Pulling The Dragon's Tail (20 page)

Gideon’s Army had been tremendously helpful in
utilizing the information Herschel had gleaned from Wakely.
Although he had lost track of Skip after the aborted murder
attempt, he knew that was only temporary. His trip to Germany had
gone off without a hitch. He wasted no time in trying to reacquaint
himself with William, resorting instead to a stake-out followed by
a cold-blooded killing. He had smiled inwardly when he heard
Kalpana describe to Skip—a surreptitious glance at her phone
revealed no location coordinates on him—about her shock at hearing
about William. Fear was his ally. Fear meant the increased chance
of missteps and misjudgments; more opportunities that a trail would
be left to follow.

At the last stop, Kalpana had left the train and
Herschel jumped at the chance to detain her. But to his chagrin,
she was surrounded by hordes of Indians clamoring for her help to
escape the cyclone. Now he knew just how wide her reputation was
among the poor and displaced. More waiting, he thought, but
reasoned that not all his missions would go smoothly. Not
understanding the local Indian dialects had nearly left him
stranded as the train pulled away.

Now as he looked around once more, he felt
almost suffocated. An elbow of an elderly man was just inches from
his head. Kalpana sat to his right. Two young boys with dirty teeth
and stained clothing sat facing him. They studied his white skin
with a sense of intrigue, and he sensed their awe at his powerful
physique.

He closed his eyes, wishing he could pummel
these naïve youngsters—this whole nation of sinners—into
submission. But he knew that God was only directing him to one
person: Kalpana.

For another hour he tried to speak with her, but
she was constantly interrupted by her dataport phone calls and by
passengers asking questions. Additionally, she attended to several
ill passengers.

Finally, she sat back down and accepted a glass
of water from an elderly man.

“Don’t you ever rest?” He tried hard to be
empathetic but she heard the irritation.

“The needs are great. There isn’t time to
rest.”

“How do you keep up?” he asked, this time with a
hint of awe.

“You know; the gift of youthfulness. What drives
me is my love of all people. It’s what Allah wants me to do.
Doesn’t God want you to do the same?”

“Of course. The Apostle Paul commanded us to
care for the widows and children. And I’m sure that… God loves them
all. We’re to hate the sin but love the sinner.”

“I know that you got kidded about your religious
conversion at that meeting in ’32,” observed Kalpana. I think
everyone was shocked at how serious you’d become. Your faith really
did have a profound effect on you, didn’t it?”

“Yes. Jesus saved me from a depraved and wicked
lifestyle. My life as a born-again believer has given me so much.
Jesus
is
the way, the truth and the life. Like the Apostle
Paul said, the wages of sin is death. One can only come to know
salvation through Jesus Christ.”

“Of course, Islam sees that differently.”

“How did you come to leave Christianity?” His
question barely masked a sneer.

“Oh, long story Brown. I’d rather leave that to
another time. I know that many Christians talk tough about all
others going to hell if they don’t profess Jesus Christ as Lord. I
don’t accept that punitive point of view even in Islam. My position
is that I’ll help people and let God take care of those decisions.
Know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” he replied flatly.

“What I do admire about Christians is that they
still have the best relief organizations, although the Church of
Abraham comes close. Regardless of sin or sinner, my calling is to
help.”

“CHOFA?”

“Sure. I admire the tie-in between Islam,
Judaism and Christianity that CHOFA sees in the patriarch
Abraham.”

It took every ounce of strength to restrain
himself. “Yes. Abraham.” He chose his words carefully. “God always
provides, just like when God supplied a ram to Abraham instead of
sacrificing Isaac.”

“Perfect analogy,” she agreed. “God does always
provide, doesn’t He?”

Herschel managed a weak smile. “Yes. He does,”
he said with a knowing look. He reached into his pocket and felt
the comfortable coldness of a knife blade.

* * * * * *

“Skip!” voiced Dugan.

Nate woke with a start, his body prodded by a
sharp pain from Dugan’s neural code. His eyes flew open and
immediately he was accosted by a dark swirl of shadows across the
vision of his monitor glasses. It seemed that their overnight stay
in a nondescript barracks next to a military field in Reykjavík had
taken an absurd twist.

“What is this?” he demanded. Then he realized he
was witnessing a download from somebody’s dataport. He was
literally viewing someone else’s world through his or her visual
field in real time.

Two figures, amidst a background of stars,
seemed to be …fighting? No. Only one was moving with the other
lying prone and still.
Is this live?
He searched in vain in
the corners of his sight for any subtitles and for the end program
code.

The landscape he was viewing began jarring up
and down in a frenetic motion. He heard the sputtered cadence of
labored breathing. The person with whose world he was ensnared was
running toward the two dark figures!

With an astonishing speed, the distance between
them vanished. Questions for Dugan—who and what and why—disappeared
as Nate was caught up in the unfolding drama.

A moment later, the running figure slowed down,
as if pondering its next precise move. Now he was nearly upon the
two, with neither of them acknowledging this other one’s presence.
Nate noticed more distinct features coming into focus. A man,
muscular, leaned over a…woman. Momentarily she was shaded from
view. But then a clear stream of moonlight broke through a cloud.
The man bent over her and reached into his pocket. The woman’s face
became clearly illuminated.

Kalpana!

* * * * * *

Cyclone Frederick’s wrath bore down on the
train. The wind, already a focus of attention from the mass of
passengers, buffeted them even more ferociously. Small children
clung to their mothers, eyes mirrored with fear. And everyone,
noted Herschel, seemed to turn to Kalpana Kashmir for
assurance.

Via walkie talkie she contacted the conductor;
Cyclone Frederick had changed direction and intensity. While
everyone was glad to get out of their coastal towns for the safety
of higher ground farther north, now in order to reach safety, they
needed to knife through the middle of the eastern quadrant of the
storm. As if to punctuate its point, Frederick roared even louder,
rain flailing madly against the windows in a cacophonous fury.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re okay, Brown. The cyclone has strengthened
and turned slightly towards us. That means we must push through the
edge of it.” With an air of authority that was borne of working
many years helping the needy of India, she stood up. In Hindi and
Farsi and English she told them about Frederick’s strengthening and
directional change.

Worried mumbling gradually dropped from a fever
pitch to a low murmur. Just as she was about to resume her seat,
she received a message from the conductor in her ear. “What?” she
gasped. “The track? No!”

All human voices stopped in unison, and the
passengers peered at Kalpana, pondering what they had heard. Now
the floodgates of fear opened wide, and not even Kalpana Kashmir
could close their mighty doors.

“The train track? What’s going on? Is the track
okay?” Beseeching prayers to Vishnu and to Allah reverberated
upward.

Kalpana appeared frozen herself, not by fear but
by indecision. Sitting down, she glanced at all those seated close
by. For just a moment the words she sought to speak seemed frozen
on her lips.

”SEAT BELTS! EVERYONE GET YOUR SEATBELTS ON!
HOLD ON TO YOUR CHILDREN!”

In an instant, all aboard knew their predicament
and perhaps even their fate. India was a vast subcontinent home to
train riders…and railways…and natural disasters…and massive deaths.
Herschel Hatton never forgot the screaming of their one collective
breath.

Positioned a half-kilometer inland, the train
track was no match for the storm surge. The dark, stormy night had
concealed the approaching angry, wind-whipped water. It poured over
the track, overwhelming the kilometer-long train. The train cars
tipped slowly sideways, and for a sickening moment seemed suspended
and unmoving. Instinctively, many passengers rushed to the left
side, hoping to stabilize the car with their added weight. Herschel
wisely kept his seat belt on.

“We’ll be fine!” yelled Kalpana. “The water is
tipping us over. Please keep your seatbelts on! The car will come
to rest on its side. Stay calm, everyone!”

But the capricious storm surge had picked the
most vulnerable spot of track. A lake lie to the east about thirty
meters down a steep wooded hill. It was as if a slow rolling
bowling ball had connected dead-on with its target; the train a
victim of a perfect strike.

Occupants scrambled to get back to their seats.
A screaming baby was wrenched away from its mother and sent flying
through the air as the train car came to rest on its side. Kalpana
uncoupled her belt and lunged for the helpless infant, but was
unable to grab the child.

The car hit the hillside with a thud that shook
the entire compartment. But instead of coming to rest, the train
car continued careening over and over down the hillside, and ever
closer to the lake.

Metal hissed and groaned and buckled and
cracked. Bodies rolled over bodies again and again and again, some
hurtling past Herschel while others slammed into his body. The
cacophony of screams interspersed with sickening thuds, as bodies
crashed into the walls… and ceiling …and floor. The seatbelt
anchored Herschel firmly until the buckle broke as the last
terrific tumble of the train jerked him upward. He was thrown
against a window, and then tumbled onto the mass of humanity as the
car finally completed its raucous journey to the shore of the
lake.

Herschel’s left side throbbed as he struggled to
stand. Groans of agony filled his ears as the passenger car lay on
its right side. Given the hundreds of occupants and the relative
absence of screams, he deduced the awful truth.

Thank you Lord Jesus for your providence!
he thought with wonder. But had the Lord also taken care of
Kalpana? In the dim light he searched for her, turning over
mangled, bloodied bodies. There she was! A quick check of her pulse
revealed a regular heartbeat and no apparent serious wounds. In
fact, there were no external injuries at all. He marveled at her
survivability.

Should I finish the job?
he wondered
.
Lord, what would you have me do?
Almost immediately, the answer
came. Water broke through the front door of the train car. A voice
from somewhere yelled in desperation.

Herschel leaped up, stumbling over bodies and
twisted seats, using the side of the right passenger seats as
steps. He found the emergency window exit, situated above him. He
reached up and with all his strength pushed against it. It groaned
open and he was instantly greeted by a face full of Cyclone
Frederick.

A strong, bony hand grabbed his pants leg, and
tugged him back inside the compartment. A frail elderly man, his
left wrist dangling and broken, stared at Herschel. “You must help
us!” he said in broken English, blood oozing from the corner of his
mouth. The man’s face and clothes were bloodied. He began to bark
orders to the half dozen able-bodied male survivors. A moment
later, from the rear came the cry, “It’s Ms. Kashmir! She’s
alive!”

Herschel cringed, but assisted in bringing
several people next to the front of the train car. Kalpana was laid
down near him and momentarily stirred. His mind whirred with
possibilities.

He continued to follow the directions of the
elderly man, who was now ordering the helpers to bring the
survivors up and outside through the emergency window. It was a
race against time; water rapidly began filling the car. Beaten and
bloodied bodies began floating by, impeding their efforts to save
the living.

A chain of helpers was organized by the elderly
man. Herschel was designated as the one to lift the bodies up to
those waiting up top in the deluge. The choice was stark and clear;
stay inside and drown, or go out in the elements and hopefully
survive.

As the last injured person was lifted out, he
assisted the other helpers to exit. Then he hoisted himself up. In
the pelting rain he looked around him. He bent sharply over to
maintain balance against the cyclone-force winds. Thunder and
lightning crackled, illuminating the true extent of their dilemma.
The wall of storm surge had pushed the train car farther out into
the lake—and it was sinking into the lake.

Suddenly the train car dipped into the water and
disappeared. Everyone was either swimming or screaming in
desperation. Panicking people lunged for Herschel. He met their
actions with equally vicious kicks, knowing they could cost him his
life. “STAY AWAY!” he yelled.

Two people lunged at him from behind, pulling
him under the water. Wind-fed waves washed over him. He swallowed
putrid tasting water. The more he fought, the harder they fought to
use him as a life raft. His energy spent, he slipped underneath the
water. He strained to hold his breath and rid himself of the
unwelcome load. Finally, he was free, but disoriented by the
penetrating darkness as to which direction the surface lay.

He was losing consciousness as death squeezed
out the remaining air from his lungs. Then a lithe, brown hand
cradled an emergency air-breather against his lungs.