"An antique automobile," Pitt answered. "Pull open the door to the firebox. I need some light to read the gauges."
Gunn did as he was asked and held out his hands to warm them from the flames leaping through the opening. "You better figure it out quick,"
he said impatiently. "We're lit up like a Las Vegas chorus line."
Pitt pulled down a long lever and the little engine slipped forward a scant centimeter. "Okay, that's the brake. I think I've figured what handle does what. Now, when we roll past the crushing mill, jump and hustle inside."
"What about the train?"
"The Cannonball Express," Pitt replied with a wide grin, "does not make stops."
Pitt released the ratchet on the forward-reverse lever and pushed it away from him. Next he squeezed the ratchet on the throttle bar and eased it open. The locomotive crept slowly ahead, accompanied by the clanging jerk of the coupled ore cars. He shoved the throttle to its stop. The drive wheels whirled full circle several times before they bit the rusty rails. The train lurched forward and got underway.
The labored puffing came in faster spurts as the little engine picked up speed and chugged by the front of the dining hall. The door opened and a hijacker leaned out and raised a hand as if to wave. He snapped it back down when he saw the two bodies leaning from the cab's side windows. He disappeared into the building as if jerked by an immense nibber band, wildly shouting a warning.
Pitt and Gunn both unleashed a blast of gunfire through the windows and door of the building. Then the engine was past and heading toward the crushing mill. Pitt glanced at the ground and judged the speed to be somewhere between fifteen and twenty kilometers.
Pitt pulled the overhead whistle lever and tied it down with a drawstring from inside his ski jacket. The spurt of steam through the brass whistle cut the air like a razor "Get ready to jump," he yelled at Gunn above the ear-splitting scream.
Gunn didn't reply. He stared at the rough gravel flashing past as though it were hurtling by at jet speed a thousand meters below.
"Now!" shouted Pitt.
They hit the ground on the run, skidding and sliding but somehow managing to keep their footing, There was no hesitation, no pause to catch their breath. They ran alongside the train and straight up the steps of the crushing-mill's stairs, and didn't stop until they both stumbled, then tripped over the threshold and crashed to the floor inside.
The first thing Pitt saw was Giordino standing above him, unconcernedly holding his machine gun in a muzzle-up position.
"I've seen you kicked out of some pretty raunchy pubs," Giordino said in a dour voice, "but this is the first time I've ever seen YOU tossed off a train."
"No great loss," said Pitt, coming to his feet. "It didn't have a club car."
The gunfire. Yours or theirs?"
"Ours.
"Company on the way?"
"Like mad hornets out of a vandalized nest," replied pitt. "We don't have much time to prepare for a siege."
"They'd better be careful where they aim or their helicopter might get broken."
"An advantage we'll play to the hilt."
Findley had finished tying the guard and the two mechanics together in the center of the floor, and he stood up. "where do you want them?"
"They're as safe as anywhere there on the floor," answered Pitt. He looked swiftly around at the cavernous interior of the building with the crushing mill squatting in the center. "Al, you and Findley grab whatever equipment or furniture you can lift and convert the ore crusher into a fort. Rudi and I will delay them as long as we can."
"A fort within a fort," said Findley.
"It would take twenty men to defend a building this big," Pitt explained. "The hijackers' only hope of capturing their helicopter intact is to blow the main door and rush us en masse. We'll pick off as many as we can from the windows and then retreat to the mill for a last-ditch defense."
"Now I can sympathize with Davy Crockett at the Alamo," moaned Giordino.
Findley and GiordinO began fortifying the huge building while Pitt and Gunn set up shop at windows on opposite corners of the building. The sun was beginning to cast its rays over the slopes on the other side of the mountain. Darkness was almost gone.
Pitt could feel the wave of anxiety that washed through his mind. They might prevent the Arabs who were rapidly surrounding the crushing null from escaping, but if the hijackers on the ship eluded the Special Forces teams and made a run for the mine, he and his pitiful little force would be overwhelmed.
He looked darkly out the window at the little engine as it roared down the track on its final run, picking up momentum with every Turn of its drive wheels. Sparks belched from the stack as a long plume of smoke trailed sideways, driven by a flanking wind. The ore cars rattled and swayed on the narrow rails. The sound of the whistle turned from a shrill shriek to the mournful wail of a lost soul in hell as the train hurtled into the distance.
The shock and disappointment showed clearly in Ammar's eyes when he realized the glacial front was not about to fall. He whirled to face Ibn.
"What went wrong?" he demanded, his voice ragged with growing anger.
"There should have been a chain of explosions."
Ibn's face was like stone. "You know me well, Suleiman Aziz-I do not make mistakes. The explosives should have detonated. The commando team we saw drop from the glacier to the ship must have found and disarmed most of them."
Ammar stared briefly at the sky, threw up his hands and let them drop again. "Allah weaves strange patterns into our lives," he said philosophically. Then a slow smile spread across his lips. "The glacier may fall yet. Once our helicopter is airborne, we can make a pass and drop grenades into the ice fracture. "
Ibn matched Ammar's smile. "Allah has not deserted us he said reverently. "Do not forget, we are safe here on sho while the Mexicans have inherited the job of fighting the Americans. "
"Yes, you're right, old friend, we're in Allah's debt for our well-timed deliverance." Ammar stared contemptuously at the ship. "We'll soon see if Captain Machado's Aztec gods can protect him."
"He was a maggot, that one ' Suddenly Ibn stopped and cocked an ear, then gazed up the mountain slope. "Gunfire, coming from the mine."
Ammar listened, but he heard something else-the distant cry of the locomotive's whistle. The sound was continuous and grew louder. Then he saw the plume of smoke and watched in sudden puzzlement as the train shot down the mountainside, careening wildly on the curving switchbacks before barreling across a long, straight stretch toward the pier.
"What are those fools doing?" Ammar gasped as he saw the train thundering wildly down the track, heard the whistle filling the predawn with its high-pitched scream.
The hijackers and their hostages were not prepared for the incredible spectacle now avalanching upon them like a monster on a rampage. They stood petrified in disbelieving fascination.
"Allah save us!" a man uttered in a hoarse voice.
"Save yourself!" Ibn snapped. He was the first to recover, and he began shouting for everyone to clear the tracks. There was bedlam as everyone scattered away from the rails just as the ore cars, pulled by the out-of-control little engine, her drive rods whipping in blurred motion, shot onto the pier.
The wooden pilings and flooring shuddered at the sudden onslaught. The tail-end ore car bounced off the tracks but, held by its coupling, was dragged like a screaming, unruly child by his ear across the tarred planking. Clouds of sparks sprayed as the steel wheels clattered against the rails. Then the engine ran out of track and soared off the end of the pier.
The train seemed to arc through the air for an instant in slow motion before the engine finally dropped and dived into the fiord.
Miraculously, the boiler failed to explode when its heated walls met the icy water. The engine vanished with a great hiss and a cloud of steam, followed by a loud grinding of to metal as the ore cars piled in on top of each other.