Oath of Office

by Michael Palmer

  “Dr. Meacham, your client from the Wellness Office,” she said.

  Lou reminded himself never to underestimate or talk down to his daughter. Thirteen going on thirty. “Exactly,” he said. “I’m going to go speak to the police, and we’re going to do what we can to put a stop to this and put him in jail where he belongs. You can help by doing what Mom tells you. Okay?”

  “Dad, I’m scared.”

  “I understand,” he said. “I’m a little scared myself. But once you’re away and safe, no one can hurt you and I’ll have time to go and talk to the police. It won’t be long. I promise.”

  Emily wrapped her arms around him and he allowed her to cry until she was able to stop. He was still holding her when an incongruous image popped into his head. It was the image of pathetic Roberta Jennings, seated in her living room, swollen ankles folded over the tops of her shoes.

  Tell, me, Mrs. Jennings, did you have any interactions with Dr. Meacham outside of the clinic? Were you involved in any clubs together? Community organizations? Church groups? Anything like that?

  And at that instant, the missing piece fell into place and he knew.

  Together, he and Emily moved the suitcases downstairs.

  Lou was getting a glass of water in the kitchen when he felt his cell phone vibrating in the pocket of the sweatpants Renee had given him. It was a text message from an unfamiliar number.

  Darlene?

  Lou clicked the message icon, and a photo appeared. His breathing stopped. The picture was of Cap and George. Both men were blindfolded, with their hands bound and suspended above their heads by chains. They were imprisoned inside what appeared to be the boxcar of a train. He could make out the train’s open side door, as well as some spray-painted writing on the interior wall. A message accompanied the photograph.

  Come to the Chester Enterprises grain silo in Monroe, West Virginia by eight o’clock sharp, or the next picture I send will have your friends’ throats slit open. Tip off the police or anyone else and I’ll kill both of them as slowly and painfully as possible, and then, your wife, Renee and your daughter, 13-y.o. Emily. We need to talk.

  “Damn.”

  “What’s going on?” Renee asked from the living room. “What was that?”

  “Cap,” he said. “It was Cap.” He averted his eyes, but not too much. Like their daughter, Renee was a smart bomb for the truth.

  “Anything important?”

  “Not really,” Lou said, unable to keep himself from shaking. “He just wants to get together is all. Listen, can you all take Steve’s car and let me have yours? The Mercedes is virtually undrivable.”

  “No problem. Just put your shot-up one in the driveway. The neighbors don’t take kindly to folks who let such things happen to a Mercedes. Here are the keys to my BMW. You bring it back with the windshields all busted out, and you’re going to have to open up a lemonade stand to pay for it.”

  “You have maps in your car?”

  “A terrific GPS and a whole road atlas, why?”

  “Just some thoughts I want to check on,” he said, his eyes averted again.

  From what Lou remembered, Monroe was about twenty minutes south of Wardensville and a good two hours’ drive from Renee’s house in Arlington. He checked the time. He could make it at the designated hour, but only if he left soon.

  At that moment, the house phone rang.

  “That was Steve,” Renee said after a moment’s conversation. “He’s about ten minutes away.”

  “I’m going to head off because Cap doesn’t have much time,” Lou said, before realizing that he had spoken the grisly, terrifying truth. “Keep your doors locked and the phone handy until Steve’s here. Call me when he arrives, and then as soon as you’re settled in.”

  “You be careful,” Renee insisted.

  “I love you, Daddy,” Emily said, throwing her arms around him.

  “I love you, too, Kiddo. This will all be over soon.”

  I’m coming, Cap, he was thinking. You stay strong. I’m coming.

  CHAPTER 50

  Lou was a few miles from the grain silo before allowing himself to feel nervous. Throughout the ride, he tried to formulate a plan—any sort of plan as to what he might do once he arrived at William Chester’s rural lair. The highest card he had to play appeared at the end of Chester’s text message:

  We need to talk.

  Talking meant there might be some wiggle room. Chester’s son and only child was dead. It was a given that the man wasn’t going to allow Lou to live. But there was information he wanted that Lou might be able to use to barter for Cap’s and George’s lives—most likely the identity of those whom he had spoken to about what he knew.

  In earlier, simpler days, he had hiked the Appalachian Trail through West Virginia a number of times. The lush forests and churning rivers were just what John Denver had written in the song: “almost heaven.” He had actually driven through the hamlets of Wardensville and Monroe once, although he could not remember the circumstances. The towns were somewhere around the junction of state routes 50 and 220. The GPS showed only one major east–west rail line in the area, and his smartphone one corn silo near the intersection of the two roads. It was owned by Chester Enterprises. Obstacle one, albeit a small one compared to those ahead, had been negotiated.

  Jaw clenched, he located the track—a pair of parallel tracks, actually—as well as the two-lane roadway that ran alongside them. Unless he came up with something soon, he was going to show up at the rendezvous with Chester less prepared than Emily had probably been for her most recent math test, although if he recalled correctly, she had reported getting an A on it nevertheless.

  Lou had considered and rejected bringing a weapon of some sort to this showdown, perhaps a kitchen knife. Given the manpower Chester was sure to have, a slingshot like the one David had used against Goliath would have done him more good. He had decided that going to the authorities was a no-go as well. Cap and George had essentially no time left. Even so, twice, on the drive to Monroe, he grabbed his cell phone to call 911, but could not get past Chester’s blood-chilling warning.

  I’ll kill both of them as slowly and painfully as possible, and then, your wife, Renee and your daughter …

  Lou needed only to glance at the horrifying picture of the two men, hands secured by chains, faces beaten to pulps, to convince himself that bringing help would be a death sentence.

  Lou took in a deep breath and vowed he would not let them die. It was his fault that their lives were on the line. Cap had been there for him since the day the two of them had met. George had already pulled himself out of a situation that had buried many others. He was a role model—an important role model to kids from the inner city. His future was full of productivity and service—if he lived. At this point, it seemed like the best Lou could hope for was to find a weakness in William Chester—some miracle negotiation that would save their lives.

  No matter what, he wasn’t going to go down easily.

  The two-hour drive to Monroe felt interminable. His mind wandered through the Frankencorn transmission conundrum and the solution that had to be right. The quiet, tree-lined streets of the village, with its clapboard houses, white picket fences, and old town general store, glided past and vanished in his rearview.

  William Chester was nearby now, waiting.

  Lou followed the twin rail beds out of town. The trees thinned out and then disappeared altogether. Dusk settled into twilight as the GPS in Renee’s car instructed him to turn onto a rutted single-lane road. Lou kept the BMW’s speed down, just in case a police cruiser lurked behind a billboard.

  It was nineteen minutes until eight o’clock.

  Still no plan.

  Outside of Monroe, the terrain became flat. The two sets of tracks were on his left, perhaps thirty yards away. In the distance, through the deepening gloom, he could see the silos, brightly illuminated by spots, rising like a mystical metropolis from the tableland. On the far track, the one that he guessed handl
ed westbound traffic, was a train—almost certainly, the train. It was a colossus stretching toward the horizon as far as he could see, perhaps a mile or more long with what seemed an infinite number of cars.

  As Lou rolled past the caboose, he could see two men inside. They were at a table, drinking or playing cards, or perhaps both. He chose not to cut his lights. There was no need to call any unwanted attention to himself, and he was far enough away from the train, on the opposite side of the other track, that he could have been any traveler heading west.

  Lou drove until he was five or six cars past the caboose, then slowed almost to a stop. The behemoth shook as its rusted wheels struggled to inch forward. Then it stopped for a time before inching forward again.

  Is it loading?

  Lou’s heart sank. He had no idea how enormous Chester’s train was going to be. Even if he were able to sneak aboard, it would be nearly impossible to locate the car where Cap and George were being held. Then he remembered the number, clearly visible in the photograph.

  Fifty-eight.

  He checked the picture to be sure. The number was stenciled on the wall behind his two battered friends. Lou looked carefully at the cars as he drove past. Each one was numbered, although in no particular sequence that he could discern. Some of them were standard boxcars and some were grain cars. They represented several different rail lines, and were probably rentals. But a majority of them, particularly the boxcars, belonged to CHESTER RAIL SYSTEMS and had stenciled black numbers at the center of their side, similar to the numbers inside the car holding Cap and George.

  Lou had planned simply to walk up to Chester’s storage facility, turn himself over to William, and negotiate—essentially winging it from moment one. Now, he increased his speed, searching for car number fifty-eight, and just as important, a way to get onto it. To his left, the train lurched forward again. Another load.

  Lou drove a quarter mile. No fifty-eight.

  Chester’s silos were approaching in the distance. The massive structure was composed of four cylinders, maybe twenty stories high, rising up like medieval turrets. Toward the base of each silo, he could now see long metal chutes—half pipes extending out for loading the corn through hatches in the roofs of the cars. At that moment, the train stopped again and in the distance he could actually see and hear the death kernels, rumbling like golden hail down a chute into an empty car.

  Where was this corn headed? Lou asked himself. Who would be eating it? How many more lives would be ruined or lost because of it?

  He accelerated slightly. Seven fifty. Time was running out. The towering grain silos drew closer. It was then Lou saw something ahead in the distance—the starlike headlight of an oncoming eastbound train. From what he could tell, it appeared to be moving slowly. The way to get onto Chester’s train may have just arrived.

  But only if he could find car fifty-eight.

  Without hesitating, he floored the accelerator, still searching to his left as the headlights of Renee’s BMW played across the sides of the corn cars. The approaching train, a totally black phantom from what Lou could tell, seemed to be crawling ahead, perhaps trying not to disrupt the loading process by sending kernels flying everywhere.

  He sped past Chester’s silos without slowing. The corn train seemed unending. Still no fifty-eight. Perhaps he had missed it. No matter. If his plan worked, and if fifty-eight was part of the train, he would find it. Finally, he passed the engines—three in all. The head of the dragon. He kept on driving. The black phantom was now a slow-moving eastbound snake with a yellow CSX insignia painted on its two ebony engines.

  Ahead, the horizon glowed like the remnants of a settling fire, its red orange hues being nudged into oblivion by the descending night sky.

  Seven fifty-five.

  Here, the road curved, bringing Lou even closer to the train tracks, now some ten feet to his left. He cut his speed, then confident he had driven far enough, braked to a stop and exited the Beemer. He took the car keys with him, hoping against hope that once Cap and George were freed, all three would be able to make their way back to this spot undetected. Lou took one other item from the car as well, a tire iron. It would probably be that against guns and killers who knew how to use them, but better a tire iron than just his wits.

  The huge eastbound freight train lumbered along at about the pace of a brisk walker. Lou jogged up to it, ignoring painful messages from both his wounded thigh and stiff ankle. Down the track to his left, the lone headlight on the lead engine of Chester’s train glowed like a cyclops in the deepening night. Following alongside the CSX cars, Lou checked out the steel ladders on two of them.

  From a distance, jumping hobo-style onto such a slow-moving train did not strike him as too perilous. However, from up close, and somewhat hobbled, he wasn’t so confident.

  Seven fifty-eight.

  He had to move. Cradling the tire iron in his hand, Lou caught his breath and jumped at a chest-high rung on the next passing ladder.

  The tire iron clanged as he got a hold of the painted metal. An instant later, the hand with his weapon lost its grip on the rung. Lou swung away from the side of the car like an opening door. The tire iron fell to the gravel beside the squealing wheels. Gripping tightly with the other hand, he shifted his weight to counter the momentum, then swung back, hitting his nose hard against the ladder. Instantly, his eyes teared up and his vision blurred. With his hand now freed, he managed to regain his hold. With tears still cascading, and now nearly breathless, he climbed. At the top, he flattened out on the roof and peered across at the trio of engines on Chester’s train as the phantom rolled slowly past them.

  Next came the unending line of corn cars and boxcars. One by one, he scanned the numbers painted on each. The massive CSX train groaned and shuddered as it passed no more than two feet from the other.

  “One-thirty-one.

  “Twenty-seven.

  “Sixty.”

  Lou said each number aloud. His heart was racing as the cars glided past. The car he had chosen to jump on was past the silo now. The sound of corn kernels rumbling down the loading tubes was lost in the grinding of the wheels.

  “One-oh-seven.

  “Sixty-two.”

  It was just after eight.

  Be strong, Cap.… You be strong.

  “Thirty-six.

  “Eighteen.”

  He looked ahead at the number of the next car he would pass.

  There it was! Fifty-eight, right after eighteen.

  Lou shifted into a crouch and inched across toward the other train. He would go for the roof of car number eighteen, to avoid alerting any guards who might be in fifty-eight. Time had run out for Cap and George. The fear that was choking his confidence gave way as he readied himself to make the leap. Even though the black phantom was moving slowly, the ground between the two trains was a blur.

  One … two … three!

  With all the force he had, Lou launched himself across the gap between trains. He traveled much less distance than he had expected or intended, and landed hard on the roof of number eighteen. However, he hadn’t appreciated a slight slope to both sides from the center of the car, and without traction he immediately began to slip backwards.

  Unable to arrest his slide, Lou went over the roof feetfirst. At the last possible instant, he caught hold of a rib running along the roof edge, and his arms held. Uttering a soft thanks to Cap for the upper body training, he hoisted himself back onto the car in an awkward chin-up—the second time in eight hours or so his arms had been tested like that.

  Eight-oh-seven.

  Please, don’t let me be too late.

  With his body as flat as he could manage, Lou crawled marine-style along the length of car eighteen. Up in a crouch again, he was about to dive above the platform joining it to car fifty-eight, when the train lurched forward to receive another load of Frankencorn. Lou was thrown hard onto his back. Air burst from his lungs, and his head snapped backwards against the unyielding metal.

&n
bsp; No time.

  Dazed, he again scrambled into a crouch and leapt headfirst from eighteen to fifty-eight. His belly-flop landing was surprisingly easy and silent.

  Maybe another prayer is in order, he thought.

  If he was right—and he simply had to be—Cap and George were just below him.

  The train stopped moving. Glancing ahead, Lou heard the rumble and saw a rush of yellow corn seed as one of the silos emptied some of its load about four cars ahead.

  At the center of the roof of car fifty-eight was a closed hatch. The door’s rusted hinges creaked slightly as Lou lifted it open, but the sound of the corn rushing down the loading chute appeared to mask it. Flattened against the metal, he peered into the gloom below. The sliding door on the left side was open, bathing the inside in a dim light from the spots on the silo. He could make out a lone guard—jacket off, gun in his shoulder holster, unaware of the changes above him.

  There might be other guards down there, out of Lou’s line of sight, but no matter. The flames of his determination were fanned by what he saw just in front of the man below him. Cap and George, neither of them moving, were dangling from a ceiling support on thick chains, their feet barely touching the floor. Even in the dim light, it was easy to see that they had been viciously beaten. Their heads hung down lifelessly.

  At that moment, the gunman, tall and blond, with a square-set jaw, glanced up. He moved directly beneath the opening of the hatch, blinking to clear his vision.

  Lou clenched his teeth.

  He said a silent prayer for God to watch over Emily.

  Then he jumped.

  CHAPTER 51

  Falling prey to his own disbelief, the guard was late in reacting to the movement above him. Silently, arms flailing, Lou plunged fifteen feet chest first, like a sky-jumper in free fall. Below him, he could see the confusion and hesitation in the young man’s face. Just before they collided, he thought he recognized him from Chester’s cornfield.