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By Root 381 0

a moment later he was flung forward as the wheels screeched, the couplings groaned, and the car was jolted hard against the coal tender. Fodor dropped the receiver as he jumped back to help steady the satellite dish, which one of the soldiers had been heads-up enough to hold, but the receiver itself was knocked on its side and one of the coaxial cables was ripped from the back of the dish. At least the bottom-heavy lantern hadn't fallen over, and when the train came to a rest and the soldiers and civilians helped each other to their feet amid the spilled boxes, Fodor was able to check the equipment. Though the connector had been torn off and was still attached to the dish, the cable itself was all right. He pulled off his gloves and began trying to repair it at once.

Because the large boiler sat in front of the cab, the engine's only windows were on the sides. Nikita had been looking out one of them when he saw the fallen tree through the thick, failing flakes. He had shouted to the engineer to stop, but when the poor young man didn't act fast enough Nikita threw the brake for him.

The three men in the cab were flung roughly to the floor, and when the train stopped Nikita heard shouting from above and from the rear cars. He got to his feet quickly, his right hip numb where he'd landed on it, took a flashlight from the hook on the wall, and ran to the window. He searched the snow with the wide beam. One man had been thrown from the top of the first car, but he was already climbing from a snowbank.

"Are you all right?" Nikita yelled.

"I think so, sir." The young soldier stood unsteadily. "Do you need us up front?"

"No!" Nikita barked. "Get back on lookout."

"Yes, sir," the soldier replied, saluting sloppily with a snow-covered glove as a pair of hands was extended to pull him back to the top of the car.

Nikita told the two men in the cab to keep a careful watch at the windows, then he climbed to the top of the coal tender. The winds had stopped and the snow fell straight down. It was disturbingly quiet, like the cottony silence after a car crash, and the sound of his boots on the coal was crisp and brittle. He scuttled across, kicking up snow and coal dust, then dropped nimbly to the coupling of the first car. Wheezing from the cold, he used the flashlight to find the doorknob.

"Take six men out to the track," he hawked at the burly Sergeant Versky as he entered. "A tree has fallen across it and I want it cleared now. Have three men stand guard while the other three move

"At once, sir," said Versky.

"Watch out for possible sniper positions," Nikita added. "They may have night-vision capability."

"Understood, sir."

Nikita turned to Fodor. "How is the phone?"

"It will take several minutes to repair," Fodor said as he crouched beside the lantern.

"Do it quickly," snapped the Lieutenant, huffing out white clouds of vapor. "What else did the General say?"

"Just to stop the train and come on the line," Fodor said. "That's all."

"Damn this," Nikita said. "Damn it all."

As the Sergeant's crew pulled flares from a supply sack, Nikita ordered the civilians to restack the crates. A soldier came in from the next car, looking slightly rattled, and Nikita sent him back to secure the crates and make sure the soldiers there stayed alert.

"Tell the caboose to be on the lookout," Nikita added. "We may be approached from the rear."

The Lieutenant stood with his legs apart in the center of the car, bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet. He tried to put himself in the place of his enemy.

The tree may have fallen or the tree may have been placed there. If the latter, then the ambush had failed. Had they struck the tree, they'd have been stopped beside a cliff-- an ideal place from which to pick off the soldiers on top of the train. But here, hundreds of yards away, they could get maybe one or two soldiers before being spotted. And there was no way anyone could approach the train without being seen and, once seen, shot.

So what, then, is their game?

His father had called to tell him to stop the train. Had he known