"Someone's coming this way," I say. I pull my rifle up next to me and peer back through the binoculars, seeing if I recognize the person.

Peering through the rifle scope, Artis catches a glimpse of the face. And while it noticably charred, most likely from the initial explosion...it appears to be Gregor. He's walking with a noticable limp to the left side.

Jessica watches the fight in the distance, then turns to Art.

"Your sense of diplomacy appears to be contagious."

She flashes a smile that doesn't quite spoil whether she's still bitter at him or already joking about it.

Gregor approaches the back of the train car with the waving with his hand the international sign for, Don't fucking shoot me!

Using the rifle butt of an AK-74 as a makeshift crutch, he appears to be in fairly bad shape. It looks like he took at least one in the leg and another in his upper chest. In an exasperated and labored tone, Gregor crutches his way up to the train.

"Hello friends...I'm so glad to see you all alive. You must get to Koskov before the others get him. More importantly you must get the attache' case locked away in the cargo hold of his helicopter."

"Boys, that's your domain. I'm staying here and helping Gregor. Dear, help me out here - where do you store the first aid kits ? You need a few stitches..."

Gregor looks at Jessica like a deer into headlights.

"You should find one in the compartment next to the restroom, but I must say...I could not imagine a better death having you as my last visage of life. There truly is a God."

"Who are the others, and what's in the case?" I ask, climbing down from the train and looking for ditches, scrub brush, or other terrain to hide our advance.

Jess smiles at Gregor.

"Last visage ? Not if I have any say in that."

"The others?...Well, my professional opinion is that they're definitely military. Their body armor is late model Russian, but their weaponry is definitely British. I'm guessing Enfield L85's. The piston blow-back on the ejector always gives those damn things away. Anyway, there's at least half a dozen of those guys cutting down Koskov's men as we speak. As for the case, I found that our dear General was about to sell the Uzbekistanis design specs to the latest Russian intermediate-range missle system. Fortunately, Koskov wasn't dumb enough to have the specs laying around...he had them put in a steel case and welded to the helicopter fuselage. Have you made contact with HQ? My phone was taken out in the derailment."

"Yeah, they said to find out who started the ambush. Let's go talk to some people, eh guys?"

As Jess tends to Gregor's wounds, he sits up for a minute to grab Artis' attention.

"Ermm! Easy dear...it's a bandage, not a tourniquet. Artis, along with what I got for you at the last stop, I should tell you that if you can make it to the caboose there is a small cache of hidden weapons and equipment. I keep it for situations such as this. The good news is that the box is open and should be in plain sight...the bad news is that you'll have to run the gauntlet to get to it."

Artis and Gavin head for the firefight as the rest of team stay back to nurse wounds. Jess finishes up plugging his holes with gauze and bandages and Harry tries to regain his lost equilibrium.

The ground covering the distance is pretty solid, affording an easy tread but at the cost of being perfectly flat at devoid of all cover. Artis and Gavin would be sitting ducks if it wasn't for the fact that the numerous bursts of automatic gunfire cover any noise they would be making.

They close within 50 meters of the battle. From their vantage point (not a good one, to say the least) they can make out six distinct muzzle flashes eminating from the treeline. Additionally, Gavin spots Koskov, his secretary and bodyguard spraying said treeline with intermittent automatic gunfire of their own. The Uzbekistani delegation appear to be nowhere in sight.

(OOC: ADS, I'll be sending you a revised map of the battle)

Artis spots a fairly decent path to the train caboose. Gavin picks out a good spot to cover Artis in case things get dicey.

Moving up through the wooded area surrounding the tracks, Artis tries to stay low and out of the sight of the enemy assault team (we'll call them MiB's). He gets to within 10m of the caboose when one of the MiB's (MiB1) notices in his peripheral Artis skulking towards the caboose.

Fortunately, Gavin also sees what's going on. He fires two bursts from his USP at MiB1. The first burst pock marks the neighboring trees but the second is on target. The shooter recoils slightly, his armor taking the brunt of the damage but Gavin does draw first blood.

Gavin and Artis coordinate an attack strategy. Artis will make a run for the caboose while Gavin provides cover fire.

Most of the MiBs seem to be concerned with closing in on the helicopter, but two break off and address their new targets...Gavin and Artis.

MiB1 hunkers down from Gavin's cover fire, but gets off two quick bursts from his rifle. With pinpoint accuracy, MiB1's first burst tears into Gavin's neck. The second stitches him across the midsection with most of the damage being absorbed by his kevlar and sheer toughness.

MiB2 moves towards Artis' position, firing a quick burst on the run with his rifle. The shots go wild, splintering the siding of the caboose but otherwise do no harm to Artis.

Artis then makes for the caboose's back entrance, taking appropriate measures to stay out of incoming fire.

Gavin moves towards his position, spraying suppressive fire in the direction of MiB1 and MiB2. As he moves towards the caboose, he sees that MiB2 giving visual tactical signals to the rest of the assault team.

The rest of the MiBs close in a on the helicopter as MiB1 and MiB2 converge on either side of the caboose.