Knockdown
Page 34
“I think you and I are the only ones still alive up here,” he said to Sherman, whose face had turned as gray as ashes. He planted himself between the billionaire and the control levers.
“You madman! I’ll shoot you!”
“I won’t die quick enough for you to get to these controls,” Jake told him. “Whatever’s going to happen is gonna happen, Sherman, and you’ll have a grandstand seat for it.”
Sherman’s eyes were huge with horror and disbelief. He muttered, “No . . . no . . . it can’t end this way. I was going to change the country . . .”
“Not for the better. Not for freedom. You wanted to put your foot on America’s throat . . . and you’re going to end up like all the other petty, would-be tyrants. This country always finds a way of dealing with guys like you.”
Sherman suddenly howled in incoherent rage and jerked the gun up as his finger tightened on the trigger.
Jake dove for him, feeling the sudden shock as a bullet struck him, but his momentum carried him into Sherman. They crashed against the back wall of the cab. They might both die in a matter of minutes in whatever catastrophe Sherman and his allies had planned, but Jake was damned if he was going to stand there and let the crazy billionaire shoot him.
Jake was bigger and stronger, but Sherman fought with the strength and feverish intensity of a madman. They swayed and staggered back and forth in the cab, tripping over the bodies of the engineer and the terrorist. They lurched against the control panel and shoved the brake handle forward again. The train screeched and shuddered. A second later, their weight shoved the throttle ahead again. They were probably wreaking havoc on the train’s gears—not that it mattered at this point.
Jake felt a sudden, hot weakness flowing through him and realized he was losing enough blood to put him on the verge of passing out. Didn’t matter, he told himself. Alexander Sherman would never become the dictator of America he so longed to be. That was enough.
The gun boomed again. Jake had lost track of it in the struggle. But it was Sherman who jerked this time, his eyes widening until it seemed they were about to pop out of their sockets. He let go of Jake and slumped back against the rear wall. A large, rapidly spreading bloodstain turned his shirtfront red. Gasping for breath, he slid slowly down the metal wall.
“Not . . . not fair,” Sherman rasped.
Jake had to hold on to the back of the engineer’s seat to keep himself from falling.
“Seems like it to me,” Jake said as his head hung forward in exhaustion. “You were willing to kill this country to get your hands on more power. But it didn’t work. America’s safe . . . for now. Until some other crazy son of a—”
He stopped short. He was talking to a glassy-eyed dead man.
As soon as the implications of that realization percolated through Jake’s brain, he turned and hauled back on the brake lever as hard as he could. But as the train began to slow, he saw a sudden burst of flame from the tracks several hundred yards ahead. He couldn’t hear the explosion, but he was sure it shook the earth for miles around.
It took a long distance to stop a train, especially one going this fast. But the Silver Eagle was slowing down now. It wouldn’t stop before it reached the site of the blast, but maybe it would slow enough for Jake to steal his life back.
That possibility galvanized his muscles. He threw off the weakness from being shot and the loss of blood. The human body was capable of incredible things with enough willpower and desperation behind it. Leaving the three dead men in the cab, Jake flung the door open and climbed back out onto the walkway.
He threw caution to the wind now. No point in being careful when you had a minute or so to live. He raced along the side of the locomotive and came to the next car. Scrambling up the ladder, he rolled onto its top and pushed himself to his feet. He glanced back over his shoulder, saw the cloud of dust from the explosion coming closer, looming larger and larger. He ran toward the back of the car, and when he got there, he leaped the gap between it and what was now the final car without even slowing down.
He stopped when he came to the end of it and bent over to put his hands on his knees and draw in several huge breaths, gasps that hurt like blazes after being shot in the chest, but he did it anyway. The train had slowed to a pace that was faster than that of a running man, but Jake thought he might survive a leap from it now. That is, if he didn’t hit his head on a rock and bust it open, or ram a tree limb all the way through him, or tumble all the way down the side of that gorge and land in the river and drown . . .
But he supposed that was why they called it a leap of faith, he told himself as he gathered himself, bunched his muscles, and jumped, sailing up and out, up and out . . . until the inevitable occurred and he went down and down . . .
And down.
CHAPTER 68
Somebody poked him and said, “Wake up.”
“Uhhh,” Jake said. “Wha . . .”
“Wake up, I said.” This time, he recognized the voice as Gretchen’s. “You’re dreaming again.”
Jake lifted his head a little, rested the balls of both hands against his temples, and rubbed as he yawned. He blinked his eyes open for a second, then closed them again against the hot glare of the sun.
“I dream all the time,” he said. “It’s a sign of an active brain.”
“Yeah, but you were on that train again. I could tell. There’s no need to relive that, even in your dreams. It’s all over.”
“You’re right about that,” Jake said drowsily. He did most things drowsily these days. How could it be any other way when your only job was to lie around on a beach with a beautiful woman and recuperate from enough injuries to, as Dr. Caleb McIntire put it, “kill half a dozen normal men”?
Jake stretched his legs and wiggled his toes. He was still a little amazed that everything worked after the punishment he had put his body through. Amazed but grateful. And with Gretchen’s help during the past six weeks, he had been satisfied that everything still worked.
They lay on beach chairs in the sun, with the blue-green waters of the Gulf of Mexico lapping at the sand a few yards away. Jake wore a rather baggy bathing suit, while Gretchen’s blue bikini was as small as the law allowed. Not that they had to worry about the law here. Nobody was around except Barry, who at the moment was inside the beach house about fifty yards behind them in the trees.
It was the nicest safe house Jake had ever seen. He sometimes wondered if they could stay here permanently. Jake Rivers, Barry Rivers, and Gretchen Rogers were all dead, after all. Jake and Barry had died in that horrible train wreck in Colorado, and Gretchen had succumbed to injuries suffered in the line of duty as an agent of the Department of Homeland Security.
That was the story, and Jake didn’t see any reason they shouldn’t stick to it. He had paid for this with scars all over his body, and Gretchen had a scar, too, from that bullet wound, which was clearly visible in the bikini. She didn’t try to cover it up. It was a badge of honor, she had explained, earned by helping to save the country from Alexander Sherman, and she would wear it with honor.
Sherman had died in the crash, too, officially. Died a hero trying to stop the terrorists bent on wrecking the train. That was a bitter pill to swallow, but the President had convinced Jake and Barry it was for the best. It helped that Mitchell Cavanaugh had spilled his guts, confessing to every bad thing he had done going back to high school, and dozens of high-ranking officials and bureaucrats in Washington had resigned quietly, then been taken into custody and plea-bargained their way into federal prisons across the country. The ones who hadn’t committed suicide, that is. The rat’s nest inside the Beltway hadn’t been cleaned out completely, by any means . . . but at least there were fewer rats to dirty it up.
The problem was that all the people on the other side didn’t know just how much of a maniac their progressive “hero” had been. Even if they had known, they wouldn’t have really believed it. And if they had been shown incontrovertible proof, they still wouldn’t ca
re. They would continue to vote based on their so-called “ideals” without any real understanding of what was actually going on or what the country needed to survive.
* * *
America had ways of dealing with would-be tyrants, Jake had told Alexander Sherman . . . but all too often, it was the American people who lifted up those tyrants and invited them to take over.
That was a bigger problem than Jake could deal with today, however. Today, his biggest decision was whether to go swimming, or fishing, or just lie here on the beach with Gretchen and bake away his aches and pains.
Sand crunched behind them. Barry said, “I can see you two are busy, so I hate to interrupt—”
“Then don’t,” Gretchen said.
Barry chuckled and said, “Sorry. I don’t have much choice. I just got off the phone with . . . well, let’s just say a certain somebody very high up.”
“We’re retired,” Jake said without opening his eyes.
“It would be nice to think so, wouldn’t it?”
Jake sighed, opened his eyes, and sat up, swinging his legs off the beach chair.
“There’s a job waiting for us out there?” he asked.
“Yeah. They won’t order us to accept it, of course. Technically, we’re free agents and can do whatever we want, being, well, dead and all. But . . . the truck’s been refurbished and reoutfitted and is ready to go again. There’s a problem that it seems we’re uniquely suited to deal with.”
“All three of us?” Gretchen said.
“If you want.”
“We’d be Rig Warriors,” she mused. “I kind of like the sound of that.”
Jake said, “When’s the truck supposed to get here?”
“Somebody will drop it off tomorrow.”
Jake put his legs up on the beach chair, stretched out, and closed his eyes again.
“Then we still have today,” he said.
He reached out his hand without looking, found Gretchen’s outstretched hand, and held it tightly as the sun warmed them and the waves whispered against the sand.
National Bestselling Author
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
RIG WARRIOR
In Vietnam, Barry Rivers learned how to be a hero.
In a busted marriage, he learned how to be a survivor.
And in Washington, he learned how to make big money, consulting with the U.S. government on weapons. Then he got a message from home.
Someone had come after his old man—and turned
Barry Rivers into the deadliest enemy of all . . .
Now Rivers is back behind the wheel of a midnight-blue Kenworth—with a hard-swearing, hard-driving, tightly packed blonde named Kate and his dog named Dog by his side. With a few good trucking friends, Rivers has the firepower to take on an army. And he’ll need it. Because a contract to haul Safe Secure Transport has plunged him into a world of betrayal, corruption, and violence that is killing everyone around him. And the only way to stop a coming war is to start one first—behind the barrel of a machine gun.
Look for RIG WARRIOR,
available exclusively in e-book now!
National Bestselling Author
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
WHEELS OF DEATH
A RIG WARRIOR NOVEL
Barry Rivers drove his first rig when he was ten years old. Then life took him far from his Cajun roots and his dad’s trucking business. A war, a busted marriage, a twilight hitch in Washington—and suddenly, the ex – Special Forces hero was back in Louisiana to take on his father’s worst enemies. Rivers won the war but lost the last battle when the only woman he had ever loved was killed by a bomb blast meant for him.
Now Rivers is alive in a hospital, but his identity has been destroyed and all he has left is his rage and his dog named Dog. That makes him the perfect man to become the perfect secret warrior, chosen by the U.S. president himself. Climbing up into his Kenworth, he points the big rig toward Kentucky mining country, where a depraved family is raping, killing, and stealing everything in sight. For Rivers, the mission is clear: Be judge, jury, and executioner. But if he takes one step over the line, he’ll be dead.
Look for WHEELS OF DEATH,
available exclusively in e-book now!
National Bestselling Author
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
EIGHTEEN WHEEL AVENGER
A Rig Warrior Novel
In New Orleans, Barry Rivers fought the mob and exposed traitors inside the U.S. government.
Then, when a bomb killed the woman he loved, he started life again under a new identity—with a new mission. Now Rivers travels America’s highways in a midnight-blue Kenworth, with his dog named “Dog” and a whole lot of guns, bullets, and bombs packed into the cab.
An attempted hijacking on a New Mexico highway puts Rivers face-to-face with an unholy alliance of terrorists—and brings him the able-bodied assistance of a female Air Force Special Ops officer who knows how to shift a truck and shoot to kill. Now Rivers and Lieutenant Meri Cutter are driving a rig loaded with a top-secret superexplosive coast to coast.
They’re just waiting for the terrorists to make their next move—so they can strike back hard . . . and hit them where it counts.
Look for EIGHTEEN WHEEL AVENGER,
available exclusively in e-book now!
Though known largely for their westerns, New York Times bestsellers, WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE and J. A. JOHNSTONE are the authors of some of the most explosive and timely thrillers of the last decade, including the nationally bestselling Tyranny, a ripped-from-the-headlines story of citizens’ rights and government wrongs, and Stand Your Ground, a chilling depiction of terrorism on American soil.
The Johnstones know that freedom is never free. They fully support our military and regularly donate books to our troops. You can learn more about this as well as upcoming releases and special promotions by visiting williamjohnstone.net, or kensingtonbooks.com.