Chapter 11
I woke suddenly, the presence of a large person sitting down in the seat next to me bringing me instantly awake.
I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the wrist of the big man occupying the other seat.
The arm with RANGER tattooed on it. He was well over six feet and likely almost a hundred pounds heavier than me.
“Ah, awake now, I imagine.”
“Sure, Oscar. Just how I like to wake up. To unpleasant surprises.”
“Well, let me unsurprise you. At the next stop, you and I are going to step off this train,” he said, lifting the open edge of his jacket to show me the pistol holstered in the appendix position.
“I’m pretty sure you can’t shoot me,” I said.
“Ah, but I can shoot the whole family in front of us, can’t I?”
He could, and I judged that he would. So I stabbed him in the thigh with the syringe I had taken from my pack. The syringe with two milliliters of ketamine preloaded that was in my left thigh pocket.
One of the cheerleaders in Amber’s group was a pretty brainy sort who was the daughter of a veterinarian, with dreams of Harvard. I helped her grades and college essay, which earned me four milliliters of controlled horse tranquilizer.
Feeling robbed? Shouldn’t I have arm barred the bastard into submission with my hard-won judo skills?
Fantasy meet real world. One hundred and twenty pounds of teen girl rarely wins a bout with two hundred plus pounds of hardened combat operative. It’s not even close to a fair fight, so it’s a good thing I was taught to never, ever, ever fight fair.
The look in his eyes as he froze at the sudden overwhelming dose of heavy sedative was priceless.
Then it turned to something much meaner even as his body relaxed into sedation.
I reached over and moved his jacket to look at the pistol, a neat little Springfield Armory Hellcat 9mm.
I snorted out loud. Ironic in so many ways.
But the little gun was kind of perfect for a girl like me.
I used a sock from my pack to pluck it and tuck it into said pack, then found a spare mag in a nifty little belt carrier on his left side, put that away, and then stood up, pulling the closest emergency brake.
Immediately, the train began a jerking, jarring, high-pitched squeal of a stop and I slipped past Oscar’s frozen form and headed for the exit.
Moving smoothly, I got to the transition from my car to the next, moved into it, opened the train’s exit door, and stepped off as the car was slowing to a stop.
Down the embankment and into the woods. When I was well out of sight of the passengers and crew, I pulled my black jeans on over my tights, shrugged into my dark hoodie, changed to my hikers, and finally put the reflective vest over everything.
Then I put on my dark blue ball cap, clipped my CB walkie talkie to my vest, slung my pack, and headed toward the sound of moving cars. Just an anonymous road worker.
Break contact, change appearance, find a hide site, observe, and analyze. Words from my father’s bedtime stories.