John Barnes - Directive 51

Manckiewicz rolled, punched the door, and darted into the Ranger car. Heather considered following— get the guns together, better organized defense—no, I can probably do more good here, between the Rangers in the lead car and the president’s car, at least slow them up if they try to come through here, keep them from having this car to work from.

She rolled and came up beside a shattered window. They want him alive, otherwise they’ d’ve bombed the train or shredded it with the helicopter’s guns. So—

She drew her 9mm and fired at a hand reaching over the sill of the window beside her; it was a relief that the gun worked at least once; she’d cleaned it just that morning, but the ammunition had been smelling strange for weeks, and she was using Crisco because they had no unspoiled gun oil.

Scrambling sounds outside the car. A burst of automatic fire from the Rangers’ car; apparently maniacal maintenance had kept a few of their modern weapons working.

One of the Marines outside poked a stick over the sill; careful not to waste a round, Heather didn’t go for that, but positioned herself carefully to see where the next try would come, watching both sides because it occurred to her that one of them might try crawling under the cars.

Another flurry of automatic-weapons fire, mixed with some deeper bangs from black-powder guns, from the car ahead. Then some bangs from far back on the train; Rogers and Machado, if she remembered right, had been taking a turn as snipers in the caboose, and either they had a shot at the attackers, or more likely the attackers were trying to flank them on that side.

The stick came in again, still on the road side of the train, but a moment later on the creek side, a stealthy hand reached up and tried the window; Heather aimed and squeezed the trigger, but it didn’t fire. She ejected the bad round as she crept closer; then there were two hands.

Heather took the least risky alternative and smashed across both hands with the pistol butt. The man shouted. Looking into his eyes, she jammed the gun toward his face, wondering what she could do with a prisoner in the circumstances but not wanting to kill him. As he leaned back away from her gun, the Marine’s injured hands lost their grip. He fell backward down the gravel-covered embankment, rolling toward the creek far below. She ducked back down; a shot hit the ceiling above her head.

Yes, they’re definitely trying to take Graham alive, and they probably don’t want to kill any of the rest of us if they don’t have to. I don’t really want to kill any of them either.

Another Marine was halfway through the window behind her, leveling his weapon, as she rolled sideways; he fired, not aiming, and she came up, aimed, fired, and heard him shriek in pain; at a guess, she’d broken a bone in his arm, and he was unable to stop himself from sliding back out of the window.

Another sound penetrated her consciousness, a raspy buzzing with a sort of whining overtone; some other aircraft? They must’ve sent everything they have. A last couple of gunshots sounded in the Ranger car ahead; now it sounded like a bar brawl in there.

The door from the Ranger car slid open.

A Marine moved in. Heather tried firing her 9mm and came up with another dead round; the Marine kicked it out of her hand and presented her with a view straight into the muzzle of his own weapon. She raised her hands—

The thundering boom outside took both her and the Marine by surprise as the railroad car shook. For a moment they stared wide-eyed at each other, aware he could have been startled into killing her; then he stepped back, to give himself more distance, and looked out the window. “Fuck,” he said. She could tell he still had her in his peripheral vision, so she didn’t move, but she said, very softly, “What?”

“Don’t know. Did you all have air cover?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“Because our chopper just blew up. I don’t know what hit it, but it sounds like a lawn mower engine up in the sky.”

Heather listened and heard the same rattling buzz she’d heard before; she turned cautiously to look and saw a biplane.

“The fuck?” he said, looking at it around her.

“Cropduster with an antitank rocket?” she said. “Nobody told me we had anything that would fly except the Gooney.” If we win it won’t matter and if they win I don’t want them to go looking for Quattro Larsen. “Even that wasn’t working this morning.”

“Fuck,” the Marine said. “So we’ve got your train and you’ve got us; it’s a standoff unless—”

Heather heard another, more familiar, sound, the stuttering, coughing roar that had to be the Checker Cab of the Sky. She held her breath, then made herself relax.

“That’s another plane,” he said. “Must be one of yours, can’t be one of ours.”

“If I keep my hands where you can see them, can I put them down?”

“Yeah.” He pointed his rifle away from her but kept it on his hip where he could swing it back; she put her hands down on the back of the seat in front of her. “Escalera, USMC, I’m a corporal.”

“O’Grainne, OFTA, I run it.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Sometimes I wish I hadn’t.”

“I bet.” There was another, smaller explosion outside. “God, that chopper is burning like mad, someone really hit it with something.”

“Did you have friends on there?”

“Shit, we’ve been at sea forever, a carrier’s like a small town, after a while you know everyone.”

Heather waited with her captor; after a time they heard the rumble and thud of the DC-3 landing. “Smart enough to land out of sight and range,” the Marine said, with grudging approval.

“While they figure out which side is in charge,” Heather said, “don’t lose track of this: I clubbed one of your guys pretty hard and he rolled down the slope into the ravine. Make sure they find him; he’s probably still alive but he might not be in great shape.”

“Okay, thanks.”

More time went by; Heather figured that to land on the road, out of sight of the train, they must have come down a mile or more away, so this was going to take time. She just hoped there were enough—

They must have had that bullhorn in a clean box, Heather thought, missing the words because of the strangeness of hearing amplified speech again. “—Alpha Company, Second Ranger Battalion. Your aircraft has been destroyed, and we have you surrounded. We have functioning automatic weapons, and there is no escape route; we have both ends of the train under observation and can fire on any point around the train. Please release the president and his party unharmed. You will be treated in accord with the Geneva Conventions, and we intend to release you as soon as possible.”

“Shit,” Escalera said. “We’ve been out in the world so long now, with what’s gotta be growing on us, they won’t let us back on the ship till we’ve been boiled .”

Sorting everything out seemed interminably long to Heather. Everett, in the car ahead of her, had been wounded, and would probably limp the rest of his days, but the medic seemed to think he’d be able to keep and use the leg. Rogers and Machado had been killed by Marine snipers; the Marines had had their ambush in place since the night before.

“How did you know we were here, and in trouble?” Heather asked.

Quattro perched on a rock beside her while they watched all the people with authority argue with each other. “This morning, Bambi and I were flying the Stearman, and this gadget, up to Olympia, to catch the big party, you know? And we were following the tracks because we thought we might see you. When what to our wondering eyes should appear, I guess you’d say, but a Marine helicopter on one side of the mountain, and a pile of logs on the tracks on the other, which we didn’t think was a good thing.