Chapter 66 - The Train of Ghosts
Dawn broke over the Black Ridge terminal not with warmth, but with the pale, sickly illumination of an approaching blizzard.
The freight yard was an industrial graveyard: dozens of rusted flatcars, rotting timber wagons, and derelict snowplow engines sat abandoned upon miles of switch tracks overgrown with dead brush. The entire facility was surrounded by a ten-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire, but the fence had been cut open years ago by trespassers.
To the east, three miles down the valley, the blue flashing lights of state trooper barricades were visible along the interstate access ramps. Arthur had effectively cordoned off the county, weaponizing the local authorities under the guise of an active terrorist manhunt.
Then, through the falling snow, came the low, rhythmic thrum of heavy diesel locomotives.
An automated industrial freight train—eighty cars of heavy timber and steel gravel, operating on an automated regional loop without an onboard crew—was crawling slowly around the mountain curve toward the yard’s central transit siding. It was moving at barely fifteen miles per hour, its massive cowcatcher plowing through light drifts of morning powder.
"That's our way out," David said, crouching behind a stack of weathered cross-ties near the siding switch. "That train cuts through the continental divide tunnel. It bypasses every road checkpoint in the state. Once it clears the eastern portal, we jump off near the rail depot in Cheyenne."
"David, look at the tower," Leah warned, pointing toward the elevated rail control cabin sixty yards away.
Inside the glass-paneled observation booth, two tactical operatives in arctic white camouflage were sweeping the yard with high-magnification thermal scopes. Mounted on the roof of the tower was a remote-operated heavy sniper rifle.
They had anticipated this route. Arthur had left no blind spots.
"They're scanning the lower wheel assemblies," Leah whispered, dread pooling in her stomach. "If we run for the flatcars, they’ll cut us in half before we touch the stirrups."
David examined the distance. Sixty yards of open gravel. No cover. A crosswind of twenty knots, driving heavy snow across the line of fire.
"They're using thermal imaging," David noted, his eyes narrowing as his mind dissected the threat matrix. "Thermal relies on temperature contrast. In this cold, a human body is an incandescent flare."
He pulled two emergency road flares from the side pouch of the captured tactical vest, along with an aerosol can of industrial de-icer he had snatched from the maintenance shaft workshop.
"Leah, listen carefully," David said, looking directly into her brown eyes. "When that locomotive passes the switch point, I’m going to draw their fire toward the fuel bunker on the southern platform. The moment their optics adjust to the thermal bloom, you take the children and slide under the third gravel hopper. The belly chute is open; you can climb into the maintenance crawlspace above the axles."
"No," Leah said, her voice fiercely defiant. "Not without you. I am not running while you play decoy again."
"I am not playing decoy," David said, a ghost of a grim smile touching his blood-streaked lips. "I am going to take that tower."
Before she could scream his name, the massive locomotive roared past their position, its twin diesel engines shaking the ground with thousands of horsepower of vibrating iron.
David struck the first flare, sprayed the de-icer directly across the burning sulfur tip—creating a roaring, six-foot jet of brilliant white fire—and hurled the entire blazing cylinder directly into the diesel runoff ditch beside the southern fuel bunker.
A wall of black smoke and roaring thermal heat erupted fifty feet into the air.
Instantly, the sniper rifle atop the tower fired. A massive .50-caliber round smashed into the gravel ditch, followed by two more that vaporized the frozen earth where the heat bloom flared.
"Go!" David yelled.
Leah moved like a shadow. Clasping both children tight, she sprinted through the swirling curtain of smoke, sliding beneath the moving wheels of the third freight hopper with inches to spare, disappearing into the dark crawlspace beneath the steel chassis.
David did not retreat.
May you like
Using the deafening roar of the passing train and the thermal wall of the burning ditch to cloak his silhouette, he sprinted straight toward the base of the control tower.
***
