Barry’s truck led the way, Kate behind the wheel. Her eyes had widened when Barry pulled the Uzi out of its case and fitted a clip into its belly.
“What kind of a gun is that?” she asked.
“Uzi. Best little submachine gun going, in my opinion.” He lifted his eyes as they approached a picnic and camping area. Two Jeeps sat parked side by side.“There they are. Let me handle the show, Kate.”
“You’re more than welcome to it.”
A man stepped out from under the wheel of one of the Jeeps and waved the convoy to a halt. Barry stepped down and rounded the truck, the Uzi in his right hand, held by the grip, his finger off the trigger.
The officer’s eyes widened slightly at the sight. “Mr. Rivers,” he said. “You don’t believe in taking chances, do you?”
“I don’t believe that’s the password, Captain.”
“No, it isn’t. You’re quite right. How about Gold Star?”
“Poppyseed.”
“Good.” The captain smiled. “Now we can be friends. If you will mount up and please follow us, Mr. Rivers.”
“Not just yet.”
The captain turned slowly. His face was flushed and his eyes angry. “What do you mean?”
“Let me see your ID. All of you.” His finger had slipped into the trigger of the Uzi.
“The password and the response were correct. That is all you need, Rivers.”
“And I’m curious as to how you know my name.”
Barry heard the sounds of the other drivers climbing down from their rigs, guns in their hands. He heard Kate say, “Three more vehicles off to the east, Barry. Three, four men to a car. They’re gettin’ out, walkin’ this way.”
“We’ll take care of the new boys, Barry,” Saltmeat spoke.
“Now look here!” the captain—if that’s what he was—spoke. “This is getting out of hand. You goddamn truck drivers are taking all this a bit too seriously. Now you eighteen-wheel cowboys just climb back in your rigs and follow me. And by God, that’s an order!”
Barry felt the other drivers stiffen with sudden anger. He heard Lady Lou say, “That son of a bitch needs an attitude adjustment.”
The captain—again, if that’s what he was, and Barry had serious doubts about that—did not know much about truck drivers. But if he didn’t watch his mouth, he was going to find out. The hard way.
“Just show me your military ID, Captain,” Barry told him. “Then everything will be just dandy.”
The captain smiled and nodded to the men standing behind him. A signal? Barry wondered. He thought so. But a signal to do what? He’d soon know.
The captain moved his hand closer to the butt of his holstered .45. The flap was not secured. “I think, Rivers, you are making a very big mistake. You’re under contract to the government, and out here, I represent the government.”
“Just show me your ID.”
“I’ll show you this!” The man jerked out his .45.
Barry shot him just as the man pulled the trigger of the .45. The .45 slug whined off the barren earth. Barry’s slugs took the man in the stomach and chest, knocking him backward, flinging him to the hot earth.
Jumping backward and rolling on the ground, Barry yelled, “Cover!”
The hot morning erupted in gunfire as the captain died, his blood quickly soaking into the sand.
Kate lifted her shotgun and tore the guts of one man into magnum-pounded bits of blood and flesh. The man was lifted from his feet and hurled to the ground. He screamed and rolled on the sand, then passed out.
“Bullwhip!” Barry shouted over the din of the battle. “Get on the horn and call in. Tell them we’re under attack.”
Barry raised his Uzi and cut the legs from under a man, nothing as he did so that the man’s shoes were not military-issue.
Barry heard a man call out: “We only got a couple of minutes to get this done. Finish ’em, goddammit!”
One man, dressed in a military uniform but carrying a non-military-issue AK-47, charged at the convoy, the AK spitting and yammering. Barry swung his Uzi and pulled the trigger just as Lady Lou triggered off a burst from her M-16. 9mm and 5.56mm slugs struck the man and sent him sprawling to the ground, the AK’s muzzle digging a hole in the sand.
“No go, no go!” a man screamed. “Back off. Let’s get the hell outta here!”
Beer Butt shot him in the center of the chest with a .41 magnum, punching a thumb-sized hole going in and a fist-sized hole when the slug exited out the man’s back, tearing the spinal cord. The man dropped to the ground, as limp and lifeless as a doll flung to the floor.
Barry burned a full clip at the back of a car as it roared away, rear tires spinning in the sands, throwing up clouds of dust. He saw the rear window shatter as the slugs punched through the glass.
Silence. Broken only by nervous coughing and the clearing of throats. Kate bent double and vomited on the ground. Lou ran to her side and put an arm around her waist, leading her away, behind a truck.
“Check your weapons!” Barry called. “Reload and stand ready.” The incident had flung him back in time, back to the jungles and marshes and rice fields of ’Nam. “Eyes open, people.”
He cautiously checked the fallen men. One was still alive, but he wouldn’t be for long. His chest was pockmarked with bullet holes, his mouth leaking pink saliva. Lung shot.
The man drummed his heels on the hot ground and then died.
In the distance, Barry could hear the sounds of sirens. He could see the dust fanning out behind the approaching vehicles.
“Take cover!” Barry shouted. “Watch your perimeters; at the ready.”
“Sounds like a fuckin’ drill sergeant,” Panty Snatcher muttered as he slipped under a trailer, assuming the prone position.
The cars and Jeeps slid to a halt. A young man dressed in field clothes, desert cammies, jumped out and faced the front of the convoy. Barry was kneeling by the side of his Kenworth, the Uzi ready. The officer held his hands out, showing he was friendly.
“Password!” Barry called.
“Gold Star.”
“Poppyseed. Toss your ID on the ground and stand back.”
The officer, a lieutenant, tossed his ID to the sands and stepped back. Barry picked up the plastic-sealed ID and checked it. It looked legit. The picture matched the face. He handed the ID back to the man.
“I’m Barry Rivers. I don’t know who these dead men are.”
“We’re about to find out, Mr. Rivers. We were rolling to intercept you when we heard your trouble call.” He turned to a sergeant. “Notify the highway patrol. Block off this highway north and south. Call the base. Tell them I want CID out here, right now. Tell them to notify the FBI and the DOT. Move it.”
If there was any traffic that wanted to move north or south on 95 that morning, they were out of luck. The state police and MPs were in place within minutes, blocking the highway. A bird colonel came in by helicopter and took charge.
“There will be no press on this, Mr. Rivers,” he told Barry. “These things don’t happen often, but they have happened. We don’t allow press on the incidents.”
Obviously, the colonel and Barry shared the same opinion of many of the nation’s press types.
“I understand and quite agree, Colonel.”
“I thought you would, Colonel,” the colonel said dryly. Obviously, he had done some checking on Barry.
Barry smiled. “Laos, 1968. Right, Colonel?”
The man smiled. “Right. But we were both a long way from birds, then. Good to see you. I want to talk to you after this mess is cleared up. Right now, let’s see what it is you’re carrying that is so important.”
Barry started at the man. “You don’t know?”
“I have no idea, Barry,” the officer admitted. “All I know is that Rivers Trucking is bringing cargo to this drop-off point to be disposed of.” He smiled. “Government rules and regs, buddy. The business you’re in back in Maryland, you should be familiar with them.”
>
So he had been checked out—but why? “Quite,” Barry said.
Barry never did discover what he had been hauling. The reinforced and sealed containers were removed from the trailers and trucked away by soldiers. The brief and bloody combat area was cleaned up within an hour, with no sign of any struggle left for curious eyes. Highway 95 was reopened for civilian traffic and Barry and his people moved onto the Proving Grounds. Kate and the others were escorted to one camouflaged blockhouse; Barry and the colonel went to another. Both were comfortable and air-conditioned, with tables and bunks and offices.
The colonel waved Barry to a seat and poured them both mugs of coffee. “OK, Mr. Rivers,” he said. “It’s leveling time. What in the hell is a millionaire arms consultant and dealer, a bird colonel in a Green Beanie outfit, doing driving a goddamned truck?”
“I might ask why you know so much about me.” Barry countered.
“SST drivers get checked from asshole to elbows, Barry. Even in a hurry-up operation like this one seems to be.”
“I was wondering if the swiftness of all this might have come to your attention.”
“Not just my attention, but the attention of several people very high up in this nation’s security.” He paused, waiting.
Barry waited him out and down, remaining silent, watching the officer.
The colonel sighed. “I never did like cloak-and-dagger shit, Barry. That’s why I went back to being a line officer. Believe me, I did not ask for my present assignment. I suppose it’s what we both get for being A-Team men in our crazy youth.” His smile was filled with irony.
“You understand my reluctance to discuss this with you, then?” Barry asked.
“Yes, I suppose so. Those men who attacked your convoy were not carrying any IDs. If they’ve ever been finger-printed, we’ll find out who they are—eventually. But as you know only too well, it’s not as easy as the movies depict it. Without compromising yourself, or what you believe or suspect to be happening, what can you tell me?”
“We were attacked.”
The officer lost his temper. “Oh, come off it, goddammit! The Pentagon sent me your whole goddamn jacket, Colonel. They’re just as curious as I am about why you’re doing this. I’ll level with you, Colonel, whether or not you decide to play it straight with me. CID and ASA people started checking as soon as your name popped up as an SST driver. Somebody is pulling one hell of a scam— for want of a better word—down in New Orleans. I think one CID man called it a double-double-cross. It has more twists in it than a bag full of snakes. We know that somebody tried to make it appear that a local mobster named Fabrello was muscling in on your dad’s trucking business. But Fabrello doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it. It appears that a lieutenant in the Dixie Mafia, somebody named Bulgari, has a pipeline into and out of some government agencies in D.C. It also appears that we have anywhere from two to six renegade government agents, possibly from the FBI and the Justice Department. But we don’t know who they are. Do you?”
Barry shook his head. “No. I don’t know who the agents are.” Not a lie, for he didn’t know any of the agents. Just Linda O’Day.
“That was a neat trick you pulled with Treasury, Colonel. Very cute. But I’m not sure how smart a move it was.”
“Meaning? … ”
“You just might be a prime target for a setup. Are you aware of that possibility?”
“Yes. I believe it was the original plan by … somebody.”
“But you don’t know who that person might be?”
“I don’t have a clue, Colonel. That’s just one of the reasons I’m in this thing. To find out, if I can.”
The officer started at Barry. Barry could tell the man didn’t believe him. But who could he trust? Barry had no way of knowing who in the field might be involved in this matter.
“All right, Colonel Rivers,” the officer sighed. “Play it your way. If you ever get around to trusting me, give me a call. I’ll do what I can to help you.”
“I’ll bear that in mind. And thank you.”
“I have your traveling orders.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“Not we, Mr. Rivers. Just one truck with no escort. The rest of your people will proceed to the Desert Range Test Station in Utah. They’ll wait for the single truck there, while they’re being loaded. I get this feeling you’ll be driving the lone rig up to northern California?”
“You got that right, Colonel. Where in northern California?”
“The government has a small … test facility just south and west of Redding. Very small facility; very top secret. You’ll pick up some … material there.” He handed Barry several small envelopes. “Good luck, Colonel.”
“Am I going to need it?”
“Probably.”
Barry didn’t like the sound of that at all.
13
“We must be going to haul perishables, Barry,” Kate said, when Barry emerged from the blockhouse.
“Perishables? What are you talking about?”
“While you were in there talkin’, I was told to unhook one SST and hook up to a reefer.”
“Frozen-food trailer?”
“No. It’s a medium-temp reefer. We could backhaul dry freight in it. Right over there,” she said, pointing.
Barry could hear the refrigeration unit running.“They must want it cold when we get there.”
“Said they did. I asked what we’d be haulin’. Soldier said he didn’t know. He was just followin’ orders.”
At once, Barry thought of temperature-controlled explosive compounds, like nitro, which can get neither too hot nor too cold. But he rejected that within seconds after thinking it.
He looked around. The soldiers had worked fast at unloading; the Rivers trucks were empty and ready to roll, the containers off-loaded onto military trucks and already gone.
“Yeah,” Kate read his thoughts. “They sure don’t tarry.”
Barry waved his people over to the host shade of a trailer.
“Any word on who those guys were?” Cottonmouth asked.
Barry shook his head. “Not yet. Maybe never. OK, we have our traveling order. Kate and me, with no escort, will be heading up to northern California. The rest of you will be head to Utah.” He handed Jim his sealed orders.“It’s all in there. You’re to wait for us. I don’t know what we’re picking up; I don’t know what you’re picking up.”
“How come the reefer?” Beer Butt asked.
“There again,” Barry said, “I don’t know. Your route is all marked out. You know the rules. Take off.”
Jim hesitated.
“Something on your mind, Jim?” Barry asked.
“I don’t like the idea of us splittin’ up,” he said flatly.
“Neither do I. But I don’t know anything we can do about it. For what it’s worth, I think the colonel here is on the level. But I didn’t level with him; for obvious reasons.”
“Barry,” Coyote said. “Who can any of us trust in this?”
“Each other. And no one else.”
Kate took the first trick at the wheel after reviewing the preplanned route. “They sure got us routed funny,” she said. “But the government’s payin’ the bills, so here we go.”
Barry and Kate took 95 north, up to Interstate 10, then cut west. The logical route would be to stay on the interstate, but their orders were to pick up 95 again just east of Blythe and take that up to Interstate 40 at Needles, then cut west.
“That’s about a hundred miles of nothing,” Barry noted. “Stay at the wheel. I’ll ride shotgun until we hit the interstate.”
“If they’re going to hit us, Barry—whoever they might be—they might be thinking that after we clear 95, we’ll relax. You ever driven 40 miles from Needles to Barstow?”
“No.”
“About a hundred and forty miles of nothing. It’s interstate, but they could hit us there just as easily.”
Barry looked at the map and grimaced. “You’re right. Wel
l, we’re flying by the seat of our jeans, Kate. We’ll just have to take it as it comes. I’ll relieve you at Needles and we’ll fuel and feed at Barstow.”
“Let’s hope nothing happens. I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”
“That’s a big ten-four,” Barry said with a grin.
Kate groaned. “Jesus, Barry!”
Nothing did happen. The hot dusty miles peeled off behind them, as monotonous as the landscape that greeted them on both sides of the highway. At Needles, Kate swung the rig onto Interstate 40 and barreled west, the outline of the Sacramento Mountains to the south, the Providence Mountains to their northwest. They passed the Providence and stayed south of the Devil’s Playground, rolling through the Bristol Mountains. They drove through the southern most tip of Dry Troy Lake and pulled into a truck stop. Night was not far off.
“Eat and sleep?” Kate asked.
“In that order.”
Later, snuggling close in the big sleeper, Kate’s nakedness pushing softly against him, their hearts slowly calming after passion had cooled and softened, Kate sighed, her breath warm on Barry’s neck, and said, “I’ve seen a lot of fights on the road, Barry. Rough-and-tumble fistfights between drivers. I’ve seen guys get their teeth knocked out and their jaws busted and their nose flattened. I’ve seen, oh, I don’t know how many real bad wrecks, with people killed. But …”
She trailed it off and Barry picked it up, knowing what she was thinking. “But you’ve never seen anything like what went down this morning, right?”
“Yeah. Sorry I got sick.”
“Don’t be. It’s natural.”
“I mean … I didn’t even think about it when I shot that guy. I just lifted the shotgun and pulled the trigger. Now, I feel …” She struggled inwardly for a word. “Well … different. You know what I mean?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Did you get sick the first time you killed anybody?”
That flung Barry back twenty-five years. Back to the mean streets of New Orleans. Back when a street gang had confronted a fifteen-year-old boy and demanded his money. With about a dollar and a half in his jeans, Barry had decided it wasn’t worth fighting over. He handed over his money. Then the leader of the gang shoved Barry back into the darkness of an alley, unzipped his pants, and told Barry to get on his knees and suck his cock.
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