POOR GIRLS OFFER TOY MONEY FOR THEIR MOM’S HEART SURGERY — A BILLIONAIRE IS LEFT SPEECHLESS

The night was a roaring wall of white.

At the King’s Ferry rail depot, the massive, streamlined nose of the Blackwood Bullet—a ten-thousand-horsepower experimental diesel-electric locomotive—throbbingly hummed against the biting wind. Steam hissed from its pressurized brakes, melting the snow where it fell on the steel tracks.

Ian stood inside the high-tech cab behind the chief engineer, wearing an insulated arctic parka. Behind the locomotive, a single custom-fitted medical car swayed gently on its heavy shock absorbers, equipped with an organ transportation incubator and a full resuscitation station manned by two paramedics.

"Track cleared to Harrisville, sir!" the engineer shouted over the deafening roar of the twin turbine engines. "State rail authority gave us exclusive line clearance! But the mountain pass near Chestnut Ridge is reporting ice buildup on the overhead signal lines!"

"Keep the throttle at eighty!" Ian ordered, leaning over the control console.

"Eighty in a blizzard?!" the engineer yelled, wide-eyed. "Sir, if we hit a drift on a curved rail, we could derail!"

"Then we derail!" Ian shouted back. "Every minute we lose is a minute a four-year-old girl loses her mother! Push the throttle!"

The engineer swallowed hard, looked at the desperation etched into his billionaire boss’s face, and slammed the heavy brass throttle forward.

The train surged into the dark.

The world outside the heavy reinforced windshield ceased to exist, replaced by a blinding curtain of horizontal snow illuminated by the train’s three-thousand-watt halogen searchlights. The heavy steel wheels screamed against the frozen rails, scattering spark clouds into the white night.

Inside the cab, the GPS tracker ticked down the miles: 240 miles to Pittsburgh... 180 miles... 120 miles...

At 9:45 PM, as the train roared up the three-percent grade toward Chestnut Ridge, a sudden warning klaxon blared inside the cab.

DANGER! OBSTRUCTION ON TRACK AHEAD!

"Tree down!" the engineer screamed, slamming his hand toward the emergency brake.

Through the blinding snow, two hundred yards ahead, a massive hundred-year-old pine tree had snapped under the weight of the ice, falling directly across both rails of the high-speed track.

"Don't touch that brake!" Ian yelled, throwing his arm across the engineer’s chest to stop him.

"Mr. Blackwood, that tree will tear the cab open!"

"This engine has an armored snow-plow wedge rated for ten tons of impact!" Ian shouted, his eyes wide and wild. "If we brake now, we slip, we stall, and we die on this mountain! Drive through it!"

The engineer closed his eyes, gripped the console, and pulled the throttle to maximum emergency power.

The Blackwood Bullet hit the fallen pine at seventy-five miles per hour.

BOOM!

A deafening explosion of splintered wood, ice, and glass shook the locomotive like a toy. Heavy branches smashed against the armored windshield, spider-webbing the outer layer of impact glass. The engine lurched violently to the left, its steel wheels grinding furiously against the rail flange, throwing a shower of orange sparks fifty feet into the air.

For three agonizing seconds, the train hovered on the verge of disaster.

Then, with a terrifying roar of diesel power, the heavy wedge plow cleaved the trunk in two, hurling the shattered pieces into the snowy ravine below. The locomotive straightened out, its turbine screaming as it burst through the mountain summit and began its descent toward the glowing valley of Pittsburgh.

At 10:30 PM, the train screeched to a halt at the Pittsburgh Freight Hub platform.

An emergency medical transport van was waiting, its blue lights flashing through the storm. Two surgeons leaped out, holding a insulated silver cooler stamped with the red UNOS organ transport seal.

They ran across the icy platform, handing the cooler directly into Ian’s waiting arms.