The Hunters

46

Cobb stood and marched to the end of the car. He hit a recessed button on the wall, waited for the door to slide up, then stepped through to the flatbed.

The view was spectacular. The train was slowly rising up the last of the track, climbing a steady incline as if they were in a scenic tram. McNutt appeared behind him and looked over the side of the five-foot lip that encircled the flatbed. The track seemed part of the earth.

‘Holy mackerel,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ Cobb agreed.

Though it was chipped and faded by whatever sunlight had blazed through, the track had been painted brown to appear as if it were roots or the ground itself.

Sarah went to look over the opposite side, and was nearly knocked down by a tree branch as they entered an even thicker part of the pine and poplar forest. Cobb looked beyond them to the rolling green mountains, white clouds, and blue sky.

‘I wish I knew where the hell we were,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t mean on a map — I mean, what’s lurking under all that brush? There could be crevasses that cut us off if we have to travel by foot. Dry riverbeds with sinkholes.’

‘Quicksand?’ McNutt asked. ‘I hate that. It always scared me in movies.’

‘I doubt it,’ Garcia said. ‘The spectro isn’t showing a lot of moisture in any form. No creeks, no bogs, no wells.’

‘No wells?’ Cobb said. ‘Interesting. That means this area was completely deserted, even to farmers and shepherds.’

As he spoke, the train emerged into a more open space where the trio could finally get an unobstructed view. Now it was only the train itself that looked wildly out of place amid layers of green, spread amongst leafy dots of red, yellow, and orange fall foliage. The only thing missing was any hint of other humans.

‘Too bad,’ Sarah said.

‘About what?’ McNutt asked.

‘That there weren’t any sheep or cow herders,’ she said. ‘This is great pastureland.’

‘Or battleground,’ Cobb said from the rear of the car.

They turned to see their commander standing on the top rung of the ladder attached to the outside of the freight car. Sarah and McNutt ran back to join him. McNutt put both hands on the top of the flat car’s fencing and vaulted up to the top of the lip. He put one hand on the side of the compartment car, twisted his body, and looked to where Cobb was staring.

The train was halfway up the open section of green grass and white flowers, heading toward another long, thick line of trees. The trees were so tall and narrowly spaced that they looked, to Sarah, like the tarnished, bared teeth of a giant bear.

Something was emerging from those teeth.

‘Josh,’ Cobb said, ‘do you have your binoc—’

He looked over to complete the question, but McNutt was gone. The sniper reappeared a few seconds later with a pair of Steiner 1600 Yard Laser Range Finder Military Binoculars. He handed them to his commander.

‘Thanks,’ Cobb said as he put the fog-proof lenses up to his eyes.

‘Do you see this?’ Garcia asked in his ear.

‘Yes,’ was all Cobb needed to say.

Coming from between the trees were a herd of horses: white Lipizzaners, praised for their riding; mottled Hungarian Warmbloods, noted for their stamina; and brown Shagyas, depended upon for their endurance.

‘Riders!’ Cobb and Garcia shouted, almost at the same time.

‘I knew it! Cossacks!’ McNutt raised his own binoculars — a slimmer Apache 10x25 compact model — as he retook his position on the lip top of the car.

‘We don’t know that!’ Jasmine said, maintaining her cool in the face of what could be her first firefight.

McNutt saw the horses — now at least three dozen, with more joining them from the tree cover — and their riders: men of every age group, holding reins in one hand and waving something above their heads with the other.

‘Are those Mosin-Nagants?’ McNutt asked incredulously. ‘Those were the standard issue rifle of Soviet troops in World War One!’

When no one answered, he lowered his binoculars and understood why.

McNutt was alone on the flatbed.

He jumped to the floor of the car and charged into his armory.

The next thirty seconds felt like thirty minutes.

‘Two hundred yards, Jack,’ Garcia announced anxiously. The IT wizard was intent on the video screens, trying to get a good look at the riders despite the train’s constant up-and-down motion and side-to-side sway, not to mention the bounce of a man on horseback. Even his seasoned fingers couldn’t digitally stabilize the images with that many variables.

‘Who are they, Garcia?’ Cobb asked. He was visually sweeping the terrain, settling on nothing but seeing everything.

‘I’m trying to get an image I can profile,’ Garcia said.

‘Is profiling illegal here?’ McNutt joked.

Cobb didn’t have to tell the sharpshooter to focus. His fall into silence said that, and more.

McNutt was in the freight car, breaking out the Mossberg 590 and Benelli M4 shotguns. He considered both weapons, one in each hand, remembering that the 590 weighs about half a kilogram less but doesn’t have the range of the Italian shotgun. He put down the Mossberg in favor of the one preferred by the Marine Corps. He turned toward the slats on the west side of the car and prepared to open one as he spoke to everyone on their earpieces.

‘Could use a little help manning the barricades,’ McNutt called.

‘Hold your fire,’ Cobb snapped from the command car.

‘Your wish is my command,’ McNutt retorted. ‘But just so you know: they may have vintage rifles, but their carbine rounds could still pop your head like a balloon.’

Cobb ignored the chatter in his ear and contemplated their next move. Once again, he reminded himself: this is why McNutt was with them and not still with Special Forces. Any regular unit on the globe would have followed Cobb’s orders without backtalk.

‘One hundred fifty yards,’ Garcia called out.

‘McNutt,’ Cobb said sharply, ‘get to the engine and protect Dobrev and Jasmine. Ward the riders off if they try to stop us or board. No killing, if at all possible.’

‘What?!’ McNutt and Sarah shouted as one.

‘Um… Jack?’ Garcia begged.

Cobb ignored him. ‘Use your brains, people! They’re waving the guns, not aiming them!’

‘That’s because they’re on horseback on uneven terrain,’ McNutt argued. ‘From this distance, they’d be wasting ammo.’

‘You heard my orders, McNutt. Now follow them!’ Cobb barked.

‘Jack!’ Garcia shouted.

‘What?’ Cobb shouted back.

‘They’re aiming at us now,’ Garcia said, watching in fear and admiration as the lead riders used their thighs to control their horses while raising their guns with two hands. ‘Not just random potshots. They’re lining up their sights with both arms!’

‘That’s what the Cossacks did,’ Jasmine contributed.

‘See?’ McNutt said. ‘Didn’t I warn you?’

Garcia couldn’t help but wonder how they did that. He had been on a horse exactly once, and even though he never went faster than a trot, he had bounced up and down like a dribbled basketball. ‘One hundred twenty-five yards,’ he said.

‘Now? Can I shoot them now?’ McNutt demanded.

‘Get to the engine!’ Cobb barked.

‘I’m already on my way!’ he yelled back, throwing the door open wide to accommodate his duffel bag as he moved between the cars.

Cobb was no longer watching the riders. He was in seemingly manic motion.

Sarah gasped when Cobb suddenly lifted sofa cushions and opened or overturned everything that could move. As if waiting for that moment, the glass beyond the curtain cracked, and they heard a distant rifle report a quarter-second later.

‘A hundred yards,’ Garcia gulped audibly.

Cobb dropped the curtain and continued his frantic search. ‘Nice shot,’ he muttered.

‘Jack!’ Sarah started.

‘Just a glancing hit,’ he said quickly. ‘Maybe even a ricochet.’

‘What are you looking for?’ Sarah exploded.

Cobb stood in the middle of the command center and calmly said, ‘Does anybody know where I can get a tablecloth?’