Buck?â
The lead firefighter shook his head. He tried to grab Bolanâs arm to stop him, but the warrior was not to be deterred so easily. He broke the grip and ran back. The wall of voracious flame he had breached before was gone now, moving on with a speed that amazed him. He swiped at his goggles, removing a thin sheen of soot that had kept him from seeing Buck limping along. The firefighterâs right leg refused to bear his weight. If he kept hopping that way, he would never get to safety.
In a flash, Bolan got to the firefighterâs side and slipped an arm around him to lend some support.
âYouâre some kind of madman,â Buck grated out. âNobodyâs paying you to look after me. Hell, theyâre not even paying me that much. Iâm a volunteer, like the rest of my team.â
Bolan steered Buck off at an angle, goaded by the increasing heat at his back. They finally reached the creek and sloshed into it.
âWhereâre the others? Where are they?â
âGet down into the water,â Bolan ordered. He shoved Buck to a sitting position. âTheyâre a bit farther upstream.â
âYou saved Lee? Lee Masterson?â
Bolan immersed himself in the stream and felt every burn and blister on his body turn to ice as the water washed over him. He still had to use his respirator to breathe, but the fire now ran parallel to the stream.
âWeâre gonna make it,â Buck said. âYou saved me.â
âYouâd have made it on your own.â
âDonât be so sure of that. I think my legâs broken from a spill I took. If it turned into a compound break, thereâs no way I could have made it to safety. Hell, I couldnât have made it to the railroad tracks, much less here.â
âRailroad?â
âThereâs one that runs parallel to the stream, a mile farther downhill,â Buck said. âBut what goodâre train tracks? Theyâve cleared the regular traffic just to be on the safe side. I wish we could get supplies sent by train.â Buck closed his eyes and choked back his pain. Talking kept his mind off his injury. âEven then, the higher-ups donât like to depend on trains. The heat can actually melt the tracks and warp the rails. Then weâd have a derailment as well as a fire to deal with.â
âClear the traffic? There was a train that came by recently?â
Buck moaned softly as he clutched his leg.
Bolan rummaged through the firefighterâs pack and found a morphine syringe. He expertly opened the ampule, then injected the drug directly into the injured leg.
âBurns. Never had a shot like that before.â
âYouâll get sleepy in a minute. What about the train?â
âTracks,â Buck said in a weak voice. âDonât know the schedule but the boss said they had to get one out of the way âfore we could move in equipment. Equipment. Needâ¦â Buck drifted off to a troubled sleep, but the pain was bearable for him now, thanks to the narcotic.
Bolan made sure Buckâs head would remain above the water, then yelled for the other firefighters. When he saw the bright yellow jacket with the orange stripes splashing downstream toward them, he knew Buck would be all right. The fire team leader had recovered and would provide needed guidance for the rest of his men.
Bolan left before the fire team leader reached them to ask questions better left unanswered. He made his way in the direction Buck had indicated and saw the railroad tracks.
This was how the mercenaries had gotten the heavy gold away from the area, with little risk they would be found out. Where did they ship it? Like a hunting dog on a scent, the Executioner went to the train tracks and began walking. His mission was just beginning.
4
The Executioner reached a switching juncture in the railroad tracks. From what he could tell, one went due west toward Oregon and the Pacific coast while the other angled to the southwest. If the mercenaries had loaded their stolen gold onto a train, it could have gone in either direction. It was time for him to get some help.
Bolan fiddled with his satellite phone a bit and finally got a connection to Stony Man Farm. Kurtzman came online immediately.
âGood to hear from you, Striker.â
âThe gold was trucked to a railroad spur, loaded on a freight car and itâs on its way out of Idaho. Did it go west or southwest?â
âWeâve been looking into this,â Kurtzman responded. âAll the fires preceding gold thefts were set near rail lines.â
âThatâs how they get the gold away. Where do they take it?â
âWeâre working on that.â Kurtzman sounded distant. Bolan knew he was juggling intel input from a half-dozen different sources. That didnât make waiting any easier. He kept hiking along the tracks, choosing the line going to the southwest for no good reason other than it felt right. His survival instincts had been honed to perfection over the years, and he had learned to rely on his gut to find what others couldnât.
âThereâs a new fire,â Kurtzman said.
âI almost got caught in it. They blew up the truck they used to move the gold from the mine to cover their tracks.â
âUnless youâre in western Nevada watching the forests in Pine Grove along the California border go up in smoke, weâre talking about a different fire.â
âWhat gold mine is near the new fire?â
âThe burn started outside the town of Hawthorne. There are two major gold producers there, but only one has a railroad line not owned by the mining company running alongside its property.â
âHow long has the fire been burning?â
âWe got a satellite view almost immediately. Lots of satellite recon resources are being retasked to watch the western states because of this. The fire hasnât been burning longer than a half hour.â
âCheck the tracks for moving freight trains. Watch for offloading and determine their destinations.â
âItâs being done as you speak, Striker. Only one train meets all the criteria,â Kurtzman said. âIts destination is Oakland, California. From the manifest, it carries container shipments headed for overseas ports. Made in America.â
Bolan said wryly, âStolen in the U.S. is more like it. I need transport to the Oakland shipyard.â
âThereâs a problem with transport, Striker,â Kurtzman said. âThe V-22 returned to its home base after you left so precipitously. Everything else is tied up fighting the fires. We canât even get
