Jeff Abbott - Trust Me

It couldn’t be them, Luke told himself. At the worst the car’s driver would signal the trucker and end Luke’s free ride.

The sedan veered up close to the truck’s rear, as though inspecting the odd big bug clutching the truck’s door. A Mercedes.

The Mercedes swung up closer.

The pulse of the truck’s brakes jostled him, the hiss of tires slowing on pavement. The trucker gave a warning tap on his brakes.

The sedan slowed a fraction, cut around the truck’s corner and sped up the side.

Through the curtain of rain as the car passed, Luke saw Snow staring at him. Smiling. Then the Mercedes was gone, out of sight, revving toward the truck’s cab, veering into the opposite lane to pass.

They’re going to cut him off, force him to pull over, Luke realized. But the truck was speeding far too fast for him to jump.

He inched along the bumper, trying to get a view around the truck’s corner. The Mercedes winged close to the truck’s cabin, Snow’s window down, her hand waving at the trucker to slow.

The truck slowed, rocked, then picked up its speed.

Maybe the trucker didn’t like what he saw. Snow looked crazy as hell with that sickening grin. Maybe he had valuable cargo and he just wasn’t inclined to pull over in the middle of nowhere because another driver gestured at him.

He glanced around the corner again. The Mercedes swung out onto the opposite shoulder as another truck traveling the opposite direction barreled past, horns blaring over the growl of the storm.

Luke’s arms seized in bone-deep cramps, his muscles knotted in pain. He eased the chains out of the door handles, held onto the handles themselves and tested the locked doors again in blind desperation. If only he could have gotten inside the doors, squeezed inside, Mouser and Snow would have never found him…

He heard the crack of a shot. The truck lurched, convulsed, and nearly threw Luke to the pavement. He gripped the handles and braced his feet hard against the bumper.

The truck veered off the road. It rocked and surged as pines and oaks snapped in its path. A thick trunk splintered, flying past Luke in a cloud of pulverized wood and pine needles.

The truck rocketed down an incline and to his left he saw the beginning of a bridge rising past him.

The truck plummeted, smashing down through the trees as the speed slowed. Luke put his face to the metal as spears of mud flew past him.

The jackknifing came with a wrench and if he’d kept the chains looped in the door handle the force would have torn his arms from their sockets. He tried to time the jump in a flash of pure instinct but the crash was chaos.

You’ll be crushed under the rig, he thought and then the rig broke free and threw him; he cartwheeled past the edge of the crumpling trailer.

Air. He opened his eyes, falling, and saw the swelling river beneath him, rushing toward him.

Water. Cold beyond reason and dark.

Earth. His shoulder scraped the river’s stony bottom.

He kicked toward the surface, broke into air. Just long enough for a gulp.

Then the chains weighed him down.

Fire. Heat, surging through the river like a pulse. The current yanked him forward, the force of a blast pushed him into sweet oxygen again and he saw gray sky, dawn fighting to pierce the clouds.

Then the maddened river took him.

Luke kicked to the surface as the river swept him downstream, sinking again, fighting to rise. He rode the river’s raging current for what seemed an eternity. It was a constant ordeal to keep head above water, to breathe. He gathered the chains close around him, terrified they would snag on rock or sunken tree and yank him downward to death. The weight of the chains was like hands pulling him down to the sleeping depths. A sudden bend in the river twisted ahead of him and the current battered him into the shallows, cypress and pine lining the banks. Then he spun away. He struggled, tried to swim. The river hurried him close to shore again, and he spotted a black shape, toppled into the water. A rotting tree. Branches stuck out like spikes.

Luke gathered the last of his strength and tossed the chain over one of the trunk’s branches.

He stopped. He could breathe. He lay in the water, head above the surge, greedy for air. Slowly he pulled himself close to the tree. He used the chains to loop onto branches closer to shore and he collapsed onto the cold mud.

He became aware of a fresh onslaught of rain. The pain in his arms, in his chest, brought him back to his senses. He got to his feet slowly and staggered into the heavy growth along the bank. Arches of cypress and pine spread above him, sheltering him from the worst of the downpour. Behind him the river was sick with rain, beige with muddy runoff. Chunks of white floated in the brown water; packages of shrimp and fish, fresh from the Gulf.

The truck’s cargo.

They’ll be looking for you.

He hurried up the rolling incline that led from the river and staggered into the deep cover of the pines.

Please, God, he thought, let the trucker have gotten out alive.

Luke headed away from both river and road and deeper into the woods. As he walked he took an inventory of himself. Pants caked with mud. Shirt torn open, buttons gone, ripped by the force of the river. He glanced down: the silver of the Saint Michael medal glinted on his chest. Thank God, he thought, he hadn’t lost it. He’d lost one shoe and sock but the mud felt soothing against his foot. His wallet and money were back in the cabin. His wrists were bloodied and scored raw from the shackles.

He walked. Listened for the sounds of pursuit but heard only the soft hammering of the rain.

Mouser and Snow were from the Night Road. It existed, as a vicious force beyond his database of potential malcontents. It was real. He was convinced of it. Their talk of casinos being bombed. His mind spun. They said they were from his stepfather. It didn’t make any sense. They couldn’t be from Henry and also from the Night Road.

The realization hit him like a stone dropped from the clouds. Could Henry be involved with the Night Road? It didn’t seem possible. But Henry refusing to ransom him didn’t seem possible, either.

Who is your client for this project? he’d asked Henry. What are you doing with this research? Henry had smiled and dodged and maybe bribed him with a lucrative job offer to stop him from asking questions.

Luke had given him the discussion-group postings and the names, and a way to contact hundreds of people who might be extremists. He’d handed them to Henry on a plate. God only knew who his client really was.

He had to find a phone. Call the police.

Suddenly he stumbled into a clearing in the pines. A tidy little cottage stood in the glooming rain. White paint, a back porch that faced the river, a swing and wicker chairs, empty of cushions. A small fishing pier jutted into the river.

He ran to the cottage’s back door and knocked, but there was no answer. The curtains were drawn on all the windows. He listened at the glass; no sound came from within. He walked around the porch; on the other side was a small one-car garage, a dirt road driveway leading down to it from a paved road, and a tool shed.

A lock bolted the tool shed door shut. He got a rock from the flowerbeds and smashed down on the lock with four jackhammer blows. But the lock held.

He ran back to the cottage. His conscience made him hesitate at breaking and entering. But he was desperate and this was his new reality. He had to adjust to it.

He broke the window. No screech of an alarm accompanied the tinkling glass. He fingered the lock, twisted it, and stumbled inside.

He shivered and turned on the central heating. It vroomed to life and the vents perfumed the air with a dusty burnt smell. The cottage was well furnished; someone’s riverside weekend getaway, he decided. He wanted food, a shot of whiskey to warm him, and to be out of his filthy sopping clothes. But most of all he wanted to be free of the shackles. He searched the kitchen and in a drawer he found a ring of keys.