David Baldacci - Divine Justice

"Advise this!"

Herky swung a big fist. Knox caught it, twisted it around Herky's back and then slammed the man's face into his grits and eggs.

"Hey!" the waitress screamed as other men in the One T started rising from their chairs to help their friend.

Knox pulled his badge and his gun. "Everybody sit their butts back down in their chairs unless they want to spend some quality time in a federal prison a long way from here."

The men froze, all except Herky, who was snorting out grits and egg yolks.

Knox looked at the waitress. "Who the hell told you that I-"

The waitress committed the mistake of glancing toward the door.

Knox burst outside, his gaze sweeping up and down the street.

Annabelle peered back from inside the van, the front of which was just barely in Knox's line of sight. She was still holding her phone from when the waitress had called her. "Damn it, they must have tipped him off somehow. Caleb, put the van in reverse and very slowly back up."

Caleb did so, and then once out of Knox's sight he backed into a parking lot, shifted to drive and sped off.

"That was close, but at least I got the tracker on his truck while he was in the One T." She looked at a small device in her lap. "He's on the move. Let's go, but take it slow."

Knox knew that someone was on his trail, but he wasn't sure who. Hayes would have most likely taken a direct route. Was it one of Carr's friends? The chick with the fast tongue? The Secret Service agent? But how could they have possibly followed him here? He kept gazing in the rearview mirror as he drove to the bus station. It wasn't due to be open for another day, but Knox was done waiting. He didn't like the sensation of people creeping up behind him. He would tear up this whole town and find somebody who could tell him something.

He banged on the door of the bus station long and loud enough till a middle-aged man looking very put off came into view. Knox plastered his creds against the glass. When the man saw them he paled and quickly unlocked the door.

"Can I help you?" he said in a trembling voice.

"You better hope to hell you can."

Twenty minutes later he had his answer and was rushing back out to his truck.

The man had recognized Carr. He'd been traveling with another man, younger. They'd taken a bus heading even farther southwest. The man had gotten hold of the driver at home. He'd remembered where he'd dropped the pair. Basically in the middle of nowhere, but it was a start.

Knox floored it.

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

KNOX 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."

JOE KNOX 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.