Knockdown

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Five minutes later, there were fields on both sides of the road. Probably not many big rigs used this route, but Barry was sure that some did. They shouldn’t draw too much attention.

  Jake was in the passenger seat, monitoring the mirror on that side. He said, “I don’t see anybody who might’ve followed us from the motel. I was worried somebody would feel like he had to do his civic duty and trail us while he called the cops.”

  “Could have happened, easily enough,” Barry agreed.

  From the sleeper, Gretchen asked, “What was that back there? Who were those guys?”

  “Zaragosa cartel death squad,” Barry said.

  “That’s what I thought as soon as I saw them get out of their car,” Jake said. “Maybe they came after us because they’re still working with the terrorists, or maybe they just want revenge for all their guys we killed over in New Mexico.”

  “And to let other people know it’s not a good idea to interfere in their plans,” Barry added. “Like any other cartel, they rule by fear.”

  Gretchen said, “How did they find us? Law enforcement’s been looking for us for several days now—”

  “The cartel’s got eyes and ears just about everywhere in the Southwest,” Barry said. “More and better sources than the Feds, that’s for sure, because most of them lead law-abiding lives 99.9 percent of the time. But they have friends or relatives in the cartel, or family back in Mexico, and they want to keep everybody safe. So Francisco Zaragosa puts the word out to watch for a truck like this and three people matching our descriptions, and that word goes far and wide.”

  Jake said, “It’s probably not that bad farther north and east, but Zaragosa will have a network of some sort that stretches all the way across the country.”

  “That’s right. That means we’ll still have to be careful once we get to Long Island.”

  “Long Island?” Jake and Gretchen asked in unison.

  “That’s where we’re headed,” Barry said. “While you were gone to get lunch, Jake, I heard back from one of my sources with a tip . . . and I have a hunch it’s a good one.”

  CHAPTER 46

  “One of the things I had my sources look for was unexpected and unexplained turnover among railroad employees,” Barry explained a short time later as he drove the big Kenworth through rural North Texas.

  In a few miles, they would reach an intersection with a state highway and turn east, Barry had said. Once they were on that road, the truck would blend in even more with all the traffic headed toward Dallas.

  “So the tip you got points toward Long Island?” Jake asked.

  “The Long Island Rail Road, to be precise,” Barry replied. “We know from the way the terrorists got their men jobs at the freight yard in El Paso how they like to operate. Getting away with sabotage like that requires inside men, some to do the actual work and others to protect them. The Long Island Rail Road has had more employee turnover in the past six weeks than any other commuter line in the country.”

  From where she sat on the bed in the sleeper, Gretchen said, “That seems pretty thin to me. There could be other reasons for the turnover. Maybe a real jackass got promoted and is running people off.”

  Barry chuckled and said, “That does happen from time to time. But this didn’t happen all at once. Employees left and new ones came on at a higher rate than normal, but at a fairly steady pace, not suddenly. Just in a shorter period of time than usual. So it’s hard to point to a management change and blame it on that. Also, a lot of the new employees work at the same place: the Babylon station on Long Island, one of the busiest stations in the country. Nearly all the passengers who go in and out of that station every day work in Manhattan . . . most of them in the financial district.”

  “So it would be a big hit to Wall Street if a bunch of them were wiped out,” Jake mused.

  A grim expression came over Barry’s face as he nodded. “It could damage some of the banks and brokerage houses to the point that they wouldn’t be able to operate for a while. They might be crippled permanently.”

  “Well, we can’t take a chance on that happening,” Jake declared.

  “That’s why I figured we’d better head in that direction.”

  From the sleeper, Gretchen asked, “Do I get a vote in this?”

  Barry glanced at her in the rearview mirror and said, “Don’t start acting like this is a democracy or anything . . . but sure, what do you think about it?”

  “If you’re right about the next attack happening in New York, shouldn’t we try to get there faster than driving?”

  “In a perfect world, yeah,” Barry said with a shrug. “But all the airports are going to be watched closely. The FBI won’t like us giving them the slip the way we did.”

  “You don’t know somebody with a private jet and their own airstrip?” Jake asked.

  “Of course I do. I don’t want to get anybody else in trouble, though.”

  “Just Jake and me,” Gretchen put in.

  Barry grinned and said, “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”

  She frowned.

  “Is that a quote from something? It sounds kind of familiar.”

  “Never mind,” Barry told her. “It’s before your time. Jake and I will trade off driving. We’ll only stop for food and fuel. Doing that, we can be in New York by tomorrow night.”

  “I could maybe take a turn driving,” Gretchen offered.

  Jake turned his head to look at her.

  “How many big rigs have you driven?” he asked.

  “Well . . . none. But how hard can it be?”

  “We’ll handle it,” Barry said. His flat tone of voice ended the discussion.

  Jake looked over his shoulder as Gretchen. She glared, then stuck her tongue out at him. Jake just laughed, shook his head, and faced forward again.

  * * *

  They headed east, getting back on the interstate and taking it to Texarkana, then on into Arkansas and Tennessee. Every couple of stops, Barry changed the license plates and the identification numbers. There was no logo painted on the doors, so they didn’t have to worry about being identified from that.

  They angled northeast at Knoxville and traveled on into Virginia through the night, cutting across a corner of West Virginia as the sun came up. A bit of Maryland, and then through Pennsylvania as the day began to get warmer.

  Gretchen had gotten a decent night’s rest in the sleeper, and Jake and Barry had switched back and forth between the captain’s chairs in the cab, one driving and the other dozing. That wasn’t the same as actually stretching out and resting, but Jake didn’t feel too weary as he took his latest stretch at the wheel and piloted the truck through rolling, wooded hills toward New York City.

  “Before we get there, I’ll call my contact and find out where he wants to meet us,” Barry said. He had slept for a bit but was awake now. “And I’ll take the wheel again before we’re in the city.”

  “You think I can’t handle New York?” Jake asked as he glanced over.

  “I imagine you can, but I’ve got a lot more experience steering a big rig through city traffic. Decades more, in fact.”

  Jake couldn’t argue with that. He shrugged and said, “All right. Let me know when you want to make the switch.”

  “You’re still all right out here on the highway.”

  “Thanks,” Jake said dryly.

  They continued rolling along for a few more minutes, then a frown creased Jake’s forehead. His eyes began to dart from the road ahead to the side mirror.

  Barry, as observant as ever, noticed and asked, “Something wrong?”

  “Two cars have been taking turns being in front of and behind us for the past fifty miles or so,” Jake said. “One tails us for a while, then goes around us, while the other one—the one that was in front—drops back behind.”

  “You’re sure it’s the same cars?”

  “Yeah, once I got an inkling of what’s going on, I watched them pretty closely. The dark b
lue Ford is behind us now, three cars back. That silver Toyota four cars ahead is the other one.”

  “How many men in each?”

  “I can’t tell. The windows are tinted fairly dark in both vehicles.”

  From the sleeper, Gretchen asked, “What’s going on up there? You guys sound very serious all of a sudden.”

  “There may be another hit squad getting ready to make a move on us,” Jake said.

  “From the cartel?” Gretchen’s response was swift and tense.

  “Don’t know who they are, but my gut tells me they’re looking for trouble.”

  Barry popped open the console between the seats, reached into it, and brought out the 1911. He turned his head and said to Gretchen, “I showed you how to get into the gun stash. Open it up and break out an AR-15. I suppose you know how to use one?”

  “I’ve fired one,” she said. “I wouldn’t say I’m an expert.”

  “If there’s trouble, stick to that handgun you’re used to. But have the rifle handy in case you need it, or one of us does.”

  While Gretchen was doing that, Jake studied their surroundings. Along this stretch of road, the divided highway had a wide median between the eastbound and westbound lanes, with enough trees growing in the parklike area that the view from one set of lanes to the other was somewhat obscured. The road made gentle curves between thickly wooded hills, too, and in some of those places, the hills themselves completely cut off Jake’s sight of the westbound lanes. It was beautifully picturesque—but it was also a good place for an ambush.

  Traffic had been heavy in some of the towns they’d passed through, but that wasn’t really the case out here on the open road. At the moment, there was only one car between the Kenworth and the Toyota, which had slowed down and prompted the others to pass while Jake and Barry were talking, and none between the big rig and the Ford. They were almost boxed in, Jake realized.

  He wondered how far it was to the next exit.

  He didn’t get to find out. At that moment, the Toyota in front braked again, and the crossover behind it swung out into the left lane and accelerated past. Jake pressed down on the gas and picked up speed, too, but as he started to move over, thinking maybe he was wrong and the Toyota and the Ford actually didn’t contain any enemies, the Toyota confirmed his hunch by swinging over and going down the middle of the road, partially blocking both lanes.

  “That’s it,” Barry said as Jake hit the brakes to keep from plowing into the sedan. “They’re not our friends, that’s for sure.”

  “I can knock them out of the way,” Jake said.

  From behind him, Gretchen protested, “You can’t do that. They might just be jerks, not killers.”

  Jake glanced in the side mirror.

  “The Ford’s closing in on us,” he reported. “And you’d have to be a pretty big jerk to stick a gun out your car window like the passenger in the front seat is doing.”

  The gun looked like a machine pistol of some sort, and even more so when flickering flames suddenly spurted from its muzzle. Jake didn’t think the bullets would penetrate the armor plating that covered almost the entire truck—except for the bulletproof glass in the windows—but being shot at bothered him. It always had, going all the way back to his army days.

  “Gun up here, too,” Barry said. “We don’t have to worry about them being civilians. Go ahead and bump him off the road.”

  Jake gave the Kenworth gas and sent it surging ahead. The Toyota’s driver saw that and accelerated, too. Their car was faster than the truck and gained enough ground to avoid being rammed.

  The Ford was hanging tight behind, with the passenger still firing ineffective bursts at the truck.

  All three vehicles were racing along at around 80 mph now. Over the rising roar of the engine, Jake said, “We’ll start catching up to slower-moving traffic soon. You know these guys won’t be careful not to hurt any innocents!”

  “I think they’ve shown enough to prove that,” Barry replied. “And here comes more proof.”

  A guy hanging out the rear driver’s-side window on the Toyota opened fire. Bullets sprayed and whapped across the truck’s windshield but didn’t have any effect other than to mar it slightly.

  “Damn it!” Jake reached down into a pocket on the door beside him and pulled out the Browning Hi-Power. He rolled down the window, and then, steering with his right hand, he stuck the left out and opened fire with the pistol.

  Jake’s shots came close enough to make the man in the Toyota duck back into the vehicle. He directed a couple of bullets at the back window, but it failed to shatter.

  “Looks like we’re not the only ones with bulletproof glass,” Barry said.

  Gretchen said, “What if the ones behind us shoot out our tires?”

  “Not gonna happen,” Barry told her. “They’re run-flats, but not ordinary run-flats. You’d have to hit one of them with a bazooka to do much damage.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them to have a bazooka,” Jake said grimly. “Or some RPGs, more likely. Remember, we’ve run into those before in this mess.”

  “I’m not likely to forget,” Barry said. “What are they—”

  He didn’t finish the question because it was obvious what the men in the Toyota were doing. The silver car leaped ahead, going well over 100 mph now, and quickly opened a large gap between it and the truck.

  “I don’t like the looks of that,” Jake said.

  “Neither do I,” Barry said.

  That concern proved to be justified. The driver of the Toyota suddenly slammed on the brakes. The car’s rear end slewed to the side. It came to a stop across the two lanes of the highway about a quarter of a mile in front of the Kenworth.

  “They can’t stop us like that,” Jake said as the men from the car scrambled out. “We’ll just knock it out of the way.”

  One of the men was at the trunk. The lid popped up, and he reached inside to take something out—something big and bulky enough that he needed another man to help him.

  “RPG?” Jake asked tensely.

  “No, I don’t think—Good Lord!” Barry exclaimed. “That’s a blasted Stinger missile!”

  CHAPTER 47

  The Stinger was a surface-to-air missile, designed for ground forces to be able to shoot down low-flying airplanes and helicopters. The launcher was bigger and bulkier than that of a rocket-propelled grenade, and usually two-man crews were assigned to handle it.

  But one man could lift the launcher to his shoulder and steady, aim, and fire it if he needed to. The two men who’d just gotten the SAM out of the trunk of the Toyota had no trouble sending the missile sizzling down the highway toward the Kenworth with Jake at the wheel.

  The big rig’s armor would stop bullets, but even that was no match for a Stinger. In the split second Jake had, he wrenched the wheel to the left as hard as he could and sent the truck bouncing and bounding into the grassy median.

  He knew that a Stinger’s guidance system homed in on the heat from its target’s engine, but he hoped there wouldn’t be time for the missile to make a course correction.

  There wasn’t. The Stinger screamed past the Kenworth’s cab and missed its rear end by no more than a foot.

  The driver of the Ford roaring up from behind didn’t have a chance to react like Jake had—and probably didn’t have Jake’s lightning-fast reflexes to begin with. The missile slammed into the car’s grille and detonated.

  A ball of fire completely engulfed the Ford. Jake and Barry both saw the explosion as Jake wrestled the big rig into a turn that took it back toward the highway. The force of the blast flipped the blazing hulk of the car into the air. It turned over a couple of times before crashing down on its top.

  From the sleeper, where she was hanging on for dear life, Gretchen cried, “What was that?!”

  “We just almost got blown up,” Barry told her. “Missed it by a whisker.”

  “And the bad guys behind us weren’t so lucky,” Jake added. “Now to deal with the rest of t
hat bunch.”

  He sent the Kenworth barreling toward the Toyota stopped across the highway. The men who had gotten out of the car either didn’t have another Stinger or didn’t think they would have time to use it. Instead, they used the vehicle for cover and blasted away at the onrushing truck with handguns and semi-automatic rifles.

  The bullets were like gnats trying to stop a charging bull.

  Jake aimed the Kenworth straight at the car. He was still fifty yards away when the would-be killers’ nerve broke. Still shooting on the run, they dashed out from behind the Toyota.

  That gave Jake his first good look at them. He’d expected the assassins to be more soldiers from the Zaragosa cartel, but if they were, they dressed oddly for drug dealers and killers. All four men who’d gotten out of the car wore dark suits and ties and looked more like government bureaucrats.

  That made him think twice about bulldozing right over them with the truck. Might be a good idea to try to take at least one of them alive, he decided, so that the prisoner could be questioned. Instead of veering toward them as he’d planned, he turned the wheel and circled around them as they ran along the highway’s shoulder.

  Another turn and a hard push on the brakes brought the truck to a stop across both lanes of the highway, two hundred yards past where the Toyota had stopped. The four men were halfway between the vehicles. They stopped and hesitated like they couldn’t decide which way to run next.

  One of them dashed into the median. Jake didn’t know where he was going, other than away from here. The other three started back toward the Toyota.

  Jake glanced past the silver sedan and saw that several cars had stopped on the shoulder in the distance. It appeared that their drivers had spotted what was left of the burning Ford off to the side of the road, as well as the Toyota and the big rig parked crosswise in the highway.

  That was more than enough to tell them that something was wrong, prompting them to pull over and try to figure out what was going on. A couple of them had their emergency flashers going to alert the traffic coming up behind them. One man got out of his car and waved his arms in the air, signaling for other drivers to stop.