes were on Lieutenant Colonel Squires.

"Thirty seconds!" copilot lovino called back at them.

"Sir!" she shouted as he tried to get himself under Nikita. "Half-minute warning!"

"Twenty-five!" lovino shouted.

Squires let go of the Russian's hair, hoisted him onto his shoulder, then sat on the edge of the window. As he struggled to get to his feet, Nikita pushed at him, trying to get back in the cab.

"Twenty!"

"Damn you!" Squires hissed, grabbing the back of the Russian's coat as Nikita slumped back into the cab.

Nikita hooked his arm around the handle beside the window and held on tight.

"Fifteen!"

Sondra's face and voice were beginning to show the strain. "Lieutenant Colonel— fifteen seconds!"

Still standing in the window, Squires motioned for the chopper to come over to the side.

The Mosquito edged east and the pilot descended slightly so the ladder was level with Squires. Squires gestured for him to come a little lower.

"Ten seconds!"

Releasing Nikita's coat, the Lieutenant Colonel held onto the top of the train with his left hand, while with his right he unholstered his Beretta, pointed it at the top of Nikita's arm, and fired. The Russian howled, lost his hold on the handle, and fell back into the cab.

Squires jumped in after him.

"No!" Sondra shouted, and scampered down the ladder. Newmeyer ran down after her.

"Five seconds!" Iovino yelled.

"Wait!" Sondra screamed up at him.

The ladder was hanging directly beside the window of the cab. Grunting and swearing, Squires pushed the limp Nikita out the window. Sondra and Newmeyer both got a hand on his coat and yanked him out.

The pilot waited as Pupshaw reached out and helped Newmeyer as the Russian was passed up the ladder.

The Lieutenant Colonel clambered back into the window. The instant her hands were free, Sondra reached toward him. His hand came out- The first cargo car exploded, followed a heartbeat later by the second. The blasts caused the engine to hop violently, the back end rising higher than the nose, separating from the coal tender, which bucked up, coal flying, and pinwheeled to the west, snapping free of the engine. When it slammed down, the engine was slightly off the track.

"Lieutenant Colonel!" Sondra cried as Squires fell back into the cab and the pilot pushed the helicopter up and ahead to stay clear of the blast. "Captain, don't leave yet!"

The pilot raced north and climbed to keep clear of shrapnel.

"Get back in!" Newmeyer cried to her, his voice cracking.

Sondra's eyes reflected the raging red fireballs as she watched the engine skid forward on the tracks, racing ahead of the blast at an angle, the wheels kicking up sparks and smoke.

"He's still in there!" she said through her teeth. "We have to go back!"

And then the blast-weakened trestle folded under the engine and the stalled, helpless caboose. The collapse seemed surreal, occurring in slow motion and speeding up only when the fires of the explosion caused the boiler to explode. The blast sent pieces of the locomotive flying up, down, and sideways, dark shards riding the red and black fireball. And then all of it, the tracks and iron supports, the shattered train and trailing scarves of flame, tumbled into the gorge.

The fires shrank to flamelets as the Mosquito knifed away through the cold skies.

"No," Sondra was saying over and over as strong hands reached down and grasped her shoulders.

"We've got to bring the ladder in"' lovino yelled back.

Newmeyer looked down at Sondra. "Come back in"' he cried over the howl of the wind. "Please!"

Sondra climbed into the helicopter, helped along by Newmeyer and Pupshaw. As soon as she was inside, Honda reeled in the ladder and the hatch slid shut.

His expression somewhere short of homicidal, Pupshaw used his first-aid kit to tend to Grey, then went over to the Russian. Except for Nikita's moans, the silence in the Mosquito was awful and absolute.

"He was right there," Sondra said at last. "Just a few more seconds, that's all I needed—"

"The pilot was giving them to you," Newmeyer said. "It was the explosion."

"No." she said. "I lost him."

"That's not true," said Newmeyer. "There was nothing you could have done."

She snapped, "I could have done what my guts told me to— shot the bastard he was trying to save! We made our flying weight," she said bitterly, then turned her glazed eyes toward the Russian. "And if it were up to me, we'd lose even more weight.". Then, as though repulsed by her own inhumanity, she said, "Oh, God, why?" and turned away.

Beside her, Newmeyer wept into the sleeve of his coat as Pupshaw bound Nikita's arm and leg as carefully and gently as his sorely tested charity would allow.