David Baldacci - The Christmas Train

Synopsis:

Tom Langdon, a weary and cash-strapped journalist, was banned from flying in the U.S. when an overly probing search wand caused him to blow his top at LaGuardia Airport. Now, the train is his only option to get to Los Angeles for Christmas to be with his girlfriend. To finance the trip, he pitches a story about a train ride taken during Christmas season to his ex-flame editor, Eleanor. Thereupon begins one of the most hilarious and heartwarming train rides ever. Along the way Tom encounters mechanical failures, derailments, and eccentric characters like Agnes Joe, who rides trains all the time, though no one knows why. Theres also a mysterious passenger whom Tom suspects may be a fugitive, an avalanche that changes everyones Christmas plans, unexpected romance, and a rekindling of holiday spirits. As the mighty Southwest Chief chugs along, Tom Langdon and his wonderful train adventure will have you laughing as you turn the pages. It will also reacquaint you with what makes Christmas truly special.

This novel is dedicated to everyone
who loves trains and holidays.

Tom Langdon was a journalist, a globetrotting one, because it was in his blood to roam widely. Where others saw only instability and fear in life, Tom felt graced by an embracing independence. Hed spent the bulk of his career in foreign lands covering wars, insurrections, famines, pestilence, virtually every earthly despair. His goal had been relatively simple: He had wanted to change the world by calling attention to its wrongs. And he did love adventure.

However, after chronicling all these horrific events and still seeing the conditions of humanity steadily worsen, hed returned to America filled with disappointment. Seeking an antidote to his melancholy hed started writing drearily light stories for ladies magazines, home-decorating journals, garden digests, and the like. However, after memorializing the wonders of compost and the miracle that was do-it-yourself wood flooring, he wasnt exactly fulfilled.

It was nearing Christmas, and Toms most pressing dilemma was getting from the East Coast to Los Angeles for the holidays. He had an age-old motivation for the journey; in LA was his girlfriend, Lelia Gibson. Shed started out as a movie actress, but after years of appearing in third-rate horror films shed begun doing voiceover work. Now, instead of being cinematically butchered for her daily bread, she supplied the character voices for a variety of enormously popular Saturday-morning cartoons. In the childrens television industry it was accepted that no one belted out the voices of goofy woodland creatures with greater flair and versatility than golden-piped Lelia Gibson. As proof, she had a shelf full of awards, an outrageously large income, and a healthy share of syndication rights.

Tom and Lelia had hit it off on an overnight flight from Southeast Asia to the States. At first he thought it might have been all the liquor they drank, but when that buzz burned off a couple hours out of LA, she was still beautiful and interesting if a little ditzy and eccentric and she still seemed attracted to him. He stayed over in California and they got to know each other even better. She visited him on the East Coast, and theyd been a comfortable if informal bi-coastal item ever since.

It might seem strange that a successful Hollywood lady would go for a nomadic gent who ran through passports like water, could spout off funny if lewd phrases in thirty languages, and never would be financially secure. Yet Lelia had tired of the men in her circle. As she diplomatically explained it once, they were complete and total lying scum and unreliable to boot. Tom was a newsman, she said, so at least he occasionally dealt with the truth. She also loved his rugged good looks. He took that to mean the deep lines etched on his face from reporting in windswept desert climates with bullets flying. In fact his face was more often than not down in the sand in observance of local safety regulations.

She listened with rapt attention to Toms tales of covering major stories around the globe. For his part, he observed with admiration the professional way Lelia went about her loony-voice career. And they didnt have to live together year-round a decided advantage, Tom believed, over the complex hurdles facing couples who actually cohabitated.

Hed been briefly married but had never had kids. Today his exwife wouldnt accept a collect call from him if he were hemorrhaging to death on the street. He was forty-one and had just lost his mother to a stroke; his father had been dead for several years. Being an only child, he was truly alone now, and that had made him introspective. Half his time on earth was gone, and all he had to show for it was a failed marriage, no offspring, an informal alliance with a California voiceover queen, a truckload of newsprint, and some awards. By any reasonable measure, it was a miserable excuse for an existence.

Hed had an opportunity for a wonderful life with another woman but the relationship had, inexplicably, fallen apart. He now fully understood that not marrying Eleanor Carter would forever stand as the major mistake of his life. Yet, ever the man of action, and wanderlust upon him once more, Tom was taking the train to LA for Christmas.

Why the train, one might ask, when there were perfectly good flights that would get him there in a fraction of the time? Well, a guy can only take so many of those airport security search wands venturing into sacrosanct places, or requests to drop trousers in front of strangers, or ransacking of carry-on bags, before blowing a big one. The fact was, hed blown a big one at La Guardia Airport. Not merely a nuclear meltdown, his detonation resembled something closer to the utter destruction of Pompeii.

Hed just flown in from Italy after researching yet another bit of fluff, this time on wine-making, and imbibing more of the subject matter than he probably should have to get through the ordeal of crash-learning soil diversification and vine rot. As a result, he was tired, cranky, and hung over. Hed slept for three hours at a friends apartment in New York before heading to the airport to catch a flight to Texas. Hed been given an assignment to write about teen beauty pageants there, which hed accepted because he enjoyed blood sports as much as the next person.

At the security gate at La Guardia, the search wand had smacked delicate things of Toms person that it really had no business engaging, socially or otherwise. Meanwhile, another security person managed to dump every single thing from Toms bag onto the conveyor belt. He watched helplessly as very personal possessions rolled by in front of suddenly interested strangers.

To put a fine finish on this very special moment, he was then informed that a major warning flag had been raised regarding his ID, his hair color, his clothing choice, or the size of his nose. (They were never really clear on that actually.) Thus, instead of flying to Dallas hed be enjoying the company of a host of FBI, DEA, CIA, and NYPD personnel for an unspecified period of time. The phrase five-to-ten was even bandied about. Well, that, coupled with his exploited physical parts, was his absolute limit. So, the lava poured forth.

Langdon was six-feet-two and carried about 220 pounds of fairly hard muscle, and real honest-to-God steam was coming out his ears. His eruption involved language he ordinarily wouldnt use within four miles of any church as he launched himself at the security team, grabbed their infamous search wand, and snapped it right in half. He wasnt proud of his violent act that day, although the rousing cheers from some of the other passengers who had heard and seen what had happened to him did manage to lift his spirits a bit.