KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set Read online

  I’m lucky diesel fuel doesn’t catch fire as easily as gasoline and none of the flaming shrapnel has directly impacted the fueling pumps, fixtures or tanks. With innocents quite possibly nearby, so far I’ve been fortunate.

  But the eight-foot-diameter, flaming steel cylinder hurling 200 feet above the train yards isn’t done — it will come down, and soon.

  What else should I expect? I mean, really — how long can I count on my luck holding out?

  The rocketing tanker is coming straight at me.

  Chapter 14

  Baby, You’re A Firework

  I have the Arctic Cat engine wrapped tight, shooting between the train-car-laden tracks that allow me only one direction of travel — directly away from the violently rocketing tank car.

  My rearview mirror is full of the huge fiery projectile as I speed toward a small shack, probably the freight car inspectors’ shanty Specks had mentioned. At fifty feet away, my intention is to shoot past the shack, then across a clear section of track to my left and out of the way of the maniacal tanker. But my right skid catches a piece of rail partially buried in the snow, and I’m thrown from my snowmobile as it vaults sideways, tumbling until it crashes into the freight cars beside me.

  I fall onto the icy snowpack and slide into the shanty’s door, knocking it down, then fly wildly over it to the middle of the small room. I land atop a table between two railroaders playing cards, and it flattens underneath me.

  The freight car inspectors’ eyes bug as they stare down at me, and the shanty roof is ripped from the walls in a fire-filled hell above us in the next second. The tank car has tumbled over us, and the small shack has been spared in the middle of the demon-possessed tanker’s bounding path.

  Eyes still popping, the three of us in the room watch as the shanty’s back wall falls away, and the feral tanker finally strikes a tall light pole, splits and stops just past it. All of us stunned, before we can react, the high, large lights and the pole they’re mounted on fall onto the collapsed wall only a couple yards away in a loud crash.

  As the smoke, dust, snow and playing cards settle, I smile at my two new acquaintances, a middle-aged woman and man, both wearing undone heavy coats and hardhats.

  “So, whatya playing, hearts or spades?” I ask.

  The woman answers, “Rummy.”

  * * *

  The large man with the yellow hardhat helped me up.

  I introduced myself, “E Z Knight,” and held out my hand.

  He shook it, as did the woman.

  “I’m Buck Shot, car inspector. And this here’s my cousin Birdie Shot.”

  I answered, “Don’t tell me, they call your dads Big and Long.”

  They glanced at each other. “How’d you know?”

  “You two had better get out of here fast.”

  “What the hell’s going on here, Mr. Knight?”

  “Some very bad people are trying to do some very bad things.”

  Birdie asked, “Say, you Doc’s son?”

  “Yeah, I’m Ethan.”

  “Glad to finally meet you,” she said, shaking my hand again. “Doc’s told us a lot about you.”

  “Yeah,” I said and smiled. “I’m sure he has.”

  I glanced down at the large man’s feet. “What size boot you wear?”

  “Fifteen. Why?” He looked at the snow, blood and ice-covered sock on my right foot.

  I wear a thirteen, but beggars can’t be choosers. I asked, “Can I buy your right boot from you? I’ll give you $500 next time I see you — and give you your boot back, too.”

  He was unlacing his footwear before I finished. “Doc’s son don’t need to pay me for nothing. Your father’s the salt of the earth as far as I’m concerned.” He handed me the boot.

  His cousin passed him a couple of socks. “Better double up. It’s pretty cold without that roof and wall.” Then she gave me a pair to replace the ice ball I was wearing.

  “Put a plastic trash bag over your foot,” I told him, and then asked, “You have a vehicle?”

  “Two buggies, a couple of Honda ATVs over there on the other side of those tracks.” He pointed past the collapsed wall.

  “Leave me one, will you? Then get away from here as fast as you can. What’s the nearest city?”

  “Slaughterhouse, the town,” Buck said tying off a white trash bag around his right foot. “It’s about three miles east. If the roads aren’t too drifted over, we should be able to make it without much trouble in the ATV. The county road graders will be out clearing the snow pretty soon now that the storm’s over, anyway.” He looked at his cousin. “But those army guys said to stay in here and keep our mouths shut. Said something top secret was going on out there. They took our radios and our cell phones, then they cut the phone lines.”

  “Radios?”

  “Yeah, you know, walkie-talkies,” Birdie said. “But we didn’t tell them we’ve got a couple more out there in the ATVs.”

  “Great,” I said, looping the last hook on the boot and tying the boot lace. “Now let’s get outa here before something bad happens.”

  That made them raise their eyebrows.

  We stepped over the smoking remains of the car inspectors’ shanty and trotted to the ATVs.

  While watching the Shots speed away, I unplugged the electric heater on my ATV and slipped inside the fabric and Plexiglas-covered cab of the small two-seater. I picked up the handheld radio and keyed the microphone as I fired the Honda buggy up and started toward the yard office. I figured it was nearly a mile away.

  “Hard Way to Sled Racer,” I said. “Come in Sled Racer.” I repeated my call twice before I got an answer.

  “Sled Racer. You okay, Hard Way?”

  “Foot’s a little cold, but okay. What’s your status?”

  “In the yard office. For now, no one’s hurt here. The bastards got me when I pulled in. You should know you got friends out there —”

  He was cut off.

  “Sled Racer, what’s going on?”

  Rillie’s voice answered. “E Z, why don’t you come in from the cold. I know how to warm you up real good. All you’re doing is getting some extremely bad folks very upset with you and freezing your sweet ass off in the meantime. You’re racking up quite a body count. The good news for us is that we don’t need all of them now — less slices of the big pie. Maybe I should be thanking you.”

  My anger fired up. “Where are my kids? Where are Doc and Mary? Don’t hurt them,” I ordered.”

  “Settle down, E Z!” Rillie said. “Everyone’s okay. They’re all safe. These people are professionals. They have no reason to hurt any of them … unless someone doesn’t start cooperating.” She paused. “E Z — that someone is you.”

  I didn’t answer, realizing the worst thing I could do is to hear her demands. If I couldn’t hear her, she couldn’t give me an ultimatum. I wouldn’t get anything useful out of Rillie, or whatever her actual name was. It would be one-sided demands from here on out.

  I stopped my ATV and opened the plastic and canvas door. In the distance, a locomotive revved and steel couplers knocked together. The mercenaries were switching cars, probably making up one hell of an explosive hazmat train for a one-way trip to Denver.

  I keyed the microphone. “This radio is no longer functioning,” I said.

  As I threw the walkie-talkie against the steel rail, I heard Rillie’s voice say, “E Z, don’t be a foo —!”

  Chapter 15

  Homeland Insecurity

  9:03 PM MST

  When I came to within sight of the yard office, I shut off the engine on my Honda ATV and coasted to a stop.

  From 500 feet away, I assessed the situation while mostly hidden between two large box cars spotted on adjacent tracks.

  In the parking lot where I’d landed with Rillie in the JetRanger earlier in the day, the big, double-rotor Chinook rested silently beside a tractor and other snow-moving equipment while guarded by eight very vigilant-looking sentries. With the wide, back r
amp down, the maw of the early-Vietnam-War-era helicopter’s cargo bay was exposed. But it was too dark to discern anything inside the huge rotorcraft’s fuselage, including my family — if they might be being held there.

  The banging of steel couplers, over and over again, reminded me a number of my adversaries were still in the yards sorting freight cars to make up the hazmat train from Hell. I had no idea how I would stop them from building the train and running it to Denver to complete its purpose, or how I would save my loved ones at the same time. I only knew I must.

  Just as I thought it’d be nice to have a little help, another helicopter about the same size as the JetRanger I’d been flying came speeding in from the east. As it drew nearer, I realized it was a Eurocopter Light Enforcement Helicopter used by Homeland Security. But it was way too small to be manned by more than a minimal force of maybe a three-man team in full battle gear.

  I shook my head. They were either ill prepared and going in as a stalling tactic on what could only be considered a suicide mission, or they were completely unaware of the enormity of the threat — perhaps in communication with the faux guardsmen, thinking they were allies in the fight.

  As the LEH slowed and began its descent 100 feet from the Chinook, a searchlight mounted under its fuselage lit up, the light playing behind the big twin rotor helo on the ground. All but one of the mercenaries behind the Chinook, dressed as National Guardsmen, waved to the security team in the Eurocopter as if greeting allies. The eighth man had ducked inside the Chinook’s dark cargo bay and was now carrying a long tube with a boxy IFF antenna, scope and firing mechanism attached. He stepped out and dropped off the side of the ramp and then knelt on the freshly cleaned pavement to steady himself.

  Even before the Homeland Security chopper touched down it was doomed, and there was nothing I could do about it. They would not hear shouts of warning. They would not see me from this angle no matter what I did to wave them off.

  The missile that shot from the Stinger, shoulder-fired weapon caused the LEH Eurocopter to explode in a bright fireball that mostly extinguished within a few seconds, leaving nothing but a blackened hulk on skids.

  I took off in the opposite direction. With the mercenaries in the parking lot, I’d have to circumnavigate the yard office in the other direction to get to the people inside. The Honda ATV I drove was extremely slow, but that was not its fault. It had obviously been rigged with a throttle governor to keep its speed below twenty. In the snow, uneven ground, and rails, that was probably a blessing.

  Over five precious minutes passed before I made it to the other side of the yard office building. The lights were bright inside, and I could see a good portion of the big room through the large picture window where Big Deal Dill Jones’ empty desk sat. Everyone in the room, including Specks, seemed to be gathered back from the window and near the door to the parking lot.

  Knowing surprise was my best option, I decided the window would be my access point. I headed out over several tracks onto a wide, elevated crossing directly in front of the large observation window.

  With the little Honda ATV throttled to its limit, I hoped I’d have enough speed to vault from the high crossing and into the big window. It was plenty low enough — if the little vehicle didn’t make it through, I knew I would when I rammed into the short wall below the glass and was ejected over the steering wheel and though the windshield.

  At twenty miles an hour, I hit the end of the elevated crossing and got air. In the same second, a man stepped up on the other side of the window with a gun in one hand pointed at a small woman he had a hold of with the other.

  I crashed through, praying without any form of guidance that my vehicle would hit the armed man more than the innocent-looking woman. It seemed the two either jumped or were slammed to the side by the collision. The ATV went sideways and tumbled over filing cabinets, office furniture and desks covered with computers. Finally coming to a rest against the front wall, I climbed out a little dizzy.

  The man with the gun was down, his face and upper torso looking more like hamburger than human. I’d obviously caught him with the front bumper and the busted window glass helped give him a new look his mother was sure to not approve of.

  The small woman stepped toward me. She’d recovered the mercenary’s firearm, an H&K, I thought. Maybe fortyish, with a painter-boy hairstyle, she wore a businesslike, dark blue pantsuit. I’m kind of attracted to older women — hell, I’m attracted to all women — and I found something oddly familiar with this one’s lovely face.

  “Good job, E Z,” she said. “You’re incredible. I don’t know how you did that without killing me too, but you did!”

  I scanned the room.

  “Don’t worry,” the woman said, “he was the only bad guy left. Rillie and the others rushed out after that chopper exploded outside. I think they’re getting pretty close to high-balling out of here.”

  “Chic?” I asked. I had to go back over my sexually slanted thoughts over the past few seconds of this man when I thought he was a woman. I erased them from a virtual marker board in my mind before I caught myself getting some kind of man-love going. I didn’t need that. I had enough happening with all the women in my life.

  “Yep,” she said. “It’s me! Since I had my dangling participle removed, I always dress for my future self on Thursdays. Midnight tonight will be Thursday, so I changed a little early. Just kind of a fun thing I do.”

  “Where’s the big dud?”

  “If you’re referring to yardmaster and royal pain in the ass Big Deal Dill Jones, he left earlier this evening when the snow let up. Said he was going to make his rounds — he walks the yards, checking things out when were not busy.”

  Specks came up to me. “I think that asshole over there shot Yule.” He pointed at the dead merc with the ground-meat face. “He slipped out when Rillie and three of her accomplices left. The guy ran to the doorway and fired three times, and came back smiling. If it’s any consolation, I think I smoothed things out between Yule, Doc and you. Not that it matters if he’s lying face down out there somewhere in the snow dead.”

  “Comm still out?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Chic said. “Deader than Grandpa Dover’s ass — all except for our short-range walkie-talkies.”

  “Cell phones?”

  “Dead.”

  I glanced out the big, empty window frame next to the yardmaster’s desk. A switch engine was shoving a large number of the long, black LP gas tankers into an outside track some 200 yards away. On another track, a switcher was moving a white, chlorine gas tanker, a large box car, another chlorine, another box, an LP gas tanker, and finally a caboose that was next to the remote locomotive shoving it.

  Chic said, “Looks like they’re shoving those cars into the outbound. They’re probably pretty close to having their train built. I heard them say they wanted to be out of here by midnight. After the train’s built, they’ll still have to lace the air hoses and build up air in the train for their air brakes. Depending on how long they finally make it, in this cold weather, it’ll take them at least thirty minutes to get full train air.”

  Specks interjected, “Course they’re not going to be worrying about Federal regulations. He might pull out in half that time — just as soon as he’s got enough air for brakes in the first five or six cars.”

  “The Shots left toward town on their ATV,” I said. “Any other friendlies out there that you know of?”

  “If you shooed the Shots,” Chic said and smiled, “that should be all — oh, wait; the train crew on that inbound you and Specks hitched a ride on. They radioed in and said they wouldn’t be leaving their loco’s cab. The mercs took a couple tank cars off their train — that hadn’t exploded,” he said smiling at me again, “ and told the engineer and conductor to stay put or they’d be ‘dead meat’.”

  “Okay,” I told him. “As soon as you think the train to Hell is about to leave, you get ahold of that manifest train’s crew and have them highball their train o
ut in front of the hazmat train like their asses are on fire — because it probably will be.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I have no idea. I’ll know more over the next thirty minutes or so.”

  “Be careful.”

  “No rest for the wicked,” I said and started toward the broken window. I turned toward Chic. “By the way, Chic, you look lovely, tonight.”

  “Thanks, E Z,” he said. “You are such a sweet man.” He held out the H&K .45 he’d taken from the dead merc’s body. “Better take this.”

  “No, I’ll be fine. You folks might need it.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Specks said.

  He was limping and holding one arm.

  Remembering his sprained ankle and injured shoulder, I said, “No way.” I waved my hand at the other three office workers. “You’re injured. Stay here and take care of these folks.”

  “I’m no worse off than you, hot shot!”

  “You can paddle my ass for it later, Mr. Reader.” I smiled at him. “But I said no.”

  “Ooh, E Z,” Chic said. “Since you talked that way, it reminds me. We might not see each other for a while, and I wanted to tell you I’ve decided to have my final operation on Halloween. All parts should be fully functional by Christmas for a real holiday ball! I know that’s eight months away, but you mind if I give you a call then?”

  I bit my tongue — literally, hard enough to make it bleed. I did not wish to offend this man — er, woman. He’d helped me considerably. I needed time to figure out how to politely tell him he was barking up the wrong tree. Sure, I’m close friends with a lot of guys — but not that close. And I love women — all of them. But that’s where I draw the line; they have to start off that way, as female. With Chic, when it came down to it, he’d always be one of the guys.

  “Sure,” I told him, not normally one to cop out. But in this situation I hoped I’d find a polite way to tell him otherwise later, or he’d find someone else to call by then.