This Train by James Grady

Author:James Grady [Grady, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2022-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

42

Ulysses and his family stared out the Observation Car window at the Havre train station. Again their eyes filled with images of SWAT warriors walking and waiting there outside the train. Unlike the SWAT team from Seattle that rode this train, this new crew of gunners wore black uniforms, and across their backs, white letters read “ICE” and “FEDERAL POLICE.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” whispered Ulysses.

“What the hell?” said teenager Mir. “This looks like… I don’t know. China or Russia or some Nazi-land. Mexico that time we went to the beach.”

“It’s just like in Seattle,” said mom Isabella. “Like you said before, Ulysses. Just… routine.”

“Routine for what?” mumbled Dad. “For who? For why?”

“Look!” said Malik, though no one needed the boy’s encouragement.

Their train’s SWAT boss L.T. met one of the Havre warriors on the depot platform just past the Baggage Car where L.T.’s men set up a skirmish line facing the other armed force under that sunny blue Montana sky.

L.T. shook hands with his counterpart in the new troops.

“So they’re on the same side,” said Malik in the Observation Car. “Right?”

The two SWAT commanders exchanged words.

Parted ways.

The ICE boss strolled back to his own shuffling crew of badges.

L.T. marched back to the cordon of his troops.

Gave Sergeant Carlisle a nod.

Sergeant Carlisle checked left. Checked right. Made sure the line of troopers he’d set on post were standing tall.

The sergeant took position beside his greenest trooper.

“Eyes up,” the sergeant told that young man named David Hale.

“Yes, Sergeant,” answered Hale. “But why? Aren’t those guys just like us?”

“You remember Cain and Abel?”

“No, Sergeant. Were they on the team before I got here?”

“Just stay alert, troop.”

Civilians roamed the depot platform amidst the armed forces. The Amtrak station’s crew. Citizens, some with suitcases. A mailman with heavy pouches slung from his shoulders. Some citizens walking tense, nervous. But no panic. The civilians trusted that they were safe. That everything was OK. And that whatever those two crews of warriors were doing was for their own good.

Though everyone’s careful eyes showed all this felt… creepy.

“This isn’t a coordinated link up, a reinforcement,” said the Marine major. “The ICE squad isn’t responding to the train SWAT team.”

He sensed the stances of the dozen-plus ICE warriors outside this train. Snapshotted their faces, where they were looking, how. The hands gripping their fully automatic weapons. The sweep of their gazes.

“The ICE objective,” said Ulysses. “Their deployment. Sure, posters on the train: ‘Watch out for human trafficking.’ ‘See something, say something.’ But they’re not sweeping for specific targets—and 40 miles south of Canada in the middle of nowhere, not likely they’re operating from High Credibility intel about dangerous illegal immigrants swarming this depot or riding this train.

“Plus, the verified terrorists out here aren’t infiltrating extremist Muslims or foreign agents. They’re gun-heavy white militias or whacky religious cults. Conspiracy nuts armed to their teeth against figments of their online intoxications. Any policing of them wouldn’t dare be so relaxed. Same with narcos. Even if any of that launched this Op, this massive show of force makes no sense.

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