Chris Kuzneski - The Hunters

The engine covered the distance between the tunnel mouth and the prince’s train in seconds. They were about thirty feet inside. Then the grated nose of the 2TE116 pressed against the coupling joint of the treasure train’s engine. Everyone on board was jolted, but it was not enough to throw off McNutt’s aim. He shot another Black Robe, who had been struggling to pull his motorcycle out of a mound of debris that the train had thrown to one side. Before the sidecar man could get to the Browning automatic rifle that he had stolen from the armory, a horseman planted a Nagant rifle round in his chest.

‘Come on, Ludmilla,’ Dobrev gasped. ‘You can do it, girl …’ He put the big train into reverse.

Cobb steadied himself as the clawing fingers of the tunnel began to crack and shatter from around the royal roofs and side walls. With a pop that sounded like a massive water balloon, the eight blue and gold cars jerked forward, pulled by Ludmilla. The stubborn, clinging walls of the tunnel began to break and pebbles of granite were raining down around them.

Cobb hazarded a look back out the window as he heard other cycles racing toward the entrance to the tunnel. But every time one tried to reach the forward cars, either McNutt, a Russian police officer, or a horseman would gun them down.

‘McNutt,’ he said, pulling his head in, ‘status?’

‘Holding them off,’ McNutt grunted. ‘But not for long. I’m running out of ammo and the horsemen’s weapons take too long between shots.’ The Nagant’s bolt needed to be pulled back and shoved forward for each round. The guns the Black Robes had taken from their armory did not. ‘And I’m worried about that grenade launcher.’

‘Don’t,’ Cobb suggested. ‘They want this train. They won’t risk blowing it up.’

As they spoke, the train reversed out of the tunnel.

‘Sarah,’ Cobb said. ‘Elvis is leaving the building. Care to join us?’

Still no answer.

‘Damn it,’ Cobb spat.

Suddenly light flooded into the cab as they emerged from the tunnel. Cobb could see Jasmine hovering protectively over Dobrev, who was leaning forward with one hand on the control, one palm pressed against the front of the cabin. He was breathing heavily, his clothes soaked with perspiration.

But the train was moving and picking up speed.

As it did, the Black Robes were beginning to regroup.

‘Garcia, make sure everyone stays down,’ Cobb said.

As if on cue, bullets began to splatter on the outside engine walls.

‘Down!’ Cobb ordered, as he and Jasmine went to one knee. Both looked as Dobrev remained rigidly standing.

‘Andrei!’ yelled Jasmine in Russian. ‘Get down!’

But he didn’t respond.

The train began to pick up even more speed. Now clouds were being reflected in the windshield glass, and tree branches were whizzing by the windows, flipping off their newly acquired dust as the train passed, still going backwards.

Jasmine saw none of it. She was watching Dobrev.

Cobb shouted at her, his hand out, knowing that Jasmine was going to do what she did anyway. She jumped up and grabbed Dobrev under his arms as he was about to drop.

‘Andrei …’ she shrieked.

Before she could say another word, Dobrev fell back like a stone slab. She went with him and just managed to keep his head from smashing into the cab’s steel floor. His teeth were clattering, his eyes unfocused, and his right hand was spasmodically gripping his left arm. Jasmine looked over at Cobb in alarm.

‘It’s a heart attack,’ she said. ‘What can we do?’

‘Here’s what you’re going to do,’ Cobb said. ‘You’re going to drive this train.’

She hesitated as Dobrev’s right hand clawed at her arm.

‘You do it,’ Cobb said sternly, ‘or he will have suffered this for nothing. He and everyone else who died here.’

She tried to move — and then Dobrev yanked her head close to his, her eyes facing his mouth. Dobrev whispered something to her while placing his most treasured heirloom — the gold, twenty lei coin — in her grasp before he squeezed her hand closed.

Jasmine didn’t translate right away.

She needed a moment to fight her emotions.

Eventually, she looked up at Cobb with tragic resolve in her eyes. She wiped away a tear while revealing Dobrev’s final words.

‘Andrei said, “Drive the train, and kill those sons of bitches.”’

Despite what had just happened and all that was happening around them, Jasmine was surprised by what Cobb did next. He reached through the cab window, grabbed onto a rung there, and started pulling himself onto the roof of the engine.

Jasmine’s mouth opened as her brain filled with questions, but the train lurched before she could ask anything. She instinctively leaped up, grabbed the controls of the train, and started to drive the eleven cars with all the skill she had picked up from Dobrev.

Cobb stood on top of the train, quickly surveying the scene. There was a mass of gathering Cossack cycles on the left, a few stragglers on the back right, and horsemen pounding through the woods after them. The tree cover was still pretty extensive, with branches all around him. The downward incline was slight at the moment, but as soon as they broke into the open, it would dip sharply.

He wasn’t going to ask anyone to cover him. Whoever he’d ask would have his hands full as it was, and hopefully he could accomplish what he needed to do without undue attention. Thankfully, no one had yet noticed that he had climbed up there.

Cobb took a quick look down and said a fast prayer for Andrei Dobrev. He had connected Ludmilla to the prince’s cars perfectly. Although the securing spike was not pushed through the corresponding holes in each coupler, the trains were ‘holding hands’, the fingers and thumb-like joints intertwined. This had allowed Ludmilla to pull the treasure train free.

Cobb looked up to gauge the distance from the engine tip to the back of the prince’s cars. He silently thanked the gods of Russian train construction that Ludmilla’s roofing was relatively flat and free of projections. He turned and took a quick look along the track to make sure there were no sudden turns coming up for the backwards-running train. Then he ran and jumped.

Jasmine gasped as she saw his body hurdle above the windshield and land on the top of the prince’s first car. He dropped, rolled, and came up on his feet in a well-balanced crouch. Barely stopping, he sprinted and leaped from one car to the next until he made it to the last car in the prince’s train. He made sure there were no Black Robes coming, then he grabbed the lip of the door, and swung inside.

‘Jack, what are you doing?’ Jasmine demanded.

‘I’m borrowing something from Rasputin,’ he replied in her ear. ‘Just keep the train as steady as possible, and be aware of the attackers’ positions. If any happen to get by McNutt-’

‘I know,’ she said.

Jasmine kept low. She was cognizant of her peripheral vision, but her main focus of concentration was keeping the train moving steadily and safe. She watched Cobb as he climbed back onto the roof of the prince’s last car and started sprinting across the roofs toward her.

‘Watch it, Jack! We’re coming into low branches,’ Jasmine warned. She saw him hold onto the lip of the car roof and hazard a glance forward. Then he looked between the car and the engine snout.

‘Black Robe trying to climb the engine,’ he said, calm and to the point.

‘Sorry,’ McNutt said. ‘They’re starting to swarm.’

‘Apology unnecessary,’ Cobb remarked.

Jasmine’s head snapped left. A stranger’s face was rising in the window.

The.38 Special was in her hand with her arm outstretched before she was completely aware of it. She squeezed the trigger just as McNutt had shown her. The weapon discharged, and the rubber grip bucked in her hand. The face disappeared from the window.