Knight's Late Train Read online

  “It wasn’t a ferret and what you got might be hydrophobia,” Smokey said. “You get peed on, spit at — and now bitten. Animals don’t seem to like you, Assistant District Attorney Edward Rankle. But don’t worry. I hear that long battery of shots they give for rabies aren’t quite as bad as they used to be.”

  Rankle’s eyes got big, again. “Lt. Legend, get animal control here right away. And find that damn rabid ferret!”

  Smokey hoped the dead rat was still next to the dumpsters. She was pretty sure she could convince animal control it was what had “attacked” Rankle — as long as Nostradamus stayed out of sight.

  Chapter 9

  B & B Besieged

  6:00 PM MST, Doc’s B & B, near Crested Butte, Colorado

  “Rillie, stay with Specks.” I handed her Big Deal’s Glock 9mm.

  Even though the clouds, trees and mountains hid the late-day sun from the clearing, the snow made the day bright enough to see clearly without extra light. It would be a different story on the narrow, shielded path surrounded by tall pines I’d soon be following. But the dimming light could be my ally.

  From the equipment bag, I quickly pulled an M-4A1 close-assault carbine and a loaded magazine that I snapped into place under the rifle. Next, I extracted a back pack and ruck sack pre-packed with an assortment weapons. I’d requested the “shopping list” while speaking with Judge Hammer’s assistant, Mama Lo, the night before.

  “But, E Z, you might need me. Specks is okay by himself, for now. He’s snoring peacefully back there.”

  “Do you have any military experience?” I asked her. “Law enforcement? Can you shoot a gun as good as you can swing a pipe wrench?”

  “No, but I can try,” she pleaded.

  “No,” I told her. “That’s automatic gunfire. It’s serious stuff. It can cut you in half before you even feel the pain. I have no time to argue. You’re staying here.”

  I took off, sprinting from the snow-covered clearing and onto a path that was mostly protected by pine trees. After a minute of sprinting down the hiking path, the gunfire stopped. Within 50 yards of Doc’s place, I could see two National Guard Blackhawk helicopters, with their pilots waiting inside, settled in the big, open parking area in front of the lodge. To one side of the front entry, three heavily armed men in white camouflage fatigues and white parka’s stood vigilantly, while another four men walked the perimeter. On their heads, they wore only stocking caps that would be much more comfortable and warmer than helmets.

  At least some of the reason for the gunfire lay in the front parking area where the choppers rested. Scattered in front of Doc’s lovely, warm and welcoming log lodge were all three of his dogs; a black lab, a yellow lab and a collie — all had been beautiful and well-behaved animals. The Boys, as Doc referred to them, had been mowed down while defending their human family and home.

  The sight made my heart sink and slam to the bottom of my soul.

  This image of such beautiful animals lying murdered, along with a dozen other atrocities, would surely remain in the back of my mind for the rest of my days, and it brought tears to my eyes. The years of civilian life — even though much of it had passed behind prison bars — had softened my very thick, calloused feelings. My palms became sweaty. My heart pounded against my ribs and my hands trembled. The fear I’d abated had scaled the high wall of my resolve and was now tearing at my mind.

  My children could be dead, as well.

  With eyes closed, I took a deep breath and turned my focus away from what was and what could be and the pain stabbing my temples. My thoughts must be directed totally at this being a rescue mission and not a balls-out massacre of some despicable assholes.

  Regaining my composure, I found a familiar deer trail that led to the back of Doc’s large log cabin. The backside of the house faced south, and its entire south wall was covered in large windows. If I stayed concealed, I had a good chance of surprising and overwhelming a squad-size force.

  The impressive great room with high-vaulted ceiling and rough-hewn beams was well lit. Five men in the white, snow-camo fatigues stood in easy view. A black man sat in a wooden chair in the middle of the big room. I took a set of binoculars from my backpack and got a better look. Focused on the sitting man, I soon recognized the bludgeoned and bloody face of John Sites’.

  I’d known John all of my life. He was in his seventies, but still an imposing yet polite figure at six-five and 200, muscular pounds. After Vietnam, it was John who got my father his railroad job with the ATSF Railway, now BNSF. They’d been best friends ever since. Although he’d left railroad employment long ago in favor of the government Federal Railroad Inspector job, he’d stayed in contact with Doc — and through my father, with me.

  Bringing the binoculars down and shaking my head, I remembered John babysitting me when I was five. Specks and John Sites were my past — they were my father’s life, and I found my whole being anchored strongly with these good men.

  Scanning the rest of what I could see of the house and yard, I found no one else. I prayed the children and Mary had somehow managed to escape. But were they outside someplace, unprotected in the snow? Now that the cold storm front had passed, the temperature was back up into the teens, but was dropping with the sun and would bottom out at near zero tonight. I inspected my surroundings and saw nothing, not even a trace that someone had passed into the woods.

  After devising a quick plan, I pulled off my parka and dug into my backpack and ruck sack in preparation for an impromptu mission. In three minutes, I’d buckled my weapons belt over a light jacket, and I was ready to deliver Hell to these Colorado National Guardsmen wannabes.

  About to shove off on a sprint to the back door, I stopped. in the lodge, John Sites leapt up from his chair and ran for the next room. One of the men who’d stood over him raised a Mac 10, lined up in the doorway and let the bullets fly. Within a couple of seconds, he turned away and walked back to the others as if his task was done.

  If I’d begun my attack a minute sooner, John Sites might have still been alive.

  With my kids nowhere to be seen and my mind bent on revenge, I decided to take a direct route to the big lodge. I wanted my adversaries to see that they were being attacked by only one man so that they wouldn’t panic and kill their hostages — if that’s what Mary and the kids had become. I wanted these assholes to underestimate their attacking force. Then, I’d give them one hell of a surprise.

  * * *

  With the M-4 on full auto, I squeeze the trigger and the first shot takes down one of the men paroling the perimeter. But a second round doesn’t chamber. I jack in another bullet and fire again at a second adversary. This time I miss my target altogether, and again the bolt doesn’t reload the next round. I manually cock and fire again and repeat the process as I advance.

  I am shooting, but the only place bullets are landing is around me.

  The M-4 carbine is a gas-operated gun that utilizes the high pressure created from a fired bullet to chamber another round. “Shit!” I said, realizing the carbine in my hands must be loaded with blank cartridges that create little back pressure. Only the first bullet was real so that upon a quick inspection, I wouldn’t notice the blank cartridges below it. Still, in front of several armed men, I chide myself for not noticing the magazine was a little light, loaded with the less weighty blank cartridges instead of full metal jackets.

  Damn it! What the hell—Rillie?

  I soon discover I was fortunate, however. The guards from the front join the others and the six men approach cautiously, obviously having orders to capture me, as they close in without returning my blank shots.

  “We got Knight,” one of the men who’d come around from the front of the lodge says into a microphone on his weapons belt suspenders. Then he motions with his M-16 and tells me, “Let’s go, asshole.”

  “Strike one,” I tell him. Why call me an asshole? I’m defending my people. He’s attacking and harming them. He’s the asshole.

  “What?”<
br />
  I look at the M-4 in my hands. It’s useless as a rifle — and they obviously were in on the knowledge of me having only blank cartridges — but it’s still a weapon. “Strike two,” I answer. I’ve left my pack and ruck sack with assorted weapons back in the tree line. But letting me keep the assault rifle, even for an extra second, is like me giving him a fastball that he watches go straight over the plate.

  One of the armed men behind me reaches over my shoulder and confiscates the KA-BAR knife I have sheathed there. Then he gives me a shove. “He said, let’s go, dumbass!”

  I stumble a step and smile. They’ve let their guard down, thinking I’m unarmed. “Strike three.”

  Curiosity and apprehension comes over the leaders face as I grin at him.

  “I’ll take your weapon, now” he says, his arm extended.

  I tell him, “Gladly.”

  In the next second, my boot is in the groin of the impatient jerk behind me.

  I’ve flipped my M-4 around and the carbine’s butt is in the leader’s surprised face before he has a chance to react. He loses at least three teeth.

  With the carbine flipped back around, the muzzle contacts the heads of three of the four remaining men, all standing to my left, and two go down.

  My sidekick to the guy on my right drops him to the ground holding his broken knee.

  The last man standing was only temporarily stunned by my gun muzzle, so I give it to him again with a forceful jab, just as he’s raising his M-16. Now he’ll have but one good eye for the rest of his very short life, and he easily relinquishes his weapon.

  I flip his M-16 around and shoot all six center of mass as they’re recovering. I don’t wait to see how sure my shots have been, but sprint toward the large center window of the lodge and, shoulder first, dive through. After rolling on the great room’s oak floor, I quickly regain my feet and prepare for a fight.

  No movement — the large cabin is still.

  Remembering John Sites had run into the den the last I’d seen him, I entered that adjoining room cautiously.

  I find Doc’s old friend behind a shot up sofa next to the large fireplace. He’s taken one in the chest, but he is conscious.

  “John,” I say, “hold on. We’ll get you help.”

  “Ethan,” he says, “So glad to see you. Help’s on its way — US Marshals are only ten minutes out. Your dad and Specks?”

  “Found Specks. I think he’ll be all right. He’s with Rillie back at our chopper.”

  John looks blankly for a second, as if he’s trying to make out what I’m saying. He says, “Really?”

  He’s clearly out of it, and a small thing gives me pause — he’d mispronounced Rillie’s name with “eel” instill of “ill”. I tell him, “Looks like Doc hitched a train.”

  He suddenly seems clear-headed again. “Ethan, Doc’s in big trouble. We all are. They’re mercenaries — not just Americans, but … Germans, South Africans, Columbians, French, Russian. The hazmat train…,” he loses his breath.

  I want him to say more, but I don’t want him to kill himself doing it. “Don’t talk, now. Just point to where the kids and Mary are.”

  “… the hazmat train, Ethan, it’s going to … Denver. They’re going to … blow it up in front of Federal Plaza.”

  “Okay. We’ll stop ‘em. Just rest. Where are Mary and the kids? They okay?”

  “I locked them … in the basement … when the choppers came in.” he says and points toward the basement door in the hallway.

  But the door he says he’d locked is open and my fears heighten.

  He grabs my arm. “Take my phone. I ran when they told me … to hand it over. Then you busted in … and they disappeared. I recorded everything I know … on it … in case I didn’t make it.”

  I take his phone.

  He continues, “I’m okay. Posse’s on its way. Go take care of … your kids and Mary.”

  I leave him and edge toward the basement doorway.

  Then he calls out, “E Z, the hazmat train — it’s carrying … yellowcake.”

  It finally jives: Betty Crocker — yellowcake, not yellow cake. When Doc told Specks, “It ain’t Betty Crocker’s” he wasn’t referring to the baking kind of yellow cake, but the highly radioactive uranium ore, separated, grinded and purified into a yellow powder known as yellowcake.

  Over my shoulder, I say low, “I understand,” and pause at the top of the basement steps. The lights are out, but instead of using the tactical flashlight attached to the barrel of the M-16 I’d confiscated from one of my adversaries outside, I decide the darkness might help conceal me.

  I slowly descend the stairs. Remembering the fourth step creaks, I bypass it in favor of the next one down. Wanting to be as clandestine as possible, I inch my way. But, reminding myself that not only Mary and my children’s lives are in jeopardy, but quite possibly half of the population of Denver, Colorado, I pick up the pace.

  At the foot of the basement stairway, I scan the lightless basement that’s hardly bigger than a storm shelter, its primary purpose a cool canning room for Mary. I’m unable to determine any movement or anything out of place in the darkness, so I find I must switch on the tactical light on my carbine and check again.

  Nothing. The children are gone. But I wonder about Mary and the kids getting past John Sites without him seeing them. I go to the wide exterior stairway exit and look up at the slanted, double doors that open to the side of the lodge. The inside latch is undone as if someone had left through the big doors. When I try to shove the large door panels open, I find they’ve been somehow blocked from the outside, probably with the handle of a yard tool or broom.

  A squeak comes from behind, and I realize someone is coming down the stairs. I quickly snap off my light, find the edge of some storage shelving and flatten against it.

  It sounds like one person, possibly two, moving cautiously. Perhaps it’s John, somehow finding the strength to stand and walk. It could be a couple of the jerkoffs in the snow-camo suits coming back to finish the job they started with me. It could be the US Marshals, finally arriving.

  In the next instant, a light shines in my eyes — a tactical light much like the one attached to the assault weapon I’m carrying. I see only the end of the barrel of a gun being aimed at me, the rest of the weapon and gunman hidden in the darkness behind the bright light. I resist the urge to put a bullet in the center of the small flashlight’s LEDs. If it’s one of the snow-camouflaged jerkoffs, I hope he’ll give me an indication before he pulls the trigger.

  “E Z?” a feminine voice says. “Your kids are okay.”

  It’s Rillie, and the relief from what she’s said washes over me like a relaxing, warm bath.

  “Thank God, Rillie. Damn good to see you,” I tell her, lowering my weapon. “Where are they?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize what had bothered me about Rillie. John Sites calls me Ethan instead of E Z. That’s because he and my father are good friends, and that’s how Doc always refers to me — never E Z. Doc never calls me E Z, yet the woman before me never met me before today, nor has she heard me referenced by anyone but my father, John Sites and possibly Specks, who all only call me Ethan.

  “Put the gun down, E Z,” she says. “I mean it. I actually have used one of these before — many times. And I use them very effectively. I’ll use this one now if you twitch the wrong way.”

  I believe her. She has the drop on me. Why hadn’t I realized before this that she wasn’t who she claimed to be. But what an act — and why? I set the M-16 on the shelf beside me.

  “You know,” Rillie says and flips on the basement light. “I was going to kill you from the start. But they told me I had one option, and they’d pay me an extra $500,000 for it. So now that the taxi ride is over, and I’ve gotten to know you a little, I’ve reconsidered. But it’s up to you.”

  Someone with a white-knit ski mask stands behind her near the stairway back to the living quarters. In the darkness behind Rillie’s light, all I can
see of the person is the white knit ski mask.

  “Option?” I say, making sure the guy behind her could hear. “It’d better include you and all your bastard cohorts committing suicide and going straight to Hell.”

  “Now shut-up a minute and think about this. I’ll guarantee you a chance to save your father, ensure your children and Mary’s safety, and you’ll get two million dollars — all for stepping back and playing along.”

  “Screw you!”

  She smiles. “Actually, I was hoping that would be a part of it. We can team up. These people have plenty of work lined up and very deep pockets.” She raises an eyebrow. “You even know a few of the players.”

  “Not anymore, I don’t. And I don’t want any part of it. You’re trading personal wealth for thousands of innocent lives.”

  “I doubt many are innocent. Besides, they’ve done nothing for me. It’s not me killing them, it’s fate. Fate says they die and I get rich. That’s the way of this world; I learned that at a very early age.” She grins, her eyes wide like a child at Christmas. “Come on! I guarantee we’ll have a ball — many of them, in fact!”

  “Like I said before — you can ride the prick behind you straight to Hell!” I tell her, expecting to be ushered up the steps to meet the rest of my adversaries — and maybe have a chance to turn the tables on them and find the children.

  She surprises me again.

  “Too bad,” she says, and before her voice stops, I hear the reciprocating tap of her silenced weapon on full auto, and I feel a dozen high-velocity rounds pepper my torso.

  Chapter 10

  Rude Awakening

  7:00 PM

  I regained consciousness on the cold concrete basement floor with my chest aching like I’d been stomped by a brahma bull. The pain in my left shoulder was a different story — sharp and intense.

  The type 2A ballistic vest I wore was pliable and thin enough to be fairly well concealed and had prevented major damage to everywhere I’d been struck except that exposed shoulder.