Sam pulls himself out of the seat.
“Everyone back to your seats immediately!” he barks, knowing the little boy has been abandoned along the side of the tracks. But at least he was spared his life. The same can’t be said of the remaining passengers if he and Maureen don’t find a way to kill that locomotive. Time is not only getting tight, it’s getting desperate. They are running out of options for stopping this train. This Empire Runaway.
Passengers are screaming now—crying, and weeping. The little boy’s mother is beside herself. She’s a wet rag of tears and desperately weeping. Sam helps as many people as possible with getting back into their seats. He then makes his way back through the confusion to Maureen. Her once confident face has again lost its color and is now pallid.
“What the hell do we do now, Mrs. Savage?” he begs.
“Very funny,” she says. And she’s right. There’s nothing funny about their situation. “We’ve got to get inside that damn locomotive. It’s our only chance.”
“But the door is locked?” It’s Safraz. He’s back.
“Bolted,” Sam says.
Maureen reaches into her pocket for her phone.
“Morgan,” she says. “He’s sent another text.” She opens it. “It’s another video.”
She holds the phone out so they can all view it at once. She taps on the Play icon, and Morgan’s face appears.
“I know what you are doing, Maureen,” he says, his face full of smiles, the train locomotive barreling forward. “You don’t think I’m that stupid, do you? Naturally, I knew you’d attempt to stop the train by using the emergency brakes. But I took care of those too. You cannot stop this train. I repeat you cannot stop this train. You’re all going to be sacrificed in the name of Allah. In just fifteen minutes, we will go careening off the Catskill Gorge Bridge, and we will all die a glorious death. I will be welcomed into paradise along with ninety-nine virgins, and you, the infidels, will all go to hell where you will suffer fire and brimstone for all eternity. Allah Akbar and good fucking luck.”
The video ends.
“I hate that man,” Sam says.
“He is a disgrace to the Muslim faith,” Safraz says.
Maureen presses her back against the wall.
“We’re all going to die,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “Hell of a way to spend our honeymoon.”
“But you both are married?” Safraz asks with a smile. Optimism in the face of sure destruction. Bloody, bone-crushing, painful destruction. He is a man at peace with himself and his God, or so Sam surmises.
“We’re not going to die,” Sam insists. “We’re going to bust through that locomotive door.”
“How?” Maureen says.
Sam pulls out his Colt .45 model 1911.
“The John Wayne way,” he says, not without a grin painting his face. “We’re gonna shoot our way through it.”
“You two stand back,” Sam says, opening the car door that accesses the locomotive door. “There could be a ricochet.”
Sam exits the car onto the platform and stands before the metal locomotive door. He attempts to open the door by hand again. But it still won’t budge. Aiming the gun barrel at the opener, he triggers off three back to back rounds.
The opener shatters. But what about the lock?
Sam presses his shoulder against the door. There’s movement. He jams his shoulder against the door, once, twice, three times, until it busts open. His .45 gripped in hand, Sam enters the speeding locomotive.
“Morgan!” he shouts. “Stop this train!”
He focuses his eyes on the empty conductor seats and the instrument panel before them. Morgan is nowhere to be found. Then, sensing something on his right-hand side, he turns quick, catches the baseball bat smack on the forehead.
Sam isn’t entirely knocked out, but he’s knocked senseless enough that he falls onto his backside, his pistol dropping to the metal floor. Morgan immediately bends down, grabs the gun, and aims it at Sam. Pointblank.
“You can’t stop this train, infidel,” Morgan spits. “I’ve programmed it to run at full speed. And did you know that Amtrak can kill this train by remote control? But, of course, I have overridden their prerogative. That’s the beauty of computers. You’d have to be a programmer to figure out how to stop it.”
Sam feels the welt swelling on his forehead. He feels the pain inside his brain. But despite the head bashing, his senses begin to return, and anger builds inside his flesh and bones. Back when he was a Navy SEAL in the badlands of Afghanistan, a Taliban mortar shell exploded only feet away from him. He was nearly knocked unconscious. The fact that his limbs were not blown off was nothing short of a miracle. It took a full minute or two for him to regain composure. Not an easy task when your head is literally ringing like a bell. But when he had, he made out two Taliban fighters coming his way, AK47s gripped in their hands. No doubt they intended to finish him off. But he didn’t give them a chance. Sure, he was hurting from the explosion, but he went after them anyway with fists and biting teeth.
Right now, inside the speeding train car, Sam feels that same fight or flight instinct building in his bloodstream like the white-hot fire in a furnace. Since flight is not an option, he has no choice but to fight. He doesn’t hesitate. He thrusts himself at Conductor Morgan.
He nails the stocky man square in the chest with a perfectly executed headbutt. The conductor rears back hard against the metal powerhouse panel, but he doesn’t go down. He aims the .45 at Sam’s head, fires. Sam shifts his head at the last millisecond, avoids the bullet. He headbutts Morgan once more, this time in the chubby man’s soft underbelly. As air escapes his lungs, Morgan drops the pistol and collapses to his knees but manages to wrap his arms around Sam’s legs. He presses his face into Sam’s crotch and tries to bite in the most sensitive place on Sam’s body.
“You sick bastard!” Sam shouts.
Locking his hands at the knuckles, Sam makes a double hammer-fist which he then raises high. Using every muscle in both his muscular arms, he brings the double fist down hard into Morgan’s cranial cap. It’s like a mash hammer striking a melon. Stung by the collision, Morgan collapses. Sam immediately falls to his knees and goes for the gun. But not before Morgan lunges for it.
“You just can’t kill this terrorist bastard,” Sam whispers to himself.
Together, they grab the gun. Sam uses his free hand to throw quick hard punches against Morgan’s face, each of them connecting, doing damage to the conductor’s soft white face. His left eye looks like a plumb, both his lips are split, a front tooth is broken at the root, his nose is so broken it’s flattened against his cheek, and a steady stream of blood and saliva gushes from his mouth. But still, the conductor fights for the pistol.
Sam knows if Morgan wins the battle for the firearm, Sam is as good as dead. Everyone on board this train is as good as dead. No choice but to win the battle. Not for himself, but for all those women and kids.
Cocking back his elbow, he rams it into Morgan’s face. The rock-hard bone lands square in Morgan’s one good eye. Sam swears when he feels the gelatinous eyeball pop. The shock and awe is precisely what he needed to steal the weapon from Morgan’s grip.
Placing the barrel against the terrorist conductor’s forehead, Sam says, “This is for your buddy, Allah.”
He shoots.