Easy Target by Kay Thomas Page A

the backpack, settling it on both shoulders. Taking a deep breath, he lifted her back into his arms.
    Sassy was ridiculously light, a good thing in this situation. The ground around the train track was covered with rocks, but he couldn’t take his time to pick a way through the rough terrain. He was thankful again for the full moon and thin cloud cover.
    Fires burned from the wreckage all around them and passengers moved about, some more slowly than others. At least six cars had derailed. With Sassy in his arms, he walked at a right angle to the track, putting as much distance between himself and the flames as possible. He had no idea how volatile the other cars might be. She moaned when he set her down in a field about fifty yards from the devastation.
    It was like every derailment photograph he’d ever seen with the immediacy of being there in person. The sights, the sounds, and the smells were all too real. The back of the train appeared to be untouched, while the front looked like he imagined a model train would if an angry toddler stomped on the engine then beat the front cars with a baseball bat.
    From where they stood, some pieces of the wreck were unrecognizable as part of a train. Bryan swallowed hard. He couldn’t do anything for those folks.
    “Sassy? Can you hear me?” He picked up her hand and started rubbing it between his fingers.
    It was damn cold out here, and their coats were somewhere back in that morass of twisted metal. Bryan marveled over how the tail of the train was completely stable, with cars still on the tracks. He was considering the possibility of going back for a blanket or something from one of those stable cars when a rumbling explosion detonated toward the back of the wreckage.
    Shrieking metal was drowned out by a thunderous roar as what could only be an automotive railcar was caught up in the conflagration, resulting in a small mushroom cloud. Even from fifty yards away, the concussion knocked him on his ass, jarring his back once again.
    Where the hell had that come from?
    He sat up slowly, staring at the carnage. That part of the train hadn’t even been involved in the accident. Now it was completely obliterated, just like . . .
    Jesus . It looked just like bombing attacks he’d seen in Afghanistan. Flames stretched toward the sky from the ruins, and what could only be bodies lay beside the tracks.
    What was going on? He had no idea where they were. He wasn’t even sure what time it was. He’d been cross-­eyed when they’d boarded at Richmond. The only upside was that Sassy was awake, blinking and looking at him in total bewilderment.
    “Where are we?” she asked.
    “You remember the train?”
    “Train?” She wrinkled her brow. “I remember . . .” She stopped talking. Even in the shadows he recognized her discomfort as she recalled exactly what they’d been doing before the train wreck.
    “What happened?” Her voice was flat.
    “The train derailed. Must have hit something at the crossing. Ten minutes later, the back end of the whole thing exploded.”
    And just like that, he knew this had been about them. It sounded paranoid, but no one survived doing the things he’d done in the Middle East if they didn’t consider the outrageous options. And what he was thinking was fantastically outrageous.
    Still, you weren’t paranoid if they truly were out to get you. This had to be related to the events in Africa. Otherwise, who could be this unlucky—­to board a train that derailed, then spontaneously blew to kingdom come?
    Wild, improbable thoughts swirled in his head as he looked down at Sassy. She was still trying to shake loose the cobwebs and figure out what the hell was happening, too. Her sweater was torn, her face was bleeding, and it was cold as hell.
    When he glanced down at his phone, he could see his breath on the night air. He should call Leland, but he wasn’t going to do it. Something wasn’t right.
    While he didn’t think Leland was dirty, he did