Weapons of the Gods

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The terrorist was standing on a seat, head and shoulders above the passengers he had forced to stand all around him. One hand held a woman by the hair, the other a gun pointed at her temple. She was sobbing, her face bloodied. Those around her were either trembling, crying or trying to look strong. He could turn the gun on them in just a few seconds.

“Do you see Berry?” Kinimaka asked. “This has to be a diversion.”

“Can’t see him,” Hayden said. “But you’re right. He’s in there. They haven’t had the chance to get the dagger off the train yet.”

“And the dagger may no longer be with Berry,” Molokai said. “I’ll handle this.” He pulled out a rifle from under his big coat.

“No.” Dahl put a hand on the man’s wrist before he brought it up into sight of the terrorist. “That asshole has half the weight of that trigger loaded already. Even a dead-center bullet could cause a reflexive reaction. It needs handling differently.”

Smyth stepped forward, hands up. “Then handle it.”

He approached the door, easing it open. Hayden followed suit and the rest spread out, similarly displayed. Dahl retreated to the broken window and quickly perched across the sill, his head stuck outside, staring down the buffeting gusts of wind.

Mad, he thought.

But necessary. He gripped the top rim of the window and hauled himself out, hanging by fingertips and ankles hooked over the sill. Next, he balanced his feet on the sill, flexed his powerful legs and lunged up toward the roof of the train. A blast of air shook him and the train as it raced toward its destination. Out here, Dahl could see approaching buildings: warehouses, homes and shopping malls. In the skies he could see several helicopters and a smudge in the air high above, a potential fighter jet.

Oh bollocks.

Would they?

Cambridge had to be passing valuable Intel along, but it all depended on the capabilities and disposition of the man in charge. It might even depend upon the suit at the top of the chain. He believed in President Coburn’s ability to do the right thing — hell, they’d fought together during the Blood King’s attack on DC — but didn’t believe certain people would let Coburn have his say.

Tempest would be engineering all this, right down to the last detail.

Who held the dagger?

Dahl heaved his body over the top, rolled and halted on top of the train. He sat up, bracing his body into the wind. He walked forward the number of paces that would have taken him to a face-to-face with the terrorist. He glanced over the side of the train.

Rails and heaps of gravel rushed by; the track’s banking beyond that. Cambridge was silent on the comms. Hayden whispered that it was now or never.

It became an orchestrated strike. At the heart of it all was the knowledge that the terrorist didn’t really want to kill the woman he held — not yet at least. She was his greatest asset. Everything in Hayden’s and Dahl’s training said that he would hesitate. Dahl gripped the side of the train with one hand, the rim of the window with the other and lowered himself down carefully, not quickly.

The movement caught the terrorist’s eye, made his head swivel over. That movement pointed the barrel of the gun away from the woman for a split second.

Hayden broke the window of a small box that triggered an alarm.

And nothing happened.

“Oh, no,”

The terrorist started to turn back toward them but Molokai and Smyth were already in full flight. They leapt across seatbacks and through the scared passengers, hitting the terrorist at chest height and propelling him back off the seat and onto the floor. The gun went off, a bullet passing harmlessly through the roof. Smyth took his hand grenade whilst Molokai fractured all the bones in his throat. They held his arms down as he died and then quickly disabled his bomb-jacket.

Hayden took control. “Stand apart,” she shouted at the mostly bewildered passengers. “Right now!”

Kinimaka and Smyth stood on the seats, covering the passengers with their own weapons. There was no time to explain; to do so would increase the overall danger. Molokai dragged Dahl inside and then they all watched with guns at the ready.

Hayden unhooked her pack from her shoulders and pulled out the GPR device. The view outside the windows changed from fields to buildings.

We’re coming into Dallas, she thought. And there’s still at least one terrorist on this train holding a bomb.

What do we do?