Chapter 55 - The Derail Lever
I threw the brass padlock into the frozen grass, gripped the heavy, counterweighted iron switch handle with both hands, and pulled upward with every ounce of strength in my sixty-three-year-old frame.
The iron mechanical linkages groaned through five decades of dried grease and pine needles, squealing in protest against the stone ballast.
With a deep, resonant THUNK, the switch points shifted two inches to the left.
The heavy steel rails leading toward the main line separated, aligning directly into the sunken, six-foot drainage ravine that bordered our lower cattle pasture.
"A mechanical dead-end," Commander Cruz whispered, her eyes shining with tactical appreciation. "Any locomotive entering this switch from the main line at more than five miles an hour drops its front trucks straight into the ditch."
"And what about the reefers?" Director Sterling asked.
"The reefers stay anchored behind the handbrakes on Spur Four," I answered, wiping rust flakes from my leather gloves. "Nobody couples a locomotive to these cars unless they can lay forty feet of fresh steel across my pasture."
From the dark highway two miles north, the deep, guttural roar of high-displacement diesel engines tore through the freezing night air.
Two sets of high-intensity halogen light bars cut through the bare branches of the oak trees, sweeping across the dark winter rye fields.
A heavy, custom-built Kenworth road-tractor pulling a fifty-foot lowboy equipment trailer turned off the rural blacktop onto our private gravel lane, followed by three black Chevrolet Suburbans with blacked-out grilles.
"They didn't bring a train," Arthur said, his voice tightening as he watched the convoy bounce down the rutted road. "They brought mobile heavy-haul gear."
"Take cover behind the reefer trucks," Director Sterling commanded in a harsh whisper, his four tactical operators instantly melting into the deep shadows beneath the steel undercarriages of the boxcars, their carbines coming up to low-ready.
"Diane, get behind the wheel well," Arthur pleaded, catching my sleeve.
"I am standing right where Leonard left me, Arthur," I replied, pulling my arm free and smoothing the front of my wool coat. "On my own ground."
The lead Suburban slid to a halt thirty feet from the track crossing, its tires churning frozen red mud.
The doors opened simultaneously.
Four private security contractors in heavy tactical vests and cold-weather parkas stepped onto the gravel, their hands resting on holstered automatic sidearms.
From the passenger side of the second Suburban stepped a man in his late forties, wearing an immaculate black down jacket over a charcoal suit, his silver-tipped hair cropped close, carrying an electronic terminal in an armored Pelican case.
Marcus Vance-Sterling Jr.
He looked at the four massive mechanical reefers, his eyes glittering with manic, unreserved greed under the glare of the truck lights.
Then, his gaze drifted across the tracks and found me standing beside the switch stand.
"Mrs. Overstreet," Marcus Jr. called out, his voice smooth, arrogant, and dripping with that familiar, inherited European condescension. "I see you're an early riser. I trust my cousin Victoria gave you our regards in Geneva?"
"Victoria is sleeping on a concrete bench in Bern, Marcus," I replied, my voice carrying cleanly across the frozen ballast. "And you are thirty seconds away from joining her."
Marcus Jr. let out a soft, mocking laugh, tapping the armored Pelican case with his leather glove.
"Victoria was an amateur who tried to win an empire with paperwork and courtrooms," Marcus Jr. sneered, taking three measured steps forward onto the railroad gravel. "I don't need a Swiss magistrate's signature, Mrs. Overstreet. I have a cash buyer waiting at the mouth of the Chesapeake."
He gestured to the four contractors behind him.
May you like
"Hook the winches to the lead car," Marcus Jr. ordered, not taking his eyes off me. "If the old woman doesn't step off the ballast, put her in the ditch with her husband."
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