Chapter 75 - The Snowbound Convoy
Two black attack helicopters rose from the valley fog, their searchlights sweeping the skeletal beams of the viaduct in wide, blinding arcs.
"They found us!" Clara shouted over the deafening roar of the rotors.
"Move! Back into the maintenance tunnel!" I yelled, scooping Lily into my left arm and grabbing the floral handbag and the lockbox with my right.
A high-caliber machine gun opened fire from the lead helicopter. Heavy rounds tore through the iron catwalk, shredding the grating into lethal shrapnel. Sparks erupted in volcanic fountains around us. Clara scrambled on her hands and knees, crying out as a piece of ricocheting steel caught her shoulder, but she didn't stop.
I dove through the low concrete archway of the tunnel just as a hail of bullets obliterated the exact spot where we had been kneeling seconds before.
Inside the tunnel, the air was damp and reeked of diesel and old grease. An abandoned narrow-gauge railway line ran straight through the heart of the mountain, sloping sharply downward toward the Swiss border. Parked on the tracks twenty yards ahead sat an ancient, diesel-powered snowplow locomotive—a relic used decades ago to clear the high mountain passes before the high-speed transit tunnels were carved.
"Julian, look!" Clara pointed toward the locomotive's cab. "The engine block is steaming. Someone preheated the boilers!"
"My father," I said, the realization striking me like lightning. "He planned this route. He knew the viaduct was the choke point."
We sprinted down the cross-ties. The helicopters hovered outside the tunnel entrance, unable to enter, but their spotlights penetrated deep into the shaft, illuminating the dust motes and our fleeing silhouettes. Men in black tactical gear were already rappelling down from the skids onto the viaduct platform outside.
"Board the cab! Now!" I shoved Clara up the iron ladder. She pulled Lily into the enclosed steel cabin while I threw the lockbox and the handbag inside after them.
Footsteps echoed through the tunnel—rapid, disciplined, closing fast.
"Drop your weapons and surrender the child!" a voice boomed through an acoustic bullhorn. "You have nowhere to run!"
I scrambled into the cab and slammed the heavy iron door shut, dropping the locking bar into place just as bullets began spattering against the reinforced steel like hail.
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I threw myself into the engineer's seat. The dashboard was a maze of brass levers, pneumatic gauges, and heavy electrical switches. Beside the master throttle, a single brass key was already inserted into the ignition cylinder, tied with a familiar red silk ribbon from Clara’s mother’s vanity table.
"Hold on to something!" I roared, grabbing the massive cast-iron throttle lever and shoving it forward with all the weight of my body.
