Chapter 34 - The Fire in the Adirondacks
By midnight on Saturday, a violent blizzard had descended from the Canadian shield, burying the northern Adirondack rail spur near Tupper Lake under fourteen inches of howling, drifting white snow.
The remote siding sat inside an abandoned state iron mine, surrounded by towering, snow-laden black spruce trees and sixty-foot walls of frozen granite.
Parked on the dead-end spur were the eighteen pressurized chemical tank cars of the Valparaiso manifest, their steel flanks encrusted with rime and ice, guarded by eight tactical agents from the New York State Environmental Conservation Police.
Inside the heated mobile command trailer parked near the switch, Julian, Frank Varga, and I sat around a folding table reviewing the final neutralization protocols with the hazardous materials strike team.
The radio on the console suddenly crackled with static.
"Command! Unit Two at the perimeter gate! We have two unauthorized snowmobiles breaching the north fence line! Armed individuals carrying thermal cutting torches—"
BOOM.
A concussive, low-frequency explosion detonated three hundred yards up the track, shaking the trailer on its leaf springs, sending snow sliding off the metal roof with a hollow roar.
Julian was on his feet before the sound had fully died, his hand already drawing his concealed Kimber .45 from his winter parka.
"Stay inside, Claire," Julian commanded, his voice tight, lethal, and calm.
"I don't stay in trailers while men bring fire to our tracks, Julian," I replied, pulling my heavy tactical gloves on, grabbing my high-intensity searchlight from the charging rack.
We burst through the trailer door into the raging whiteout.
The freezing gale tore at our hoods, the wind-chill driving the temperature down to twenty below zero.
A hundred yards ahead on the siding, orange flames were licking the underside of Tanker Car Four.
Two men in white winter camouflage suits were operating an industrial oxy-acetylene torch, attempting to burn through the emergency pressure-relief valve on the ammonia manifold. They weren't trying to steal the chemicals; they were trying to vent seventy tons of lethal gas into the blizzard to trigger an environmental catastrophe that would force the evacuation of three counties.
Beside the tanker, holding a suppressed automatic carbine, stood Lucien Garrison.
He had traded his cashmere overcoat for an insulated alpine tactical suit, his face covered by a ballistic mask, his eyes wild and bloodshot with suicidal, cornered fury.
"Garrison!" Julian’s roar tore through the howling storm like a thunderclap, freezing the two saboteurs at the manifold.
Julian stepped onto the rail tracks, his weapon held at high-ready, illuminated by the orange glow of the burning valve.
Frank Varga and four conservation officers emerged from the pine trees on the flanks, their twelve-gauge shotguns racking with synchronized, concussive CLACK-CLACKS that echoed off the granite walls of the cut.
Lucien spun around, his carbine swinging toward Julian’s chest.
"You took my bank, Vance!" Lucien screamed, his voice distorted by the wind and the mask. "You took my family's name! You took our shipping lines! If we drown in London... this entire state chokes in the snow!"
Before Lucien’s finger could complete the trigger pull, Frank Varga fired a single non-lethal beanbag round from his tactical shotgun.
THUMP.
The heavy canvas projectile struck Lucien squarely in the sternum with the force of a swinging sledgehammer.
The air left his lungs in a violent, bloody gasp, the carbine flying from his hands as he was hurled six feet backward into the snowbank, skittering across the frozen gravel like a broken puppet.
The two torch operators threw their hands into the air, dropping the cutting torches into the snow where the flames hissed and died in clouds of boiling steam.
Julian walked through the drifts, kicking the carbine thirty feet down the embankment, stopping over Lucien where the younger brother lay gasping, clutching his fractured ribs, blood bubbling from his split lips into the virgin snow.
Julian reached down with one massive, gloved hand, grabbed Lucien by the tactical harness, and hauled him upright until his face was two inches from mine.
"You brought fire to our family's tracks, Lucien," I said softly, my voice cutting through the blizzard with absolute, unshakeable sovereignty.
"Your brother Adrian is in Florence.
Your brother Dominic is in a federal holding pen in Brooklyn.
And you... you are going to spend the next thirty years explaining to a grand jury how you tried to gas twenty thousand working families to protect your private equity dividends."
Two conservation officers dragged the sobbing, defeated financier through the drifts toward the waiting transport vans.
Frank Varga pulled an industrial fire extinguisher from his truck, extinguishing the remaining embers on Tanker Four with a clean hiss of carbon dioxide.
Julian turned to me in the swirling snow, pulling his mask down, wrapping his heavy arms around my shoulders, pressing his cold lips against my forehead.
"The rails are secure, Claire," my husband whispered into the storm.
I rested my head against his chest, feeling the steady, unbroken rhythm of his heartbeat beneath the heavy wool.
May you like
"The rails are ours, Julian," I replied, an ancient, eternal peace settling over my soul.
"Now let's bring the train home."
