Dark Ages

Now he said, “Well? Who says I hurt people?”

“Nobody,” she admitted.

“What do they say about me?”

“That you’re some sort of a weirdo. You hijack ’em, then strand ’em. You ain’t hurt a single soul. But what’re you doing with all those rigs, I wanna know?”

“If I told you, then maybe you’d be the first one I had to hurt.”

The driver tilted her head like a curious mutt. “Naw. I think you’re a nice guy.”

“No way. I’m bad.”

“You’re a pussycat.”

“Hey, no. I’m a killer. I killed lots of people. I could kill you, too, just like snapping my fingers.”

The driver laughed. “You’re a funny. I like you, kid. Name’s Penny.”

“Hi, Penny. I’m Darren ‘The Decapitator’ Dougally.”

Penny laughed. “Yeah, right.”

Remo had to admit Penny was a cool customer. She wasn’t just putting on a brave front, she truly wasn’t the least bit concerned about being hijacked and paralyzed. Maybe she was bonkers.

“So? Where you gonna leave me, Triple-D?” she asked.

“How about the access road back of the Neosho Truckers’ Campus?”

“That’ll be just fine,” Penny said. “Give you lots of time to get to wherever you got to go while I hike on in. You’re going to unfreeze me so I’ll be able to hike, right?”

“Sure,” Remo said easily, but now he had an itch in his head.

Penny was cool, but she couldn’t be that damn cool. He could sense her pulse, and it was suspiciously modulated. So was her breathing. She was cool in a practiced way, and why should she practice being cool unless she was some sort of an undercover agent who needed to be cool in extreme situations?

“You’re from Langley, huh?”

Her heart rate rocketed, even as she replied easily, “Nope, I’m a Texas girl from Angelina.”

“The Bureau?”

“Pardon?” she asked.

She was still tense, but her pulse didn’t spike again. Remo could tell such things. “You know, the Company’s not supposed to do intelligence-gathering inside the U.S.”

“What are you talking about?” Penny chuckled, but she did it like an expert Only Remo’s highly tuned hearing picked up the slight quavering of her nervousness.

“So. CIA it is. You people tracking the Big Rig Bandit of 1-44 or this vehicle specifically?”

“Triple-D, I got no clue—”

“Can it, Agent,” Remo said. “You’re with the CIA and you’re operating on U.S. soil. That’s the facts I know so far.”

“Boy, you’re crazy,” Penny replied, her heart now in her throat. “You’ve hijacked one too many rigs today, and the stress is making you a little, you know, paranoid, like.”

“Maybe,” Remo said. “Here’s an idea. I drive you on into Springfield and turn myself in to the news station and they broadcast live. You and me. And I tell them how I think you just might be a CIA agent. I’ll look totally crazy, right?”

Penny said nothing, but her heart was racing like a marathon runner.

“So, think about all the publicity when they do a little checking and find out you are a CIA agent. Operating illegally inside the United States.”

“You’ll go to prison,” Penny protested.

“Naw. I have legal title to this particular vehicle,” Remo said. “I didn’t leave any physical evidence at any of the other hijacks. Fact is, you—meaning the CIA—stole my RV.”

“Ain’t your RV,” Penny snapped. “I was hired to take it to its rightful owner in Indianapolis.”

“I’m the rightful owner, and I have the papers to prove it. But never mind that. We’ll let Fox News sort it out. In fact, we’ll make it in time for them to get us on their 5:00 a.m. program.”

Penny stewed. Remo drove. The mile markers decreased by fifteen.

“Okay. Fine. I’m with the Company,” she admitted. “What’s your purpose?”

“Figure out about this vehicle.”

“What about it?”

“What do you mean, what about it? If this is really your recreational vehicle then you were the guy who was driving it on national TV, right? You got half the military in the Southwest U.S.A. mobilized around it, and then you just disappeared. Nothing left but questions about who gave the orders to the military and where y’ all vanished to.”

Remo hmmed. “There should have been a note that made it all okay.”

“Huh?”

“You know, like from somebody high up in the government?”

“Yeah. There was all kinds of authorization. So?”

“What do you mean, so?”

“I mean so what? Just because somebody high up says it’s okay don’t make it okay at all. Makes it more suspicious than ever. We gotta know.”

“Who has to know? What do you have to know?”

“Who’s behind the hijackings and what your purpose really is, of course.”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t know, why else?”

“I see. So you’re with some sort of a supersecret club inside the CIA, right?”

“No,” Penny shot back, her heart rate leaping.

“I’ll take that as a yes. So what do you think you know about all of this already?”

“Just what I told you. Ain’t that enough?”

“Liar. Did you know your nostrils flare when you lie? Even in the dark I can see it”

“They don’t flare!” Penny protested. “Not anymore! I trained ’em not to.”

“Hey, it’s just a little bit, hardly enough to be noticeable. Now, what do you know about all this?”

“I said, nothing.”

“Nostrils! Start talking or I get Walter Jacobson on the phone.”