The Three Most Wanted Read online

  “Come off it,” said Jon, “biting my head off is really the last thing you want to say to me?”

  “Oh, shut up, Margo’s doing some serious praying.”

  “Think I’ll join her.”

  I breathed slowly, in and out, reminding myself of trust. Lord, if You’ve got us halfway across the continent just to fail now, I trust Your better judgment, I really do. But it seems more likely to my feeble mind that You want us to make it. So send me an answer, quick!

  The wind howled—was that the crack of branches under distant booted feet? They were closing in. Acceptance, then.

  Domine, jam nunc quodcumque

  mortis genus prout Tibi placuerit,

  cum omnibus suis poenis

  ac doloribus suscipio.

  O Lord, I now, at this moment,

  willingly accept whatever kind of death

  it may please You to send me,

  with all its pains and sorrows.

  Amen. But just for the record, Lord, this does really suck.

  “Margo…”

  Bane. He drew me to my feet and into his arms. His skin was burning and a fine tremor of exhaustion racked his body. “I love you. I love you…” He kissed me frantically, tenderly, his arms gathering me closer as though to protect me from the night. From what was in the night.

  Shouts from across the tracks, now. Soldiers calling to one another. Dogs barking. And from behind. Even the wind couldn’t drown them out. How far away? As little as a few hundred meters? They couldn’t see us yet, for the trees, but we could see their lights…

  “I love you…”

  “I love you too.” I kissed him, my arms wrapping around his hot, bare back, and tasted salt on my lips. He was crying.

  “Love you, Margo. Love you forever…” He clutched me to him with only his left arm, now, his right hand slipping into his pocket...

  I kissed him, just kissed him, didn’t want to think, couldn’t think about anything else. I love you, Bane…

  My eyes opened in the vain hope of seeing his face, but the darkness was too great. Save those winking lights, coming closer.

  “Love you…” His voice shook...

  And that light… that great, great light, approaching… approaching so fast… so…

  My hand flew down Bane’s right arm and closed around his wrist. “Stop!”

  Too dark to see what he held—alas, I was a selfish cowardly wretch and I did know really, just pretending I didn’t. Pretending to myself. Committing a bad action for a good reason didn’t make it okay—yet I would really let Bane take this on himself?

  “Margo! This isn’t the time for high-minded…”

  “No. Look. Behind you…”

  Bane turned. “Where?”

  “The light.”

  It was a train.

  “A train! Are you actually thinking…” His head turned—immediately calculating the gradient of the slope, its length. Steep and long. “In our condition? We’ll fall under the wheels trying.”

  I nearly laughed. “Well, that’ll be nice and quick, won’t it? Come on, we haven’t got any choice! We’re getting on. We’re supposed to.”

  “Supposed…? Oh, I’m not even going there. No choice, I’ll give you that.” His head turned back and forth again, still calculating. We’d done this loads of times in our early teens, with the slow cargo trains that passed through Salperton, but Jon...

  “Okay,” he said, “I’ll start a little way down the slope, get on first. You help Jon run alongside, I’ll haul him on, you climb straight up after. Think you can do it? You’ll be running alongside the longest.”

  “I’m going to do it. We’re all going to do it.”

  In that moment I was quite, quite certain. I had asked Him to send us an answer, and here it was. Unusual for a prayer to be answered quite so literally, but I wasn’t looking a gift train in the mouth.

  Bane swapped what he held for something crackly—the remaining two pills. Hesitated for a moment.

  “Jon, here, take another.” He pressed one out. “The three of us are about to jump a train.”

  I didn’t miss the note of unease in his voice as he stuffed it into Jon’s mouth. “Is it safe?”

  “Safer than dismantling.”

  “Yeah. S’pose.”

  Jon swallowed it uncomplainingly.

  “I’ll cut this one in half,” said Bane.

  “No, you won’t! You take it! I can’t lift Jon onto the train and if you can’t get Jon on, we’re done for. You take it.”

  “I’m not having you left behind.” Bane’s tone was steely. “You’re having a nibble.” He pressed the pill to my teeth. “Open.”

  I sighed and obeyed.

  He inched it in a little. “Bite.”

  I obeyed again. “Yuk.”

  But I swallowed the tiny fragment. Felt rather than saw him slip the remainder into his mouth, then... Wow. Strength flooded into my shaking legs, the lead bled from my arms… amazing!

  “Come on, quick, it’s coming up fast…” said Bane. “Get behind a tree until the locomotive passes, we don’t want the driver to see us.”

  Let’s hope it wasn’t a passenger train.

  Jon scrambled to his feet unaided.

  “Bring on the train, I could tackle Mount Everest…”

  He sounded almost drunk, but he followed as I led him behind the nearest of the trees crowding close to the tracks. Bane headed down slope a little way—paused first to hurl something across the tracks as far as he could. A flashlight or a lighter, at a guess. To make them think we’d gone straight over.

  I spoke as loud as I dared over the noise of the train. “Jon, do you understand what we’re doing? Bane will get on the train first, we’ll run alongside, when he grabs you and starts pulling you up, jump on and climb up as best you can, okay? The ladder will probably have wide-spaced rungs, a good foot apart. I’ll climb up behind you.” I lowered my voice. “And if something goes wrong, try not to let Bane jump off again, okay?”

  “Huh.” Not exactly agreement, but he’d definitely heard me. ‘Cause if anyone didn’t make it on, it would be me, but there was no other order in which to do it.

  “Okay, be ready. I’ll try to give you a count down, then we run. And don’t fall.”

  Jon grimaced.

  “I’ll pick my feet up. I can’t even feel that hole in my leg now.”

  “Good.”

  The train was approaching rapidly now. In fact… it was closer than I thought...

  “It’s going too fast!” called Bane softly, from behind his tree, and immediately added, “We’ve no choice! We have to try. I’ll need to be further away…”

  His silhouette flitted away as he moved to hide behind another, more distant tree. The train was so close the light dazzled us. Damn, it was going fast. The long climb up the mountain had hardly slowed it down at all!

  I stopped looking for Bane after the locomotive passed him—no light, not a passenger train. Flatcars loaded with containers…

  “Get ready, Jon. Sprint like you’ve never sprinted before. Three, two, one…”

  Whine… The engine passed us.

  “Run…!”

  We ran. Awkwardly, with his arm around my shoulders, because whatever he said, his body still knew he had a bad leg, and he needed the support, but we ran, fueled by adrenaline and Bane’s drug. Ran fast. I could feel my feet tearing up the gravel—Lord, don’t let my foot slip now!—I steered Jon closer to the cars.

  Flatcar… flatcar… flatcar…

  Bane’s face was suddenly alongside, a white blur against the blackness of the cars... It-was-going-so-fast! I shoved Jon over to him; felt his arms flail as he searched for the ladder. Bane must’ve got hold of his arm because suddenly Jon was on the side of the car, pulling rapidly ahead of me. Far too rapidly. Couldn’t reach the car now, let alone once Jon was out of the way.

  “Next car… don’t panic…” I gasped, hoping Bane might hear me over the noise of the wheels and wind.
<
br />   The next car… already coming alongside. Legs burning. Chest burning. Legs going wobbly again… One chance… There was the ladder…

  I lunged as blindly as Jon had… a moment of heart stopping panic as my hands travelled unimpeded through the air—I’d missed! Then—slap! My hands closed on a rung, and my arms were almost yanked from their sockets. I just managed to drive my legs in one more tremendous step, pushing me forward… leap!

  My flailing legs found the bottom step of the ladder, and for a few moments I just hung there, gasping, the rush blowing my hair back from my face.

  Made it. Laudate Dominum. Deo gratias.

  The top of the hill was coming up... I didn’t want Bane to jump off to look for me before we reached it... driving my shaking body into action, I climbed the last few rungs to the narrow platform at the end of the flatcar, then ran my hands over the container. No ladder. Blast! I groped around a bit more, frantic to reach Bane… Right, hinges and door latches for footholds, those long straight locking rods for hand holds, and I must do it all in one rush, if I’d a hope of grabbing the top of the container.

  I imagined Bane jumping off again, back into that net of soldiers… and launched myself up the steel side, feet scrabbling for the sticking-out bits, fingers clinging to those narrow metal rods. Without Bane’s stimulant, I wouldn’t have made it. As it was, I dragged myself up onto the roof, allowed myself a couple of breaths to rest, then slithered along on my stomach for safety. Heard Bane before I saw him.

  “Margo! Margo!”

  “Bane, shut up! I’m coming.” I reached the front of the container and looked down at two dark shapes huddled on the platform at the back of the flatcar in front. Phew. I wouldn’t have to climb the next container after all. Not sure I could!

  “Oh thank God!” said Bane, as he saw my silhouette.

  “That’s unusually polite of you.” Lowering myself from the top of the container until my arms gave way, I dropped, grabbing the locking rods again to stop myself going over the edge. Then, quickly but carefully, I crossed the shifting joint between the two cars. Feeling around when I reached the other side, I realized why Bane hadn’t come to look for me. Jon was unconscious, and Bane didn’t dare leave him on the swaying, rattling platform in case he was flung off. “Is Jon okay?”

  “Just passed out. Not surprisingly.”

  I felt Jon over quickly to make sure he hadn’t lost any body parts to the wheels. His left leg was totally soaked in blood despite the bandage but his foot was still there. “Well, that’s that.”

  “That’s that? I’ll say!”

  “Why’re you so cross? We’ve escaped, haven’t we?”

  “Hasn’t occurred to you yet, has it? How the hell are we going to get off?”

  Oh. Yes, problematic. A lot more dangerous than getting on, at this speed. How to get Jon off… no more pills, we’d have to pretty much pick him up and throw him, which we probably couldn’t do and which he probably wouldn’t survive.

  “Well, if we get inside a container we can sneak out while it’s stopped somewhere quiet.”

  He took a couple of deep breaths. “True... Okay, can you sit here and stop Jon rolling off and I’ll go and see about getting a container open? This one’s got a flipping code-lock on it.”

  “Okay.”

  As I shifted position, another crack of thunder boomed overhead and rain began to fall. Slow big drops, rapidly increasing to a downpour. Good. It’d wash away both tracks and scent, and this train was surely going so fast it wouldn’t occur to them we could’ve got on. Why so fast, though?

  “I’ll be as quick as I can.” Bane leapt across the gap to the flatcar I’d just come from, but a muttered curse told me that the door there was also locked. He crossed back and scaled the container I was sitting against as easily as climbing a ladder. I stifled a twinge of envy.

  He was a long time, not that it mattered. I was just glad to sit still and hold Jon. How would we get Jon into one of the other containers, anyway?

  The clackety-clack and the motion of the train brought back those summer holidays when Bane and I jumped trains every day… riding through the Fellest and up to the passes, feeling like anything was possible. Happy times.

  The lash of the rain on my face soon brought me back to the present—but the knowledge that every passing minute put more miles between us and the searching soldiers made this an even happier time.

  It was clear as soon as he plunked down beside me that Bane didn’t share my high spirits: he was hopping mad again. “If your almighty Friend really did send this train, Margo,” he hissed, “I don’t think much of His forward planning!”

  “What’s wrong?” I spoke as calmly as I could after the last twenty-four hours.

  “It’s a weapons’ train, Margo! Code-locked containers, every one. Guards on the front and back of the train—they didn’t see us get on, small mercies! There’s an extra engine at the rear so it doesn’t slow to a dangerous speed up inclines!”

  Yes, the Resistance would love to get their hands on a train like this. Two engines. I stared at the shadowy ground rushing past. No way we should’ve been able to get on at all, let alone in our condition…

  “And there’s no way,” he went on—very quiet now, “there’s no way it’s going to stop anywhere where it’ll be safe to get off. We can’t get into a container so as soon as the sun comes up we’ll be seen. And we’ll be caught. Say thanks from me to your Friend, will you!”

  The train would speed through green lights all the way until it drew to a halt inside a military compound.

  But still… “Calm down, Bane! We’re not caught yet, are we? So stop whining! Where’s it going, anyway?”

  “Manifests on the container doors say Rome.”

  “Rome!”

  “Caught at day-break, remember?”

  “Yes, but…” Tantalizing that the train was going exactly where we wanted. “Sure there isn’t anywhere we can hide?”

  “Why d’you think I’ve been so long? I’ve been from one end of this train to the other, just as close to the guards as I dared—we’re almost at the back, here. The containers are all locked. We’re too weak to cling underneath, nor have we anything to tie ourselves on with—we’d probably get electrocuted, anyway.”

  “The container roofs?”

  “In full sight of the guards, when there’s light to see by. Just face it, we’re done for.”

  “We’re less done for than we were half an hour ago! Since when have you been so negative!” Oh... I reached out to touch his forehead. Burning. Of course. He shrugged me away, but my anger died. “Come on, it’s still some time before morning, isn’t it? Why don’t you try and get some rest?”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Fibber.”

  Shivering violently now in my poorly-fastened blouse, I turned to Jon again. His skin was cold under my hands, his clothes as wet as mine. He was totally and frighteningly unresponsive. I shifted until I could lie between him and the cold metal of the container as human insulation.

  “Come on, Bane, please lie down and try to keep Jon warm. He’s not in a good way.”

  Bane didn’t speak, as though becoming aware he was playing the bear with the cut paw. He shifted until he could lie down and, reaching over Jon and I, hold onto a bar to keep us all aboard.

  For all Bane’s fears and worries, my eyes wouldn’t stay open. We were safer than we’d been half an hour ago and that was that. This train was bound for Rome. Who knew how many towns it’d actually go through? Who knew who’d actually look closely at yet another train?

  I wrapped my arms around Jon’s chilled body in a hopeless attempt to give heat, as the cold rain hammered down...

  ...Sunlight was blazing through my eyelids. Turning away and opening my eyes, I found myself looking into Bane’s deep sunken, dark circled, fever-bright eyes. My mouth was parched—I attempted to moisten it before speaking. “What time is it?”

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “When�
�s this thing supposed to reach Rome?”

  “Some hours yet, Margo.” He took one hand away from the bar, flexing it and wincing, took out his phone and consulted the map. “We’re close to Milan.” He put the phone away and returned to his job as safety rail.

  Milan. It penetrated slowly. “We’re over the Alps!”

  He smiled crookedly. “Yes, we are over the Alps.”

  His tone was dry, but his mood had improved. It must’ve been light for some hours, and we’d not been caught yet. We couldn’t be very conspicuous, lying down like this. We probably looked like old sacks, or something. I licked my lips again. Would we reach Rome before we were spotted? We’d travelled a long way south as I slept.

  I turned my attention to Jon. Unconscious. His face a pasty gray color. His skin, despite his sun-dried clothes, still clammy. “He needs a doctor.”

  Bane grimaced. What was there to say? Jon needed a doctor. He couldn’t have one. He’d probably die.

  I stroked his autumny hair gently back from his face. “Come on, Jon. Stick with us. We’re on the express to Rome, lots of doctors in Rome. Just hang in there…”

  He couldn’t hear me. Lord, watch over him, please, please, please?

  I touched Bane’s forehead instead. Could’ve fried an egg on it. If I had one. Shouldn’t have thought about eggs. My stomach was gnawing my backbone in half. From the look of Bane’s face, he needed a doctor too. Perhaps wouldn’t die without one—not quite yet, anyway...

  “Truthfully, Bane, how are you fee…”

  A flash of light reflected off the container above—the next second the sound slammed into us, like the fireworks all over again. The entire train jerked and hurtled sideways. In a strange slow motion the locomotive tumbled past us as though through midair, flying end over end… everything dissolved into a maelstrom of tilting, rolling flatcars and spinning ground…

  Blackness.

  ***+***

  19

  DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES

  Shouts from across the tracks. Soldiers calling to one another. Dogs barking. And from behind. Even the wind couldn’t drown them out. How far away? As little as a few hundred meters? They couldn’t see us yet, for the trees, but we could see their lights… They were coming.