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  “Good evening, Major,” E-4 Lampe says accompanying a crisp salute. Through the major’s open jacket, he easily notices she’s left the zipper on her flight suit undone nearly to her navel, and she isn’t wearing a bra. What he can see is very nice — the start of two nicely well-rounded mounds of pink but goose-bump-covered flesh, and her nipples seem about to rip through the fabric. “A little chilly out her, ma’am — how can we help you?”

  She gives a loose wave with the tips of her fingers off the bill of her cap. “I got hot back there in the hangar,” she says her voice soft and sexy, and she holds up her left hand with a cigarette between her fingers. “Got a light?”

  The young guardsman pulls out a Zippo and snaps it open. He flicks the striker at the same time — a neat trick his uncle taught him when Lampe was back in high school.

  She seems impressed, her eyebrows raising as she places the cigarette to her mouth and pulls in the smoke through her full, red lips.

  But he can’t help his eyes wandering, allowing the lighter to burn too far and too long into the cigarette.

  She pulls back and giggles at him.

  He’s pretty sure she caught him gazing below her chin. “Sorry, Ma’am!” he says.

  She’s smiling at him, and his two companions laugh, seeming to ease their disciplined rigidity in the major’s lax mood.

  “For what,” she says, “the lighter gone wild or for you eye-screwing my tits?”

  His eyes pop and his face flushes. He can’t suppress his embarrassed smile.

  She asks, “Did you see something you didn’t like?”

  “Well, no, ma’am…,” he says and turns toward his snickering buddies.

  “Don’t be sorry, then,” she says. “Be dead.”

  He turns back to her, a vacant smile remaining on his lips.

  She has a silenced Glock in her hand now, and he feels a deep sting to his gut as the gun puffs twice, sharply.

  His head hits the pavement sideways, but the world is silent, and the lights around the guard shack glare as he gazes at his buddies who have already fallen next to him. Headlights come on from outside the gate and a handful of men rush through, stepping over him, as a large box truck drives inside.

  The twenty-year-old man’s world darkens as all sensations leave him.

  By the time the three young sentries’ hearts stop beating, most of the siege has already been completed. Within the small facility that trains military helicopter pilots from all over the world to fly under adverse conditions and above rugged terrain, five of the Colorado National Guardsmen have been planning this takeover for nearly a year. They’ve been getting paid exceptionally well for it. Two other National Guardsmen — both pilots — will do whatever they’re told as long as Operation Thundertrain has their families.

  The other twenty or so mercenaries making up most of the rest of Thundertrain and now rushing in will find no resistance in the seventeen dead guardsmen and women who have been working late at the facility. They will not be recorded on security cameras that have been blinded. All alarms have been silenced. The armament, ammo, explosive ordinance and other military materiel these trespassers bring with them are but a small part of the enormous conflagration they’ll soon create.

  For now they’ll proceed, putting into place the next step in their mission to help prepare for a firestorm like no other this country has ever seen.

  Chapter 1

  Cold Call

  Late Evening the Following Day, Smokey’s Marina, Southern California

  I take Robert “Rabbit” Smith by the arms when he runs up to meet us on the pier. The boy’s face is flushed, covered with sweat and his eyes are red and watery. “What’s wrong, Rabbit? You okay?”

  “Y-yes,” he’s stuttering and crying at the same time.

  Smokey asks her fourteen-year-old son, “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  “E-E Z,” he says. “E-E Z!”

  “It’s okay, buddy,” I say. “Settle down and tell us what’s going on.” What could have him so disturbed? A hundred possibilities race through my mind. But this is a tough kid, and the things that would make him cry and stutter are few.

  “Th-there was a-a ... .ca-call,” he says.

  Rabbit and I have become great friends over the past two months. We’ve worked together nearly every day, and the days we aren’t working around the Marina, we’re sailing along the SoCal shoreline.

  I’m putting it together in my mind. This boy lost his father less than a year ago. There was a troublesome call, and he came to me ... his are tears of empathy. I now have a fair guess about what he will say.

  “E-E Z, a m-man named Judge H-Hammer called.”

  I grimace. I don’t like the Judge mixed up with anything about me, anymore — especially anything personal. He’s an ex-employer from a life I left far behind. I’m no longer a vigilante for hire, nor do I ever want to be again.

  I put one arm around Rabbit’s shoulder and one around Smokey’s. I’m bracing myself as much as I’m bracing poor Rabbit. “Is it Doc?” I ask him. “Is it my father?”

  He nods. “There’s a r-really b-bad blizzard in k-Colorado. He’s b-been m-missing for s-six d-days.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, Smokey slipped beside me at the end of the pier. She said softly, “Rabbit’s asleep.”

  I snapped my cell phone closed and put it into my pocket. Jazzy Brass, my golden retriever pup, sat quietly between us, and I resumed petting her. With my outside hand, I thumbed the safety on the .40 caliber Beretta that lay to my other side.

  “You flip that safety on or off, Marine?” Smokey asked.

  I patted her thigh. “I’d shoot myself before I’d ever bust a cap in you.”

  “I don’t understand the gangster lingo,” she said, “but thanks … I think.”

  Realizing the double entendre and sexual innuendo — even I can feel embarrassed once in a great while — I said, “It means I would never shoot you.”

  She smiled at me. “You always say the sweetest things.”

  I gazed out at the peaceful, ebony ocean, without reply. Judge Hammer’s phone call had come as a shock. I’d often worried about my own two children. I’d worried about the folks around the marina, and my friends, but I’d never actually considered something bad happening to my father, Doc. He was the rock, stable in all situations, always knowing the right thing to do, honest to a fault, and wonderfully simple.

  I told Smokey, “I spoke with Judge Hammer’s assistant, Mama Lo. Said the Judge claims all he knows is that Doc and his engineer haven’t reported back in over six days, and they’re getting hit by a second blizzard. I’m booked on the 6:30 flight in the morning.” I sighed and glanced at her. “Rabbit okay?”

  Smokey nodded. “Yeah. But he’s scared to death about your dad. It brings back unpleasant memories from losing his own father.”

  “You have one hell of a great kid there.”

  Smokey leaned against me and placed her hand over mine. Jazzy was getting double teamed, and the eight-week-old pup loved it. She lay down and licked our hands at every opportunity.

  Smokey asked, “What do you think happened — to Doc, I mean?”

  “I don’t know. But if Judge Hammer is involved, it’s something very big. Doc’s not just missing in a blizzard. There’s much more to it than that. Hammer doesn’t give a shit about my father. He’s drawing me into something that I would otherwise not want to get involved with. I just don’t get how Doc’s ended up in the middle.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  We gazed at one another.

  I said, “You don’t want to know.”

  Her dark brown eyes reflected the moonlight and seemed deep and unearthly — angelical. “I do.”

  “I’m going to find my father — and if it’s foul play, I’m going to kill everyone who’s involved with his disappearance.”

  “They’ll put you back in prison.”

  “Probably.”

  “I was hoping �
�� maybe —”

  “With me, you should never hope. I’m the worst horse in the race to bet on — always will be. I don’t canter around the track like the rest of the stallions, don’t go by the track rules. I jump the rail and run my own race.”

  She ran her finger down the side of my cheek and neck. With a little theatrics, she said, “They’re all geldings compared to you.”

  I smirked, appreciating her injected humor, knowing she was trying to relieve a little tension. “You don’t know that.”

  “I can guess,” she said and looked away, her gaze on her own hands. “Besides, I don’t want a man with a harness and a bit in his mouth.”

  “Are you sure you want a man at all?”

  She kept her eyes fixed on her hands. “Someday. I just need a little more time.”

  “But, you’ll never forget him. From everything I’ve heard, he was a one-of-a-kind guy.”

  “Yeah, he was,” she said, her eyebrows raised. “And, no, I won’t forget him. I don’t want to. I just want to live a normal life with a partner I can love and feel safe with. And Rabbit needs a father-figure to love, as well.” She picked up Jazzy and laid her across her lap. Then she scooted closer and placed her head on my shoulder. “You’re a one-of-a-kind sort of guy, too. I feel safer with you than anyone I’ve ever known.”

  I chuckled. “Bullets flying all about me, and you feel safe?”

  “I do.”

  Her chin atop Smokey’s thigh, Jazzy wagged a couple of times as if she agreed.

  I put my arm around Smokey and leaned my face against her dark hair. It smelled pure and clean but sweet like lilacs after rain. “You’re one crazy lady.”

  “I can be. And I want you to go take care of business and come back to me in one piece. I know you’ll do what has to be done.” Finally, she pulled her head back and looked me in the eyes. “And I’m not asking for any kind of commitment. That wouldn’t be fair of me. When the time is right, things might be different for us. Just keep coming back and checking with me, will you?”

  Her head went back in place on my shoulder, and I took in her fragrance. I closed my eyes, not eager for the storm ahead, but looking forward to the rainbow I’d find if and when I returned.

  Chapter 2

  Rillie, E Z?

  Just before noon the next morning, Denver International Airport

  The flight from LAX was delayed over an hour having to skirt the spring blizzard stalled out over the Rockies. I deplaned from the Delta 737 with Smokey Smith still on my mind. I was determined to ensure the lovely proprietor of the sailboat marina where I live wouldn’t be the one who got away. At the same time, I reminded myself that we didn’t have any sort of agreement or anything close to even an unspoken understanding —except that I’d “keep coming back and checking.” She was a grieving widow and could be for months or even years to come. I was a man still climbing the hill toward forty, with plenty of those “male urges”.

  More simply put, I’m a dog. But I can be collared — I’ve been faithful before, and enjoyed being married to my now deceased wife. I miss her so.

  I was thinking about Smokey and all the other really wonderful women in my life, when I noticed a beautiful strawberry blonde just outside gate 42 as I walked through. She was a knockout — reminded me a little of an FBI lady friend of mine, Special Agent Pooh Dooley, who worked out of the Big Easy. But this one’s hair was a bit more on the blonde side of red than Poodoo’s.

  She held a homemade cardboard sign that said E Z in large letters — and she was getting some big smiles from a whole bunch of guys. She gave them grins in return.

  I stepped up to her as the crowd of chuckling men were about to have some fun conversation with her.

  “I’m E Z,” I told her.

  Her eyes brightened as if they had 100 watt bulbs behind them. She gave a sexy tone to the words that slipped from her full, red lips. “And for a hundred bucks, I am too!”

  At first I thought I’d made a mistake, but I quickly realized her little joke was for the benefit of the boys. A couple of them got out their wallets, and I was pretty sure they were about to start a bidding war.

  I took her by the arm and ushered her away from the mob of testosterone-filled men that’d formed. “I’m Ethan Zachariah Knight. You must be Rillie Wilde.”

  “Rillie Bee Wilde,” she said, flipping the E Z sign like a Frisbee back at the group of disappointed fellas. “At your service.”

  “Don’t I wish,” I told her.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Some wishes really do come true-hoo-hoo,” she sang.

  I got down to business and raised my bag. “This grip is all I have. You got the chopper ready?”

  “A Jetranger III at the heliport — just a short tram ride away.”

  I had nearly 300 hours in the Jetranger, alone. It has four doors, with a passenger compartment and easily seats four plus the pilot. “Perfect.”

  Rillie continued, “They received your pilot credentials, flight plan and the credit card number you faxed. Just waiting for your signature, Mr. Bob Johnson.”

  Judge Hammer’s assistant, Mama Lo, had set me up pretty good. Somebody would have to be looking hard to figure out I’d left Southern California. Smiling at her without explaining my alias, I asked. “They say anything about my flight plan?”

  “No. The clerk just warned against deviating any from the southeast flight path. He said going west or northwest was totally out of the question with the blizzard.”

  Little does he know …. I asked her, “Where do we start our search?”

  “Slaughterhouse Yards,” she said. “It’s just on the other side.”

  I know she meant the other side of the Continental Divide, where the blizzard had stalled and was at its worst. “Sounds somehow appropriate.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  I nodded to her. “From the weather report, this could be one hairy ride. You’d better sit it out.”

  “Bullshit!” She stopped in the middle of the concourse, her face serious. “If you’ve got the balls to risk it, I do too.”

  I stared into her gorgeous blue eyes, not even wanting to consider her balls. Why me? How am I so lucky to always get hooked up with the beauty queens? Maybe it’s just me, my perception of women in general. To me, big, little, short and tall — black and yellow, red and white — they’re all beauty queens in their own ways.

  Inside my head I started singing my own “E Z Loves the Pretty Women” version of “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”

  Rillie continued, “You don’t know how close Doc and I are. He’s your real father. But, in the short time I’ve known him, he’s become about the closest I’ve ever had to one, too. And he’s been a lot more to me, besides.”

  I was puzzled by the “a lot more” part. Rillie was one of those women who looked twenty-one. But, from what I learned about her railroad experience from Mama Lo, I guessed she was around thirty — and she looked exceptionally nice in her tight, insulated overalls. My father, Gervase “Doc” Knight, was sixty.

  I urged her forward, and she complied without further argument. Within a few minutes, we found the tram to the heliport and boarded.

  “How’d you get involved in this, anyway?” I asked, grabbing a handhold inside the tram. “How do you know Judge Hammer?”

  “Who?”

  “Judge Hammer. He’s the one who called to let me know Doc was missing. When I called him back, his assistant told me to meet you here.”

  “I don’t know any Judges, and don’t really care to. John Sites is the one who called me. After telling me about Doc, he asked that I help you make arrangements for the helicopter and help you find your dad. He gave me quite a shopping list, too. It’s all waiting for us in the helicopter.”

  “John Sites? I haven’t seen him in years. He’s retired, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, a retired Federal Railroad Administration inspector, but he still dabbles with some contract work for a couple of short lines.”

&
nbsp; “He must know the Judge, or Hammer selected him from his background and connections to be the go-between. Judge Hammer has considerable influence with the government.”

  “Is that the guy that Doc said you —”

  I interrupted her, “Doc would never make a secret agent … or a secret anything. Yeah, I did some mercenary work for the Judge. Quit him years ago.” I changed the subject. “Where exactly are we headed?”

  “You filed the flight plan.”

  “No, kidding. The fake one. I reported we were going south to Albuquerque. So who’s most likely to know where Doc is?”

  “The trainmaster at Slaughterhouse Yards,” she said. “Slaughterhouse is the Colorado Western Express’s interchange with the Union Pacific as well as several short lines serving the western part of the state.”

  “Yeah, Doc mentioned he was working out of Slaughterhouse some.”

  “Doc and Specks left from there eight days ago with the snowblower consist. They’d positioned themselves about a hundred miles west of the yards in preparation for the big blizzard, and were going to work their way in.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Something strange right after the first blizzard hit, a day after they left. The last communication Slaughterhouse Yards got was just before they entered dark territory. Specks radioed them while Doc was outside the units, sweeping a switch. Specks said Doc had gone crazy. He told the operator that after Doc got a cell phone call he became emphatic that they dog catch Mother. That’s a nickname for the Mother Lode Express, a unit copper ore train running loaded from a mine in Utah to Denver. Mother picks up a new crew out in western Colorado at Rangely and then again at Slaughterhouse before running to Denver and turning back empty to do it all over again.”

  “Is that all the engineer said?”

  “Yeah, and that’s the last they’ve heard out of either Specks or Doc. Their communications had been normal stuff up until then.”

  “Who’s this Specks guy? That name’s familiar.”

  “He’s a buddy of Docs from the old BNSF Railway days. Came over from Kansas a few years ago when the Colorado Western Express was booming. Damn good hoghead. About the best long-haul driver we got — besides me.”