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  “CRAZY SON OF A BITCH!” KATE SCREAMED.

  Bright sparks flashed in the night as the men in the back seat of the lead car began firing at the Kenworth. Slugs whined off the cab. Barry lowered his window, leaned out, and gave the sedan a full clip from his Uzi.

  “Ram him!” Barry yelled.

  Kate shifted and plowed into the rear of the car. Sparks flew as the rear tires of the sedan blew out and the frame and bumper began dragging the concrete. The sedan spun crazily in the road and then went over the side. Kate and Barry could hear the screams of the men in the doomed vehicle.

  The car turned end over end and was soon lost from sight in the misty night.

  “One down,” Barry muttered.

  Look for these heart-pounding thrillers by William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone, available wherever books are sold.

  KNOCKDOWN

  RIG WARRIOR

  WHEELS OF DEATH

  18 WHEEL AVENGER

  TRIGGER WARNING

  THE DOOMSDAY BUNKER

  BLACK FRIDAY

  TYRANNY

  STAND YOUR GROUND

  SUICIDE MISSION

  THE BLEEDING EDGE

  THE BLOOD OF PATRIOTS

  HOME INVASION

  JACKKNIFE

  REMEMBER THE ALAMO

  INVASION USA

  INVASION USA: BORDER WAR

  VENGEANCE IS MINE

  PHOENIX RISING

  PHOENIX RISING: FIREBASE FREEDOM

  PHOENIX RISING: DAY OF JUDGMENT

  RIG WARRIOR

  William W. Johnstone

  Pinnacle Books

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.pinnaclebooks.com

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 1987 by William W. Johnstone

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Pinnacle and the P logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  First Printing: May, 1987

  First Pinnacle Printing: July, 2000

  eISBN-13:978-0-7860-4795-6

  eISBN-10: 0-7860-4795-X

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is dedicated to Steve and Barbara Benson, good friends of mine. Without their help, this book would not have been possible. I would also like to thank Karen and Edwin Smith, Gerald B. Simpson, W. J. and Mary Lopez, and all the thousands of truck drivers rolling throughout this country. It’s about time somebody recognized their efforts!

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  1

  He didn’t think of his dad every time he saw an eighteen-wheeler; if he did that, he’d be thinking of his dad all the time and would never get any work done.

  It was when he was tired from battling the bureaucrats, or looking at figures all day, or trying to convince some general who never should have risen above the rank of private that whatever idea the general had come up with sucked … that’s when Barry would lean back in his chair in his Washington office and look out the window. More than likely there’d be an eighteen-wheeler on the not-too-distant interstate, twin chrome stacks gleaming in the sun as it hurtled along the road. Sometimes he’d hear the lonesome sounds of air horns drifting to him, through the glass and steel and concrete of his office.

  And he’d think of his dad.

  Then he’d have to shake himself like a big shaggy dog, drag himself out of his daydreaming, and come back to reality.

  Sometimes he’d make it back and sometimes he wouldn’t.

  And sometimes he’d feel guilty.

  He had to make plans to go back to New Orleans and spend some time with his dad. He hadn’t seen him in over two years. He’d just been so damn busy. Oh, he talked with his dad every two or three weeks. But that wasn’t the same as seeing him.

  And, come to think of it, the last four or five talks they’d had … well, he thought he’d detected something odd-sounding in his father’s voice. Maybe a touch of strain. Fear? Yeah, maybe. First time he’d thought of that word. But maybe fear was it.

  Barry Rivers’s father afraid of something?

  Barry chuckled at that. He couldn’t imagine Big Joe Rivers being afraid of the devil himself.

  But the old man was sixty now; and age does funny things to a person.

  Ah, hell! Come on, Barry. You’re imagining things. Reading something into the old man’s voice that isn’t really there.

  Or was he?

  “Barry?” his secretary’s voice brought him out of his musings.

  He looked at the woman. Maggie. His secretary, his Mom-figure. Sixty years old and looking fifty. Barry could not imagine his office running without her. His own mother had died when Barry was ten. He could just remember her.

  For sure, Barry clung to his musings, his father had to be lonesome.

  “Maggie. What’d I forget?”

  “Nothing that I know of. You need a vacation, Barry. More and more I look in here and see you a thousand miles away.”

  Barry waved at the neat piles of paper on his desk. “Tell me how I take a vacation?”

  Air horns sounded on the interstate. Barry looked out the window. A Peterbilt pulling a flatbed. Right behind the Peterbilt, a White Tall Sleeper pulling a dry van.

  “Barry!” Maggie said.

  Barry looked back at her, a sheepish grin on his face. He was forty and didn’t look it. Five feet ten inches. One hundred and seventy-five hard pounds. Barry kept himself hard by working out one hour each day in his home gym, and several hours a day on the weekends—when time permitted it. And he usually made time permit it. He’d kicked cigarettes several years back, and still marveled at how good food tasted since he’d quit smoking. Black hair still mostly free of gray, except around the temple area, and deep blue eyes. Handsome in a rugged sort of way. He had never been called a pretty boy. His chin was square and solid.

  “Damn gypsy,” Maggie fussed at him.

  “Cajun,” Barry corrected, although he knew she was referring to his truck-driving youth and not his heritage.

  His herita
ge had given him a volatile temper: Irish on his mother’s side, Cajun French on his father’s side.

  He had learned over the years to control his ragin’ Cajun temper, but he could still fly off the handle and do it so fast the person it was directed toward usually had the hell scared out of them.

  “Barry,” Marrie gently chided him. “Your work is caught up. Go home for a while.”

  “Is that an order, General?”

  “Damn sure is, Colonel,” she popped back.

  He was kidding her about the General bit, but she wasn’t about the Colonel bit.

  He’d graduated from high school in New Orleans at sixteen, top of his class. Two years in college at Lafayette, working during the summers driving for his dad. And then, bored, he’d left school and joined the Army. Jump school, Ranger school, and then into OCS. From OCS he’d headed for the Special Warfare schools at Fort Bragg. Seventh Special Forces. Eighteen months later, he was a captain, CO of an A-Team in Southeast Asia. He spent four years in Vietnam, and the promotions hit him as fast as the lead his body soaked up during that time. Three times wounded, three times promoted. But the events were in no way related.

  When he got out, he stayed in the Reserves while finishing his education, driving a rig for his father on the weekends and during college breaks.

  The driving had been fun; college had not been. He was a decorated war hero out of an unpopular war. And while the antiwar sentiment had never been strong in Louisiana—Southern boys have a tendency to be very patriotic—there was enough antiwar sentiment to make him uncomfortable.

  It was in Lafayette he’d met Julie.

  She was definitely antiwar. From New Hampshire. Old family with lots of money. Bluenoses. Bluebellies, Barry liked to kid her, until he discovered she had practically no sense of humor when it came to the War Between the States, as he called it. The Civil War, as she referred to it.

  Opposites attract, and they got married. Very large mistake. The marriage lasted through the sometimes-stormy, oftentimes-silent, cold years. Julie left him in ’76. Happy bicentennial, Barry. She’d taken the two kids that weekend he’d been doing his Reserve bit and hauled ass back to New Hampshire. Lawyers handled the rest of it.

  By the time the breakup came, Barry had moved the family to Washington and was working as a civilian consultant to the U.S. Army. Weapons expert. He’d traveled a lot. Julie had bitched a lot—and had turned the kids against him. Barry Junior and Missy were coming out of that now, but it had taken years.

  Maybe he did need a vacation. Hell, he knew he did.

  As if reading his mind, Maggie said, “But not this week, Barry. Tie up all the loose ends, and by Friday, you’ll be clear for a month. Nothing on the agenda the rest of the guys can’t handle.”

  He smiled at her. “What would I do without you, Maggie?”

  “Get to work, Barry. We’ve got a lot to do this week.”

  Maggie stuck her head into his office. “It’s five-thirty, Barry.”

  He couldn’t believe it. He glanced at his wristwatch. Sure was five-thirty. “Rest of the people gone?”

  “About thirty minutes ago. I’m leaving now, unless there’s anything else.”

  He shook his head. “No. I’ll just finish up these reports and then lock everything up. See you in the morning.”

  He listened to her footsteps fade, then the sounds of the door closing, the dead-bolt lock engaging. There’d been a lot of break-ins around here recently, and people were becoming more security-conscious than ever.

  Barry’s consultant firm was located in Maryland, about a block and a half from the Beltway. At first he had located in D.C. proper, but after two years of fighting the congestion of that myriad of screwed-up streets, he tossed in the towel and moved to Maryland.

  It had been a good move.

  He looked at the stacks of paper on his huge desk and sighed. He had made a dent in them, but it was going to be tough to get away Friday afternoon.

  He checked his day’s appointments to be certain he had not scheduled anything for that evening. Good. Nothing. He didn’t feel like seeing anyone. And didn’t feel like going to his apartment for dinner. He’d call for something. Maybe a pizza; have it delivered and work ’til about ten or so. By that time he’d be tired enough to hit the sheets and get a good night’s sleep.

  Then he decided to call his dad. It had been several weeks since he’d spoken with him. He punched the speedcaller and listened to the phone ring at his father’s house. No answer. He redialed, calling his dad’s office at the terminal. Somebody was there twenty-four hours a day.

  Rivers Trucking employed thirty-five full-time drivers, in addition to the office workers, dispatchers, mechanics, and other workers.

  But there was no answer.

  Now, that was weird.

  Well, the office workers would have gone home by now, and maybe the dispatcher was taking a leak. He’d try again later.

  He leaned back in his padded leather chair and smiled. Hell, Big Joe was probably out on the road. He knew his dad had just bought a couple million dollars’ worth of new equipment; Kenworth conventionals. The W900Bs. And he knew his dad disliked office work vehemently; and he’d have his own tractor, which no one would dare touch except Big Joe. He’d have it outfitted to his liking; the interior of the cab probably done in red leather or vinyl, hand-sewn, with a soft, full headliner. Air Cushion seat, orthopedically shaped and padded to best support, properly, the human body at work. Big Joe was worth a lot of money, but he was a driver at heart, and he would have the best for his people. Big Joe paid his people well, and demanded the max from them.

  Barry wondered how many women he had working for him. Big Joe had gritted his teeth and done a lot of bitching when women first went to work driving, and not all of them made it with Rivers Trucking. Those that did were top-of-the-line truckers, and they wouldn’t take any shit from male drivers, either.

  Barry shook his head free of memories and musings and went back to work.

  Odd, though, that no one answered the telephone.

  2

  Barry finished the first stack of reports before he thought he would. He stood up, stretching until his muscles protested and his joints popped, then turned out the desk lamp and got ready to close up.

  He’d tried three more times to call his dad in New Orleans. Never gotten anyone to answer. And that was beginning to worry him.

  He flipped the desk lamp back on and picked up an address book. Crap! He’d never get to sleep unless he found out something about his dad. He looked up the home number of Jim Carson, a man who’d been with Big Joe for over twenty years, and punched out the number.

  His wife, Ginny, answered the phone.

  “Barry!” she said, her affection for him evident over the distance. “It’s so good to hear from you. You still baching it?”

  “Oh, yeah. Ginny, is Jim there?”

  “No. He just called from Memphis. He picked up a load there; taking it to Chicago.”

  “Ginny, I’m trying to get in touch with Dad. I called the plant, but couldn’t get an answer.”

  “Well …” she hesitated.

  “Come on, Ginny. What’s wrong down there?”

  “Big Joe had to cut back on personnel, Barry. It’s just the bad times; you know. The terminal is dark at night.”

  Barry didn’t believe that for a second. Rivers Trucking had been in the good black on anybody’s books for years. But let Ginny play it her way.

  “So where’s Dad?”

  “Barry, now don’t get excited; it’s nothing serious. But he’s in the hospital.”

  “The hospital?”

  “Barry, calm down. Joe will be back home tomorrow. I’m going to pick him up personally. He just had … an accident, that’s all.”

  That’s all? “What kind of accident, Ginny?”

  “Wrench slipped. Broke, I think. Busted some ribs.”

  Should I tell her I’m coming down? No, he made up his mind. No, and I won’t tell
Pop, either. ’Cause Ginny is holding back from me. Or flat-out lying. “OK, Ginny. I’ll call him at home tomorrow. You’ll tell him?”

  “Sure, Barry. You take care now.”

  She hung up.

  Strange, Barry thought, replacing the receiver. Something is wrong down there. Very wrong.

  He checked the offices and small kitchen/lounge, turning out the lights, slipped into his sport coat, and set the alarm system. He stepped out into the coolness of early spring and walked to the parking area of Rivers Consulting. He was deep in thought and not expecting trouble. It jarred him when two men stepped out of the darkness, one facing him, the other behind him.

  “No trouble, now, buddy,” the man facing him said. “Just hand over your money and watch and money clip. You rich bastards carry them, I know.”

  It took Barry about two seconds to get over his surprise. Then he got mad as hell.

  Barry Rivers had worked hard all his life. He had no patience with those who chose the so-called “easy way.” And Barry was no cherry when it came to hand-to-hand fighting. He’d grown up rough-and-tumble, around wildcat drivers; he had worked the oil fields, both actively and hauling equipment to them.

  And he hated punks. He knew the definition of that word had changed over the years, at least in certain quarters, but to him a punk was still a punk: a low-down, worthless, thieving son of a bitch.

  He had no way of knowing whether the men were armed. He could see no weapons; neither man was carrying a visible knife or gun. His Cajun temper boiled to the surface, then his hard training took precedence, softening his sudden rage, chilling him, honing him back into what Uncle Sammy had made him: a killing machine.

  He suddenly whirled, his right foot kicking up as high as a ballet dancer’s, the side of his shoe catching the man who had faced him on the side of his jaw. The man stumbled backward, blood leaking from the side of his mouth. Barry completed his full-circle whirl and came face to face with the other man, crouching, his hands open, moving in the classic unarmed combat stance.

  “Hey, man!” the punk said just before Barry popped him on the side of the face with his left hand and broke his collarbone with the knife edge of his right hand.