Jeffery Deaver: Carte Blanche

Dunne regarded the train again. He calculated speed, mass, incline. Yes, it was good. At this point even if someone tried to wave the train down, even if a Belgrade supervisor happened to notice something was amiss, phoned the driver and ordered him to apply full brakes, it would be physically impossible to stop the train before it hit the switch rails, now configured to betray.

And he reminded himself: sometimes death is necessary.

The train was now three hundred yards away.

It would all be over in ninety seconds. And then-

But what was this? Dunne was suddenly aware of movement in a field nearby, an indistinct shape pounding over the uneven ground making directly for the track. ‘Do you see that?’ he asked Karic.

The Serbian gasped. ‘Yes, I am seeing- It’s a car! What is happening?’

It was indeed. In the faint moonlight Dunne could see the small light-coloured saloon, assaulting hillocks and swerving around trees and fragments of fences. How could the driver keep his high speed on such a course? It seemed impossible.

Teenagers, perhaps, playing one of their stupid games. As he stared at the mad transit, he judged velocity, he judged angles. If the car didn’t slow it would cross the track with some seconds to spare… but the driver would have to vault over the tracks themselves; there was no crossing here. If it were stuck on the rail, the diesel would crush it like a tin of vegetables. Still, that wouldn’t affect Dunne’s mission here. The tiny car would be pitched aside and the train continue to the deadly spur.

Now – wait – what was this ? Dunne realised it was a police car. But why no lights or siren? It must have been stolen. A suicide?

But the police car’s driver had no intention of stopping on the rail or crossing to the other side. With a final leap into the air from the crest of hill, the saloon crashed to earth and skidded to a stop, just short of the roadbed, around fifty yards in front of the train. The driver jumped out – a man. He was wearing dark clothing. Dunne couldn’t see him clearly but he appeared not to be a policeman. Neither was he trying to flag down the engine driver. He ran into the middle of the track itself and crouched calmly, directly in front of the locomotive, which bore down upon him at fifty or sixty miles an hour.

The frantic blare of the train’s horn filled the night and orange streaks of sparks shot from the locked wheels.

With the train feet away from him, the man launched himself from the track and vanished into the ditch.

‘What is happening?’ Karic whispered.

Just then a yellow-white flash burst from the tracks in front of the diesel and a moment later Dunne heard a crack he recognised: the explosion of a small IED or grenade. A similar blast followed seconds later.

The driver of the police car, it seemed, had a blueprint of his own.

One that trumped Dunne’s.

No, he wasn’t a policeman or a suicide. He was an operative of some sort, with experience in demolition work. The first explosion had blown out the spikes fixing the rail to the wooden ties, the second had pushed the unsecured track to the side slightly so that the diesel’s front left wheels would slip off.

Karic muttered something in Serbian. Dunne ignored him and watched the disc of the diesel’s headlight waver. Then, with a rumble and a terrible squeal, the engine and the massive wagons it tugged behind sidled off the track and, spewing a world of dust, pushed forward through the soil and chipped rock of the rail bed.

From the ditch, James Bond watched the locomotive and the cars continue their passage, slowing as they dug into the soft earth, peeling up rails and flinging sand, dirt and stones everywhere. Finally he climbed out and assessed the situation. He’d had only minutes to work out how to avert the calamity that would send the deadly substance into the Danube. After braking to a stop, he’d grabbed two of the grenades the Serbians had brought with them, then leapt on to the tracks to plant the devices.

As he had calculated, the locomotive and wagons had stayed upright and hadn’t toppled into the stream. He’d orchestrated his derailment where the ground was still flat, unlike the intended setting of the Irishman’s sabotage. Finally, hissing, groaning and creaking, the train came to a standstill not far from the Irishman and his partner, though Bond could not see them through the dust and smoke.

He spoke into the SRAC radio. ‘This is Leader One. Are you there?’ Silence. ‘Are you there?’ he growled. ‘Respond.’ Bond massaged his shoulder, where a sliver of hot, whistling shrapnel had torn through his jacket and sliced skin.

A crackle. Finally: ‘The train is derailed!’ It was the older Serbian’s voice. ‘Did you see? Where are you?’

‘Listen to me carefully.’

‘What has happened?’

‘Listen! We don’t have much time. I think they’ll try to blow up or shoot the haz-mat containers. It’s their only way to spill the contents. I’m going to fire towards them and drive them back to their car. Wait till the Mercedes is in that muddy area near the restaurant, then shoot out the tyres and keep them inside it.’

‘We should take them now!’

‘No. Don’t do anything until they’re beside the restaurant. They’ll have no defensive position inside the Mercedes. They’ll have to surrender. Do you understand me?’

The SRAC went dead.

Damn. Bond started forward through the dust towards the place where the third rail car, the one containing the hazardous material, waited to be ripped open.

Niall Dunne tried to reconstruct what had happened. He’d known he might have to improvise, but this was one thing he had not considered: a pre-emptive strike by an unknown enemy.

He looked out carefully from his vantage-point, a stand of bushes near where the locomotive sat, smoking, clicking and hissing. The assailant was invisible, hidden by the darkness of night, the dust and fumes. Maybe the man had been crushed to death. Or fled. Dunne lifted the rucksack over his shoulder and made his way round the diesel to the far side, where the derailed wagons would give him cover from the intruder – if he was still alive and present.

In a curious way, Dunne found himself relieved of his nagging anxiety. The death had been averted. He’d been fully prepared for it, had steeled himself – anything for his boss, of course – but the other man’s intervention had settled the matter.

As he approached the diesel he couldn’t help but admire the massive machine. It was an American General Electric Dash 8-40B, old and battered, as you usually saw in the Balkans, but a classic beauty, 4,000 horsepower. He noted the sheets of steel, the wheels, vents, bearings and valves, the springs, hoses and pipes… all so beautiful, elegant in simple functionality. Yes, it was such a relief that-

He was startled by a man staggering towards him, begging for help. It was the train driver. Dunne shot him twice in the head.

It was such a relief that he hadn’t been forced to cause the death of this wonderful machine, as he’d been dreading. He ran his hand along the side of the locomotive, as a father would stroke the hair of a sick child whose fever had just broken. The diesel would be back in service in a few months’ time.

Niall Dunne hitched the rucksack higher on his shoulder and slipped between the wagons to get to work.

The two shots James Bond had heard had not hit the hazardous-materials car – he was covering that from thirty yards away. He guessed the engine driver and perhaps his mate had been the victims.

Then, through the dust, he saw the Irishman. Gripping a black pistol, he stood between the two jack-knifed wagons filled with scrap metal directly behind the engine. A rucksack hung from his shoulder. It seemed to be full, which meant that if he intended to blow up the hazardous-material containers, he hadn’t set the charges yet.