Knight's Late Train

by Gordon A. Kessler

  Behind us, the entire mountain settles and the ground tremors at a force of eight on the Richter scale. Boulders roll down the mountain slope, and dust fills the air.

  “Holy shit!” the railroader says.

  Tendrils of smoke rising from my singed clothing and hair, I growl, “Ar-r-rgh,” and I’m thrown from my feet by the quaking earth as a rock the size of a Volkswagen rolls past. I collapse like a limp rag, my body spent and hurting, and my head bounces off the rail on the adjacent track.

  Epilogue

  Rillie, Who?

  Three days later, SoCal

  When my eyes open, I see smiling faces. So very many smiling faces, all with lots of bright white teeth. Lights are blurred. Dimmed.

  “E Z. We’re all here.”

  I’m dead. That’s the only explanation. I’m in heaven — or, more likely, this is Hell, and I’ll be tortured for the rest of time having to look at the smiling faces of everyone I’ve hurt or killed.

  “Is this Hell?”

  I hear laughter.

  I try to focus. I try to feel myself. I only feel burning. My face, my arms. “This is Hell!”

  More laughter.

  Damn laughing devils. If I could get to my feet, I’d kick their asses.

  Then I see a beautiful, smiling face, and I smile back at it. So beautiful, but I know it must be a ruse.

  “Are you the Devil?”

  “E Z, I’m Smokey.”

  At first I think, well that fits. With all the fire and brimstone, there should be smoke.

  “Smokey?”

  “Yes, E Z. It’s Smokey. And Rabbit’s here.”

  I hear, “Hi, E Z! I’ve got your rigging and mainsail all tuned and ready for you.”

  I can only see the shadowy silhouette of the young sailor, but it’s great to hear his voice. “Thanks, Rabbit. First thing we’ll do when I get out of here is go sailing.”

  “And little Dollie and Jada.”

  I hear a small voice say, “Don’t be sick, E Z.”

  “Okay, sweetheart. I’ll get better.”

  “And Beautiful and Booger. Gordon Kessler, your report-writer is here, and so is Oz and See-Saw.”

  “You look like shit, E Z!” I hear the voice I recognize as the old blind man, See-Saw.

  “Harper Lee and Tamara.” I feel light touches on both my forearms.

  “And even little Jazzy Brass — we snuck her in.”

  I feel a warm, squirmy ball of fur being laid next to my arm. Then a warm, moist tongue licks my bare skin above the bandage on my forearm.

  I chuckle at the little girl, and try to pet her, but my arm is bandaged and somehow restrained.

  “You’ve got me surrounded,” I tell them, and realize my feet and legs are restricted. I’m in traction “What happened?”

  “You were burnt pretty bad,” Smokey says. “But it’s mostly second degree, only a little third. That’s why the bandages on your face and arms. Your eyes were injured by the fire some, too. They’ll be bandaging them up again after we leave. You were shot in the shoulder. You broke your sternum and five ribs in seven places. You have a cracked vertebrae, bruised kidneys, a concussion, a badly bruised and frost-bitten foot.” She pauses. “And a hairline fracture in your pelvis.”

  “Rillie,” I say without thinking, hoping everyone around me thought I said really.

  Smokey says, “Yes, really. But you still have all your parts.”

  “I’ve got one up on Chic, then,” I say and realize my comment will be rather obscure to this crowd.

  “According to all reports,” Harper’s voice says, and I try to focus on the beautiful, young cop, “you saved a lot of folks out there, E Z — maybe 100,000 or more. Of course, they think it was some guy named Bob Johnson. The trouble is, they don’t know whether to rename the passage Johnson’s Pass or Knight’s Pass after your dad.”

  I chuckle. “You mean ‘Knight’s Tunnel’.”

  “Tunnel!” Harper says. “There’s no tunnel there anymore. The good thing is that they’re pretty sure most of the radioactivity was confined to the rock around those two box cars when they blew. The initial assessment is that they’ll be able to move what’s left of that mountain and the radioactive hot rock within about a year, and they’ll have a new double track laid and in service soon after that.”

  I’ve done a lot of things in my life—caused a lot of destruction, but this is a first, even for me: I blew up a mountain.

  “Harper and I flew out to Denver to bring you back.” I recognize Tamara’s voice, and I turn my face toward the lovely Native American. “It took some doing for us to get you spirited away from St. Francis Hospital in Denver. But some woman with the CIA came in and started giving orders. It wasn’t ten minutes after they had you all bandaged up that they rolled you to the elevator and up to the roof. A big, fancy helicopter came in and whisked us all back here. We’re at the Mission Hospital in Laguna Beach.”

  “I thought the place looked familiar. Make sure Dr. Dorothy Mead knows I’m here, would you? Doc Dot did a great job on the same shoulder last time.” Then I thought about what Tamara said about who got me released. CIA? “What did she look like — this CIA agent, I mean?”

  “Pretty lady,” Tamara says. “Very young. Didn’t look like any CIA agent to me.”

  “Hair — what color … hair? What was her name?”

  They don’t answer. Instead their attention seems to shift abruptly.

  “Well!” comes a man’s voice. “Ethan Knight.”

  I recognize that voice immediately. Only a minute ago, the sound of it alone would have convinced me I truly was in Hell. This man helped put me in prison for three years for a crime I didn’t commit — and he knew I was innocent. Yet, he still pushed to conviction me.

  The voice says, “Back from Colorado, I see.”

  “Colorado?” I hear Smokey reply. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about, Mrs. Smith.”

  “How could he have been in Colorado in this shape? After that grease fire at the Galley and Grog, he hasn’t been in any shape to travel.”

  “Grease fire. Right!”

  “Well,” he says, “Mr. Knight, did you violate the entire book, or just most of this country’s laws, this time? You remember the restraining order keeping you away from your children? Violating that one alone gives me the power to send your ass straight from this hospital to a Federal penitentiary infirmary. I’ll be calling them as soon as I step out this door. What else: leaving the state without permission — and using an assumed name? Come on! You’re smarter than that, aren’t you? I’m having the security recordings from the airport sent to me as we speak — you know, the ones at the time a Mr. Bob Johnson checked in? Of course the FAA and Homeland Security were both GPS tracking that helicopter you were flying, as well. Oh, and I can’t forget; carnal knowledge of a minor.”

  I have no idea where this last charge comes from.

  “Rankle,” I say, finding it difficult to speak. “None of your business. But I can … honestly say I haven’t been close enough … to see my kids with a telescope … since the restraining order was imposed.”

  “Right,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m even bothering, anyway. I’m sure the Feds will pull their heads out and charge you with destruction of government property, terrorism and sabotaging transportation essential to national security. Good God! You blew up the Moffat Tunnel for Christ’s sake!”

  I heard what I figured was a clipboard clatter as it was pulled from the foot of the bed.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Smokey said.

  “And why not?”

  “Do you have a warrant?”

  “No, I don’t need one.”

  “Oh? You’re viewing personal health records without a warrant or permission.”

  I hear the clipboard put back into place.

  “You’re not a very smart man, are you Mr. Rankle?” Smokey says. “How does someone like you rise to your posit
ion of authority?”

  “Mrs. Smith,” Rankle says. “I’ll be watching you.”

  “That’s a threat and some might call it sexual harassment, Mr. Rankle. I’d be watching out for flying rats that look like ferrets, if I were you. I’ll bet that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You’ve come for your daily rabies shot?”

  I hear feet plodding away and the door close.

  “Good work,” Tamara says.

  “E Z,” Smokey says. “He’s gone.”

  I tell her, “That man is Satan.”

  “Someone else came back with you,” Smokey says, “Your father’s here. We’ll leave you and Doc alone — let you talk, and then you need to get some rest.”

  I feel the puppy being lifted away from me.

  “No,” I insist, wanting to know more about the CIA mystery lady. But I see the blurred faces all moving away and out of sight.

  “My son, the mountain mover! Hi, Ethan,” I hear my father say, and I can barely make out his face as he steps closer. “It’s Doc. It’s your dad, Ethan.”

  “Hi, Dad. You okay?”

  “We’re all fine, my boy. My Mary’s here, too.”

  I see a blur of a face near the foot of the bed. Although I can’t tell it now, I know that she’s a lovely woman of about fifty — a stocky sort of country girl with a great sense of humor. And she’s been doing a hell of a great job helping raise my kids.

  “Hi, Mary,” I tell her and try to smile, but my face seems restricted, and I remember the bandages. I want to ask if the kids are here, too, but I know better. The court order keeps them away from me under any circumstances.

  “Dad, how’d you get involved in all this, anyway?”

  “Remember when you went to prison, how much that Judge Hammer helped you with all the legal costs, got the best lawyers for you? Then he was finally able to get you out of that whole mess.”

  The Judge’s involvement in getting me “out of that whole mess” is debatable, but I let that slide. “Of course, Dad. But the Judge has his own agenda.”

  “I don’t care. He helped my boy when he needed help. He probably spent millions of dollars both before and after your time in prison trying to help you.”

  I can’t deny that. Still, I think the money the Judge spent was in hopes of a return on his investment I wasn’t willing to give him. “What about it?”

  “He came to me one day a couple of years ago and said he needed my help, this time. Said I couldn’t tell anyone, especially not you. It was an undercover job for a railroad and said I fit in perfect. Told me there were a bunch of folks who were going to try to pull off something big. Said they had foreign backers and they wanted to bring America to its knees again, like on 9/11.

  “I didn’t have to think about my answer but for about two seconds. I told him, sure I’d help. Then he got us all set up — gave us that beautiful B & B in Crested Butte for nothing. My Mary, here, and the kids loved it there, and I got to do railroad work, the kind I like to do. It was perfect.” He paused. “Of course, now we gotta rebuild it. But we’ll build an even better one, this time.”

  Doc gets back on track. “Took two years, listenin’, watchin’, lookin’ for something going on, out of the ordinary. Strange things started happening about a year ago when I heard rumors they’d opened up the old uranium ore mine — the Safe Place Mine. Things started getting crazy from then on. I think you know the rest of the story.”

  “Might take me a while to put all the pieces together,” I say.

  Then I notice two blurred faces about waist-high to Mary at the foot of the bed that I hadn’t seen earlier.

  I can’t believe it. I want to rub my eyes, but I’m unable.

  My vision blurs and the world around me becomes even more obscure, then warm tears roll under my bandages.

  “Oh, God! Amy? Dusty?” I laugh nervously, and it hurts my chest and stomach. But somehow the pain feels good. It tells me I am alive. I am with my children.

  “Where’d you have them hidden?” I ask and hold out my bandaged arms the best I can.

  They rush to me. “Daddy!” my nine and ten-year-olds say in unison.

  “They were in the bathroom,” Mary answers.

  My children’s arms are small, but their excited and loving hugs cause pain to shoot through my body. I don’t care.

  “Doc — Dad. You’ll get arrested. They can put you in jail for bringing them to me.”

  “Let ‘em try,” he says. “You and me and my Mary — let ‘em try to screw with us, any more — ever again. We’ve been through enough. Enough for this country to treat you like it is, by God!”

  “Doc,” Mary says, “The kids.”

  “I know, Mary. I’m sorry. But they need to know, too. They need to know that us Knight’s stick together no matter what. They need to know that we’ve got lots of close friends and loved ones, and we all stick together. And as long as we do, nobody’d better screw with us. And if a good person needs help, we’ll help ‘em. Doesn’t matter what color or religion, doesn’t matter short or tall, skinny or fat, young or old. Someone getting beat up whatever-which-way and needs help, we’re there. If we can take on over two dozen mercenaries armed to the teeth tryin’ to kick America in the balls like the bastard terrorists did on 9/11, let ‘em try to screw with us.” He turns to me. “As long as we stand together, Ethan, we’re invincible.”

  “Yeah,” I tell him, my children wrapped around me, their heads buried against my arms and chest. “I love you,” I say, smelling their hair. I feel their hands, their embrace. I hear their sobs, and I taste my own tears. Knowing it will be months, possibly years before I see them again, I pull them closer.

  “I love you.”

  I think back on the mess in Colorado. I ask my father, “Hey, Doc … who was running that loco on the hazmat train?”

  “They never caught anyone and didn’t find a body, either.”

  Thinking about that “pretty” CIA agent, I ask my father. “Did you see the CIA agent who made the arrangements to fly us all back here?”

  “No, son — didn’t.”

  “Did you happen to catch her name?”

  “I think Tamara said it was Bee something. Let me think. Yeah, Bee Weighton, I believe. Sounded like an alias to us.”

  Who was Rillie actually working for — the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, Judge Hammer, or could it have really been the foreign financiers of Operation Thundertrain — or even a foreign power?

  And who was the guy in the white ski mask behind her in Doc’s basement?

  Rillie knew I had a ballistic vest in the pack. She put it there along with the rest of the “shopping” list, including the unrequested blank rounds. Why did she only shoot me in the torso with the little 9mm Mac 10 if she wanted to kill me — or was it a show for the guy in the ski mask?

  If she didn’t want me dead, why did she load my M-4 magazines with blanks? Did she know the bad guys were ordered to capture and not kill me?

  And what about Big Deal’s Russian aunt/wife? How did she play into all this?

  “Yeah …,” I said, certain I’d see the really-wild, strawberry-blonde loco driver again someday. But that didn’t matter, right now. For the next few minutes, that little hospital room would be paradise. I could not have been anyplace better. As my father and his Mary hugged, I pulled my kids even closer. I repeated, “…an alias.”

  — * —

  —To the reader, from CWE Railroad Detective R. Yule Dye:

  This novel portrays a fictitious account of a terrorist act for entertainment purposes. Although much of the facts, depictions, and concerns within are real, some may not be in detail, are simplified or are depicted less than accurately for good reason: there are a lot of nuts out there.

  For anyone who would read this fictional story and take from it some idea that they might vandalize or otherwise sabotage American railroad or government property in order to cause bodily harm or personal notoriety, may they go straight to Hell. That’s the only good place for s
uch people.

  With them in mind, understand that not only American rail and government security is especially alert since the days and years following 9/11, so are the workers and the public around such essential activities. You’ll not fare well attempting anything of even a misdemeanor prank in nature.

  Don’t forget R. Yule Dye.

  I’m out there embodied in thousands of vigilant good-doers, everywhere you turn. Find a hobby, wade out into a rip tide, go commit yourself to an insane asylum and leave the rest of the good folks alone.

  By the way, the “R” stands for Robert.

  Be good! –R. Yule Dye.

  The Department of Homeland Security says, “If you see something, say something!” call 911 to report all suspicious activity.

  * * *

  The one that starts it all:

  KNIGHT’S HELLFIRE

  “The E Z Knight Reports” Series

  Coming!

  I just returned from a botched hostage rescue and political assassination mission in the Middle East, and I brought Hell back with me. I can’t trust my former team members. Half of them have been murdered, anyway. Now something very evil is stalking my wife and kids, too.

  The smart folks will tell you not to piss me off, or you could end up dead. They’re the same ones who have me against a wall of claymores, and I’m about to explode.

  Make no mistake, there will be death today.

  My name is E Z Knight, and I live inside thriller author Gordon A Kessler’s head. Step in out of the cold and make yourself comfortable. But get ready for one hell of a fiery ride!

  And the one that wraps it up:

  KNIGHT’S LAST SHOT

  “The E Z Knight Reports” Series

  In Knight’s Last Shot, from his murdered wife’s diary, E Z finds out that she was pregnant when she died.

  It’s the very last straw.

  E Z watches as his young friend Rabbit is shot off his bicycle, and the sniper orders E Z and his “bitch” to meet in DC. The bastard won’t stop shooting E Z’s friends until he cooperates.