Knight's Late Train (13 page)

Mama Lo’s
Lei Laid Low

Mama Lo answered as usual. “Mama’s Lei’s awaitin’ for you, hon!”

I knew when
ever she talked to me about her “lei” she always meant “lay”. In her heart, the always jovial Mama Lo seemed to have a warm spot for me — and a warm spot in another part of her body for me, as well.

“Listen, Mama. I need your help.”

“Ah, E Z, hon, my day’s more better, already — you a callin’ me! Anything for you, tall, dark an’ handsome.”

“I don’t have any idea whose side the Judge is on. I don’t care, right now. But I need you to be on my side for the next ten minutes. I’m
a mile or two from the east entrance to Moffat Tunnel—”

“I know where you are, honey.
You’re one-point-four miles from the tunnel, to be ‘xact. Knew that from your last call. I got you triangulated. By the way — so glad those cute kids o’yours an’ your sweet daddy’s okay.” She paused. “My understandin’ of your little world’s gotten a lot more better since they got cell service back up in that area.”

I could have been pissed that she’
d been eavesdropping from thousands of miles away. But I wasn’t. I’d only met this woman once, but from my many conversations with Mama Lo, I knew that she sees data, piecing it together in her mind, like I would pictures. She not only reads the numbers, information and digital symbols, but they actually form images in her head as naturally as looking at a photo. When the data is dynamic, to her it’s like watching a movie. She’s brilliant. She’s a genius.

She
is legally blind.

I imagined
the large Hawaiian woman sitting at a wide bank of computer screens, her thick glasses making her look like some kind of large, bug-eyed Japanese Beetle — she loves wearing jade green kimonos with large pink and yellow hibiscuses.

“I’m in a fuel
truck near a small railroad maintenance facility of some type.”

“Wait a minute … yeah. I see
you. Wave toward their office building. The UP railroad has a security camera on a light pole about 200 feet in front of you.”

“Geez!”

“We ain’t talked in a while, hon. Been pretty borin’ around here without you callin’ — more worser’n you can ‘magine. An’ you done forgot how good I was.”

“Okay, what I need is to talk to
Captain Boss Grimes, National Guard pilot of the stolen CH-47. But all I’ve got is my cell phone. Grimes doesn’t have his cell with him. Any ideas?”

“That transport you’re in have a CB radio?”

I looked at the dash. It did. “Yes.”

“Okay, E Z, honey.
Switch to channel nine, then you just leave it to me. Looks like they’re pingin’ the comm towers all over the state now, and a good many of ‘em are workin’. I’ll get ‘hold of Denver Central Flight Control and have ‘em ready for your CB transmission. An’ I’ll give the Sundail Oil Company’s dispatcher a call to let you know when we got the hookup. They’ll relay your signal to Denver Central, and Denver’ll send your transmission over the IFF band. Your Chinook jock should be able to pick it up. Just give me ‘bout five minutes.”

I was going to ask her how she knew I was in a Sundail Oil truck, then I remembered it was stenciled in large letters on the gas tanker trailer.

“Five minutes is probably about all the time we have.”

“Okay, hon. I promise they
’ll get right back with you. You’d better come to Maui an’ get some rest after this, E Z. You look a mess. Now, wouldn’t that be more better?”

I glanced at the tall light pole from where I guessed Mama Lo was viewing me, and I gave her a wave.

“‘Course, after ‘little restin’, Mama’ll give you the biggest, an’ bestest lei y’ever had — that’d be more better, yet!”

I started the tr
uck and pulled onto the highway, heading for Moffat Tunnel.

*
  *  *

“This is Denver Central. We’re ready to transmit your
comm on Frequency one-three-six.”

“Denver Central, can you monitor our conversation and the
n change our channel to one-two-zero when prompted.”

A pause. “Yes, we can do that.”

“Captain Boss Grimes in the National Guard CH-47 Chinook, come in, over,” I called and repeated once.

“Captain Grimes,” he said. “Go ahead.”

I said, “Please switch to your lucky number times twenty, Captain Grimes. Do you copy?”

A pause. “Roger. Copy.”

“Denver Central, please change our comm channel, now.”

I waited five seconds and, hoping we’d gotten switched, I asked,
“Captain Grimes, do you copy?”

He was terse as if trying to be secretive.
“Copy, over.”

“My name is E Z Knight,” I told him. “I’m—“

“I know who you are, Mr. Knight, and I think you’d better get out of our way.”

“Listen, Grimes, your fami
ly’s okay. So’s Captain Newman’s wife. They’re with my father in the caboose. They cut away from the hazmat train earlier than these bastards planned.”

Silence.

“Grimes?”

Silence.

“Grimes — Newman, your people are okay. You copy, over?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, his emotion
quavering his voice. “We copy. You caught us at a good time. Our handler has left the cockpit without his headset.”

“Perfect. Now listen. You’re taking a demolition team to disable the last two
switches that would prevent the Thundertrain from making it all the way to Denver. I need you to ensure that demolition team doesn’t get that far. Copy.”

“Copy, Mr. Knight. What do you think we should do?”

“That’s up to you. You know your situation. Just make sure they don’t make it.”

“But they’ll still blow the train someplace, won’t they.”

“Yes, but not in as populated of an area. I’m going to try to stop them. I’m going to ram them with a fuel truck as soon as they get near the east end of Moffat Tunnel.”

“
Even if that stops the train, that won’t keep Winter Park from getting a huge shot of radioactive dust?”

“No
, it won’t. I figure with most of the LP gas cars near the head end, it will blow out the west and a good part of it will settle in Winter Park. But, that being on the back side of the front range, it should keep any residual from Denver. I’m hoping the tunnel and the mountain will absorb a great deal of the shock. Maybe the yellowcake and chlorine gas won’t push out with much force. The explosion might seal off the east end, but I don’t’ see that happening to the west since all the tankers are on the head end.” I paused. “We’re in a war with these pricks. We have to make a choice. The choice has to be limiting the friendly body count to as few as possible.”

“Limit the body count,” he repeated
“Roger that. But I don’t know that they’ll let me.”

“You’re the pilot. Can they fly it without you or
Newman?”

“No, I don’
t think any of them aboard our aircraft are flight trained. By the way, I see the caboose stopped on the main line, now. It looks like the hazmat train is about to enter the tunnel.”

“Great. S
ince they don’t have any leverage on you anymore, you can do whatever you want with that bird.”

“
You’re right … uh … but the caboose … it’s on the
back
side — the
west
side.”

I knew where he was going with that. “Yes.” Our families were sure to catch at least some of the radiation if my plan worked — the explosion forcing the radioactive material out the tunnel only a short distance away from them. The alternative could mean the deaths of thousands.

Grimes said, “Sounds like our crew chief is coming back. I’ll give them an option — force them to make the choice,” he said.

“Good man.”

“Tell my wife and kids I love them. Grimes out.”

*
  *  *

I
have my foot to the floor and the transmission in high gear. I must make it to the tunnel entrance well before the lead locomotive passes through.

Three minutes later, m
y cell rings again.

“Ethan,” Doc says, “had to let you know:
that big Chinook helicopter passed overhead, slowed down and started dropping those mercenaries out like a goose shitting mulberries. I think every one of those dumb bastards broke their legs and arms — couple probably broke their necks, too. Cops are all over them. Wonder what happened?”

“Good,”
I tell him. “Sounds like Captain Boss Grimes gave them a choice.” I pause. “Dad. I love you. Tell your Mary and the kids I love them, too, would you?”

“Ethan? What’s going on, boy? What are you doing?”

“I don’t know if I’m going to make it this time, Dad.” I’m getting ready to tell him to prepare for a storm of radiation — cover up, breath through blankets.

“You sure
as hell better — oh, damn!”

“What happened?”

“That Chinook. It went down low and rammed right into the tunnel. One hell of a fireball. Must have had explosives on it.”

“It did. Did the entrance collapse?”

“I think … wait … yeah, it did.”

“Okay. Tell the cops to get everyone away from there. It could get
a lot worse real soon — and tell those brave men’s wives their husbands loved them very much. Goodbye, Dad.”

“Ethan? Son, what—“

After throwing down the microphone, I switch off the radio and then wheel into the Moffat Tunnel facility, tires squealing from the high-speed turn, the gas pedal still to the floorboard.

Tunnel of Death

Lining up on the six-mile-long hole bored into the front range of the Rocky Mountains, I see a light — and thank the good Lord it’s not yet at this
end of the tunnel
. I drive the gasoline truck at over sixty-miles-per-hour past a number of astonished railroad and state workers. With the truck straddling the rails and the tires flying over the track ties, it’s a bumpy ride to say the least.

Initially think
ing I’m on a suicide mission, I reconsider when I make the tunnel entrance and the train is still quite a ways down the six-mile-long tunnel. The closer to this east end of the tunnel I’m able to stop it, the better for the residents and visitors in the skiing community of Winter Park. And If the LP gas tankers blow near where I am now, the east end of the tunnel will collapse and be sealed off as well as the west entrance.

I stop the truck, jump out and peer down the long, dark passage. Nearly impossible to estimate, I guess I’ll be abandoning the truck perhaps a little more than a quarter mile in front of the fast moving freight train.

I sprint back toward the mouth of the tunnel nearly fifty yards away. Sprinting is not a good word to describe what I’m doing with injured toes inside an oversized steel-toe boot, bruised ribs, aching back and wounded shoulder. From a distance, to the curious tunnel workers peering in from the lighted end, I probably look like Quasimodo.

The approaching
locomotive sounds its air horn. Even from nearly a quarter mile away, the echoing blast hurts my ears. The engines roar behind me.

I wave to the workers, holding my injured arm close, hunched over, limping, my voice coming out in grunts from
the pain to my ribs, “Get back. Run. It’s going to blow!”

I can imagine their eyes, seeing this contemporary hunchback of Notre Dame running at them, growling, while leading a speeding train.

The thing is close, now. I’m wincing like the first time I pushed the trigger button on that LAW rocket in infantry training nearly twenty years ago, expecting one hell of an explosion.

The workers scatter as I reach the outside. I’m running a few yards out before I leap to the side, but when the anticipated explosion comes, I trip on a tie and fall between the rails.

Two-hundred tons of burning steel locomotive shoots from the tunnel entrance, fire and debris belching out with it — the lead loco being propelled by the 4500 horsepower diesel engine driving it. Only small fiery pieces of the transport truck and gas tanker trailer remain caught up on the monstrosity bearing down on me.

I have the Beretta 9mm out, lifting myself off the track while firing at the engineer’s side of the flame-engulfed, hellish behemoth, as if that will do any
good at all. Yet, if whoever is running the locomotive is still alive, I’m doing my best to ensure they get to the great beyond before I do.

With the tunnel mostly blocked at both ends, and it having
a dozen LP gas cars trapped inside, the hole through the mountain becomes a pressure cooker. The burning tankers’ 30,000-gallon liquid petroleum loads are
b
oiling inside the big tanks, the
l
iquid
e
xpanding into
v
apor.

In an intense, ground rippling blast, the mountain shakes violently. The LP
BLEVE
s with a nuclear-size
e
xplosion the force of 8 kilotons of TNT and equaling half the yield of the Hiroshima A-bomb. Above, the entire mountain ridge trembles, rising a full three feet, and the mouth of the huge tunnel collapses behind it.

I roll to the side, feeling the intense heat as dust and flames spew from the tunnel mouth. The only other escapee from the Hell hole,
the lead locomotive, derails from the tracks as it passes by, its big wheels and axles with huge, three-ton traction motors still attached, tearing from its underbelly. The heavy cab and massive diesel engine vault over their own drive gear and electric motors. With the enormous 5,500 gallon diesel tank under the engine rupturing into flames, the nose of the cab angles into the ground. Over and over, the colossal fireball somersaults, finally coming to rest in a pile of burning and melting steel 100 yards away.

One of the railroad workers steps next to me and gapes at the flaming heap of steel and the fire-lined trail in the asphalt that the derailed locomotive created.

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.