THE THOUSAND DOLLAR HEIST, page 16
And now it was my turn.
There could be up to six dangerous people in that room, although I didn’t think there would be; there simply wasn’t enough space for that many adult bodies. But I didn’t know what I was about to walk into, and the thought gave me pause.
But not for long.
Shock and awe was the name of the game here, and with a metal baton in one hand and a combat knife in the other, Kane by my side, I planted my right foot right through the cabin door. It crashed open, and in the blink of an eye, I saw that it had banged straight into a man I recognized as Frank Helm, the former HRT guy.
Without wasting a second I stormed into the small room, assessing everything as I moved. Helm was stunned by the door and hadn’t yet recovered, Arenas’ eyes were wide with shock, and Lagarde’s hand was reaching for something. Those were the only three people in the room, and I picked my first target and slammed the baton down on to Lagarde’s forearm, snapping it like a twig. In the next instant I whipped the knife sideways and buried it through Helm’s neck. I ignored the blood as it spurted uncontrollably across the cabin wall, and watched Kane as he leaped at Arenas, knocking him onto the bed, jaws locked around his throat. At the same time I dropped the baton and grabbed Lagarde, putting the blade of the knife up against her throat, while I closed the door with my foot. No point letting anyone see the show.
“How many people have you got on the train?” I asked, but Lagarde just shook her head. I wasn’t sure if it was a reaction from the pain, or whether she was refusing to answer, but I let the knife dig into her neck just a little, to show that I was serious – although the body of Helm right next to her, blood still spurting from the wound in his neck, should have told her that. And if she’d still been in any doubt, there were now two dead bodies in the room, Arenas’ struggles over, most of his throat ripped out. He’d never stood a chance; just like all those innocent people the bastard’s bombs had killed and maimed over the years. The son of a bitch wouldn’t be missed.
“Don’t fuck with me, Marie,” I said, and her eyes flickered at the use of her name. “Give me an answer, how many?”
“There are . . . six of us,” she gasped.
“Including the three in this room?” I asked, and she nodded.
I dug the knife deeper still. “I told you not to fuck with me,” I said. “The truth, or I’ll slit your fucking throat.”
“Okay, okay . . . There are eight of us in total.”
“Names,” I said, wanting confirmation that the eight she was talking about were the same eight I had the details for.
“Me, Hector Arenas, Frank Helm . . . Edward McGavin, Terrence Sayers . . . Luke Henderson . . . Benjamin Duggan, Gregory Alexander . . .”
I nodded my head and let the knife come away from her throat a little. “Okay,” I said, satisfied that there wasn’t anyone else – because if there were more, what were the chances that the seven names she’d given me matched the seven I had? “Let’s try something else. The plastic explosive, where is it?”
“Underneath the train,” she said, and I wasn’t unduly surprised that she was talking; she was surrounded by horrifically damaged, blood-soaked dead bodies, and she was a mercenary, not a revolutionary or a terrorist. She had no loyalty, except to herself, and whoever was currently paying her; and if her own safety was at risk, then she would always put that over and above her employer. After all, if she was dead, what was the point of the money?
“Any more?” I asked. “Anywhere else?”
She shook her head, as tears streamed down her eyes. Again, whether it was from the fear or the pain, I couldn’t say, and didn’t care.
“What’s it for?” I asked, aware that the train was moving again now. I wasn’t sure when it had started, how long we’d been moving for. Would Henderson or Sayers be on their way up here?
“To use as a threat,” she said, switching my attention back to her, “in case it looked like we were going to get caught.”
“And?” I probed, sure that there had to be something else.
“And . . . And because we were going to blow the train, when we escaped.”
“Why?” I asked, in absolute horror. They were going to blow the train up anyway? What was wrong with these people?
“To create a distraction,” she said, “to cover our tracks . . . All the emergency services would . . . would divert to the accident site, nobody . . . would try and follow us.”
“And the passengers?” I asked.
“They would have had time . . . to get off,” she said – which might have been true, although I wasn’t sure if I believed her. If a distraction is what they wanted, then it didn’t get much better than dead and injured civilians.
Sons of bitches . . .
“Where?” I asked. “When?”
“Between Kremmling and McCoy,” she said, confirming Mickey’s calculations, “midday . . .”
Everything tallied, all the details fit. But there was still one more question . . .
“Who hired you?”
Lagarde flinched, the one question she really didn’t want to answer. I pressed the blade into the soft skin of her neck, forcing the issue.
“Who?” I asked again.
“I can’t . . .”
“Who?”
“It was. . . it was . . .”
Kane moved then, in a blur of sudden motion, springing off the blood-soaked bed toward the doorway. I turned, saw the door opening, two men beyond.
It was the Marines, Duggan and Alexander, and Kane slammed into the body of Duggan, knocking him out into the corridor. He had a gun, but Kane had moved too quickly, he’d not managed to get it aimed, and now Kane had him pinned on the ground, teeth tearing into his face.
Alexander also had a gun, and in the moment he was distracted by Kane attacking his partner, I took the knife away from Lagarde’s throat and threw it hard. Unlike the much smaller throwing knife I’d used earlier, this just rotated once and then sunk into Alexander’s chest, the heavy blade burrowed up to the hilt. His eyes widened in sheer bewilderment, and he reflexively squeezed the trigger of his handgun. I instinctively moved off-line, but the shot was going wide anyway.
There was a sudden gasp behind me though, and I turned to see Lagarde knocked back onto the bed next to Arenas, an expanding halo of blood soaking across her blouse, from the bullet wound in her chest. Looked like Alexander’s round had found a target, it just hadn’t been the right one.
I sighed as I surveyed the carnage. Five bad guys down, just three to go.
I wondered if anyone had heard the shot, or the screams as Duggan had been bitten. But of course they had – how could anyone have missed it?
What would happen now? How far had we traveled from the station? Would the train be stopped?
Other doors opened in the passageway then, and the screaming started in earnest as people saw the carnage. Dead bodies were strewn everywhere, blood covering the floor and the walls. Alexander had a huge knife sticking out of his chest, Duggan had had half of his face ripped off. Murder on the Orient Express? More like Slaughter on the California Zephyr.
I wondered what the remaining three men would be doing, what they would be thinking, how they would be reacting.
I had to find them, and I had to find them fast.
My phone started ringing and I pocketed the baton and drew one of my pistols – the time for silence was clearly over – and answered the call with my free hand.
“Colt,” Manuel said, gasping for breath, “we got ’em, we got ’em, but one of the pilots managed to get away in the Bell chopper, we lost him.”
“Where’s he going?” I asked, as I stepped over the bodies and headed for the stairs, leading with the Glock.
“We’re in the tower now, got him on radar. He’s headed your way, man. I think he’s gonna try and pull the guys off the train.”
“There’s only three left,” I said.
“Shit, good going, man. Well, I guess those three will fit in the Bell just fine.”
“No they won’t,” I said. “They’re not going anywhere.”
Chapter Twenty
I was running through the train, Kane by my side, when I literally bumped straight into Terry Sayers. He’d been coming down a set of stairs, moving fast, when I’d come through into the car and collided with him.
I raised my gun and fired, but he was a quick son of a bitch and clamped his meaty hand around my wrist and moved it to the side, the 10mm round hitting the wall instead of the ex-SEAL, the sound brutally loud in the confined passageway. Then I saw movement up above, saw that Henderson was also on the stairs, further up. I struck the inside of Sayers’ wrist with my knuckles. He let go his grip and I moved the gun not toward him, but toward the stairs, opening fire at Henderson to dissuade him from joining the fight. The guy retreated back upstairs, and then I felt a sharp pain in my head as Sayers clubbed me with a wicked right hand. I dropped my gun and staggered back, dazed, wondering when Kane was going to start helping out; but then I realized he was gone, racing off down the corridor; and then I saw that he was chasing someone, who had to be the Brit, McGavin. I hoped he caught him, and took him out of the picture. I always liked the odds getting evened out as much as possible.
I felt Sayers right arm moving, as he drew his own pistol; and like he’d done to me, I grabbed his wrist, deflecting it out to the side. But he was stronger, and began to force it back in line, toward my gut.
I decided to go with the force, and I released the pressure suddenly. The gun swept right past me, and by the time Sayers realized and pulled the trigger, it was on the other side of me, clear once more. The report of the shot was again close to deafening in the confined space, but I ignored the ringing in my ears and bent the big man’s arm back on itself in a figure- four shoulder lock, kicking him in the knee at the same time to bring him down. The gun was now aimed at Sayers’ own face and I grabbed his hand to try and force him to pull the trigger; but he knocked the gun out of his own grasp with his other hand, then pulled a knife from his belt and swept it across my gut. I managed to arch back at the last moment, but it still made contact, slicing me open a little. I winced with the sharp pain but managed to push Sayers back a pace, creating the room I needed to draw another gun.
Then I heard automatic gunfire from one of the cars ahead of me, and then screams of pure terror; and while I was distracted, Sayers moved too fast, exploding forward before I could get to my weapon, and so I abandoned the idea of shooting him and sidestepped the charge, sticking out my foot to catch his front leg; then I put my hand on the back of his head and threw myself to the ground, using my full bodyweight to drive the big guy into the floor, face first.
He managed to get his hands up in time, making sure his head didn’t hit first, but the impact made him drop the knife; and while he was still dazed I made another reach for my secondary pistol, and this time managed to get it clear. And by the time Sayers was pushing his way up and reaching for his fallen knife, I was squeezing the trigger, a double-tap to the back of his skull from six inches away.
I didn’t pause to admire my handiwork, but sprinted toward the noise of the gunfire I’d heard.
I arrived at the Sightseer Lounge just seconds later, saw Edward McGavin covering the crowd with a H&K MP5K compact submachinegun, the kind you can keep on a sling underneath your jacket. Small, but deadly efficient and highly accurate, and with a rate of fire that would cut many of the hostages to shreds if he decided to open fire directly at them.
Kane was at the door, uninjured but clearly having decided to back off.
It was a good decision.
“Put down the fuckin’ gun,” McGavin shouted at me in a strong Cockney accent, “or one of these fuckers will get it!”
“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice calm despite the utter panic that was enveloping the entire room. There were a couple of dozen people in the lounge, including six kids, and I didn’t want anything to happen to them. They were all sobbing and crying and desperately trying to hide under the chairs and tables, terrified that they were about to be killed.
“Just keep calm,” I said, putting my gun down on the floor in front of me, “and tell me what you want.”
“I want the fuckin’ train stopped, right now! Get on the radio, tell the driver to stop the fuckin’ train!”
“Okay,” I said, “okay, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”
Slowly, very slowly, my hand to went to the radio on my belt. I let McGavin see my hand moving toward it, close around it, pull it off my belt and put it to my mouth; and as his eyes followed the path of the radio, my other hand shot back to the third gun I was carrying, whipped it out and upward in a fast draw that I’d practiced thousands of times, and pulled the trigger.
I saw the single red spot appear just off the center of the British commando’s forehead as his head snapped backward, blood and brain tissue suddenly decorating the white wall behind him.
He dropped the gun and fell to the ground, dead.
There was even more screaming now, but I could hear something else, even above the hellish noise of the terrified crowd.
It was the sound of rotor blades.
The pilot was here, in that Bell chopper.
Shit, Henderson was upstairs, maybe even up on the roof by now.
The son of a bitch was going to get away.
No he’s not, I told myself as I turned and ran.
No he’s fucking not.
Chapter Twenty-One
Less than a minute later, I could see the helicopter coming in low, heading toward the train. I was clinging to the side of the train, having climbed out of an upstairs window, reluctant to put my head above the edge in case Henderson shot it clean off.
But I knew I was going to have to risk it at some stage, and so I popped my head up just far enough for my eyes to scan the rooftop.
I saw Henderson on the next car down, less than a hundred feet away, looking toward the chopper and waving his arms. I was going to raise my gun and shoot, when he turned and saw me and managed to open fire first, forcing me to duck back down, the rounds ricocheting off the metal, uncomfortably close to my head. It was good shooting at that distance, from an unstable platform. I was going to have to be careful.
I raised my gun over the edge and blindly opened fire, knowing it would be a miracle for me to hit anything. There were no cries of pain to reward a lucky shot, and instead I saw an arm come down over the side, just fifty feet away now, a gun in the hand, and I swung back inside the train, through the window I’d used, getting out of the way just in time.
I raced from the room, then ran further down the corridor in the direction of Henderson; and when I thought I was in the general area, I aimed up at the ceiling and opened fire, the rounds penetrating the metal roof and punching holes right through it.
Again, if I’d been expecting cries of pain, I was disappointed; there was no response from above at all.
Damn, had he already jumped on the chopper?
I ran further down the passage, right to the end, and opened a window on the other side. Working fast, I climbed out and levered myself up onto the roof, not caring about hiding anymore, just desperate to take the fight to Henderson before he disappeared forever.
The former Green Beret was twenty feet away, his back to me, hailing the chopper to come down closer. I raised my gun to fire, but he must have sensed that I was there; he rolled to the side as I fired, came up and shot back, my own rounds well wide of the mark. I threw myself down on the roof and his rounds sailed above me, just missing. He pulled the trigger again, and his gun clicked empty. I got to my knees as he turned and reached for the chopper’s landing skid, raising my own gun and taking careful aim. This was my last chance, and not a shot I wanted to miss.
I pulled the trigger, and heard the same dead man’s click I’d heard from Henderson’s weapon just moments before.
Shit. That was just my luck, wasn’t it? He runs out of ammo, I run out of ammo.
I sighed, knowing there was just one thing for it.
I watched the chopper come lower, it’s side door already open and ready, saw Henderson grab the landing strut, heard him shout at the pilot. “Go, go, go! Get the fuck out of here!”
I ran, just about as fast as I’d ever run in my life, and certainly faster than I’d ever run across the unstable top of a moving vehicle; I covered that twenty feet in the blink of an eye, and as the chopper pulled up, lifting Henderson skyward, I jumped, grabbing hold of his legs and holding tight.
“Let go, you crazy son of a bitch!” Henderson shouted down at me, as the chopper lifted both of us up and away, the narrow length of the train growing smaller and smaller beneath us as the pilot gained altitude. “You’ll kill us both!”
He might not have been wrong about that, I knew; if he lost his grip, we’d both plummet to our deaths. We were a few hundred feet up now, a height that would pretty much guarantee a lethal fall.
He started to try and kick me loose, but I held tight and made sure he wasn’t able to dislodge me; and then when he stopped, I started to climb up his body, edging my way up until we were almost face to face; but my head was still below his, and I jerked it upward, smashing the top of my skull up under his chin. He sagged and almost lost his grip, and I saw my life flash before my eyes as I thought we might both fall; but I’d taken the opportunity, without even realizing, to swing one of my legs up, hooking it over the landing strut. I let Henderson go as I grabbed the strut with my hands, then swung my other leg over, clamping it around the first. Henderson was still only hanging on with his arms, although he had a strong position with one of them fully hooked around the strut.
But I now had all four limbs holding on, which mean I could sacrifice one of them and still be fairly secure. And so I let go with my right hand, as the chopper roared over the craggy mountaintops, and punched Henderson hard in the face.
He spat blood, and then he did the unthinkable – he actually let go with one of his arms, leaving only one securing him to the strut, his body swaying in the wind below the chopper.
