The cast-iron vestibule door rattled like a machine gun as Julian Vance kicked the release latch open and lunged into the gale.
The roaring draft between Car Two and Car Three hit him like a frozen fist. Freezing tunnel air saturated with sulfur smoke, flying ballast grit, and pulverized quicklime tore at his clerk jacket, whipping his tie across his collarbone.
Behind him, inside the relative shelter of Car Three, Elena Rostov clamped both hands onto Clara’s cot, her knuckles bloodless. Beside her, Lin Mei hugged the Casio register against her chest, her back pressed hard against the steel bulkhead.
“Mac!” Julian shouted over the thunder of the trucks. “The hand-brake staff on the right bulkhead! Take the chain!”
Marcus Cole came through the door right behind Julian, his heavy work boots skidding across the frosted steel treadplates.
The front platform of Car Three was bucking violently. Every uneven joint in the sixty-pound rails sent a concussive shock through the vestibule floor, trying to heave a man straight over the safety chains into the dark pit between the cars. The wind whistled through the gaps in the accordion bellows like an angry factory horn.
Mounted against the end wall of Car Three was a heavy, spoked cast-iron wheel -- the 1968 Budd Mechanical Hand-Brake.
