Chapter 9 - The Anatomy of an Engine
For the next ten days, Julian ceased to exist as Julian Vance.
He became a creature of grease, friction, and iron. His sleep was four hours a night on the moldy vinyl sofa, interrupted by the screech of freight trains on the nearby rail spur. His food was canned beans heated over an electric coil and stale bread brought by the three veteran mechanics who had initially refused to speak to him.
The mechanics—Joe, an amputee veteran with a prosthetic leg; Marco, a quiet welder whose hands never shook; and Big Dave, a six-foot-five engine specialist—had spent the first three days ignoring Julian entirely. They watched him drop tools, make incorrect torque adjustments, and ruin threads.
On the fifth day, Julian stayed up until three in the morning disassembling a frozen fuel injector that Big Dave had marked as unrecoverable. Using an acetylene torch, kerosene, and sheer stubborn endurance, Julian freed the needle valve without scarring the chamber.
When Big Dave walked in the next morning and saw the polished, functioning injector resting on a clean rag on Julian’s bench, he didn't say a word. But at lunch, a foil-wrapped brisket sandwich appeared next to Julian's toolbox.
By day twelve, the blisters on Julian’s hands had hardened into thick, yellow calluses. The soft, doughy weight around his midsection had burned away, replaced by lean, wiry sinew carved from hauling forty-pound steel cylinder heads up iron scaffolding. His eyes, once glazed with the aimless boredom of the idle rich, had sharpened into focus.
"Listen to that," Hank said on the fourteenth afternoon, pointing a greasy finger at the first completed Caterpillar marine diesel.
Julian pressed the ignition toggle on the testing rig. The six-cylinder engine sputtered, coughed a plume of gray smoke, and then caught with a deafening, rhythmic roar that shook the concrete foundation of the warehouse. The idle was steady, deep, and clean.
"Oil pressure is seventy PSI," Julian shouted over the noise, checking the manual gauge with a flashlight. "Coolant temp holding at one-eighty. No leaks on the manifold."
Big Dave slapped Julian on the back with enough force to knock the breath out of him. "She runs cleaner than the ones coming out of the factory in Peoria, kid."
Julian wiped his brow with the back of his forearm. For the first time in his life, he felt a strange, solid warmth settling in his chest. It was not the hollow thrill of spending twenty thousand dollars on bottle service at a nightclub, nor the fleeting rush of driving a new sports car off the lot. It was the knowledge that a massive, complex machine was breathing fire because his own hands had aligned every tolerance to within a thousandth of an inch.
"That's one," Hank said, cutting the throttle. The warehouse fell into sudden, ringing silence. "We have four more to finish, and the delivery barge arrives in forty-eight hours. If all five aren't loaded and strapped to the deck by sundown Thursday, the contract is void."
"We can do it," Julian said without hesitation. "Joe’s already got the blocks bored on two and three. Marco can weld the exhaust brackets tonight. I'll take the night shift on the crankshafts."
Hank looked at the three mechanics, then back at Julian. "You haven't slept more than ten hours this week, boy. You drop a crankshaft on your foot, you're done."
"I'll sleep on Friday," Julian said, picking up a micrometer and stepping toward the second engine rig.
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Outside the gate, unnoticed by any of the men, a nondescript gray sedan was parked under the highway overpass. A high-resolution telephoto lens retracted through the tinted passenger window. Inside the car, a private investigator keyed his satellite radio.
"Mr. Sterling," the investigator said. "They just fired up the first engine. And Julian Vance is running the floor."
