After gaining his confidence, the Englishman wheedled the truth about the security out of the American researcher. About the sabotaged self-destruct system—and about the hidden sample.
‘I couldn’t bear it if all my work was burned alive,” the American slurred after five big gin and tonics.
“Oh, I agree. Good work,” the Englishman said. “I assure you, this is between the two of us.”
Soon afterward, it was the Englishman’s secret alone. After two more gin and tonics, the American had passed out. The Englishman put him in his car, started it and put the transmission in Drive, then slammed the door as the vehicle began rolling away. It rolled directly off the road into the Thames. Windows open, the car went down in seconds and wasn’t hauled out again until morning.
The American researcher’s hidden sample was right where he said it would be—buried two feet under the earth, directly beneath the destroyed aluminum cube. The Englishman unearthed it in minutes. The insulated box contained twenty-four stainless-steel straws, each of which could wipe out a city.
The tiny glass capsule in the bottom of the box was green. The chemicals inside the capsule would react to damaging heat by turning red, permanently, but the capsule was still green.
Which meant the creatures—things, devices, whatever—inside the steel straws were still alive. Viable, functional, whatever.
The Englishmen had just become the most powerful man on the planet.
This was only right and proper.
Chapter 2
His name was Remo, but around these parts folks knew him as the Big Rig Bandit of 1-44.
“You’re him, ain’t you?” asked the terrified driver.
“Who?” Remo asked.
“The Big Rig Bandit of 1-44. You’re him.”
“Never heard of him. But I’m him.”
The driver was no longer driving. She had been a minute ago, barreling down the interstate and listening to the CB chatter about the bandit. There was a lot of chatter. People were scared.
“You been stealing rigs up and down this stretch of road,” the driver said. “Got yourself a peculiar reputation.”
“How’d my reputation get peculiar? I only started hijacking eight hours ago.”
“You ain’t gonna hurt me, are you?”
Remo frowned. He didn’t like having a reputation. “They say I hurt people out there?”
The driver cranked her head to look at Remo, but it did her no good, what with one of her own grease rags tied around her head to make a blindfold.
She had never heard him, never sensed him. All of a sudden, she felt a tiny pinch on the neck and felt her arms and legs stop working. In a flash she was scooted into the passenger seat and belted in, and only then did she realize she had been blindfolded. She had expected to feel her vehicle veer out of control and crash, but it drove on as if nothing had happened.
His first words to her had been, “Just consider me your relief driver.”
Now he said, “Well? Who says I hurt people?”
“Nobody,” she admitted.
“What do they say about me?”
“That you’re some sort of a weirdo. You hijack ’em, then strand ’em. You ain’t hurt a single soul. But what’re you doing with all those rigs, I wanna know?”
“If I told you, then maybe you’d be the first one I had to hurt.”
The driver tilted her head like a curious mutt. “Naw. I think you’re a nice guy.”
“No way. I’m bad.”
“You’re a pussycat.”
“Hey, no. I’m a killer. I killed lots of people. I could kill you, too, just like snapping my fingers.”
The driver laughed. “You’re a funny. I like you, kid. Name’s Penny.”
“Hi, Penny. I’m Darren ‘The Decapitator’ Dougally.”
Penny laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Remo had to admit Penny was a cool customer. She wasn’t just putting on a brave front, she truly wasn’t the least bit concerned about being hijacked and paralyzed. Maybe she was bonkers.
“So? Where you gonna leave me, Triple-D?” she asked.
“How about the access road back of the Neosho Truckers’ Campus?”
“That’ll be just fine,” Penny said. “Give you lots of time to get to wherever you got to go while I hike on in. You’re going to unfreeze me so I’ll be able to hike, right?”
“Sure,” Remo said easily, but now he had an itch in his head.
Penny was cool, but she couldn’t be that damn cool. He could sense her pulse, and it was suspiciously modulated. So was her breathing. She was cool in a practiced way, and why should she practice being cool unless she was some sort of an undercover agent who needed to be cool in extreme situations?
“You’re from Langley, huh?”
Her heart rate rocketed, even as she replied easily, “Nope, I’m a Texas girl from Angelina.”
“The Bureau?”
“Pardon?” she asked.
She was still tense, but her pulse didn’t spike again. Remo could tell such things. “You know, the Company’s not supposed to do intelligence-gathering inside the U.S.”
“What are you talking about?” Penny chuckled, but she did it like an expert Only Remo’s highly tuned hearing picked up the slight quavering of her nervousness.
“So. CIA it is. You people tracking the Big Rig Bandit of 1-44 or this vehicle specifically?”
“Triple-D, I got no clue—”
“Can it, Agent,” Remo said. “You’re with the CIA and you’re operating on U.S. soil. That’s the facts I know so far.”
“Boy, you’re crazy,” Penny replied, her heart now in her throat. “You’ve hijacked one too many rigs today, and the stress is making you a little, you know, paranoid, like.”
“Maybe,” Remo said. “Here’s an idea. I drive you on into Springfield and turn myself in to the news station and they broadcast live. You and me. And I tell them how I think you just might be a CIA agent. I’ll look totally crazy, right?”
Penny said nothing, but her heart was racing like a marathon runner.
“So, think about all the publicity when they do a little checking and find out you are a CIA agent. Operating illegally inside the United States.”
“You’ll go to prison,” Penny protested.
“Naw. I have legal title to this particular vehicle,” Remo said. “I didn’t leave any physical evidence at any of the other hijacks. Fact is, you—meaning the CIA—stole my RV.”
“Ain’t your RV,” Penny snapped. “I was hired to take it to its rightful owner in Indianapolis.”
“I’m the rightful owner, and I have the papers to prove it. But never mind that. We’ll let Fox News sort it out. In fact, we’ll make it in time for them to get us on their 5:00 a.m. program.”
Penny stewed. Remo drove. The mile markers decreased by fifteen.
“Okay. Fine. I’m with the Company,” she admitted. “What’s your purpose?”
“Figure out about this vehicle.”
“What about it?”
“What do you mean, what about it? If this is really your recreational vehicle then you were the guy who was driving it on national TV, right? You got half the military in the Southwest U.S.A. mobilized around it, and then you just disappeared. Nothing left but questions about who gave the orders to the military and where y’ all vanished to.”
Remo hmmed. “There should have been a note that made it all okay.”
“Huh?”
“You know, like from somebody high up in the government?”
“Yeah. There was all kinds of authorization. So?”
“What do you mean, so?”