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  An American Bullet

  John Stonehouse

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

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  About the Author

  Copyright © by John Stonehouse 2018

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  John Stonehouse has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  Cover Design by Books Covered

  Chapter One

  Raton Pass, Colorado.

  December 2002

  * * *

  The air in the rocky-sided pass is heavy, deadened—the sky above the tree line the color of lead.

  Jimmy Scardino takes a final hit on his Camel cigarette, he tosses it into the snow, eyes the rail line running south into the pass—it's white-over.

  He checks his watch, knocks snow from his hair. Turns back to the stolen Buick Roadmaster at the side of the gravel road.

  Easing in behind the wheel, he drives the station wagon thirty yards to a grade crossing—feels the raised steel tracks beneath his tires.

  He stops the car, cuts the motor.

  Stepping out, he swings the door shut.

  Half a mile back along the rail line is a collection of buildings—Fisherville, a track-side settlement. Businesses and houses are barely visible in the late December afternoon. It’s near dusk, nothing moving. Nobody's seen him. Nobody’s seen the car.

  Colorado spruce and limber pine line the gravel road where it disappears into the mountain wood. He moves between low branches, stooping into the trees to a clearing in the fading winter light.

  He pulls out a second set of keys, spots the double-cab Tacoma pickup. Closing down the last cold yards, he fights an urge to run.

  He reaches the pickup, opens up, climbs in, fires the motor.

  He checks the clock on the dash, nods to himself.

  Almost time.

  On the long climb through the Raton Pass, the Amtrak passenger train fights for traction.

  Clarke Tanner in the engineer's seat, peers through the windshield—the forward light beams filled with swirling flecks of white.

  He glances at the main panel on the operator console—the train is picking up speed, finally descending; running downhill after more than an hour.

  The rail heads will be iced. He sees a letter 'W' picked out at the side of the track—the whistle post for Fisherville, ten miles north of the Raton tunnel.

  A quarter-mile on, he can just make out track-side yards and buildings.

  Two grade crossings at Fisherville—the main road, then a second, gravel road at the northern end.

  He checks the speed, the train’s accelerating, nearing the limit for the track.

  Conductor Ross in the seat beside him reaches for the heater control. He cranks up the dial, rubs at the arm of his sweater; “Getting worse out there.”

  Tanner starts the sequence of air horn blasts—two long, a short, then another long. “You catch a weather update at Raton?”

  The conductor nods, stares out of the side window at the snow. “Trainmaster's office say there’s a storm headed in. Possible Cat-4.”

  Tanner sounds the air horn again—repeating the sequence of long and short blasts.

  Tracts of white powder are settled on the hills lining both sides of the pass. Ahead, snitch-lights glow on the sides of the flashers at the main crossing.

  “How is it up to Chicago?” Tanner says.

  “Not looking real good.”

  The engineer watches the signals at the highway. Beyond the main crossing, a shape draws his eye where the forest line comes down to meet the track.

  He eases up out of his seat, stares along the cone of the forward light beam.

  Windshield wipers mark the time in beats.

  Tanner’s breath catches in his throat.

  His hand floats toward the automatic brake-valve handle.

  Something is out there. Something on the track.

  Five, six hundred feet ahead, not more.

  He sounds the horn in a long-drawn blast.

  Conductor Ross snaps around in his seat.

  “Son of a bitch...” Tanner pulls on the handle, putting the brakes into full emergency.

  “Jesus,” the conductor says, “get off the line.” His voice is hoarse in his throat.

  The engineer stares at the car across the track—the closing speed too great now, no way he can get the train stopped. They're in full emergency—nothing more he can do.

  “Move back...” the conductor shouts.

  Tanner stares at the station wagon in the lights.

  He feels his heart in his chest.

  Starts to brace.

  Chapter Two

  Forty miles north, Deputy US Marshal John Whicher steers his Chevy Silverado down I-25 in the worsening snow. Freight trucks are slowing on the long approach into Raton Pass. Cars and pickups switching lanes, throwing up a dirty white spray of slush.

  Whicher checks his rear-view mirror, throws a look back at the empty rear seat. He thinks of Charles 'Cutter' Maitland, his passenger, scant hours ago.

  The marshal flexes his fingers on the wheel, stretches out his shoulders. You did your job, he tells himself, nothing more.

  Maitland would likely be staring at three feet of empty sky through a slit-window in a cell, now. A twelve-by-seven unit. Solitary confinement. A concrete bed.

  They’d made the run north out of Texas, Maitland chained to a 'D' ring in the Chevy floor. Whicher signed him over to the prison guards, he was lost to the world from that moment. The marshal shudders at the thought of it, despite himself.

  Florence Supermax. The Alcatraz of the Rockies.

  He flicks through chann
els on the radio, settles on a station playing Johnny Cash. The last rays of sun sink behind the mountains in the west, blood red against an iron sky.

  Raw sound fills up the space inside the cab.

  Whicher frowns. Everybody says the man in black is dying.

  He stares out through the windshield, thinks of Florence—a sprawling high-security complex. Something in the air there, malevolent, brooding. An absence. An inexplicable kind of void.

  But Maitland had it coming, he was into organized crime from the time the school board kicked him out at fifteen. A murderer at eighteen, he spent ten years carving up rival crews for the mob. The feds caught him with burnt human remains in a tarp in the trunk of his car.

  Maitland tried to plead-down, testify for the government. But then he’d run out from everybody, the feds, the mob. He was rearrested in Dallas, his life forfeit.

  Whicher thinks of home, of the long ride back to Texas. Five hours. Maybe more, if the weather got worse.

  He eyes the heaps of snow lining either side of the roadway. Dark outline of a mountain beyond the cold glass windows of the truck.

  His cell phone starts up.

  He checks it, sees the USMS number—the Abilene office on the screen.

  He knocks off the music, answers; “Whicher.”

  “John, this is Evans...”

  Whicher recognizes the senior marshal, the Abilene department boss on the line.

  “Where are you now? Are you still in Colorado?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Did you get Maitland delivered?”

  “Yes sir, I did.”

  “I need you to do something,” Evans says, “urgent. I need you to get to a place called Fisherville. Fast as you can.”

  Whicher looks at the interstate stretching out. “Sir, I’m running south on twenty-five. Around fifteen miles from the state line.”

  “It's the north side of Raton Pass,” Evans says. “There's been a collision. A train and a vehicle.”

  Whicher searches ahead for exit signs.

  “I need you to get to Fisherville,” Evans says, “and meet with a Marshal Corrigan. I can't discuss this over the phone, but it’s priority-one, urgent.”

  Whicher hits the blinker, switches over to the right-hand lane.

  “In three states, you're the closest marshal with security clearance.”

  “Marshal Corrigan?” Whicher says.

  “Offer any and all assistance.”

  “How do I find him?”

  “Find the train. Corrigan was riding onboard.”

  The road in is silent beneath the wheels of the Silverado—the steep-sided valley blanketed in snow.

  Whicher clears the edge of the mountain forest, sees the pulsing red and blue lights of emergency vehicles.

  A single frontage road runs parallel with a rail track—work yards and houses spread out, a group of sheriff's department vehicles at the front end of a double-height passenger train.

  He eyes the locomotive unit, sees ambulances, a fire truck.

  He slows the Silverado to a stop.

  From the seat beside him he takes his heavy, wool ranch coat. He shuts off the motor. Steps out into biting cold.

  Putting on his Resistol hat, he slips the dark gray coat over the jacket of his suit.

  Groups of people are by the side of the train. Whicher sees two men in railroad caps in the center of one group. He slips out his US Marshals badge. Makes his way toward them.

  A sheriff's deputy steps in his path.

  “Who's in charge here?”

  The deputy indicates a woman in a duck down ski-jacket and hiking boots.

  Whicher steps around the deputy, strides toward the woman—six-one, a busted nose, at thirty-eight, he’s in good shape.

  The sheriff turns at his approach.

  The marshal lifts his hat an inch. “John Whicher, US Marshals Service.”

  “Kim Dubois.” Her face is angular, the features sharp. “I'm the county sheriff.”

  Whicher looks around the circle of people in the strobe and flash of lights. “Is there a Marshal Corrigan here?”

  The sheriff’s eyes narrow. She gestures for him to step away from the group.

  He follows her ten yards to the head-end of the train—glances at it, in the dark he can’t see much.

  “You're the second person to ask for Corrigan since I got here,” the sheriff says.

  “Ma’am? Is he here?”

  “No. And according to the train conductor, his name's not on the list of people traveling.” Sheriff Dubois puts her gloved hands into her jacket pockets. “One of the passengers approached me, claiming Corrigan was on the train with her. Accompanying her. A young woman.”

  The marshal cuts her a look.

  “They opened up some of the buildings back there to get people out of the cold.” The sheriff takes a hand from her pocket, points down the frontage road. “Back there. I think they took her to that old bar.”

  Dim light is showing from a stone-built, two-story saloon.

  “What happened here?” Whicher says.

  “The train hit a car.”

  “Did anybody get hurt?”

  “As a matter of fact,” the sheriff says, “it doesn't look like it. The car had no occupants. The train hit it, but not too fast.”

  “Where’s the car at?”

  The sheriff angles her head toward the dark line of the forest. “Up there. They backed the train here after they hit.”

  Whicher sees lights a few hundred yards farther up the track.

  “A Buick Roadmaster,” the sheriff says. “On a Denver plate. Stolen, it looks like.”

  “And it was just on the line?”

  “Parked.” The sheriff nods. “Deliberate. The crew about got the train slowed, but it mangled the car pretty good. I've got people checking on it now.”

  “Can I see this young woman?” Whicher says.

  “You can see her.”

  “You tell me anything about her?”

  Sheriff Dubois makes a face.

  The marshal squints at her beneath the brim of his hat.

  “She seemed a little strange.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Disturbed,” the sheriff says. “Or something.” She shrugs. “I don’t know, that’s how it seemed to me.”

  Set back from the track, the saloon shows a single light bulb in its grimy window. A sheriff's deputy stands beneath the porch roof, looking out at the stationary train.

  Whicher shows his badge. “Sheriff Dubois says y’all have a young woman here—asking after a US Marshal?”

  “Are you Corrigan?”

  “No.” Whicher shakes his head. “But I need to see her.”

  The deputy moves aside, gives him a look. “She’s blonde, wearing a long coat. You’ll notice her...”

  Whicher steps into the building, into dim light in the old bar room. Handfuls of people sit at tables, the place is disused, practically derelict—the ceiling coming down, the counter covered in dust.

  The air inside is chilled, cold as outdoors, at least there's no wind.

  A young woman sits at a table in the corner; she's in her thirties, her face sculpted, mid-length hair. Blonde, dark blonde, expensively cut. Her full-mouth is pressed shut. Whicher thinks of an Italian movie actress. She draws her coat around her, a fur-lined coat with an oversize hood. Her eyes flick to the uniformed deputy at the door, animal tension in her face.

  The marshal approaches her table. He shows his badge.

  She stares at him a moment, eyes intense blue.

  “We talk someplace?” He gestures toward the door.

  She pushes back her chair.

  He leads her out of the building, outside into the falling snow.

  At the edge of the frontage road, white-laden branches of spruce and pine move in the bitter wind. He stops in the lee of the trees. Nobody is near them, nobody close enough to hear.

  “Sheriff Dubois says you were riding the train with a Marshal Corrigan?�
��

  She puts up her hood.

  “Ma’am? Is that right?”

  She turns in the faint light from the saloon, eyes the scattered groups huddled at the side of the track.

  “Where is he now?”

  She takes a breath.

  Whicher puts his head on one side.

  “I don't know.”

  “Ma'am?” he says. He looks at her.

  Thoughts are passing behind her eyes, one following after another. Finally, she looks at him directly. “My name is Lauren DeLuca.”

  He waits for her to say something more.

  Her gaze is disconcerting.

  “Why were you traveling with Marshal Corrigan?”

  She doesn't answer.

  “How come he’s not here?”

  She steps toward him, suddenly. “You have to take me into custody.”

  “Ma'am?”

  “You have to,” she says.

  “You're asking me to arrest you?”

  Chapter Three

  In the darkness of the woods, Jimmy Scardino lights another Camel cigarette. He cups the glowing end in a leather-gloved hand. But nobody's seen him.

  Two sheriff’s vehicles have driven part-way up the gravel road—neither one of them clocking the Tacoma set back in the forest clearing.

  All around the train it’s a regular light show, everybody focused on that.

  Belaski had found the spot—for a Polack, the man had a knack, Jimmy had to admit.

  Fresh snow is falling all the time, covering every track they’ve made. Safe as houses. Only thing bothering Jimmy is the goddamn cold.

  He shivers. Stamps down in his boots. Wind howls along the narrow pass, penetrating even beneath the trees.

  Where the hell was Belaski, though?

  Son of a bitch.

  How come he hadn't made it back?

  Whicher studies the young woman named Lauren DeLuca.

  “You were traveling with a US Marshal? You were on the train with him. And now you don't know where he’s at?”