18 Wheel Avenger

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “Remember the Marine barracks in Lebanon?” he asked quietly.

  Jackson swallowed hard. “Yeah. Suicide attack. A car loaded with explosives.”

  “That’s what we got coming at us, partner.”

  “Wonderful.” Jackson lit another cigarette.

  The vehicle drew closer. Barry could tell it was traveling at a very high rate of speed. And that just might work against the terrorists … if he could time it right.

  If he couldn’t …

  He pushed that out of his mind.

  “Can you tell what lane he’s in, Jackson?”

  “Left lane.”

  “Yeah?” Barry pulled over into the left lane.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Jackson asked.

  “I hope not. If I can pull this off, we’ll make it. If not, someone is going to have to close this section of Interstate.”

  “Your words are so comforting.”

  “Thank you. Hang on.”

  “My butt is drawn up so tight now I’ll probably never crap again.”

  The headlights were right on top of them when Barry cut the wheel. Because of the height of the 18-wheeler, he knew the driver of the death car would be blind from the headlights that Barry had punched on bright. He muscled the rig and held on as the left side tires wandered off the shoulder and onto the frosty grass as they came out of the curve. For a few gut-wrenching seconds, Barry thought he’d lost the rig, the trailer tires slipping and grabbing for traction on the frost-covered grass.

  The driver of the car, blinded from the intense light, left the super slab and sailed off the road. A shattering roar ripped the night and flames shot up a hundred feet or more into the air. The explosion was so heavy both men could feel the concrete beneath them tremble for a second.

  They roared on through the night.

  “Barry?”

  “Yeah, Jackson?”

  “You got a john in this rig, don’t you?”

  “Right back there.”

  “Good.” Jackson disappeared into the large custom sleeper and dropped the leather flap.

  They crossed the Continental Divide and dropped down into Montana. Traffic was very light, and those who seemed to be bent on killing him had vanished.

  But Barry knew they would be back; they would not give up the hunt.

  Barry was beat, operating on pure nerve and adrenaline. He pointed to the mobile phone. “Call the Butte PD, Jackson. Tell them who you are and what we’re pulling. Tell them we’ve got to have some rest and can they guard this rig for a few hours.”

  It took the Treasury man only a few short minutes to pull a lot of strings.

  “They said come on in. The rig can be parked in the impound area and they’ll assign officers to blanket it. They’re also alerting the state police and they’ll assist. We cut east at Butte, don’t we?”

  “If I can keep my eyes open long enough to get us there.”

  Barry slept for ten hours, having managed to pull off his boots before falling on the big king-size bed. He took a long, very hot shower, shaved off his beard, and then ordered breakfast sent to the room. He knocked on Jackson’s door—the rooms were adjoining—and told him to come on in.

  “You had breakfast?”

  “About two hours ago,” the Treasury man said. He held a cup of coffee in his hand. “I went down to check on the truck. The cops were curious, but managed not to ask any questions.”

  “We end it today, Jackson.” He looked out through the just opened drapes. “Or tonight, as the case may be.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Trust me.”

  “I do. That is what’s so scary.”

  They pulled out at three that afternoon. One Montana highway cop had asked, “Either one of you know anything about a terrible explosion down in Idaho last night?”

  Naturally, neither Jackson nor Barry knew a thing about it.

  “Uh-huh,” the cop said. He looked at Barry. “You got a handle?”

  Barry met his eyes. “Dog.”

  Something flickered in the trooper’s eyes. A slight smile came and went very quickly. “I thought it might be. Try to be a little more tidy driving through Montana, will you, Dog?”

  Jackson looked slightly confused. “That guy know you, Barry?”

  “Hell, Jackson. Half the cops in the nation know about me.”

  “That’s frightening, Dog. That so many people are so upset about crime, they would condone a man like you. And don’t take that the wrong way. You know what I mean.”

  “The people are frightened, Jackson. And you can’t blame them. Let’s go.”

  The weather, for this time of year, was surprisingly good. Very clear up in the Big Sky country, and lowdown cold.

  Just a tad over two hundred miles from Butte to Billings, and another two hundred and fifty miles from Billings to the North Dakota state line.

  And anywhere along the way, Darin and Bakhitar and their followers could be waiting.

  Barry hoped they were. This had been an exceptionally long run—he wasn’t sure how many weeks he’d been under the gun, literally and figuratively speaking. And a smoldering anger had been building deep within him for several days.

  Barry had hated night riders all his life. He felt angered by the loss of George Stanton’s parents. A cruel, vicious act, by cruel and totally unprincipled men and women. Men and women without one shred of decency in them.

  Barry intended to rid the world of a few of those types of people this night.

  And he had his spot all picked out. Providing the terrorists would let him get to it.

  He did not realize he was smiling until Jackson mentioned it.

  “I’m ready to take the fight to them, Jackson. I’m ready for a good old-fashioned ambush. How about you?”

  “That’s a sneaky little smile you’ve got, Dog. I’m afraid to even ask what’s on your mind. But I will. What’s up?”

  A highway sign told them that Bozeman was twenty miles away.

  “Look on your map, Jackson. Tell me what you see between Billings and Roundup. On highway eighty-seven.”

  Jackson looked. “Hell … nothing! About fifty miles of absolutely nothing.” He glanced at Barry and smiled. “Oh, I like it, if we can pull it off.”

  “We’ll pull over first chance we get and dig out the heavy hardware in the back. Can you fire one of those rocket launchers, Jackson?”

  “Sure. Nothing to it.” Again, he smiled. “I like the way your mind works, Dog. Providing, that is, we’re on the same side. I would damn sure hate to be your enemy.”

  Barry gave up trying to find a rest area, and pulled off onto the shoulder. He handed Jackson a tube and all the rockets he could stagger with and then pulled out an M-60 machine gun from the compartments. He set a case of belted ammo on the shoulder, relocked and sealed the doors, and they were on their way.

  “I’m going to guess and say Darin and the others have, just like we do, jacked-up CBs. Do you have any intel on that?”

  “All their vehicles we’ve managed to recover so far have jacked-up CBs. No reason to think they’d change now.”

  “Okay. Even if they should call for us, we don’t answer. I’m going to get up here just off the slab, on eighty-seven, and start hollering. I got a plan. If it works, we’ll be rid of Darin Grady and some others … for good.”

  Jackson didn’t answer. Barry knew he was thinking of his dead son. At least Jackson and family thought they had buried the right son.

  It had been sort of hard to tell amid all the shattered pieces of American servicemen.

  30

  The miles and the hours rolled by. Barry and Jackson said little; they were both thinking of the showdown in the cold just a few miles up ahead.

  Barry picked up highway 87 north and drove just to the city limits of Billings. There, he got on his CB, staying with the channel he’d previously heard the terrorists using.

  After only a few minutes of slurs and profane insults, he was answered.r />
  “Dog! You’ve been elusive this night.”

  “Not anymore, Grady. I’m having to take a different route, punk. I’m on eighty-seven out of Billings. North. Come and get me if you’ve got the nerve.”

  The terrorist was immediately suspicious. “What are you trying to pull, Dog?”

  “Other than deliver a load, I’m trying to kill you, you bastard!” Barry was honest with him.

  “I don’t trust you, Cur.”

  Barry then proceeded to insult Darin’s mother, father, brothers and sisters—in a very profane manner. And he was driving north on 87 as he did so.

  The terrorist cursed him, as did the heavy voice of Bakhitar, and then the speaker fell silent.

  “All we can hope is that they took the bait,” Barry said, driving through the freezing cold night.

  There was no traffic. None. And Barry hoped it would remain that way.

  Midway into the Bull Mountains, Barry pulled the rig over at an intersection and parked it. The night was very cold, so he left it running and locked the doors.

  “Over there,” he told Jackson. “I’ll be up there.” He pointed to an upthrusting of rocks. Jackson turned, carrying his heavy load. Barry’s voice stopped him. “No survivors, Jackson. Not this time!”

  The Treasury man’s face was hard in the night. “I didn’t intend to take any prisoners, Dog.” He turned and vanished into the darkness, taking up his position.

  Settling down among the rocks, attempting the impossible in trying to find a comfortable place, Barry knew that just as soon as Darin found the truck running and the doors locked, he would know it was a trap. But Barry was counting on the man’s wild hatred for him to push him on, to override common sense.

  Car lights appeared in the distance, coming from the south. Barry and Jackson had no walkie-talkies, no way to communicate. Everything now was in the hands of fate, as fickle as she might be.

  The car lights just kept on coming. Barry counted eight vehicles. The various terrorist groups were throwing everything at him. The word had gone out: Kill the Dog.

  As the lead car, a big luxury car that Barry had first guessed Darin was in, approached the parked and running rig, some warning light must have flashed on in the driver’s mind, for he gunned the car and tried to make a run for it.

  Jackson fired a rocket and the car exploded in the night, the flames leaping about, casting a wild, surreal light to the night and the surroundings.

  Barry opened up with the M-60, pouring a hundred rounds into the last vehicle, a station wagon, and crippling the vehicle, killing the occupants, and blocking the rear escape route south.

  Jackson fired another rocket and another car became a pile of ruined burning rubble, cooking the men and women trapped inside.

  With Jackson on one side of the intersection and Barry on the other, the terrorists had no chance. When they leaped from their cars, they were cut down. They had no place to run and no darkness to hide them, for the flames from the burning vehicles turned the night into bloody dancing day. The M-60 became so hot it began to malfunction. Barry picked up his Uzi and raked the battleground.

  Then nothing moved before them.

  He darted from his cover, running to the blood-soaked, body-littered road. Jackson joined him. If a terrorist was found to be still alive, one shot ended that.

  Bakhitar was found alive, on the ground, propped up against the side of a car. He glared at Barry through eyes filled with unreasonable hatred. He was bloody from neck to belly.

  “You should have stayed in the Windy City, punk,” Barry told him, then shot him between the eyes.

  Darin Grady had been thrown from the luxury car when the rocket impacted, igniting the fuel tank. There was not much left of him; but then, there hadn’t much to him when he was alive.

  The woman and man in the Datsun were still in their seats, shot all to hell.

  There were no survivors.

  “Now what?” Jackson asked.

  “I got a load to deliver,” Barry told him.

  EPILOGUE

  Barry lay on the motel bed, watching the news. Dog lay on the floor by the bed, sound asleep. The new year had come and gone. Jackson was back in Washington. Cutter was out of the hospital and recuperating somewhere in Europe.

  For a week, certain civil rights organizations publicly deplored the ambush in the Bull Mountains of Montana.

  George Stanton had been fined seventy-five dollars for punching the director of the United States Civil Liberties League on the nose.

  George then went on TV and delivered a report on terrorism. The liberal had become a conservative.

  Barry’s beside phone rang. Jackson.

  “You got a million bucks on your head, Dog. Everybody from Qaddafi to Abu is after your butt.”

  “It’s so nice to be wanted.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Rested and ready to go.”

  “Your rig is ready to go. It’ll be delivered to the motel in the morning. Orders will be hand-delivered in about ten minutes. Good luck.” He hung up.

  A knock on the door.

  Bonnie O’Neal stood smiling at him. Barry waved her into the room and closed the door.

  “Jackson thought it would be nice if I gave you an envelope. Since I was coming down here anyway.”

  “All right.”

  She took off her jacket and stared at him.

  “The envelope, Bonnie.”

  “Oh, it’s on me … somewhere. Since you’re such a cautious man, I thought you might want to search me for a weapon or something like that.”

  Barry smiled at her. “Now that might take all night, Bonnie.”

  It did.

  NATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHORS

  William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone

  The Rig Warrior is back!

  JOHNSTONE COUNTRY> WHERE THE WILL DEFIES FEAR.

  They call him “The Rig Warrior.” Name: Barry Rivers. Occupation: Long haul trucker.. Special skills: Defender of freedom. Patriot. Government sanctioned killer..

  America’s secret weapon.

  A NATION OFF THE RAILS

  No one saw the first attack coming. A perfectly orchestrated assault on a mass-transit railroad line that left countless Americans dead. Then came more attacks.

  More rail systems sabotaged. More civilian lives lost. Intelligence experts are convinced this is no ordinary terrorist attack. To pull off something like this, it would take. a deep-state traitor with dark foreign connections. And to stop them, it will take someone who isn’t afraid to shed blood.

  A HERO OFF THE GRID

  Enter Barry Rivers, the Rig Warrior. An urban legend in the intelligence community, Rivers has been living off the radar for years. But when he sees his country under attack, he reaches out to his nephew Jake, an FBI agent, to track down the enemies in our own government. To these high-ranking traitors, Rivers is a threat to their global agenda. But when Rivers revs up his tricked-out 18-wheeler—and goes after a runaway train on a collision course with disaster—all bets are off. The war is on. And with Barry Rivers at the wheel, it’s going to be the ultimate knockdown, drag-out fight for America’s future . . .

  Knockdown

  by William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone

  On sale August 25th 2020

  Chapter 1

  The fat man ran the keen edge of the blade across the ball of his thumb, studied the bead of dark red blood that was the result, and then licked it off.

  “You see, my machete is very sharp, gringo. You will barely feel a thing when I cut your head off with it.”

  “Yeah, well, I guarantee you’ll feel it when I shove that pigsticker up your culo and start twisting it, Pancho.”

  The man sitting at the table in the corner of the little cantina slurred the words. The mostly empty bottle of tequila in front of him told why. The fiery liquor he had guzzled down also explained the boldness of his response.

  The fat man scowled and stepped closer to the table.

&n
bsp; The three men who had been at the bar with him started in that direction as well, as if they sensed that the situation had become more serious. With Tejano music blaring in the cantina, mixing with the breathless drone of the announcer calling the soccer game on the TV mounted above the bar and trying to make it more exciting than it really was, they couldn’t have heard the words.

  Maybe they smelled the blood.

  A big man sitting at the bar turned his head to watch the three amigos headed for the table in the corner. He swiveled on the chair, stood up. He towered over everybody else in here and his shoulders were as wide as an ax handle. Thick slabs of muscle on his arms and shoulders bulged the fabric of his black t-shirt.

  “Señor,” the bartender said behind him. The big man looked around. The bartender shook his head worriedly and went on in English, “You should not interfere, señor. Those men, they are . . . Zaragosa.”

  The big man frowned.

  The bartender lowered his voice even more. The big man could barely hear him as he half-whispered, “Cartel. Comprende? Look around.”

  The big man looked and got what the bartender was talking about. Everybody else in the cantina was doing their best not to even glance in the direction of the looming confrontation in the corner. Nobody wanted to get involved and risk offending the cartel.

  “That guy’s an American,” the big man said. “I’m not gonna just stand by and let him get hurt.”

  An eloquent Latin shrug from the bartender. He had tried to prevent trouble. No one could blame him now for what might happen.

  Over in the corner, the fat man with the machete said, “What did you call me?”

  “Are you deaf as well as stupid, Pancho?”

  The man at the table reached for the bottle. He had lean, weathered features under close-cropped gray hair. It was difficult to tell how old he was. Anywhere from fifty to seventy would be a good guess.