KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set

by Gordon Kessler

  “You called ‘em mercs?”

  “Yeah, mercenaries. They’re not domestic terrorists. They’re both American and foreign paramilitary, hired to do a job. Putting fear into the hearts of anyone isn’t their job. They don’t care about that. They’re just in it for the money. No doubt their financiers have a different, more sinister motive.”

  “Mary and the kids?”

  “I couldn’t find them. Rillie said they were okay right before she shot me a dozen times. I think they still have them and they’re on the first chopper.” I gritted my teeth. “Otherwise, they’re dead.”

  “Did you say she shot you twelve times?” Specks leaned up in his seat to look at my left shoulder.

  “Yeah, but I took eleven of them in my ballistic vest.”

  “You hold on there a minute, boy.”

  He scooted out the passenger door and then climbed in front alongside me. After pulling back my jacket and briefly inspecting the wound under the oven mitt, he replaced it and applied pressure.

  “It’s through-and-through,” he said. “But you’ll bleed out if you don’t get it bandaged up better. You sure you’ll make it to Slaughterhouse?”

  “Got to,” I said.

  “Okay, then.”

  On the chopper’s floor, he spotted Rillie’s bra — the one I’d used to cover myself with when Specks first found our helicopter back at the burnt out snow-blower consist.

  Carefully and securely tying the bra around my wounded shoulder, he smiled at me. “There. That’s one multi-use item, ain’t it?”

  We lifted off, and I kept us close to the treetops.

  “You’re pretty good with a bra, Specks. Where’d you learn that?”

  “I was young, dumb and full of come once, too. Wrote a term paper my senior year in high school about fifteen useful things you can do with a bra. My flat-chested English teacher didn’t like it, and I got kicked out of school. Had to get a GED that summer.”

  “Was it worth it?”

  “You shoulda heard the other kids laugh when I read it out loud in class — yeah, it was worth it.”

  I remembered, “And you were a medic in the US Army with Doc, too.”

  My focus changed to a black dot growing larger in the distance coming in from the northeast. “That’s probably the US Marshals. The storm must have passed Denver.”

  “They going to Doc’s?”

  “John Sites called them in.”

  “Where is old John?”

  “Last I saw him, he was back at the lodge barely alive and bleeding on the floor. Just before I got out and the house was totally engulfed in flames, he’d disappeared.”

  “Good ol’ John,” Specks said, shaking his head. “Don’t you want to wait for the marshals?”

  “No,” I told him. “We don’t have time. Besides, they’d have too many questions and they’d take over and push me out. You want to stay?”

  “Think you can handle this better than them?”

  “They’re good at what they do. But, yes. I know I can handle this better than them. I don’t have any rules to follow. I’m betting there’ll be a squad of them going to Slaughterhouse along with a Homeland Security team soon, anyway.”

  Specks pulled an H&K .45 pistol from the ruck sack and was inspecting it. “Like I said, then ….” He chambered a round with the barrel pointed to the ceiling of the chopper. Then he glanced in front of the cocked hammer. “Let’s go!”

  “Better check to make sure it has a firing pin.”

  “I did. It doesn’t.”

  I raised my eyebrows as I looked back at the small, aging man with thick lenses and the semi-automatic sidearm.

  “Don’t worry, son,” Specks said, his eyes enlarged behind his glasses. “I was using one of these before Doc even knew about your mama and the mailman.”

  I chuckled at him. “What do you plan on using it for without a firing pin, a hammer?”

  “Could. But more likely to get the jump on someone, bluff them and take their gun away.”

  “Bluffing’s a dangerous game.”

  “I’m a dangerous man,” he said, then asked, “Who we got back at the yards that’s on our side?”

  “The roads won’t be cleared for a while and air traffic is just starting back up, so I suppose only Chic,” I said. “I know he can handle a magic marker.”

  “You’d be surprised about Chic.”

  “Oh, he surprised me, all right.”

  “Was he wearing that floral sundress again? Totally not the season for it yet.”

  I smiled. “As far as Jones and the railroad cop go, I’d guess they’ll be more inclined to shoot me than they will the terrorists.”

  “Yule’s there? He’s one of your father’s best friends.”

  “That’s not what he said when I came through the door.”

  Specks thought a minute. “That damn Rillie and Big Deal Jones have been up to their shit again. Probably lied to Officer Dye about Doc talking behind his back. That’s what they did last time, and it took a week for me and Doc to straighten it out. That damn ol’ Yule is as gullible as he is hard-headed.”

  “I know the hard-headed part,” I said recalling Rillie’s pipe wrench to his brain bucket. “I heard he killed a hobo last year.”

  “What?” Specks shook his head. “Another one of Wilde and Jones’s fabrications. Yule saved a bo’s life by pulling him outa the way of a train a few months back. That’s all I know about.”

  “Rillie and Doc didn’t have an affair, either, did they?”

  “Boy, if you wasn’t too big to turn over my knee, I’d give you a paddlin’ right now. You know better than to believe that crap about your daddy. He’s a one woman dog. After your mama passed, it took two years for him to even look at another woman.”

  I caught a glimpse of Specks from the corner of my eye. He was genuinely upset with me.

  He continued, “Mary was your mama’s best friend — helped ol’ Doc with your two young’uns and did household chores ever since your mama died. When Doc finally raised his head high enough to see all the good things he had left in the world, she was standin’ right there in front of him, and he fell in love all over again. Don’t get me wrong, he misses your mama terribly. Probably won’t marry again. But he’d never be unfaithful to his Mary.” He shook his head. “Shame on you!”

  “Thanks,” I told him. “I needed that.”

  With my left hand between the seats on the JetRangers collective lever, I twisted the throttle all the way. Within seconds we were tearing over the pines, hugging the treetops at 150 mph.

  We tried our cell phones several times but still didn’t have reception. And the radio only gave me static. I was pretty sure neither issue was caused by the storm, and I wondered if the mercs hadn’t knocked out every comm tower in the state.

  I took out John Site’s cell and tried it and had no reception, as well. His battery was low, and I hoped it would have enough power for me to hear all of his message.

  I touched the Voice Memo button, then punched up John’s last memo. I put the phone on speaker and laid it on my thigh for both of us to hear.

  “John left a message explaining everything he knows.”

  Although the JetRanger III was quieter than most helicopters, Specks had to lean close to listen.

  The message began, “I’m leaving this message in the event I don’t make it. Whoever finds it, get it to Homeland Security right away.

  “Nearly two years ago, Gervase ‘Doc’ Knight got a hold of me about some undercover work he was doing for a man known as Judge Hammer. And after carefully vetting me, the Judge thought it wise that I be Doc’s outside contact.

  “A couple months before that, according to what the Judge told Doc, the CIA intercepted “Internet chatter” leading them to believe a terrorist plot known as “Thundertrain” was being devised. The plotters were wealthy European financiers and Middle Eastern fear-mongers who wanted to keep the US on edge and give “nuclear” an even worse name to Americans. Be
sides feeding their inherent hatred for America, they felt this would be just one more step to help keep the US dependent on foreign oil. This terrorist plan involved a hazardous material emergency by rail in a major US City. The CIA narrowed it down to Denver, Colorado, and they determined the railroad being exploited was the Colorado Western Express, but they had little else to go on.

  “So Hammer enlisted Doc Knight to investigate. While Doc was snooping and pooping, I checked into the CWE and found out they were in trouble and had been for over a year. Although backed by several very rich investors, it’s mostly a family business. All were growing tired of losing money due to the larger railroads stealing their biggest customers’ business. Ever since the mining along the CWE’s route played out, they’d been struggling.

  “I happen to know one of those investors and he filled me in and kept me updated. My informant told me that when they were about to sell out at a huge loss, the CWE trainmaster named Dill Jones, also being one of the share-holders, surprised the rest of the board, telling them the CWE had won a Federal contract dealing with a secret uranium ore mining operation from a super-rich strike. He’d told them they had to keep it quiet and that the government would send them a $250,000-a-month retainer for service until the mine was up and running. After that, the Feds would follow through with a twenty-year, exclusive deal at standard shipping rates. That contract kept the CWE alive over the past two years, waiting for their big payday. Of course Dill Jones was lying his ass off. It wasn’t the US Government he was dealing with. It was the consortium of rich foreigners — ‘Operation Thudertrain’.

  “By the way, Dill Jones’s uncle died in a boating accident just before the railroad supposedly got that big Federal contract. He was on the board and had just married a young Russian he met on the Internet. Dill Jones married the woman two months after his uncle’s death. Speculation has it that Immigration wasn’t going to let her stay in the country unless she was currently married. It all sounded crazy to me, and Dill tried to keep in quiet.

  “In the meantime, Doc heard rumor that an old man had made a discovery in an abandoned and what was thought to be played-out mine in western Colorado. When he looked into it, Doc came across a newspaper account about an old prospector who died only days following his public claim that he’d found the ‘mother lode’ after an earthquake.

  “Doc figured it was the Safe Place Mine reopening because of the unusually high rail traffic setting out and picking up freight cars on that mine’s spur track. They were receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of supplies, bringing in mining equipment of all types, rock crushers, large quantities of chemicals, filters, air handlers, conveyors, steel drums, protective clothing and radioactivity monitoring equipment. When he investigated, he uncovered the yellowcake production.

  “Turns out they’d found a super-rich vein of uranium ore. Over the next eighteen months, they mined it, grinded it into particles and extracted the uranium by treating it with leaching chemicals right there in the mine. They knew what they were doing — that process yields a coarse, radioactive powder — stuff known as yellowcake. This particular ore produced an unusually high-yield, as well — over 90 percent pure.

  “Meanwhile, the CIA uncovered Operation Thundertain’s dispersal method from a contact in the Republic of Moldova, where the terrorism financiers were meeting. Their mercenaries and hired workers were packaging the stuff into 400, 55-gallon drums with five pounds of C4 plastic explosive in the center of each drum and then sealing them up tight. They painted the drums yellow and call them ‘Twinkies’ for the obvious reason. But they certainly don’t plan this cream-filled yellowcake to last forever.

  “These Twinkies don't pose a high risk to human and animal health in the drums from a distance. But this stuff they’ve got, being an abnormally high-radioactive substance, merely standing close to it without protective clothing can cause organ damage and even cancer — the seriousness of injury depends on the length of exposure. But, here’s the worst: ingesting or inhaling the high-yield dust itself will most likely be fatal within hours, possibly minutes.

  The message ended, and we sat silently, digesting what we were up against.

  Specks finally asked, “How’d they get so many of these foreign mercs into the country, anyway? And the helicopters?”

  “Getting the people in isn’t that hard, especially if they’re not on the terrorist watch list. Even if they are, with the money backing these bastards, there are plenty of holes in this country’s boarder for those with the means to exploit. Lots of good Border Patrol folks and Coast Guard, but not nearly enough for this big country. The helicopters have me more concerned. I’m afraid they’ve stolen them from the National Guard. That means some of our very brave soldiers are lying dead somewhere.”

  We flew on with no further conversation.

  * * *

  Our fuel had been at about a third of a tank when we left Doc’s. I checked it often on our trip north and noticed it seemed to be dropping faster than what the turbine engine consumption alone should cause. In thirty-five minutes, we were on empty. The low-fuel light came on and the audible alarm rang.

  “Specks,” I said, “we must have caught a bullet in the fuel line or tank at some point. It’s about dry. The way the fuel level’s dropping, I don’t think we’ll make it over the next mountain ridge.”

  “The double main line’s up here another five miles,” Specks said. “If we can get that far, we can set down by the tracks and catch the next freight to Slaughterhouse. With the storm gone, we might see a little rail traffic.”

  “We’ll need to find that ride quick,” I told him. “No radio and no cell phone service. Those bastards in the National Guard helicopters must have blown every comm tower within 100 miles. If we don’t beat that hazmat train to Slaughterhouse, I don’t know how we’re going to stop it from getting all the way to Denver.”

  As the helicopter’s turbine began to stutter, Specks said, “There’s the mainline, and we’ve got a freight approaching the last tunnel before the yards.”

  * * *

  Coming in hot, suddenly the 150 mph forward motion is reduced dramatically, and we lurch headlong as the helicopter’s turbine engine dies and whines down. Without the engine propelling us, I let the 30-foot-diameter rotor free-spin in autorotation, and we descend quickly from 1,000 feet above the rocky, snow-covered landscape. I don’t want to think about what Rillie would have wanted to do in the final minute before we hit the ground.

  “It’s the hazmat train!” Specks says and points up the rail toward Slaughterhouse. Over a mile ahead just coming into view on the other side of the last ridgeline is a short, five-car train moving away from us.

  “Damn it. We’ll never catch them before Denver,” I say, my thoughts racing for a way to stop them. “Will they pull into the yards before going on?”

  “Normally, they’d change crews on the main line, but wouldn’t need fuel until the city. Don’t know that mercenaries change crews, though — they have a union?”

  I don’t laugh at Specks’ poor attempt at humor.

  He continues, “But on this trip, they’ve been out there stranded in the snow for six days. They’ve had to run their engines constantly all that time to keep the fuel lines from jelling in the cold weather. They’re sure to be low on diesel.”

  Specks strains to see better.

  I reach behind my feet, find the small pair of binoculars I’d used at the lodge and hand them to him.

  “Two locomotives,” he says, “pulling five cars. Looks like they have LP gas behind the power – that’s a Federal violation, right there.”

  “I don’t’ think that matters much to the mercenary’s union.”

  “Yeah …, then there’s an un-placarded box car … what looks like a chlorine gas tanker … another box, and a way car on the end.”

  “Way car?”

  “Caboose.”

  “I didn’t think they use cabooses anymore.”

  “Oh, yeah. Th
ey use them up here, some — especially on long trains snaking between mountains and through canyons. And they use them on short lines that go through dark territory. Think this one might have a special purpose?”

  “Could.” I had a thought. “The way those cars are positioned, and all the cars left back where we picked you up, seems like their plan was to have more LP gas cars.”

  “Like maybe they’re short after your dad rammed them?”

  “Yeah. Could they pick up more tank cars in the yards?”

  “Possible. There’s probably a ton of ‘em out there — usually is in a train yard of any size. They might make the time to take on a couple hundred gallons of fuel and switch in more tankers.”

  Ever nearer the ground, for now bringing this helicopter in to land on a moving postage stamp demands my full attention. Without the stabilizing effect of the tail rotor, and the engine still torqueing as it winds down, we start a slow spiral. But I get it under control and straighten it out. If I can now guide the thing away from the rocky slopes and to level ground, our crash landing is less likely to be fatal. The most level area is the railroad tracks, and I head for them.

  But how about that train that currently occupies the rail I want to land on?

  “It’s too late,” Specks says. “He’s starting into the tunnel. We won’t be able to stop the thing to get on it.”

  “Maybe we won’t have to stop them.”

  “He’s going fifty, sixty miles-an-hour. What are you gonna do …?” Specks stared at me as understanding seemed to hit him. “You and your damn papa are definitely cut from the same foreskin!”

  I spot an empty flatcar toward the end of the train. As the locomotives speed in, that empty freight car is nearing the 500-foot-long tunnel entrance at probably sixty miles an hour. If I can time it just right, maybe ….

  I glance at Specks as we drop from the sky.

  His eyes are bugging behind the thick glasses. “What are you doing? You’re not really going to —”

  “—land on that flatcar,” I finish his question and answer it at the same time as if I’m confident I can actually pull it off.