Gannon scrambled back to the third seat as every window of the Escalade seemed to shatter simultaneously.
Kit was already down in the footwell and he dove down on top of her. Through the rain of exploding glass, Gannon watched Barber bend low himself. He lay down flat on the front seat, almost under the steering wheel, as he rammed the transmission up into Reverse.
When Barber stomped on the accelerator, they shot backwards through the rip in the fence and bumped up onto the tracks.
Had they just kept going, they would have easily made it clear of the approaching train with time to spare.
But then the front right-side bumper of the Cadillac suddenly caught on something, and they stopped as their wheels began to spin.
“Why did we stop?” Kit cried. “C’mon!”
Gannon thought they were maybe held up on one of the trackside fence poles until he shot a look to his right and saw the side panel of the Ram truck beside them was slowly moving. As they reversed, it slid with them and then crushed up against the passenger side rear door.
Shit! Gannon thought. No!
The bumpers had locked!
More bullets whined and flew through the car. Then the burnt rubber reek of tire smoke started pouring in as Barber held down on the gas, trying to rip free of the pickup they were stuck to.
The Ram truck’s tires started smoking a second later as the driver suddenly noticed it was being pulled onto the train tracks and tried to pull back in the opposite direction.
The train horn erupted again much closer now as the two truck bumpers’ tug-of-war over the middle of a railroad track continued.
The bellowing train was maybe twenty feet away, its headlamp and rising roar and clank filling the entirety of the inside of the SUV, when the Cadillac’s front bumper finally gave way with a wishbone-like pop.
Then the Cadillac lurched backwards in a bumping jolt and just cleared out of the way of the arriving train.
Gannon gaped as he sat up and turned back just in time to see the speeding commuter train T-bone the cab of the Ram truck dead center. In a fantastic howl of bleating horns and blue-white smoke and shooting sparks, he watched as the train plowed the pickup truck away to the south.
As this happened, Barber did the world’s bumpiest reverse K-turn over a second train track and then squealed the shot-up Escalade through some weeds at the base of the overpass’s embankment.
“Man, is the rental guy gonna love us!” Gannon cried as they arrived at the top of the overpass.
Barber squealed out onto the overpass into the left lane going the wrong way. Halfway across the center of the upper roadway, he brought the Caddy to a shrieking stop directly above where the truck had sideswiped them.
Gannon flipped over into the front seat with their long rifle gun bag. Tearing at the Velcro and grabbing up two cut-down M4 carbines, he and Barber leaped from the vehicle out into the street.
Reaching the overpass’s rail, they could see the Range Rover below them already on the move a hundred yards to the north.
“Shit! You know Novak is in there. He’s getting away!” John Barber said.
Gannon had just put one in the chamber of his carbine with a click of the charging handle when they heard the roar below them.
Gannon and John Barber looked straight down as the red Jeep broke cover out from beneath the overpass.
The armed balaclava man was still in the turret, standing backwards now.
He looked up straight at them as he began to raise the rifle at his side.