He chuckled to himself as he considered the simplicity of it all. Simplicity really is the key to a good bit of evil. Great disasters don’t require great effort. Just a little wedge here and there will cause even the mightiest of walls to fall. The last wedge for this little project was in the form of one Richard McDaniel of Sumner Washington.
Richard is a member of a Burlington Northern Railroad Company switching crew. This morning Richard’s job was to park a section of train in the Auburn rail yard to await the arrival of the remainder of the train, engines and crew that would eventually take the train to Portland Oregon and beyond. There were 15 cars loaded with plywood and sheetrock weighing in at over 900 tons.
Parking a section of train is easy enough. Richard had done it hundreds of times. He would first close the air line that controls the air brake system so that when the train is uncoupled it won’t lose pressure. This will lock the train and keep it from moving.
Unfortunately for Burlington Northern and those downhill from the rail yard the air brakes will fail. Wedge number one occurred 26 months earlier when Darius encouraged a railroad maintenance worker to enjoy just one more of his favorite cold beverages as he mourned the loss of the Seattle Seahawks to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Superbowl XL. One more led to another and the resulting morning after made it a very easy decision to patch together a faulty airline instead of repairing it properly.
Next Richard would push the lever lifting the pin that locks the knuckles between cars allowing them to open and the parent train to move off to unknown destinations. Finally he would set the hand brakes. This was his system. He had not varied from it for 13 years. It was rote. He no longer even thought about it. It was automatic.
Then he felt the vibration of his cell phone.
Richard would have ignored the phone and continued his routine had the display not read “US Treasury Dep”. He froze as Darius knew he would. Richard tentatively opened the phone, “Hello?” he croaked.
“Mr. McDaniel this is special investigator Watson of the Internal Revenue Service,” Darius intoned in his most official voice, “Sir we understand that in the year 2007 you made some investments in Iranian banking through Dubai. Sir are you aware that there are some question as to the political nature of such investments and that they may fall under the province of Homeland Security?”
Richard was stunned. Wedge number two was his chance meeting with a bright and energetic young tax advisor at the Subway restaurant where he often had lunch. In between bites of his Cold Cut Combo he listened as his new friend, Darius, laid out the promises of tax credits, huge profits and the benefit to the United States of creating friendly relations with Iran. It was too good to be true.
“Sir, are you still there?”, Darius asked.
After a pause, “What, uh, yes I’m here,” Richard stammered.
“Sir, we’ve frozen all of your assets, seized your home, garnished your wages and Homeland Security is preparing to arrest your wife. I would suggest that you return home immediately so that we can straighten this out before they take her into custody.” Darius counted silently to himself. He estimated it would take 15 seconds for it all to settle in and Richard would be running to his car.
He was up to eight when he heard Richard’s panting voice, “I’m on my way,” he said the sound of rapid gravel spreading foot steps in the background.
Richard waved at his crew which they mistook as meaning “everything is secured” and they all left for the day leaving the train secured only by the air brakes which would fail at precisely 3:17 am and begin it’s runaway rampage toward Seattle with wedge number three properly placed.
Darius thanked the clerk for the use of the phone and left the “The US Treasury Depot”, just one of many quaint little shops lining the main street of Auburn where treasures of all kinds can be bought and sold on consignment. With a smile on his face he jumped into his 1984 Toyota Camry and drove to his vantage point with destiny.
Next: The Rampage
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4 comments:
Interesting. So Darius is a real guy and not just a wormwood-esque devil? More more more!
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get to your blog. I meant to go earlier, but things have been pretty crazy.
It's difficult to jump right into a story once it's been started, but I will try. One question I have is about what direction you want to take this in. Do you want to keep the focus on Richard? You could do that, or have a kind of "sampler" of many different kinds of people. What do you think?
So here's initial foundation of the story: Put yourself in the premortal existence. Heavenly Father lines everyone up from the worst to the best. As you can imagine Christ is on the right end and Satan on the left. Between the two everyone is lined up by order of righteousness, positive or negative. Heavenly Father walks down the line and stops right in front of two people and indicates that this is the dividing line. Darius was the one on the wrong side. Jessica was the one on the right side. The loved each other and now will be separated for millenia until it's Jessica's turn to come to Earth. Meanwhile Darius has to make do being mocked as the worst demon in the history of the world. There is a love story in the midst of all this. Interestingly enough in chapter one Darius has a body. Where did he get it? What's he do when it wears out? He's bad for sure but bad by inches. What does want for Jessica? The title comes from the concept that he is Her guardian angel and that he has watched over her family forever.
So we have the beginning. We need the middle and the end and we must keep it doctrinally sound.
I hope "The Rampage" describes his wife's reaction to the tragedy in which he has placed his family. He better drive home fast.
I wish my mommy brain could get into the creativity of this whole thing and make some suggestions, but I'm happier being along for a good read here and there. I'm a fan!
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