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His eyes still weren’t fully focused, but that was no matter; the voice came first.
And it was enough.
“I don’t believe it. No, not you!” she cried.
Fisher had briefly entertained the idea that yes, it might be possible that their “favorite” GRU agent was in Dammam, but conventional thinking had him and the rest of the team focusing on a handful of other Russian operators who’d gone rogue over the years, including Kestrel.
But no, it was her.
Major Viktoria Kolosov. Snegurochka. The Snow Maiden. Fisher’s pistols were tucked into her waistband. Yes, his MPX was still strapped around his back, but he’d never reach the machine gun in time.
He raised his voice above the incessant hum of the diesel engine and spoke to the wild-haired woman in Russian. “You missed a very nice helicopter ride!”
“I’m sure I did! What’re you doing here?”
“Same question.”
“No more talk. Say good-bye.”
“You won’t do it. You already had your chance back in Peru. I think you like me.”
She took a step back, clutching her pistol with both hands. “What’s so important that they sent you after us?” She gestured toward the door. “It can’t be just the gun in there.”
“The gun?” Fisher asked. “Is that what they told you? What’s your mission?”
She snorted, as though she’d never share that.
“Look, you don’t have to talk, but if this train gets to Abqaiq, nothing will matter.”
“What do you mean?”
Fisher suddenly widened his eyes and screamed at her: “What’s your goddamned mission!”
“I’m here to babysit the gun and make sure it reaches Riyadh. They’re paying me a lot to do it.”
“There’s another guy in there, right? Have you seen him?”
“No. The door’s been locked.”
“That guy’s an Iranian, the triggerman. That thing you’re calling a gun? It’s a nuke they built in Natanz. They want to blow up the oil processing station. Your Russian bosses sent you on a one-way mission.”
“I’m supposed to believe that? Listen to me, asshole, you ruined my life! I lost Nadia and I lost Kasperov. I couldn’t even go back to the GRU. Failures like me, we disappear. Do you understand? I had to take this job. And now you what? You want to save me?”
“I don’t care about you. I just need to get through that door. Now get out of my way—”
“Oh, yes, me and the gun pointed at your head will let you come on through. Now shut up and take off your fancy little rifle.”
Fisher reached up, slid a thumb under the MPX’s sling, then pulled it over his head, his gaze never leaving hers.
“Now throw it out the window.”
He smiled, thought about it.
“Do it!”
Now it was Fisher’s turn to snicker. He tossed the gun over her shoulder and out of the train.
He was about to make his move on her weapon when a pair of deafening explosions resounded from outside, twin bursts so powerful that the ground and car quaked and the cracked window behind him shattered.
Not a second later the windshield blew inward with a horrific crash and burst into thousands of pieces that sent both of them ducking.
Next came a squealing of the train’s wheels as they locked up, the force throwing the Snow Maiden forward, into the stripped console, with Fisher caroming off the panels beside her. He was already reaching out to seize her pistol when the windows had blown, and now he had it—
But she was reaching for his Five-seveN at her waist. He went for it.
But her grip went slack. And so did his.
Because the rumbling, shrieking, and groaning noises coming from outside, along with the shattering of more glass, meant only one thing: the train had derailed.
He couldn’t be sure what happened next, judging it all based upon what he could hear and feel. His gaze was still locked on the Snow Maiden’s, the ferocity on her face turned to utter shock.
He threw her pistol behind him while reaching for his Five-seveN. He seized it—
But now she had his secondary, the P226, pressed to his forehead.
This standoff lasted barely a second more before a massive wave of sand, perhaps dug up by the locomotive as it buried itself into the desert, came rushing through the shattered windshield and drove both of them backward and into the hall and stairwell.
Even as the sand flowed in as though poured from a dump truck, the entire train heaved and creaked, iron scraping against iron, undercarriages wailing as wheels cut at wrong angles across the tracks. Another explosion rocked from somewhere outside, followed by a harsh cracking that sounded as though the hitches between container cars were being forced apart and snapped in two.
The operator’s booth continued filling with sand, the walls buckling, and just as Fisher was slapping his hand on the wall, groping for purchase—
The entire HEP car smashed onto its side and continued skidding across the desert floor, more dirt and rocks and other debris coming in from the side door window, with the Snow Maiden now crawling backward toward the steel door at the bottom of the steps.
Summoning up a scream, Fisher forced himself up through the oncoming sand and dove onto the Snow Maiden, freeing the SIG from her grip before she kneed him in the chest, then brought her boot around and side-kicked him in the neck.
They both fell back as the side of the car, now their ceiling, began rumbling and smashing inward to a chorus of much louder scrapes and echoing booms. Fisher suspected that one or more of the oil container cars was ramming and tumbling over them, the entire train folding up like an accordion and rolling over itself, the tanks splaying across the earth like a box of cigars let slip from the hand of a drunken oligarch.
Perhaps only the train’s collision could stop the triggerman from detonating the weapon—and any second’s delay was either fate glancing kindly on Fisher or cruel irony baiting him with the idea that he still had a chance.
Barely finishing that thought, he and the Snow Maiden were thrown once more into the opposite wall as the HEP car fishtailed brutally to the right, booted by more cars piling up behind it, the reverberation like a legion of thunderheads vying for attention and drumming across the tracks.
More sand spat into their faces, and Fisher was momentarily blinded, reaching out now for the Snow Maiden, wary that she might have another pistol or knife at the ready.
A short bang came from nearby, shaking the car; it was followed by a collision that must’ve broken open one of the containers because now the air reeked of oil. A guttural hiss pierced the wind, as though pressure were being released from something, and that racket lasted a second more before the car rolled up, onto its roof, burying Fisher and the Snow Maiden under the sand.
But then the car’s momentum kept it rolling and it smashed down onto its opposite side, the sand now drawing away from them, the explosions and near-human howls and shrieks of mangled metal still rising into the night.
It was all happening around them now, the car begi
Fisher coughed and clawed his way down toward the door, with the sand rising up to just below the first lock.
They’d stopped.
Shielding his face, he fired two rounds, the lock blowing off to reveal a hole.
He lifted the pistol to the higher lock.
That’s when an arm slipped under his neck and a hand forced away his pistol.
The Snow Maiden leaned in close and wrapped her teeth around the top of his ear.
“Sam, can you hear me?” cried Grim in his subdermal.
“Come on, Sam, give us a shout,” added Charlie.
He loved his team—but they usually had better timing. Fisher wrenched himself forward, freeing his ear as she was about to clamp down on it. He broke her grip on the pistol and whirled back to shove it into her head and pin her back down, onto the sand. “Nice try,” he muttered, pressing the muzzle deeper into her skin.