Chapter 3 - The Roof Line

Car eight was not empty.

It was worse.

Twenty passengers had been pushed into the aisle and ordered onto their knees. Two armed men stood near the center doors while a third watched the forward vestibule.

Nadia stopped before crossing the threshold.

Sergei nearly walked into her.

“What?” he whispered.

She held up three fingers.

Laura stayed behind with Shaw at the control unit. If Nadia failed, Shaw would keep trying to break the remote lockout. If Shaw failed, Laura would return to the children.

Nadia did not say that part aloud.

People performed better when they believed every branch of the plan led somewhere useful.

Sergei leaned toward the small window.

“I can take the one on the left.”

“You can take your hands out of your coat.”

“I have a gun.”

“I know.”

“You gave me one when I was nineteen.”

“I regretted it when you were nineteen.”

“This seems like an odd time for parenting.”

“I am practicing.”

Sergei looked at her.

For a moment, the train, the gunmen, the countdown, all of it disappeared beneath an older argument.

“You practice on Anton,” he said.

“I practice worrying on Anton.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No.”

A passenger in car eight shifted.

One gunman struck the seat beside him with the barrel of his weapon.

Nadia’s eyes hardened.

“Left,” she said.

Sergei smiled without humor.

“Thank you.”

They moved.

Nadia hit the door release and threw a metal service tray down the aisle.

The clatter snapped all three gunmen toward the sound.

Sergei entered low.

He fired once into the overhead luggage rack above the left gunman. The man flinched and ducked. Nadia crossed behind the seat backs and slammed her elbow into the center gunman’s wrist before he could turn.

His pistol struck the floor.

A passenger kicked it beneath a seat.

The third gunman raised his weapon toward Sergei.

A gray-haired woman on her knees grabbed the attacker’s ankle with both hands.

He stumbled.

Sergei drove him into the door.

The left gunman recovered and aimed at Nadia.

She had no clean shot.

Too many passengers.

So she did the simpler thing.

She threw herself sideways into the man.

They hit the seats hard.

His weapon fired into the ceiling.

Nadia trapped his forearm, twisted, and drove his hand against the metal armrest until the pistol fell.

Sergei kicked it away.

The entire fight lasted less than ten seconds.

It felt longer because fear stretched time and bad decisions filled it.

Nadia stood first.

“Anyone hurt?”

Several people spoke at once.

“No gunshots?” she asked.

Silence.

“Good. Stay below the windows. Do not move toward the front unless transit police tell you.”

The gray-haired woman looked at her.

“Who are you?”

Sergei answered, “Bad customer service.”

Nadia glared at him.

The woman almost laughed.

That was enough.

They crossed into car seven.

The roof access hatch was above a maintenance platform near the center of the car.

A red warning light flashed beside it.

Shaw’s voice came through the radio.

“Four minutes forty.”

Nadia stared at the hatch.

“Can we cut the antenna from inside?”

“No. The relay line runs through an armored conduit. Roof junction is the only physical break.”

Sergei looked through the window.

Rain hammered the train.

“No.”

Nadia turned.

“What?”

“You are not going on the roof.”

“I was not asking.”

“You have a son behind us.”

“And you have a sister in front of you.”

“I noticed.”

Nadia reached for the hatch release.

Sergei caught her wrist.

She looked at his hand.

He released her immediately.

“Sorry.”

“Good instinct.”

“Nadia.”

“Do not start.”

“Mikhail died because he thought being responsible meant doing the most dangerous thing himself.”

Her face changed.

The name cut deeper than she wanted.

“You do not get to use my husband to win an argument.”

“I am not trying to win.”

“Then stop talking.”

“He went to that warehouse because he thought nobody else should take the risk.”

Nadia stepped closer.

“He went because someone told him the shipment was compromised.”

“Yes.”

“And then the building burned.”

“Yes.”

“And Irina identified the body.”

Sergei stopped.

There it was.

A detail that had lived in the family so long it no longer looked suspicious.

Irina had identified Mikhail’s body before Nadia arrived from the hospital.

Nadia remembered the smell of smoke in the morgue hallway. Irina’s hand around hers. Irina telling her not to look.

Nadia had looked anyway.

The face had been damaged.

The wedding ring had not.

Dental records had confirmed the identification.

Records Irina’s office had delivered.

Nadia’s heart slowed.

“No,” she said.

Sergei understood the thought.

“You saw him.”

“I saw a body.”

“You saw the ring.”

“I saw his ring.”

“The DNA?”

“There was no DNA test. Dental.”

Sergei’s expression went blank.

Shaw’s voice came through the radio again.

“Four minutes.”

Nadia shoved the thought away.

Dead husband later.

Living son now.

She opened the roof hatch.

Rain exploded into the car.

Wind screamed through the opening.

Sergei swore.

Nadia clipped a maintenance safety belt around her waist.

“You hold the line.”

“I hate this plan.”

“That makes two of us.”

She climbed.

The roof was a black river of rain and steel.

The train tore through the night at more than a hundred miles an hour, wind hammering her coat flat against her body. Nadia stayed low and crawled toward the antenna housing six feet ahead.

Every instinct told her to look back.

She did not.

Looking back was how fear negotiated.

She reached the housing.

Three cables entered the base.

Shaw’s voice crackled from the radio clipped beneath her collar.

“White sheath. Thickest line.”

Nadia found it.

A steel protective sleeve covered the connector.

“Locked.”

“There’s a quarter-turn collar.”

“It is not turning.”

“Push down first.”

Nadia pushed.

Nothing.

The train swayed.

Her knee slipped.

The safety line snapped tight.

Sergei shouted from the hatch, but the wind ate the words.

Nadia flattened herself to the roof.

For one second she saw Anton at five years old, asleep on her chest after a fever.

Then thirteen, pretending to read while watching her reflection.

She pushed herself up.

“Again,” she said into the radio.

“Push down, turn counterclockwise, then pull straight.”

She did.

The collar moved.

Nadia ripped the connector free.

The roof lights blinked.

The train lurched.

Her body slid six inches before the safety belt caught.

Inside the radio, Shaw shouted.

“Signal link dropped! I have local control!”

Nadia held the roof housing with both hands.

“Brake.”

“I’m sending it.”

Nothing happened.

Then the train shuddered.

Metal screamed beneath them.

Speed began falling.

106.

102.

97.

Nadia crawled back.

Sergei reached through the hatch and grabbed her forearm.

This time she let him.

He pulled her inside.

They hit the floor together.

Nadia lay there breathing.

Sergei laughed.

She turned her head.

“What?”

“I forgot you were insane.”

“You did not forget.”

“No.”

The radio came alive.

Shaw sounded almost cheerful.

“Ninety. Eighty-six. Engineer has control. We’re braking.”

Laura’s voice cut in.

“Can we stop before the crossing?”

A pause.

Shaw answered, “Maybe.”

Nadia closed her eyes.

Sergei looked at her.

“You hate maybe.”

“Yes.”

“Would you prefer false confidence?”

“No.”

“That is growth.”

She hit him in the shoulder.

He smiled.

Then the lights went out again.

Not flickered.

Died.

Every car dark.

The radio went silent.

The train continued braking, but slowly.

Too slowly.

Nadia sat up.

“What now?”

Sergei looked toward the forward cars.

A distant orange glow appeared through the windows.

The freight crossing.

Closer than expected.

Then another light appeared beside it.

A freight locomotive moving across their route.

Nadia’s stomach dropped.

Sergei ran to the service panel.

“No communication.”

Nadia grabbed the emergency brake handle.

He caught her arm.

“Pulling that in one car may lock only this section.”

“Good.”

“At this speed, we could derail.”

“Better than hitting a freight train.”

Sergei looked ahead.

Then back at her.

“Together.”

They pulled.

The car slammed sideways.

Passengers screamed behind them.

Wheels shrieked against rail.

Nadia hit the wall.

Sergei caught the seat frame.

The freight crossing grew larger.

Too large.

The train bucked again.

Then brakes caught across another car.

Then another.

Someone else was pulling emergency handles.

Passengers.

Rail staff.

Maybe Laura.

Maybe strangers who had decided they were not waiting for rescue.

The train screamed into the crossing.

The freight locomotive passed twenty yards ahead.

Ten.

Five.

The overnight train stopped with its nose entering the junction.

The final freight car thundered past so close Nadia could see sparks beneath its wheels.

Then silence.

Real silence.

No engine hum.

No gunfire.

No wind.

Only rain tapping the roof.

Sergei sat on the floor.

“We are alive.”

Nadia listened.

Passengers began crying and laughing in other cars.

“Yes.”

The radio crackled back to life on backup power.

Shaw spoke first.

“We stopped.”

Laura answered, “I noticed.”

Nadia grabbed the radio.

“Anton.”

Static.

“Anton.”

Nothing.

Her relief vanished.

She ran.

Car eight.

Car nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

The last car door was locked.

Nadia pounded once.

“Anton!”

No answer.

She entered the emergency code.

Denied.

Pavel had changed it.

“Pavel!”

Silence.

Sergei reached her.

“Move.”

He fired into the mechanical lock.

The door opened.

The last car was empty.

Pavel’s blood-soaked scarf lay on the floor.

Anton’s history book was open on the seat.

Clara’s tablet lay beside it.

No children.

No Pavel.

Nadia stood perfectly still.

Then the overhead speaker clicked on.

Irina Markov’s voice said, “I told Owen you would choose the train over the archive.”

Nadia looked up.

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Irina continued.

“I was wrong.”