In Case Of Emergency: an action-packed short story

Cormanenko

'It won't open.' The blonde train attendant was pushing the door handle down, putting all her weight into it.

'Leave it,' Cormanenko said. Into her mobile phone she said, 'How far away is the helicopter?'

'Eighteen minutes.' Noelein's voice was simultaneously urgent and lifeless. Cormanenko could picture her, pacing around her office at the Library, or studying a map with her owlish eyes. In the nine years Cormanenko had worked for her, Noelein had never once raised her voice.

'I don't have eighteen minutes,' Cormanenko said. 'Everyone on this train is in danger.'

'Your mission has changed,' Noelein told her. 'Your first priority is now to protect Senator Grigieva. Your second priority is to bring Maschenov in. Alive if possible.'

'And the other passengers?'

Predictably, Noelein was silent. A few dead civilians probably meant more money in the defence budget. But a dead senator would mean getting replaced as Chief Librarian.

Cormanenko didn't waste time arguing. She would never convince Noelein that a group of civilians were more important than one senator, just as Noelein would never convince Cormanenko that they weren't.

'I don't have eyes on Maschenov or the senator,' Cormanenko said. 'I'm trapped.'

'Not my problem. Get untrapped, agent.'

Cormanenko ended the call. She should have hung up as soon as Noelein told her the helicopter was too far away.

'We can break the door down,' the attendant said, pointing to a nearby fire extinguisher. She was surprisingly resourceful for a civilian. 'This lock is fragile. Just a single bolt. Not like the one on the driver's cabin door.'

'Maschenov is probably armed, and definitely quick,' Cormanenko said. 'If we come through that way he'll kill us, or the other passengers, or both. I need to sneak up on him.'

'We can't stop the train without him noticing,' the attendant said. 'Even if we did, there's nowhere to disembark.'

Cormanenko ran over to a mounting bracket on the wall, where there was a red plastic hammer with a steel tip. A sign said in case of emergency, break glass – although there were no windows in the antechamber. Cormanenko wrenched the hammer off the bracket and tucked it into the back of her jeans.

'Is there a knife in that food cart?' she asked. 'The bigger the better.'

The attendant handed her a table knife. It was small, but at least it was steel, and moderately sharp.

Cormanenko stabbed the rubber curtain which shielded the antechamber from the outside world. The knife sheared straight through. Freezing wind howled at the slit.

She sawed at the rubber, lengthening the hole. The deadly drop to the valley below came into view outside. Perhaps she should have cut through on the opposite side. No time now. The train was going so fast that if she fell, she'd be dead either way.

'Which seat is the senator in?' she asked, yelling to be heard over the wind.

'Eleven F,' the attendant replied.

Cormanenko didn't waste any time on goodbyes. 'Count to a hundred,' she said. 'Then try to break the door down.' She widened the gap and hauled herself through the rubber curtain, out of the train.

The icy air hit her like a fist. She clung desperately to the rubber, trying to climb up onto the roof before the wind tore her loose and sent her tumbling down to the rocks of the valley below. The outside of the curtain shuddered in her grip, but held her weight. Her fingers were already numb from the cold. She kept counting in her head.