Fallout

CHAPTER 26

Craig rushed back to his hotel room, intending to stop for only a few minutes before heading out to the Test Site. After picking up some papers in preparation for a long day, he would get to NTS in an hour or so, and stay there all night if he had to. He could get all the sleep he wanted after he had solved the murder.

Already his temples pounded and his skull ached because he had crammed it so full of numbers and forms, reports, and minor memos from the previous day. And with the discovery of Jorgenson’s body last night, he felt the tension tightening around him like a vice.

Tomorrow was October 24.

Craig popped in the plastic key and pushed his door open. His room smelled strongly of months-deep layers of cigarette smoke that no amount of air freshener would obliterate.

On the red carpeting he saw a scrap of paper, a white note shoved through the crack under the door. He snatched it up, wondering who wanted him now. Maybe June Atwood had left a message pulling him from the Russian murder investigation after all and sending him off chasing casino fraud or some other equally exciting case.

The note was torn from one of the message pads found throughout the casino, written in thin lines either from a mechanical pencil or an extremely sharp point, in careful block letters.

Craig stared at the paper to convince himself the words said exactly what he thought they did. He wasn’t even on the militia case any more — yet someone had known to give him the note, known how to find his hotel room.

Heart pounding, Craig carefully set the scrap of paper on the courtesy table, hoping against hope that it might retain residual fingerprints. Then he looked at his watch, seeing how little time remained before 9:56. He raced for the phone in his room.

Ducking down, holding his sunglasses in place, Craig leaped out of the government car and ran across the airport tarmac. His tie flopped back over his shoulder, his chestnut hair ruffled in the wind. Overhead, a 747 took off from McCarran Field, thundering as it lumbered up from the runway.

Not far away, the FBI helicopter’s rotors spun faster as the pilot completed his pre-flight checklist. Jackson sat in the cockpit, already in position. Over the chattering drone of the helicopter blades, he gestured for Craig to hurry.

“Come on, Ben,” Craig shouted to Goldfarb, and the smaller dark-haired man sprinted beside him, his dress shoes slapping the pavement. Craig scrambled in the back of the helicopter and extended a hand to help Goldfarb up. “Let’s move it!” Craig said.

The pilot adjusted his headphones, then requested clearance over the radio. Within seconds, he pulled back on the stick and raised the chopper, fighting thermal updrafts as he headed low and to the south.

“Thanks for getting out here so fast,” Craig said, raising his voice so the pilot could hear him. “We couldn’t possibly make it in time by car.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” the pilot said. “What’s the emergency?”

“Militia threatening to blow up the railroad bridge near Laughlin.”

The pilot shook his head. “Again? What is it with these bozos? What are they trying to prove?”

Craig turned to Jackson, who had finished buckling himself in. “Guess you’ll have to follow up that lead at Dennisons later. Did you contact Amtrak HQ?” he said. “Pass along the warning?”

“I got bounced up the telephone chain pretty fast,” Jackson said. “I spoke to a manager senior enough to halt the train, and he said they’d radio the train operator.”

“But did they get through to the engineer?”

“Not while I was on the phone. They thought the train had just left Silverpan, the last stop before crossing the Colorado river, but they were going to keep trying. Sounded like they were having some problem with the radio.”

“Terrific,” Craig said.

Goldfarb spoke up. “The Mesa Zephyr is perennially late, so we might have some leeway.”

Craig fidgeted as he looked out the curved Plexiglas window of the helicopter. Beyond the city limits the marks of civilization vanished quickly, leaving only arrow-straight roads across the desert like ancient Inca tracks. “I don’t care if the train is an hour late, we’ve got to make sure it doesn’t cross that bridge.” He looked at his watch. Twenty-five minutes to go.

“It’s going to be tight,” the pilot said. “But we’ve got a tailwind and smooth flying. I won’t slow down for any stoplights.”

Bleak desert scenery streaked below them, banded with color, wrinkled and furrowed into petrified rivulets like the refuse from some insane potter’s kiln. But Craig looked at his watch more than the scenery.

Jackson touched his headset, frowning grimly. He sent an acknowledgment into the microphone, then turned to Craig. “Still no word from the train. The engineer’s radio is out of order somehow, though it was working just fine before their last stop.”

“More sabotage?” Goldfarb asked. “These guys are pretty thorough.”

“How much farther?” Craig said, staring at his watch. “We’ve got twenty minutes if that thing is set to blow at 9:56.”

“We’re making good time and following the river,” the pilot said. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find a railroad track across this desert.”

Laughlin, a gambling town by the river, was situated at the bottom-most knifepoint of the state of Nevada, nestled against the Colorado River and Lake Mead. Amtrak’s Mesa Zephyr was an express train that traveled from Albuquerque to Los Angeles, departing twice daily, carrying a load of passengers and crossing a bridge in a remote desert area north of Laughlin.

As Craig scanned the landscape, he realized that the Colorado River bridge made an excellent target, isolated enough that the Eagle’s Claw could set up their explosives in private, and the regular schedule of the train would allow them to stage a disaster that would make the world news.

Jackson squinted ahead out the front. “There it is — see the silver line?” he announced, pointing.

Craig saw only the glare from the sun on his sensitive eyes. He snugged the sunglasses up closer, blinking, trying to focus. As the sun glinted across the desert, he did make out gleaming parallel tracks. The river flowed below, blue, green, with muddy brown edges against the rocky canyons.

He glanced at his watch again. Fifteen minutes. “Come on, come on,” he said.

Goldfarb peered out the side window using his pair of pocket binoculars. His face looked ruddy and raw from his exposure to the previous day’s roaring fire. “Let’s hope the train isn’t on time,” he said.

“Just our luck that they’ll be right on the money today.” Craig wiped sweat from his forehead and drummed his fingertips on the seat beside him. The second hand on his watch swept around with astonishing speed, minute after minute. “Even if it isn’t, the bridge might be blown right before the train comes in. The engineer might not be able to stop in time.”

The helicopter thundered low to the ground. Rocks and scrub streaked by in a nauseating blur. Craig watched the silvery tracks, saw where the arched steel bridge crossed the bottleneck canyon. The sweeping metal arches looked like a portion of the Eiffel Tower laid on its side.

Once, on a Colorado vacation he’d taken with Trish, the two of them had gone out to cross the Royal Gorge on the world’s highest suspension bridge. He remembered the breathtaking drop into a sheer-edged canyon. Some people practiced hang gliding or parasailing off the bridge. Craig couldn’t imagine being that daring… or ‘foolish,’ Trish had said.

She had refused to walk up to the edge and lean over, instead standing back with her arms crossed, the wind ruffling her short brunette hair. Craig had approached the rail, moving in front of his girlfriend, and she had asked him nervously to step back as he stared down at the incredible height.

At the time he hadn’t recognized a chasm equally deep and widening that already separated their lives and their interests. Their relationship of five years had simply not proved strong enough to bridge that gap.

The railroad bridge over the Colorado River was not nearly as spectacular or as breathtaking as the span across the Royal Gorge, but this one might soon be the site of a deadly explosion.

Goldfarb adjusted his pocket binoculars. “Here comes the train, right on time. Lucky us.”

“Why isn’t the engineer stopping?” Craig said.

Jackson leaned into the cockpit window, his voice maddeningly calm. “He’s not slowing down at all.”

Craig glanced around inside the cockpit. “Give me the loudspeaker mike. If his radio’s not working, we’ll try to get the engineer’s attention some other way.”

“Aren’t you going to contact Amtrak again?” asked Goldfarb.

“No time. We’re going to have to head them off.” Craig leaned forward to the pilot. “Fly down the tracks right in front of the train.”

The pilot twisted around in his seat and looked at Craig in disbelief. “You want me to play chicken with a train?”

“I want you to play law-enforcement officer,” Craig said. He leaned forward, his face flushed, his expression earnest. “When he sees our FBI helicopter, he’ll stop. I’m sure he’ll stop.”

“I’m glad you’re sure,” the pilot said. “Gee, that gives me all the confidence I need.” He adjusted course so that the helicopter roared down with the tracks beneath him like white lines in the center of a highway.

Directly in front of them they saw the oncoming silver train, its circular white beacon like a cyclopean eye streaking toward them. “Do you think he’ll blink first, or should I?” the pilot said zooming forward on a collision course.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” muttered Goldfarb. “We wouldn’t stand a chance against that train.” The curly-haired agent grasped the seat in front of him.

Smoke sizzled up as the train’s brakes began to squeal. Craig could see sparks rising from the tracks.

“We’ve got his attention,” Craig said. “Now don’t get us killed.”

With the slightest upturn of his lips, proving that he actually enjoyed this stunt flying, the pilot swerved to the left at the last instant, like a matador taunting a bull. He circled the helicopter around the train, coming parallel to the engineer’s compartment in the front locomotive. The train’s brakes continued to squeal as the Mesa Zephyr attempted to force an emergency stop before it reached the bridge.

Craig grabbed the loudspeaker microphone and shouted into it. His voice boomed out like a god from Mount Olympus. “This is the FBI. Stop the train immediately. Danger ahead.”

The train squealed and shook, shuddering as it slowed. It seemed to take forever. Gray-white smoke boiled from the metal wheels as the brakes fought against the massive momentum. Craig heard a deep, grinding sound even over the incessant chopping of the helicopter blades. On and on the train went as it ground slower and slower, closer to the bridge.

The train finally groaned to a shuddering stop a hundred yards from the high suspended trestles.

“Set us down next to the tracks,” Craig said.

The pilot glanced around. “Sure. Plenty of flat space.” The skids touched the baked desert floor.

Craig glanced at his watch. “Six minutes to spare.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and lurched for the helicopter door.

“We’ll find out in a few minutes if we’ve made a big mistake, Craig,” Goldfarb said.

“Better safe than sorry.”

Goldfarb snorted. “I see you took that course in clichés at Quantico.”

“We know the Eagle’s Claw isn’t much for kidding around,” Craig said.

The three agents tumbled out of the helicopter and ran toward the train. The engineer had already climbed out of the front locomotive, gripping the handbar. He stared across at them, his face florid, his expression a combination of fear and anger.

Craig fished out his ID and badge wallet as he marched toward the train, his shoes crunching in the rough soil. “Federal agent,” he announced. “You should have received our warnings about possible sabotage to the bridge ahead, sir. You did not acknowledge our radio transmissions.”

The engineer looked flustered, turning to glare at someone unseen in the locomotive compartment with him. “Sabotage? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You didn’t get a radio call about a possible bomb on the bridge?”

A fellow engineer walked up, wiping his hands on a towel. “What’s this about a bomb? Are you people serious? There wasn’t anything over the radio — we just had it checked at Silverpan.”

Jackson leaned over and said quietly to Craig, “I think somebody did more than check the radio in Silverpan.”

“Is there a bomb? Is this for real?” The first engineer had a blond mustache, dark eyes closely set with heavy folds of skin around his eyelids. His skin had a rough texture as if it had been sunburned beyond repair many times.

“We received a threatening message, sir,” Craig said. “We felt it best to be cautious.”

“Another ‘threatening message,’ awww jeez! Tenth time in two months. Didn’t you read the story about the boy who cried wolf?” the engineer said. “We haven’t heard jack from HQ.”

Craig looked at his watch. “We’ll know in a minute,” he said. “Actually a minute, thirty seconds… if my time is right.”

“All right,” the engineer said, hands on his hips. “But my passengers won’t take too kindly to a delay — we were on schedule for once, too.”

Goldfarb and Jackson stood on either side of Craig, nervously glancing at their own wristwatches. The helicopter pilot remained in his craft. The rotor blades continued to whirl as he kept the engines powered up and ready for instant departure.

The sunburned engineer turned to his companion. “Use the intercom, Paul. Tell the passengers we’ll be on our way momentarily. Sorry for the delay… all that crap. Make it sound nice. And call HQ. Find out what the hell is going on. Why didn’t we hear anything over the radio?”

Craig didn’t speak, but stared at his watch. The second hand swept around the dial. Forty-five seconds. Thirty seconds.

Fifteen seconds.

His heart pounded. His throat grew dry and sweat broke out on his forehead as the midmorning sun shone down. Around him, he could hear the sounds of the Amtrak train groaning, ticking, making settling noises from its violent and sudden stop. The smell of burned lubricants hung in the air.

Craig couldn’t decide whether he wanted the explosion to take place, just to vindicate him for sounding the alarm… or for nothing to happen so that the Eagle’s Claw would not have any sort of victory. That bridge was an expensive piece of real estate.

Five seconds.

Zero seconds. Time 9:56.

Craig tensed, looked across the span of the railroad bridge. The second hand continued around his watch dial. He waited, then looked up at Jackson and Goldfarb.

“Maybe the militia group didn’t set their watches right,” Goldfarb said.

They waited another thirty seconds. The engineer stood beside his train, wearing a bored look on his florid face. He stared down the length of silver cars, looking ready to explode even if the bomb didn’t. “Surprise, surprise, surprise,” the engineer grumbled. “Another false alarm.”

Jackson said it first. “Might have been a hoax after all, Craig.”

“Guess we got lucky today,” Goldfarb said. “But why didn’t this train get any message from Amtrak?”

Both of the other agents looked to Craig for his admission of failure. Craig knew his expression could not be read behind his sunglasses. But all he could think of was the note he had found in his hotel room. Someone had put it there specifically, maliciously. For him. He could not believe it was a mere accident or a prank.

In order to find out his hotel room, his room, the whistle-blower had to know that he, Craig Kreident, had been personally connected with the Hoover Dam investigation. That took more than the bluster of an anonymous phone call to a newspaper or a radio station.

He himself had been a specific target. Had somebody meant to discredit him personally? Yet another in their series of crying wolf?

The engineer looked at his watch. “How much longer will this take? Do you really think there’s anything to this? We’re on a timetable, you know.”

Craig looked up, took a deep breath — and suddenly froze. “The Mesa Zephyr had a habit of missing its schedule, right?” He whirled to look at Jackson and Goldfarb. “If the Eagle’s Claw wanted to blow up this bridge with the train on it, and this train never manages to be on time, they wouldn’t bother to set a timed explosive would they?”

Jackson scratched his cheek. “Not if they were trying to catch it that closely.”

“The only way they could make sure they got the train and all the people on board,” Craig said, his words picking up speed as he paced next to the locomotive, “would be to station a man in view, probably hidden in the canyon wall! He could be watching, ready to push the button. And if that’s the case — the man must still be there!”

Craig, Jackson, and Goldfarb all sprinted down the tracks toward the railroad bridge.