Guardian Angel-Chapter One-Part Two

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