Super Chief (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 3) Read online

  Fireman was an archaic description on a diesel train. There was no firebox to feed with fuel. On a diesel, the fireman monitored controls and assisted the engineer. The brakeman, Fenwick or Taylor, whichever one wasn’t resting, operated the brakes and assisted in switching tracks.

  Trainmen were a traditional lot. They liked their structure and revered their union rules. They knew the conductor was the ultimate authority, had overall control of the train and its crew. That was another point of discomfort for the guys in the cab. This train had no conductor, except for Maj. Now, she was a federal agent and that carried some weight. So did the fact that she was the only one of them who was armed. They’d seen her sidearm and the case she’d bluntly told them held an M-4 carbine.

  “Yeah, just like the one combat troops use,” she’d said in response to Taylor’s question.

  Still, she was a female and younger than any of them.

  The crew’s notion of a woman’s place was stuck in the fifties, the 1850s.

  But they’d been told by the CEO of their company: “Do whatever she tells you.” Before they could complain to their union, the president of their brotherhood said the same thing. So Don, Dean, Ed and Leo were stuck.

  Maj knew that, and she wanted to make things as agreeable for the guys as possible, but she had to follow her instincts. She said, “We’ll be careful. We’ve got cell phones and radios, right? We’ll get track warrants for everywhere we go.”

  Don Prosser told her, “There are plenty of places around here you can’t find a cell signal. Even radio contact gets sketchy.”

  “Huh,” Maj said. “Then while we’re still in a 21st century locale, I’ll make a call. Have some satellite phones delivered first thing tomorrow.”

  That was the best she could do for the moment.

  So off they went into dark territory, spending the day traveling from Long Beach to Colton in the Inland Empire and Calexico in Imperial County on the border with Mexico.

  The first stop in Long Beach was far too built up to hide a Super Chief. The city was part of the L.A. to San Diego megalopolis. Of course, Long Beach was also a major seaport. Giant cranes on the docks were as common as crabgrass in a back yard, and they could lift even a locomotive. Put a Super Chief in the hold of a ship and no one would notice until it came out again, maybe on the far side of the world.

  Maj gave that idea some thought, but rejected it. She didn’t see a foreign interest involved in the theft. Anyone who had the money necessary to steal a train and ship it off to another country could as easily have made a legitimate purchase. She felt intuitively the crime was committed by … she was about to say to herself, “Americans.”

  But with John Tall Wolf involved it was obvious someone thought Native Americans could be involved. Were involved? She’d have to talk with the BIA man about that. He might have insights that would help her efforts.

  No stranger to collaborative academic efforts, Maj didn’t need to be the lead author on the write-up of how this case got solved, but she would appreciate some recognition. From what she’d seen of Tall Wolf, she thought he’d be good for that.

  The rail terminal in Colton was relatively small and easily surveyed. The local officials were forthcoming and candid. No, they hadn’t seen a Super Chief roll through. Everyone with a pair of eyes would have noticed that full headdress custom paint job on the locomotive. They did admit that only a skeleton crew worked the overnight shift and … well, they could get distracted.

  No one came right out and said their colleagues might fall asleep in wee, dark hours but the implication was clear. They probably would have ’fessed up if Maj had pushed them, but she didn’t see the point of embarrassing people unnecessarily. She could always come back and have a heart-to-heart talk later, if things came to that.

  As Maj’s two-car train rolled southeast, the desert landscape became more primal. For all of California’s huge population, there were vast areas of the state that were largely uninhabited. In places, the train line paralleled stretches of highway so isolated and lonely it was possible to imagine the next vehicle you saw might as easily be a covered wagon as a car.

  Maj had Prosser pull onto a siding in Calexico’s tiny rail yard at sunset. The train should be safe there for the night. She had Leo Taylor help her offload her Yamaha dirt bike.

  The crew had noticed there was another motorcycle on board.

  “Who’s that one for?” Prosser asked

  “We might be joined by another federal agent, a guy from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”

  “Yeah?” It took the senior engineer only a moment to make the intuitive leap. “Did Indians steal the Super Chief?”

  “Maybe. I think it’s possible.”

  Dean Spaneas hesitated before asking, “Are these Indians, you know, hostile?”

  Maj grinned. “Well the thing about any thief is he can get very possessive about the things he steals. Never likes to give them back.”

  The trainmen laughed without humor. Prosser said, “Yeah, ain’t that a pisser?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “You think you’ll have to use your gun?” Ed Fenwick asked.

  Maj said, “Hope not.”

  Prosser asked, “Should we be armed, me and the guys?”

  “Fair question. Any of you have training in shooting at people who are shooting at you?”

  They all shook their heads, except for Taylor.

  He was non-responsive. Maj wasn’t sure how to take that.

  “We just don’t want to wind up like that crew on the Super Chief,” Prosser said.

  “Tell you what,” Maj said. “We’ll stop somewhere quiet and lonely tomorrow. I’ll let each of you pop off a few rounds with the M-4. See what you can hit. That make you feel any better?”

  They all liked that idea. Prosser, Spaneas and Fenwick went off to find a place for dinner, chattering like teenagers about the prospect of firing the assault weapon. Taylor, the junior man, stayed behind to guard the train with a large wrench. The others would fetch his dinner.

  The crew wanted to make sure nobody stole their train.

  Maj fired up her bike. Rode out of town into the gathering darkness.

  A thought tiptoed to the edge of her consciousness, something from the year she was doing research for her dissertation. She couldn’t pin it down right away. But she thought it had something to do with track construction. She didn’t push it.

  The road ahead veered to the left. She leaned into it. A glance showed she was already doing eighty. Man, the Yamaha could fly. She gave it more gas as she hit the straightaway.

  There were a billion stars overhead but not another vehicle in sight.

  All sorts of dark territory surrounded Calexico.

  She wondered if Tall Wolf had made any progress that day.

  Chapter 18

  San Francisco

  With one of the billionaires who interested him having flown the coop, John Tall Wolf went to call on the other one, Brian Kirby. Officer Chang had an interesting tidbit to share with John as they reached the street with some of the grandest houses in Pacific Heights.

  “That one’s Danner’s place,” Chang said.

  The house was dark behind its wrought iron fence and half-acre of lawn. Didn’t look like Danner had parachuted in. John asked, “Either of you officers know if this fine home has its own helipad?”

  Neither cop did, but Gilhooley said, “I’ll check Google Earth. If the guy hasn’t pulled a Dick Cheney, we should be able to see if there’s a place for a chopper to land.”

  The former vice president had browbeaten Google into not showing an aerial view of his official residence while he was in office. Probably hadn’t wanted the voting public to see what he’d been doing, John thought.

  A moment later, looking up from her tablet, Gilhooley said, “No helicopter access.”

  That was when Chang made her interesting comment. “This is Switzerland.”

  “Pardon?” John asked, looking at another huge
house.

  “Nickname for the innocent rich lady who lives between Danner and Kirby. I hear she takes a strictly neutral stance regarding her neighbors. Her real name is Erika Bergdahl.”

  “Sounds Swedish,” John said, “but they have a history of avoiding other people’s fights, too.”

  The last mansion on the block belonged to Brian Kirby.

  The lights were on.

  Someone used a remote control to open the gate to the Kirby property before Chang could press the intercom button and announce their arrival. Another thing cops hated was someone getting the drop on them. The two uniformed officers exchanged a look. Gilhooley’s hand went to her weapon. John stepped out of the car before the tension could escalate.

  “I’ll take it from here,” he said.

  “You don’t want us to go with you?” Chang asked.

  John gave them his cell phone number; Gilhooley put it in her tablet.

  “Give me a call in ten minutes.” He gave them passwords: one for all clear, another for bring help. “When I get back, I’ll share whatever I can about what happens in there. And lunch for both of you is on me. Well, it’s on the federal government. So think up something good.”

  The two cops could live with that plan.

  Chang parked her patrol unit athwart Kirby’s driveway nonetheless.

  Nobody was going to drive off the property without their okay.

  “San Francisco police?” Brian Kirby asked, standing in his open doorway. “Or are you FBI?”

  “Bureau of Indian Affairs,” John replied.

  Kirby blinked and then grinned. “Well, that’s interesting. Would you like to come in?”

  “I would, thank you. Is that a Modigliani?” John asked, regarding the painting in the entryway. Kirby turned his head toward the painting and said it was. While he was looking the other way, John flashed an okay signal to the SFPD patrol unit. He’d bet at least one of the cops saw it, and wouldn’t bother making their previously arranged call.

  John stepped inside and Kirby looked back at him. “You like art?” he asked, closing the door behind them.

  “Sure, mostly representational, but some abstract stuff, too.”

  Kirby led John into a nearby room. It was surprisingly cozy for such a large house. An unlit fireplace and four wing back chairs placed around a circular table all but filled it. A square cut-glass decanter and two snifters were centered on the table. Kirby gestured John to a chair and sat opposite him.

  He said, “I expected someone to come calling. I thought I’d offer my visitor some very good brandy, but …”

  Seeing his discomfort, John said, “You’re not sure that’s wise with a Native American.”

  “Yes.” Confession may have been good for the soul, but it hadn’t put Kirby at ease.

  “Of course, the idea that I can’t handle alcohol might be considered insulting,” John said.

  Treading carefully, Kirby asked, “Is it?”

  “Well, this is a tricky situation. I don’t know if there’s a graceful way to handle it, but welcoming me into your home is a good start. In my case, drinks are no big deal. I’ve never had alcohol, don’t care to know how I’d react to it. I’m happy with sparkling water, if that’s available.”

  Kirby smiled and nodded. He made a circular gesture with his right hand, as if doing a magic trick. The drink John requested didn’t appear out of thin air, but a young woman with high cheekbones, blue eyes and gleaming sable hair brought a glass of sparkling water within a minute. John and Kirby both thanked her and she left the room.

  Kirby poured himself a measure of brandy and raised his glass.

  “Your health and mine,” he said.

  “Mutual success as well,” John replied.

  They sipped their drinks and John said, “You said you were expecting a visitor, and now we’re being observed?”

  The charming young woman must have seen Kirby’s gesture, overheard John’s drink request.

  Who else was watching? Security, surely. Legal counsel, most likely.

  Kirby admitted as much. “We are. Should I offer your colleagues outside some refreshment?”

  “I’m taking care of them. We’ll leave it at that.”

  “Of course. You’re here about Edward Danner?”

  “I am.” John told Kirby about Danner’s hasty departure from his office.

  The man laughed. “That Eddie, he’s something.”

  “He has a history of making quick exits?”

  Kirby took another sip of brandy. He looked at John.

  “I know you must have done some spadework before arriving here. Why don’t you tell me what you know, so I won’t have to cover what you’ve already learned?”

  John didn’t mind a repetition of the facts, so he gave Kirby only the bare outline he’d first heard from Ellen Feazell, the L.A. Times reporter.

  The venture capitalist nodded and put his glass on the table. He crossed his right leg over his left and folded his hands on his lap. He looked at the ceiling for a moment as if to arrange his thoughts in the proper order.

  “All right. You have the broad strokes right. Now, let me fill in the details. Edward Danner has one of the brightest minds in the field of nanotechnology. The next big thing in science is how to make things ever smaller. You’ve heard of this?”

  John nodded but didn’t say a word.

  Kirby continued “As you know, we were roommates at Stanford, each of us bent on becoming the next icons of high technology, Eddie by doing the basic science and me by providing him with all the funding he needed to get our business off the ground.

  “Venture capital is in my blood. My father founded one of the first modern firms providing start-up money to smart people with world-altering ideas. That was forty years ago. He brought me into the business in a very small way when I was ten. I did routine office chores for a couple of years and then I noticed how many bright ideas got hatched in people’s garages. So you know what I suggested to my dad?”

  John said, “You suggested he buy a garage building company?”

  Kirby clapped his hands and laughed. “Bravo. That’s just what I did. I thought if garages were where people did their inventing, let’s build more garages. My dad bought a local company. Sold first-rate garages at mid-range prices and cleaned up. He cut me in for a share of the profit. I told him I wanted my money reinvested in whatever ideas he thought were good bets.”

  “And that was your first step to getting rich,” John said.

  “A millionaire before I got to high school. By the time I met Edward Danner, it was tens of millions. I was so sure Eddie was on the track of an enormous breakthrough …” Kirby sighed. A look of regret filled his eyes. “I wanted to launch my own venture capital firm with a walk-off home run. I talked my dad into dissolving the trust fund he’d set up for me and letting me use that money, too. I sank every penny I had into the company Eddie and I were going to start. You know what happened next.”

  “Not the details,” John said.

  “It was a mistake in the science, Eddie told me. An equation or some damn thing didn’t work the way he thought it would. You remember those two guys who thought they had cold fusion whipped? It turned out they weren’t even close. It was like that, but only up to a point. Anyway, I lost all my money.”

  “And then?” John asked.

  “I begged my dad for a job and wouldn’t take anything more than room and board for pay. Within a year, Eddie got his science right, found new funding and made a killing. Nano-science is now involved in everything from killing cancer to creating lighter, stronger building materials than anything we’ve ever known, and Eddie’s company, Positron, is in the thick of just about any application you can imagine.”

  John said, “Looks like you’ve made quite a comeback, too.”

  “I learn from my mistakes,” Kirby said. “I thought Eddie would cut me in for a share of Positron after all the time and money … all the friendship I invested in him. He didn’t even return my
phone calls. I took that to heart, and now I do due diligence better than anyone I know. Yeah, I came back all right, but I paid the price, too.”

  “Tell me what you and Danner had to talk about at Union Station,” John said.

  A smile lit Kirby’s face. He uncrossed his legs, emptied his snifter and poured more brandy.

  “For the past twenty-three years, Eddie and I haven’t spoken a word to each other even though we live so near to each other.”

  “Who got here first?” John asked.

  Kirby laughed. “I did. Understandably, we’ve never had any further business dealings. But two years ago we became direct competitors for the first time.”

  “In what way?”

  “Each of us is vying to build the first high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles.”

  “A railroad?” John said, leaning forward.

  “Yeah, like nothing this country has ever seen. True high-speed rail travel like they have in Europe and Asia.” A gleam came into Kirby’s eyes. “Maybe even faster.”

  “Who’s ahead?” John asked.

  “Technologically, my team.”

  “What other measure is there?” John asked.

  Kirby had his own question. “Do you have the power to make arrests, Mr. Tall Wolf?”

  “That and a license to take scalps,” John said.

  Kirby laughed, delighted. “Perfect. Eddie doesn’t know for sure, but he’s an intuitive thinker as well as a first-class scientist. I’m sure he knows his team is running behind.”

  “How can you know that?” John asked.

  “It took me some time to figure out what happened with the company Eddie and I tried to start, but I finally did. The SOB didn’t make any mistake in the science; he sabotaged his own work. Why would he do that? Because he and I were going to be equal partners. He drove a much harder bargain with his new backers. He controls Positron and has three-quarters of the equity.”

  “So he sold you out for money, after waiting long enough to make it look like he found a legitimate fix for the so-called problem?”

  “Right, but money was only part of his motive. I thought there had to be more. It wasn’t like we were interested in the same girl, though. Or longed for any other one of a kind consideration. We’d never done anything to slight each other. Not that I was aware of, at first.”