The unseen assailant that had pulled him from the container was now trying to finish what he’d started.
Even as Kismet made this deductive leap, his desperate grip faltered. He didn’t fall, but under the relentless assault, he felt the metal junction slipping away. He rolled sideways, the metal scraping against his arms as his own weight pulled him down. There was yet another rush of pain as the metal scraped against the insides of his clenched arms and legs, and simultaneously he felt something — the ground probably — slapping at his back, through the thick leather of his jacket.
He caught a breath, finally, and with it came a rush of purpose. He flexed his arms, drawing himself up closer to the coupling and away from the abrasive washboard of railroad ties and gravel. But even as that torment ended, he felt his assailant’s boot strike a glancing blow on his forearm.
In desperation, he let go with his right arm and threw a hand up, hoping to deflect the next kick. His fingers grazed something soft and yielding — fabric, a pant leg perhaps. He grabbed onto it like a lifeline and pulled.
Perhaps because he was in such a dominant position, the move caught his attacker completely off guard. The fabric Kismet grabbed, the white sheet the man had donned both as a way of terrorizing his intended victims and masking his identity, became his death shroud. As Kismet hauled in on the sheet, the man was pulled off balance and pitched forward, into the gap between the cars. Kismet felt something brush against him as the man fell past, and then the sheet was violently ripped from his fingers.
For a moment, he could do nothing more than hang there, struggling to draw each breath but savoring the unexpected victory. But he couldn’t stay where he was; just holding on was sapping his strength fast, and if he didn’t move soon, he’d be joining his vanquished foe. Moreover, he knew that if one of the robed hooligans had made it onto the train, then others probably had as well. In fact, he was almost certain that the noise he’d heard just before the attack had been another of Leeds’ men, jumping between the cars and already moving up the train, looking — he assumed — for Higgins and Annie.
He didn’t hold back the roar of pain and exertion that accompanied his attempt to get back on top of the coupling; any noises he made were drowned out by the squeal and rattle of the train’s wheels against the rails. The effort seemed futile; he would struggle to exhaustion and then simply fall into the darkness when his muscles failed. He might even survive…
No! He kept at it, shifting and squirming until, after a few agonizing seconds stretched out to eternity, he found himself once more atop the coupling. He quickly shifted his grip to the exposed ledge surrounding the shipping container, and began methodically working his way up onto it.
Escaping the jaws of death was like a tonic. The pain in his ribs was nothing more than a dull ache and his fatigued muscles felt revitalized. He quickly shinnied up the latch rods once more, this time keeping his head on a swivel to avoid being taken unawares a second time. When his head breached the plane of the rooftop, he checked in both directions, but the coast was clear so pulled himself the rest of the way up. Then, against his better judgment, he stood, and faced into the relentless wind of the train’s forward passage.
The lead locomotive’s headlamp cast a cone of illumination out ahead of the train. But the light also revealed dark silhouettes — two human shapes — moving in the foreground, along the top of the train, perhaps a hundred yards meters ahead. He couldn’t tell whether the figures were his companions or more of Leeds’ goon squad, but they were well past the point where Higgins and Annie had boarded. There was only one possible objective in that direction — the locomotive — but he couldn’t fathom why the pair — be they friend or foe — would be headed there. Then he looked behind him, and it all made sense.
From his elevated position, he could easily make out the rear of train, at least two hundred yards back. Further back, perhaps another two hundred yards he saw the headlights of a vehicle, moving alongside the tracks and bobbing crazily as the driver negotiated the rugged terrain alongside the rail bed.
Reinforcements, he realized with a growing feeling of dread. Some of their pursuers had made it aboard, but evidently the rest had called for help. There was no way the driver of the approaching vehicle — probably a 4X4 pickup or SUV — would be able to get close enough for his passengers to cross over; he was having a hard enough time just keeping pace.
That, Kismet realized, was what the two figures advancing toward the locomotive were trying to accomplish.
Hunching over into the rushing air, he began moving as fast as he dared. He reached the end of the container and deftly climbed down to leap onto the flatbed. The urgency of the situation enabled him to sublimate his instinctive fears, imbuing him with a surefooted decisiveness as he negotiated the obstacles and unhesitatingly crossed between the cars, picking out handholds, climbing onto roofs as if they were merely a maze of obstacles on a child’s playground.
In a matter of only seconds, he was past the flatcars where he was sure his friends had boarded. There was no sign of them, and he hoped that meant they had found somewhere to hide. He couldn’t take the time to look; if Leeds’ men succeeded in stopping the train, then all hope would be lost. He kept going.
A long series of box cars sped him along. He was able to jump from one roof to the next without breaking stride. Yet, even as he raced forward, the two figures he pursued dropped out of sight. He kept going, and reached the place where they had vanished a few seconds later.
The last boxcar in the line was hooked to a locomotive, one of a pair that worked together to pull the train. Kismet hopped over to the platform that ran along the side of the engine, following it to a short stairway that fed into the cab. The interior of the control room was dark and unmanned; the locomotive had been slaved to the lead engine. The engineer would be in the forward locomotive, and that was where Leeds’ men would be headed. A narrow door led out the front of the cab and onto another small ledge, surrounded by a guardrail.
As he vaulted the rail and landed on the deck at the rear of the lead engine, he caught a glimpse of white fabric, fluttering in the wind, moving along the exterior of the locomotive, just ahead of him. Without slowing, he reached for his holster, but found it empty. His gun was gone; he had probably dropped it during the fall. His kukri however was still sheathed on the opposite side, and he drew it, switching it to his right hand and holding it in a fierce grip as he ran, determined not to lose his last remaining weapon.
Kismet rounded the corner, gathering his momentum to tackle the sprinting figure…
Something slammed into his back and sent him reeling. He staggered, rebounding off the blistering hot engine hood and fell back against the protective railing that lined the walkway. In that instant, he caught a glimpse of assailant, a hulking form beneath a now-grubby sheet that had somehow gotten behind him, and was now advancing with undisguised malevolence.
Kismet tried to get the kukri up but was a heartbeat too slow. The man closed the distance and thrust out his hands, wrapping them around Kismet’s throat, squeezing the life out of him even as he bent him back over the waist high guardrail.
Kismet’s reaction was automatic. He brought his hands up, intending to fight the chokehold, but the hilt of the Gurkha knife was still locked in his right fist. The blade glanced harmlessly off the attacker’s forearm, but the mere reminder of its presence emboldened Kismet. He broke off his defensive struggle, and immediately went on the offensive with a backhand slash across his foe’s exposed torso.