Common sense took hold, and he decided to pull away from the area and move on to his new life. Then fate intervened. He couldn’t believe his luck when across the street he saw the door from the lobby to Thomas Brothers blast open and his former associate Ted Marshall stumble into the street in a complete daze. Marshall looked up and across the street as if he wanted to cross. This appeared so easy it could be a trap.
Katazin decided he needed to take his shot.
43
Katazin couldn’t believe how easy this was. One thing he had learned was that you must take advantage of luck. Fate had thrown a loose end in front of him, and he decided to take what he could. He gunned the engine of the BMW, pulling away from the curb with the screech of his tires. Marshall was oblivious as he stumbled across the street. Katazin didn’t even have to steer into him. A smile crept over his face as the car made violent and direct contact with the money manager’s body. Marshall was lifted into the air and bounced off the passenger side of the roof, landing on the ground in a heap.
Katazin casually glanced into the rearview mirror to see the lifeless body lying in the middle of the road. He wouldn’t be giving any information to the FBI. One less loose end to worry about.
He kept his foot on the gas as he accelerated away from Thomas Brothers Financial. A few blocks later he slowed the car to a reasonable speed and decided he would head on to Philadelphia, where there was a safe house, and await his next instructions. He’d ditch the car once he was away from the city and find something in Jersey he could use. The contacts in Philadelphia would provide him with another car and the proper paperwork he’d need to blend in as just another immigrant to the sprawling U.S.
Maybe he would even get to see his daughter again one day. Maybe he would even run into Derek Walsh.
Katazin turned up the radio as he listened to the somber voice of the U.S. newscaster giving as much detail as he knew about the first U.S. engagement with Russian troops in Estonia.
He knew he had done all he could as a patriot.
In Estonia, Bill Shepherd and his men had reached the railroad tracks. Shepherd looked at his man with engineering experience and said, “What’s the best way to knock the train off the tracks?”
The young sergeant said, “You mean the train coming this way right now? I don’t know that we can. It’s only a minute away.”
“How do we do it?” Shepherd had no time to waste.
The sergeant said, “I guess if we placed the C-4 under the tracks and blew them just as the train arrived, we could at least derail a car or two. Any break in the line could have catastrophic effects as the train rolls forward.”
“I like the plan and the chances. Let’s go.”
They had no shovels or equipment. Their mission was to hit and run and stay as safe as possible. But Shepherd realized what an opportunity this was. He reached down with his bare hands and started to pull away the rocks and sod next to the track. His example encouraged the others, and suddenly all of the men were digging frantically with their hands.
Now Shepherd could feel the vibration in the track as the train got closer. His fingers started to bleed from digging into the ground with his bare hands.
The sergeant prepared a charge of C-4 as Shepherd yelled to the others, “Take cover back over the hill. Do it now.” He stayed with the man as he set the charge, and then they both dropped back quickly. They were using ancient Estonian det cord to trigger the C-4 and had to unspool it as they backed away.
Shepherd knew the train engineer had seen them and was already trying to slow the momentum of the train. He could see how long the train stretched into the distance and that it carried everything on a mixture of flatbeds and boxcars.
They ran out of cord a hundred feet from the tracks. Shepherd turned to the sergeant and said, “Join the other men. Hand me the detonator.” He took the simple electronic device and made sure the sergeant was secure behind the hill. When the train was directly in front of him, on top of the charges they had set, Shepherd pushed the button on the detonator.
He prayed that there was enough explosive to cause at least some damage. Suddenly he saw the flash and heard a tremendous crack roll across the ground. The explosion wasn’t enough to lift the train off the ground, but it wobbled. And as it wobbled farther down the track, the wobble became more pronounced. Then the engine jumped the tracks and tipped over on its side, sliding in the endless field of grass.
Shepherd couldn’t believe their good fortune. Then he realized the cars behind the engine were starting to pop off the track as well. He looked down the line of cars and realized momentum was still carrying them forward and he was in their path.
He turned and started to run over the hill, feeling the ground shudder under the weight and force of the derailing train. One of the boxcars was now skidding across the dirt directly toward him. He leapt as hard as he could off the top of a low hill, then covered his head with his hands as he hit the ground.
He could see the shadow of the boxcar block out the sun as it came to a stop on the edge of the hill directly above him.
They had done a lot more than just slow down the train.
Walsh and the FBI agent had figured out the only place Marshall could have gone was through the front door squirreled away in the corner of the lobby. As soon as they found themselves outside, Walsh heard the sound of an accelerating vehicle, but his eyes were drawn to the body in the middle of the road.
Both men rushed to the still figure of Ted Marshall. His right leg was twisted behind him at a sickening angle from the hip. His forehead was split open, and clear fluid was leaking onto the ground.
Martin searched for a pulse in his neck but quickly determined the man was dead. Then he turned and looked at Walsh and said, “I guess this is the day where car accidents really help me out.”
Walsh understood exactly what the FBI agent was talking about.
He had a feeling his ordeal was finally over.
44
Bill Shepherd entered the fortified old farmhouse that stood behind the front line that had been established from Tartu to Parnu in the western area of Estonia and held firm for the past two weeks. Inside the farmhouse, the main room was used as a briefing hall, and the smaller bedrooms off to the side had been turned into offices. The U.S. government had paid the owners a fortune in rent. The alternative was to stay in a building that could be on the front lines of the major shooting war between Russia and NATO.
Shepherd stood in the back, as he did almost every day, and let the more senior officers each take one of the twenty chairs lined up in front of a giant, 60-inch screen that showed everything from snippets of war footage and news coverage to detailed maps of different areas. The first few days of these briefings had been tense, with officers itching to get back out to their units, thinking there would be Russians to kill. But the political posturing between all the countries involved had stalled any immediate violence, and now, almost two weeks after the first shots were fired, there was not much more than a few skirmishes here and there, with no NATO casualties in more than four days.
Today, a stubby army general had flown in from Washington to give them a quick overview and fill in the gaps on what led to the current stalemate. Shepherd appreciated that the command staff wanted to keep them all informed and shut down as many rumors as possible. But where the military was involved and soldiers could communicate, there would always be rumors.
The general covered their deployment, saying, “It’s our opinion that the destruction of a supply train on the first day and NATO air power surprised the Russians and that shock slowed them to a complete standstill on the second day. There’s still no official truce, but they have not been building their forces the way we would expect if they intend to push on.” Then he looked directly at Shepherd, who was standing next to his commanding officer. The general said, “The marine units that deployed before army armor got into position on the very first day did a great job on the front line. Everything the Russians had was focused on air defense. The units of marines, working with Estonia Defense Force members, armed with their Man-PADS and other easily maneuverable portable weapons, did wonders. They may even have given us a blueprint for any future conflict. They knocked out a train carrying vital supplies, and that forced the Russians to reconsider their plans.”