Smoke and Mirrors

62

The grime-encrusted eighteen-wheeler, which had been parked at a rest area just across the Mississippi state line for ten hours, made the trip to Tunica in twenty-three minutes. Despite the well-worn exterior, the working parts-the brakes, suspension, tires, and the motor-were painstakingly maintained. The electronics and the communication system, most of it hidden from prying eyes, were highly advanced. The transmissions it sent and received were encrypted and routed through the network of NSA satellites encircling the globe like buzzards.

The truck’s two-man crew, both professional cleaners with twenty years of experience between them, had spent the idle hours watching movies in the cabin. The well-stocked selection of DVDs was all action movies. These men enjoyed critiquing films on subjects they knew best. They agreed that the action choreography between the two criminals in The Way of the Gun was perfection, and not something such criminals would have developed without the sort of training the cleaners themselves had received. Obviously the authors of the script had consulted with a talented professional with advanced training.

When the emergency broadcast came in, the men were watching The Departed. Herf, the designated driver, climbed into the rig’s driver’s seat and rolled out south while his partner, Watts, watched the rest of the movie. As he climbed through the gears, Herf took an amphetamine and vitamin cocktail packet from a secret compartment in the dashboard and poured the pills into his mouth, washing them down with an energy drink. One of the pep pills was uncoated for immediate impact and the other was a time-release capsule buffered with a mild sedative to prevent speed nervousness.

When he pulled off the county road and drove between two massive piles of dirt, he waved at the waiting three-man watch team, drove past the Yukons, then pushed a button and released a ramp that extended itself hydraulically and dropped gently to the ground.

Watts, freshly dressed in a disposable jumpsuit, a particle mask, and surgeon’s gloves, climbed down and ran around to get behind the wheel of one of the Yukons, which he drove into the trailer. As soon as he returned to the truck, Herf closed the rear. After Watts climbed back up into the rig, carrying the jumpsuit in a garbage bag, Herf expertly turned the truck around and headed east toward the interstate.

“One cold one in the Yukon,” Watts said. “It’s Duncan.”

“How’d he buy it?”

“Edge to the throat.”

“What about his partner, Rowe?” Herf asked.

“Missing and presumed captured,” Watts said.

“Missing and presumed Styered,” Herf said flatly.

“Makes you glad to be on the truck this time,” Watts said. “Cold Wind is a rough job. I’d love to land that bastard. What’s the bonus on him now?”

“One point five, last I heard. We’re to drop off this load and be back in position ASAP.”

“I knew the team should have been larger from the get-go,” Watts said.

“This might be one long weekend,” Herf said. He used the GPS to plot the fastest route to the naval air base north of Memphis, where a C-130 would be waiting to take the Yukon and its cold-meat cargo to a backwater base in Texas where the equipment would be salvaged, the Yukon would be crushed into a block of steel, and their dead comrade would be unceremoniously cremated.

“The way of the gun,” Watts said to himself.