KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set

by Gordon Kessler

  Damn, she’s beautiful. I am such a lucky man—always surrounded by so many very lovely women.

  I take the small, sleeping puppy from Smokey and pet the little girl. “Pretty little Jazzy Brass,” I whisper to the pup.

  In a glance at the low-hanging full moon, I catch Zack’s silhouette giving one last wave before he disappears.

  As Smokey lays her head against my shoulder, we sigh in unison, causing us both to chuckle.

  But then, the other shoe does drop.

  From the peacefulness come hurried footsteps on the dock boards, approaching us.

  We turn to see Rabbit running all out, so we trot back to meet him.

  When we do, I give little Jazzy Brass to Smokey, and I take Rabbit by the arms. His face is flushed, covered with sweat and his eyes are red and watery. “What’s wrong, Rabbit? You okay?”

  “Y-yes,” he’s stuttering and crying at the same time.

  Smokey says, “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  “E-E Z,” he says. “E-E Z!”

  “It’s okay, buddy. Settle down and tell us what’s going on.” I’m wondering what could have him so disturbed. A hundred possibilities race through my mind. But this is a tough kid, and the things that would make him cry and stutter like this are a rare few.

  “Th-there was a-a ... .ca-call,” he says.

  Rabbit and I have become great friends over the past two months. We’ve worked together nearly every day, and the days we aren’t working around the Marina, we’re sailing along the SoCal shoreline.

  I’m putting it together in my mind. This boy lost his father only eight months ago. There was a troublesome call, and he came to me ... his are tears of empathy. I now know what he will say.

  “E-E Z, a m-man named Judge H-Hammer called.”

  I grimace. I don’t like the Judge mixed up with anything about me, anymore — especially anything personal. He’s an ex-employer from a life I left far behind. I’m no longer a vigilante for hire, nor do I ever want to be again.

  I put one arm around his shoulder and one around Smokey’s. I’m bracing myself as much as I’m bracing poor Rabbit. “Is it Doc?” I ask him. “Is it my father?”

  He nods. “There’s a r-really b-bad blizzard in k-Colorado. He’s b-been m-missing for s-six d-days.”

  The End?

  KNIGHT'S LATE TRAIN

  An E Z Knight Novel

  FROM

  "THE E Z KNIGHT REPORTS" SERIES

  VOLUME 3

  BY

  Gordon A Kessler

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Knight's Late Train Copyright © 2012 Gordon A Kessler.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Cover Designed by: Gordon A Kessler. Copyright © 2012 Gordon A Kessler http://gordonkessler.com

  ASIN: B009IS0C3A

  Version 9-28-12

  PROLOGUE

  Highball

  Mid-April, just after sunset

  Western Colorado, on Ol’ Windy (a snowblower locomotive consist) running eastbound on the Colorado Western Railroad lines

  “Damn it, Specks!” Doc says. “Balls to the wall! Put it in Run 8!”

  He leans out the window on the conductor’s side of the rocking cab and squints into the blizzard. The big double headlights cause the snow to appear as a solid white curtain only a few feet in front of them.

  “We can’t, Doc,” Specks complains.

  Doc pushes back inside and grimaces. “I’m the conductor — you’ll do what I say!”

  Specks’ glances back, eyes full of worry from behind his thick glasses. “I might be just an old hoghead, but I’m the driver of this here string of motors. And I say Ol’ Windy ain’t keeping up with these drifts. This equipment ain’t as heavy as one of our big engines. Ol’ Windy’ll float on the snow, and we’ll derail, sure as shit!”

  “We got the blower wrapped tight,” Doc tells him. “She’s pushing the limit and won’t turn any faster. Gotta risk it.”

  Specks sighs and shakes his head as he pulls the lever on the control stand to the farthest notch back. The big sixteen-cylinder diesel engines on the two remote locomotives pushing them accelerate, roaring louder.

  The old engineer’s fear and frustration are clear. “Doc, you old son-of-a-bitch!“

  “Cut the headlights!” Doc says, leaning back through the window. “Keep the ditch lights on, but knock off the damn headlights. I can’t see a thing in this snow.”

  “Shit,” Specks says. He flips off the headlight switch. “This is suicide! We’re on the steepest part of the grade. We’ll be doing a hundred miles an hour by the time we get to the bottom. Won’t make that curve at Gold Miners’ Bend!”

  Doc says, “Yeah, that’s if we even get to the bottom.”

  “I’ve got a wife and kids, Doc.”

  “Your wife’s a bitch, your kids are over thirty, and you don’t see them but once a year.”

  Specks says, “I’d still like to be with ‘em next Christmas.”

  Doc pulls back inside again. “For what, you want another couple of ties you won’t ever wear?” Doc shakes his head. “I got a lady, too— and I’m raising two grandkids. Right now, that don’t mean diddly-squat.”

  Doc leans out again and focuses on a light spot downhill in the grey soup. “There he is. There’s that bastard.”

  “Where?” Specks asks.

  Doc says, “He’s already made the switch!”

  Specks pushes the control lever all the way forward to the first notch, Run 1, and sets a ten-pound brake application with the lever behind it on the console.

  Their consist of two locomotives and the snow blower slow dramatically, the powerful diesel motors’ lugging down, and Doc grabs the side window frame to keep from stumbling forward from the momentum. He turns back to Specks with a glare. “What the hell?”

  “We’re too late, Doc,” Specks argues. “If he’s already made the switch, we can’t get out in front of him.”

  Doc steps across the cab quickly and reaches over the control stand. He slaps the operating lever back into Run 8 and shoves the brake lever to full release. The locomotive engines behind Ol’ Windy rev high and the air brakes hiss as they let go.

  “No, we can’t get in front of him,” Doc snarls. “But we can damn sure ram that bastard if we can get to him before the whole train clears the switch. Break his train-line — separate a couple of air hoses, and he’ll go into automatic emergency. Big hole. That’ll stop him.”

  “Shit, Doc!” Specks says. “Stop him? That’ll blow up him and us both. That’s not the Mother Lode Express anymore since he’s switched out the ore cars and picked up the tankers. It’s a hazmat trai
n. He’s loaded with LP gas and chlorine! Have you gone completely nuts?”

  “Yeah, well that’s not all he’s carrying. He’s got two boxcars of yellowcake and the son-of-a-bitch is headin’ to Denver. You want a couple hundred thousand deaths on your conscience?”

  “A couple hundred thousand — from fifteen hazmat cars? That LP and chlorine shit’s bad, but it ain’t that bad.”

  “You ain’t listening, meathead — yellowcake, and it ain’t Betty Crocker’s.”

  Specks frowns. “I don’t get it, Doc. But that don’t matter, anyway. I won’t have a mind to have a conscience if we keep going. Let somebody else stop ‘em,” Specks pleads. “There’s still time.”

  “Who? We’re in dark territory. No way to get word out, and nobody knows what the prick’s up to except us. We’re the only ones left to stop him.”

  “This ain’t the way, Doc. I don’t know what is — but this ain’t the way.”

  Doc glares at him. “Get out, Specks. Bail — now!”

  “What? We’re going nearly fifty miles an hour. There’s a damn blizzard, and we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  Doc pulls a ball peen hammer from the small tool rack on the back of the control stand and raises it above his head. “I said bail, Specks! If you’re lucky, you’ll land in a deep drift and not on the rocks.”

  Specks’ face is whiter than the snow. His eyes are huge. He slips from the engineer’s seat and goes to the cab’s back door. Pausing, he stares at Doc while buttoning up his parka and slipping on his gloves. But he doesn’t say another word.

  Doc sits in the engineer’s seat and grabs Specks’ large handbag, knowing the old railroader will need the warm gear and canned goods inside. He tosses the bag at his old friend.

  “Take your grip. That should keep you alive a couple days.”

  Specks catches the bag and frowns.

  Doc says, “Tell Mary and the grandkids I love ‘em — and Ethan and Connie when you see them, too. And tell Ethan about the yellowcake. He’ll understand.”

  Specks’ nod is nearly imperceptible. Doc wonders if his friend might not be close to slipping into shock.

  But then in a rush, Specks yanks open the snowblower cab’s back door and steps out onto the catwalk. In the next second, he throws his bag and follows it, swinging under the side hand railing. As quickly as flipping a switch, he disappears into the white abyss.

  * * *

  Mind on the Road, Hands on the Wheel

  Near Gypsum, Colorado, ninety-five miles southeast

  As darkness sets in at the Colorado National Guard’s HAATS training facility near Vail, a female officer walks through the light snowfall and up to the three sentries at the main drive-through gate off the parking lot.

  In the eye of the blizzard, they appreciate the calm before the mean backside of the storm tears through. With the regular workday long over, there’s no night training scheduled for tonight, and they’re hoping for a peaceful end to their day. The guards remain vigilant, but they’ve been enjoying this more laidback and less scrutinized time of the evening. They’re talking about sports; baseball, mostly — but what about those Broncos? They might have a chance this year — with the NFL season still five months out, you can talk big and nobody will remember once the gridiron heats up.

  The big, young E-4 recognizes the woman major and comes to attention. She’s a welcome sight for the young men; wearing a flight suit that fits around her curves like spandex. She’s been in and out for a week, checking out the avionics and guidance system on a new UH-60 Blackhawk they’ve just received, and she’s always extremely pleasant. All three young men are now checking her out.

  “Good evening, Major,” E-4 Lampe says accompanying a crisp salute. Through the major’s open jacket, he easily notices she’s left the zipper on her flight suit undone nearly to her navel, and she isn’t wearing a bra. What he can see is very nice — the start of two nicely well-rounded mounds of pink but goose-bump-covered flesh, and her nipples seem about to rip through the fabric. “A little chilly out her, ma’am — how can we help you?”

  She gives a loose wave with the tips of her fingers off the bill of her cap. “I got hot back there in the hangar,” she says her voice soft and sexy, and she holds up her left hand with a cigarette between her fingers. “Got a light?”

  The young guardsman pulls out a Zippo and snaps it open. He flicks the striker at the same time — a neat trick his uncle taught him when Lampe was back in high school.

  She seems impressed, her eyebrows raising as she places the cigarette to her mouth and pulls in the smoke through her full, red lips.

  But he can’t help his eyes wandering, allowing the lighter to burn too far and too long into the cigarette.

  She pulls back and giggles at him.

  He’s pretty sure she caught him gazing below her chin. “Sorry, Ma’am!” he says.

  She’s smiling at him, and his two companions laugh, seeming to ease their disciplined rigidity in the major’s lax mood.

  “For what,” she says, “the lighter gone wild or for you eye-screwing my tits?”

  His eyes pop and his face flushes. He can’t suppress his embarrassed smile.

  She asks, “Did you see something you didn’t like?”

  “Well, no, ma’am…,” he says and turns toward his snickering buddies.

  “Don’t be sorry, then,” she says. “Be dead.”

  He turns back to her, a vacant smile remaining on his lips.

  She has a silenced Glock in her hand now, and he feels a deep sting to his gut as the gun puffs twice, sharply.

  His head hits the pavement sideways, but the world is silent, and the lights around the guard shack glare as he gazes at his buddies who have already fallen next to him. Headlights come on from outside the gate and a handful of men rush through, stepping over him, as a large box truck drives inside.

  The twenty-year-old man’s world darkens as all sensations leave him.

  By the time the three young sentries’ hearts stop beating, most of the siege has already been completed. Within the small facility that trains military helicopter pilots from all over the world to fly under adverse conditions and above rugged terrain, five of the Colorado National Guardsmen have been planning this takeover for nearly a year. They’ve been getting paid exceptionally well for it. Two other National Guardsmen — both pilots — will do whatever they’re told as long as Operation Thundertrain has their families.

  The other twenty or so mercenaries making up most of the rest of Thundertrain and now rushing in will find no resistance in the seventeen dead guardsmen and women who have been working late at the facility. They will not be recorded on security cameras that have been blinded. All alarms have been silenced. The armament, ammo, explosive ordinance and other military materiel these trespassers bring with them are but a small part of the enormous conflagration they’ll soon create.

  For now they’ll proceed, putting into place the next step in their mission to help prepare for a firestorm like no other this country has ever seen.

  Chapter 1

  Cold Call

  Late Evening the Following Day, Smokey’s Marina, Southern California

  I take Robert “Rabbit” Smith by the arms when he runs up to meet us on the pier. The boy’s face is flushed, covered with sweat and his eyes are red and watery. “What’s wrong, Rabbit? You okay?”

  “Y-yes,” he’s stuttering and crying at the same time.

  Smokey asks her fourteen-year-old son, “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  “E-E Z,” he says. “E-E Z!”

  “It’s okay, buddy,” I say. “Settle down and tell us what’s going on.” What could have him so disturbed? A hundred possibilities race through my mind. But this is a tough kid, and the things that would make him cry and stutter are few.

  “Th-there was a-a ... .ca-call,” he says.

  Rabbit and I have become great friends over the past two months. We’ve worked together nearly every day, and the days we aren’t
working around the Marina, we’re sailing along the SoCal shoreline.

  I’m putting it together in my mind. This boy lost his father less than a year ago. There was a troublesome call, and he came to me ... his are tears of empathy. I now have a fair guess about what he will say.

  “E-E Z, a m-man named Judge H-Hammer called.”

  I grimace. I don’t like the Judge mixed up with anything about me, anymore — especially anything personal. He’s an ex-employer from a life I left far behind. I’m no longer a vigilante for hire, nor do I ever want to be again.

  I put one arm around Rabbit’s shoulder and one around Smokey’s. I’m bracing myself as much as I’m bracing poor Rabbit. “Is it Doc?” I ask him. “Is it my father?”

  He nods. “There’s a r-really b-bad blizzard in k-Colorado. He’s b-been m-missing for s-six d-days.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, Smokey slipped beside me at the end of the pier. She said softly, “Rabbit’s asleep.”

  I snapped my cell phone closed and put it into my pocket. Jazzy Brass, my golden retriever pup, sat quietly between us, and I resumed petting her. With my outside hand, I thumbed the safety on the .40 caliber Beretta that lay to my other side.

  “You flip that safety on or off, Marine?” Smokey asked.

  I patted her thigh. “I’d shoot myself before I’d ever bust a cap in you.”

  “I don’t understand the gangster lingo,” she said, “but thanks … I think.”

  Realizing the double entendre and sexual innuendo — even I can feel embarrassed once in a great while — I said, “It means I would never shoot you.”

  She smiled at me. “You always say the sweetest things.”

  I gazed out at the peaceful, ebony ocean, without reply. Judge Hammer’s phone call had come as a shock. I’d often worried about my own two children. I’d worried about the folks around the marina, and my friends, but I’d never actually considered something bad happening to my father, Doc. He was the rock, stable in all situations, always knowing the right thing to do, honest to a fault, and wonderfully simple.