Corsair (Oregon Files 6)

Why the Imam allowed such an abomination had been the subject of debate among senior commanders like Abdullah, until word of such discussions reached Al-Jama’s ear. Two days later, the four who had questioned the Imam’s choice of top lieutenant had their tongues cut out, their eyes plucked from their heads, their noses and fingertips removed, and their eardrums punctured.

The meaning had been clear. By talking about the man behind his back, they had shown they had no sense, so they would forever-more have no senses either.

“The Imam’s will be done, peace be upon him,” Abdullah said hastily when he realized he should have replied. The line was already dead.

“LINDA, GET YOUR BUTT up here with the M60,” Juan shouted over the radio. “And as much ammo as you can carry. Mark, I need you to separate the Pig from the boxcar.”

“What?” cried Murphy. “Why?”

“You can’t go fast enough backward.”

Linc came over the tactical net. “I thought our problem was slowing down this crazy caravan.”

“Not anymore.”

Seconds later, the .30 caliber machine gun from the Pig’s roof cupola landed with a thud on the railcar’s tarry roof. Cabrillo rushed back to give Linda a hand with the unwieldy weapon. Behind her Alana Shepard stood with an ammo belt slung around her neck like some deadly piece of jewelry. At her feet were two more boxes of rounds. She handed up the boxes, and he helped boost her up.

“Trying to earn that fedora, I see.” Juan smiled.

Spying the bridge for the first time, Linda Ross understood why the Chairman needed the heavy firepower. As soon as she reached the front of the car, she extended the M60’s stumpy bipod legs and was lying behind the weapon, ready for him to feed the first belt into the gun. With Alana pulling a second hundred-round belt from one of the boxes, Juan loaded the M60 and slammed the receiver closed. Linda racked back on the bolt and let fly.

The bridge was well beyond the weapon’s effective range, but even random shots pattering against the wooden trestle would force the terrorists to find cover and hopefully buy them the time they needed.

Her whole body shook as if she were holding on to a live electric cable, and a tongue of flame jetted a foot from the muzzle. Watching the string of tracers arcing across the distance, she raised the barrel until the bead of phosphorus-tipped rounds found their mark. At this range, all Juan could see were small explosions of dust kicked off the blanched timbers when the rounds bored in. It took nearly a third of the first belt before the men working under the railbed realized what was happening. None had been hit, as far as they could tell, but soon they were all scrambling to hide themselves in the tangle of crossbeams.

Using controlled bursts to keep the barrel from overheating, Linda kept the men pinned, getting one lucky shot that yanked a terrorist off the delicate trestle. His body plummeted from the bridge, falling soundlessly and seemingly in slow motion, until he slammed into a beam and cartwheeled earthward. He hit the ground in a silent puff of dust that drifted lazily on the breeze.

Mark Murphy could hear the chattering .30 cal but had no idea what they were firing at. He had unhooked himself from his safety straps, climbed up and out of the Pig, and was now crouched over the rear bumper, trying not to notice the ties blurring under his feet.

He had woven a tow cable back and forth around the bumper and the railcar’s coupling to keep them attached. Linc was accelerating slightly faster than the car was rolling down the tracks, so there was no tension on the line. Using a large pair of bolt cutters, he attacked the braided steel, snipping at it as fast as he could. If the car started pulling away from the Pig, the tension would snap the cable, and Mark’s legs would most likely be taken off at the knees.

They started going through a curve. Murph noticed Linda’s machine gun had gone silent and realized the hills were blocking her aim. The car also started picking up speed. The thin cable stretched taut, and braids began to part, curling off the line like silver smoke.

“Linc, goose it a little,” Mark called, and Lincoln gave the Pig more gas.

As soon as the tension was off, Mark worked at it again, heaving on the big cutters with everything he had.

“When you’re through the last cable,” Juan shouted into the radio, “jump onto the coupling so we don’t lose the time it’ll take you to climb aboard the Pig.”

Mark swallowed hard, not sure what he liked less—the prospect of clinging to the rusted coupling or the thought of what the Chairman knew about their situation to ask him to do it in the first place.

“You hear that, Linc,” Cabrillo continued. “As soon as Mark’s done, turn the Pig around and shove this boxcar with everything you’ve got. Hear me?”

“I’m through,” Mark announced before the SEAL could respond.

In the Pig, Linc stood on the brakes, blowing off clouds of carbon dust from the nearly spent pads. He cranked the wheel as soon as he felt it safe enough. The tires hit the railroad ties with bone-jarring regularity, and the heavy truck grew light on one side. He rammed it into first before he’d come to a complete stop, kicking up twin sprays of ballast stones. The truck leapt after the runaway freight car, Linc aiming to put the wheels atop the rails once again. His vision blurred, and it felt like his molars were going to come loose from his jaw before he could center the Pig on the tracks.

Once the wheels were aligned, he chased down the car until the reinforced bumper kissed its coupling. He watched, amazed, as Mark Murphy planted one foot on the bumper and bent to strip off coils of towline from the Pig’s forward winch and started to wrap it around the coupling to secure the two vehicles together. Linc had never doubted the kid’s courage, but even he would have thought twice about the dangerous maneuver.

“Chairman,” he called, “I’m around and pushing hard. Murph’s tying us to the train car with the winch.”

“Mark, have you run your calculations?” Cabrillo asked. He stood over the young weapons expert and watched him work.

Murph snapped the winch’s hook around a couple of loops of cable and climbed up the Pig’s windshield before turning to the Chairman and answering. “Yeah, just like you asked, I mathed it. The freight car’s got enough buoyancy to hold us on the surface. The unknown is how fast water is going to fill it up.”

“Max will just have to be quick with the Oregon’s derrick crane.”

“Tell him he should switch from a lifting hook to the magnetic grapple.”