18 Wheel Avenger Read online

  “Yes. We know. Then you failed to keep it. And now you are traveling with a killer-dog. Curious, to say the least.”

  “I have to have both sides of the story,” George told him.

  “That would be a first,” Cutter said, disgust in her voice.

  Barry nodded his head in agreement. “If the silly bastard isn’t real careful, he’s going to end up on a hit list.”

  “Maybe that’s the only way the press is ever going to wise up?”

  “They’ve been grabbed before and they haven’t seen the light yet,” Barry reminded her.

  “That is true.”

  “I think you are a traitor, George Stanton. I think you are probably working for the CIA.”

  Both Barry and Cutter got a big kick out of that.

  “I most certainly am not!” George spoke with real indignation in his voice.

  “I think you are a lying Yankee pig! I think your true colors have finally been exposed. You were on your way to kill Darin, weren’t you?”

  “Don’t be absurd, you idiot!”

  “I think you will not die well, George.”

  “Now!” Barry yelled.

  Cutter leaned out the window and blew a hole in one back tire of the terrorists’ rig. She shifted the muzzle and blew out a fist-sized chunk from a tire on the other side.

  The rig slowed. Cutter fired again, missed, and jacked the hammer back, firing again. With two tires on one side now ruined, the trailer leaned to one side and slowed. Barry swung into the left lane just as Cutter was ramming home fresh rounds from a speed-loader.

  She emptied the pistol into the cab of the terrorist rig, not trying to maintain pistol control by shooting through the glass alone, for with the .44 mag and its custom-loads, it could shoot through several inches of solid metal.

  Cutter started several feet below the glass and let it bang. The terrorist rig headed for the ditch and stopped abruptly when the tractor impacted with a rock wall.

  Barry didn’t know if Bonnie was filming or not; if not, she was missing one hell of an opportunity.

  One door of the trailer of the last remaining terrorist convoy flew open and the lead started flying from automatic weapons, the slugs whining and howling off the bulletproof metal and windshield of Barry’s tractor. Cutter tossed the big .44 mag to the floorboards and grabbed up her CAR, checking to see that the weapon was set on full automatic.

  “Careful!” Barry shouted, over the rush of wind coming through her open window.

  She opened the side vent wide, shoving the muzzle of the CAR under the bulletproof glass and between the mirror mounts and pulled the trigger, holding it back.

  The CAR hammered out its death song, the thirty-round clip quickly emptying.

  But she had cleared the trailer door of terrorists. Barry’s lights picked up on two bodies, sprawled in death on the trailer floor. The others had ducked behind the dubious protection of the closed door.

  Cutter taught them a hard lesson by picking up the .44 mag, loading it full, and blowing jagged holes in the trailer door.

  Barry had stayed in the left lane, giving Cutter a better firing advantage, but also exposing George and Bonnie to terrorist fire.

  He had hoped they would fall back. They did not. They had pulled even closer, giving Bonnie better shots with the minicam.

  The driver of the terrorist truck was trying to escape, but his rig was no match for the custom Kenworth of Barry’s.

  “Let’s take them out, Cutter!” Barry yelled.

  She nodded her head and reloaded the big mag.

  Barry easily caught up with the terrorist truck and pulled even.

  Cutter emptied the .44 mag into the cab as Barry roared past, wanting to be clear as the big rig lost control under the dead hands of the terrorist driver.

  The truck abruptly shot to the right and left the interstate, sailing for a few yards, all tires spinning in empty space. It landed hard, the trailer breaking loose from the fifth wheel and rolling, splintering open, spilling bodies as it rolled. The tractor went end over end and landed on its top, steel and glass crushing and tearing anything that might have been left alive in the cab.

  Cutter was shaking her right hand, the wrist numbed from the jarring of the .44 mag.

  Both Barry and Cutter had ringing ears from the sounds of combat, and rolling up the window helped but a little.

  Barry grabbed the mike. “Everything all right back there, George?”

  He turned up the volume to compensate for their temporary loss of hearing.

  “I … guess so,” George radioed. His voice sounded a bit shaky.

  “What do you mean, you guess so? Is anybody hit?”

  “No. No, we’re all right. But the windshield has several bullet holes in it. Bonnie got a lot of the action on tape. That man I was speaking with was totally insane!”

  “Yeah. You’re learning something about terrorists, George. All the gauges reading okay on your Bronco?”

  A few seconds of silence. “Yes. Everything appears to be all right.”

  “Stay with us. We’ll stop outside of Denver, before dawn, and I’ll take a hammer to that windshield. You can tell the glass replacement people that vandals did a job on you.”

  “All right. Barry? I made a serious mistake back there, didn’t I? Telling that … person my name.”

  “Depends on whether someone ahead or behind was monitoring our transmissions, or whether some of those jerks survived. But I’d say, yeah, you’re on a hit list, George. And, George… ?”

  “Yes?”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  14

  Barry and Cutter stayed in the truck parking area and watched as a crew from a glass replacement company out of Denver replaced the windshield in the Bronco.

  Then, while Bonnie went to the restroom, Barry took all the cans of film she’d shot.

  “You’ll get it back,” he assured George. “But only after our faces have been censored out. I give you my word on that.”

  “Oddly enough, I believe you.” The reporter lit a cigarette. Barry noticed that his hands trembled slightly. George caught Barry’s look and smiled. “You should have seen me a couple of hours ago. This is calm compared to then.”

  “How did Bonnie take the combat situation?”

  “Very well. It didn’t seem to bother her. But then, camera-people are a strange bunch to begin with.”

  Barry laughed and patted the reporter on the shoulder.

  “You’re all right, George. For a liberal,” he added, then walked back to his rig.

  Air Force special operations people met them in Denver and took both the rig and the Bronco to be serviced and checked and placed under guard. Captain Barnett had checked them into a motel on the outskirts of the city, and met with Barry and Cutter in his room.

  “Bonnie O’Neal checks out sort of funky,” Barnett informed them. “She dropped out of college after two years. Then went to work for a small TV station. That’s how she got interested in film work. We can’t link her to any group with terrorist ties. She’s a registered democrat and avowed liberal. Strong Tim Clayton worker; believes in gun control, which is in direct contradiction to your finding that thirty-eight in her gear.”

  “There appears to be a lot more to Miss O’Neal than meets the eye,” Barry said.

  “I’m sure you’d be quite the expert on that,” Cutter noted.

  Barnett looked confused. “I’m missing something here.”

  Barry waved his hand. “Forget it. Private joke. What’s the word on Darin Grady?”

  “We believe he’s linked up with this Ja person. He’s somewhere in California. And Bakhitar has left Chicago and is believed to have joined up with Grady and Ja. My people recovered two live terrorists from last night’s attack on you and Cutter. We flew them to an Air Force facility in Nebraska. Under heavy guard. Our guards. They won’t escape.”

  “Get anything out of them.” Cutter asked.

  He shook his head. “No. And don’t expec
t to until they’re recovered from injuries and we can shoot them full of joy-juice and question them. Of course that violates their constitutional rights and nothing they say can be used in a court of law. But we didn’t expect to try them openly anyway.”

  Neither Barry nor Cutter had anything to say about that. Both knew that if Captain Barnett could have his way, there would not be any trial at all. The two terrorists would simply disappear.

  “Let’s get back to Bonnie O’Neal,” Barry suggested.

  “I’m sure you’d like that.” Cutter smiled.

  Barry sighed.

  Captain Barnett got it then. He grinned at Barry. “The price one must sometimes pay in serving one’s country, huh, Dog?”

  “You got that right.”

  Cutter had some choice words to say about that, then calmed down when Barry and Barnett both began laughing at her antics.

  “All right! All right!” she said. “Let me ask you both this: is there a chance Miss O’Neal is a government plant?”

  Barnett’s eyes narrowed. “Interesting thought. But you don’t mean from any agency who would be understanding of what we do, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Like,” Barry mused aloud, “from some rich senator’s office. That same senator who just might have presidential aspirations and who would just love to get some dirt about covert activities going on within the boundaries of this country?”

  “And who would just love to get some dirt about this mysterious Dog who is a one-man wrecking crew?” Barnett added.

  “Bingo!” Cutter said with a frown.

  Barnett walked to the door and waved one of his people inside. “Don’t let Bonnie O’Neal out of your sight and arrange for someone to put a tap on her phone. Right now! And send Jamison in here.”

  He turned back to Barry and Cutter. “We’re going to have to walk light on this. Senator Tim Clayton is no little known name. And he’s got one hell of a campaign going for him. He’s strong presidential contender for next year’s election.”

  “God help the country if he’s elected,” Barry said. “That son of a bitch will give it away lock, stock, and barrel.”

  Cutter had picked up the dossier on Bonnie O’Neal. “She worked as a cameraperson in Connecticut and then for a time in Massachusetts. The network picked her up last year. Why would they assign someone with less than a year’s experience to do a story with a top-gun name like George Stanton?”

  “Maybe because her network makes very little effort to disguise its almost fanatical hatred of our President,” Barnett said. “Ever since the President referred to the head of that network’s news department as a man with about as much patriotic responsibility as a toadstool, they’ve been gunning for him.”

  Barry laughed, remembering the incident well.

  And the big flap it had caused.

  The head of the news department demanded an apology from the President. The President of the United States told the news head to go suck an egg.

  “We’re concentrating pretty heavily on Bonnie,” Cutter said, grudgingly. “But let’s don’t forget about George.”

  “We haven’t,” Barnett assured her. “But George Stanton is clean. He was raised in a well-off and totally committed democratic-leaning environment. His father was an avowed Republican-hater. George came up the same way. A nonviolent person. He was too young for Korea, and his number never came up for Vietnam. George is slightly pompous, sometimes overbearing, always liberal-leaning in his reporting. But in his own way, he’s very decent and caring person. He contributes heavily to animal-rights organizations, is opposed to laboratory experimentation on animals, helps to support several needy children through contributions … that sort of thing. George can be a potatohead, but he’s basically all right. Married for eight years. His wife died. Never remarried.”

  “Brings it back to Bonnie,” Barry said.

  A knock on the door and Barnett jerked it open, admitting Sergeant Gale.

  “One of our people just got this back from Hays,” the sergeant said. “That call Bonnie O’Neal made last night? She called Senator Tim Clayton’s Washington, D.C. number. Talked for four and a half minutes.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  The sergeant left the room.

  “I got an idea,” Barry said. “But for it to work, George is going to have to go along with it.”

  Barnett pulled up a chair. “Let’s hear it.”

  George was appalled. Outraged. Indignant. “That is the most unconscionable thing I have ever heard of. To violate the news in such a manner. I will do my best to have Miss O’Neal dismissed!”

  “Oh, settle down, George.” Barry stood up. “Hell, I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Pleased!”

  “Well, you’d get to shaft the administration. That’s what you people try to do every time I’ve ever turned on the news.”

  George studied him. “That’s sad, Barry—that you would feel that way.”

  “Oh?”

  “We just report the news.”

  “As you see it.”

  “Ummm! Perhaps. You don’t want Miss O’Neal taken off this assignment?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to set her up.”

  Cutter snickered. “Or down.”

  Barry looked at her. Sighed.

  “I don’t understand,” George admitted.

  Barry explained.

  George smiled. Then laughed. “My father is probably spinning in his grave. But all right, Barry. It’ll serve all three of them right. Assuming the news chief is involved. Assuming any of it is true. When does this operation start?”

  “It’ll take about two days to set it up.” He looked at Barnett and received a nod of confirmation. “That’ll give us forty-eight hours to rest and relax.”

  George studied him with cool eyes. “I think, Barry, that I do not ever want you for an enemy.”

  “That would probably be wise,” Barry agreed.

  Every move that Bonnie O’Neal was making was being observed. Her room was bugged and her phone tapped. She was covered like a blanket. A lip reader had been brought in if she decided to make a call from a phone booth and the shotgun mikes were unable to pick her up, which was unlikely.

  They had all rested, napped, and relaxed the rest of that day. At seven o’clock that evening, Barry knocked on Cutter’s door.

  Barnett had reserved suites for them all. Very private ones. Seems this particular motel was used by nearly all intelligence-gathering organizations, and the rooms were soundproofed and bug-clean.

  Barry was counting on soundproof.

  And he would prefer not to have it recorded, either.

  Barry had watched room service bring Cutter’s dinner to her about an hour earlier. She had obviously just taken a shower and dried her hair.

  He wondered if she was wearing anything under her robe.

  “Well!” Cutter said. “Isn’t this a surprise. You decide to let Bonnie rest this evening?”

  She was joking, and Barry knew it. But the joke was beginning to wear a little thin.

  “Your bluff is called, Cutter.”

  “What bluff, Dog?”

  He stepped in and pushed her back. She was a big strong woman, and Barry had to put some muscle behind the push.

  Her eyes narrowed and her face flushed. She was a dangerous woman, and Barry was fully aware of that fact.

  “I call the shots concerning bed partners, Dog!” She spat the code name at him.

  “Like I said, calling your bluff.”

  “No way, Dog!”

  Barry laughed and jerked at the sash of her robe. It parted. Underneath—pure Cutter.

  She swung at him and he ducked, his right hand shoving out, catching her on the chest and landing her butt-first on the bed.

  She kicked at him and he grabbed a bare foot and turned her over, her robe bunching up around her hips.

  “You got great buns, Cutter.”

>   She clamped down on his arm with her teeth and drew blood.

  He brought the palm of his left hand down sharply on her bare butt and left a red mark.

  She yelped and caught him on the side of the head with a fist that knocked him flat off the bed and onto the floor.

  He grabbed an ankle and hauled her off the bed, rolling her up in her robe.

  “You son of a bitch!” she hissed at him.

  No shouting or screaming on her part. Just hitting and kicking and biting. And none of that very serious. Not nearly as seriously as she knew how.

  He manhandled her up off the floor and onto the bed, stripping her of her robe along the way.

  She was one hell of a magnificent woman, in the absolutely peak of physical fitness.

  She lay on the bed, passive, looking up at him.

  “You want to fight some more, Cutter?”

  “I’d rather not. I wouldn’t want to bruise your ego by actually kicking your skinny ass.”

  He tugged off his boots and in a moment stood naked before her eyes.

  Her eyes touched every scar on his muscular body.

  He lay down beside her and stroked her flesh. “This is more fun than fighting, isn’t it?”

  “So far,” she said with a sigh.

  After a few moments, he parted her legs. “Any suggestions, Cutter?”

  She reached out and grasped him.

  “Just keep on truckin’, Dog,” she said.

  15

  Barry’s truck had been replaced by a look-alike Kenworth. It was standard SST. It was still bulletproof and armor plated, but without the hidden compartments in Barry’s custom rig. Same color, same make, same model.

  “This move is going to break the back of terrorists,” Barry told George and Bonnie, knowing that Bonnie knew absolutely nothing about trucks and trailers. “We’ll be heading east in twenty-four hours. Inside that specially equipped trailer will be a squad of CIA-trained mercenaries, heavily armed.” The trailer was actually filled with government-sealed crates of parts for M-60 machine guns and M-16s. There were five crates of the newly adopted military sidearm: the Beretta 9mm, and crates of holsters for the weapon. And several crates filled with highly classified decoding machines.

  “So you’re going to lure the terrorists out and then gun them down like vicious animals?” Bonnie asked, her blues bright with anticipation.