But Barry had definite views about dying. He had already grabbed up his Uzi and was leaning out of the window, bracing himself as best he could, and hauling back the trigger, letting the Uzi spit and snarl its death song in the night.
He worked the Uzi left to right, fast-changed the clip, and poured another thirty rounds into the now blood-splattered interiors of the bob trucks.
One terrorist slipped and Barry and Cutter watched as his mouth opened in a scream they could see but not hear. He dropped his AK-47 and flailed his arms, trying to maintain his balance on the blood-slippery floor of the moving truck. He fell down and tumbled out onto the slab.
He was mashed into a greasy spot on the super slab, under the tires of the rig, Cutter making no effort to avoid squashing him like the vermin he was.
Barry had changed clips, placed the Uzi on the floorboards, and had jerked out Cutter’s big .44 mag. He put three shots where he felt the driver’s head should be, the killer-bullets knocking great holes in the wall. The bob truck slewed to one side and collided with the bob truck in the right lane, knocking it onto the shoulder. The right-lane truck recovered and fell back just as the bob truck in the passing lane left the slab and went rolling out into the grassy median, turning over end over end.
Barry reloaded with the speed-loader just as Cutter, without being told, roared up alongside the remaining bob truck. Barry emptied the .44 mag into the cab of the truck and then Cutter was past them, putting the pedal to the metal. The big Kenworth, with its custom-built engine, screamed westward, howling like an enraged wolf.
The driverless bob truck left the slab and went sailing to the right, tires spinning and biting into emptiness. It landed on all wheels and broke apart, bodies being flung into the cold night air.
Barry reloaded the .44 mag and laid it on the dash, jerking up the mike. “Come on, Camel-breath!” he challenged. “Let’s mix it up some more.”
But the truck behind them had slowed and was exiting south on highway 6. They wanted no more from Cutter and the Dog.
Not on this night.
“Another time, Dog,” was the parting message coming out of the speaker.
Cutter took the mike. “We’ll damn sure be waiting for you, buddy-boy.”
“Despicable woman! You will die hard, bitch!”
Cutter’s face tightened and she began tracing his ancestry back across the sands—or perhaps, the south side of Chicago. By the time she got through, they were out of normal CB range.
When Barry finished laughing, he said, “Did anybody ever tell you you’re pretty when you’re angry?”
But Cutter was in no mood for jokes. She pointed a gloved finger at the CB speaker. “Buttholes like that give me a royal pain!”
“You’ll get no argument from me about that, Cutter.” He was punching fresh loads into empty clips for the Uzi.
Cutter was barreling westward on the super slab, about twenty miles east of Iowa City. She checked the speedometer and slowed down to sixty. She took several deep breaths and calmed herself. “And they hate women,” she added.
Barry kept punching live loads into clips and offered no comment.
Cutter glanced at him and a slow smile curved her lips. “Sorry. I do get carried away at times.”
“I understand.”
“Do you, Barry?”
“Yes. I think so. I think I know what you’re saying. Just like my dad, I worked very hard, eighteen and twenty hours a day for years to build my business. Dad would have sent me through college, but I chose to work my way through. Education is available for anyone who wants it. If not formally, they can educate themselves. No one has the right to remain ignorant and expect something for nothing. Am I close?”
“Yes. But what is disturbing to those of us who have dedicated our lives to stamping out terrorism, is this: many, if not most terrorists are really quite intelligent.”
“In book sense,” Barry countered. “They lack common sense.” He smiled.
Cutter caught the smile. “What’s so funny?”
“We’ve just killed a dozen men and women. And we’re riding along having a philosophical discussion, without either of us showing any signs of remorse. Have we become as callous as the people we’re fighting?”
“In a way. That’s just part of the hazards involved in this job. To successfully combat terrorism, one has to understand it, and when one does, one faces going off the deep end.”
Barry laid the recently filled clips for the Uzi in the small bag. He took the grenades off the dash and placed them in the bag and zipped it closed. He holstered the big .44 mag and stowed away the freshly filled speed-loaders.
“All tidied up,” he said. “All in a day’s work, I suppose is one way of looking at it.”
She glanced at him. “Regrets, Barry?”
“About tonight?”
“About what we’re doing?”
“Not a one. Way I look at it is this: the cops, the badge-carrying men and women, are just barely holding their own. To tell you the truth, I’m really beginning to think there might be some loss. So somebody has to be out here, hip deep in crap, trying to balance the odds. That’s me. And for a time, you.”
“Something else my people told me back in Knoxville, Barry.”
He waited.
“My new orders have already been cut. I’m heading for Europe.”
“When we get to California?” Barry guessed.
“Yes.”
She smiled.
He looked at her. “What are you smiling about? Are you that damn anxious to get rid of me?”
She laughed at him. “No. But it’s like I told the guys back at the motel.”
Again, he waited.
“I told them it might take us quite a while to make this run.”
He smiled at her. “Next rest area we come to, pull in.”
“Why?”
“I’ll show you when we get there.”
“Is it vegetable, animal, or mineral?” She grinned.
“Pure animal.”
23
Cutter was still sleeping when dawn broke forth behind the westward-bound rig.
Both knew that this joining together would probably be the last, and Barry made it last as long as he could physically hold back.
Now they were a few miles east of Des Moines and the weather had turned colder.
But a car had been following the rig for many miles, and Barry suspected conditions were about to warm up considerably.
“Cutter!” he called over his shoulder. “Get your pants on, kid. I think we’re about to have company.”
She dressed quickly and slid up front, her eyes checking the mirror.
“That black car behind us?”
“That’s the one. And I’m thinking something else, too: we’re causing them too much grief. Costing them too many lives and bringing too much attention to them. No matter how much they’d love to have the cargo they think we’re carrying, I believe we’ve taken top priority.”
“And they’ll use whatever is at their disposal to take us out.” Statement.
“That’s the way I see it.”
“Have you played cat and mouse with them yet?”
“Not yet. I thought I’d let you get a few more minutes of sleep.”
“So let us get on with it, boy.” She lifted the carpet and tugged open the compartment, taking out one of the sawed-off pump shotguns. The shotguns were loaded with three-inch magnums, pushing number 2 buckshot.
She Ka-shucked a round into the chamber.
Barry slowed down. The car behind them slowed. He speeded up. The car behind them speeded up.
Barry glanced at a map, and at the next junction, headed northeast on 65. “There isn’t a town for about forty miles, Cutter. First good turnaround, let’s get out of this rig and take the fight to them, how about it?”
“Suits me fine. I need to stretch my legs anyway.”
“You want a shotgun?”
“Naw. I’ll stick with the Uzi.” He glanced at his
mirror. “Well, well, now! We have more company joining the parade.”
Cutter glanced into the left-side junior west-coast mirror. “I’d say so. Can you make out how many are in that lead car?”
“Four, I think. Four to a car makes twelve, Cutter. Hell, that’s just six apiece. We got them outnumbered.”
They rolled on for another ten miles, and that put them smack-dab in the middle of nowhere.
“That looks like a real good place right over there, Barry.” She pointed to an abandoned farm complex.
Barry turned in and drove right through the chained and locked gate with the sign: ABSOLUTELY NO TRESPASSING BY ORDER OF SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT.
The Kenworth smashed the gate flat.
The three cars followed, but had fallen back, unsure of what the Dog was doing.
“We going to step out and just start shooting, Barry?”
“Sure are,” he said cheerfully.
“We don’t even know they’re terrorists.”
Barry had stopped. The three cars had stopped. Barry noticed CB antennas on the trunks of all three. He picked up his mike.
“Get ready to bail out.” He stuffed a grenade in each jacket pocket and then lifted the mike to his lips. “This is the Dog. Come and get me, assholes!”
Both of them jumped from the truck as the cars surged forward, rear tires kicking up gravel as they spun forward.
Cutter jerked the shotgun to her shoulder and punched a hole in the windshield and tore off the face of the driver of the lead car. The car went out of control for a few seconds until the man on the passenger side could grab the wheel and step on the brakes.
Barry leveled the Uzi and held the trigger back, completely ruining the day for the men in the second car. He was changing clips when Cutter’s shotgun roared three times, as fast as she could pump it.
He heard the sound of bullets hit her body and out of the corner of his eyes, watched her fall.
He took the fight to the terrorists—those who remained. And they were trying to get out of the car.
Barry pulled the pin on a grenade and rolled it under the car, then dove for cover, pulling Cutter under the trailer as he went.
The car went up like a small atom bomb, and Barry figured they had the trunk filled with explosives. He rolled Cutter over and checked her. Shoulder and side wounds; but they were clean, the slugs passing through and then exiting out. There was not a large amount of blood flowing, just a small ooze.
The debris had stopped falling and all that could be heard were a few moans.
Barry muscled Cutter into the cab of the Kenworth and got the hell out of there. One terrorist, with more guts than sense, stepped in front of the Kenworth, waving a pistol.
Barry ran over him.
“Say hello to Allah, crap-head!”
Barry got back onto 65 and headed for Des Moines. He reached for his CB mike. Cutter’s voice stopped him.
“No,” she said, her voice surprisingly strong. “I have ID that will keep me out of trouble. Gunshot wounds have to be reported to the police, you know. Besides, you don’t know the rules we operate under. The mission comes first, Dog. So you just drop me off in Des Moines. I can take care of myself.”
Barry opened his mouth to protest, then closed it, knowing she was right.
“How’s the pain?”
“Not bad. Yet.”
He knew what she was saying. He’d been there himself more than once.
With a grimace, she reached behind her and pulled out a small bag, taking out a first aid kit and plugging the wounds temporarily. She took a clean jacket from another bag and shrugged out of her bloody jacket.
“What’s the drill, Cutter?”
“First truck stop we come to, you pull in, I get out, and you get the hell gone.”
There was nothing more to say.
24
She had kissed him quickly, with pain in her eyes, and had climbed out of the cab. She had walked into the truck stop without looking back.
She had told Barry not to interfere, not to make any phone calls on her behalf.
Just go!
He went.
But there was pain in him, too. Not the physical kind. That heals. The kind that stays with a person for a long, long time.
He hit the loop, picked up 80, then 35, and once more pointed the nose of the truck west. He clicked on the radio, searching for news.
There was plenty of news, and not all of it good.
The news commentator was bemoaning the discovery of several more bodies of known world terrorists, including two that the Israeli Mossad had been after for years. The bodies had been found alongside Interstate 80 in Iowa during the early morning hours.
Barry clicked off the radio before the guy could really get wound up.
He wondered how Cutter was doing.
Then, like a big dog, the Dog shook himself and pushed the lovely Cutter out of his mind.
He knew one thing for sure: he was operating on adrenaline and needed some rest in the worst way. He checked his maps and at a truck stop, called an AFB just inside Nebraska and told them he was coming in.
Two hours later he was waved through the gates of the base and a security vehicle led him to a closed compound. Wearily, he crawled out of the rig and was met by Captain Barnett and his team.
“How’s Cutter?” were the first words out of his mouth.
“She’s going to make it. But it was close. She’ll be transferred to an Air Force hospital as soon as possible. You look beat, Barry. Come on. Jackson’s on his way in. Seems you’ve really turned the heat up under the butts of the terrorists and we want to keep it hot. But right now, let’s get you fed and bedded down for a few hours.”
When he opened his eyes, Barry was slightly disoriented. He lay for a time in the warm and comfortable bed, getting his thoughts all together.
He checked his watch on the nightstand. Almost five o’clock. Damn! he had slept for nearly twelve hours. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that.
Throwing back the covers, he padded to the john and took another shower, standing under the hot needle spray for a long time. He dried off and dressed warmly, for the weather had turned cold and nasty.
The base was beginning to stir, coming to life. Barry stepped out into the hall of the BOQ and nearly ran into an Air Force security man, startling them both.
Barry smiled at the young man. “Am I under guard?”
“Oh, no, sir! I was sent to wake you up at six. You’re due at a meeting at oh-seven hundred hours.”
“Right now, I’d like some breakfast, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, sir. Just follow me.”
They stepped outside and the foulness of the weather really smacked them both in the face. Bits of freezing rain mixed with snow filled the dark morning air.
Barry had lost all track of time. He wasn’t even certain what month it was. He asked the young security guard.
“Fifteenth day of December, sir. Christmas will be on us before we know it. You going home for Christmas?”
Barry smiled, a smile mixed with sadness. Home? What home? he thought. I’m dead and buried in New Orleans. My home is that Kenworth parked out there, armor plated and with enough weapons stored inside to start a minor war. Home? No, young man. I’m not going home.
“No,” Barry forced a smile. “I’ll probably miss going home this time.”
“That’s too bad, sir. I start leave on the twentieth. Going back to Ville Platte.”
Barry smiled and spoke to him in fast Cajun French.
The young man laughed and replied in Cajun. “I thought I heard some bayou in you, sir.”
Then they were at the officers’ mess and the young man was gone.
“Au revoir and bonne chance,” Barry muttered to the back of the Cajun boy, up in the land of snow and ice. “Light one of the bayou bonfires for me.”
He stepped inside the warm mess and Barnett waved to him.
Barry returned the wav
e and fixed a tray of food, walking over to the table where the special operations team was sitting.
“Sleep well, Barry?” Sergeant Halleck asked.
“Like that much talked about rock. I don’t think I moved more than twice in twelve hours.” He looked at Barnett. “News of Cutter?”
“She’s fine. To quote the doctor, ‘She’s strong as a horse.’ ”
Barry remembered the punch on the arm she’d given him. The bruise had only just recently begun to fade. “Good. So bring me up to date about this meeting I’m supposed to attend.”
The special ops team was seated well away from anyone else. Barnett sipped his coffee and said, “Certain people in government, both here and abroad, say thanks for that operation yesterday, Dog.”
“My pleasure.”
“The Mossad, the French DST and SDEC, along with British SDS, SAS and SIS and certain units in Germany like your style. Also a couple of units in Spain. You’re welcome in those countries anytime you’d like to go. Just thought you’d like to know what you’re doing is appreciated by some.”
Barry smiled. “Be kind of difficult to take my rig to France, wouldn’t it?”
“Speaking of your rig, it’s been serviced and restocked. You’ll be back on the road by noon today.”
“I’m ready.”
“Going to lone-wolf it?”
“Yes.”
“Plans?”
“I’m going to drive that rig right up to the front door of that so-called mosque in California and then drive it right through the place.”
“That’s going to upset the man called Ja,” Barnett said with a chuckle. “Besides, how do you know where the mosque is?”
“Cutter told me. She okayed it with Jackson,” he added.
“Yes.” Barnett said softly. “I know. You’re really going to do it, aren’t you?”
Barry nodded.
“Going to go up against thirty of forty or maybe a hundred armed people, alone!”
Barry shrugged philosophically. “I’m told I’m expendable.”
Lieutenant Jamison said, “We have intelligence that says certain terrorist factions are preparing to move against the families of Stanton and O’Neal.”
“I was expecting that. I don’t have to tell any of you that terrorists are just like any night-riding bunch that ever lived. They’re cowards.” Barry shrugged again. “It’s like I’ve always said: best way to turn a hanky-twisting liberal into a gun-totin’ right-winger is to have some violence touch a member of his family. If any harm comes to just one kin of George Stanton, you best turn the volume down on your TV, ’cause George’s liberal days are over.”
18 Wheel Avenger Page 17