One of Our Own: Final Dawn: Book 11 Page 7

  “No. I’m looking for a good friend who was driving a big rig and went missing. You guys seen anybody else on foot? Or a truck driver who was broken down?”

  “I’m afraid not, Mister. You’re the only other soul we’ve seen in two days.”

  “I’m Frank.”

  “John. This here’s my little brother Justin. He don’t say much, so I have to do most of the talking.”

  “Pleased to meet you both.”

  “Where’s the nearest town?”

  “Next town is Sonora, maybe an hour away. I’ve never been there, but if it’s like every other town I’ve been to it should have a couple of abandoned car dealers. Shouldn’t be hard to find a key for one that runs.”

  “Is that where you got this baby?”

  “This? No. This belongs to a friend of mine. I borrowed it to look for my missing truck driver buddy.”

  The three carried on idle small talk for another twenty minutes or so until John could feel his fingers again.

  Then he discretely removed his own weapon from its holster.

  “Frank, I hate to have to tell you this, but we’ve already found our new vehicle. And the nice thing is we won’t have to stop in Sonora or anywhere else to get it.”

  Frank turned his head slightly to the side, to see a .45 aimed at his side.

  “Oh, crap.”

  He’d stepped in it now.

  But he was in no position to argue.

  John told his brother, “Reach over and take his weapon and hand it back here. Wouldn’t want it to be close enough for him to grab. Wouldn’t it be a shame if we had to shoot him after he was nice enough to give us a ride and all?”

  Then he addressed Frank directly.

  “You probably don’t want to get shot today, do you Frank?”

  Frank thought for a minute before answering. He didn’t want these two to get the idea he was afraid.

  Even though he was, just a bit.

  “No, John. I think that would ruin my whole day. I’ll tell you what. If you guys don’t want to go vehicle shopping in Sonora, that’s fine. Just drop me off and I’ll do the shopping. I’ve been wanting to get myself a new pickup truck anyway.”

  John seemed to be enjoying the banter.

  As Justin handed Frank’s weapon to him he continued.

  “No, Frank, I have a better idea.

  “I’ve always hated driving on snow and ice. It really puts my nerves on edge.

  “You seem to be doing a pretty good job of it. We’re going to Sonora. But we’re not getting out and neither are you.

  “When we get there we’re getting off the interstate and headed north.

  “What do you think of that idea? Any objections?”

  Actually Frank had a whole boatload of objections. But under the circumstances he was in no position to voice any of them.

  “I’m a big believer in the might makes right principle.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning the one who has the gun makes the rules. I have no objections. Provided you let me go when we get to wherever we’re going.”

  “That, my new friend, depends on whether you get us there without trying to get your gun back.”

  “Oh, that old thing? I never really liked that gun much anyway. It tends to jam a lot. I keep telling the old lady to buy me a new one for Christmas, but she keeps knitting me wool sweaters instead.

  “You guys ever wear a wool sweater?”

  “I don’t like sweaters.”

  “Trust me, you really wouldn’t like these. They itch like hell.”

  The three continued to exchange small talk as Frank took the exit to Sonora and headed north on Highway 277.

  All the while he was trying to formulate a plan.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a new voice joined the discussion:

  “Hannah, this is Rusty.”

  “Go ahead, Rusty.”

  “Hey, make a note, will ya? There’s a tanker full of diesel on Highway 83 west, just north of Uvalde. Mile marker 54. If you’ll remind me after we find Brad I’ll hook onto it and bring it back.”

  “Ten four, Rusty. I’ll send you back that way after we locate Brad and make sure he’s safe.”

  The radio went silent again, and Frank cursed to himself.

  John had seen the small Motorola handheld on the vehicle’s dash, but had no clue it was being used.

  “Hey Frank, do me a little bitty favor, would you buddy?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Very slowly hand me that radio, would you? And be careful not to push any of the buttons while you’re doing it. Wouldn’t want my gun to accidentally discharge and make a big hole in your side. You probably wouldn’t like that, would you?”

  “No. I don’t think I’d like that very much. Mind if I ask where we’re headed?”

  “Just keep driving, my new friend.”

  Frank couldn’t help but wonder if he’d done Brad a disservice by trying to help.

  It surely wouldn’t take long before someone noticed Frank was now missing. He instinctively knew that would distract the searchers from their efforts to find Brad.

  He was an idiot, he reasoned. The world had changed. It was a vastly more dangerous place than it once was.

  He should have adapted too. He shouldn’t have been so gullible to believe he could still show mercy on two struggling travelers.

  He decided he no longer liked the world, or the way people behaved now.

  Life really sucked.

  -19-

  Another agonizing day came and went. The search had expanded now, and all searchers were looking for a Humvee as well as a tractor trailer.

  Everyone knew why Frank felt the need to go out and look for his friend.

  And was equally baffled at what might have happened to him.

  Brad had gotten plenty of rest the night before simply by running his engine with the heater on high. He did that until he started to sweat, then turned on the big tractor and went to sleep on the sleeper cab’s narrow mattress.

  After about two hours he was cold enough to pull one of the blankets over him.

  Another hour, another blanket.

  After four hours or so he woke up shivering and crawled back into the driver’s seat to repeat the process.

  When the dirty sky began to lighten he switched to a different routine.

  Fifteen minutes on, fifteen minutes off.

  As his watch struck the six o’clock mark he pulled on his heavy parka and wrapped a wool scarf around his neck. He put on a fluorescent orange watch cap and a pair of warm gloves and stepped out into the frigid cold.

  It was exactly seventeen steps up the hill between his tractor and the roadway.

  He didn’t know that at first, but toward the end of the day he’d developed a habit of counting each step each time he made the trek.

  He did so out of boredom more than anything else, for it was as much a bit of useless information as anything else he’d ever come across.

  Once up on the highway he picked up each of the orange warning triangles and shook the new snow off of them. Then he replaced them, making sure the letters he’d painted on them were still in the right order.

  Whether a vehicle came from the north or the south, they’d see the triangles and immediately make out his name: BRAD.

  Whether they were part of the search for Brad or not, they wouldn’t be able to miss the name. If they were a part of the search party they’d know to stop there and climb down the hill to retrieve their friend.

  If they were just a traveler happening by, Brad hoped they’d be curious enough to stop.

  After all, warning triangles marked with one’s name wasn’t something one often saw lined up nice and neat on a snow-covered highway.

  If he could hitch a ride with a stranger back to the compound, or close to it, he’d sure save everybody a lot of trouble.

  Because he knew there were an awful lot of people worried about him.

  And a lot out there searching
for him.

  Oddly enough, Brad wasn’t afraid. He was uninjured and had plenty of supplies. He had a warm place to rest and the knowledge that at some point, someone would search State Loop 481.

  No, he wasn’t afraid.

  But he was bored out of his skull.

  That was why he occupied his mind by playing little games with himself.

  Like counting the seventeen steps to and from his Kenworth sanctuary.

  And keeping a close eye on his watch.

  And moving every fifteen minutes on the dot. First up to the roadway to dust off his markers and pace back and forth hoping to flag down a passing vehicle.

  Then back to the truck so he could run the heater and warm up.

  While he was on the roadway he paced. First one hundred steps to the north. Then ninety nine steps to the south. Then ninety eight steps north again.

  It was stupid, he knew. He’d never be on the roadway long enough to get down to one step.

  And even if he did, so what? What would he accomplish?

  Absolutely nothing. For the point wasn’t to see where he would up when he made it down to a single step.

  The point was to pass the fifteen minutes without getting bored stiff.

  For playing little games with himself to help pass the time kept him from going nuts.

  Brad’s main problem, as he saw it, was that there was very little traffic anymore.

  As the weather had gotten worse and worse with each passing day; as the snow pack had climbed ever and ever higher, more and more people were hunkering down. They’d gone out and gotten their provisions and then locked themselves in for the long freeze.

  It became more and more apparent that he and his Salt Mountain crew were some of the die-hards. Some of the last ones out.

  They were pushing their luck, trying to gather every last thing they could before Mother Nature wouldn’t allow them to come out and play anymore.

  Brad knew there was a good possibility that no strangers would come this way.

  But he also knew that eventually his people would.

  Fifteen minutes on, fifteen minutes off.

  Fifteen minutes of pacing and counting his steps for no particular reason.

  Fifteen minutes of taking his gloves off and rubbing his hands together, soaking in the warmth put out by his rig’s heater blowers.

  Fifteen minutes of kicking himself in the ass for sliding off the road to begin with.

  It was late in the afternoon that day, when Brad realized his searchers would have to be headed back soon and that he’d likely have to wait another day for his rescue, that he had a wicked craving.

  He was looking through the trucker’s ash tray, hoping to find a smokable butt.

  Yes, it would be stale. Yes, it would be nasty.

  But he was out of smokes and dying for the taste of tobacco.

  Even nasty tobacco.

  He didn’t find a cigarette butt, but he did find a wadded up aluminum wrapper. From its markings he could tell that once upon a time, many years ago, it contained a stick of Juicy Fruit gum.

  Juicy Fruit had always been his favorite, even when he was a small boy.

  His mouth watered and he wished he’d had some.

  He smoothed out the wrapper and thought about killing some time by fashioning a tiny paper airplane from it.

  It almost certainly wouldn’t fly.

  But that wasn’t the point.

  The point was it would occupy his mind for several minutes and make it easier to get through the boredom of a day which seemed to go on forever.

  Then, as he looked at the tiny piece of foil, he decided against the airplane.

  He tossed the foil aside and closed his eyes to powernap instead.

  -20-

  Frank still didn’t know where they were taking him. He’d traveled in central and west Texas before, but not frequently enough to know his way around.

  Years before Frank had tried his hand at being a hostage negotiator for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Department.

  It was at a time when homicides in and around San Antonio were at an all-time low. So low, in fact, he actually had a bit of free time on his hands.

  Frank had suggested the cold case team accept the help of himself and his three man homicide division, but was rebuffed.

  “We don’t want you guys to be working a case and then get called back to work an active murder investigation. That would leave us high and dry and back to square one.”

  It hadn’t made much sense to Frank at the time. It seemed to him that the more people looking at a particular cold case the better. And information could be passed easily through routine reports or over coffee.

  Then someone told him the chief of the cold case division was the type who didn’t like sharing credit. Especially with borrowed detectives from other divisions. And that he was bucking for promotion to assistant sheriff.

  Frank hated office politics. He just wasn’t a political guy by nature. So he accepted the chief’s refusal of his offer to help and wished the cold case squad well.

  And he looked for something else to burn his free time.

  It so happened that Fred Miles, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office’s only hostage negotiator, dropped dead of a heart attack about that same time.

  “I’ll do it until you find somebody else,” Frank said.

  “Are you sure, Frank?”

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  “That job requires someone who’s delicate and patient and understanding, Frank.”

  “Oh, bull crap. I can be as delicate and patient as the next guy. And what was the last thing?”

  “Understanding.”

  “Yeah. I can be that too, if I have to be.”

  Frank went on a temporary duty assignment to Dallas to work with one of the country’s crack hostage negotiating teams.

  For six weeks he learned many techniques for dealing with hostage-takers. How to soothe their fears and to calm them. How to negotiate with them. When and how to make demands of them, and when and how to back off a bit.

  Frank was called home to help out when a mass murderer started leaving the bodies of prostitutes scattered around the alleys and vacant lots of San Antonio and Bexar County.

  He never had the chance to apply the skills he’d learned while working with the Dallas PD.

  Until now.

  In Dallas Frank had learned how to identify which of the hostage takers was most calm. And if there was no particular leader, as was often the case, to try to deal with him.

  Frank also learned to try to put a face on his hostages. To tell the captors the people they were holding had families and friends who cared for them. And that they were all around good guys who deserved to live.

  Even when they weren’t.

  Frank knew the key to his surviving his present ordeal was to put a human face upon himself. So the two men who’d taken him and were forcing him to drive north saw him as more than a driver and a hostage. So they saw him as a human being.

  One of the key things he’d taken away from his negotiator training was it was easy for a hostage taker to shoot someone he saw merely as a hostage.

  It was infinitely harder for him to shoot that same hostage if he’d gotten to know him a bit.

  And now saw him as a human being.

  The one beside him in the passenger seat was by far the most affable. He was in his late thirties, probably, although it was sometimes hard to tell these days. The horrific conditions everyone had lived in in recent years had aged them.

  His lifeline seemed to be Justin, and Frank was working him hard, trying to get to know him.

  His plan was to soften this guy up. To work him. To be civil and friendly to him.

  And when the time came, to try to negotiate his own surrender from him.

  John, the one in the back seat of the Hummer, wasn’t such a friendly guy. Frank pegged him as the leader of the two, and the one most likely to cause him trouble. He hoped Justin held sway over him and wa
s able to control him if it got ugly.

  John was focused on the task at hand, seldom taking his eyes off of Frank, and constantly reminding him there was a weapon pointed at his back.

  He also seemed to take great glee in reminding Frank that a forty five caliber bullet made a monster-sized hole when fired through a human body. “You ever see the damage a bullet that size can do, Frank? It ain’t pretty.”

  Actually, Frank had seen a lot more .45 gunshot wounds than John would ever see, in his capacity as a homicide detective for almost thirty years.

  But he chose to keep that little tidbit to himself. He also never told either man he was a former cop. He figured it wouldn’t score him any points, and might rile them to the point he’d have no chance of convincing them he was worthy of release.

  Frank played dumb, professing to know nothing about the carnage a .45 bullet would leave behind.

  “Well, keep this vehicle on the damn road,” John growled. “Or you’ll find out the hard way.”

  It was obvious to Frank that neither of these thugs had ever driven a Hummer on slick roads. Neither seemed to know its capabilities.

  As they drove along, putting more and more miles between themselves and his friends at Salt Mountain, Frank cursed a blue streak. At the ice, at the blowing snow, at the weather conditions in general.

  He pretended to have to fight the wheel constantly to keep from sliding off the roadway, when in reality the big vehicle was handling the road quite nicely.

  He’d toyed with the idea several times of merely sending the Hummer into a spin and letting her slide off the highway and down an embankment. Perhaps by doing so and intentionally crashing into the forest he’d gain an advantage. Maybe even be able to turn the tables on his captives and make them his prisoners instead of the other way around.

  There were several big risks with that plan, though.

  Not the least of which was the poor visibility. The blowing snow added to the darkened skies, and he could barely see thirty feet in front of him. He almost rear ended abandoned vehicles several times because they suddenly appeared out of the haze in front of him.

  He couldn’t see what was on the side of the road beside him. If he intentionally spun out and left the roadway, they might merely slide into a stand of trees, and Frank might be able to take advantage of the chaos of the moment. He might be able to get his door open and scamper into the woods before Justin and John could react.