"Then don't discharge me," I said, standing up on my stiff knees and picking up my overcoat. "Come with me to the station master's office during the ten-minute service stop at the Pasco terminal."
"And do what?"
"Put your transport packet and my county auditor's receipt on the station master's fax machine," I said, holding his gaze until he stopped looking toward the corridor. "Send both pages directly to the presiding judge at Spokane Superior Court and ask for an immediate judicial stay of the transfer. If Commissioner Albright confirms the order is valid and certified, I will sit back down in that berth and ride all the way to Klamath Falls without another word."
Dennis looked down at the clipboard. His knuckles were pale against the dark plastic frame. "And if Albright didn't sign the final decree?"
"Then you aren't releasing an incapacitated patient," I said. "You're detaining a state witness while a crime is being completed with your assistance."
Outside the glass, the industrial grain elevators of Pasco rose through the wet gray mist, their towering concrete cylinders casting long shadows across the tracks. The air brakes hissed, releasing a long, screaming plume of pressure beneath our feet as the wheels began to bite against the yard rails. Dennis reached for his radio, hesitated, and let his hand drop to his side. He slid the compartment door open the rest of the way and stepped into the aisle, gesturing for me to move ahead of him toward the platform exit.
CHAPTER 3: The Wire Across The Station Counter
The Pasco depot smelled of wet creosote, diesel exhaust, and stale floor cleaner. Dennis stayed half a stride behind my shoulder, his right hand gripping the top edge of his black agency clipboard like a riot shield while his rubber soles squeaked against the salt-streaked yellow linoleum. The digital wall clock above the waiting-room vending machines clicked over to 11:18 AM. Forty-two minutes remained before the wire transfer cleared escrow back on Spokane’s north side.
"Keep your stride even, Arthur," Dennis murmured under his breath, his voice clipped and strained. "If the terminal supervisor radios track security, both of us end up cuffed on the tiles until transit police sort out the flags."
"I am not running," I told him, planting my walking boots firmly onto the rubber runner leading to the operational desk. "A lineman who runs on an energized tower is the one who catches the arc."
Behind the counter of the station master’s bay sat a woman in her late fifties wearing a burgundy Amtrak vest over a faded denim shirt. Her plastic name tag read Clara Vance—no relation, but her eyes held the hard, skeptical fatigue of someone who had spent thirty years watching people lose tickets, luggage, and tempers between Seattle and Chicago. Beside her computer terminal sat a dual-tray commercial laser fax with a green data light glowing steadily on its plastic chassis.
I laid the pink carbon sheet from the Spokane County Auditor flat against the scuffed laminate counter, anchoring the top corner with my thumb so the ventilation draft would not lift it. Dennis hesitated for two seconds, his throat working as he glanced toward the glass double doors where our train’s idling diesel engine rattled the outer panes. Then he set his agency clipboard down beside my slip, flipping the clear cover open to expose the emergency court order.
"Ma'am," I said, keeping my tone level, practical, and clear. "My name is Arthur Vance. This is Dennis from Cascadia Patient Logistics. We have an uncertified ex parte docket and a contradictory county deed filing involving Spokane Superior Court cause number twenty-six dash four. I need three pages transmitted directly to the presiding commissioner’s emergency clerk before noon."
Clara looked from my weather-creased face to the blue security watermark on Dennis’s transport packet, then down at the pink county recording receipt. "Mister, this is a passenger ticketing window, not a legal courier desk. Payphones are beside the restrooms."
"Payphones won't send an audit receipt," Dennis said, cutting in before I could answer. His voice was rougher than mine, but the fear of an interstate kidnapping charge was doing the work I needed it to do. He pulled his laminated agency badge from his breast pocket and pressed it against the counter glass. "Contract transport agent four-one-nine. The carrier dispatch on train eleven carries a contested medical flag based on these documents. If that dispatch relies on an uncertified asset schedule, the carrier is actively participating in a fraudulent property conversion. Transmit the sheets to Spokane County ex parte intake, or I log this terminal as refusing mandatory jurisdictional verification."
Clara stared at him for four slow ticks of the wall clock. The bureaucratic threat did what an old man's plea never could. She didn't argue. She reached into a plastic organizer, pulled out a black grease pencil, and tapped the glass. "Give me the destination fax line and the clerk’s room extension."
I recited the Spokane County Superior Court intake number from memory. For twenty years as a district line foreman, I had pulled municipal work permits and utility easements through that very basement registry on Broadway Avenue; I knew the three-digit departmental extension better than my own zip code.