Chapter Thirty-Three
At the convenience store in La Grange they all took a bathroom break, bought fresh cups of coffee, and returned to the truck. Linc climbed in behind the wheel.
“Take 35 north toward Dallas,” Cuchillo instructed.
Dallas. She prayed they weren’t carrying a bomb of some kind.
They didn’t take time to fuel up. The truck held enough diesel to reach the city, still two hundred miles away, and return to Iron Springs. If they had to go farther, they could refuel along the way.
Carly leaned back in the passenger seat. Handling the big semi had become almost second nature, but after twelve hours on the road, she was exhausted. Though the night was beginning to gray toward sunrise, Linc seemed more alert than when they’d started.
He was gearing up, she knew, mentally preparing himself to handle whatever happened when they reached the drop-off site.
“When the highway splits, take the east route.” Cuchillo folded back into the bunk and seconds later, started snoring. The awful truth was, until Zach was returned, there was nothing they could do but follow his orders.
As the miles rolled past and Linc drove toward Dallas, Carly’s nerves kicked up, pushing away any sleepiness. The split in the interstate was only a couple of miles ahead. It was seven-thirty in the morning, the sun tipping over the horizon, traffic heavy.
Linc handled the truck with the ease of a veteran driver, moving in and out safely while holding a steady speed. With the thick Dallas traffic, Carly was glad he was behind the wheel.
Linc glanced toward the bunk behind the seats, saw Cuchillo was still asleep, and turned to Carly. “You okay?”
“Nervous.”
He nodded, looked back at the bunk. “You better wake him up. We don’t want to miss the turn to the drop-off site, wherever the hell it is.”
She sighed. “Could be anywhere.”
“I know. Be careful. Remember he’s got a gun.”
“Believe me, I haven’t forgotten.” Carly turned in her seat, leaned down, and barely nudged the man’s leg with her boot. “Cuchillo . . . it’s time to wake up.”
The big Latino jerked awake, muttering a dirty word in Spanish as he sat up in the bunk.
He glanced around, saw where they were. “Take 35 east. Be careful not to miss the exit.”
“Be easier if you just told us where we’re going,” Linc said.
“Irving. Just listen and do what I say.”
The directions got complicated after that, swinging the truck onto one freeway and then another. The heavy traffic kept them hidden in plain sight. Carly wondered if that had been part of Zapata’s plan.
More instructions were given and finally Linc pulled the trailer into an area of warehouses and transportation hubs filled with dozens of trucks. Being close to the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, there was a lot of manufacturing in the area. She spotted the signs for a Frito-Lay plant and a UPS express freight center. Hard to believe they were bringing a load of smuggled goods into the middle of all this activity.
But apparently that was exactly the plan.
“Turn here.”
Linc turned the truck into an asphalt lot behind a food processing plant surrounded by a chain-link fence. The gate rolled closed behind them. Following Cuchillo’s instruction, Linc backed the rig up to a loading dock and turned off the engine.
“You will stay here while the cargo is unloaded.”
“Where’s the boy?” Linc asked.
“I will bring him to you.” The big Latino opened the sleeper door and jumped down to the asphalt.
Carly could hear the rattle of the trailer door rolling up. Seconds passed, then the scrape of the heavy cargo being unloaded. Glancing out at the side mirror, she caught a glimpse of something she hadn’t expected.
“People,” she said. “They’re climbing out of the back. He’s trafficking illegals.”
“And God only knows what else.”
An instant later, the sleeper door jerked open and Zach climbed into the truck.
“Zach!” Carly leaned into the back to hug him. Zach clung to her and they held on to each other for several long seconds before Carly let him go. “Thank God you’re okay.”
“Boy, I’m really glad to see you guys.”
Carly’s throat swelled. “We’re glad to see you, too.”
“You okay?” Linc asked. “They didn’t hurt you?”
“I’m okay, but I really want to go home.”
“So do we,” Carly said, knowing that until they got back on the road and away from these men, anything could still happen.
One thing she didn’t expect was the sound of the trailer being unhooked.
“Oh, no—they’re releasing the fifth wheel.” The trailer contained all the video evidence they had collected, everything they needed to make this nightmare end. “What are we going to do?”
But she was talking to air because Linc had stepped out of the cab and was striding toward Cuchillo, who stood a few feet away. Carly unfastened her belt, reached beneath the driver’s seat, and moved the Glock to her side of the truck. The windows were down so she could hear the conversation.
“You can’t have the trailer,” Linc said. “That wasn’t the deal.”
Cuchillo raised his pistol and aimed it at Linc’s broad chest. “Get back in the truck. You can afford to buy your woman another trailer. This one stays here.”
“Is El Jefe a man of his word or not?” Linc pressed. “The trailer is ours. We’re taking it home.”
Carly’s heart was pounding, thumping faster with each hostile word. She wanted to call Linc back, tell him they would find another way.
The cab jerked a little as the trailer came free and another man walked up, tall with very dark skin and a nose that was narrow and slightly hooked. As she recognized the man in Ross Townsend’s photo, her pulse pounded so hard, her ears started ringing. It was the terrorist, Hassan Mohammed Al-Razi.
Linc must have recognized him, too, because he turned and started walking back to the truck.
“Where do you think you are going?” Al-Razi asked.
Linc didn’t answer, just climbed in behind the wheel, and clicked his belt into place.
As he started the engine, Al-Razi walked up to the window. “Do you think I am going to let you just drive out of here?”
Linc ignored him. “Grab something and hold on, Zach. We’re leaving.”
Carly’s insides were shaking. Grateful she had buckled herself back in, she looked out the window to see a dozen men moving into position around the truck, pointing a variety of deadly-looking weapons at the cab.
“Time to go home,” Linc said. Dropping the truck into gear, he started pulling away from the dock. A wall of men moved in from all directions, but Linc just kept driving.
When a pickup shot out of nowhere, blocking the way forward, he slammed the truck into REVERSE and cranked the wheel, jammed his foot down hard on the pedal, and the truck moved backward. Using the side mirrors to steer, he shifted again, picking up speed as the truck shot backward, scattering men in every direction, knocking one of them down. Pistols roared and shots tore through the metal sides and back of the cab.
“Get down!” Linc shouted as he shifted into high REVERSE and roared back across the asphalt. A barrage of gunfire shattered the side windows; another blew through the sleeper, missing Zach’s head by inches.
From her place in the foot well, Carly yanked the Glock out from under her seat, popped up, and began firing. She hit a man in the leg, one in the shoulder, heard the thump of wheels rolling over a body, but Linc just kept going, increasing his speed, roaring backward toward the gate, crashing through it at thirty miles an hour.
When the wheels shot into the street, he jerked the yellow parking brake and cranked the steering wheel, spinning the truck a hundred and eighty degrees, sliding it into a forward position. He released the brake, shifted again, his boot jammed down hard on the pedal and the truck shot off down the road.
Linc zigzagged, throwing off the aim of the men chasing after them on foot, firing like maniacs, their bullets slamming into the cab. He downshifted, roared around a corner, then started picking up speed again.
There was a line of cars coming toward them from up ahead. For a moment, Carly thought Al-Razi was bringing in reinforcements and a fresh rush of fear shot through her.
The most welcome sight she had ever seen were the initials FBI printed on the sides of the vehicles blowing past them, careening around the corner they had just turned, heading for the food processing plant.
“The FBI!” Zach shouted. “The FBI is coming!”
Carly grinned.
Linc didn’t stop, just kept roaring through the streets of the warehouse district back toward the interstate.
“How did they know?” Carly asked.
“I have no idea, but I’m damned glad to see them.”
Linc kept driving. They were rolling along I-30, heading back toward Iron Springs, when his phone started ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked down at the caller I.D. “It’s Taggart.” Hitting the speaker, he rested it on the center console so she could hear.
“You guys okay?” Quinn asked. “You got Zach with you?”
“We’re all okay,” Linc said. “Damned glad you decided to show up at the party.”
“We would have been there sooner, but we didn’t know your final destination. Once you arrived, it took a few minutes to get the team to your location. We’re mopping up now. We’ve got thirteen Mexican illegals, four men wounded, two dead guys, including Hassan Mohammed Al-Razi—who got his seventy-two Virgins by trying to shoot his way out. Two other possible terrorists are also in custody.”
“Nice work. How’d you know what was going on?”
“You didn’t think we’d swallow that BS you were slinging about cutting a deal with El Jefe? We’ve been monitoring you for days—McKinley put listening devices in Carly’s office and a GPS tracker on the truck you had modified. Good idea, by the way. Ought to give us some really good intel. We also put a drone in the air. Heat sensors detected human cargo in the trailer.”
“You knew about Zach?” Carly asked.
“Not until you got the call last night. We had no idea he’d been taken. Glad you managed to get him out of there safely. I’ll call the grandparents, let them know he’s okay.”
“I’ll have Zach call, too,” she said.
“That’s good. We can pick him up at your house this afternoon and transport him back to San Antonio.”
“Cool,” Zach said from behind the seat. “I get to ride with the FBI.”
Linc chuckled. “Looks like you’ve got things under control. Been a long night. We’re headed home.”
“Technically we need statements from all of you, but considering what you’ve been through, we can handle that when we get out to your place later today.”
“Thanks. By the way, what else besides Mexican illegals and terrorists was Zapata smuggling?”
“Sorry, that’s on a need-to-know basis. Matter of national security.”
Linc just grunted.
“One last thing. Zapata is still on the loose. We’ve put a BOLO out on him but we don’t have him in custody yet. You need to be careful until we can round him up and bring him in.”
“Good advice.”
“Carly, you and Zach stay close to Linc.”
“We will,” she promised, since close to Linc was exactly where she wanted to be.
As the truck continued home, it occurred to her that her troubles with El Jefe were about to be over. Once that happened, Linc’s promise to her grandfather would be fulfilled.
A sharp pang dug into her chest. How much longer did she have with him? How much longer before he was ready to move on?
Refusing to let her tired mind go there, Carly focused on the road back to Iron Springs and said a silent prayer of thanks that they were all still alive.