Day of the Tiger (A Carlos McCrary Mystery Thriller Book 5)

by Dallas Gorham

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  Ponder’s phone vibrated and Michelle rolled off of him. She snatched up his phone from the nightstand before it rang. “Hello, Katherine.” She put the phone on speaker.

  “You sound out of breath.”

  Michelle winked at Ponder. “James and I were… killing time while we waited for your call.”

  “Ha, I’ll bet you were. Is sex all you two ever think about?” She laughed. “You’re making me jealous. I’m in a dry spell.”

  “I could loan you James when I’m through with him.”

  “His beard is too scratchy.”

  “That’s not why you called.”

  “Are you and James ready for action? Or should I say, more action?”

  Michelle smirked at Ponder. “We were born ready.”

  “James, are you there?”

  “Yeah, Katherine. Go ahead.”

  “I want you both to come in separate cars. Michelle, you park on Seventh Street at least a block east of the park. James, you park on Fourth Avenue a block north of the park.”

  “Why not park in the parking lot?” Michelle asked. “At night there should be plenty of spaces.”

  Katherine paused so long that Michelle wondered if the call had dropped. “Katherine? Are you there?”

  “Yes. Just park where I said.”

  “Okay, but why?”

  “That will become clear later. Michelle, now that you’re in the Four Musketeers you must be a team member. Just do it.”

  Ponder put a hand on Michelle’s arm. “We will, Katherine. Separate cars, a block away from the park. We’ll be there in an hour—separately.”

  “Michelle, did you pack a hoodie and a baseball hat like I told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Both of you put on your hoodies and baseball hats before you open the car door.”

  “Okay.”

  “One more thing,” Katherine added.

  “We’re listening.”

  “Remove your cell phone batteries from your phones before you get out of the car.”

  Michelle’s stomach turned a small flip flop as she disconnected the call. “Why does she want us to wear hoodies and hats?”

  “Michelle, you’re smarter than that. It’s for the security cameras in McKinley Park.”

  “But why remove our cell phone batteries?”

  Chapter 8

  “Accelerometer’s at minus three. Delray Beach four miles ahead.” Harold Greenleaf had been an engineer with the East Carolina & Florida Railroad for twenty-eight years.

  Dan Smith, the conductor, noted the reading in the train log. He checked the speedometer. “We should hit twenty at the city limits.” He glanced at his watch. “I make it 10:31 p.m.”

  Harold looked at his cell phone, then the clock on the instrument panel. “I concur.”

  Harold and Dan rode in the lead General Electric ES44C4 locomotive which controlled the mile-long train. Two additional ES44C4's pulled from the front followed by one hundred eight freight cars carrying coal for Port City Power’s Everglades generating plant. Two more locomotives pushed the 15,444 tons of coal from the rear. A single one-hundred-eighty-pound man controlled the twenty-two thousand horsepower of all five locomotives.

  The wheels rumbled and clicked their hypnotic rhythm. Harold yawned and swiveled the upholstered driver’s chair. “I’m gonna hit the head and fix some more coffee. You want a cup?”

  Dan grabbed the dead-man switch and replaced Harold at the controls. “Yeah, thanks.”

  The lights of Delray Beach paraded sedately by. The clanging bells of the grade crossing rose and fell in volume as the locomotive passed the flashing red lights of the crossing arms.

  Dan moved the throttle one notch as the speedometer hit twenty miles per hour. The five locomotives at either end of the 108-car string automatically adjusted all thirty driving axles.

  The coal cars between the leading locomotives and the trailing ones paid no attention to the electrical commands that travelled through their innards to the back of the train. They were content to carry the coal that would fuel the Everglades power plant for a little over thirty hours.

  By 12:07 a.m. the coal train had crossed the New River Bridge in Fort Lauderdale. At 12:52 a.m. Dan announced, “Twelve minutes to the Everglades switch. I think I’ll take a leak before we make the turn.”

  Harold rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension in his neck as he sat at the instruments. It had been a long day and he was tired. I’m getting too old for this. Two more years and I’ll take my retirement. Maybe the missus and I will live on a boat in The Keys. We can get an old clunker trawler with enough cabins for two or three grandkids to visit at a time. Then we can go see them up north at Christmas and enjoy the snow. The green lights of the Seeti River Bridge grew larger on either side of the double-tracked rail line.

  A flash of billowing orange smashed the windshield and enveloped the green lights. Thunder shook the three-hundred-ton locomotive like a baby’s rattle. A giant bird’s nest of steel girders hurtled spinning into the air on either side.

  “Holy Mother of God!” Harold slapped the Head of Train Device sending wireless signals to all five locomotives and 108 coal cars to apply their brakes. Hitting the throttle with his other hand, Harold slammed all sixty drive wheels into reverse as the locomotive tumbled off the shredded end of the rails and nose dived into the inky water of the Seetiweekifenokee River.

  The steep downward tilt of the engine threw Harold forward. Black water rushed through the shattered windshield. Harold pounded on the toilet compartment door beneath him. “Dan! Dan! You’ve got to get out of there.” Water flooded through the side windows, sweeping the engineer away from the toilet door. The steel locomotive slammed into the river bottom, smashing Harold’s head into the metal wall knocking him unconscious as the cool water rose to fill the cabin.

  Inside the toilet compartment, Dan was thrown to one side as the lights went out. He struggled to his feet in the dark and felt for the door above his head. The cabin lights flicked to red as the emergency power snapped on. Dan crouched where the front wall met the metal floor, now tilting at a steep angle. He turned the doorknob and lunged with his shoulders against the door. The knob turned but the door didn’t budge. He didn’t know that thirty feet of water pressed on it with twenty-eight tons of weight.

  Water seeped through the cracks at the edges of the metal door and pooled around his feet. As the locomotive settled on its side, water sloshed up the wall and began a relentless rise toward Dan’s head.

  Chapter 9

  When my phone rang at four-thirty in the morning, my stomach flip flopped. The Caller ID said Michelle Babcock. Nothing good happens after midnight.

  I answered. “Hello, Michelle.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “Not over the phone.” She sounded breathless. “People can listen on the phone. We need to talk in person. I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “Okay. Are you at Ponder’s house? I can come get you.”

  “I’m not there anymore.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Not over the phone; someone could be listening.” Her voice broke. “Something terrible happened. I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Not over the phone. We have to meet.”

  “I don’t read minds, Michelle. Tell you what—don’t say the name of the place, but do you remember our conversation during the Super Bowl halftime about pie? We compared places to find good pie.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Do you remember my favorite place?”

  “No.”

  “It’s open twenty-four hours a day. Don’t say the name. Just tell me if you remember.”

  She paused. “Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah, I remember.”

  “Do you have a way to look up the address? Say yes or no.”

  “Yes.”

  “Just answer y
es or no: Do you have transportation?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  “It’ll take me longer. Two hours.”

  “Two hours. I’ll be there.”

  “Chuck, one more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t tell Mom and Dad you heard from me. I don’t want them involved, especially Daddy. I can’t be seen, so I won’t go inside the place. I’ll meet you in the parking lot. Don’t let anyone follow you. Can I trust you? This must be an absolute secret. You okay with that?”

  “No, I’m not okay with that, Michelle, but I’ll do as you say. This will be our secret.”

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  I pulled into the Day and Night Diner parking lot in an hour. Plenty of time to eat breakfast, then wait in the van for Michelle. The diner had a handful of customers at that hour. I sat at the counter and waved at my regular server, Veraleesa Kotanay.

  Veraleesa was on the night shift until seven. “Hey, Chuck. Is this a pie run, or you want breakfast?” She set a steaming mug of coffee on the counter for me. Veraleesa had worked at the diner since God’s dog was a puppy. We had met when I worked the neighborhood on a previous case. The Day and Night had the world’s best pie.

  “Good morning, Veraleesa. Too early for pie. I’ll have breakfast.”

  “The usual?” She was already writing it up. After she turned the order in, she stopped across the counter from me. “You’re kinda early. Don’t usually see you until after sunrise.”

  “Early to bed, early to rise. That’s me.” We chit-chatted until my order was ready, then she went to serve other customers.

  I finished breakfast and waited in the van. Michelle was late. If she had misremembered the diner’s name, she would call me again. Her car pulled to the curb a half block up the street in a dark place between streetlights.

  She locked her Civic and walked to my van. She glanced in the passenger window.

  I motioned her in. “Okay, Michelle, what happened?”

  She grabbed her braid with one hand and twirled it around her fingers. “I’m sort of involved in an accidental death.”

  “Start at the beginning. Tell me everything.”

  “You know that railroad bridge next to I-95 across the Seeti River?”

  “The automatic one? The one with no attendant?”

  “Yeah, that one.”

  “What about it?”

  “He blew it up. Boom!” She made an expansive gesture with her hands then grabbed her braid again. “There was this big explosion, and the train fell in the river.” Her voice broke. “The conductor, or engineer, or whatever you call him—the radio station said he’s dead. I think he drowned.” She put both hands to her face and burst into tears.

  I patted her shoulder. I handed her a tissue and waited for her to calm down. “Why do you think you’re involved?”

  “We were going to snag a protest banner across the locomotive when it came past. We wanted to plaster the train with our message. The banner read No more coal-fired plants.” She swept her hand through the air as if she were spreading the banner. “That train hauls coal to the Port City Power generating plant. They sneak it in during the middle of the night when no one can see it.”

  A simpler explanation might be that they brought the trains in at night to avoid disrupting traffic several times a week, but I don’t see conspiracies everywhere. Who’s to say she wasn’t right?

  “That train helps the power company poison our air. We were trying to stop it. We had to stop it.” Her eyes flashed. Maybe it was self-righteous indignation. “People like them are killing the planet.”

  Oh geez. This is not a great time to debate energy policy. “So how are you involved?”

  “We… we got to the railroad bridge in a boat.” She sniffed.

  I figured Ponder was one of the “we,” but I didn’t interrupt her.

  “We tied the boat under the bridge where no one could see it from the highway. We climbed the riverbank carrying bamboo poles to hold up the banner from either side.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand like a little girl, forgetting the tissue. “The poles were fifteen feet long. The banner was twenty feet wide. We were going to hold it up like a football goal post and let the train run through it.”

  “What about the explosion?”

  “The train came rolling down the track on the north side of the river. James and I raised the banner in plenty of time, just like we planned. Then… ” She caught her breath. “Steven said, ‘Watch this.’ He held up an old-fashioned flip phone. I recognized the small screen glowing in the dark. I remember wondering about that for a split second. Steven has a Smartphone like everybody else, and I’d never seen him with a flip phone.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “Anyway, he held the phone where I could see it and he tapped with his other hand.” She grabbed her braid and twirled it as the tears spilled down her cheeks. “The bridge—it just exploded. Boom. Just a bunch of twisted metal flying through the air. It was awful. The first few train cars fell into the river.” Now she was sobbing.

  “Did you know Steven intended to blow up the bridge?”

  “No, no, no. You gotta believe me.” She grabbed my arm. “He told me we would just hang the banner. That’s all. No one was supposed to get hurt.”

  “The bomb was in the boat?”

  “I didn’t know it at the time. The banner covered it. When we took the banner out of the boat, I saw a big canvas pulled down over something bulky. I asked Steven what it was for, and he said it was nothing. He said it was nothing.” She looked at me with pleading eyes. “Oh my God, what do I do now?”

  Great. I didn’t say what I was thinking. I didn’t tell her that her friends had embroiled her in a felony murder. That it was a federal crime to interfere with a train. That she was a principal to a terrorist act that carried a death sentence at both the state and federal level. I didn’t say that she was a naïve knucklehead whose dangerous friends had thrown her into a cesspool. That she was in way over her head. I didn’t say any of that; I’d promised—no lectures.

  Instead, I bit my tongue. “Let me see what I can do.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “You may be beyond help, Michelle. But I’ll do my best.”

  To order Dangerous Friends, click here Amazon.com.

  McCrary’s Justice

  The sixth Carlos McCrary novel, McCrary’s Justice is available in both electronic and print editions on Amazon.com. Free to Kindle Unlimited members.

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  The remarkable Carlos McCrary takes readers on a thrill ride in McCrary’s Justice, his most explosive novel yet.

  Nebraska farmer Wilbur Jenkins receives three cryptic text messages from his missing daughter, Liz, claiming that she is held captive as a sex slave in Port City, Florida, the sun-splashed metropolis in South Florida. Jenkins grabs the next flight to Port City and begs the cops to find his daughter. But Wilbur Jenkins admits that Liz left home of her own free will, and the text messages came from the cell phone of Antonio Crucero, a mysterious diplomat from the Caribbean island Republic of San Cristobal. How would Liz have gotten access to a diplomat’s phone? Crucero’s diplomatic immunity protects him—and his cellphone—from investigation by U.S. law officers, and he refuses to cooperate with the police.

  With no proof of an actual kidnapping and few clues in the text messages, police detective Jorge Castellano sends the distraught father to Carlos McCrary.

  Carlos “Chuck” McCrary is a wisecracking private investigator with a special genius for helping people in trouble, like when he cleared Jorge Castellano from a bogus murder charge and saved his life and his career (Double Fake, Double Murder, Carlos McCrary novel book 2). A former Green Beret and police detective, McCrary left the Port City Police so he could do the right thing for people without worrying about trivialities like “due process” and “reasonable cause.”

  In the search for Liz Jenkins, McCrary uncovers a cesspool of sexual slavery and drug tra
fficking that stretches from South Florida to Switzerland to the Caribbean. And Crucero has his fingers all over the operation.

  Crucero’s diplomatic status protects him from the reach of U.S. law, but it won’t protect him from Carlos McCrary. McCrary has his own brand of justice and sets out to destroy Crucero any way he can—diplomatic immunity be damned.

  One of Crucero’s drug dealers is Alena Cernan, a beautiful, ruthless blonde who leads a gang of Slovenian criminals. During his investigation, McCrary runs afoul of the Slovenian mobsters and has to fight for his life in the swamps of the Everglades where the mobsters’ guns aren’t the only danger.

  McCrary goes undercover into the mountain citadel of a Caribbean drug distributor and into the secret headquarters of a merciless South Florida drug cartel.

  When the Slovenians kidnap McCrary’s fiancée in revenge, he must invade their heavily-armed stronghold or risk never seeing her again. Facing formidable opposition, McCrary fields a private army of his own trusted friends: Thomas “Tank” Tyler, Hall of Fame NFL defensive lineman, six and a half feet of muscle and courage. Raymond “Snoop” Snopolski, McCrary’s occasional partner who can shoot the eye of a fly at 50 feet. Jorge Castellano, police detective and Iraq war veteran. Kelly Contreras, police detective, and occasional girlfriend of Tank Tyler.

  From South Florida’s golden beaches to a Caribbean vacation paradise, from Coconut Grove to the Florida Everglades, McCrary’s Justice slices like a machete through a treacherous jungle of sexual predators, drug cartels, and new and fearsome enemies. Carlos McCrary maneuvers inside the gangs and outside the law to bring down the criminal enterprise and visit his justice upon its mastermind.

  Combining an intricate puzzle of a plot and an exciting pursuit of justice, Dallas Gorham puts Carlos McCrary through his paces and send readers on a white-knuckle ride that circles back to McCrary’s own home, where he must confront the worst nightmare he could imagine.