the Devil's Workshop (1999)

by Stephen Cannell

  Cris hung a right at C Street, which was near the huge F. A. A. Building. He drove the Hertz rental down the narrow street, then stopped at the dead-end barricade where the rail line intersected. He jumped out of the car and ran toward the tracks, which were bordered by a low retaining wall. Cris vaulted the wall and came to a stop. The White Train was now visible two blocks away, moving slowly toward the spot where he was standing. The Train was a loud and spectacular sight. It approached slowly, its nose light flashing, its white cylindrical hopper cars glistening. Eight armed, white-helmeted guards were on the roof, and the two black helicopters hovered above it.

  Cris scanned the track, and quickly spotted the Texaco tanker parked about two hundred yards east of them, five hundred yards from the approaching White Train.

  "Gas car... gotta be the ignition package," he said out loud, then started running across the tracks toward the tanker. His feet stumbled on the gravel-filled, uneven surface. Suddenly, as he ran, he had a strong sense of Kennidi's presence. She was somehow with him, giving him strength, urging him on. He could see her courageous smile, and her swollen forehead; the memory of her painful death made him run even faster. He could now see the unnatural shape of something underneath the tanker car.

  The remaining members of the Choir watched Cris running toward the Texaco tanker from the roof of the F. A. A. building. It had been easy to break the lock to the fire door and take the concrete stairs to the roof. Fannon Kincaid seemed to have lost all interest. He was sitting on a roof air-conditioning unit, its hot exhaust fluttering his pant cuffs.

  "Blow the damn charge!" R. V. yelled from the edge of the roof as he watched the man run across the tracks and dive under the tanker. The man started to fiddle with the shaped charge.

  "No, you can't blow it! Not yet!" Gas Can Man answered, grabbing the detonator from Robert Vail. "The Train's still too far away. It's gotta be inside two hundred yards."

  They watched in silence as the White Train moved closer. Far away on the tracks below, the man underneath the gas tanker suddenly started kicking at the bracket that held the shaped charge to the bottom of the car.

  The White Train was now four hundred yards from the tanker.

  Then it was only three hundred.

  "White Angel, we've got a bogie," the Air One pilot said from his leading Bell Jet Ranger. "Some guy just ran under that sided gas tanker up ahead."

  "Roger," Major Flynn said. He jumped up and looked out the side window of the troop car. His angle was too acute, and he couldn't see far enough forward to spot the tanker, or the man. "Slow to five miles an hour," Flynn said to the engineer over the headset mike. Then he instructed his air cover: "Air One, make a pass. Take a look at what he's doing. Air Two, hold position."

  "Wilco," the chopper pilot said, and he peeled off. The White Train slowed, but still it crept closer. It was now only 250 yards away from the tanker.

  Cris was desperately trying to kick loose the shaped charge from the bottom of the gas tanker. The one-inch metal screws that held the metal package to the bottom of car were wiggling, but they refused to break free. As he lunged several more times, trying to dislodge it, he looked up the tracks from under the car and saw the White Train moving slowly toward him. One of the black Bell Jet Rangers had passed the Train and was flying low along the track, directly at him.

  Cris had been under chopper attack before, and knew that the gunship was not flying at attack angle. If any rounds were fired at him from its current attitude, they would go high. He continued to kick at the shaped charge as the White Train rumbled slowly toward him. It was now only two hundred yards away.

  "Stay back, dammit!" he screamed helplessly into the rumbling of helicopter and train-engine noise enveloping him.

  "He's gonna knock the charge off!" R. V. screamed.

  "We can't do it yet," Gas Can Man said. "Gotta get a little closer. Wait till it's opposite that wall. Them casket cars is tough. Gotta shred 'em to put all that sarin and anthrax high into the air where the winds'll carry it."

  R. V. was looking down at the man under the tanker car, still kicking futilely at the package.

  "Just shoot the motherfucker," Fannon muttered, stating the obvious. They turned to see that the dazed Reverend had moved off the air-conditioner housing and was now standing beside them looking down at the section of track.

  It surprised R. V. that in the heat of it, so simple a solution had not occurred to any of them. Three members of the Choir now aimed their automatic weapons at Cris and started firing.

  R. V. watched as the bullets starred the ground all around the tanker. One of the bullets hit the man under the car, knocking him clear around. R. V. could see the man's small white face looking back up at them.

  "Gunfire coming from the roof of the F. A. A. building," the pilot of the leading Bell Jet Ranger said. "Condition Red. Cover me, I'm going in." He peeled away from the tanker and flew toward the roof of the huge building.

  Kincaid and the Christian Choir saw the chopper coming at them and pulled their aim off of Cris to target the approaching gunship. Ten automatic rifles opened up from the roof. The noise of rapid-fire weapons filled the air, mixed with the ringing jingle of hot brass ejecting out of their gunports and bouncing on the hard cement roof.

  Cris was jolted by the nine-millimeter round as it tore into him and shattered the bone in his right shoulder. It blew him around, so he was suddenly looking up at the roof of the F. A. A. building. He could see Fannon's men up there firing at him. Bullets continued to spark off the metal rails and tear up the ground around him. Then their line of fire was blocked by the black helicopter, which had pulled off him and was streaking toward the roof.

  Cris couldn't move his right shoulder or arm, but he finally got swiveled around again under the tanker; on his back, with his shoulder oozing heavy arterial blood, he once again took aim at the loosened shaped charge. He positioned himself for another try. He was getting weaker. He knew he had only one good kick left in him. Using every ounce of strength that remained, he launched his foot forward....

  The shaped charge flew off the belly of the tanker, but it landed ten feet away, right in the middle of the center rail that the White Train was heading down.

  As the Bell Jet Ranger climbed toward the roof of the F. A. A. building, it began taking withering machine-gun fire from the F. T. R. A. S. Suddenly its gas tank ignited, and the black chopper exploded, raining hot pieces of metal and plastic all over the men on the roof of the building. The main fuselage and rotor were blown forward, then fell in two fiery pieces on top of the adjoining four-story parking structure.

  The engineer of the White Train saw his "security" gunship explode, and he panicked. He decided, without orders, to get the hell out of there and make a run for it. He pushed the throttle down, but didn't see the shaped charge that had just landed directly on the track, forty yards in front of him.

  Cris saw the chopper crash, then heard the White Train speeding up. He got to his feet, with maddening slowness, and began to stumble toward the shaped charge lying on the track. His right arm was limp and his destroyed right shoulder was pouring out blood.

  The White Train was gaining on him. Suddenly, his vision began swimming. He felt as if he were moving in a dream. His legs were like lead, and everything was happening in slow motion. "No!" he yelled at the closing train. He knew if the White Train ran over the charge, it was still close enough to explode the tanker and blow everything to bits. But he could not keep moving forward. He stumbled, then fell.

  Somebody ran past him, moving so fast that he felt the rush of air against his face. He struggled to look up, and saw Stacy reach the track a few feet away and grab the shaped charge. She started running away from the rails, carrying the package in both her hands, moving as fast as she could. She was almost to the wall.

  From the roof of the F. A. A. building, R. V. was holding the detonator, but he was not looking at the tracks. He had shifted his gaze to watch the burning helicopter, which had j
ust crashed on the parking structure.

  Fannon Kincaid grabbed the detonator out of R. V.'s hand as the woman scooped up the shaped charge and ran away from the tracks. Suddenly the second Bell Jet Ranger streaked toward the roof and attacked. As nine-millimeter shells from the nose cannon blew chunks of concrete out of the roof around him, Fannon pointed the radio detonator at the woman. The helicopter pilot adjusted his aim and fired again. A stream of armor-piercing bullets blew Fannon Kincaid's left leg off. He spun in anguish and pain, and pushed the button on the detonator as he went down in a hail of gunfire.

  Stacy threw the detonation package as far away from the tanker car as she could. Her arm was outstretched, and her face turned away. She never saw the package explode, but she felt it.

  The blast ripped part of her right hand off and threw her backward almost two hundred feet. Debris and smoke rained down around her. Her clothes and hair were on fire. She could feel searing heat and intense pain. Then she was on the hard gravel. She looked up and saw Cris falling toward her. He was screaming something, but she couldn't understand any of it. All she could feel was his weight on top of her and his breath on her neck as he smothered the flames with his own body.

  She could feel herself in a new place, balancing somewhere between life and death. There was peace and no pain. Cris's voice was somewhere far away, whispering, "Don't die, please ... I love you." Then there was complete silence and a white light, clear and beautiful.

  Chapter 56

  THE BEGINNING

  Clancy Black arrived in Washington, D. C., at five P. M. It was raining, and an electrical storm was flashing thunderbolts down on the Capitol.

  Earlier that day, Cris had called Clancy from Walter Reed Hospital and asked him to come without telling him why. "The Black Attack" had gone directly upstairs at the mission to throw a few things in a bag. CNN was on in his small, cluttered room and the story was already breaking. There were pictures of Cris and Stacy.

  "It appears from early reports that the nation's capital has narrowly escaped a horrendous biological weapons attack," the news anchor said.

  Now, as Clancy walked through Dulles Airport in Washington, he could see the expanding story on every gift-shop TV screen. There were shots of the shootout on the rooftop of the F. A. A. building caught by a local news helicopter, and shots of the Bell Jet Ranger burning on the top level of the parking garage. The TV coverage of the government assault on the remaining F. T. R. A. S seemed to Clancy to be faintly reminiscent of Waco, as flak-vested FBI agents jumped out of choppers and rained death down on the members of the Choir. The news reports said all of the militant survivalists died on the rooftop.

  There was a great deal of coverage on ex-UCLA quarterback and Silver Star winner Cris Cunningham, along with the USC microbiology post-grad Stacy Richardson. The story speculated that they had probably saved millions of lives by thwarting the White supremacists who were attempting to blow up a Pentagon train carrying biological and chemical weapons inside the Beltway.

  Clancy moved on, stopping only once in the door of an airport gift shop to look at shots of the strange-looking White Train, and to listen to Major Adrian Flynn's vague on-the-scene statement.

  Then he moved out of the airport terminal into the rain-wet night, where he hailed a waiting cab. "Walter Reed Hospital," he said to the Arab cab driver, who punched the meter and pulled away.

  The hospital was a mob scene. There were satellite uplinks and news vans everywhere. Spectators and cops clogged the streets under a mushroom field of umbrellas. The sky had finally opened, and a heavy rain pelted the crowd. Clancy paid the driver, then picked his way through the throng. He was soaking wet when he got to the main door of the hospital, where he was stopped by security.

  "Sorry, can't go in there without a pass," the cop said.

  "I'm on your list, I hope. Clancy Black, Cris Cunningham's counselor."

  The cop looked at the list, and found his name. "Go on up. It's the top floor," he said, and stepped aside, letting Clancy track rainwater into the huge marble-and-stone entry.

  On the top floor of the hospital there was more confusion. Reporters crowded the corridor; TV lighting cables spaghettied on the linoleum floor.

  Clancy picked his way through the news crews and stepped nimbly over the cables until he finally arrived at a door guarded by another cop.

  "Clancy Black," he said. "I'm on the sheet."

  "Yeah. Okay," the cop said, looking at a clipboard, then motioning him inside.

  Cris was in the hospital bed at the far end of the VIP Room. Clancy could see that his whole right side was wrapped in tape. There were IV drips and drainage tubes hanging off him like river leeches.

  The wall-bracketed TV was on low. Cris turned and waved weakly as Clancy moved toward him.

  "From what I'm seein' on TV, you did good," Clancy said softly. "Not bad for one a' my ear-bang Nickel graduates."

  "I wanna get outta here, Clancy. I wanna see Stacy. It says on the news she's in the Washington Burn Center. They say she's lost a hand, and that she's critical. She can't die, man... she's got to make it."

  "Well, from what I'm seein', you ain't going nowhere. Not for a while, at least. You've got enough tubes on ya here to plumb a fuckin' duplex."

  Now on TV were videotape shots of Cris playing quarterback in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State. Clancy paused to watch, as Cris faked a pitch on an option and went wide crossing the goal line. "You were pretty good, Hoss." There were also some still shots of him being awarded the Silver Star. The TV switched to his father, who was being interviewed by Peter Jennings.

  "I understand that the President intends to award the Freedom Medal to your son. It's the highest civilian honor our country can bestow."

  Richard Cunningham's voice was barely audible. "My son is a hero; he was always one, on the football field and in the Gulf. So it's no surprise to me that he would risk his life to save others."

  Cris turned his head away from the screen, and Clancy could see that there were tears in his friend's eyes.

  "What's wrong, man? Why you crying?"

  "I can't do this again, Clance. I'll be back on the Nickel, drinking 49 out of a bag."

  Clancy was no psychologist, but psychology was his beat. He knew how to read men in crisis, knew how to listen. Clancy had always suspected something wasn't right in Cris's relationship with his father. He knew that Cris's mother had died when he was young and that his father had been an All-American end at Michigan. Beyond that, Cris had said very little. When Cris had landed at the mission, he seemed to not want to talk about his father. He always got edgy and changed the subject whenever it came up. Clancy also suspected Cris's alcoholism was caused by something more deep-rooted than the tragic death of his daughter; that Kennidi's death had been just the trigger. Clancy hesitated for a moment, then went on.

  " 'Member when you wandered in and puked on my floor in the lobby? I gave you a bed, and told you we cared what happened to you. You remember what you said?"

  Cris didn't respond.

  "You said nobody ever wanted you, nobody cared."

  "I was drunk," Cris said, but the tears were still in his eyes. He found the TV control and angrily turned down the volume, cutting off his father's glowing memories of him. The conversation continued in silence on the screen. Under his father's talking head it said:

  HERO'S FATHER

  Clancy pushed ahead. "Back then, you said shit like that a lot. You said, 'I don't have anyone.' 'Member that?"

  Cris still didn't answer; he was looking up at the screen, where his father talked with pride.

  "So if you don't got nobody, then who the fuck is that jamoke up there, bustin' a gut braggin' on you?"

  "He's my ... my ..." and Cris stopped, then said, "He agreed to.. He stopped again, and it now seemed as if Cris was off somewhere else, far away.

  Clancy wondered if he should take a chance and make a guess. He had learned that people in Cris's state could be shattered easily, but he als
o knew that periods of extreme emotional crisis were the time when people were most susceptible to suggestion, most apt to deal with their real demons.

  Clancy decided to take the shot.

  "Are you adopted, man? Is that what this is all about? You tryin' t'get your daddy to accept you? So you become an over-achiever, an All-American like Dad, and a Gulf hero, so he'll finally love you and take you in. Did you feel like trash all your life, a throwaway baby nobody wanted?"

  There was now a mixture of anger and self-contempt on Cris's face. Then it broke, and was replaced by a look of anguish. Clancy took a deep breath and pressed on.

  "Okay, so this guy up here, this hero's father, he took you home, but he made you work to earn his love. You never felt good enough."

  Cris's face turned red with embarrassment. He looked over at Clancy, but didn't answer. There was a plea for help in his eyes.

  "Listen, man. You know why Kennidi died?" Cris was silent, so Clancy went on. "She died because those fucks at Fort Detrick were making poison. You went over there, you brought it back, and it killed her. Not you. It ain't yer fault, man. She didn't die because you failed her. Her death isn't proof of your worthlessness. You had nothing to do with it. If yer dad never made you feel like you belonged, then that's his fault. He wasn't smart enough to see what he had, or he was too selfish to care. But I'll tell you this, Cris--it's about time to come to grips with who you really are.

  Until you find out, you'll never be at rest. Don't let this moment pass, man. You might not get so close again."

  When Cris looked over at Clancy, the Black Attack could see he'd hit a bull's-eye. His wounded friend was crying.

  "I ain't a psychiatrist, I'm just a broken-down middleweight who hates ta see guys layin' on street grates, but I can get you the right helpFor what it's worth, I love you, and I care. I always

  did."

  "I can't be alone," Cris croaked.

  Clancy reached out, took Cris's good hand, and held it in the darkened hospital room. "Who's goin' anywhere?" the Black Attack said. "Not me, I ain't goin' nowhere."