Keeping low so that he wouldn't be thrown off balance as the train continued to accelerate backward through the switching yards, McGarvey leapt from car to car. The APCs had been loaded aboard the lead twelve units, leaving the rear eight for personnel. At Nizhny Novgorod Tarankov had gotten off from the rear car, which McGarvey figured was his personal quarters, and possibly the unit's operations center.
Several of the car tops contained long narrow hatches set flush into the roofs, probably concealing the missile launchers. Domes rose from the four corners of every fourth car, Phalanx Gatling gun barrels protruding from the radar-guided deadly close-in weapons systems. Other domes probably contained combat radar systems.
He'd seen the train's defensive measures in action at Nizhny Novgorod, and they'd been nothing short of awesome. It wouldn't take long for Tarankov's commandoes to realize that the government forces would be following them, and to get their act together after their hasty retreat from Red Square. That defeat had to sting, but their confusion wouldn't last.
The roof on the rear half of the last car was raised about four feet, and bristled with radar dishes and antennae. Armored viewing ports were set in the thick steel plates.
McGarvey dropped flat on the roof of the next to the last car, screwed the silencer on his gun, then swung over the edge and climbed down the ladder to the connecting platform door. The train was moving at fifty miles per hour now and still accelerating as he pulled open the door and jumped inside.
The corridor in the forward car was deserted, but peering in the window of Tarankov's car he was in time to see a commando disappear up the stairs to the upper level.
When the man was out of sight, McGarvey slipped inside, his heart pounding, the wound in his side throbbing from his exertions.
As he hesitated, a woman's voice raised in anger screamed something from the rear of the car. The words were indistinct but he recognized Elizabeth's voice, and he rushed down the corridor.
The last ten feet of the railroad car was fitted out as a comfortable sitting room, couches, easy chairs, bookcases, even a built-in entertainment center. McGarvey took all this in as Tarankov raised a fist to strike Elizabeth who was defiantly standing face-to-face with him.
Her eyes went wide as she spotted her father. “Daddy!” she cried triumphantly.
McGarvey crossed the intervening space before Tarankov could fully react, and he bodily shoved the man aside, sending him sprawling onto the couch.
Tarankov fumbled for the pistol at his hip, but McGarvey pointed his gun at the man's face and he stopped.
“Are you okay, Liz?” McGarvey asked, without taking his eyes off Tarankov.
“Now I am.”
“Find the emergency stop cord or button, we need to slow down.”
“There is no such mechanism aboard this train,” Tarankov said calmly.
Someone rushed down the stairs from the command center. “General, I'm painting two incoming jetsâ” he shouted.
McGarvey turned and fired two shots, hitting the commando in the chest, driving him backwards.
Tarankov clawed his gun from its holster and he was raising it, a wicked gleam in his eyes, as McGarvey turned back and fired one shot at nearly point blank range into the Tarantula's forehead just above the bridge of his
nose, killing him instantly. His body, suddenly limp, slid off the couch and landed in a heap on his side.
McGarvey checked out one of the windows. They were accelerating through an industrial section of the city, and going far too fast for them to jump.
He snatched Tarankov's gun from the dead man's hand and gave it to Elizabeth. She was badly shaken, and an angry red welt had formed on her cheek, but she had a determined look in her eyes.
“What about the jets?” she asked.
“They're going to attack, which means we have to get off. I'm going upstairs to see if I can get the engineer to slow down. In the meantime if anyone comes through the door, shoot.”
McGarvey checked the corridor, then stepped over the body of the dead commando, and cautiously took the stairs two at a time. At the top he swept the cramped nerve center left to right with his gun, but the compartment was empty.
The radar screen on one of the consoles showed the two incoming jets, but he ignored it as he desperately studied the electronic panels, finally finding the handset that connected with the locomotive.
He yanked it off its cradle. “This is the command center!” he shouted in Russian. “Stop the train now! Emergency stop! Emergency stop!” Several gunshots were fired from below.
McGarvey tossed down the phone as the train gave a huge lurch, sending him sprawling, the brakes on the locomotive and all twenty armored cars locking up simultaneously.
Before he could recover, a hatch in the ceiling clanged open and a figure dropped down on top of him, smashing his head against the bulkhead, knocking the wind out of him
“McGarvey,” Chernov snarled. He batted the gun out of McGarvey's hand, and smashed a roundhouse blow into McGarvey's jaw, snapping his head back again against the bulkhead, his vision momentarily dimming.
Chernov swung again, but McGarvey ducked the blow and Chernov's fist smashed into the bulkhead.
With a mighty heave, McGarvey shoved the Russian away, and scrambled to his feet.
Chernov recovered almost instantly, and he stepped back as he snatched his pistol from the shoulder holster, a look of victory in his eyes. But McGarvey was on him before he could fire, smashing his shoulder into the man's chest, sending him back against one of the electronic panels. He held Chernov's gun hand off with his left, and smashed a fist into the man's chest with every ounce of his strength. Chernov grunted in pain, and McGarvey hit him in the same spot again and again and a fourth time, until the Russian's eyes fluttered, and his body went slack.
McGarvey snatched the gun from his hand, shoved him aside and
bounded drunkenly down the stairs, the train still decelerating at a terrific rate.
“It's me,” he shouted as he hit the bottom. He fired four shots down the corridor and then dove into the sitting room, answering fire tearing into the bulkheads and furniture.
The moment he was clear, Elizabeth raised her gun hand up over the back of the couch and emptied Tarankov's pistol down the corridor.
McGarvey made it to where she was crouched, grabbed her arm, and together they crawled to the rear platform door.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded.
He popped back up and emptied Chernov's gun down the corridor at the same moment Elizabeth hauled the door open, and they scrambled outside.
“Orlov leader, do you have visuals yet?” the controller said.
They had come in low directly over the top of Leningrad Station, the square still busy with people. The train was about three kilometers ahead, and was definitely coming to a stop.
Captain Trofimo dialed up two R85 air-to-ground missiles and armed them.
“We have the target in sight. We're starting our attack run now.”
“We're showing no enemy weapons radars,” said his controller circling high over the city in an AEW&C Ilyushin Mainstay-B.
“We're showing no response either,” Trofimo responded. “Do you wish us to abort?”
“
Nyet
,” the controller said. “You have final weapons release authorization.”
“
Roger
,” Trofimo said, and he glanced over at his wingman, nodded, then turned back to his look-down-shoot-down system, fired both rockets, and peeled off to the right.
At the last moment he thought he'd seen two people jumping from the rear car, while a third person was climbing up on the roof, but he wasn't sure.
By the time he made his turn and lined up with his wingman for a second attack run, it wasn't necessary. The train had literally blown itself apart at the seams, probably from ammunition and ordnance stored aboard. Every single car was burning furiously, and the locomotive was lying on its side in an embankment below an abandoned factory, flames and greasy black smoke shooting two hundred feet into the sky.
“Mission complete,” Trofimo radioed. “We're returning to base now.”
“Roger,” his controller responded tersely.