Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow Returns

When she crossed the gap between the missile car and the second cargo car, she was briefly exposed and found herself standing in daylight. The first half of the train had cleared the siding! Once its missile carriage was fully outside, it would be ready to fire.

Huffing and puffing, she pushed on and was halfway along the second cargo car with the lead locomotive in sight when she realized the train was slowing.

It was already coming to a halt, coming into a firing position.

“Outta time, must run faster,” she said to herself, ducking out from under the cargo car and running at full stride alongside it.

Behind her, she could hear Baba exchanging fire with the men on the missile car, still taking the attention from her.

Mother came to the forward locomotive, bounded up onto a running board mounted on its side and just as the train’s wheels were squealing, announcing its impending halt, she swung up into its cab, leading with her gun.

The two Army of Thieves men driving the megatrain turned from its controls, eyes wide, and reached for their weapons.

Blam! Blam!

Starbursts of blood splattered the forward windshield behind their heads. Both men fell.

Mother hurried to the controls and just as the train was about to come to a stop, she pushed forward on the throttle and the train lurched, accelerating.

On the missile car, Big Jesus felt the lurch and spun.

“They’ve taken the engine car!” he called to the four men with him. To two of them, he said, “You two, stay here, keep the missile safe and hold that big fellow where he is!” He nodded to the other pair: “You two, come with me. We must stop this train!”

With that pair at his side, Big Jesus hurried forward, leading with the Kord, going after Mother in the lead locomotive.

Mother saw them coming. “Uh-oh . . .”

She snapped round, peered out the forward windshield.

The entrance to the submarine dock was about a mile away, at the end of a flat plain of open, barren ground. It looked like a tunnel, with the megatrain’s tracks burrowing down into the ground near the coastal cliffs. Plenty of time to stop the megatrain and fire the missile.

I can’t let them stop us , Mother thought desperately. But how can I make sure of that?

The solution struck her immediately.

And as the first massive round from the Kord clanged against the steel roof above her head, Mother jammed the throttle all the way forward, causing the megatrain to pick up speed alarmingly.

Then she left the lever, scooping up her AK-47, and rejoined the battle.

She was now defending the lead locomotive alone, one against three, and woefully outgunned. In her heart of hearts, Mother knew she couldn’t win this battle, but if she could hold out long enough, she might just win the war.

THE MEGATRAIN thundered across the barren north-eastern plain of Dragon Island, picking up speed.

The tiny figures of Big Jesus and his two comrades could be seen advancing along the roof of the second carriage, the cargo car, firing on the lead locomotive, while the muzzle flashes of a lone figure could be seen firing back at them through the open rear window of the locomotive’s driver’s compartment.

There was, however, no longer any sign of a gun battle at the rear of the train.

On the roof of the train, Big Jesus and his men leapfrogged forward in perfect formation. They weren’t amateurs and they knew they had the edge on Mother both in numbers and firepower. Soon they were up near the locomotive, firing at her at close range, and suddenly Mother recoiled, hit in the right shoulder.

She was flung backward and they rushed the driver’s compartment, covering her.

Big Jesus reached for the control lever and had gripped it when out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a figure thump down onto the flat snout-like nose of the locomotive right in front of him.

Big Jesus looked up and that figure took form, the form of a big bearded Frenchman lying on his belly on the locomotive’s nose, taking aim at Big Jesus’s face with a pistol.

Baba fired once through the glass.

The bullet came slamming through the windshield and into Big Jesus’s left eye before it exploded out the back of his head. He collapsed where he stood, dropping the Kord.

Two more shots and the other two Thieves also went down.

Baba swung in through the shattered windshield and crouched by Mother’s side.

“Nice entrance,” Mother groaned, pressing a hand to the wound on her shoulder.

“I am French,” Baba said simply. “I was born with a certain je ne sais quoi.” Mother smiled despite herself. “You’re one bad-ass dude, I know that. You didn’t stay at the back of the train like I told you to, did you?”

“I couldn’t.” Baba nodded at the rest of the train. “They sent reinforcements.”

Mother followed his gaze.

Another two dozen Army of Thieves men were now boarding the megatrain, clambering onto it from two troop trucks, one on either side of the train.

“I had to come here,” he said. “So I came the same way you did, running underneath the train.”

A bullet slammed into the roof above them. Then another. Then a wave of them.

Mother and Baba ducked. Mother hefted her AK-47. Baba grabbed his beloved Kord from the floor.

“Come!” Baba called as he dragged her out through the shattered forward windshield. “Out onto the nose! If we are to make a last stand, it is the best place!”

“Our own private Alamo . . .” Mother said as she arrived on the forward section of locomotive beside Baba.

Then, facing back down the length of the rumbling train, they opened fire together on the advancing horde of Thieves.

The exchange of gunfire that followed was vicious in the extreme: Thieves swarmed all over the megatrain like ants at a picnic, while Mother and Baba held them off from the nose section of the lead locomotive, picking them off left and right.

The Thieves kept coming.

Mother and Baba kept firing.

A round sizzled past Mother’s ear, slicing through her earpiece’s filament microphone on the way by, nicking skin, drawing blood. Close.

Then, abruptly, in between shots, Baba called, “Mother! You are a fine warrior and a magnificent woman. Are you spoken for? If we should survive this, I should very much like to wine you, dine you and make mad, passionate love to you for many hours. But smitten as I may be, I am a man of honor and do not court other men’s wives. Are you spoken for?”

Mother paused in between shots, thinking for a moment.

She thought of Ralph, her Ralphy, and of their life together which only a week ago she had described as banal and boring—and then she looked at the Frenchman, this larger-than-life warrior called the Barbarian, Baba. He was her mirror, her male equivalent.

But he wasn’t Ralphy.

“Sorry, you sexy beast!” she shouted, punching off a shot. “But I am spoken for! I’m married!”

Baba loosed another shot from the Kord. “He is a lucky man, your husband! And he must be a fine fellow to capture and hold a heart as big as yours!”

“He is!” Mother called. “He certainly is!”

The larger force of Thieves was now leaping onto the back of the lead locomotive, their takeover of the megatrain now certain and all but complete, when Baba leaned suddenly forward and kissed Mother hard on the mouth and said, “Live for both of us then, my friend, Mother! I shall go to my grave with the taste of your lips on my mouth!”

And with those words, he leapt up onto the roof of the locomotive—totally out in the open, totally exposed—planted his feet wide and raised his mighty Kord.

Then he opened fire.