the Devil's Workshop (1999) (34 page)

"The Northeastern Tennessee Track, Burlington MoPac Unit?" Cris said. "That's New Orleans."

Steam Train nodded. "Three 'bos I know were ridin' that hop/ When they saw Kincaid/They decided to drop." He raised an eyebrow in concern, and it arched there like a huge furry caterpillar.

"Thanks, Steam Train," Cris said. "I'll be careful."

The old man's face scrunched in thought for a moment, then he spun an old rhyme: "Mosta my pals caught the westbound freight, to the land beyond the sun/God had a time on His consist sheet for each and ever one/Heaven's great and fulla 'bos, for that ya can be sure/But it don't make sense ta push up front fer an' early departure."

Steam Train hugged Cris, stepped back, turned, and poking the ground with his gnarled stick, limped slowly away.

Chapter
33

ILL-GOTTEN GAINS AND THE TEXAS MADMAN

They had been sided at Shreveport, Louisiana, to let a "hotshot" intermodal train go by. The muggy air clung to them like foul cologne. Luther "Ill Gotten" Gains and the Texas Madman sat with Randall Rader and Dexter DeMille, watching Reverend Kincaid. The empty wood-slat boxcar was buried in the middle of the parked unit train, which contained a hundred grainers filled with Kansas wheat. They had been sided for almost an hour. "Milk is transported all across this nation on the rails," Fannon reasoned as he paced. "Moves in big refrigerated tankers ever day. So we're gonna send retribution to the Niggers and Jews in the milk they buy at the store."

"It's not gonna be that easy," Dexter answered, his voice strained and weak in the still air of the boxcar. "I'm trying to tell you that the Prion in this form is basically harmless--it hasn't been genetically tuned. This is simply a baseline protein. In order to turn what we have into a genetic binary weapon you'd need to change all the pH factors. The process is called acidosis. It's... it's very complicated and specific work."

Now Fannon kneeled beside Dexter and studied him like a crushed bug on the sidewalk. Dexter knew in that instant that he was nothing to Fannon Kincaid; that exactly like Admiral Zoll, Kincaid would kill him as soon as he got what he wanted. He needed to call on all of his survival instincts to buy time.

"Mr. DeMille, we are going to deliver this victory for Yahweh," Fannon said. "We are going to purge two cities of the counterfeit races. This will start the Revolution. People who know the truth, but have been afraid to act, will see this victory and take heart. Many will join the cause. You think this great victory can be delayed by some pissant piece of shit like you?" When Dexter didn't respond, Fannon screamed, "Answer me, you godless motherfucker!"

"No, sir. No..." Dexter flinched. He was now pressed hard against the side of the boxcar, straining to get away from Kincaid.

Luther Gains watched his discomfort with sadistic interest. Gains was rail-thin, snake-mean, and had a personality as twisted and coarse as hemp rope. After breaking out of a federal prison in Fayetteville, where he had been incarcerated for murder, Luther had started hiding out with the Choir.

The Texas Madman was an absolute contrast to Luther. Heavy
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set and soft, the Texas Madman spoke in a high-pitched whisper, never raising his voice above a breathy squeak. He was out of shape and overweight, a grotesque collection of bulges and curves. He had earned his moniker by brutally killing six sleeping hobos in one blood-soaked year, and he gloried in these fatal assaults. His eyes lost reason and focus as he hacked his victims to death with the short-handled ax he kept in his backpack. After "converting" to the Choir, he had become Fannon's chief executioner.

" 'Complicated and specific work.' You must really think I'm one gullible, outta-touch motherfucker," Fannon hissed, showing tobacco-stained teeth.

"It... I..." Then Dexter fell silent.

Fannon turned to the Texas Madman. "Kill this godless motherfucker." Then Fannon got up, went to the ladder, and started to climb to the roof, where he would "car surf" to the grainer behind and join the others.

The Texas Madman picked up his backpack and retrieved the ax, then he moved over to Dexter. Fannon opened the hatch and started to climb out to the top of the boxcar.

"No ... no ... please," Dexter said, looking into the soft face and soulless eyes of the Texas Madman.

"Talk t'me, brother," Fannon said from the top step of the ladder.

"I need a lab. I need pH meters, and the right acids and bases. I need pure blood samples from the target groups, African
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Americans and Jews, so I can do the DNA stranding."

"If I get what you need, how long will it take to make this shit right?"

"Coupla hours, maybe less."

Fannon slid down the metal ladder, his combat boots hitting the wood floor, cracking the silence like a leather bullwhip. He moved back to Dexter and looked down at him. "We can find a blood bank, steal whatever we need."

"Blood banks don't keep those kinds of records. Government regulations prevent separating blood along ethnic or racial lines."

"This fuckin' society. Whatta buncha bullshit. So, how do we do it?"

"There's only one lab that has everything I need, but it won't be easy."

"It wasn't easy for Moses to get the stone tablets down from Mount Sinai, or to part the Red Sea. God's work ain't supposed t'be easy. God's will is dangerous to pursue. Where the hell's this lab?"

"At the Devil's Workshop in Fort Detrick, Maryland."

Chapter
34

We need a priority train," Cris said to Buddy. He was seated on the bed in the suite Buddy had rented at the Fort Worth Four Seasons Hotel, and was looking at the train line-up. The shower was on in the bathroom, and they could hear Stacy's splashing through the closed door.

"You got anything cooking with her?" Buddy asked unexpectedly.

"Give it a rest. Her husband just died."

"Sometimes you can catch a good bounce after a personal tragedy." Cris looked up at him in dismay, but the look seemed to please Buddy. The old outlaw was back, the "do anything/fuck everybody" Buddy.

"Leave her alone. She needs time."

Buddy started to answer, but the sound of the water cutting off stopped the conversation.

The bathroom door opened and Stacy walked into the suite. Her hair was wet, and she had on a big terry-cloth bathrobe belted at the waist, a hotel towel around her neck.

"God, that feels better," she said. "Who's next?"

There was a long silence, and then Buddy got up and headed into the bathroom. "Boy, it smells like girl in here, sweet and sexy," he grinned, then closed the door.

Stacy moved into the room and looked down on the bed at a map of Texas and Louisiana, and the carbons that Cris had fished out of the trash at the SP switching yard.

"You find what you were looking for?"

"Yeah, there's a unit train leaving at ten tonight. It's a priority train, full of expensive products, mostly Japanese cars. It should travel twice as fast as the grain train Kincaid's on."

"Why is that?"

"Important trains carry what they call 'Time Sensitive Freight.' All the cars on this train are worth millions. The interest on all that money means they have to get to market fast. That grain train Kincaid is on will have to 'go into the hole' to let a hotshot train like this pass. It'll slow him way down, and with some luck, we'll overtake him."

She sat down on the bed and started to dry her hair with the towel she had around her neck. "Why don't we just take the car?"

"Lotta reasons. First, we're not sure he's going all the way to New Orleans." He pointed to the map. "It's possible that Kincaid will switch trains in Dallas or Shreveport or Jackson. At any of those hubs he could change destinations--we'd be going to New Orleans, while he'd be heading off someplace else, I'm gonna have to get off and ask around at each of those hubs. Also, the rails are at least as fast, especially if we can catch this hot train at ten tonight."

She nodded, stood, and moved around the room, ending at the picture window. "It was nice of Buddy to get this room. It's beautiful." Cris nodded, but didn't say anything. He was starting to think that having Buddy along was a bad mistake.

The suite was a large corner room that overlooked a shopping center. The subtle colors and rich antiques were restful. The air
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conditioning hissed perfect temperature.

She moved over and sat on the bed near Cris. "You don't look so good."

"Knock it off with the compliments--you're making me blush."

"You've lost even more weight since we met."

He dropped his head, and his eyes found the maps and carbon sheets on the bedspread.

"Cris, we need you. The three of us are in this alone, and the people at Fort Detrick have too much power. Plus, the Pentagon and God knows who else is involved. Conceivably, it could go all the way up to the President. They couldn't run a program this big without a lot of important people in the loop. We call the FBI, we could get locked up instead of listened to."

"I'm okay," he said. "I'll make it."

"You gotta eat. I'm ordering from room service. I'll get you some soup, maybe some oatmeal or yogurt."

"Okay," he smiled, "but I think I'll skip the yogurt."

"There's two showers in there. Go on, get washed up, and I'll get something up here for you."

He nodded, and got slowly off the bed. He had to admit he was getting weaker by the hour. He opened the bathroom door.

Buddy Brazil was naked and wrapped in a towel, standing by the sink with a rolled bill jammed up his nose. Two lines of chopped cocaine were tracked out on the tile counter. Buddy snapped his head up and grinned. "Oops," he said. "Kick that door closed, will ya? I've gotta Hoover up these two lines."

Anger flashed in Cris. He suddenly reached down and grabbed Buddy, spun him around, and threw him out of the bathroom into the suite. The towel fell off and he hit the floor naked, with the bill still up his nose. Buddy yanked the quilt off the bed and covered himself, then snatched the rolled-up bill out of his nose, as Stacy stood over him.

"This asshole was in there taking a sleigh ride," Cris said, adrenaline fueling his aching body.

"This is bullshit," Buddy shrieked, pulling the quilt all the wa
y o
ff the bed and wrapping it around him. The maps and carbon sheets fluttered to the floor.

"What other drugs have you got in there?" Cris demanded, as he moved into the bathroom and grabbed Buddy's shaving kit.

Buddy quickly moved after him, dragging the large quilt like a bridal train. Cris grabbed five or six prescription bottles out of his shaving kit and held them up to read the labels as Stacy joined Buddy at the door.

"It's for my asthma," Buddy chirped.

" 'Take one every four hours for depression,' " Cris said, reading the labels. "Morphine sulfate, Dexedrine, Clonidine. All of it prescribed by the poor asshole you shot in your backyard." He threw the bottles at Buddy. They hit him in the chest, then bounced on the floor.

"Look, I got medical problems."

"We all got problems. I'm vomiting up my breakfast 'cause my system's so shot I can't hold anything down. This is a joke. We're running a fucking clinic here. How're we ever gonna pull this off?"

"Please," Stacy said. "Please, let's stop shouting."

Cris moved out of the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed, while Buddy slid into his pants and got down on the floor to gather up the vials of prescribed drugs.

"Flush them down the toilet," Stacy said.

"These are prescriptions," he whined. "I need these." Then, as he stood with the plastic bottles in his hand, he saw the disappointment in her eyes.

"I'm outta here. I'm goin' home." Buddy took the pills, threw them back into his shaving kit, and zipped it up. Then he packed up his stuff, dressed, and turned to leave.

"You can't leave. We need your help," Stacy pleaded. "They killed your son."

"I hardly knew him. The room's paid for until tomorrow." Then Buddy walked out, slammed the door, and left them standing there.

Chapter
35

Buddy had left more out of embarrassment than anger. Now, as he sat in the Blazer under the porte-cochere of the Four Seasons with the engine idling, he was stuck for his next move. The sour-sweet taste was there again, filling the back of his mouth like sewer runoff; he was staggered by an unfathomable sense of loneliness so vast and full of self-hate that it pressed against him like a fateful warning.

His accumulated list of personal negatives was mind-boggling. He was a coward and a drug addict. He had no commitment to himself or to his craft. He had not one single relationship in his life that he valued or cared to maintain. All of his "intimate" associations were bought and paid for, professional friends who circled him like airliners stacked above a foggy field, waiting for his instructions, not one of them willing to give him a moment of unselfish concern. Buddy knew that it was his fault. He had constructed a world that was only about him. Buddy suspected that the hateful truth was that to gain respect, it was also necessary to give it. If he continued to focus everything inward, he would b
e n
ourished by nothing. Now, as the Blazer's engine idled, he had no place to go. He could not pick a new course of action. He only knew that he was through hiding; if he did not choose the right path, he would sacrifice what was left of himself.