Dark City (Repairman Jack - Early Years 02) (27 page)

Has to be someone else, he thought. Or he’s rushing to an accident somewhere ahead.

But no. The fucker pulled right up behind him and whooped his siren twice.

“Shit-shit-shit!”

Reggie put on his blinker and eased toward the shoulder.

“What is wrong?” Kadir said, bouncing in his seat all twitchy and nervous.

“Why’re you all worked up? Ain’t got no ID?”

“This was not supposed to happen.”

“No shit. But it is.”

The big question was
why
? He had an idea but didn’t want to go there.

He pulled to a stop on the shoulder with the cop behind him, lights still flashing. Reggie waited for him to get out but he didn’t.

“What is he doing?” Kadir said.

“You ever been pulled over?”

“I do not have a driver’s license.”

“He’s probably calling in to run a check on our plates, make sure it hasn’t been sto—”

A second cop car zoomed up and pulled in front of him. He saw the Maryland State Police emblem on the front door.

Okay. Still no reason to panic. Cops almost always backed up each other on stops, especially at night.

When the third cop showed up he had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

He pointed Kadir toward the glove compartment. “Check for the rental papers in there and hope to fuck you find them.”

As the Arab did as he was told, Reggie pulled out his wallet and loosened his license in its slot. These cops might be jumpy and he wanted everything to go smoothly.

“Are these the papers?” Kadir said.

Reggie took the rental agreement and held it ready.

Finally, both of the troopers behind him stepped out of their vehicles and approached the truck. The one ahead of them unfolded himself from his unit, but stayed by the open driver door. All three wore tan shirts, black ties, and Stetson hats.

Kadir’s voice shook as he said, “What do we do?”

“You do nothing. Keep your hands in plain sight on your lap and your mouth shut. Let me do all the talking.”

He rolled down his window and tried to look confused as the trooper approached.

“Something wrong, Officer?” he said in his most pleasant tone.

“Good evening, sir. License and registration, please?”

Reggie pulled out the North Carolina license and handed it over with the rental agreement. Light from the flashers reflected off the cop’s badge.

“It’s a rental so I don’t have a registration. Can I ask why you stopped me?”

He noticed the second trooper staring at them through the passenger-door window.

“We had a report of a rented truck matching this description hauling contraband.”

“What sort of contraband?”

“Sir, would you mind opening your rear doors?”

Reggie so wanted to tell him to fuck himself. Make the asshole haul him in, go through all the legal bullshit, get a court order or whatever the hell they needed to get into the truck, and finally pull open those doors to find
nothing
.

But he wasn’t here to make a point or cause trouble. He was here to deliver this truck to New York.

“Not a bit. Always glad to cooperate with law enforcement.”

The trooper stepped back. “Would you and your passenger step out of the cab, please?”

“Sure. Let me grab the key to the lock here.”

He hopped out and headed toward the rear of the truck, hoping to hell the damn key worked. As he led the way, he tried to work through the timing of this stop. The fuzz had shown up after their visit to the Maryland House.

“Can I ask you something?” When the trooper didn’t answer, Reggie went on. “Did someone call in a report about this particular truck?”

“Why do you ask, sir?”

“Well, I ain’t haulin’ no contraband or nothin’, but I did have a bit of an altercation with someone back at the rest stop over a parking spot. I’m just wondering…”

The trooper said nothing, just pointed to the lock holding the doors closed. Kadir came around the far side, followed by the other trooper.

Another Ryder truck similar to theirs whizzed by. Reggie pointed to it.

“Why ain’t you stopping him?”

“You might say it’s a random thing.”

“My lucky day, huh?”

The trooper only pointed to the lock again. He and his buddy stepped back, hands resting on their gun butts, while Reggie stuck the key in the lock and twisted.

*   *   *

Eventually, as he continued north at a deliberate pace, Jack spotted a cluster of flashing lights ahead and slowed even further. He eased into the middle lane as the truck came into view with two cop cars behind and one ahead. The rear doors were open. He saw Reggie and Kadir standing aside while two troopers aimed flashlights into the empty cargo bay.

“No kids,” Bertel said in a breathy voice as they passed. “Dear God, that’s a relief.”

Jack let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Yeah.”

“And that white guy … that’s Reggie?”

“You got it.”

“The one who ordered Tony killed.”

“One and the same. Why?”

“Might want to look him up someday.”

Jack wouldn’t mind if he did. But that was the future. The empty truck was the present, and as he’d said before, this changed everything. No more worrying about something going wrong and kids getting hurt.

He grabbed the mobile phone and hit the speed-dial button. “Got to call this in.”

Blue answered again.
“Yeah, Jack.”

“The truck’s empty.”

“You’re sure?”

“The cops stopped it and I got a look inside. Just bare walls.”

A pause as Blue repeated the message, followed by a brief, mumbled conversation. Then:
“You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that stop?
”

“Well, yeah.”

Another pause.
“We made some plans, now we might have to change them.”

“Sorry. But I had to know.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s good to know. We’ll just make new plans. You know, ad lib a little. We’re good at that.”

“Want me to stick with them?”

“Not much point. Wherever that truck’s aimed won’t be a healthy spot for you or us. We want to stay away from it unless it’s coming here. You know where Amityville is?”

“I can find it.”

“Take the Belt past JFK and follow the signs to the Southern State and then Sunrise Highway. When you hit Massapequa, call and one of us will meet you and guide you in.”

He ended the call.

“What’s the story?” Bertel said.

“Heading home.”

Bertel stared ahead at the road, drumming his fingers on his thighs.

“What?” Jack said.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay on them.”

“Why? They’ve got an empty truck. All they’re hauling is a bunch of air.”

“Shits like them give decent smugglers a bad name.”

Jack had to laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not as much as you think. Slow down and let them pass us.”

Jack didn’t want to slow down, he wanted to move on. But he signaled for the right lane and eased up on the gas pedal.

“What’s your interest? And no BS about upholding the honor of smugglers.”

“Something else is going on.”

“Yeah. It’s a big fat trap.”

“Beyond that. Don’t you get a sense that there’s a bigger picture here? Something that goes beyond human trafficking and jihad?”

“Selling sex slaves to finance blowing up the country sounds plenty big to me.”

“It is. But I’ve got a feeling there’s something even bigger going on.”

“Like what?”

He looked at Jack. “If I knew, I wouldn’t need to stick with these pieces of human garbage.”

“But why do you ‘need’ to?”

He checked the speedometer—the pickup was doing about fifty-two.

“Because something’s happening here and I don’t know what it is—”

“Sounds like a Bob Dylan song.”

“—and I don’t like not knowing.”

“Can’t know everything.”

“True, but…”

“I’m pretty much fine with not knowing things. I’ll just add your ‘something bigger’ to the list.”

“That’s it? Just add it to some list and go your merry way?”

“Pretty much.”

“You’re not the only one in this world, Jack.”

Jack shrugged. “When I think about having to share it with guys like Reggie, I sometimes wish I were.”

“Good point. But don’t you feel any need to be part of something bigger than yourself?”

Uh-oh. Were they going to get all philosophical here? Okay. He’d play. He didn’t like talking about himself, but right now the only other thing he had to do was drive. Maybe he could get Bertel to reveal a little about himself.

“Not really. No, let me take that back: no need at all.”

“Just me, myself, and I? That’s your life?”

“I didn’t say that. But I don’t feel the need to join a church or a theater group or the Royal Order of Raccoons to feel whole. And to tell the truth, my immediate circumstances are about all I can handle right now.”

“How do you feel about your country, Jack?”

Where was this going?

“Best country in the world.” Easy answer because he truly believed it. “Not that it couldn’t be improved.”

“How so?”

“It’s a little too much in your business, don’t you think? I don’t mean ‘your’ as in you, Dane Bertel, I mean it in a more generic sense, because the government doesn’t even know about your cigarette business. If it did, it’d shut you down and toss you in the clink.”

“Well, I am breaking the law. I knew that going in.”

“But why should there be a law that says you can’t truck cigarettes from North Carolina to Jersey? Why should someone stop you? Where do they get that power?”

“It’s interstate commerce.”

Jack gave a prolonged shrug. “That’s supposed to mean something to me?”

“It’s regulated by the federal government.”

“Says who?”

“The federal government. Backed up by the Supreme Court.”

“The Supreme Court, huh? And who appointed them?”

“The federal gov—” Bertel paused, smiled. “Okay. I get it.”

“Do you? Sounds rigged to me. How’s it sound to you?”

Bertel pointed a finger Jack’s way. “So you think people should just ship whatever they want wherever they like?”

“Why not? Who are you hurting?”

“The tax man, for one.”

“And the tax man works for…?”

“Stop right there. We could spend the night going round and round on that.” He laughed. “Legalizing transport would put me out of business. I mean, I’d have no margin of profit if it wasn’t illegal.”

“Exactly. So if you’re asking if I feel a need to be part of that circle-jerk machine, the answer is no. But if I’ve got to be involved in any machine, I’d prefer it be as a ghost.”

Bertel sighed. “You’re misconstruing what I’m saying.”

“Am I?” Time to turn this around. “What about you? Do you feel a need to be part of something bigger than yourself?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Jack grinned. “Like the FBI? Or the CIA? Or the NSA?”

“Will you give that a rest—please?”

“Not until you admit you’re a deep-cover agent for some supersecret branch of the federal government.”

Bertel just shook his head, like he was disgusted. But Jack wasn’t done needling.

“Okay,” he added, “let’s just say you follow these guys and do find ‘something bigger’ going on. What do you plan to do about it?”

“I’ll think of something.”

“Report it to your handler, or directly to M?”

Bertel remained silent.

“Or maybe you’re working for the other side. Maybe you’re from SPECTRE or SMERSH or—”

A Ryder truck flew by in the left lane.

“Is that—?”

“It is,” Jack said, reading the license plate. “Follow?”

Bertel nodded. “Yeah. They’ll be stopping at the Chesapeake House.”

“You know that?”

“They don’t have a mobile phone, otherwise they wouldn’t have stopped at the Maryland House to call in. They’ll want to phone in about getting stopped by the cops.”

Jack liked the logic in that.

“Then what?”

“While they’re stopped, I’m going to see if I can tag that truck with a tracking device.”

Jack almost veered onto the shoulder. “What? You just happen to have some kind of tracking device handy?”

“It’s just a radio transceiver.”

“And you’re gonna keep tellin’ me you’re not a secret agent?”

“Stop talking like an idiot. I’ve had a few drivers I’ve suspected of making detours from their route so I’ve followed them from time to time. The tracer ensures I don’t lose them along the way.”

Sounded logical, but still … Jack couldn’t help feel that Bertel was connected to something bigger than he let on.

Turned out he was right about the Chesapeake House. Just a few miles up the road, the Ryder truck exited to the rest stop.

The Maryland House had looked like a real house. The Chesapeake House looked more like a stylish warehouse. Reggie and Kadir appeared to have given up all pretense—they parked near other cars this time, and both got out and headed into the building.

“There.” Bertel pointed to an empty spot a dozen or so feet away. “Pull in there.”

“If they spot us…”

“Only take me a second.” He twisted and reached behind the front seat. “I’ve done this before. Rented plenty of Ryders and know just where to stick it.”

He came up with a duffel bag and hopped out of the cab with it. Jack watched him hurry around to the truck and disappear as he crouched beside it. Less than a minute later he was back. He put the duffel on the floor and pulled out a little gizmo. He turned it on and soon a green light began blinking on its postage-stamp size screen.

“She’s working. Let’s get out of here.”

Jack didn’t have to hear that twice. He backed up and pulled away.

“Now what?”

“We head back to the Jersey rest stop where we left your cute little car. Then—”

“—most likely you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine,” Jack said, unable to resist another Dylan lyric.

But he liked the idea of returning to Ralph and being back in control and on his own again. At least until he connected with the Mikulskis.