He was too late! Considering the state of the road above, he had no chance of keeping pace with the train even if he stole the truck.

But somehow he had to find a way to rescue Nina, to say nothing of his friends.

The train was still moving slowly to negotiate the points that would put it onto the main line. One by one the cars snaked through the turn. Chase pushed himself harder, ignoring the pain. Maybe there was still a chance that he could catch up…

There wasn’t. He had barely reached the points at one end of the yard by the time the train pulled out of the other, the locomotive’s noise rising to a throaty roar as it accelerated.

Now his options were the truck … or the other train.

A lone soldier stood by the back of the truck, watching the train depart. He heard footsteps crunching over ballast behind him and looked around-taking a flying kick right in his chest. Chase followed up the move by punching the fallen man in the face.

Grabbing the soldier’s gun, Chase glanced back down the track at his pursuers, then ran towards the front of the freight train.

He heard the first bullet hit one of the wooden trucks just before the crack of the gunshot reached him. Animals bleated in fear. He dropped and rolled underneath the nearest truck, emerging on the other side. He had a few moments of cover, but it wouldn’t take long for the soldiers to reach the back of the train and run around it.

The locomotive was just ahead, a dirty slab of metal with a cab at each end. But there was something he had to do first…

He ducked into the gap between the loco and the first truck. The coupler was a standard “knuckle” type; he pulled the lever to unlock it with a heavy clunk. Now, when the engine set off, it would automatically disconnect and leave the rest of the train behind.

He looked back down the length of the train. Two of the soldiers had followed him down the left side, which meant there was only one on the right. He jumped up onto the coupler and leapt across to the other side of the truck, whipping around its corner with his gun ready. The third soldier was racing towards him.

In a single smooth movement, Chase dropped to one knee, took aim and fired. Three shots cracked from his rifle, but he scored a hit with the very first one. The soldier tumbled to the ground.

Chase ran to the front of the locomotive. A head popped through the open door, the driver leaning out to see what was going on. He figured it out very quickly.

“Afternoon,” Chase panted, pointing his gun up at the driver. “I need to borrow your train.”

The shocked man raised his hands, looked around desperately, then turned and with an ululating shriek threw himself out of the other side of the cab.

“At least I asked,” Chase muttered as he climbed the steps. The cramped cab was empty, the rattling chug of the engine at idle echoing from behind a narrow access door in the back wall. Through the windscreen he saw the fleeing driver running towards a signal cabin near the end of the sidings.

The largest lever on the control panel had to be the throttle. Which meant that the next largest was the brake.

He hoped.

Chase pushed the throttle lever forward experimentally. The loco lurched as the engine noise rose-but the brakes held it in place.

He released what he thought was the brake lever. There was a piercing metallic squeal, and the loco jolted. He immediately rammed the throttle forward. The big diesel engines behind him shrilled, needles on the control panel’s gauges shooting into their red zones, but he ignored them and looked out of the open door.

The engine had indeed disconnected from the rest of the train, so at least he wouldn’t be dragging several hundred animals along with him. The running soldiers had almost reached the front of the first wagon-

He brought the G3 around and switched it to full auto, unleashing a blaze of fire down the side of the locomotive. One of the men dropped instantly, a cloud of blood spraying from his chest. The other hurled himself onto the track in front of the stationary wagons. Chase’s line of fire was blocked by the boxy engine’s body.

He grunted in annoyance, then returned his attention to the controls and the track ahead. The first set of points was approaching fast.

Chase knew from playing with his dad’s model railway as a kid that points were supposed to be taken at low speed. In fact, he’d been banned from the train set after his curiosity about what would happen if they weren’t caused a Great Western express to take a flying diversion to the floor.

But he didn’t have much choice-he had to catch up with Nina’s train.

Chase braced himself. The whole locomotive rocked as it crashed through the points too fast, metal screaming against metal. The violent move was repeated as the six wheels of the rear truck ground over the switch as well. Then the loco straightened, but the next points were already coming up fast.

Another howl of metal from beneath the engine set Chase’s teeth on edge, but he kept pushing the throttle forward even as the sharp turn threatened to pitch him out of the driver’s seat.

One more set of points and he would be on the main line, following the other train. If he forced every ounce of power out of the locomotive, it shouldn’t take too long to catch up-and if he judged it right, he could match speeds and automatically couple his own engine to the back of the train, then climb out of the cab and jump aboard.

Light flashed off metal ahead: something moving.

The last set of points had changed!

Chase snapped his head around to see two frightened faces staring out of the signal cabin’s window as he powered past. The driver must have told the signalman to try to stop him-and now his locomotive would end up on the track parallel to the other train.

Which meant that if another train came the other way, he would plow headlong into it!

But if they thought that would stop him, they were wrong.

With a last crash of overstressed metal, Chase’s locomotive thundered through the points. He slammed the throttle forward as far as it would go. The needles jumped again, but the only one he cared about was the speedometer. Thirty kilometers per hour… forty…

The tracks ahead curved back and forth as they wove through the mountains. He couldn’t see the other train yet. But it couldn’t be too far ahead.

Catching up with it wasn’t his biggest problem.

Getting onto it was.

Castille and Hafez exchanged looks. Both men had long experience with soldiers, and they had been watching carefully for the telltale signs of boredom and inattentiveness that almost inevitably struck during guard duty.

The soldiers watching them were showing the signs. They outnumbered their handcuffed prisoners two to one, and were armed, so they had an innate feeling of power and superiority that could easily slip into complacency. When the two men were first shoved into the compartment, the soldiers’ weapons had been raised and fixed on them.

Now, they were lowered. It would only take a moment for them to be lifted again-but a moment was all Castille and Hafez needed.

They just had to wait for the right one.

The more Nina tried to ignore Mahjad, the more she became aware of his gaze. All she could do was turn away from him and lean closer to the window, watching the mountainous landscape roll past beyond the dirty glass.

Mahjad shifted position. Nina glanced at him-and froze in horror when she saw that he was toying with Chase’s Wildey.