This may take some time but
It's kinda long and free...
Chapter One
Rain hammered through the open train coupling while the mercenary smiled at Cole across the swaying gap between cars.
“We know who you are, Mr. Walker.”
Then he shoved Sokolov through the next door and disappeared.
Cole sprinted after them.
Naomi grabbed his coat from behind.
“You rush a stacked hallway and you die.”
“Probably.”
“That was not encouragement.”
The train rocked hard around a mountain curve. Outside, black forests blurred through sheets of rain. The wheels screamed against the tracks beneath the floor.
Cole checked the submachine gun he had taken from the dead mercenary.
Half a magazine left.
He stepped into the narrow connector between train cars.
Cold wind blasted through torn rubber seals. Rainwater slicked the steel floor plates.
The next compartment looked different from the luxury dining car.
Private sleeper cabins.
Narrow hallway.
Red emergency lights flashing overhead.
Bodies already on the carpet.
Two passengers.
One mercenary.
Blood rolled with the motion of the train.
Naomi crouched beside the dead gunman and stripped spare magazines from his vest.
“Former military,” she said.
“How can you tell?”
She pointed toward the man’s forearm tattoo.
Russian airborne insignia.
Cole nodded once.
The train intercom crackled overhead.
A man spoke in accented English.
“Remain inside your compartments. Cooperate and you will survive.”
A gunshot echoed somewhere farther ahead.
Then screaming.
Naomi looked down the hallway.
“They’re separating passengers.”
Cole moved past her.
“You coming?”
“I was getting bored anyway.”
The corridor smelled like burned wiring and gun smoke. Broken glass crunched beneath their shoes while the train thundered north through the storm.
Cole stopped beside the first sleeper compartment.
Door half open.
Inside, an elderly German couple huddled together on the floor.
Terrified.
Cole lowered the weapon slightly.
“Lock the door behind us. Don’t open it.”
The old man nodded rapidly.
Naomi watched Cole as they moved on.
“You do that often?”
“What?”
“Save strangers.”
Cole checked another hallway intersection.
“Depends on the strangers.”
Ahead, voices echoed through the next car.
Russian.
Orders.
Cole held up a fist.
They stopped beside the doorway connecting compartments.
Naomi leaned close enough for him to smell expensive perfume beneath cordite smoke.
“You have a plan?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s comforting.”
Cole risked a glance through the glass panel.
Four mercenaries occupied the next sleeper car.
One guarded passengers kneeling in the aisle with zip ties around their wrists.
Another searched compartments.
A third stood watch near the far exit.
The fourth interrogated a terrified train conductor.
No sign of Sokolov.
Cole noticed something else.
The mercenaries checked passports carefully before separating passengers into groups.
Americans here.
Russians there.
Polish passengers against one wall.
Intentional sorting.
Professional screening.
Naomi whispered, “This isn’t random.”
“No.”
“They’re hunting somebody.”
Cole looked at her.
“Maybe several somebodies.”
One mercenary shoved the conductor against the wall and barked another question in Russian.
The conductor shook his head frantically.
The mercenary pistol-whipped him to the floor.
Cole’s jaw tightened.
Naomi saw it.
“You get emotional, we both die.”
Cole nodded toward the ceiling.
“Lights.”
Naomi followed his eyes.
Electrical panel above the corridor.
She smiled faintly.
“Now you have a plan.”
Cole moved silently into the maintenance alcove beside the train door and ripped open the electrical box with the butt of his weapon.
Sparks flashed blue.
He tore out wiring bundles.
The sleeper car lights died instantly.
Darkness swallowed the corridor.
Passengers screamed.
Mercenaries shouted in confusion.
Cole moved fast.
He stepped through the doorway and fired twice into muzzle flashes.
One mercenary dropped across the aisle.
Naomi entered behind him and shot another through the shoulder before smashing him into a cabin door.
Cole drove forward through the chaos.
A third mercenary swung his rifle toward a hostage.
Cole slammed the submachine gun into the man’s face hard enough to break teeth.
The weapon discharged into the ceiling.
Passengers crawled beneath seats.
The fourth mercenary fired blindly down the corridor.
Rounds shattered mirrors and punched through cabin walls.
Naomi dropped low and shot him through the knee.
Cole finished him with a short burst to the chest.
Silence crashed down over the sleeper car except for the thunder of wheels beneath the floor.
Passengers stared at them in shock.
A little girl peeked from behind her mother’s coat.
Cole tossed a knife toward the German conductor.
“Cut the zip ties.”
The conductor caught it clumsily.
“You police?”
“No.”
“That’s obvious,” Naomi muttered.
A loud metallic bang rolled through the train ahead of them.
Heavy doors.
Cargo section maybe.
Then automatic gunfire erupted farther up the line.
Different weapons this time.
Suppressed.
Precise.
Cole listened carefully.
“Second team.”
Naomi frowned.
“You think there’s another assault force onboard?”
“Somebody shot through the dining car windows from outside.”
She cursed softly.
“That was not in my briefing.”
“You British get briefings?”
“Only the bad ones.”
They moved deeper through the train.
The next compartment smelled like smoke and spilled wine. Luxury cabins stood open and abandoned. Designer luggage littered the floor beside pools of blood.
Cole crouched beside a dead mercenary near the hallway intersection.
Black tactical clothing.
No insignia.
Expensive equipment.
He rolled the body over.
The man had been shot cleanly through the left eye.
Execution quality.
Naomi studied the wound.
“Not passengers.”
“No.”
She searched the dead man’s pockets and found a small encrypted radio.
French manufacture.
Military grade.
Interesting.
A weak voice drifted from one of the nearby compartments.
“Help…”
Cole pushed open the cabin door carefully.
Dr. Viktor Sokolov sat handcuffed to the lower bunk with blood running down the side of his face.
Alive.
For now.
He looked up through cracked glasses.
“You Americans took your time.”
Cole stepped inside.
“You know who I am?”
Sokolov laughed bitterly.
“Half the people on this train know who you are.”
Naomi entered behind him and locked the compartment door.
Sokolov noticed her immediately.
“MI6,” he said.
Naomi’s expression tightened slightly.
“That obvious?”
“You carry your weapon too high.”
She did not look pleased by that answer.
Cole checked the hallway through the compartment window.
“Who are they?”
Sokolov rubbed blood from his mouth.
“Depends which ones.”
“The mercenaries.”
“Private contractors.”
“Working for who?”
Sokolov smiled without humor.
“Everybody.”
Naomi crouched beside him.
“You stole missile guidance systems from Moscow.”
“No.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I stole files.”
“What kind of files?”
Sokolov hesitated.
That hesitation told Cole plenty.
Big enough to scare governments.
Big enough to hijack trains.
Big enough to kill entire passenger lists.
Sokolov leaned forward slightly.
“There are people inside NATO selling weapons through private military companies. Russian missiles. American missiles. Chinese systems. Everybody profits.”
Cole unlocked one cuff.
“And you brought proof onboard.”
“Yes.”
Naomi stared at him.
“You’re carrying blackmail material across Europe on a luxury train?”
“It seemed less suspicious than email.”
Cole almost smiled.
Then the compartment door exploded inward.
A suppressed round smashed through the cabin wall inches from Naomi’s head.
Everybody hit the floor.
A shooter opened fire from the hallway.
Professional bursts.
Tight grouping.
Cole flipped the bunk mattress upward as more rounds punched through the compartment.
Feathers exploded into the air.
Naomi fired twice beneath the bunk frame.
A body slammed against the corridor wall outside.
Then another shot cracked from farther down the hallway.
The wounded mercenary’s head snapped backward.
Sniper.
Cole moved to the doorway fast.
A man in a dark overcoat disappeared around the far end of the sleeper car carrying a suppressed rifle.
Not one of the hijackers.
Different build.
Different movement.
Hunter.
Naomi rose beside him.
“Who the hell was that?”
Cole looked down at the dead mercenary in the hallway.
Single shot between the eyes.
Clean.
Deliberate.
Sokolov stood shakily behind them rubbing his freed wrist.
“I told you,” he said quietly. “Everybody wants these files.”
Then Cole noticed the open compartment door across the corridor.
The terrified German conductor from earlier stood there holding a radio.
Listening.
Watching.
The conductor saw Cole looking at him.
Too late.
He bolted down the hallway toward the rear cars.
Cole started after him immediately.
Naomi grabbed extra magazines from the dead mercenary.
“You think he’s with them?”
Cole sprinted into the corridor.
“He’s been with them the whole time.”
Chapter Two
Snow hammered the train hard enough to rattle the windows.
Cole sprinted through the sleeper corridor after the fake conductor while the luxury train screamed north through the mountains.
The man moved fast for somebody pretending to be middle-aged and terrified.
That alone told Cole enough.
Naomi kept pace behind him with her pistol low and steady.
“You were right,” she said.
“I enjoy hearing that.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Passengers screamed and ducked back inside compartments as Cole barreled through the narrow hallway. Red emergency lights flashed overhead through drifting smoke.
The conductor shoved through the rear train door into the next compartment.
Cole hit the connector between cars just as the train slammed around a mountain curve.
Wind blasted through broken seals.
The conductor fired backward blindly with a compact pistol.
Rounds punched sparks off steel inches from Cole’s face.
Cole ducked low and crossed into the next car.
Kitchen compartment.
Chaos.
Pots and shattered glass covered the floor. Steam hissed from ruptured pipes while terrified kitchen staff crouched behind overturned serving carts.
The conductor sprinted through them toward the far exit.
Cole vaulted a serving table.
A chef grabbed his sleeve in panic.
“Please—”
“Stay down.”
The conductor hit the next train car.
Then automatic gunfire erupted ahead.
Not aimed at Cole.
Different fight.
Cole slowed instantly.
Naomi reached the doorway beside him.
“What now?”
Cole listened.
Suppressed bursts.
Men shouting in Russian.
Heavy impacts.
Close-quarters combat.
The conductor screamed suddenly.
One short scream.
Then silence.
Cole pushed through the doorway carefully.
The next compartment looked like a slaughterhouse.
Three mercenaries lay dead across the passenger lounge.
Clean kills.
Professional.
One had his throat cut nearly ear to ear.
Another sat slumped against the wall with two rounds through the forehead.
The fake conductor sprawled across the carpet bleeding out from multiple gunshot wounds.
A black-clad shooter crouched near the far end of the compartment checking bodies.
Suppressor.
Night-vision rig flipped upward.
Compact assault rifle.
The shooter looked up instantly.
Fast eyes.
Cole fired first.
The shooter dove sideways behind leather seats as rounds shredded the compartment windows.
Snow blasted inward through broken glass.
Naomi flanked right and fired controlled shots through the seatbacks.
The shooter moved low and fast toward the next compartment.
Military movement.
No wasted panic.
Cole pursued aggressively.
The train rocked hard again.
The shooter used it.
He slammed a luggage cart backward into Cole’s path and vanished through the next connector.
Cole hit the cart shoulder-first and shoved it aside.
The next train car sat nearly dark except for emergency lighting and drifting cigarette smoke.
Private club car.
Leather chairs.
Liquor shelves.
Dead passengers.
Three more bodies.
Execution shots.
Cole spotted movement reflected in a shattered mirror behind the bar.
He dropped instantly.
Suppressed rounds cracked through the air where his head had been.
Naomi fired over him while Cole rolled behind the bar counter.
Bottles exploded overhead.
Whiskey rained across the floor.
The shooter moved again.
Cole caught only fragments:
black tactical gloves
lean build
precise footwork
Professional hunter.
The man reached the rear exit.
Cole fired through the door before it closed.
One round connected.
Blood splashed across the glass.
The shooter vanished into the next compartment.
Naomi checked the blood trail.
“You hit him.”
“Not enough.”
They moved carefully now.
The train entered higher mountains. Snow swallowed the windows outside. Pine forests flashed beneath moonlight and storm clouds.
The next compartment door hung open crooked from explosives.
Cargo car.
Cold air flooded through the space.
Wooden crates lined the walls strapped down with cargo netting.
Military crates.
Diplomatic seals.
Interesting cargo for a luxury passenger train.
Cole crouched beside fresh blood drops on the steel floor.
The shooter had passed through here.
Naomi studied the crates.
“These weren’t in the train manifest.”
“You checked?”
“I check everything.”
Cole moved deeper into the cargo compartment.
One crate sat open near the center aisle.
Inside rested hardened server drives packed in shockproof foam.
Industrial-grade encryption hardware.
Enough storage capacity to bury governments.
Naomi stared at them.
“Jesus.”
Cole lifted one drive carefully.
No labels.
No markings.
That bothered him more.
Anonymous secrets usually belonged to powerful people.
A faint metallic click echoed somewhere behind them.
Cole spun.
Too late.
A flashbang grenade bounced across the cargo floor.
“Down!”
The grenade detonated with blinding white light and thunder inside the steel compartment.
Cole’s ears rang instantly.
The world narrowed into static and drifting shapes.
Gunfire erupted through the smoke.
Naomi fired blindly beside him while rounds ripped through crates and steel walls.
Cole forced himself upright against the cargo rack.
The wounded shooter emerged through the smoke carrying a compact rifle one-handed.
Blood soaked his left sleeve from Cole’s earlier shot.
But he still moved clean.
Still dangerous.
The shooter fired controlled bursts toward the server crates.
Not at them.
Destroying evidence.
Cole lunged across the cargo aisle and slammed into him hard enough to drive both men into the steel wall.
The rifle discharged wildly into the ceiling.
The shooter elbowed Cole across the jaw and reached for a knife.
Cole trapped the wrist and drove repeated punches into the wound in the man’s shoulder.
Bone shifted beneath the tactical jacket.
The shooter grunted once.
No scream.
Disciplined.
Naomi kicked the knife away across the floor.
The shooter reacted instantly and slammed her backward into the cargo racks.
Crates burst open around her.
Cole drove a shoulder into the man’s ribs and pinned him against the wall.
For one second both men froze there straining for leverage while the train thundered through the storm.
Then Cole ripped away the shooter’s face covering.
Young.
Late thirties.
American.
Not Russian.
The man smiled through blood.
“That disappoint you?”
Cole slammed him harder against the wall.
“Who sent you?”
The shooter laughed weakly.
“You really don’t know how deep this goes.”
Naomi recovered her pistol and pressed it against the man’s forehead.
“Start talking.”
Instead, the shooter glanced toward the server crates.
Then toward the ceiling.
Cole saw it immediately.
Remote trigger.
He grabbed Naomi’s arm.
“Move!”
The shooter smiled wider.
Explosives detonated beneath the cargo floor.
The entire train car jumped sideways off the tracks.
Steel screamed.
Passengers screamed louder.
The cargo compartment tilted violently as wheels left rail.
Crates tore loose and smashed across the floor.
Cole grabbed Naomi and dove through the rear doorway just as the cargo car ripped apart behind them in a storm of fire and twisted steel.
The explosion hurled them into the next compartment.
The train fishtailed through the mountain pass showering sparks into the snow outside.
Behind them, the cargo car burned while half hanging off the tracks over a dark ravine.
Cole pushed himself upright through smoke and debris.
Naomi coughed beside him.
“You attract terrible vacations.”
Cole looked back toward the burning cargo car.
The shooter stood silhouetted in the flames at the shattered doorway.
Still alive.
Of course.
Then the train engineer screamed over the intercom:
“Brake failure! Brake failure!”
The train accelerated into the mountains.
Chapter Three
The train hurtled through the mountains like a bullet with no target.
Snow blasted across shattered windows. Sparks fountained past the cars outside while steel wheels screamed against frozen rails.
Cole shoved himself upright in the wrecked compartment as alarms wailed through the train.
Passengers staggered through smoke-filled aisles crying, bleeding, praying.
Naomi checked her pistol magazine beside him.
“We need the engine.”
Cole looked toward the burning cargo car swaying behind them over the ravine.
“And the servers.”
“Pick one.”
A violent jolt threw both of them sideways as the train hammered through another curve.
Far ahead, the engineer screamed something in Polish over the intercom before the transmission dissolved into static.
Cole grabbed the wall rail and steadied himself.
“Sokolov?”
Naomi pointed down the corridor.
“Last seen alive five disasters ago.”
Fair answer.
The compartment lights flickered weakly as they pushed forward through the train.
The next car had transformed into chaos.
Luxury passengers crowded the aisles dragging luggage and bleeding companions while smoke drifted through the ventilation system. A businessman in a tuxedo tried to force open a locked exit window with a champagne bottle.
Cole shoved past him.
“You break that glass at this speed and everybody near it dies.”
The man froze.
Naomi moved beside Cole scanning faces.
“You notice how none of the mercenaries are panicking?”
Cole saw it too.
The surviving hijackers moved calmly through the train while civilians lost their minds.
Prepared for the derailment.
Meaning the brake failure was planned.
Ahead, automatic gunfire rattled through the next compartment.
Short bursts.
Disciplined spacing.
The hunters again.
Cole accelerated toward the sound.
The first-class lounge looked like a battlefield.
Tables overturned.
Liquor burning across the carpet.
Bodies sprawled beside cracked windows coated in blowing snow.
Three mercenaries exchanged fire with black-clad shooters near the rear exit while trapped passengers crawled beneath booths.
Neither side cared about collateral damage anymore.
Cole ducked behind a marble column as rounds chewed apart the bar behind him.
Naomi slid beside him.
“We go through?”
“We go over.”
Cole climbed onto the lounge bar and vaulted across hanging light fixtures toward the upper luggage racks running along the ceiling edge.
Naomi stared up at him.
“That is a terrible idea.”
“Probably.”
He moved fast above the gunfight while bullets punched apart furniture below.
One mercenary spotted him too late.
Cole dropped from the rack directly onto him.
Both crashed through a dining table.
Cole ripped away the man’s rifle and fired two rounds into another gunman moving toward Naomi.
Naomi shot the third mercenary through the throat.
The black-clad shooters pivoted immediately toward Cole.
Professional reaction time.
Cole grabbed a burning tablecloth and hurled it across the aisle.
Flames exploded between compartments.
One shooter stumbled back just enough.
Cole closed the distance hard.
He slammed the rifle stock into the shooter’s face and drove him sideways into the train wall.
Bone cracked beneath the impact.
A second operator lunged from the smoke with a knife.
Naomi intercepted him.
The two collided against shattered booth seating in a savage close-range fight.
The operator trapped her pistol arm against the wall and drove the knife downward.
Naomi caught his wrist inches from her throat.
Cole fired once through the man’s shoulder.
The operator collapsed across the booth still trying to stab Naomi with his off hand.
Dedicated people.
Naomi shoved the body aside breathing hard.
“You attract lunatics.”
“You’re still here.”
“Temporary lapse in judgment.”
A loud metallic crash echoed farther ahead.
Then the train lurched again.
Harder this time.
Cole looked through the shattered side window.
Mountain terrain raced past beneath moonlight and storm clouds. The train approached a narrow pass carved between black cliffs.
Too fast.
Way too fast.
A terrified conductor stumbled from the next compartment clutching a radio.
“The bridge!” he shouted in broken English. “Bridge damaged ahead!”
Every surviving passenger nearby heard him.
Panic detonated instantly.
People surged through the aisles shoving each other toward the rear cars.
Cole grabbed the conductor by the coat.
“How far?”
“Ten minutes maybe!”
Naomi looked at Cole.
“Engine room. Now.”
They pushed through the stampede toward the forward cars.
Passengers screamed around them while train attendants tried and failed to restore order.
Somebody fired a pistol farther back.
Then another.
Fear spreading.
Cole hated crowds under pressure. Crowds killed faster than bullets once panic took hold.
The next compartment sat nearly empty except for bodies.
Mercenaries.
All dead.
Single shots to the head.
Cole crouched beside one corpse.
Still warm.
Naomi checked the hallway.
“Our mystery shooter?”
“Looks that way.”
A soft cough came from behind the compartment booths.
Cole spun with weapon raised.
Dr. Viktor Sokolov emerged slowly holding a compact revolver with trembling hands.
Blood stained his collar.
His glasses hung crooked.
“You Americans are very loud,” he said.
Cole lowered the rifle slightly.
“You vanish often?”
“Occupational habit.”
Naomi grabbed him by the arm.
“What’s on those servers?”
Sokolov glanced around the compartment before answering.
“Every illegal transfer routed through a private intelligence network during the last decade.”
Cole frowned.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning governments secretly armed both sides of multiple wars.”
Naomi stared at him.
“You’re saying NATO personnel funded terrorist groups.”
“I’m saying powerful men profit from instability.”
The train slammed through another curve.
Dishes shattered somewhere ahead.
Sokolov steadied himself against the wall.
“The servers contain payment records. Assassinations. Black sites. Political leverage.”
Cole studied him.
“And you thought stealing this was smart.”
Sokolov smiled tiredly.
“No. Necessary.”
Gunfire erupted again behind them.
Closer now.
The surviving mercenaries were advancing through the rear compartments while the black-clad hunters pushed from the opposite direction.
The train had become a rolling kill box.
Naomi checked her watch.
“We’re running out of track.”
Cole looked ahead toward the engine cars.
“Move.”
They fought forward through narrow corridors thick with smoke and terrified passengers.
A wounded mercenary burst from a side compartment carrying an SMG.
Cole shot him before the man fully cleared the doorway.
Naomi dragged two civilians out of the line of fire while Sokolov covered the rear with shaky hands.
Not useless after all.
The train’s motion worsened as speed increased.
Loose luggage crashed through hallways.
Overhead lights burst from electrical overloads.
Ahead, the final passenger car door hung open revealing the locomotive connector whipping violently in the snowstorm.
Cole stepped into the freezing wind between cars.
The engine compartment waited ahead through sheets of snow and sparks.
Then movement flashed above them.
A black-clad shooter dropped from the train roof onto the connector platform.
The assassin hit hard and fast with a suppressed pistol already firing.
Rounds punched through the metal walls around them.
Cole tackled Sokolov sideways while Naomi fired upward through the storm.
The shooter retreated toward the locomotive roof.
Cole grabbed the exterior ladder and climbed after him into the blizzard.
Wind hammered his face instantly.
The train roof shook beneath his boots while frozen mountains rushed past on both sides.
The assassin sprinted toward the locomotive.
Fast.
Balanced.
Cole pursued across the slick steel rooftops while snow swallowed visibility.
The shooter turned and fired twice.
Cole dropped flat as rounds hissed overhead into darkness.
He regained footing and closed the distance.
The assassin drew a knife as Cole reached him near the locomotive exhaust vents.
They collided violently atop the speeding train.
No wasted movement.
No speeches.
Knife against empty hands.
Cole trapped the blade wrist and smashed the man against the steel roof.
The assassin drove a knee into Cole’s ribs and twisted free.
Highly trained.
Maybe Agency.
Maybe worse.
The knife flashed again through the snow.
Cole caught the attacker’s arm and drove both of them sideways against a roof vent hard enough to dent steel.
The assassin’s face covering slipped partially loose.
Female.
Young.
Cold gray eyes.
Recognition flashed there when she saw Cole clearly.
That hesitation cost her.
Cole slammed her knife hand against the roof until the blade disappeared into the storm.
Then the assassin kicked backward off the side of the train.
Not falling.
Controlled drop.
She vanished onto an exterior maintenance ladder.
Gone into darkness.
Cole reached the locomotive roof just as the engineer inside screamed through broken glass.
Ahead, through the storm and mountain darkness, the damaged bridge appeared around the curve.
And the train was still accelerating.
Chapter Four
The bridge loomed through the blizzard like a broken spine.
Cole crouched atop the locomotive while snow blasted across the steel roof hard enough to blind him. Below, the engine screamed through the mountain pass at suicidal speed.
Half the bridge ahead sagged into darkness.
Collapsed support beams hung over a frozen river two hundred feet below.
No way the full train made that crossing.
Cole dropped through the emergency hatch into the locomotive cab.
The engineer looked up wild-eyed from the controls.
Blood ran down one side of his face from shattered glass.
“Brakes dead!” he shouted over the roar of the engine. “Control lines severed!”
Cole grabbed the console.
Speedometer climbing.
Too fast.
Way too fast.
Naomi pulled herself into the cab behind him dragging Sokolov through the hatch.
“We’re out of time.”
Cole scanned the control panel.
Manual brake override.
Old train.
Old systems.
Good.
He yanked open the steel access cover beneath the console and exposed a tangle of hydraulic lines and mechanical linkages.
“Can you drive this thing?” Naomi asked.
“No.”
“That inspires confidence.”
Cole grabbed a steel wrench from the floor rack and jammed it into the emergency brake wheel.
The mechanism fought him hard.
Frozen pressure.
Years of neglected maintenance.
He strained against it while the locomotive thundered toward the shattered bridge.
Behind them, passengers screamed through the train cars.
Sokolov braced himself against the wall.
“You must detach the rear cars!”
Cole looked up.
“How many?”
“Enough to reduce momentum!”
Naomi grabbed the engineer.
“Can it be done from here?”
The engineer pointed toward an exterior maintenance platform behind the locomotive.
“Manual release couplings!”
Cole handed Naomi the wrench.
“Keep pressure on the brake.”
She stared at him.
“You’re volunteering me for engineering now?”
“You wanted excitement.”
Cole climbed back onto the exterior platform into the storm.
The train swayed violently beneath him while sparks flew from the wheels below.
He moved hand over hand along the freezing rail toward the coupling assembly behind the locomotive.
The first passenger cars fishtailed behind him through blowing snow.
A shape appeared suddenly atop the third car roof.
The female assassin.
Still alive.
Of course.
She sprinted toward him through the storm carrying a compact rifle low against her chest.
Cole dropped flat as suppressed rounds stitched across the roof panels.
The train hit another curve.
The assassin nearly lost footing.
Cole used it.
He launched himself across the coupling gap and slammed shoulder-first into her legs.
Both crashed hard across the frozen roof.
The rifle skidded into darkness.
The assassin rolled fast and drove a boot into Cole’s ribs before coming up with another knife already in hand.
Always another knife.
She attacked immediately.
Short brutal strikes.
No wasted motion.
Cole blocked one slash with his forearm and trapped her wrist against the roof vent.
The train screamed beneath them while snow and sparks whipped through the mountain night.
“You work for Gusev?” Cole shouted over the wind.
She drove her forehead into his nose.
Pain burst white behind his eyes.
“Used to.”
She twisted free and slashed again.
Cole caught her arm and hurled her against the roof ladder.
Metal bent beneath the impact.
The assassin recovered instantly.
Highly trained.
Military background.
Maybe intelligence.
Definitely dangerous.
She smiled faintly through blowing snow.
“You really don’t know what’s on those servers.”
Cole ripped the knife from her hand and flung it into darkness.
“Then educate me.”
Instead, she lunged again barehanded.
Cole met her halfway.
They slammed across the roof trading savage punches while the train raced toward the collapsing bridge.
Inside the locomotive, Naomi strained against the emergency brake wheel.
The mechanism groaned slowly under pressure.
The engineer crossed himself repeatedly.
Sokolov checked the bridge distance through the front window.
“Faster!”
Naomi glared at him.
“You help then.”
Sokolov moved beside her and grabbed the wheel.
Together they forced it another quarter turn.
The locomotive shuddered violently.
Brakes finally began catching.
Sparks exploded beneath the wheels.
Too little.
Too late.
Outside, Cole smashed the assassin’s head against the roof hard enough to stun her.
He sprinted toward the coupling release assembly between cars.
Heavy steel lever.
Frozen solid.
He grabbed it with both hands and pulled.
Nothing.
Behind him, the assassin rose again holding a compact pistol now.
Persistent woman.
She fired twice.
One round tore through Cole’s coat sleeve.
Another punched into the coupling housing inches from his face.
Cole planted both boots against the steel frame and yanked the release lever downward with everything left in him.
The coupling exploded apart.
The rear passenger cars ripped loose behind the locomotive with a scream of twisting steel.
The detached train cars fishtailed violently across the tracks.
Passengers screamed in terror.
The assassin lost footing as the separation gap widened instantly between train sections.
For one second she balanced at the edge between cars staring at Cole across the widening void.
Then the rear train section slammed sideways off the rails.
Steel erupted into sparks and fire behind them.
Cars jackknifed into each other as the detached section plowed toward the damaged bridge.
Cole grabbed the locomotive ladder and climbed forward.
The engine still carried dangerous speed.
But less now.
Much less.
Inside the cab, Naomi saw the detached cars vanish behind them.
“Oh God.”
The engineer whispered something in Polish that sounded like a prayer.
Ahead, the broken bridge rushed toward them.
Cole dropped back into the cab.
“Brace!”
The locomotive hit the damaged bridge at full momentum.
Steel shrieked.
The front engine crossed.
Then the bridge support beneath the second section collapsed into darkness.
The locomotive tilted hard sideways.
Naomi grabbed Sokolov before he flew through the shattered cab window.
The engine slammed back onto the remaining tracks and skidded across the far side of the bridge in a shower of sparks.
Behind them, detached passenger cars plunged into the frozen river below.
Explosions rolled through the canyon.
Fire lit the snowstorm orange.
Then silence.
Heavy silence.
The locomotive finally ground to a halt half buried in snow beside the mountain tracks.
Steam hissed from ruptured pipes.
Cole pushed himself upright slowly.
Everything hurt.
Naomi wiped blood from a cut above her eyebrow.
“You still think trains are romantic?”
Sokolov stared back toward the burning wreckage on the river below.
Faces flickered in the firelight far behind them.
Survivors.
Some climbing from the wreckage.
Some not moving at all.
Then headlights appeared through the snowstorm along a distant mountain road.
Multiple vehicles.
Moving fast toward the crash site.
Cole saw it immediately.
“So did they.”
Naomi followed his gaze.
“You think those are rescue teams?”
Cole grabbed a fallen rifle from the cab floor.
“No.”
The surviving mercenaries had found them again.
Chapter Five
Snow buried the wreckage fast.
Wind howled through the mountain pass while flames from the destroyed train cars painted the canyon walls orange below the broken bridge.
Cole climbed down from the crippled locomotive carrying a rifle and what remained of the emergency medical kit.
Around him, survivors staggered through the storm in shock.
Some cried.
Some wandered aimlessly through the snow with blood on their faces and no idea where they were.
A little boy stood beside the tracks clutching a burned stuffed rabbit while staring silently at the burning river below.
Cole hated scenes like this.
Too many variables.
Too many civilians.
Too many ways everything could still go wrong.
Naomi joined him pulling on a heavy winter coat taken from the train.
“Sokolov says there’s an old Soviet relay station five kilometers north.”
Cole checked the distant headlights moving along the mountain road.
Multiple vehicles now.
Fast.
Organized.
“They’ll be here before dawn.”
Naomi glanced toward the approaching lights.
“Mercenaries?”
“Some.”
“And the others?”
Cole looked at her.
“Probably ours.”
That answer sat badly with both of them.
Sokolov limped through the snow toward a cluster of survivors.
Blood stained his collar. His glasses were cracked completely through one lens now.
“The station has generators,” he said. “Radio equipment maybe.”
Cole scanned the mountain terrain.
Dense forest to the north.
Rock ridges east.
One narrow access road climbing toward the old Cold War installation.
Defensible ground.
If they reached it first.
He pointed uphill.
“Everybody who can walk moves now.”
A wounded businessman shook his head violently.
“My wife is still down there!”
Cole grabbed him by the coat before panic spread.
“You go down there now, you die with her.”
The man stared at him with raw hatred.
Cole understood.
Still didn’t change reality.
Naomi stepped between them.
“We move or we freeze. Choose.”
That finally broke the paralysis.
The survivors began climbing through the snow.
Cole counted quickly.
Fifteen civilians.
Sokolov.
Naomi.
Himself.
No sign of the female assassin.
That bothered him.
The wind intensified as they pushed into the pine forest above the crash site.
Behind them, distant engines echoed through the canyon.
Search teams arriving.
Cole moved rear guard while Naomi led the civilians uphill using a flashlight wrapped in cloth to dim the beam.
Sokolov struggled badly in the deep snow.
“You look terrible,” Cole said.
“I was nearly blown off a train.”
“Fair point.”
Branches snapped somewhere behind them.
Cole stopped instantly.
Listened.
The forest swallowed sound beneath the storm.
Then he heard it again.
Snowmobiles.
Multiple.
Moving fast through the lower tree line.
Hunters spreading outward from the crash.
Cole accelerated uphill.
“We’ve got company.”
Naomi cursed under her breath.
The first shots cracked through the trees minutes later.
Suppressed rifle fire.
Professional spacing.
One civilian spun sideways into the snow screaming and clutching his leg.
Panic erupted again.
People scattered among the trees.
Cole grabbed the wounded man beneath the arms and dragged him behind a fallen pine.
“Stay down!”
More rounds snapped through branches overhead.
Not spray fire.
Controlled pressure.
Driving them uphill toward a kill zone.
Cole spotted dark figures weaving through the forest below with thermal optics mounted on rifles.
The mercenaries had come prepared for winter war.
He fired three fast shots downhill.
One snowmobile flipped sideways into a tree.
The rider disappeared into the snow.
Naomi rallied the civilians farther uphill.
“Move! Keep moving!”
Sokolov stumbled beside her gasping for air.
“You know,” he wheezed, “this is why I preferred laboratories.”
Cole almost smiled.
Then automatic fire erupted from farther east.
Different weapons.
Another team entering the hunt.
Cole recognized the firing discipline instantly.
Agency operators.
The mountain had become crowded.
By dawn they reached the relay station.
The place looked abandoned since the Soviet collapse.
Concrete bunkers half buried beneath snowdrifts.
Rusting communications towers.
Satellite dishes coated in ice.
Barbed wire disappearing beneath frozen ground.
But the generators still worked.
Barely.
Dim emergency lights flickered alive inside the station after Naomi restored partial power.
The survivors crowded into the main operations room wrapped in blankets scavenged from storage lockers.
Cole locked the reinforced blast doors behind them.
For the first time in hours, silence settled over the group.
Heavy silence.
Exhausted silence.
Then Naomi slammed a folder onto the operations table.
Paper records taken from the surviving server crates.
Cole looked at her.
“You carried those through a mountain firefight?”
“I’m British. We carry emotional damage and classified material everywhere.”
Sokolov sat heavily beside the table while rubbing warmth back into his hands.
Cole opened the folder.
Transfer manifests.
Shell corporations.
Encrypted routing codes.
Weapons shipments.
Political payoffs.
Execution authorizations.
One name appeared repeatedly throughout the files.
Daniel Mercer.
Naomi saw it too.
Her expression changed slightly.
“You know him?”
She nodded once.
“Deputy CIA liaison for Eastern European operations.”
Cole flipped another page.
Mercer’s signature appeared beside black-budget transfers linked to terror groups in Syria, Libya, and Ukraine.
Sokolov spoke quietly.
“Mercer coordinated private weapons sales through intelligence cutouts. Russian hardware. NATO hardware. Chinese systems. Whoever paid.”
Naomi stared at the documents.
“Governments funded both sides.”
“Governments,” Sokolov said, “prefer profitable wars.”
A slow clap echoed through the bunker entrance.
Everybody turned instantly.
Daniel Mercer stepped into the operations room wearing a black winter coat dusted with snow.
Two armed CIA operators flanked him with rifles raised.
Late fifties.
Silver hair.
Perfect posture.
The smile of a man who had never personally suffered consequences.
Cole lifted his rifle slowly.
Mercer looked almost amused.
“There he is.”
Naomi moved beside Cole.
“You hijacked the train.”
Mercer sighed.
“Technically I hired people who hijacked the train.”
Sokolov rose from the table.
“You murdered civilians.”
Mercer glanced around the bunker casually.
“Collateral numbers remained within acceptable margins.”
That sentence chilled the room more than the snow outside.
Cole studied the men beside Mercer.
Experienced shooters.
Quiet.
Disciplined.
One carried suppressed MP7 hardware.
The expensive kind.
Mercer removed his gloves carefully.
“You’ve all become a complication.”
Naomi’s pistol stayed steady on him.
“You’re not walking out of here.”
Mercer smiled faintly.
“That depends how badly Walker wants these civilians alive.”
Outside, snowmobiles circled the relay station.
More mercenaries arriving.
Mercer heard them too.
He looked mildly irritated.
“Gusev survived longer than expected.”
Cole frowned.
“Anton Gusev.”
“The mercenary commander.” Mercer adjusted his cufflinks calmly. “Useful psychopath. Expensive though.”
Naomi looked disgusted.
“You outsourced mass murder.”
Mercer shrugged.
“Governments outsource everything now.”
Gunfire exploded outside the station.
Heavy weapons.
Mercer’s operators moved instantly toward firing positions.
Cole saw his chance.
He slammed the operations table sideways into the nearest CIA shooter.
The bunker erupted into violence.
Naomi fired first.
One operator dropped across the concrete floor.
Mercer dove behind communications equipment as bullets shredded the operations room.
Sokolov crawled toward the server cases while civilians screamed and scattered deeper into the bunker.
Outside, Gusev’s mercenaries attacked the station through the snowstorm.
Inside, CIA operators returned fire through firing slits built during the Cold War.
Everybody shooting everybody now.
Cole moved through the chaos low and fast.
One operator swung toward him.
Cole drove a burst into the man’s chest and stripped the MP7 away before the body hit the floor.
Naomi shouted over the gunfire.
“They’re breaching the west entrance!”
Explosions rocked the bunker walls.
Dust cascaded from the ceiling.
Mercer crawled behind a steel console clutching a pistol now.
No more polished diplomat posture.
Just another survivor trying not to die.
Cole advanced toward him through the smoke.
Mercer fired twice wildly.
Cole returned controlled bursts that shattered the console inches from Mercer’s head.
Then the ceiling lights died completely.
Darkness swallowed the bunker.
Emergency red lights flickered on.
And somewhere above the station, the communications tower began collapsing through the storm.
Chapter Six
The communications tower came down through the blizzard like a falling missile.
Steel screamed above the relay station.
Then the entire bunker shook as the tower smashed through the upper levels in an explosion of concrete, sparks, and collapsing antennas.
Emergency lights flickered blood red across the operations room.
Mercenaries poured through the west entrance firing automatic bursts through smoke and dust.
CIA operators answered from overturned equipment consoles.
Everybody inside the station had stopped pretending they worked for different sides now.
They all wanted the servers.
Cole rolled behind a concrete support pillar as bullets chewed apart the operations table beside him.
Naomi crouched near the server crates reloading with calm efficiency.
“You know,” she shouted over the gunfire, “this trip tested poorly on customer surveys.”
Cole fired two controlled bursts toward the breached entrance.
A mercenary spun backward into the snow.
“Still better than commercial airlines.”
Another explosion ripped through the bunker corridor.
The blast doors buckled inward.
Cold air flooded the station carrying snow and smoke.
Anton Gusev stepped through the breach wearing white winter camouflage streaked with blood.
Big man.
Bearded.
Flat predator eyes.
He carried a compact machine gun low against his chest while his surviving mercenaries spread through the bunker.
Mercer emerged from behind the shattered communications console with pistol raised.
“Gusev!” he shouted. “The servers belong to us!”
Gusev looked at him like roadkill.
Then shot Mercer’s remaining CIA operator through the throat without slowing down.
Mercer’s face tightened.
Apparently the partnership had expired.
Cole used the distraction.
He moved fast through the smoke toward the east corridor where terrified civilians huddled behind overturned storage lockers.
Sokolov knelt beside them clutching one of the surviving server drives against his chest.
Cole grabbed him by the coat.
“Any exits?”
“Maintenance tunnels below the generator room.”
“Show me.”
Heavy gunfire erupted behind them.
Naomi covered the retreat while backing toward the corridor.
Mercer suddenly appeared through drifting smoke and seized Naomi from behind, pistol jammed against her neck.
“Everybody stops,” Mercer barked.
The bunker fell into tense silence except for distant gunfire outside.
Gusev lowered his weapon slightly.
Cole turned slowly.
Mercer held Naomi tight against him.
His polished composure had finally cracked.
Sweat rolled down his face.
Eyes twitching.
The kind of man who never expected the wolves to reach his door.
“You have no idea what these files unleash,” Mercer snapped.
Cole kept his rifle lowered but ready.
“I know enough.”
Mercer shook his head violently.
“You release those servers and governments collapse. Alliances collapse. Markets collapse.”
Naomi winced as Mercer pressed the pistol harder against her throat.
“You funded terror groups.”
“We maintained balance!”
“You buried civilians.”
“We protected national interests!”
Gusev looked bored by the conversation.
“Kill them,” he said in Russian.
One mercenary started raising his rifle.
Cole fired first.
The round punched through the mercenary’s forehead.
The bunker exploded into chaos again.
Naomi drove her elbow backward into Mercer’s ribs and twisted free as shots ripped through the operations room.
Cole charged through the smoke toward Mercer.
The CIA officer fired wildly while retreating toward the server crates.
Gusev’s men opened up with machine-gun fire from the west corridor.
Concrete shattered around them.
Emergency lights burst overhead.
The entire station groaned beneath shifting structural damage from the collapsed tower.
Sokolov shouted from the generator hallway.
“The tunnels!”
Cole reached Naomi behind a fallen steel cabinet.
“You good?”
She checked fresh blood running from her shoulder.
“I’ve had quieter evenings.”
Mercer grabbed one of the server drives and sprinted toward the upper bunker exit.
Cole saw it instantly.
“He’s running!”
Naomi rose to pursue him.
Gusev intercepted first.
The mercenary commander smashed Mercer sideways into the bunker wall hard enough to crack concrete.
The server drive skidded across the floor.
Mercer clawed for his pistol.
Gusev kicked it away.
Then grabbed Mercer by the throat one-handed.
“You promised easy recovery,” Gusev growled.
Mercer struggled desperately.
“You’re paid!”
Gusev slammed him into the wall again.
“You hired me to clean your mess.”
Cole advanced carefully through the smoke.
Gusev noticed him immediately and released Mercer.
“Walker.”
Mercer collapsed gasping onto the floor.
Gusev picked up a combat axe from one of his dead mercenaries.
Of course he did.
The bunker lights dimmed again as generators failed deeper below.
Snow blew through widening cracks in the structure.
Gusev smiled faintly.
“No more running.”
Cole dropped the empty rifle.
The two men circled each other through drifting smoke and falling dust while gunfire echoed elsewhere in the collapsing station.
Mercer crawled toward the fallen server drive.
Naomi spotted him.
So did Sokolov.
Everybody moving toward different disasters.
Gusev attacked first.
Fast for a man his size.
The axe head smashed sparks from the concrete pillar beside Cole’s face.
Cole drove a punch into Gusev’s ribs.
It barely slowed him.
The mercenary swung again.
Cole ducked beneath the blade and hammered repeated strikes into Gusev’s wounded side from the train fight.
That got a reaction.
Gusev snarled and slammed a brutal forearm across Cole’s jaw hard enough to stagger him backward into broken equipment.
The axe came again.
Cole trapped the handle against a steel support beam and drove his knee into Gusev’s stomach.
The mercenary answered with a headbutt that exploded pain across Cole’s vision.
Big bastard.
Gusev ripped the axe free.
Then the bunker ceiling cracked overhead.
Steel supports screamed.
The upper communications tower finally punched through the roof completely.
Chunks of concrete rained into the operations room.
Mercer seized the distraction and grabbed the server drive.
Naomi fired instantly.
The round caught Mercer high in the chest.
He stumbled backward clutching the drive.
Shock crossed his face more than pain.
He looked down at the blood spreading across his expensive coat.
Then at Naomi.
“You don’t understand...” he whispered.
The floor collapsed beneath him.
Mercer vanished into darkness with the server drive as the bunker split apart.
No dramatic speech.
No redemption.
Just gravity.
Gusev roared and charged Cole through the dust cloud.
The axe swung downward.
Cole sidestepped.
The blade buried into a steel support.
Stuck.
Cole grabbed Gusev’s wrist and drove him headfirst into the sparking electrical panel beside the wall.
Electricity exploded blue across the bunker.
Gusev convulsed violently.
Cole slammed him into the panel again.
And again.
Finally the mercenary collapsed twitching onto the concrete floor.
Still.
The bunker alarm wailed louder.
Structural collapse imminent.
Naomi grabbed Cole’s arm.
“Time to leave.”
Sokolov already herded civilians toward the maintenance tunnel entrance below the generator room.
Cole scooped up the remaining server drives.
Not all of them.
Enough.
The survivors fled downward through narrow Soviet-era tunnels while the relay station collapsed behind them in thunderous waves of steel and concrete.
The maintenance tunnel emerged half a mile away near a frozen valley road.
Snow still hammered the mountains.
But headlights approached through the storm now.
Military helicopters thundered overhead.
Real rescue teams this time.
Maybe.
Cole didn’t trust uniforms anymore.
Naomi stood beside him watching the flames consuming the distant relay station.
“What now?”
Cole looked at the surviving server drives in his hands.
“Insurance.”
Sokolov frowned.
“You cannot release everything.”
“Why not?”
“Because some secrets destroy countries.”
Cole stared at the burning station for a long moment.
Then he pulled a satellite transmitter from his coat.
Naomi’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“You already planned this.”
“Dead-man upload.”
“To who?”
“Everybody.”
He pressed SEND.
Encrypted data streamed skyward into the storm.
Bank records.
Black budgets.
Weapons routes.
Assassination files.
Enough truth to start fires across governments.
Somebody somewhere would bury most of it.
But not all.
Never all.
Hours later, inside a military transport helicopter crossing into Germany, Naomi handed Cole a printed photograph recovered from one of the surviving drives.
Old photo.
Bad lighting.
Three men standing beside a private jet somewhere in Eastern Europe twenty years earlier.
One of them was Daniel Mercer.
Another was Anton Gusev.
And the third man smiled calmly at the camera beneath desert sunlight.
Nathan Kane.
Cole stared at the photograph.
Dead men connecting to older dead men.
Same war.
Different battlefield.
Naomi watched his expression carefully.
“You know him.”
Cole folded the photograph slowly.
“Yeah.”
Outside the helicopter windows, Europe disappeared beneath clouds and snow.
The war had never really ended.
It had just changed uniforms.
Wow! The pace never let up!