Binder - 02

by David Vinjamuri

  “Unless you ran a train into it,” Gatto said. We turned to him as he poked a finger toward New Jersey. “The oil that supplies East Coast refineries used to come in from overseas by tanker. Not anymore. Now it comes overland from Canadian tar sands. A lot of it travels by train. A train full of crude oil at full speed is a big goddamn bomb. And if it derails in a refinery, it could look like an accident because shit like this happens when engineers get drunk. There wouldn’t be any evidence left to find after the explosion, anyway.”

  A call to D.C. revealed that an oil tanker train had passed through Harrisburg less than an hour earlier, on its way to a refinery in Greenwich Township in New Jersey, across the river, just south of Philadelphia International Airport. The FBI contacted the rail company, which confirmed they’d lost contact with the train after a massive network failure had disabled their control center. We sprinted for the helicopter. Alpha had already greased the skids with Hostage Rescue. The sensible thing would have been to board the train from a vehicle driving alongside it, but the terrain didn’t lend itself to that kind of solution, and we couldn’t get the right kind of truck into position quickly. Given the speed the train was running, it probably wouldn’t have worked, anyway.

  * * *

  I hit the top of the engine and immediately lost my footing. I sprawled with my arms and legs wide and managed to get a gloved hand into the metallic grate I’d landed on before my whole body went over the side. For a few seconds the outcome was uncertain as the rain and wind beat at me and my legs slid off the train and started to pull the rest of me with them. Then I got another hand around and latched it onto the grate. I pulled myself back onto the train and clipped a carabineer into the decking. The other end was attached to my belt by a six-foot nylon strap. Then I looked up to the Blackhawk and waved the next man down.

  Things started to go south the moment he released from the helicopter. A burst of wind knocked the Blackhawk toward him and the side of the bird hit him in the back of the head. His Kevlar helmet kept him from being killed instantly, but he pitched forward, nearly missing the train altogether. As he flew past I managed to get a hand through the harness of his assault rifle, an M4. His momentum would have carried me off the train but for the carabineer rigged to my belt. He was dangling off the train from a gun strap as I heaved him back. We both collapsed onto the deck of the engine. I pulled a glove off and checked his pulse. He was alive and breathing, but unconscious.

  Gatto was yelling in my ear, but I didn’t hear him until I had the operator secured to the deck with two more straps crisscrossed across his torso to the grating.

  “Orion, Copperhead, what is your status?” he said for the third time.

  “Read you, Dogpatch. Copperhead is down but alive and secure.”

  Gatto said something unintelligible through the comm, perhaps cursing in a language we didn’t share.

  Then I heard gunfire.

  The Blackhawk veered off immediately, disappearing into the storm that pressed against the train. I leaned over the right edge of the engine and saw the muzzle flash of a rifle from the open door of the lead locomotive. A few seconds later, the Blackhawk pulled back into view. It was ahead of the train and off to the starboard side. A fusillade of small arms fire streamed toward the train. It was smart positioning, because the doors to the engineer’s cabin faced back toward the rear of the train. The HRT snipers were trying to avoid hitting the train controls while forcing Harmon to step out of the cabin to return fire.

  I unhooked myself and gained my feet, then sprinted forward as fast as I dared. While the Blackhawk continued to engage Harmon, I reached the end of the second engine and took the four-foot leap to the first train. That’s when the steel trestle bridge appeared in front of me.

  A yardarm of some kind swung loose from a girder on the bridge, skimming just feet above the top of the locomotive. I landed on the front engine and immediately hopped back into the air, just before the steel beam hit me in the knees. I landed again and narrowly kept my balance. I dropped to my knees and scrambled forward, keeping a careful eye on the bridge as it whizzed by.

  The Blackhawk peeled off as I got to within a few feet of the crew cab of the lead locomotive. There was a walkway on either side of the engine and both of them led to identical doors to the cabin. I attached another strap with carabineers to the top of the engine and slid down over the left side, unhooking myself when I’d gained the walkway with a hand on the railing.

  I crept forward along the gangway. I stopped a few feet short of the door and tapped my comm.

  “Dogpatch this is Orion. Go on three.”

  “Roger, Orion. Three, two, one...go.”

  A burst of gunfire erupted from the Blackhawk. I climbed two stairs and stepped up to the door to the cabin. I peeked through its glass window.

  The first thing I saw was a body, slumped back in a seat. For an instant I thought Gatto’s shooters had hit Harmon. But it was one of the train crew, probably the conductor. He was a slight man with large ears and a neat little bullet hole through the side of his head.

  Peering around, I spotted the train engineer. The cabin was divided into two compartments that gave each crewmember a parallel but separate view of the track ahead. There were fewer controls on my side, so the engineer’s station had to be on the other side. It looked like the engineer was secured to his chair with duct tape, although at least one of his arms was free.

  Then Harmon leaned forward and I caught a glimpse of him. He had his back to me and was peering out the other train door, holding a short-barreled M4 carbine out in front of him. He was searching the sky for the Blackhawk. This time he’d be gunning for the tail rotor or the rotor housing. At close range he could bring the helo down and kill the entire crew if he hit it.

  “Rifle out the door and hands behind your neck, fingers interlaced,” I shouted as I stepped inside the train compartment.

  Without hesitating, Harmon ducked through the door he’d been holding open with surprising speed, and the shot I fired missed the back of his head by an inch or two.

  I darted after him, just catching the engineer’s door with the edge of my foot before it slammed shut. I sprung through the door and juked left as the barrel of Harmon’s rifle turned toward me. I stepped on top of the railing, perilously close to the edge of the bridge, then pushed off and launched myself into Harmon, switching the Kimber into my left hand and bringing my gloved right hand down on the top of the receiver of the M4, where the scope would have been if he’d attached one. I pushed the rifle down and away from me as I slammed my elbow into the side of his throat.

  Harmon dropped the rifle, then ducked and hit me in the chest with his shoulder. He followed up with an elbow shot to my ribcage. Then he slid a hand around my waist and tried to hip-toss me off the train. I stepped my right foot in front of Harmon’s left to block the throw and clung to him as he tried to shoulder me straight off the train instead. My head slipped back for a fraction of a second before I saw a steel beam whizzing by and pulled it back. I slammed my helmet into Harmon’s forehead and speared the tips of my gloved fingers toward his Adam’s apple when he pulled a knife with his left hand and slashed out, snagging it on one of the pouches on the front of the ammo vest I was wearing. I grabbed his wrist and stepped back while twisting, pulling him off balance by the knife arm. Then I torqued the wrist and slammed it to the ground. He dropped the knife as his wrist broke, and I jabbed the .45 into the soft spot between his collarbone and his Adam’s apple.

  “Where’s Heather?” I asked him.

  “Heather? Seriously? You’re on a train that’s about to derail and that’s what you’re focused on? They were right about you. You’re a goddamn pit bull.”

  I didn’t answer him, just tightened my grip around his broken wrist.

  “You’re never going to find her. You’ll never see her. She’s gone,” he said.

  Then he lunged toward me, arcing his free right hand toward the elbow of my gun hand.

  At
point blank range, the Kimber bucked twice in rapid succession.

  Epilogue

  Five Days Later – Saturday

  “That was beautiful. Sad but beautiful,” Nichols said as we walked toward our cars. It was a cold, gusty afternoon at the Donel Kinnard Memorial State Veterans Cemetery. They’d just buried Tim Quigley.

  “It was. You’ve been to a few of these?”

  “A few. You’ve probably been to a few more.”

  “Yeah, I have.” Dozens.

  “How’s your mom doing?” she asked.

  “She’s recovering. They have her in physical therapy. They think she’ll be able to speak and function normally, but it will take a while. The left side of her body is weak right now.”

  “You made it back home?”

  I nodded. “I rented a car in Camden and drove straight through to Conestoga. I got there just before Sandy made landfall. My mom was still in the hospital so I stayed at the house with my sister Ginny. We lost a tree and a few shingles, and the sump pump failed so the basement flooded. We had our hands full for a couple of days...I appreciate the advice by the way. I’m not sure if I would have been as quick to go back if you hadn’t encouraged me.”

  “I’m glad it worked out.”

  “They’re all crazy. Ginny tries to please everybody, Jamie says whatever comes to her mind and Amelia hates me. But it’s a family.”

  “Every family is dysfunctional in its own way.” Nichols smiled. “Are you sure you don’t want to stop for a late lunch before you head home?”

  “I’ve got an appointment.”

  “About the girl?”

  I nodded.

  “I heard about that,” she said.

  “You free for dinner?” I asked.

  “Sure. Gourmet pizza?”

  I made a face. Nichols laughed.

  “So where do things stand with the National Front?” I asked.

  “It’ll take months to work our way through all the data. They tried to destroy all their computer records, but we miraculously found an intact copy of the entire dataset on one of their secondary systems.”

  “It’s funny how those kinds of slipups happen.” She caught my eye; it was obvious she knew it was no accident at all.

  “But they’re done regardless.”

  “Too much bad publicity?”

  Nichols stopped. “I thought you already heard this.”

  “What?”

  “They’re broke. They must have bet everything on the energy scheme. We think it was all supposed to be invested by Jason Paul, because he would be dead at the end, right? But the investments never got made and the cash disappeared. Right now the National Front can’t even afford to pay their lawyers.”

  “So Eric Price is headed to jail?”

  “We hope so, but it will be a long process. He was very careful not to get his hands dirty. We’re hoping to flip someone in the National Front. That may be the only way that we get him.”

  “That’s disturbing,” I said.

  “Washington is livid.”

  “What about Jason Paul? Did you figure out if he’s dead or alive?”

  Nichols shook her head. “We haven’t, at least not conclusively. But there’s a huge amount of money missing, so we think he faked his death. He must have been planning this for a long time because he really did disappear without a trace.”

  “And he’s the one responsible for all the agents who were lost.”

  “We’ll find him. Whatever it takes.”

  “What about you? Do you know what’s next?”

  “It’s hard to say. I’m going to be decorated for our actions. There’s been a lot of publicity. The Bureau and the West Virginia State Police have been showered with praise. It’s amazing, though, that your name hasn’t surfaced in a single article.”

  “My old boss is an expert at keeping a low profile. It sounds like you were about to say ‘but’?”

  “ButI didn’t do things the Bureau way. I’ve been told that in no uncertain terms.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You stopped half the country from going dark. I wouldn’t have put things together on my own nearly as quickly as you did.”

  “I doubt that.” Nichols smiled.

  “I may have—I mean I have—I think...” I stumbled. Nichols cocked her head and I composed myself. “I don’t know how you’re going to react to this, but I talked to a friend at the Bureau in D.C. His name is Dan Menetti. He’s just been put in charge of the Counterterrorism division. I gather it’s been a mess there, but he has a pretty broad mandate to turn things around. He’d like to talk to you if you’re interested.”

  Nichols stopped abruptly. “Am I interested? Seriously? Do you think I’m an idiot or something?”

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me pulling strings for you.”

  “I’m not twelve. I appreciate help from my friends.”

  “So we’re friends?” I asked.

  She patted me on the cheek as we reached her Suburban. “Play your cards right and some day we might even be good friends. See you tonight.”

  * * *

  The sun hung low over the horizon and the afternoon air bit crisply. I stood with Alpha beneath the shade of an old oak on the National Front compound. We were in the back yard of the family mansion on the far end of the property.

  “I thought you’d want to see this, sir. This is where Heather is buried.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “We won’t know conclusively until they get her out of the ground but I think so, yes. The FBI had cadaver dogs all over the compound for a few days before someone thought to check the family house. The earth right here has been dug up within the past two weeks. They used ground-penetrating radar yesterday to confirm that the remains of an adult human female are buried here. A bunch of men died last week over at the compound, but she would have been the only woman. I held off the medical examiner because I thought you’d want to come here first. Heather’s mother will come tomorrow if she’s recognizable enough to identify. Unless you want to spare her that.”

  Alpha looked at me, raised his eyebrows.

  “Heather is your daughter, after all,” I said.

  He exhaled slowly and completely. “Was it obvious?”

  “It was a lot to ask for a friend’s child, so I wondered. I guess I was thrown off at first by her last name. But when I met Eric Price, he said something about you and Colonel Hernandez in a way that made me wonder if you’d had a falling out. Then one of the National Front people told me Heather’s biological father had left when she was young and Colonel Hernandez was her step-dad. Heather found out about you recently, I take it?”

  Alpha nodded. “We had lunch two weeks before she left home to join Reclaim. I hadn’t seen her since she was three. Her mother remarried quickly. Hernandez was a friend but we didn’t speak after he started seeing my ex-wife. Then I was deployed overseas for a number of years. Heather’s mother persuaded me to sign the legal papers allowing Hernandez to adopt her. Did Harmon kill her?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me at the end, but he may have. You’ll have to wait for the medical examiner to tell you exactly how she died. I’d bet she was killed because of the warning she sent to her parents. Heather was brave. And whether Harmon killed her or not, it was his fault. He never should have brought her here.”

  We stood there in silence for a while before I turned to leave. Then Alpha started to speak.

  “You helped avert a catastrophe. Given the gas shortages in New Jersey right now, you can imagine how much worse things would have been if the refinery had been damaged.”

  “The aftermath of the hurricane seems pretty awful as it is.”

  “I know you’ve had some...difficulties...with your job at State. The right people know what you did here. I’ve taken steps to ensure you’re protected.”

  “Thank you, sir, but it’s not necessary. I’d prefer to succeed or fail on my own merits.”

  Alpha shook his head. �
�It won’t work that way whether I intercede or not.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You have another question,” he said. His voice was as still as the oaks around us.

  “No. The rest is between you and Heather.” I turned again to leave, but he continued.

  “Heather’s mother and I met in high school. We married just before I enlisted. I spent the first two years of my marriage in Vietnam and Laos. Heather was a surprise. Her mother didn’t think she could have children by that time. She came along just at the moment my career was starting to accelerate. I was young, ambitious and impulsive. When Heather’s mother and I had fights, I got very angry. Once I hit her.

  “When she was three, Heather was playing with a bottle of ketchup about an hour before my promotion ceremony to Major. I asked her to put the bottle down. Instead she threw it at me and it spilled on my only dress uniform. I slapped her. Very hard. The look on her face will never leave me. Her mother was just coming down the stairs when I did it. She took Heather up in her arms and walked out the front door. It was more than twenty years before I saw either one of them again.”

  I looked him straight in the eye for a second, then withdrew. He stood in the lengthening shadows as I drove away.

  Sources

  Master Sergeant Rodney Cox was an invaluable source of information. He read the entire manuscript and reread numerous versions of the action sequences to help me get the technical details right. His contribution of personal time was especially generous considering his rapidly expanding duties at SWCS in Fort Bragg. Thanks also to Captain Steve Gettman at Fort Leavenworth for his insights at the range and creative ideas for Binder.

  A special thanks to my friends at Blackhawk!/ATK including Chuck Buis and Tim Brandt as well as Matt Rice and Greg Duncan of Blue Herron Communications for their thoughts and recommendations on gear.

  Joe Vlasak was kind enough to lend his experience with freight trains.