Divine Justice (25 page)

Knox floored it.

He was coming to realize that maybe the only way he was going to survive this was to find John Carr.

CHAPTER 48

K
NOX WAS MOTORING DOWN
the road trying to fathom how somebody had been able to follow him up here. Not even Macklin Hayes with all his support had been able to accomplish it. It was like they knew exactly where—

He nearly swerved off the road. He cut the wheel hard and turned off into a dark path. He put the truck in park, threw off his seat belt and went over the interior of the cab meticulously. He found nothing. But his examination of the truck’s exterior was far more productive. He held up the small tracking device with the magnetized side. It had been placed inside one of the rear wheel wells. As he held the tracker, a smile crept across his face.

Annabelle was driving and Caleb was staring at the tiny screen.

“How we doing?” she asked.

“He’s up there about a mile ahead, going straight.” They had a vertical slab of mountain on one side of them and on the other a drop of nearly a half mile with not a guardrail in sight. “Seems like Oliver took a bus.”

“Judging from the way Knox ran out of the bus station, I’d say that was a pretty safe bet.”

He glanced over at her. “What about Reuben?”

“I talked to him. He’s back there somewhere,” she said. “He’ll eventually catch up to us the next time Knox stops.”

Caleb stared out the windshield. “Pretty isolated place.”

“What, did you expect Oliver to take up residence in the suburbs?”

“Sometimes the best place to hide is with a lot of people.”

“Yeah, and sometimes it’s not. For all we know he could be up in those mountains somewhere. It worked for that abortion clinic bomber in North Carolina.”

“But they finally caught him,” Caleb pointed out.

“Okay, but—”

“Oh, damn!”

“What?”

Caleb was staring at the tiny screen that registered the movements of Knox’s truck.

“He’s turned around. He’s coming right at us.”

Annabelle glanced at the screen and, sure enough, the red blob of light representing Knox was flying right at them.

“Quick, pull off,” Caleb cried out.

“Where? Into the side of the mountain or over the edge and two thousand feet down?”

“There!” Caleb stabbed his finger in the direction of a tiny sliver of dirt that ran between a stand of trees on the left where the mountain slab receded a bit.

Annabelle zipped into that crevice. They both turned around and watched the road. A minute later an Exxon tanker truck flashed by.

Caleb stared down at the screen. “We’re in trouble.”

Annabelle followed his gaze. “He found the tracker and put it on the fuel truck. Shit!”

Caleb nodded absently before tossing the useless contraption down on the seat. “Now what do we do?”

Annabelle put the van in gear and backed out onto the road and floored it. “We drive and we watch. And with any luck we’ll pick up his trail again.”

“I don’t think I’m that lucky.”

“Well, I am.”

“Why?”

“I’m Irish. We always keep some reserve in the tank.”

CHAPTER 49

J
OE
K
NOX WAS FEELING GOOD
for the first time in a long time. He’d ditched the tail and could now move on. He looked at the map on the seat next to him. The guy at the bus company had given him fairly precise directions to where the bus had dropped Carr and his friend off. Knox did a rough estimate in his head. He was probably an hour or so away.

When he got there he slowed the truck and looked around. It really was the middle of nowhere. Yet maybe not. He punched in some buttons on his navigation system and on the screen sprang up a number of different locations in the relative vicinity. “Tazburg, Mise, Divine, South Ridge.” He read the names off the screen. All these places were scattered in different directions. So which should he take? And what should he do when he got there? His experience in the last tiny town had not been good. He swore he would not flash his federal badge, for one thing. And he was a stranger, so they would be suspicious anyway. If Carr were still in one of these places he might have already ingratiated himself with the townsfolk. Knox could be walking into something he would end up not liking. And the bus driver had said that Carr had a young guy with him. Was he from one of these towns? If so, he hadn’t told the driver which one.

Knox pulled off the road and left the engine running as he stared at the navigation screen. He sighed. Hell, even for intelligence experts it sometimes came down to something as simple as this.

He closed his eyes and stabbed the screen with his finger. When he opened his eyes and pulled his finger back the town’s name was revealed. He had a twenty-five percent chance that it was right.

Tazburg, Virginia, here I come.

He put the truck in gear and pulled back on the road.

While Joe Knox was enjoying a rare moment of exuberance Annabelle was slamming her hands down on the steering wheel. They’d been driving round and round trying to pick up the scent, but when they pulled past the same gas station for the third time, she’d driven into the parking lot, ripped the van into park and was now scowling at a dog that was sunning itself next to the air pump, only rising every few seconds to investigate its private parts.

“This isn’t working, is it?” said Caleb.

“You think!” snapped Annabelle.

“Do you have another idea?”

She glared over at him. “Why do
I
always have to come up with the ideas, Mr. Librarian of Congress?”

Caleb said imperturbably, “I only asked because I happen to have one, an idea I mean.”

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and looked at him expectantly.

“Do you want to hear it?” Caleb said tersely.

“Yes!” she shouted at him.

“I don’t appreciate being yelled at.”

She leaned into him. “Will you appreciate it more if I pull you out of this hunk of junk and kick the shit out of you instead?”

Caleb put one hand on the door lever and looked ready to sprint for it. “How about I just tell you my idea?”

Annabelle gripped the wheel so hard her forearms quivered. “That would please me very much,” she said between clenched teeth.

“You see, civility is really not that difficult.” She gave him such a ferocious look that he hurried on. “Okay, we go back to that town where they serve heart attacks instead of meals. You go to the bus station, do your usual bushelful of lies routine, maybe show some leg, buy a ticket and get the driver to drop you off at the exact same spot he did Oliver. He might have even overheard where they were headed. I’ll follow in the van, and when you get there I’ll pick you up and we go from there. At the very least it’ll put us in the general vicinity of where Oliver was. How does that sound?”

Actually it sounded pretty good, Annabelle had to admit. She put the van in gear and pulled onto the road, setting a course back to the town.

Caleb’s cell phone buzzed. It was Reuben. He spoke for a few minutes and then clicked off.

“Well?” said Annabelle.

“He’s about two hours away, he said. I filled him in on the plan and he’ll meet us there.”

“Good.”

“So you like my idea?”

“I’m doing it, so I must think it has
some
merit,” she snapped.

“Annabelle, can I make a personal comment?”

She took a deep breath. “Go ahead.”

“You really need to do something about your anger issues.”

She stared over at him with an incredulous look. “I’ve been in this van so long I can’t even remember when I haven’t been in this van. I’m tired, I’m filthy, I’m worried and I’m frustrated. Okay? I don’t have anger
issues
.”

Caleb smiled knowingly. “That was a good first step to getting your feelings out. Only then can you achieve real progress.”

“Can I share another feeling with you?” she said pleasantly.

“Of course.”

“Either go back to being the mildly amusing testosterone Caleb, or else your ass can walk back to D.C.”

Predictably, they drove on in silence.

CHAPTER 50

K
NOX CRUISED INTO
T
AZBURG
and passed the local police station. He parked the truck and watched uniformed officers come and go, some on foot, others climbing into old mud-splattered Ford LTDs and speeding off to somewhere. The downtown area consisted of brick and clapboard buildings, a few leaning into each other, with old telephone lines running to them, while cars were parked slantwise in front of them. He’d passed through a long tunnel cut straight through a section of mountain on his way here. It felt like a border crossing.

What country
am
I in?

He pulled out the photos of Carr and mentally absorbed them one more time. He put the truck in gear and slowly pulled off. He would grid the downtown area street by street. From the look of the place that would take all of five minutes. Then he would get something to eat at the local place. He wouldn’t pull his badge or show his photos. He would just watch. He had one big advantage. He knew relatively well what Carr looked like, while Carr had no idea who he was. He would press that to his full advantage. If that didn’t pay off, he would eventually go to the police and work through them. It was a plan at least.

Three hours later and after having sat his butt down in four hole-in-the-walls and downed more cups of coffee than his stomach or bladder cared for, he concluded that he had struck out.

He parked in front of the police station, went in, flashed his creds, explained his mission to the extent he could, meaning it was mostly refined by-the-spook-book gobbledygook, and got zip for his troubles from the lawmen who were understandably excited that a dangerous desperado might be in their midst, but not very helpful. No one had seen anyone remotely resembling the man in the photo. Although one young deputy did mention that a fellow that looked just like that had lived in Tazburg for sixty-three years and happened to be his daddy. Knox thanked them politely and nearly sprinted back to his truck.

Before he’d gotten the door of his truck closed, his cell phone rang.

It was Hayes. The spy chief was not happy. But then again, Knox had never known the man to be really happy about anything. Knox had been with him when the Berlin Wall had come down. While everyone else had been raising their champagne flutes and making victory toasts, Hayes had only sipped on club soda and grumbled, “About damn time.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Have you ever known me to give an idle command?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

Hayes bellowed, “When I ordered you to give me regular updates, I didn’t mean at such wide intervals that obviously seem to appeal to you.”

Knox punched the gas and rapidly left the good hamlet of Tazburg behind. He didn’t want the megaton blast that he sensed was coming from Hayes to flatten the place.

“Well, General, you’re a busy man and if I’d had something of substance to report you’d be the first to know.” Before Hayes could send off another broadside he added, “But in fact I was just going to call you. I’ve narrowed the search area to four places. I just cleared one and I’m heading on to the second one now.”

“Give me the locations.”

Knox knew that one was coming. “With all due respect, sir, can I ask why?”

“Why
I
want to know where your investigative search is going on? Are you on drugs, Knox?”

“Stone cold sober, I can assure you. But if your plan is to flood the area with agents, that would definitely be a bad move in my opinion. We’re looked on with suspicion here, and for all I know Carr has already gotten cozy with some folks around here and they may provide him with cover.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Big bad government coming after a persecuted Vietnam vet. He could’ve made up any lie about his background. Believe me, sir, I’ve passed enough pickup trucks with shotguns and deer rifles in the window rack and bumper stickers that read, ‘Thanks for visiting, now get the hell out,’ to know an unfriendly atmosphere when I see it. There was even a ten-foot-tall graffiti sign on a train overpass that said, ‘The Feds Suck!’ I couldn’t fail but note by the faded paint that it had been there apparently a long time without a single attempt to wash it off.”

“Where are you, Knox? Now!”

Okay, here comes Plan B.
Knox sped up, rolled down the window and stuck the phone out so it was blasted by the wind. He leaned out the window and spoke into the phone. “General . . . mile . . . border . . . hour . . . berg.”

“Knox!” Hayes roared. “You’re breaking up.”

Knox pretended not to hear. In for a dime, in for a dollar. Maybe his lawyer daughter could represent him in his criminal insubordination trial. Although Hayes probably wouldn’t bother with a trial. Knox would simply just disappear.

“Next . . . then . . . report. . . . investigation . . . west . . . lead.” This was so absurd he had to work hard to keep from laughing his guts out, he really did.

“Damn it, Knox!”

Knox turned the phone off, wound the window back up, patting his hair back into place. With any luck Hayes was so apoplectic they would find him facedown on his desk, the unfortunate victim of a Joe Knox–induced fatal cardiac blast.

He pointed his ride to the next town on the list.

CHAPTER 51

A
S
S
TONE WALKED
down the hospital corridor he heard laughter. When he reached Willie’s room he understood why. Danny was in the bed next to his friend and Abby was sitting between them.

They all looked up when Stone walked in.

Danny’s head was bandaged and one eye was swollen and there were cuts on his face. When he sat up he moved slowly and stiffly. Still, when he saw Stone he grinned in his usual cocksure manner.

“Looky what the cat dragged in. Dudley Do-Right. Savior of mankind, or at least two sorry-ass mountain boys.”

Abby smiled. “The ‘boys’ seem to be doing a lot better ever since they were put in the same room.”