KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set

by Gordon Kessler

  “Ah, shit!,” he says, bracing his hands on the dash. “Suppose you’re going to make me jump out like your dad did from the train?”

  “Not this time. Just hold on.”

  Without powered flight, the big main rotor acts as a sort of parachute. It catches the air with its airfoil edges to somewhat offset the descent with a little lift force. Also, without engine torque, I can maintain a straight path, and we won’t spiral like the Blackhawk helicopter I shot down.

  Still, luck will be as important as skill.

  As we come in close over the train, headed toward the mountain, the near impossible life-defying stunt becomes obvious. Ahead of us, the tops of the train cars are clearing the tunnel roof by less than four feet. The one place we’ll have headroom is on that flatcar, so we must set down on it before it goes into the tunnel. But it’s still over 100 feet ahead of us, and we’re dropping faster and advancing slower every second. If we can’t land before the car goes inside the tunnel entrance, without power, we’ll crash into the rocks above it or a white tank car below us.

  “Too slow, too slow, too slow!” Specks says, his arms stiff on the dash.

  I maneuver the gliding helicopter as efficiently as possible toward the tunnel entrance to maintain forward speed. I pray our timing will be right. If we descend too much before we can catch the flatcar, we’ll land on the round tanker directly behind it that we’re over now. At that point our helicopter will fall off, and we’ll be killed in what will probably be a fiery explosion, depending on what’s in the tanker. But in a crash landing like that, it won’t matter much to us. We’ll be dead.

  It’s just another life-risking, odds-against-me gamble of hundreds I’ve made in my life.

  At 100 feet above the train, the rocky entrance is too close to sanely risk this daredevil stunt we’re attempting — but we’re committed, and now have no choice.

  As we edge over the flatcar, the tunnel is only 100 yards away.

  Specks says, “Too fast, too fast, too fast!”

  I pull the helo’s nose high to decrease forward movement so that we won’t land hard and crash into the flatcar.

  “Too high, too high, too high!” Specks says.

  At fifty feet from the entrance, we’re tilted back so far we can’t see the train underneath, or the tunnel in front of us — all that’s in our view are the mountain ridge above and the bluing post-blizzard sky.

  “Too high, too high, too high!” Specks repeats, as if I’m actually listening.

  Coming in blindly, we’re left with nothing to do but hope and pray.

  “Awe shit, awe shit, awe shit!” Specks says, and we slam down hard, sparks flying as the tunnel tears the rotor from atop the helicopter in an ungodly screeching, and we pass into an extremely cold and windy darkness.

  Chapter 12

  Preparing for Battle

  8:30 PM MST, Nearing Slaughterhouse Yards

  The noise inside the tunnel was incredible, the JetRanger’s main rotor hanging onto the tank car behind us, bent and broken, sparking, screeching and grating against the concrete-lined passageway.

  When we came out of the tunnel and into the full moon lit evening, the wintery white world glowed around us. I soon realized why the noise in the tunnel seemed so loud, and why it became so cold and windy very quickly — both sides of the helo’s front Plexiglas windshield, the center bar and the nose cowling were completely gone. The tunnel’s roof must have been mere inches from our faces when it sheared them off.

  Specks was near fluorescent white, but I’m sure no more than me. He still gripped the dash while whispering a mantra of, “Oh damn, oh damn, oh damn!”

  “You okay, Specks?” I asked.

  He slowly turned to me. Suddenly, he yelled, “Shit, piss, tits! What do you think? Hell, no, I ain’t freakin’ okay! I just nearly got my damn head tore off and my ass smashed and rolled into sausage! Am I okay? Je-ez-hus, H, Kay-ri-est! You and your daddy are tryin’ to flippin’ kill me!” He turned the back of his head to me and folded his arms tightly across his chest. “I’d rather ride a porcupine naked down a bumpy road to Hell than spend another minute with either one of you crazy bastards!”

  A quarter mile in front of us, the head end of the train began to round a slow curve, and the lights of Slaughterhouse Yards glowed in the distance in the snow-brightened evening.

  “Don’t quit yet,” I told him. “The fun is just beginning.”

  I’d nearly forgotten about my shoulder wound until I unbuckled my safety harness and pushed out of my seat. Searing pain shot through my arm and back as I climbed from the helicopter and onto the steel deck of the flatcar. I held my arm and stepped closer to the boxcar in front of us, which shielded us some from the wind and the below zero wind chill. Specks stayed in the beat-up chopper.

  The freight cars rocked harmonically, down the rail, and the continuous clickety-clack, had a calming, sort of therapeutic effect on me that helped soothe my shattered nerves and allow for more rational and analytical thought.

  By the time we went over a steel railroad bridge, Specks appeared to have cooled down some, and he said, “That’s Kill Creek Bridge. We’ll be stopping in the yards in about eight minutes.”

  * * *

  I readied myself for the battle that was sure to come, checking the contents of the backpack and ruck sack that Rillie had prepared for me. While hoping to find live ammo and weapons with firing pins in place, I smelled fuel of some kind and glanced at the freight cars behind us as they followed along the slow curve.

  The helicopter’s main rotor had torn loose walkways, handholds and other safety appliances on the tank car behind us and much of the tubular hand railing dragged along beside it in the gravel and snow. A narrow, six-inch gash, low on the side of the tank car’s jacket, leaked fluid. The loaded flatcar behind the tanker had received damage as well. A tarpaulin covering some equipment was torn half away and flapped in the cold wind.

  From the backpack, I took out a Glock .45 and pulled back the hammer. It was as I’d suspected; without a firing pin. Then something struck me about that flatcar with the ripped tarp. I took another look. The equipment that it covered was not your ordinary machinery, but five brand new Arctic Cat 1100cc twin-turbo snowmobiles.

  “Hmm,” I said aloud, with some hope. Generally, vehicles aren’t shipped with much gas in them, however. I looked at the tank car again and saw that the required Department of Transportation placard for this end had been broken off and lost from the encounter with the helicopter rotor. From the odor, I was sure it had been a Class 3 “Flammable Liquid”. Then I noted the UN code stenciled on the end was 1203.

  “Specks,” I asked, “what’s UN 1203?”

  My companion still seemed to harbor some animosity about our rough landing. “Hell, I don’t know. Your dad’s the conductor.”

  I knew better. As a locomotive engineer for over thirty years, Specks’d have the more popular UN codes memorized long ago. “It’s fuel of some kind, right?”

  He paused in thought. “Yeah — gasoline, I think.”

  “Perfect. You ever drive a snowmobile?”

  That seemed to perk him up. He checked to see what I was looking at. “Yeah. Raised in Minot, North Dakota. Was born on a snowmobile. Used to race sleds when I was younger.”

  I smiled at him. “Why-not Minot?”

  “That’s the place.”

  “Back when you knew fifteen useful things you can do with a bra?”

  “Yeah, back then.” He grinned, his cold shoulder finally melting. “Still remember all fifteen, too.”

  Sure there’d be very little gasoline in the snowmobile fuel tanks, I found a two-gallon, collapsible plastic jug in the helicopter. I had no idea how long we’d need the snowmobiles for the upcoming task, but a gallon each plus what was already in the Artic Cats would surely be enough.

  With a bad arm, I found crossing the couplers between freight cars moving at sixty-miles-per-hour challenging, especially stepping onto the mangled, end plat
form of the tank car. I felt somewhat helpless when Specks lent me a hand, but I accepted his assistance gratefully. Then climbing the twisted end ladder to the top running board was even more fun. I stayed low, trying to stagger with the motion of the tanker as I made my way on the top steel running board. One misstep and I’d be on the rail below, sliced and diced into nice little pieces by the dozens of train car wheels that would pass over my mutilated body.

  We made it past the tank car’s loading platform and top outlet in the center and then finally to the far end next to the car with the snowmobiles. I let Specks climb down first with the empty jug. We were lucky the steady stream of gasoline leaking from the jacketed fuel tanker was like water coming from a faucet, except that it came sideways due to our speed, and splattered considerably in the blustering wind.

  After filling the container, Specks stepped over the couplers toward the snowmobiles, and I followed. But, as I did, the sound of rapidly pounding metal came from the locomotive end of the train. I realized the engineer had applied the brakes and, like dominos, they were setting up quickly one car at a time from the head end.

  “He’s setting the brakes!” Specks said. “Jump!” He held out his arms.

  I thought I could handle it without taking such drastic measures, but soon found out he knew what he was talking about.

  The chain-reaction of brakes setting, hit the tanker and threw me off balance as I stepped toward Specks on the flatcar.

  My foot went between the coupler knuckles as they slammed together, luckily only smashing the side of my boot toe. But I tumbled off with my high-topped, lace-up boot still between the couplers.

  Leg twisted unnaturally, my head down and face only inches from the rail, I reached for the flatcar’s end handhold with my good arm as my injured arm fell limp. When my left hand struck the wooden track ties between the rails, it felt like my knuckles were being beaten with an aluminum ball bat.

  Specks grabbed my left arm and pulled me back up as far as he could to enable me to grab the handhold with the now injured hand of my already injured left arm. With my boot remaining caught between knuckles I was still in a very precarious position. Specks quickly pulled a folding knife from his pocket, opened it with his teeth as he ensured I had a good grip on the handhold and he stepped onto the flatcar’s coupler. With a quick reach and three slices at my boot’s laces, my foot slipped out.

  I maintained a firm grip of the handhold, while facing the opposite direction from our travel. However, since that grab bar was only three feet from the ground, my legs were straddling one rail, and both the booted and bare foot were dragging under the rail car, striking every tie and large rock between the rails.

  Seeing the big steel wheel spinning at sixty-miles-per-hour only inches from the body part I value most was motivation enough to hang onto that handhold for as long as it took.

  Finally, Specks was able to take my left arm and pull me up enough for me to throw my bare foot atop the flatcar floor. With considerable struggle, I finally rolled out onto the wooden car deck, safely.

  “Damn, boy,” Specks said, “you seem to do everything the hard way.”

  Between gasps, “Thanks,” was all I could say.

  In the next second, lights appeared above the horizon, and the faint roar of a Blackhawk helicopter’s turbine engines resounded over the clacking of freight cars.

  Chapter 13

  Slaughter in the Yards

  9:00 PM MST

  Specks and I scrambled under the tarp that halfway covered the snowmobiles as the Blackhawk passed over the train. I peeked out when the chopper slowed as if those inside were inspecting our helicopter resting atop the flat, two cars ahead. The mercenaries’ helicopter soon moved on.

  What a curious site it must have been for them, even with Rillie aboard; our crashed helicopter on a flatcar, with no one inside. I hoped Rillie and her cohorts figured Specks and I had been thrown from the wreckage and were killed.

  While the train slowed considerably, I pulled a Mag Light from the utility pocket on my right thigh and turned it on under the tarp. We then fueled the first two Arctic Cats in the dimness. As Slaughterhouse’s lights grew closer, the Blackhawk helicopter landed about a quarter mile away next to the main line in the middle of the train yards. We’d probably go right past them.

  “Keys?” I asked. “I have no idea how to hotwire these things.”

  Specks said, “I do.”

  “‘You do’ means you will, right?”

  “Nope. Means I won’t. You can unplug all the wires to the ignition switch and pull start ‘em, pretty easy.” He felt under the cushioned seat of the snowmobile he stood beside. “But won’t even need to do that because they usually keep the keys right here.” He pulled out a ring with two keys on it.

  I smiled at him, checked under the seat of the Arctic Cat beside me and found its keys, as well. “The shippers make these things damn easy to steal.”

  “They’re lazy, complacent — and insured.”

  Working low under the tarpaulin, we loosened the tie-down restraints from both snow vehicles and threw the chains to the side. Then we fired up their engines to let them warm up for about sixty seconds and raised the edge of our canvas cover to let out the engine fumes. I took a moment to warm my bootless and bloodied foot on the exhaust, thankful my appendage was still covered with a wool sock. Those wooden track ties had beaten both my foot and my hand up pretty good, but I didn’t seem to have any broken bones — of course the evening was still young.

  While massaging my near frozen and bloody toes, I peeked through the small hole in the tarp and saw numerous tracks branching off from ours. We’d just entered the yard limits and were less than a half mile from the center of Slaughterhouse Yards.

  After cutting the engines, still underneath the cover, I asked my companion, “How many workers in the yard?”

  Specks thought for a moment. “There are four switchmen, if they’re working. They operate two remote control switch engines. Two laborers fuel and service the locomotives at the fueling station, and a couple of car inspectors are out there somewhere. Most of the time, they’re hiding out at the east end in the inspectors’ shanty.”

  I nodded. “You got a cigarette lighter?”

  “Yeah,” he dug it out of his pocket and was about to light it up. “A Bic.”

  “Not now,” I told him, the smell of gas heavy under the tarp. We’d both been splattered with the gasoline — Specks’ arm had been nearly drenched. “Let me borrow it.”

  He handed the lighter to me. “When I give you the word, start your engine and go without the slightest hesitation. Head for the yard office, but be sure it’s safe before you go inside.”

  “Compared to what you and your daddy’s put me through over the past few days, this sounds fun,” he said. “But watch how you land that sled on the rails and lookout for any moving freight cars, too. An active train yard at night is one of the deadliest places on this ol’ Earth. You’d be surprised how those train cars’ll sneak up on you.”

  “Roger that,” I answered, hunched over while peering through the small, torn hole. “Be careful.”

  Specks answered, “Fare thee well!”

  I flashed back to when I was little, and Doc and I would leave Specks after they let me ride with them on the train. We’d throw different catch phrases back and forth until Doc got tired of it and pulled me away. I told him like I was once again that six-year-old, “Keep your powder dry.”

  “Don’t let ‘em catch you with your pants down,” he replied.

  “God speed,” I told him.

  He said, “See you later, alligator.”

  “Hasta mañana, iguana.” I told him.

  “Keep fighting the good fight,” he said.

  I told him, “Live long and prosper.”

  He said, “Don’t let the back door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.”

  “Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” I said.

  He said, “Break a leg.”

&
nbsp; “Probably will,” I finished as the train cars’ steel wheels sung in an eerie, loud shriek.

  Now it was time to raise holy hell.

  * * *

  The train is slowing, the freight car couplers hammering together, again and again.

  Through my peephole, I see we’re stopping a little closer than I’d hoped to the fueling station and the mercenaries from the helicopter. Although their chopper is on the other side of the fuel pumps, several of the men are standing near the inbound track we’re arriving on, as if they’re inspecting the train, possibly looking for hazmat cars that might fit their needs for their death train to Denver.

  Behind them lay six bodies — the switchmen and laborers, I figure. We finally halt directly in front of the five armed men, two of them wearing RCL control belts used to operate remote control switch engines from the ground.

  Our adversaries are eyeing the leaking tank car in front of us as I tell Specks, “Now!”

  I start my engine, but give Specks an extra second.

  As he shoots from under the tarpaulin and soars off the flatcar, I throw the lit Bic onto a pool of gasoline that’s formed next to me on the wooden deck. It ignites and the fire shoots directly to the ruptured tanker. The entire side of the steel-shelled freight car is immediately engulfed.

  I fly off the flatcar on my tracked vehicle, but take the long route away from the yard office to draw attention away from Specks. With a snow-throwing turn in front of the small armed force, they don’t know whether to run for cover from what will soon be a tremendous explosion, or to raise their guns to shoot me. In the next second, they’re covered with dirty snow, and I’m already thirty yards away from them, my throttle to its limit, driving parallel beside the tracks.

  The ensuing explosion nearly knocks me off my snowmobile, and radiating heat scorches my back through my thin jacket.

  I’m nearly 100 yards away when I turn onto a yard crossing and look back. Flaming pieces of the steel gasoline tank car rain down around the fuel station as the tanker’s seventy-foot-long shell rockets through the air in a spectacular, explosive display. The conflagration roars like Niagara. The huge, wild firework twists and flips and cavorts like a NASA missile launch gone bad. Witnessing this incredible sight, my first thought is, Oh, my God! What have I done!