Read Online Liberation (I Am Margaret Book 3) by Corinna Turner - Free Book Online
Authors: Corinna Turner
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other end of the train. Sister Krayj was here for her shooting abilities, like me. She was the only other girl. Woman. About Father Mark’s age, she clearly had a similar history. One of the criteria for the selection of everyone else had been their ability to shift a large amount of stuff in a very short time. Bane, recently recovered from starvation and a sprained arm, was sensibly watching and overseeing from the roof of the middle carriage – no doubt hating not being able to help.
I glanced at the thing in my hand. A green light glowed steadily. All phone transmissions in a five hundred metre radius were still jammed. Red, Green, Snail and Bumblebee raced past below me, towards the loot, having faked the train’s passage through the signal sensor. As far as EuroTrac knew, the train was simply running about thirty seconds late.
The other guys were already getting to work, four to each locked metal crate – designed for fork lift trucks, of course – their grunts of exertion were audible even over all the engines. How many of the things were there in each carriage? Carla said to allow one truck per half carriage. But we’d only half an hour, then we were leaving, ‘cause that’s how long before the train was due at the next signals – and the next sensor. We wanted to be long gone before the search party arrived, since it would probably be in the form of a helicopter armed with air to ground missiles.
Five minutes. The light glowed green. The guys grunted.
Ten minutes. Green light still. Grunts turning to groans.
Fifteen minutes. Green light. Groans becoming moans.
Twenty minutes. Green. Gasping, whooping inhalations.
Twenty-five minutes…
“This is Little Lion, the parcels are all loaded...” Father Mark sounded like he could barely speak.
“Loaders, mount up,” ordered Bane, at once. The guys scrambled aboard the trucks, mostly into the cabs, but a few into the backs. “Okay, Pussycat, Brown Bird, in we get.”
Shoving the nonLee into my waistband and clutching the priceless jammer in my sweaty hand, with one last glance at the sleeping guards I scrambled down the ladder and ran for the trucks. Clumsy and slow in the bulletproof vest, I reached the nearest one and Bane reached out and hauled me up into the cab, just like in the practices. Well, I’d mostly climbed in by myself in the practices…
“Full check,” said Bane. Everyone signed in, postmen, postal service and sorting office. Only when everyone was accounted for, did Bane say, “Right, express delivery, let’s go.”
The drivers pulled off smoothly into an instant convoy, snaking back into the forest and heading off along a Resistance-maintained track, the trucks bouncing and jouncing. It was a three hour drive back to the port of Genoa – or rather, to a small fishing village nearby – and we needed to make it by three o’clock, or a EuroFriendly satellite would come over the boats before they reached Gozo. Camouflaged though the trucks would be, we didn’t want three boats to be observed arriving at a supposedly dusty and almost uninhabited rock.
But before that , we had to reach an abandoned railway tunnel by midnight, so we could hide from the EuroGov satellite until one o’clock. Coming up to eleven, now, so we were just about on target – no time to spare.
Jolt. Jolt. Jolt. Bounce. Jolt…
...Eerie stillness and pitch blackness. I raised a hand to my face – couldn’t see it. Silence except for two sets of breathing – one more like snoring. My head lay in someone’s lap.
“Bane?”
“Awake, Margo?”
“No, I’m sleep talking, numpty ,” I teased. “Are we in the tunnel?”
“Yep. Made it with three minutes to spare. Too close – must allow more travel time in future.”
“What time is it now?”
The phone glowed in the darkness as he took it from his pocket – our driver, ‘Boyracer’, was slumped over his steering wheel, deeply asleep.
“Twenty past twelve.”
Darkness settled over the cab
I glanced at the thing in my hand. A green light glowed steadily. All phone transmissions in a five hundred metre radius were still jammed. Red, Green, Snail and Bumblebee raced past below me, towards the loot, having faked the train’s passage through the signal sensor. As far as EuroTrac knew, the train was simply running about thirty seconds late.
The other guys were already getting to work, four to each locked metal crate – designed for fork lift trucks, of course – their grunts of exertion were audible even over all the engines. How many of the things were there in each carriage? Carla said to allow one truck per half carriage. But we’d only half an hour, then we were leaving, ‘cause that’s how long before the train was due at the next signals – and the next sensor. We wanted to be long gone before the search party arrived, since it would probably be in the form of a helicopter armed with air to ground missiles.
Five minutes. The light glowed green. The guys grunted.
Ten minutes. Green light still. Grunts turning to groans.
Fifteen minutes. Green light. Groans becoming moans.
Twenty minutes. Green. Gasping, whooping inhalations.
Twenty-five minutes…
“This is Little Lion, the parcels are all loaded...” Father Mark sounded like he could barely speak.
“Loaders, mount up,” ordered Bane, at once. The guys scrambled aboard the trucks, mostly into the cabs, but a few into the backs. “Okay, Pussycat, Brown Bird, in we get.”
Shoving the nonLee into my waistband and clutching the priceless jammer in my sweaty hand, with one last glance at the sleeping guards I scrambled down the ladder and ran for the trucks. Clumsy and slow in the bulletproof vest, I reached the nearest one and Bane reached out and hauled me up into the cab, just like in the practices. Well, I’d mostly climbed in by myself in the practices…
“Full check,” said Bane. Everyone signed in, postmen, postal service and sorting office. Only when everyone was accounted for, did Bane say, “Right, express delivery, let’s go.”
The drivers pulled off smoothly into an instant convoy, snaking back into the forest and heading off along a Resistance-maintained track, the trucks bouncing and jouncing. It was a three hour drive back to the port of Genoa – or rather, to a small fishing village nearby – and we needed to make it by three o’clock, or a EuroFriendly satellite would come over the boats before they reached Gozo. Camouflaged though the trucks would be, we didn’t want three boats to be observed arriving at a supposedly dusty and almost uninhabited rock.
But before that , we had to reach an abandoned railway tunnel by midnight, so we could hide from the EuroGov satellite until one o’clock. Coming up to eleven, now, so we were just about on target – no time to spare.
Jolt. Jolt. Jolt. Bounce. Jolt…
...Eerie stillness and pitch blackness. I raised a hand to my face – couldn’t see it. Silence except for two sets of breathing – one more like snoring. My head lay in someone’s lap.
“Bane?”
“Awake, Margo?”
“No, I’m sleep talking, numpty ,” I teased. “Are we in the tunnel?”
“Yep. Made it with three minutes to spare. Too close – must allow more travel time in future.”
“What time is it now?”
The phone glowed in the darkness as he took it from his pocket – our driver, ‘Boyracer’, was slumped over his steering wheel, deeply asleep.
“Twenty past twelve.”
Darkness settled over the cab
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