Fallout

CHAPTER 28

Running along the railroad tracks on the baked hardpan, Craig approached the edge of the Colorado River gorge. He could smell the creosote-covered railroad ties, the metallic tang of the hot sun glinting off the steel rails.

Goldfarb and Jackson followed close, approaching with all senses alert. Goldfarb kept his gaze down, studying the railroad tracks as if looking for a landmine or some sort of tripwire. After triggering the incendiaries that had set Connors’s house on fire, he seemed overly conscious of booby-traps.

Craig stood at the top, staring along the rim of the gorge and seeing numerous cracks and shadows where a person could hide. The canyon walls dropped off like a knife edge, but the erosion had left a steep but terraced slope to the winding, sluggish river below.

Jackson put a hand on his shoulder, startling him. “Keep down, Craig. You make too good a target up here.”

Realizing that he stood silhouetted and exposed for any hidden sniper, he crouched quickly. Momentarily angry at himself, he tried to calm down. He had too many things on his mind but couldn’t afford to slip up on the basics. Staying low, he continued to scan the patchwork of shadows along the multicolored rocks. “Goldfarb, you have those field glasses?”

“Remember they’re only five power,” the other agent said. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a small pair of pocket binoculars.

In a careful search pattern, Craig worked his gaze back and forth down the cliff, starting just under the railroad bridge and moving out, scanning for any movement, any sign of tampering, or a human figure.

In the desert behind them, the motionless Amtrak train hissed and creaked as it baked in the midmorning heat. The passengers would be angry, or panicked, or confused. But he focused his entire attention on the cliff itself, on the bridge, on the framework of girders, on the attachment points and support pilings. He then scanned across the chasm.

He saw nothing. He felt a terrible fear that he might be wrong again. If the mysterious whistle-blower had meant only to discredit Craig, he seemed to be doing a good job.

The other two agents squatted beside him, shading their eyes and squinting. Craig pressed the small binoculars against his sunglasses, then finally removed his dark lenses to stare through the field glasses directly, trying to focus in the glare.

After five minutes of silence, Goldfarb finally cleared his throat and stood into a half crouch. “Uh, what do you think? Maybe they were just trying to distract us so we couldn’t spend time on the real investigation.”

But Craig kept scanning, moving his field of view farther from the bridge — knowing that if a member of the Eagle’s Claw had intended to sit here and trigger the explosive, he would have taken shelter some distance from the bridge, not right under it.

Then Craig saw the man, a silhouette crouching between two large boulders about a hundred yards away from the bridge and halfway down the canyon wall. He sat hunched over like a predator, waiting, not moving — a spider waiting for the fly to come just an inch closer.…

Craig stood up and drew his handgun. The Beretta felt cold to his grip.

“Where?” Jackson whispered, still crouching. Craig pointed, and both other agents saw the militia man from where he attempted to keep an eye on what was going on above. The silhouette froze, as if he couldn’t believe he had been spotted, and then he ducked back behind the boulder.

Goldfarb and Jackson both drew their weapons. “We can box him in,” Jackson said. “Just like a Quantico exercise.”

The militia man scrambled away behind the boulders, working his way down the rugged terraced wall toward the river at the bottom of the canyon, hoping to get away unseen.

“Well, so much for simple solutions,” Jackson said.

“My shin still hurts from yesterday, and I wish I’d brought my rock boots,” Goldfarb muttered. “How are your climbing skills, Craig?”

“Certified by the FBI,” Craig said and picked his way down the steep slope. He tried to divide his attention equally on watching the fleeing suspect, keeping his gun drawn, and maintaining his footing on the rough rock wall.

“He’s coming to the right,” Jackson said, “working back toward the bridge.”

“I don’t know where he thinks he’s going to go,” Goldfarb said, then gasped as his foot slipped. Rocks broke, pattering on other boulders along the cliffside in a hard rain.

“Keep steady,” Jackson said, grabbing his partner’s arm. “It’s going to be tough scraping you off the bottom and catching the bad guy at the same time.”

“Gee thanks,” Goldfarb said. “Just don’t let him get away.”

“I don’t see any direct path over there,” Craig said. “Let’s split up, come at him from three sides.”

Then a thin gunshot rang out like a tiny firecracker. A rock near Craig’s head burst into a spray of fragments. Two more shots echoed as the three FBI agents scrambled for cover.

“Why can’t anyone just surrender?” Goldfarb muttered.

“He’s trying to distract us,” Jackson called.

“Okay, I’m distracted,” Goldfarb said, ducking.

Craig peered around his meager shelter and saw a wiry man clad in military camouflage nimbly moving along a path that would have made a mountain goat nervous.

Jackson steadied his own handgun and fired carefully, striking the rocks above and to the right of the fleeing suspect. The militia man ducked and bent low, grasping for cover.

“That should slow him down,” Jackson said.

Craig gestured for Goldfarb to continue the direct pursuit, while he himself cut straight across the top, heading toward the bridge girders. He only hoped he could find some way down once he reached the terrorist’s position.

The terrorist tried to move; Jackson fired twice more, keeping the camouflaged man under cover.

Craig made good progress, finding a narrow ledge where he could pick up speed, so long as he didn’t look down the steep side to the muddy river far below.

The rocks became larger, jutting up in shards of red, brown, and tan as he approached where the bridge clung to the sides of the gorge. Craig stumbled upon a narrow fissure that allowed him to work his way straight down toward the crouching militia man. He could see the figure taking shelter below him as Goldfarb and Jackson both fired harassing shots to keep the wiry man down.

“Federal agents,” Jackson bellowed, “you must surrender, sir. Throw down your weapon.”

As Craig approached as quietly as he could, a ricochet from one of Jackson’s shots spanged close to his own foot. Craig froze, feeling a wash of cold sweat, but he did not dare shout for his partners to be careful. The militia man did not seem aware of his approach.

“Hey, you heard the man!” Goldfarb shouted. “Throw down your weapon — now.” He continued more quietly. “We’ve all got a good look at your face, you idiot. Why don’t you just give up and save us all a lot of time? You wouldn’t believe my list of things to do today.”

The militia man popped out from behind his large rock and fired two shots toward Goldfarb. He and Jackson scrambled out of the way from the ricochets — and then Craig leaped down the last few feet, his Beretta drawn. He landed firmly, handgun aimed squarely at the man’s body core as the terrorist swiveled around.

The world slowed, and Craig tensed, ready to shoot — but the militia man thought just as quickly, recognized the weapon in Craig’s hand, saw the FBI agent’s readiness to fire.

“If you’re a smart guy, you’ll know you don’t have a chance in hell,” Craig said quietly.

The militia man poised for a moment, half turned toward Craig, his own gun pointing toward the opposite canyon wall. He became a statue. Craig saw a young man, short sandy blond hair, freckled cheeks, pale blue eyes. His demeanor bespoke feral meanness, an utterly solid conviction — but Craig did not think the man was willing to die at the moment. The suicidal bomber at the Hoover Dam had risked everything to keep his explosives from being discovered, but this terrorist had no such hope. His plan had already been foiled.

“It would be a good idea for you to drop your weapon,” Craig said, keeping his Beretta steady, his eyes locked. “A very good idea.”

Craig saw the gun wavering in the militia man’s hands, saw his arm drop slightly, his fingers loosen around the trigger guard. The handgun dropped to the dirt, a military-issue sidearm… but Craig saw absolutely no surrender in the man’s eyes. As the weapon dropped, clanking on the rocky ground, the militia man moved his other hand — and suddenly Craig noticed the small box he held.

A detonator box.

The man pushed the button just as Craig launched himself forward. “No!”

Explosives planted beneath the support girders of the bridge detonated, blasting rock and steel. A plume of fire and debris erupted into the sky.

Craig ducked, covering his head and protecting his eyes as metal shrapnel flew all around him. Sand, then gravel pelted him. Rocks struck around him, tumbling toward the distant water in a building avalanche. Boulders sloughed down the canyon wall, picking up speed and bouncing. The reverberating echoes deafened him as the thunder continued.

Groaning and grinding, the bridge began to fall, heavy steel girders shrieking, twisting, dragged down by gravity.

As the boulders began to slide and Craig clung desperately to his own precarious balance, the blond militia man dove away, recklessly tumbling down the terraced wall of the gorge, skidding away toward the river as part of the avalanche.

Craig scrabbled for cover and balance, trying to keep his head clear. He dropped his pistol but didn’t bother to grab for it as the ground shifted beneath his feet. More rocks fell. A chunk of granite the size of a Volkswagen careened beside him and hurtled into the roiling, muddy water with a huge splash as if a depth charge had gone off in the river.

The militia man disappeared in the debris as the bridge continued to fall, one section after another torn from its moorings. Rivets and tie-downs ripped from their sockets; steel girders twisted. Railroad pilings tumbled like spent firecrackers down into the canyon.

Craig found a sturdy shelf of rock, grabbed it, and held on. Dust sprayed into the air. He coughed, unable to see.

The bridge finally ceased its chain reaction of destruction, hanging limp in the middle of the canyon, dangling with torn stumps of girders. Thunderheads of smoke boiled all around.

His pulse pounding, his vision ragged, his sunglasses scored and scratched, Craig gradually came back to his senses. Shaking himself, he toiled upward to reach the top of the canyon wall. He glanced frantically from side to side, searching for his two partners. “Ben!” he croaked. “Jackson!”

Up above, the Amtrak engineer and the helicopter pilot stood at the rim, awestruck, amazed to see Craig emerging from the debris. The pilot reached down to help him up, while the engineer stood with his mouth opening and closing like a stranded fish.

“Where are… the other two?” Craig panted, brushing himself off. The dust clung to his clothes, his skin. He flicked blood from his cheek where a sharp rock fragment had scratched him.

“They’re on their way up,” the helicopter pilot said. “There! I see them.”

The engineer shook his head as if to clear cobwebs from his brain. “Didn’t see where that other guy went,” he said. “I think he’s down in the river.”

Jackson came up, supporting Goldfarb by the elbow. The curly-haired agent held out his left hand, which dripped blood. “Injury in the line of duty. My little finger’s broken in two places, I think.” He winced, then sighed. “Suspect blows up a railroad bridge, and I get my pinkie broken. Imagine how that’s going to look on our report!”

Craig stood, trying to keep himself from degenerating into shakes after the disaster. At least he had managed to keep the train and its passengers from being destroyed. For what it was worth.

He thought of the bombs planted at the Hoover Dam, and now this explosion — and it wasn’t even the deadline given by the Eagle’s Claw! He swallowed hard and looked down to the churning Colorado River as the remnants of smoke and debris continued to settle.

“What are they going to do for an encore tomorrow?” he said, panting.