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Captain LeHavre always told him not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This would be as good an opportunity as they would get with this train.
Valentine looked again at the young officer, wondered why someone hardened by experience wasn't on this trip. Maybe he was fresh out of some New Universal Church leadership academy, telling himself that this winnowing, distasteful in the particular, helped the species in general.
Tough luck kid.
"Give the strike signal," Valentine said. "Glass, have the Grogs hit the engine first, then the caboose."
Patel rose and made a noise like a startled wild turkey.
Rutherford and DuSable shoved the newspapers in their vests, reaching for the small, cylindrical grenades that hung within.
Glass made a face, but patted Ford on the shoulder and pointed at the engine. He and Chevy swung their .50 and aimed.
"Open fire," Valentine said.
The .50 chattered out its lethal chukka-chukka-chukka rattle. The glass of the cupola turned to spiderwebbing and blood.
Crow froze up. One good shove and he could have sent the young officer headfirst into the gorge. Valentine silently implored him to move, but he ducked down at the gunfire.
Another of Valentine's men in gray denim, a thick-armed ex-motorcycle cavalry named Salazar, raised a shovel and bashed the adjutant with it as Crow still gaped. The soldier didn't have time to make sure of the adjutant, for the lieutenant had his pistol out. The flat of the shovel caught the lieutenant under the chin, tumbling him into the gorge.
Two hammering bangs, less than a second apart, sounded from the armored caboose.
Plumes of dust spouted up from the ventilators on the roof of the caboose. Rutherford and DuSable crawled like fast-moving snakes toward the front of the train, sheltering next to the wheels of the boxcars, where the men in the caboose couldn't bring their mounted weapons to bear.
The Grogs shifted their .50 to the armored caboose, emptying the rest of the box of ammunition, punching holes around the firing slits.
"Third platoon, covering positions," Valentine told signals, who spoke into his walkie-talkie, shielding the receiver with his palm. "Second platoon: Forward!" Valentine shouted over the firing.
They'd done it, and done it well, dozens of times in training. Now it was for keeps.
"Check fire," Patel roared, as a soldier paused to blast the caboose. "Check before you shoot. There are friendlies down there."
They did it well, moving all at once at a rush. Third platoon, higher on the hillside, moved forward to the prepared positions.
Valentine, half sliding down the steep hillside nearest the cut, landed and glanced at the front of the train. One of his men was already inside the engine compartment, waving off additional fire. At the bridge, there was nothing to see but Crow, kneeling beside the soldier who'd clobbered the lieutenant with the shovel, a bloody pistol in his hand.
Bee loped after him, one of her sawed-off shotguns in one hand and an assault rifle in the other, moving forward like a fencer with the assault rifle pointed at the caboose, the shotgun held up and back.
"Get Cabbage over to Crow," Valentine ordered as he approached the caboose. "He's not calling man down but I think Salazar is hurt."
Cabbage was the company medic, when he wasn't assisting the cook. Formerly a demi-doc in the KZ, he'd gotten sick of signing unfitness certifications.
"Cover the cars until we know for sure what's inside," Valentine told Patel.
People were shouting for help from inside the boxcars. Valentine looked beneath the cars, searching for explosives. He'd heard of the Kurians sending decoy trains lined with plastic explosive and claymore mines to take out guerrillas when someone hit the kill switch. This didn't look to be that kind of train, but it was best to make sure.
No sign of strange wiring leading from the caboose.
Valentine looked through one of the bullet holes into the armored caboose, saw a twitching foot. Rutherford slunk up beside him.
"I'm going in," Valentine said.
"Let me go first, sir," Rutherford said.
Valentine noticed blood running down from his forehead, already-caking into cherry flakes.
"Rutherford, you wounded?"
