Chapter 20: Make ‘Em Wish They Was Arrested

October 9th, 1995, 4:15 PM CT, Chicago Union Station, Chicago, IL

John was getting stir-crazy; it was now 4:15 in the afternoon, which meant they were 3 hours and 17 minutes late, and they were just coming to a halt at the platform of Chicago Union Station. He had an hour and a half to catch his train, but since it had been getting relatively close, he had been nervous. Now as the train was actually in the station, he breathed a big sigh of relief; he was now relatively certain to catch the Texas Eagle today, which means he would hopefully be in San Antonio tomorrow night, and, god willing, Phoenix about 50 hours from now.

He was desperate to ensure this because if he had missed this train, he would have had to wait several days to catch the next one. Under the circumstances, he might have even flown to Phoenix. He didn’t know anything significant except that his son and Jill were alive, and not sitting in a hospital on Amtrak’s dime. He rushed off the train, down the concourse, past the ticket windows, and into the Metropolitan Lounge. The lounge attendant, who he knew, gave him a quizzical look, to which he replied, “21”, the number of the Texas Eagle.

He quickly walked over to the pay-phone bank, and put his go-bag at his feet. He picked up the phone, pressed 0, and then told the operator he wanted to make a credit-card call, and rattled off his Diner’s Club number and then his home phone number. The phone rang several times on the other end of the line before clicking.

“Hello, Caldwell Limited,” Gretel answered.

“Hey, sweetheart,” John said, “I’m finally in Chicago. Damned train was over three hours late. Any news?”

“Hey, Johnny,” Gretel replied, “Do I got news? Yeah, I got some news, okay? Geawhge and Jill are jus’ fine, but one of deir friends is in de hospital. Yuh with me? Dey are dere wit’ dem and dey don’t plan on leavin’ until dey get released. Dat Akilah girl. Yuh got me so fahr? I must axe yuh, how does our son keep gettin’ involved in dese messes. Dese kids are gonna send me tuh an early grave, fuhgeddaboudit! Okay?”

“Grets, Grets, chill, ok?” John replied, “George is our son. Our life together hasn’t been exactly boring. The important thing is they are ok. I just can’t believe I forgot my cellphone at home.”

“Yuh were kinda racin’ out de doawh,” Gretel replied, “I miss yuh already, yuh bettuh hurry home. Right? Call me when yuh get into San Antonio, okay? Promise me, or what?”

“Unless the train is too late, I promise.”

“Talk tuh yuh den, I love yuh, okay?”

“I love you, too, Grets, bye.” John gently replaced the receiver on the cradle, and got up and stretched.

He grabbed his bag, and went over to the coffee machine and made himself a cup of coffee, and then went to a chair and lounged in it. The train wreck was still receiving front and center news coverage, with a bunch of so-called experts testifying to all kinds of general nonsense. That meant that nobody actually knew what caused the wreck, or why it happened.

Until the investigation started releasing real information the rest of it was just nonsense. Especially how the conductor might have applied the brakes too late. That part didn’t happen, obviously. The engineer perhaps applied the brakes too late, but certainly not the conductor. Journalistic standards were absolutely pathetic, it wasn’t like in the days when Walter Cronkite would never report anything he didn’t know. But he had retired 14 years ago.

John was hungry and wanted to get on the train and have dinner. Now that he knew for sure that his son and likely future daughter-in-law were safe, he was more comfortable. He didn’t know what kind of people they had gotten mixed up with, but George was very selective with his friends. If he was close enough to them to be concerned about their well-being they must be good people. Jill didn’t seem to have any friends, so them making friends with people their own age would be a good thing.

He just hoped that they didn’t share the nature of their real relationship with the wrong person. As Jill’s legal guardian, he could potentially get into a lot of trouble, and he didn’t want to, obviously.

About 20 minutes before departure, the lounge announced boarding for the Texas Eagle. John got in the boarding group, and was lead out to the train. It stood there gleaming in stainless steel, an all Superliner I consist resplendent in Red, White, and Blue. He wasn’t sure why Amtrak was changing color schemes; the old one was far more attractive.

October 9th, 1995, 5:40 PM MST, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Phoenix, AZ

It was getting late in the evening, and George decided to take everyone back to the hotel. Everyone was hungry, and the hospital food was likely even worse than the food at the Holiday Inn, and probably more expensive, too. Josh wasn’t that interested in coming, but George told him that he was going to hold a private meeting with the concerned parties about what he intended to do about the derailment. Josh wanted to be part of that, so he relented.

George called the taxi company he had used before, and asked for a van to be sent to the hospital. Between himself, Josh, Jill, Miguel, Jimmy, Jessica, Jackie, Jeff, and Jenna, they had 9 passengers who needed to be taken back to the hotel, so a full-sized van was the best option. They showed up with a 15-passenger Ford Econoline 250, which while nothing special, fit the bill precisely. They all got in and the van took off for the hotel.

When they got back to the hotel, George again offered to take them out to dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, but Miguel stopped him and insisted that it would be more fair to have him pay for the meal. After all George had paid last time; George relented. The hotel accommodated them at a long table in the restaurant. The meal was somber and didn’t involve much talking. The kids were very subdued, as their mom’s very fragile condition was sinking in.

The food being served was standard Holiday Inn fair. Which means bland, largely tasteless pablum, designed to cater to the average American traveler, offending none of them. It was edible, and served exactly as ordered, but it wasn’t anything to write home about, nor worthy of really enjoying. The food on Amtrak was substantially better, frankly.

After dinner, the kids were not ready to go to sleep, so Miguel suggested they all go for a swim. The kids liked the idea, and George and Jill were up for it. But Josh blew a gasket.

“Enough wit’ dis swimmin’ meshugaus,” he steamed, “Geawhge, yuh told me I should come back tuh dis fahrkahkte hotel so about dis sabotage we could tawhk. First we are doin’ de eatin’ of dis dreck food, and now we are tuh be futzin’ around in de pool. Yuh got me so fahr? Dyaenu wit’ de potchkin’ around. About dese murderous crooks we should be doin’ de kibitzin’.”

“That wasn’t English,” Miguel said.

“It mostly was,” George said, “He was kvetching - complaining - about us wasting time instead of talking about the business at hand, and he’s right.”

“Jimmy,” Miguel said, “Why don’t you take the kids down to the pool?”

“I want in on this discussion,” Jimmy said, “I want to know what happened.”

“I need someone to watch the kids in the pool, Jimmy,” Miguel said, “Jill will fill you in later.”

“I promise I’ll tell you and Jessica everything,” Jill said, “You deserve to know, too.”

She was lying, and she knew it, but she knew George and his penchant for vigilante justice. Telling people about what they were going to do was a bad idea, with a capital B. And she knew it. For their own good, they couldn’t know this information.

After Jimmy took the kids down to the pool, the group went into Jill, George, and Josh’s shared room, and George switched the A/C’s fan to run continuously, and turned on the TV, in order to stop the conversation from filtering out into the hotel’s hallway.

“Let me first lay out what I know as facts,” George said, “First, the Sunset Limited was derailed by sabotage. Second, there was a freight train scheduled to run on Southern Pacific’s Yuma Subdivision - the tracks we were on - that ended up behind our train, called Hot-Shot 162, operated by Southern Pacific. Third, the person who derailed our train knew exactly how to derail a train, how tracks are constructed, and how to bypass the signaling system. Do you all accept those things as facts?”

“I trust your observations,” Miguel said, “You are an expert when it comes to trains.”

“I don’t get de difference between Southoin Pacific and de Espee, or what?”

“Same thing. Espee meaning initials S and P, meaning Southern Pacific,” Jill said, “What’s with the surprised looks? Sometimes I actually listen to the babbling coming out of George’s mouth.”

“Exactly,” George said, “Now let me lay out my suppositions. The first is that derailing a passenger train with relatively few passengers on a minor route in southern Arizona while it is running in a place at relatively low speed makes absolutely no sense. You could use similar techniques to derail the Night Owl or the Auto Train with much more spectacular results. My conclusion from that is that the Sunset was not the target of the saboteur. Does that make sense?”

“Too much damned sense it makes,” Josh growled.

“Calm yourself, Iago,” Jill said. She was sitting next to him on the bed, and put her arm around his shoulder, “We are going to get them, I promise. Don’t get worked up, Josh.”

“She’s right, Josh,” George replied, “Be chill. The second supposition is that this exact kind of derailment is absolutely perfect for a freight train. The derailment separated the head end of the train, where all freight workers are located, from the back of the train. It derailed the engines and the first eight cars, leaving the remainder of the train’s equipment undamaged.

“The curve of the tracks at that location also would have hidden any equipment involved in stealing stuff - trucks, forklifts, whatever - from view of the engineer, so that they would not report that to the dispatch. This is a relatively unused line; the derailment would not have been a high-priority incident for the Espee. By the time enough investigation had been done to figure out anything at all had been stolen, the crooks would have been long gone. Anyone disagree with me?”

“Not at all,” Miguel said, trying hard to keep calm.

“No, dat makes sense,” Josh agreed.

“Ok,” George continued, “The next supposition is there must have been a large crew involved. I’m nearly positive they jinked the rail before the derailment. That means lifting up 60 feet - or 20 yards - of 133 or 150 lb rail. The weight refers to weight per yard, so we are talking about moving a hunk of steel weighing somewhere between 2700 lbs and 3000 lbs. You either need about 10 strong men, or a crane. We in agreement on that?”

Nods came around the room.

“Next is that they weren’t using that crew to rob one car,” George continued, “They were doing it to rob several. They needed trucks. A lot of trucks. They would have to have been used in a way that could be easily explained on the truck’s log book, too. If they had been successful, the robbery would have been discovered, they would have been looking for trucks. I’d almost say it is a must that one of the principles in this robbery owns a trucking company of some sort.”

“Given what you just explained,” Jill said, “I agree, they either own or manage some kind of fleet of big box trucks or semi-trailers.”

“No,” George said, “I just realized this. It would have to be road-railers or piggy-backs, and semi-trucks. No way they could unload boxcars fast enough for this to make sense. They must have had ramps.”

“Hundreds of truckin’ companies in de southwest dere must be,” Josh said, “I gotta axe yuh if dis is enough infawhmashun tuh figure out who did dis, or what?”

“By itself, probably not,” George replied, “But there is more. The next part is that this must have been meticulously planned. Lets call it 10 cars worth. Somebody needed to bring 5 to 10 trucks, five to ten ramps, possibly five double articulation dollies, and all the men needed to maneuver them, place them just out of sight of the train, and stage them to act.

“These weren’t men who didn’t know each other, either. This must have been a team. They’d have to work with military precision, so probably at least some of them are ex-military. We know this to be true because there wasn’t a hint of their presence before the wreck; trucks sitting in the middle of the desert, engines idling, would have been a point of interest. They’d be talking about a robbery by now. You all with me?”

“Sure,” Miguel said, “So they are a team. So what?”

“Like I said before,” George replied, “Large scale theft operations are rare as hell. We also know that at least one of them, probably two of them, have connections with the Southern Pacific.”

“How do we know that?”

“As I said,” George continue further, “The knowledge to derail these trains requires some mechanical experience with maintenance of way, which is not really public knowledge. You also need some kind of in to the private freight manifests, which would likely not be an MOW worker. It is possible the MOW worker is from another railroad, but the guy who got access to the manifest has to be Espee.”

“What do we know, exactly, or what?” Josh said, “Between your facts and supposishuns.”

“The following:” George said, “The Sunset Limited was likely accidentally derailed by a large scale theft ring, who was trying to steal high-value cargo from Espee’s Hot-Shot 162. That theft ring was likely headed by the owner of a decent sized trucking company, with off-road capable trucks, who has done this kind of large scale robbery before, and he had two railroad people, at least one of them from the Southern Pacific railroad. And all those men, or almost all of them, were present in the desert beside the Yuma Subdivision at 1:30 in the morning on October 9th. When you think about it, that’s quite a lot.”

“Yeah, now dat I tink about it, dat is quite a lot,” Josh replied.

“My dad will be here tomorrow night,” George continued, “And he will be able to find out what that cargo likely was, because he knows people at the Southern Pacific from when Santa Fe tried to merge with them. He also knows a few people in local law enforcement who might have an idea who around here owns a trucking company and is involved in organized theft. Once we find out who the hell it is who did this, we can then devise a plan to deal with them.”

“What exactly do you plan on doing with them?” Miguel asked.

“Figure out who was responsible for the mistake of derailing the wrong train,” George explained.

“You aren’t answering my question,” Miguel replied, “Once we know that, what are you going to do with them?”

“I’m going to play hopscotch with them, Miguel,” George snorted.

“What?” Josh ejaculated.

“Of course not,” George laughed, “What I’m gonna do is, I’m gonna kill them.”

“K-kill them?” Miguel said.

“Damn Skippy,” George replied, “They nearly killed me, my fiancé, and our two best friends, plus a bunch of other innocent people on a train. They injured all of us, killed a nice sleeping car attendant I knew. What are we supposed to do? Wag our fingers at them and say, ‘you’ve been bad, bad boys!’?”

“Why don’t we just turn them over to the police?”

“You’re adorable,” Jill said, “You really are.”

“The police will not have enough evidence from our tip off to do anything with them,” George said, “And then they are going to come after us.”

“Hold on ovuh here,” Josh said, “De one who made de mistake yuh’re just gonna kill? All of dem yuh are not gonna kill, or what?”

“I have no idea,” George replied, “Honestly, it depends on who the hell they are and how they feel about what they’ve done. It was an accident, Josh. Perhaps the worst punishment will be letting them live with it. I swear to you all of them will suffer.”

Miguel was more than a little uncomfortable with the arrangement. He wasn’t sure how he felt about potentially killing one of the people involved. George was scaring him. He was cold, and objective, and entirely vicious. Somebody had attacked people he considered to be family, and he was going on an all out campaign of going after them with guns blazing. He felt like he was in the room with a caged tiger.