Chapter 28 - The Ghost Train to O'Hare
Back in the darkness beneath St. Jude's, Mara’s hands were slick with warm blood as she guided the baby into the world.
"Push, Clara! One more push!" Mara commanded, tears burning in her eyes as she held her hands steady beneath the beam of Vance’s tactical flashlight. "I see the shoulders! Come on, sister! Push for Lily! Push for your life!"
Clara arched her back with a primal, earth-shattering scream that reverberated through the iron bones of the city.
With a final, desperate surge of strength, the baby slid into Mara’s arms.
The basement went dead silent.
Mara quickly cleared the infant’s airway with a suction bulb, her heart in her throat. For three agonizing seconds, there was nothing. No sound. No movement.
Then, a sharp, indignant wail cut through the subterranean damp.
*Waaaah!*
"It’s a boy," Mara whispered, a sob of pure relief breaking through her battle-hardened composure. "Clara... he’s here. He’s breathing. He’s perfect."
Clara collapsed back onto the gurney, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks, reaching out with trembling arms. Mara gently laid the warm, crying bundle onto Clara’s bare chest, wrapping them both in a sterile thermal blanket. The baby immediately quieted, nuzzling against his mother’s skin.
"Look at him..." Clara wept. "Look at him, Mara..."
"We have to move," Vance interrupted, his voice laced with dread as he pointed toward the tunnel entrance. "Listen."
A distant, metallic roar was echoing down the tracks. Not footsteps. A heavy, rumbling engine.
"What is that?" Mara asked, tying off the umbilical cord and sterilizing her hands.
"An underground maintenance railcar," Vance said, checking his revolver. "Sterling's people hijacked a CTA service train from the Dearborn subway. They’re scouring every spur between here and the lake. They're boxing us in."
"There’s an abandoned spur that connects to the old postal rail line heading northwest," Mara said, thinking rapidly. "It runs straight toward the Blue Line bypass toward O'Hare Airport. If we can get Clara and the baby onto a hand-pump cart or hotwire a maintenance trolley, we can outrun them underground."
"I found a diesel utility tractor three hundred yards down the northern spur," Vance said. "It has half a tank of fuel. But we’ll have to run the gauntlet."
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Mara strapped the titanium drive back into her tactical pack, hoisted Clara into a transport chair, and handed the newborn baby wrapped tightly to Clara’s breast.
"Vance, take point," Mara ordered, racking the slide on her rifle. "If anything moves in front of us that doesn't have a badge or a Bennett face, put it in the dirt."
