Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,71

second time. So they walked back one car and went down the corridor until they found the Pullman compartment with the right number. Inside, they could hear the Three Stooges talking in German to one another. Probably scheming how they were going to accost Jackie in her compartment.

Gun in hand, Emiliano looked at Jackie and asked if she was ready. Dynamite stick in hand, Jackie nodded. Emiliano knocked on the compartment door.

“Who is it?” one of the Stooges asked.

“Es el conductor del tren,” Emiliano replied, followed by “Please open the door.” The door opened slightly, and Jackie could see that whoever was on the other side was giving Emiliano the once-over to make sure that he was really the conductor.

The door opened wider, and Emiliano, gun drawn, forced his way into the compartment, with Jackie right on his heels. The Stooges were as surprised as the Mambo King had been at the sight of the dynamite stick in Jackie’s hand. Less than fifteen minutes later, the fugitive couple reemerged from the compartment, having perfected their drill.

They quickly walked down the corridor toward the back of the car. Emiliano removed the conductor’s uniform, which he was wearing over his own clothes, neatly folded it, and placed it on a metal shelf. Then he led Jackie through the door and out onto the rear platform of the Pullman car. Right behind it was Colonel Sanchez’s forbidding-looking armored car, the last car on the train. A brisk breeze blew Jackie’s hair all over the place, and she was having a difficult time keeping it out of her face. Emiliano said, “We have to get off the train before it reaches Santiago de Cuba. Someone might have arranged a reception committee for us there. I know there’s a curve coming up, which will force the train to slow. That’s when we’ll make our move.

“Define ‘move.’ ”

“We’ll have to jump.”

“Jump?” Jackie asked, her voice rising to a note of terror.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve done it before.”

“You have?”

“Plenty of times. When I was a student, I couldn’t afford the price of a train ticket. So I rode the rails like a hobo.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Es verdad,” Emiliano said simply.

It was merely another facet of Emiliano’s life to add to the complex picture of him Jackie was putting together—and continuously revising—in her head.

“We had to watch out for the railroad bulls, patrolling the yards and the trains to keep hobos out. In fact, that’s how Colonel Sanchez started out, as one of those railroad bulls. He had a reputation for being the most sadistic of the lot. But when he found out that being a secret policeman paid better than being a railroad bull, he decided to change professions.

“And that’s why I’m going to take so much pleasure in doing what I’m about to do. I’ll be right back.”

And as Jackie looked helplessly on, Emiliano very carefully climbed over the railing at the rear edge of the platform and stepped down so that he was now standing on the metal tongue that ended in the knuckle coupler connecting this Pullman car to the colonel’s armored car. Jackie was scared out of her wits.

A giant metal pin held the coupler’s two halves together. With her heart in her mouth, Jackie looked on as Emiliano very carefully removed the pin in order to decouple the two cars. There was a sudden jerk as he lifted the pin free, and he almost lost his balance as the two halves of the knuckle coupler separated. But with the unexpected grace of Nijinsky, Emiliano maintained his balance, executed a neat about-face, and climbed back over the railing, almost as though he had done this kind of thing before.

Jackie watched as the distance between the two disconnected cars slowly increased with each passing second. Pretty soon, the armored car would coast to a stop, and Colonel Sanchez would find himself stuck in the middle of nowhere, with the engineer of the train being none the wiser that he had lost one of his cars.

Standing once more beside her, Emiliano said, “Too bad we won’t be around to see the look on Sanchez’s face when he realizes what has happened.”

Jackie realized that, in the space of one hour, she and Emiliano had neutralized all three groups that had been on their trail—not bad for two people who had been outnumbered and outgunned.

Suddenly, the train surged forward and Jackie was flung backward over the railing. She let out a shriek of fright that coincided with a