Freedom Express (36 page)

So he'd been drinking coffee, gulping down the only

buzz-producing alternative left to him, as he watched the Burning Cross's sapper unit wire the Desert View Point Bridge with Devillian's own brand of explosives. It was three hours before the dawn of the day that Devillian had guaranteed all of them would change the history of the world.

"History!" Heck grumbled, as he finished his fourth cup of coffee and quickly drew another. "Nothing more than the distillation of rumor."

Still, he knew at this point, he had no choice but to follow Devillian's wishes. The only reason the numerically superior Burning Cross had let the train come so far without destroying it completely was to allow it to reach this point-the entrance to the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. From here it would be a simple matter of disposing of the train and all aboard via Devillian's carefully orchestrated production.

Trouble was, Heck hated movies.

"Done," the young lieutenant told him after climbing up the small hill next to the bridge where Heck had been monitoring their task.

Heck let out a long low breath and threw away the remainder of his coffee. He was glad to hear the six hour effort to wire the bridge was nearing an end.

"Is it all checked and grounded?" Heck asked.

"It is all checked, grounded and re-checked," the young officer replied. "The sensors are all set. Just as soon as the first locomotive trips the electric eye-well, that's when it all goes."

Heck was tempted to bum a speed pill from the man, but

thought better of it. Instead he told him, "Do you realize that if all that stuff doesn't go off at exactly the right moment, Devillian will have us all ground up as meat for his dogs."

The man gulped loudly. "I do, sir," the man replied slowly.

"And while I'm confident in our job, I believe I'll go down there and check it all once again."

Throughout the night, more of Devillian's soldiers moved into positions near Desert Point View Bridge.

Heck knew with the dawn less than three hours away-and the arrival of the train possibly just an hour beyond that-he would be wise to check on the progress of their deployment.

For the most part, these particular troops were drawn from the Burning Cross's mountain units. Experts in setting up ambushes, the troops had established positions in the rocks on both sides of the tracks just beyond the bridge. Heck walked by most of these positions, checking those he could see with the aid of a flashlight. A typical gun post was made up of four men.

Two were armed with high-powered infrared/telescopic-aided rifles, the third was in charge of a small mortar complete with a dozen illuminating rounds.

The fourth man squeezed into the gun position was, in most cases, a cameraman. It took Heck thirty minutes in all to check the majority of the positions, stopping at each one and offering several words of praiseless advice such as "Don't fuck this up or Devillian will do an autopsy on you-while you're still alive."

At the end of this inspection, Heck returned to his own position and poured out yet another cup of coffee, unaware that just twenty-five yards away, two Piute scouts were watching his every move.

It was three AM when the radio console inside the Control car started to buzz.

The railway was crowded with officers of the Football City Rangers, as well as Hunter, Fitz, the newly returned Crossbow and Jesse Tyler of the Cobra Brothers. They had just gotten a report from Crockett in the other Cobra that two of Devillian's warplanes had bombed the trackbed twenty miles back, further sealing off the train from any possible reverse-gear escape route.

Tyler answered the radio on the second buzz. It was Bad River himself on the other end of the line. Tyler took a quick message, then thanked the chief and hung up.

"More bad news," he announced to the others. "A couple Piute scouts just called Bad River to tell him that the Desert Point View Bridge has been wired."

"
Damn
. . ." Fitz said softly. "Are they really going to blow that bridge and trap us here on this side?"

"Either that or blow the bridge while we're going across,"

Tyler said. "Either way, we're screwed."

Hunter thought it over for a few moments then said, "This doesn't make sense. Why would he go through all the bullshit we know he's up to in the canyon, just to ice this one bridge and bring it all to a grinding halt
before
the fact?"

It seemed as if it was a question with no answer.

"What can we do?" Crossbow asked. "With the track blown twenty miles back, we have no choice but to go forward."

"Well, we have one other option," Hunter said quickly.

"Which is?" Fitz asked.

Hunter shrugged. "Go in and see what they've attached under that bridge."

Even the battle-hardened Fitzgerald immediately started shaking his head. "You've got to figure that the troops who planted the charges are keeping a close eye on it, Hawker," Fitz said. "It will be impossible to get anywhere near that span."

Hunter closed his eyes and thought a moment. Then he turned to Fitz and asked, "If we maintain this speed, how long before we reach the bridge?"

Fitz consulted a series of maps, then replied, "I'd say just before dawn-three hours from now at the very most."

"That should give us enough time, I think," Hunter said.

"Enough time for what?"

"To reach the bridge and find out what they're up to,"

Hunter answered matter-of-factly.

"But how?" Fitz asked. "Your airplane or a chopper would draw too much attention if you landed anywhere near the bridge.

And approaching on foot is risky, because I'm sure Devillian has both sides of the river heavily guarded there. Not to mention that we don't have enough time to get there on foot."

"So there's only one way left," Hunter said, grabbing his crash helmet.

"I'm almost afraid to ask this," Fitz said. "But if it isn't by air or by ground, then what is it?"

Hunter just shrugged again. "By water, of course," he said.

The Little Colorado River was running fast - too fast -when Hunter and Fitz reached its banks less than an hour later.

They had hoped the river would be just like the hundreds of peaceful meandering streams they'd passed in this part of the country-only bigger.

They were wrong.

One look told them the rapids in the river were treacherous.

"Always wanted to go white-water rafting," Hunter whispered sarcastically. "But this is ridiculous."

"Aye, and it will be damn cold if we have to go in," Fitz said.

Yet they both knew it was too late to turn back now.

They were traveling light, as per necessity. Being dropped by one of the Cobras a quarter mile away, they had to double-time it to the riverbank, carrying only one weapon apiece, plus an air pump and a folded rubber raft.

"Can this little dinghy take rushing water like this?" Fitz asked, concerned the rubber raft would explode with the water roaring by them so rapidly.

"I don't know," Hunter answered truthfully. "I didn't have time to read the directions."

It took about five minutes to inflate the raft, and another pair to assemble the enclosed oars, climb aboard and cast off.

In seconds they were traveling at high speed down the river, the rapids bouncing them up and down like a broken amusement ride. Instantly both men were soaked head to toe.

"Jeesuz!" Hunter yelled over the roar of rapids. "Shift this
thing
down into second gear will you?"

Fitz was trying to employ one of the oars to steer the dinghy toward the bridge, which was coming up on them very quickly. Yet both of them knew they were going much too fast to stop under the bridge-unless they collided with one of its supports, and that would mean disaster.

Yet Hunter knew that there was a chance they wouldn't have to stop. He had two theories on what was wired to the underside of the bridge. Proving Theory Number One would involve stopping under the bridge-but at their present velocity that looked like an impossibility. Proving Number Two would be more of a gamble, but at that moment, it was the only option left.

"Hold it as steady as you can," he yelled back to Fitz, as the bridge loomed just an eighth of a mile in front of them.

"What are you going to do?" Fitz yelled ahead, getting a mouthful of water in the process.

Hunter didn't have time to answer. He knew that all he could do was attempt to snatch one of the packages as they sped past in the raft.

He stood up in the front of the boat and tried his best to see under the span. He squinted, adjusting his extraordinary eyesight while still trying to maintain his balance. He pulled up his M-16 in his left hand just as they roared underneath the bridge. Then, in one swift motion, he was able to snag one of the many packages attached to the support beams with the snout of the rifle. Before they knew it, they were on the other side of the bridge and moving even more quickly due to the sudden narrowness of the river.

They proceeded to be propelled down the river and around a wide bend. Then, finally at that point, the river widened again and became more shallow, leading them to a relatively peaceful pool. Within a minute, they were drifting slowly to the shore.

Hunter was the first to jump onto the shore, reaching out to help Fitz do the same. Then, retrieving their weapons and the package from the raft, they punctured the dinghy with their knives and set it free, watching it sink in seconds.

"Any ancient proverbial sayings for that little

adventure?" Fitz asked Hunter, already shivering in his soaked uniform.

"I'll get back to you on that," Hunter said, sitting down on the small sandy beach and examining the satchel charge. "All right!" he yelled less than a half minute later. "I figured Devillian would do something screwy like this."

He turned to his friend, who was taking a nip of brandy from a small flask in an attempt to warm up, and pointed to the handful of words inked across the package's canvas outer lining.

"Glory be," Fitz said, passing the flask to Hunter. "This gets stranger and stranger."

Hunter took a huge swig of the brandy and then packed up the satchel and his rifle.

"We've got to get to that rendezvous point toot sweet,"

Hunter told Fitz. "Not only do we have to make sure the train goes across that bridge, we have to make sure it goes across at
full speed
."

"Hit the deck!" shouted the Burning Cross soldier, getting ready to push down on the handle of the detonator. "It's going off in one minute."

The sun was just popping up over the eastern hills when the
Freedom Express
rumbled around the bend and onto the approach to the bridge. From his vantage point, Heck could see that all of the windows and openings on the railway cars were shuttered and locked, but he didn't have time to wonder how this would affect their impending action against the train. He grabbed his walkie-talkie and pushed its ON button.

"Gun positions, ready?" he barked into it.

The inquiry was received with a quick sound off of the

twenty-two gun nests on either side of the tracks.

"Mortar teams?"

This was answered by another twenty-two yeas.

"Cameras?" Heck heard himself yelling, feeling foolish as he did so.

The answer came back as twenty-two mumbled OKs.

"Thirty seconds!" the detonation officer yelled.

"Start cameras!" Heck yelled into his walkie-talkie.

But no sooner had he given the order than Heck knew

something was wrong.

It was standard railway operating practice to slow a

train's speed down to two-thirds whenever crossing a bridge or similar structure. Yet now, as Heck watched the approaching Express through his spyglasses, he realized the train was
increasing
its speed.

"Ten seconds!"

This is going all wrong, Heck thought, rapidly beginning to panic. He knew if the train didn't go across the bridge at a relatively slow speed, the whole operation at Desert Point View would be a bust.

"Five seconds!"

Heck didn't know what to do. They had to activate the charges, but. . . .

"Three . . . two . . . one . . .
now
!"

Suddenly the entire bridge was lit up in an incredible flash

-so bright it turned the misty dawn into high noon. A half second later, there was the noise of an incredible explosion, so loud, it caused several large rocks to topple down the side of the small hill where Heck was located.

But the bridge did not crumble, collapse and go down with the speeding train on top. Rather it stayed completely intact

-as it was supposed to. This was because the packages were not real explosives -as Hunter had found out shortly before.

Rather they had been flash explosions -fake bombs from a Hollywood special effects department. And just like the fake brick walls earlier, the noise of the "explosion" had actually been a loud recording, blared out over a large speaker at the pinnacle of Heck's hill.

The original plan had been two-fold. First, detonate the incredible flashes for the benefit of Devillian's camera crews and the loud boom for the necessary sound effect. At the same time, it was hoped the men driving the train would think the bridge was wired with real bombs, causing them to instinctively jam on the brakes which would, in turn, allow the men in the hills to fire on them with relative ease, their special targets being the train's many SAM cars.