KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set

by Gordon Kessler

  He waved with his fingers. “Bi-yee, and be care — full!”

  “You sure?” Specks said.

  “Yeah, he can call.”

  “No. You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

  “You just hold down the fort.”

  “Okay,” he said. “See you in the funny papers.”

  “Don’t be mad, just get even,” I told him.

  He said, “Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder!”

  “I hope the early bird catches your worm,” I said and stepped over the window frame, out into the snow.

  He said, “If you shake it more than twice, you’re playing with it.”

  Trotting away, I said, “The second mouse gets the cheese.”

  He called out, “They can’t arrest you for lookin’ — unless it’s through a tear in the window shade, and your pants are down around your ankles!”

  Our little catch-phrase banter had matured dramatically to an adult only level over the past thirty years.

  Chapter 16

  Buggy Barred

  9:35 PM MST

  By a track switch, I found a buggy bar that car inspectors use to, among other things, change freight car and locomotive brake shoes. It’s a one-inch-thick, hexagonal, steel pry bar about three-feet long with one end pointed and the other spooned.

  They were still switching cars in the yards, two switch engines moving rolling equipment at any one time.

  I went between two tracks, both loaded with freight cars. With the equipment so close together, I felt somewhat claustrophobic, even though I’m not normally. A second later four of the mercs stepped between the tracks about fifty yards away. They gave pursuit.

  Dodging between a couple other tracks, I noticed a string of cars on one side of me was moving to be switched. It became difficult to see in the darkness. The footing was far from sure, especially in the snow on uneven ground.

  I took my buggy bar and struck a one-inch-wide band helping to secure a load of lumber on a flatcar that rolled by. After two more strikes, the band broke and the sharp end flipped out about chest high, while sticking out about three feet from the side of the car.

  That string of freight equipment was moving toward where I was pretty sure the four mercs might pop out at any minute — about 150 feet away.

  On the empty flatcar standing still beside me, I found a heavy chain hooked to the freight car’s thick side sill. Two cars back on the moving track was a high-wide load with a big combine secured with chains.

  I waited patiently for the big machinery, while watching for my adversaries in the other direction. Like clockwork, three of them trotted out between the tracks.

  I flipped them off.

  One of them fired his sidearm at me, but the bullet missed by yards, and a second man pulled the gunman’s hand back.

  As the car with the broken banding drew close to them, I showed them the bird again. The steel banding used to secure loads on open top freight cars is strong stuff, but it’s very thin and nearly invisible from the side even in bright daylight, let alone at night. And once it’s broken or cut, the sharp edge can slice through a man’s flesh like a fillet knife.

  They ran my way and the guy who’d shot at me caught the banding across his upper arm and chest. It cut through his arm, probably to the bone and gouged into his upper torso before springing up and catching the second guy behind him in the face.

  For good measure, I took the long chain I was holding and threw it hard against one of the securement chains on the combine as it went by. My chain wrapped around the securement chain, and I ducked as it passed over me and tightened from the empty flat I stood next to.

  The yet uninjured man and the one who got the band in the face were still coming at me.

  When my chain finally stretched taut, the empty flat and the cars attached to it began to move with the chain. Finally, the combine came lose, and my extra chain yanked the big farm equipment off the flat car.

  The huge-wheeled vehicle slammed into the freight cars resting on the track beside it, and in front of the approaching mercs. With the movement of the train, the combine began to tumble between the cars. It crushed both of my pursuers, then finally smashed the injured man before coming to a stop in the opening at the end of the string of freight cars.

  There was much more havoc to wreak.

  Now, I was on a hunt.

  I went from track to track searching for more of the mercenaries while moving toward the switching locomotives. I’d hoped to find the RCL operators on the ground, but anyone I came across was fair play.

  When I stepped around the end of some cars, I ran into two very big mercenaries. They were ready. They had their assault rifles leveled.

  “Knight, I’ll bet,” one of them said. He sounded German. “We’re not going to make the mistake the others did. Drop the bar and don’t make a move — otherwise you’ll be dead before your shit hits your pants.”

  I dropped the bar straight down, and the spoon stuck in the snow. I noticed movement behind the men, and the surprise ruined my poker face. In the dark behind the two armed men, someone or something had just rolled out from under a tank car.

  The talker said, “Don’t even try that with us, asshole. We can’t be tricked that easy. There’s no one behind us.”

  I shrugged.

  The squat silhouette approaching from behind the men reached up to the sides of their heads, then slammed them together.

  They fell, but one got up from his knees quickly.

  I grabbed the buggy bar and threw it underhand from fifteen feet away. The pointed end of the steel tool caught the guy in the gut. He went down.

  Yule Dye grabbed the second man as the guy tried to recover his feet. Dye threw him into the big steel wheel of the freight car beside him. The steel clanked like it was struck with a sledge hammer.

  I smiled at my new ally and nodded. “Yule, it’s a pleasure being on the same side.”

  “E Z,” he returned, “the pleasure is all mine.”

  He was holding his side. “I take back all that circus stuff.”

  “No need to apologize,” he said. “Your father’s a great friend. I sometimes forget that.” The guy he’d bashed into the freight car wheel began to get up a second time. Dye nonchalantly kicked his head into the steel plate again and continued, “I think I have a chemical imbalance or something.”

  “His head’s about as hard as yours is,” I told him.

  He smiled. “You know, I normally don’t hold a grudge, but your friend — that Rillie bitch — is going to get a real ass whoopin’ when I catch up with her.”

  “Not if I find her first,” I told him. “I plan on sending her away to never-never land. By the way, I’ve got plans for all these assholes — maybe make some big boom-boom. Would you mind finding a safe hiding place, maybe back at the yard office until I’m finished? Looks like you might need a little medical attention, anyway, and I’m going to put these pricks through holy hell.”

  He sighed, noticeably in pain. “You sure you don’t need help?”

  After stepping over to the dead man with the steel buggy bar in his belly, I placed my oversized right boot on his chest. “No, I got it.” I yanked the bar out.

  “Be careful.”

  We parted.

  As the mercenaries sorted through and switched in the hazardous material freight cars they wanted for Thundertrain, I began to wreak havoc. Over the next forty-five minutes, my delaying measures seemed to work, as I interfered and distracted a force dwindling gradually through attrition.

  Loose banding, cables and chains became lethal booby traps on moving equipment; combines, tractors and other wheeled machinery became deadly surprises; rolling freight cars were killers, especially when I threw a switch under a long, moving box car. Imagine the surprise on the faces of the three men walking between the two tracks being straddled by the huge equipment. They looked up at the last second to see the behemoth coming at them sideways.

  Holding my lon
g steel weapon close, I rolled under moving freight cars to avoid capture. Two of my adversaries who tried the same in order to follow me were too slow and clumsy. They were caught on the rail and quickly cut into pieces by the big, unforgiving, steel wheels. Another man was unable to make it out in time and got caught by the hanging brake rigging underneath a gondola car. He was dragged across a high crossing and then smashed between the wood crossing ties and the freight car’s low truck bolster, finally being rolled into an unrecognizable ball of flesh, clothing and blood. Another was mangled when he got snagged and pulled into the open, diverging rail point at a switch.

  I jumped between freight cars and ran atop box and tank cars. On an empty grain hopper, I threw back one of its roof hatches, climbed through the opening and out the bottom dump chute outlet to evade capture. Using a come-along chain-pull, I yanked the huge, side plug-door off a box car loaded with computers, TVs, stereo and video equipment, scattering much of the expensive electronic contents onto the ballast gravel and tripping up and knocking down several of my pursuers.

  On a tank car loaded with molasses hooked up to steam lines, I unscrewed the bottom outlet cap and opened the gate valve. It made one sticky mess for the mercenaries who tried to trudge through in order to catch me. I did the same to a slow-moving, machine-oil tanker. The slick oil made the road crossing it went over nearly impossible to traverse — too slippery for either foot or tire.

  Finally, I stepped past the end of a freight car, and I heard someone behind me.

  “Big Deal doesn’t like you much.”

  When I turned, I saw Dill Jones holding a gun. “Well, Little Dildo. I see you came up with another handgun. What is that, a Beretta?”

  He’d followed me, and was on the other side of the track I’d just crossed. I gazed at him from over the freight car coupler next to us.

  “Put the brake shoe bar down,” he said.

  I threw my buggy bar to the side, this time sticking the pointed end into the snow-covered ground. “So what now, Jones?”

  “Big Deal will tell you what now. You’ve really been screwing with Big Deal’s plans. If it wasn’t for you, Big Deal would’ve had smooth sailing.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said.

  In my years dealing with some very bad and despicable folks, I’ve found that many of them seem to want to complain to you before they try to kill you. They’ll whine about how you and the rest of the world have been cruel to them, and then they’ll brag about what they’re doing to make it right.

  “You and your nosy father came in here and nearly screwed everything up. Big Deal’s about to get a great, big payday — twenty-five million dollars. That’s right, all Big Deal had to do was sit back and stay out of the way. Ol’ Big Deal didn’t have to lift a finger, unless something went wrong or someone caused a problem. Well, your dad got in the way and now you’re causing problems.”

  I’d been warned that freight cars being humped — being shoved and released from a switching locomotive — can be extremely quiet while moving down the rail, especially with snow all around to absorb most of the sound. I glanced up the track that separated Big Deal and I and noticed a box car slowly growing larger. It made no discernible sound from this distance, yet its several-hundred tons was heading our way on those silent wheels.

  Slowly, I inched back. “Where is he — where’s Doc?”

  Big Deal stepped over the outside rail, and now stood with one foot in between. “Where do you think?”

  “Come on, you son of a bitch,” I insisted and edged a little farther away. “Where’s Doc.”

  “You shouldn’t be so worried about Doc — what about your kids? Not that you’re going to ever see them again, anyway. As soon as you left Slaughterhouse on your little search and rescue mission, I called an old friend of yours. They told me it’d really make you happy — ADA Edmond Rankle. He was gathering evidence that would have sent you back to prison — had you lived through the terrible rail accident you’re going to have. After shooting you, they won’t be able find the bullet hole in the hamburger when I throw your lifeless body under a moving train.”

  He brought his other foot between the rails and was now standing in front of the stopped freight car’s couple. “Big Deal sees what you’re doing. Don’t move again.”

  “Do you? Okay, I won’t move again.” Then I had second thoughts. I hated this man and wanted to see him dead. Still, I have ways of extracting information from people — and he knew where my kids and Doc were — but I needed him alive to find out.

  “Wait,” I said. “Jump!” I reached for him, and he raised his gun in defense.

  But the huge box car was on him. He turned to it at the last second. Terror flashed in his eyes, as he shot the big steel equipment three times.

  The huge freight car’s coupler punched Big Deal in the gut and shoved him into the steel drawbar of the car he’d been standing beside.

  The knuckles coupled and locked.

  Blood sprayed, but stopped.

  Big Deal’s scream was horrific.

  The couplers had him pinched — smashed between them.

  His eyes bugged. His jaw worked. He dropped the gun. He wailed again, a flesh crawling, agony-filled cry.

  He gazed down at the big couplers piercing his body, pinching off arteries and veins, sealing them from leaking out his life-sustaining blood. He lifted his face and stared at me. Like some kind of trapped bird, he screamed again.

  I’d heard of this happening time and time again. A man gets coupled — pinned between two freight car couplers — and lives … for a short period of time. He might even survive long enough for the emergency personnel to call out the man’s friends and loved ones to bid him farewell — to give him that last kiss goodbye. Then the freight cars are separated, the blood flows and the body’s shock and pain kills the man even before his gushing blood vessels bleed him out.

  This was not something I wanted to see. I stepped up to him.

  We stared at one another for a long moment.

  Seeming unable to form words, he screamed again.

  I reached down and picked up the pistol he’d dropped. It was a Beretta, but only a Model 92F — a 9mm. I like the Italian semi-automatic, but I appreciate a larger caliber. Berettas has weight — make you feel like you’ve got something substantial in your hands when you hold them.

  “Done Deal,” I said and quickly shot him between the eyes.

  At that moment on the adjacent track, the manifest train we’d rode in on began to leave.

  Chapter 17

  Balancing Act

  11:00 PM MST

  After putting the bullet in Big Deal’s brain, the semi-automatic Beretta pistol I’d used had jammed. I had no time to inspect the thing. Hoping it would be an easy fix, I stashed the firearm under my belt in back before I grabbed the handhold of a passing covered hopper car and stepped onto its sill step. The train was already moving about ten miles-per-hour. I swung around to the end ladder, held the buggy bar under my arm and climbed awkwardly to the roof, my injured shoulder getting a real workout. I’d picked a car probably fifty back on the mixed manifest train of hoppers, gondolas, flats and tankers that I’d come in on. Rocking behind me were another ten freight cars before the end.

  On the third track over, the hazmat train had begun to move, as well. But my train had the jump on them.

  I counted two six-axle locomotives and twenty cars in all on Thundertrain. The first twelve were black tankers, and I guessed those were all LP gas cars. Then there was a large box car that was most likely carrying the yellowcake, a white tank car I figured was chlorine gas, another three black LP gas, another yellowcake box, another chlorine gas, and finally a caboose.

  Loaded heavy with LP gas up front, it was obvious they wanted the train to derail at high speed, then accordion together while the LP explodes, the chlorine and explosive-filled yellowcake ramming into the fiery hell and being propelled away from the epicenter for miles and miles.

  From the roo
f of the covered hopper car, I could see two helicopters. The large CH-47 was just taking off from in front of the yard office and the UH-60 Blackhawk that was nearly destroyed in the gasoline tank car explosion was warming up next to the fuel station that we'd soon pass.

  I could do nothing about the big Chinook from this distance, but I might be able foul up the Blackhawk in some way. I assessed my weapons, or anything like weapons that I might have available. The Beretta had five rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. But the weapon’s slide was bent, which kept it from returning completely. I’d been lucky to get the one shot off before it jammed open. The thing would not fire another round in its current condition, and I had no time to repair it. Other than the damaged weapon, all I had was the buggy bar.

  Someone in the Chinook must have seen me, they were speeding in my direction. I sprinted, doing my best to ignore my sore shoulder and foot, across the top of the hopper car, toward the fuel rack and the Blackhawk.

  * * *

  I leap across the end of the hopper, onto the walkway of a tanker and limp-sprint on.

  The Chinook meets me, the big double rotor chopper spinning around to give me a look at the open back ramp.

  The Blackhawk is preparing to take off five cars in front and about 100 feet to the side of the track I’m on.

  Past the middle of the tanker, I see that the next car is also a tanker, but this one doesn’t have a top running board. Without a running board extending out from the roof of the car, it makes an appreciable gap to leap in between it and the next car. Also, without anything to land on except the icy, snow-covered and curved tank surface after landing, it will be very difficult to maintain my balance. If I fall off the moving equipment, I’ll surely land on the rail or the ballast twelve feet below.

  The Chinook is showing me it’s huge, open ass-end — and the .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the ramp.

  I have no choice, and I leap.

  The big, half-inch diameter bullets spit out as I’m midair in a clumsy jump between freight cars. I land on the tanker and slip on the slick surface, as I’d anticipated. Sliding sideways, spread-eagle, I use the bar against the ice for some kind of traction and guidance, bullets snapping overhead. I’m glad they’re being careful not to hit the tanker, because the big .50 caliber full-metal-jacket slugs would easily penetrate the tanker’s shell, and I’m fairly certain it’s a load of liquefied propylene — very combustible stuff.