LITMIR.BIZ

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the lowest rungs. As soon as his feet were planted, Ryan relaxed a little, his pulse pounding in his ears.

      He powered up the ladder, hurled himself over the rim of the car and onto the roof. The sec man with the longblaster rifle turned as he heard or felt Ryan’s boots slap down on the roof. He made to cry out, but Ryan’s fist pounded into the man’s windpipe before he could even stand.

      The man fell backward, dropping his blaster over the side of the hurtling train. He scrabbled, arms flailing, spluttering where his throat had been bruised, but he regained his balance and pulled himself to a crouch at the edge of the narrow rooftop. His eyes fell on Ryan, assessing the stranger, and he tried to speak. The words came out as a croak, their meaning lost, and the man began to gag, looking at the roof like a drunk who had lost his bearings.

      When the man looked up again, he saw his one-eyed assailant was on top of him, casting a low punch into his belly. The breath whooshed out of the man, and he felt something burn where the blow had connected.

      Ryan stepped back, yanking the blade of his panga from the sec man’s gut. A dark flower blossomed on the man’s shirt where the blade had pieced his flesh, and Ryan watched it expand in the dull moonlight. The sec man reached for his stomach, looking at Ryan with fear in his eyes, then he keeled over, collapsing to the roof.

      The wind streaming in his dark hair, Ryan walked across the car roof, placed his boot against the man’s thorax and shoved the heel into the man’s body, tipping the guard over the side of the train. He watched as the man bounced along the tracks two, three times, before finally coming to rest as the train sped away. J.B. and Mildred were trailing along the left edge, urging their mounts to keep pace with the train. Ryan’s boarding, start to finish, had taken three seconds.

      Ryan crouched and looked down the length of the roof and along the consecutive rooftops that traveled up the line ahead of him. There were a few sec men on the nearby rooftops, but none close enough to cause the companions any problems. Ryan scrambled across the roof and, lying flat on his belly, dipped his head over the edge and checked each side in turn. They were the same, a simple ladder arrangement built into the metal sides about two-thirds of the way along the car. In the dark it was hard to be certain, but the car appeared to be made of molded steel, cold to the touch.

      Halfway along the roof was a lumpy square, and Ryan crawled swiftly along to examine it: some kind of drop-down hatch. He put his ear to the entryway and listened for any echoes coming from within. Ryan failed to discern anything, but the train was loud on the tracks, the wind loud in his ears, and the whole thing was shaking worse than a gaudy slut with an armful of jolt on payday; he couldn’t be certain.

      He quickly worked his way back to the ladder on his left, the right-hand side of the car, and looked over the side. Mildred’s horse was keeping pace, and she was looking up at Ryan, waiting for his signal. He held his open hand out to the side, fingers splayed where Mildred could see them against the inconstant moon, then bunched it into a fist and pumped the fist down as though pulling an overhead cord: come on.

      Clutching her horse’s neck, Mildred shrugged the bag from her back and held it up against the side of the car. She traveled as light as she could, but there was important medical equipment in it that she’d gathered here and there during her travels.

      Ryan leaned down and grabbed for one of the backpack’s straps, yanking it onto the roof. He rested it there as quietly as he could, trusting its weight to keep it secure for the few seconds it would take to get Mildred aboard. Then he reached back over, his chest flush against the rooftop, and stretched his left arm as far down the ladder as he could, securing himself to the roof with his free hand.

      It took two tries, but Mildred’s reaching hand finally locked on to one of the low rungs of steel and she pulled her body, still atop the horse, closer to the train. Her mount shook its head back and forth, trying to keep away from the rapidly moving train as Mildred took her right foot out of the stirrup and shifted her balance in the saddle. Her right arm darted out and she clutched at Ryan’s forearm. His hand gripped her own forearm, their wrists touching, and he held her steady as she leaped across the gap between horse and train, the ground hurtling beneath her.

      Mildred swung awkwardly for a moment, scrabbling to find the rungs of the ladder with her feet, but Ryan’s grip held firm and she realized that she had ample time to find proper purchase and make her way up to the roof. Ryan held her arm the whole time, as solid as an oak, his grip never faltering, and Mildred finally swung onto the ladder and held it firmly.

      When she let Ryan’s forearm go, he continued to clutch her until he was sure that she wouldn’t drop, then his grip loosened and she pulled her right arm to the rungs of the ladder and yanked herself up. Ryan smiled at her from where he lay atop the roof and she breathed a word of thanks as she pulled herself over the edge to join him.

      “Easy pie,” he assured her as she pulled her backpack back over her shoulders and tightened the straps.

      J.B. was next, passing up Ryan’s SSG-70 Steyr blaster before he clambered up the ladder. Before long the three of them sat together on the roof establishing their next move in a series of rapid hand gestures.

      Ryan indicated the roof hatch, and they moved toward it in walking crouches. The three of them surrounded the hatchway, each assuming his or her role for the next part of the operation. Mildred unholstered her ZKR 551 Czech-built .38 caliber target revolver, pointing it so that it would be aimed directly into the space below once the hatch was removed. J.B. set his Uzi on the surface of the roof, close to hand, and placed both hands ready to unfasten twin catches on the hatch.

      Ryan had resheathed his panga and now held his SIG-Sauer. The blaster had a built-in baffle silencer that worked sporadically, and it would prove necessary if they were to execute their plan quietly. Mildred and J.B. were there for backup, but if Ryan could take out any guards with a passable degree of silence they would be better placed to continue their operations unnoticed.

      Ryan held his left hand above the hatch, silently counting down from three on his outstretched fingers. On one, J.B. flipped the latches, and on zero he had the hatch pulled back toward him, opening the doorway in the roof.

      Feet first, Ryan dropped through the opening, quietly landing in a crouch and steadying his blaster hand with his left, swiftly rotating on his heel to take in the confined space of the car. The room was dark, the only light coming from the night sky through the open hatch directly above him. He could sense objects all around him. A few glints of metal caught his eye, but he couldn’t see anyone else in the car. He held his breath and listened, blaster still in the ready position. Nothing. He was alone.

      He called to the others, his voice a low growl, confirming the all clear and instructing them to join him. Mildred dropped down first, her target revolver still in hand, and J.B. followed, Uzi at the ready.

      “Dark as a blacksmith’s rag in here,” J.B. muttered as he pulled the roof hatch back in place. He fiddled in one of his jacket pockets for a moment and produced a glow stick with an audible snap. The glow stick emanated a dull, green iridescence, filling the car with long shadows.

      Ryan scurried to the front end of the car and stood next to the metal door that had appeared with the increase in light. He put a hand on the doorknob, slowly increased the pressure on it and felt the door give, opening a bare inch. He pulled the door closed again and examined it for a locking device of some kind, but couldn’t find any bolts or turnkeys. “Door’s unlocked,” he told the others bleakly.

      “One of us needs to watch that at all times,” J.B. decided. “Can’t be entertaining uninvited company.”

      Mildred sat cross-legged on the metal plate floor four feet in front of the door and held her ZKR 551 loosely in her hand, her eyes focused on the door handle. “Got it,” she said. “You boys look around, see if there are any toys to play with.”

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