Without Warning

by Darrell Maloney

  Jordan smiled.

  He knew no one was sleeping. He had a great crew. One of the best on the line, in his opinion. No one had to tell them what needed to be done, and they didn’t have to be motivated, like some of the other crews he’d seen. His crew came to work and got to work.

  “I’m gonna go put my stuff up. Wanna meet me in the cab in ten minutes and we’ll divvy up the duties?”

  “Make it nine minutes and you got yourself a deal.”

  Chase was a good second in command. He was as gung-ho as they came and he was in as much of a hurry to get underway as Jordan was.

  It was all psychological, really, and something all train crews do.

  They figure the sooner they get underway the sooner their journey will end and they’ll be back again.

  In reality, though, the time they pull out of the yard has little to do with their return time. That’s more dependent on the weight of their hauls, the traffic flow and wait times, how much the lines are down for maintenance, whether they have any mechanical problems and the weather conditions.

  The real fact of the matter is the quicker they get out of the yard and underway the sooner they have something to occupy their minds so they don’t miss their wives and children as much.

  As for getting out of the yard and underway, that’s pretty much out of their control.

  They’re required by company rules and federal regulations to make sure their train is safe and in good shape before they can start the wheels rolling.

  To do that Jordan and crew had a list of 137 items which had to be checked and signed off.

  The PanAm maintenance crew in Chicago was thorough and efficient and knew their stuff. They were supposed to go over everything with a fine toothed comb. The sparkling clean engine Jordan saw when he walked up meant they’d finished their job, for a thorough scrub-down was the last thing they did before turning it over to the crew.

  Theoretically a clean train meant a well-working train.

  Jordan’s checklist with the 137 items was the final check before the train left the yard. One last opportunity to catch something which might have been missed, or something which might have broken since the last time someone looked at it.

  A working long-distance freight train is not unlike a space vehicle. In 1986 NASA launched the space shuttle Columbia from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

  They went through hundreds of checklists, checked tens of thousands of items, each one dozens of times.

  They, perhaps understandably, spent most of their focus on key areas: the possibility of a spark in an oxygen-rich environment. Contamination of the fuel which might cause the engines to cut out (or flame out) at a critical time. A critical computer system which might short out and render the rocket impossible to control.

  What brought the craft down was something no one considered critical.

  A piece of rubber, an o-ring, failed.

  And it caused just as big a catastrophe, took just as many lives, as any of those other things would have.

  Granted, a cross-country freight train isn’t as complicated or technologically advanced as a space shuttle.

  But it can cause its own catastrophe should something fail and cause it to get away from its crew. If it were to derail at the wrong place it could kill hundreds.

  And like the space shuttle, it could be brought down by something as seemingly insignificant as a tiny rubber seal, a fuse or a faulty rubber hose.

  Those 137 checklist items? One last look at them couldn’t hurt.

  And it could save lives.

  -31-

  Over the next half hour the rest of the crew came in, one at a time, and joined the effort to make sure the train was mechanically sound.

  Jordan and Chase performed the managerial functions.

  They checked the manifests to see what they were hauling, making sure the hazardous cargo was properly labeled and that proper spacing was allowed.

  A freight train can haul several different types of hazardous cargo, and some react violently when mixed. That’s why it’s critically important that certain types of hazardous cargo be separated by railcars of non-hazardous material. One wouldn’t want two tankers of different chemicals in adjacent cars that might rupture and mix during a derailment or crash.

  They also verified that the rail cars and tankers carrying hazardous items had been recently certified as capable of safely carrying such things.

  They double-checked the weight of each car and each tanker.

  They’d be hauling just over 4300 tons. A typical load for the west-bound trip.

  They’d be taking four locomotives on the trip, but would only need three for most of the way.

  Loco three would be in idle except when they went through the Rocky Mountains. They’d put it in gear then to get a little more push power out of it.

  They could leave loco three behind, but they’d need her for the return trip.

  A typical PanAm train pulling out of Los Angeles would weigh considerably more, and would need all four locos to get her to Chicago.

  Once they double checked all the math, the configuration and spacing, and the certifications, Jordan asked Chance, “You see anything that might be a problem?”

  “Nope. Looks totally routine to me.”

  “Me too. Let’s see how everybody else is coming.”

  As if on cue, the two way radio crackled to life.

  “Jordan, this is Damien.”

  Damien was the engineer in loco three.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Pre-flight for loco three is finished. I’m gonna crank her up and see how she purrs.”

  “Ten four.”

  What Damien termed “pre-flight” was a list of things which were required to be visually checked before a locomotive was started. Fluid levels, battery connections, drip pans.

  Jordan looked at his checklist and found item 74, entitled “Pre-Start Checklist.” He’d already written several numbers as other engineers had called in: locos 1, 2 and 4. Damien’s loco was the last one to check in, since Damien had been helping with the brake line check.

  Jordan added the number three to the other numbers and checked off item 74 as complete.

  The radio crackled again.

  “Jordan, this is Amy.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Fuel check 2120 pounds. All fuses and breaker switches A-okay, electrical systems A-okay. Main panel shows nothing out of the ordinary, Secondary panel gauges all in the green.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Amy Simpson was the conductor on loco 4 at the back of the train. Most trains don’t have cabooses anymore. Instead they have “pushers,” or extra locomotives which help the lead locos move the train by pushing it instead of pulling it. Once the train is rolling along at a cruising speed they typically have an easier time, as the lead locomotives are quite capable of pulling the train on mostly flat land.

  But they give the leads a little extra boost at higher altitudes, when the engines have to work a little harder, and on mountain passes where they need a little extra boost.

  Mark Thompson, the engineer for loco 2, called in with a potential problem.

  “I’ve got a gauge reading low oil pressure. But the fluid level’s okay and there’s no deviation on the other gauges.”

  “Ten-four. Has RJ looked at it?”

  “He’s on his way now.”

  “Ten-four. Have him call when he forms his opinion.”

  “Roger.”

  RJ Salinas went by RJ because he didn’t like his given name of Raymond.

  “It makes me sound like a TV lawyer or an accountant,” he’d tell people when they asked. “Just call me RJ. It’s easy to say, it’s easy to remember, and very few people have a hard time spelling it.”

  RJ was the train’s chief mechanic, a title he’d earned after thirty one years with PanAm.

  He was also the old man of the group. At sixty one years old, he was getting close to the company’s mandatory retirement age.


  But he wouldn’t go quietly in four years.

  The CEO was seventy, and he planned to pitch a fit with personnel. He’d say it was patently unfair to make him retire at sixty five when the CEO was older. Especially since RJ did ten times as much work at a fraction of the pay.

  It wasn’t that RJ was obstinate or a troublemaker.

  It was just that… well, as he put it… “I’ve got diesel fuel running through my body instead of blood. After so many years on the rails, I just can’t stop. I just don’t have it in me to stop.”

  Ten minutes later he called Jordan back.

  “The gauge is a thumper.”

  A thumper, in railroad mechanic’s jargon, is a gauge with a needle which sticks. It’s called a thumper because if one thumps it with a finger or taps it with the handle of a screwdriver it jars the needle loose and it gives an accurate reading.

  “Is this going to delay our departure?” Chase asked.

  “No. Just note it on the checklist as defective, not critical. We’ll have the guys in Salt Lake City slap one in for us when we stop there for the night.”

  “Ten four. You don’t have one in your tool bay?”

  “I have one on back order. It’ll be waiting for us in SLC.”

  “Ten four. If they’re on back order, how do you know Salt Lake City has one?”

  “Because I called and asked them. They’ve got three, and they put one aside for me.”

  “Ten four.”

  And so it went for another hour or so.

  By fourteen hundred hours all the checks had been completed, everyone was in their place, and all the engines were running.

  Jordan called the control center.

  “PanAm 211, sitting on Feeder 17, requesting clear passage west.”

  They were ready to roll and asking for everyone to get out of their way and let them start their long journey to LA.

  “PanAm 211, stand by. We’ll see if we can poke a hole big enough for you to crawl through.”

  “PanAm 211 standing by.”

  Sometimes this part of the process took a couple of minutes.

  Sometimes it took an hour or more.

  Nothing frustrates a trainman more than being revved up and ready to go, and being held in place waiting for clearance to proceed.

  It’s the rough equivalent of an airline pilot sitting on a taxiway waiting for his turn to take off.

  Four minutes later control came back on the radio.

  “PanAm 211, you have a clear track. Safe journeys to you.”

  “Ten-four, control. See you in a week or so.”

  Jordan placed the lead locomotive into notch one and the couplings started to jolt one at a time as the wheels started to roll. The flagman gave him the go and they slowly pulled out of the yard.

  They were on their way.

  -32-

  Vlad the snorer hadn’t had a lucky day since he left Russia.

  The men on the boat picked on him. He just didn’t seem to fit in. He seemed too frail to stand up to the rigors ahead of them.

  They teased him. They ridiculed him.

  They called him “Little Daisy Flower.”

  He gave up, after just a few days, on trying to fit in.

  For most of their time in the hold of a fake fishing vessel he kept to himself, hiding in corners and behind the cargo, choosing to sleep there instead of in the bunkroom.

  He’d heard a couple of the others calling him effeminate and other, more crude, terms. They were wondering whether the captain had provided Vlad in place of a woman on the men-only vessel. Perhaps to provide his comrades with some type of entertainment or sexual favors.

  Vlad wanted none of that. He began to fear for his personal safety.

  He even went to the ship’s captain, volunteering to be one of his deck hands until they reached their debarkation site.

  The captain was no more impressed with Vlad and his physical conditioning than Vlad’s fellow soldiers were. He, the captain, had assumed Vlad was a political commisseur, or a propaganda officer, who’d merely tagged along to make sure nobody deserted.

  Learning that this was one of the brave and capable men going off to give their all for Mother Russia made him shake his head and wonder why the recruiters couldn’t do any better.

  As for Vlad, he considered himself extremely lucky they were dropped on land when they were, for he was running out of places on board the vessel where he could hide. In fact, he spent his last two nights on board sleeping in the incredibly noisy and incredibly hot engine room, directly adjacent to a stinking diesel engine. The vibrations from the engine were rattling his brains.

  Going ashore was a blessing to him.

  But not for long.

  He was partnered with two of the others not by choice but rather by chance.

  Since Vlad had spent most of his time in the hold trying to hide from the bullies, they’d only seen him a few times in passing. Neither had spoken with him or had any particular impressions, good or bad, of him.

  They accepted him as a teammate, and to them he was that and nothing more.

  Then came the snoring incident and they lit out for the hills. Teammate or not, they weren’t going to be sitting ducks when the loud snoring brought the locals right to them.

  The way they saw it, they were given the choice of breaking into “two or three man teams.” Without Vlad they were still two. That met the criteria.

  And Vlad, who was by himself?

  Screw him. That was his problem, not theirs.

  By Vlad’s reckoning, his “bad luck” continued when his comrades abandoned him. Now he was something more than just a single and lonely Russian soldier, alone in a faraway land, with no support at all.

  Now, to the locals anyway, he was a double murderer on the run.

  And run he would, as fast and as far as he could.

  He’d still sleep during the daytime. For it was forbidden for him to be out in the open in daylight hours.

  And he’d need that rest. For he planned to cover far more than the ten miles he was told to go each night.

  He’d try his best to double it.

  He’d do twenty miles a night, maybe more. At least until he knew his searchers gave up on him.

  As the old adage goes, some things are easier said than done.

  Vlad, like a lot of men, considered himself in better shape than he really was.

  Vlad, like a lot of men, thought himself much more capable than he really was.

  Vlad, like a lot of men in time of crisis, pushed himself way beyond his breaking point.

  On his second night on the run, just after 0100 hours, Vlad was running through sporadic moderately heavy brush.

  In one particularly heavy patch he had to fight his way through.

  He didn’t know that just beyond the patch was a cliff.

  It wasn’t a high cliff; only fifteen feet or so.

  But it was high enough.

  He tumbled over the cliff and into the inky void below, crashing down on a massive boulder and breaking his right leg in three places.

  Did we mention that poor Vlad was prone to bad luck?

  -33-

  Vlad lay there for hours in great agony. Periodically he passed out from the pain.

  The worst part was the position of the broken leg.

  It was folded back and beneath him, and any effort to move the leg or improve his position was unbearable.

  Daylight came.

  Vlad didn’t know what to do.

  He’d been expressly told not to be in the open after dawn. He was to be completely covered with pine boughs or tree branches or… something… before the sun made its first appearance each day.

  By daybreak each morning, he was told, he should be looking forward to crawling into his little hovel and shutting his eyes. For by that time, if he’d followed instructions, he’d be exhausted. His body would need to rest and recover. The sleep would be his daily opportunity for both.

  Nobody ever told him what to do if
he became critically injured.

  He couldn’t go forward.

  He couldn’t go on.

  He could shoot himself… but he was afraid of dying.

  It was funny. The questionnaire he’d filled out when applying for the mission was incredibly detailed.

  They asked him the most ridiculous of things.

  They asked him if he’d ever had head lice.

  If he’d ever skipped school.

  They asked him whether he was a virgin and whether he’d wet the bed when he was young.

  But they never asked him whether he was afraid of dying.

  They just took it for granted that every Russian man would, without question or hesitation, take a bullet for the homeland.

  That was, in Vlad’s opinion, rather presumptuous of them.

  He decided that he most certainly did not want to die. Not at all.

  Those bullies on the boat… that boat captain who yelled at him to go back below when he asked to help the deck hands… let those bastards die for Mother Russia.

  His two comrades, Ilov and Fidor… the two who’d teamed up with him when coming ashore, then changed their minds and abandoned him…

  Let them die for Mother Russia.

  They should be happy to, those cocky and pompous bastards.

  Vlad liked living.

  It was true he didn’t have the best of lives.

  It was true his own family didn’t even like him; that he’d come on this mission to finally do something to impress them.

  But surely he didn’t have to die to do that.

  Maybe if he remained quiet he could remain unnoticed.

  After all, the forest he was in was huge.

  What were the odds of a hunter just happening upon him, with all these thousands of acres of woodlands to wander around in?

  Why, they must be astronomical.

  He looked at the sky.

  It was late morning. The sun still wasn’t at its highest point.

  Already he was covered in sweat.

  He was also being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

  He wondered why mosquitoes were always so heavy in the woods. Back home he had to cover every bit of exposed skin with insect repellant just to keep them at bay.