"What's that?" she asked.
"Washington, D. C. The route the White Train will most likely take now is through the capital. It's the only other good way to get south." Then he handed the lipstick back to her and they stood in the sunshine looking at Cris's map.
"But the White Train has soldiers aboard. Ten armed Marines," she finally said, "and two Blackhawk helicopters to fly over it."
"They're Bell Jet Rangers, but you're right, it's heavily guarded."
"Could he do that? Could he figure a way to hijack or derail the White Train in D. C., and let all that toxic stuff loose? It would be suicide."
"Kincaid is a fanatic," Cris said. "Some fanatics live so they can die."
They stood over Cris's map for a long, thoughtful moment.
"We've got to stop him," she said.
Chapter 54
The White Train had been on its way up the east face of the Appalachian Pass when they had been radioed and informed of the wreck up ahead. Now they were parked on a siding two miles east of the accident, with the engine idling. The two Bell Jet Rangers had landed in a clearing next to the train, and the Marines had set up an armed perimeter around it.
Major Adrian Flynn now sat in the small communications office in the troop car, trying to make arrangements to get them on their way. His first call was to Admiral Zoll, who growled at him through the scrambled speakerphone.
"Get that load outta there, Major," he said. "I don't want you parked. Find a way around."
Major Flynn looked with dismay at the Marine Captain seated next to him. "Sir, there are only two ways out of here. Unless you want me to go all the way into Pennsylvania, I'm going to have to back this train down twenty miles of track through the mountains, then switch to the NEC track heading into Washington, D. C.
Because we're a toxic event, I'm going to need to get half a dozen district area track clearances."
"Then do it. But that stuff has got to get lost. It's still possible that some nosy Senator's gonna hear that the White Train was on base and stop you before you can pump out in Texas. Time is critical here. This stuff can't be just hanging around, waiting for an accident!" Zoll was glaring at the scrambled phone on the conference table in his huge office at Fort Detrick.
"Yessir," Major Flynn said, and then hung up. He quickly called the area Trainmaster for the Eastern Section and applied for the clearances to run the White Train backward down the mountain into the Brunswick, Maryland, switching yard. Then he began working on the clearances necessary to take the NEC track into Washington. Later, he would get the required clearances for Richmond, down to Atlanta, and on to Texas.
A little past two P. M. the clearance for Brunswick came through, allowing them to back down out of the mountains. Major Flynn ordered the perimeter guards back up onto the roof of the Train. He radioed the helicopter gunships, and they began to wind up their turbines. The whine of the Bell Jets' engines was drowned out by the locomotive's deep, throaty roar as the White Train's diesel engine powered up.
Then, in a matter of minutes, the Marines were in position up on the roof and the black gunships were hovering a hundred feet overhead.
"Ready to roll," the engineer's voice came to Major Flynn through the headset.
"Okay, let's go," the Major said. Then he felt the troop car lurch, and the White Train was again moving, backing off the siding onto the main track and down the long CSXT grade, descending into Maryland.
"I'll feel better when we get off this damn mountain," Major Flynn said to the Marine beside him.
Fannon Kincaid did not have time to look for the perfect car on a spotting sheet. He divided up the twenty men he had left and told them to take sections of the Washington area track and move in pairs. He ordered them to send one man back to alert him when they found an acceptable car. Everybody would regroup in two hours to take stock of things. Then Fannon found a place to rest.
He chose an open boxcar on the northeast end of the Washington line, which ran directly through D. C., parallel to Interstate 395, and crossed the Potomac near the Pentagon. At that spot, at the intersection of 7th and C Streets, the rail line was only a block from the F. A. A. building. From there the railroad tracks ran south toward Richmond.
But Fannon was tired; he had gone without sleep for two days. Almost all of his energy had left him. His muscles felt weak, and yet he knew he must go on. He would find a way to strike this one blow for the Lord. Somewhere out of his ranks of unrewarded and discarded Christians would rise a successor. Certainly the successor would not be a man as holy or divine as Fannon, but he would be someone who could carry on in His glorious name.
His mind was cut loose from all logic, freewheeling above his dreams of glory. 44 The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but he blesseth the habitation of the just,' " he whispered.
With that prayer on his lips, Fannon fell into a deep sleep in the still heat of the open boxcar.
Robert Vail saw the gas tanker car parked on a siding about half a mile from him. He was with his new partner, Peter Kelly, who had been a Navy explosives expert in the Gulf and was known in the Choir as 44Gas Can Man." His job was to rig the explosives.
They moved across the ties until they were next to the huge painted tanker with the Texaco star on the side.
"Looks good," R. V. said, as he glanced up at the mammoth tanker car. Then R. V. picked up a rock and banged the side of the tanker. He listened to the sound that rebounded back at him. " 'Bout half full," he said. "Whatta ya think?"
"I can rig it so it'll blow the fuckin' paint off that dome over there," Gas Can Man said, pointing off at the Capitol Dome rising from behind a line of trees about a half mile away. "I'll go back, tell Fannon, and get my ammonium nitrate and shaped charges. You wait here, see if you can get the tanker open." Then Gas Can Man moved away at a trot.
R. V. looked at the tanker car. He knew it was not uncommon for a gas tanker to be dropped inside city limits to wait until the correct delivery dates. What impressed him was that this tanker car was perfectly placed. It was as if God had ordained its location. The Reverend Kincaid would be rewarded at last, he thought. The Christian Choir and the Lord's Desire would make its final statement, and the world would be forced to take heed.
R. V. patted the side of the tanker, half full of gasoline. He looked at the red hazardous material sign on the end of the car that read: FLAMMABLE.
"Ain't you a beauty," he said in a whisper, almost as if the tanker possessed the spirit of the Lord. Then he climbed to the top of the hopper and, using a pocket wrench, began to undo the stubborn bolts of the hinged hatch at the top of the car. As he worked, he remembered Fannon's words preached in hushed tones a week before. ' 'Death will precede the armies of the Lord,'' the Reverend had prophesied.
Chapter 55
Behold, he cometh,' " Fannon said. He stood atop the Texaco tanker car and watched as Gas Can Man poured two bags of ammonium nitrate into the half-full gas tanker. " 'Every eye shall see him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.' " After he finished reciting from Revelation he stood there in silence, the wind blowing the treetops and his fine silver-gray hair. Gas Can Man had promised that the mixture of ammonium nitrate would magnify the explosion a hundredfold.
Several of the Choir helped Fannon down from his precarious perch on the tanker car, back onto the ground. He had changed radically in the last seventy-two hours. From gruff and menacing he had become somewhat frail and uncertain. His fists no longer seemed to be powerful weapons attached to lethal muscled arms, but rather like fluttering appendages. It was hard to comprehend so quick and devastating a change in someone who so recently possessed such an inner strength and power that he held them spellbound with his forcefulness.