18 Wheel Avenger

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  The KHP went into a crouch, two-handed grips on their sidearms, pointed at the trailer.

  They all felt like a bunch of nuts.

  The cameras were rolling, reporters speaking softly into mikes.

  Jackson unlocked the trailer doors.

  “Careful!” Clayton hollered.

  The KHP officer felt he just had to say it, but he felt like an idiot. “You men in there! This is the Kansas Highway Patrol. Come out with your hands in the air.”

  Silence.

  “First one of those crates that talks,” Cutter said, to draw attention away from Barry and to herself, “I’m gone, man!”

  The reporters all laughed. The secret service laughed. The FBI laughed.

  Clayton did not see the humor in it.

  Jackson swung the doors open.

  Clayton hit the ground, squalling in fright. The TV cameras caught it all.

  The floodlights showed carefully stacked and tied-down crates, all government stamped and sealed.

  “Now isn’t this a crock of shit!” one reporter said.

  Clayton, from his prone position on the ground, cut his eyes to Forbes, who cut his eyes to Bonnie, who cut her eyes to George.

  Who smiled.

  Barry had insisted that Clayton pick out the crates he would like Jackson to open. By this time, the senator had begun to realize all that he had accomplished was to make a total fool of himself.

  And he realized something else too: he could hang up his presidential bid.

  He had pointed out a crate. Jackson broke the seal and opened the lid. M-16s. Another crate. M-60s. Another crate. Funny looking machines packed carefully against damage.

  The press filmed it, packed it up, and left, all of them making jokes about Tim Clayton.

  The road was cleared and the KHP pulled out.

  Clayton, his press secretary, and his entourage quietly left, the secret service reluctantly going with the senator.

  George Stanton looked at Gene Forbes. “You know, of course, the honorable direction to take, don’t you?”

  “I’ll turn in my resignation first thing in the morning.”

  “Really? I had something more like hara-kiri in mind.”

  Gene Forbes walked away into the night, got in his car, and drove off.

  Jackson stood looking at Barry and Cutter and George, who were all looking at Bonnie O’Neal.

  She looked very small and very vulnerable in the night.

  “Set me up, didn’t you?” she finally said.

  “Why the thirty-eight in your luggage?” Barry asked.

  “To protect myself against you people, what else?”

  “Records show you belong to some coalition to ban hand-guns,” Cutter reminded her.

  “That just applies to irresponsible people,” she said.

  “Sure,” Jackson said, relocking and sealing the trailer doors. He tossed the packet back to Barry. The night was very quiet. The townspeople of Dighton had returned to their homes.

  “Let’s roll,” Barry said. “We got a load to deliver.”

  17

  “I can’t believe you’re letting Bonnie come along,” Cutter said, as they rolled eastward. They were angling a bit north, to eventually hook up with Interstate 70.

  “I’d rather have her with us, so we can keep an eye on her, than out in public running her mouth.”

  “I suppose. She sure acted subdued back there.”

  “It’s a total mystery to me why seemingly intelligent people would choose to follow someone like Tim Clayton. The man’s a fool.”

  “A lot of easily led people in the world, Barry. Tim Clayton had never faced much adversity before this night. Now the whole country watched him fold up like a house of cards. We can forget about him.”

  “I bet she’s giving George a hard time of it.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it, Cutter. George has a hell of a lot more backbone than I’d have ever thought.”

  “I’m waiting, Bonnie,” George said. They were about a half mile behind the 18-wheeler. Barry had radioed back and told them that at Great Bend, they would connect with 156 and take that to Interstate 70.

  “I can’t believe I’ve been such a fool,” she said softly.

  “You want to explain that?”

  “Was Clayton drunk tonight?”

  “He has a small problem with the bottle, yes.”

  She fixed eyes on him; hot, young, idealistic eyes. “You mean you knew it all along?”

  George shifted uncomfortably behind the wheel of the look alike Bronco. “We knew that he enjoyed more than his share of the grape, yes.”

  “How many members of the press suspected it? Or knew of it?”

  “Quite a few, dear.”

  “And you all kept silent about it.” Not phrased as a question.

  “It was one of Washington’s better kept secrets, I will admit that.”

  “Why, George?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that very question, Bonnie. After Clayton’s disgraceful performance this evening.”

  “I respected you, George. Looked up to you.”

  “And now you find I have feet of clay. I am sorry.”

  She pointed to the running lights of the SST. “Those people up there were right, George. The press goes hard on some candidates, easy on others. Am I right, George?”

  George said nothing for several moments. “I was never really comfortable with Tim Clayton. Never really sure he was the man for the job. But he stacked up so well against the others. He played well. Always very open with us.”

  “With the press, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that, or should that be a prerequisite for the oval office?”

  George sighed. “I suppose not, Bonnie.”

  “Gene Forbes is through.”

  “Oh, yes, dear. He’s through. He’ll turn up somewhere a long way from Washington as some dreary sports announcer for some small-town team. But he’ll never again have anything to do with news. Not on a national or international level. He’s been made a colossal fool of.”

  “And Tim Clayton?”

  “Don’t worry, Bonnie. He doesn’t have the courage to kill himself. The people of his state might, probably will, elect him to the Senate again. But it’s very doubtful that he’ll ever try for any higher office.”

  “We help to put them up, then we help to tear them down.”

  “Unfortunately, Bonnie, you are right in that assessment. To a degree.”

  “I still don’t have to like what those people up there”—she pointed to the SST—“are doing.”

  “You want to quit?”

  “No.” She twisted in the seat. “George, you’re a very smart man. You can be a big windbag at times …”

  He threw back his head and laughed at that.

  “… But you’re very, very intelligent. You know, you have to know, that Barry and Cutter and Jackson and the others are never going to let any of this film or commentary about them go on the air.”

  “Well, of course, Bonnie! Hell, I knew that from the outset.”

  “But … I mean … ”

  “They’re showing us a side of terrorism that we’ve never seen, Bonnie. Their side. No government agent has ever dared do that before. For the simple reason that the high-level people in government, most of them, simply do not trust the press. And,” he sighed, “I don’t really blame them. We pounce on their mistakes and skim over or completely ignore their many successes. I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching these past two days, Bonnie. And I haven’t liked a lot of what I’ve found inside me.”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of that same searching for the last hour,” she admitted. “I have sort of a bad taste in my mouth.”

  “Well, we both should, dear.”

  She again pointed to the lights of the 18-wheeler. “They want you on their side, don’t they, George?”

  “That’s it.”

  “And … ?”

  “I don’t know, Bonnie. I
just don’t know.”

  Several members of the press dogged the SST for most of the way to Fort Drum, not entirely convinced that perhaps just a part of what Clayton had said that night was true.

  Upon orders from Barry, which, surprisingly enough, George followed, he and Bonnie stopped in Missouri and began doing a series of human interest stories. And, since his friends and colleagues all knew that George enjoyed doing a bit of fluff every now and then, no one thought anything about it.

  Clayton’s fall from grace highlighted the nation’s TV screens for a couple of nights, then faded out as other news took its place. Barry was shown along with the story on Clayton, with his Greek seaman’s hat and glasses and heavy growth of beard, all of which he had now discarded. But the woman with him remained constantly in the shadows, no camera ever clearly picking up a shot of her.

  By the time Barry and Cutter had dropped their load at Fort Drum, they were off the news.

  Jackson met them at the Army post. “Your rig is being sent out here by train. Along with the Bronco. And by the way, we’ve had the Bronco armor-plated and bulletproof glass installed. Since you insist on having those two along. However much the reasoning behind that move might escape me.”

  “I like their company,” Barry said.

  “I could add something to that,” Cutter said. “But being a lady, I won’t.”

  “Thank you,” Jackson said. “You are to both stay here, on the base, and out of sight, for several days. Perhaps as long as a week. We’re laying down some rumor-bait and it looks like Ja and Bakhitar and Darin Grady and his bunch are sniffing at it with a lot of interest.”

  “I know we’re the trap, but what’s the cheese?” Cutter asked.

  “A trailer full of top-secret, handheld, one-man-operated antitank guided weapons. ATGWs. Similar to NATO’s Milian system, but these are one-person operated. Any terrorist group in the world would love to get their nasty fingers on something like that.”

  “We can’t run empty, Jackson,” Barry said. “One or more of these groups might have people employed by the weight-watchers, and empty would tip our hand.”

  “Good point. The weight of each launcher, including missile, is 41 pounds. Say ten to twelve pounds for the crate. I’ll get on the weight problem right away.”

  Barry poked him in the belly with a finger. “You are getting a tad soft, Jackson.”

  “Don’t I know it?”

  Barry and Cutter lounged in their quarters for several days, keeping a low profile, for the most part staying out of sight, eating and sleeping and catching up on rest.

  Barry’s Kenworth was shipping in by train and when it arrived, along with the Bronco, Barry carefully went over the rig, from front bumper to the trailer’s doors. The twin Harley motorcycles were still in place, carefully strapped down. The crates containing the lethal hardware were intact, and everything was in place in the hidden compartments.

  George and Bonnie were flown in, after submitting their human interest stories and George announcing that he was taking a couple weeks’ vacation.

  Barry put them both through several days of weapons training, with the M-16 and the Beretta pistol, and much to the surprise of both Barry and Cutter, George took to it like that much talked about duck to water.

  “This is good fun!” the nationally known reporter said, after blowing the center out of a target with the Beretta.

  Bonnie, unfortunately, turned out to be one of those people who could not hit any part of a barn even if she was standing in the center of it.

  “Have you ever fired that thirty-eight you’re packing around?” Barry asked her.

  She had not.

  “Who loaded it for you?”

  “I did! I mean, any fool can see you just take those bullets and poke them into the holes in that wheel thing.”

  Barry took the .38 away from her and gave her a can of mace to carry around.

  “Thank you,” George said. “I feel much better now.”

  “Don’t we all,” Cutter told him.

  Walking with Bonnie, on a cold and crisp fall afternoon, Barry said, “I thought you’d be so angry you’d never want to see any of us again.”

  “That was my first thought back there in Kansas while you were making a fool out of Senator Clayton.”

  “I didn’t make a fool out of him, Bonnie. He did all that himself. Forget him, Bonnie. He is not the person to lead this country.”

  “I realize that, too. Now.”

  “It’s a confusing time, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” She looked at him as they walked along a path in the sprawling military base just a few miles from the Canadian border. “Who are you, Barry?”

  “Who I am is not important. What I’m doing is the important thing.”

  “No family?”

  “No. None. Anywhere.” That was a lie. Barry did have a sister still alive in South Texas. But she thought him dead. And that was the way it had to be.

  Forever.

  “So you just drive around the country, fighting terrorists?”

  He took a chance. “For this brief period, yes. Perhaps that’s what I’ll be doing from now on. I don’t know.”

  “And Cutter.”

  “She’ll return to her job after this trip, probably.”

  “And you’ll be alone?”

  “I have a dog. A Husky.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Dog.”

  She laughed in the cold air and they walked on in silence. Barry’s thoughts were spun back in time, back to that truck stop …

  “Oh, Barry!” Kate said. “Look!” She pointed.

  The mutt sat by the Kenworth as if it had found a home. But it did not wag its tail at their approach.

  Barry looked at the animal. It was a mixed breed but with the Husky in it predominant. He decided that somewhere down the line, the animal’s ancestors, and not too far back, had bred with wolves. He had all the Husky markings, but with the eyes and snout of a wolf. And with the teeth of a wolf.

  Kate knelt down and held out her hands. “Come on, boy,” she urged.

  The animal came to her, allowing the little blonde to pet him.

  “What’s that on his collar?” Barry asked.

  Kate loosened the string holding the worn piece of paper. “A note.” She read it aloud. “Goddamn dog bites. You find him, you can have him. He’s two years old. Shots are due in the fall. I called him Dog.”

  Barry knew there was no point in trying to dissuade Kate. Dog had found a home.

  “Keep him up here with us until we can find a place to bathe him,” Barry told her, once in the rig. “He’s got fleas.”

  Kate ignored that and put Dog in the sleeper.

  “Thanks,” Barry said.

  At a small town, they stopped at a vet’s office and had Dog bathed. Dog tolerated it without making a fuss.

  “Got some wolf in him,” the vet observed. “And a mean look about him. I should have muzzled him, I suppose, but he seems to be taking it all in stride.”

  Dog was weighed. Sixty-five pounds.

  Kate bought a case of Alpo, a water pan, and food dish, and a container to carry extra water. Dog jumped up on the custom bunk in the sleeper and settled right in.

  “I think he was raised in a rig,” Kate said. “He sure seems to know his way around in a cab.”

  “I wonder if he can drive.” Barry asked.

  Dog shifted his cold yellow eyes toward Barry.

  “Just kidding,” Barry muttered.

  “You were a long way from this place, Barry,” Bonnie’s voice jarred him back to the present.

  He nodded his head. “Yeah. I was for a fact.”

  “Thinking of someone special?”

  “My wife. She’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry, Barry.”

  “Yeah. So am I.”

  Jackson met with Barry and Cutter, Bonnie and George. The Treasury agent looked at the reporter and the cameraperson. “Once you two get on the road, you realiz
e that you are both fair game for the terrorists. Not just for this run, but for the rest of your lives.”

  “We understand,” George said.

  Bonnie nodded her head.

  “It’s going to be a long run, gang,” Jackson continued. “Three thousand miles. Our intelligence shows that the terrorists are coming after this load, foaming at the mouth.” He looked at Barry. “They want you dead, in the worst way.”

  Barry smiled. “What else is new?”

  Jackson looked at Cutter. “They want you alive.” His words were flat.

  Cutter’s beautiful face did not change expression. “I can’t for the life of me imagine why.”

  Jackson looked at Bonnie. “I won’t mince words with you, Miss O’Neal. These people take you alive, they’ll rape you, they’ll torture you. Understand all that now?”

  “I understand it. I didn’t believe it before. But I do now. I’ll turn any film I shoot over to you. Perhaps that will help in tracking down any survivors and in studying the terrorists’ tactics.”

  Jackson smiled. “It would be a big help, and we thank you for that.”

  George said nothing, his silence stating his noncommitment. For now, at least.

  “When do we pull out?” Barry asked.

  “Oh-six hundred tomorrow morning.”

  Barry smiled.

  All noticed that the peeling back of his lips resembled a vicious snarl.

  The Dog had picked up the scent.

  18

  It was six o’clock and pitch dark when the Kenworth rolled out of the west gate of Fort Drum. They would hook up with highway 26/11 south, take that into Watertown and then pick up Interstate 81 and head south.

  Behind them, the Bronco followed, Bonnie at the wheel. In the rear of the Bronco were two M-16s, covered with a blanket, and a bag of full clips. George wore a 9mm in a shoulder holster. The man had turned into a modern-day Wild Bill Hickock.

  But whether he could let the hammer fall on a man was yet another story Cutter and Barry could but ponder on.

  Cutter was doubtful that he could. Barry was holding judgement. He had a hunch George would come through in a tight spot.

  But he hoped it wasn’t any of their butts on the line when George had to make that decision.

  Both felt it would be a milk run down to Pennsylvania, where they would hook up with Interstate 80 West. The terrorists knew that both Barry and Cutter were heavily armed and would not hesitate a half second to use any weapon at their disposal. They would be very wary about attacking them, and this area was much too populated.