Jackknife Read online

  His passport, his work visa, and all his other papers were the finest money could buy. The paper trail, a mixture of fact and fiction, stretched back years and showed him immigrating from France to Quebec, where, according to documents in his possession, he had lived and worked for five years before applying for permission to enter the United States. His record was clean and beyond reproach.

  Of course, he hadn’t entered the United States by legal means, as all his phony paperwork indicated. He had come across the border from Canada in a remote location, along with several others from his cell. The rest of the group had been smuggled across the southern border from Mexico.

  Homeland Security…what a joke! And the Americans’ so-called crackdown on illegal immigration was equally amusing. None of the American politicians, especially those currently in power, really wanted to stop the free flow of illegals from Mexico. Doing so might cost them Hispanic votes. As for the Canadian border, that was just too long and porous to even pretend that any sort of enforcement was possible.

  What sort of country was it, Hamed had often wondered, that not only allowed its deadliest enemies to enter it, but practically invited them in?

  And the answer was…a country of fools.

  No wonder the United States would soon be nothing but a bad memory.

  “Why, Hamed, honey, what the hell’re you doin’ here on Sunday?”

  The voice took him by surprise and brought him out of a very pleasant vision of America in flaming ruins. He turned and saw a woman standing by the office door. She wore shorts and a shirt with no sleeves and a pair of those rubber sandals Americans called flip-flops. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Hamed secretly burned with shame at the sight of so much female flesh and an uncovered female head, but he forced himself to smile back at her.

  “I just thought I’d get a head start on those bills of lading for tomorrow morning’s shipments,” he said.

  “Honey, you’re just a workin’ fool,” the woman said. Her name was Mandy Armitage. She was one of his supervisors, and Hamed burned with shame because of that as well. In an Islamic America, females would have no such positions.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, knowing that he had to make small talk with her so she wouldn’t be suspicious of him. Americans chattered incessantly.

  “Would you believe it? We’re goin’ to Arrowhead to watch the Chiefs play the Colts this afternoon, and I went off and left the tickets in my desk.” She went across the big room to her cubicle, which was smaller than some but larger than most, to retrieve the tickets. When she had them, she turned and gave him another smile. “Don’t work too hard now, hear?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he told her.

  She paused in the doorway. “Say, maybe you’d like to go to a game sometime. We can always get tickets through the company, even when the stadium’s sold out.”

  She was looking at him with lust in her eyes again, he thought. He knew he was not unattractive to American women, with his olive skin and his thick dark hair and his neatly trimmed mustache and beard. He was in superb physical shape. With the least bit of encouragement on his part, Mandy Armitage would lie with him, and she wasn’t the only one.

  That was out of the question, of course, and even considering such a thing was sinful. But Hamed managed not to show the revulsion he felt as he said, “Sorry, I don’t know anything about American football. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what was going on.”

  “That’s right, where you come from people play soccer, don’t they? That’s what you call football.”

  That’s what 90 percent of the world calls football, you stupid American cow, he thought, but with your typical arrogance you believe that you’re right and everyone else is wrong.

  “I could explain the rules to you,” Mandy went on. “I’ve got four brothers who played varsity, and I was head cheerleader. I’d have you knowin’ the difference between a blitz and a post pattern in no time.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Hamed promised, with no intention of wasting even a second’s thought on such worthless drivel.

  “All right, honey. See you tomorrow.”

  Hamed smiled and waved as Mandy went out, then turned back to his computer. “And I’ll see you in hell, you foolish infidel bitch,” he said to himself as he went back to work.

  CHAPTER 3

  McCabe saw the woman as he rolled the big rig into the truck stop parking lot. She was a lot lizard—a hooker, of course. The tight, cutoff blue jean shorts, the equally tight tank top, and the high heels told him that much.

  But it was the middle of the night and she was running and she looked scared. McCabe brought the truck to a stop with a hiss of air brakes, opened the door, and called to the woman, “Lady! Over here!”

  She hesitated, as if she thought she might be trading one threat for another, but then she veered toward him. He had stepped down from the cab, and she must have thought he looked trustworthy.

  What he probably looked like was tired as hell. He’d been on the road since early that morning, pushing the consecutive-hour limit and then busting right through it, risking getting in trouble if he was pulled over and the troopers checked his log. But he was stopped now, ready to crash for the night.

  As soon as he dealt with whatever had gotten the hooker so frightened. Couldn’t be anything good.

  She trotted up to him, pushed her lank blond hair out of her face, and said, “Mister, just get back in the truck and let’s go.”

  McCabe shook his head. “Nah, I’m stopped for the night.”

  She clutched his arm. Her long fingernails dug into his skin through the sleeve of the khaki shirt he wore.

  “Some people are after me. I’ll make it worth your while. You won’t even have to pay me. I’ll be paying you, I guess you could say.”

  McCabe looked at her and thought about his wife and said, “Honey, what I got at home, you can’t even come close to matching.”

  She looked surprised and angry as she said, “Well, then, why’d you call me over here, asshole?”

  McCabe’s voice was mild as he replied, “You looked like you were in trouble.”

  “The only way you can help is to get me out of—”

  “Hey, there she is! Hey, Lindy!”

  Three men emerged from behind one of the big tractor-trailer rigs scattered through the parking lot. They started toward McCabe and the woman, moving fast. In the yellow glare of the sodium lights that washed over the parking lot, McCabe saw that they were all tall and muscular. They towered over his medium height, and their shoulders were broader, too. They had youth on him as well. None of them looked to be over thirty.

  But their guts were soft. McCabe noted that right away. Big muscles and soft guts…not the best combination in the world.

  “Oh, hell,” the hooker said. “Better go while you still can, mister.”

  She turned to run again before the three men could reach her.

  McCabe stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Stay here,” he told her.

  She tried to pull away, but couldn’t get loose. “You bastard!” she hissed. “You’re gonna give me to them.”

  McCabe didn’t say anything.

  The three men slowed from their trot to a stop as they came up to the truck. “Thanks, buddy,” one of them said to McCabe. “This little lady tried to run out on a business deal after she took our money.”

  Lindy stopped struggling in McCabe’s grip and glared at the three men. “I didn’t know what you had in mind,” she snapped. “I may be a whore, but there’re still some things I won’t do.”

  The man who seemed to be the spokesman for the trio returned the glare. He wore a John Deere cap and had a goatee. “We paid you good cash money,” he said as he reached for her. “Now you come on with us like a good girl.”

  McCabe moved so that he was between the men and the woman. He didn’t get in a hurry about it, but he was there before any of them seemed to know what was happening.

&n
bsp; “Hold on a minute,” he said. “You mean she took your money and ran off?”

  “Damn right,” one of the other men said. He took his cap off and wiped a hand over his mostly bald head. “That’s thievin’, in my book.”

  “Yeah, it is,” McCabe agreed. He turned to Lindy. “Give them back their money.”

  “We don’t want the money,” Goatee said.

  “We want her,” the third man said. Tufts of red hair stuck out from under his cap.

  “Well, she doesn’t want to go with you, so I think she should just give you your money back and we’ll all just say that the deal is off.” McCabe looked at Lindy. “How about it?”

  She was sullen and obviously reluctant to part with the money. “What if I don’t give it back?” she wanted to know.

  McCabe shrugged. “Then I’ll go on inside and get that cup of coffee I’ve been wanting for the last hundred miles, and you can work things out with these gentlemen on your own.”

  Before Lindy could say anything else, Goatee said, “You just don’t get it, mister. We don’t want the money back. We want the girl.”

  “Yeah,” Red said, grinning.

  Lindy looked at the three of them, then started to open the little purse she carried. “All right, all right, I’ll give them the damn money.”

  “Now hold on,” Baldy began.

  “That’s the deal,” McCabe interrupted. “You boys get your cash back, and you leave the lady alone.”

  Red said, “Who died and left you in charge, hoss?”

  “I’m tired o’ this shit.” Goatee started to reach past McCabe. “Come on, bitch—”

  McCabe put a hand on the man’s broad chest. “She said she’d give the money back. That’s it. Deal’s off.”

  “What the hell’s wrong with you, old man?” Goatee demanded. “You in the mood to get your ass kicked or somethin’?”

  McCabe knew what they saw when they looked at him—a guy on the wrong side of forty, with some gray in his dark hair and a decent enough build in his work clothes but nothing special. Just another truck driver, and worn out from a long day on the road.

  True enough, he supposed, but it wasn’t all the story. They didn’t know the places he’d been, the things he’d done.

  Goatee thrust his jaw out and said, “I asked you a question, you sumbitch. You lookin’ to get your ass kicked or somethin’?”

  “Or something,” McCabe said.

  Then he punched Goatee in that belligerent jaw, as hard as he could.

  Goatee went backward. Not far, just a couple of steps, because he was a big man with a lot of weight to move. But that gave McCabe enough room to operate. He half-turned to the left and snapped a kick with his right foot into Baldy’s belly. The guy’s gut was as soft as McCabe had figured. Baldy doubled over so fast that his cap went flying. He stumbled backward and collapsed on the pavement, curling up in a ball.

  Red came at McCabe with fists flying. He was fast and strong and McCabe was no miracle worker. One of the punches got through and clipped him on the side of the head. The impact stunned him.

  But instinct and training had taken over by now. McCabe could take some damage and keep functioning. He had taken a lot worse than a punch to the head before. He stepped inside Red’s mad rush and brought the base of his left hand up under the man’s chin. McCabe overcame his instincts and pulled the blow at the last second so that it wouldn’t break the guy’s neck and either kill him or leave him a hopeless cripple for the rest of his life. Instead, it just sent Red flying off his feet to crash down onto the concrete on his back.

  Goatee had recovered his balance. With a roar he lunged at McCabe and got his arms around the smaller man. Those arms were like tree trunks, and they closed with bone-crushing force.

  McCabe broke Goatee’s nose with a head butt. Goatee screamed, then screamed again as McCabe’s knee smashed into his groin. He let go of McCabe, stumbled around in a wobbly, bent-over circle for a second, and then folded up like a puppet with its strings cut.

  McCabe was breathing a little hard. He turned to see Lindy cowering against the rig. “You…all right?” he asked her.

  “How…how did you…there were three of them!” Her eyes were wide with amazement.

  The commotion had drawn some attention. Several men approached from the direction of the truck stop. They were all drivers, and McCabe recognized a couple of them.

  One of the men let out a low whistle as he looked around at the three bodies sprawled on the parking lot in various stages of semiconsciousness. He grinned at McCabe and said, “Should’ve known you’d be mixed up in this trouble, Jackknife.”

  “It was their idea,” McCabe said. “Tried to get ’em to back down, but they were stubborn about it.”

  “Damn fools, if you ask me,” the other man said.

  McCabe turned to Lindy. “Why don’t you call it a night and go home?”

  She still looked a little dazed by what she had seen. After a moment, she nodded and said, “Yeah. Yeah, I might just do that.”

  “Before you go, though,” McCabe said, “get out the money they paid you.”

  That brought her back to earth. “You mean I really have to give it back to them?”

  “Seems like that would be the fair thing to do, considering.”

  “Do you know what those bastards wanted to do to me?”

  McCabe shook his head. “Nope. And I don’t want to know. Just get out the money they paid you.”

  Grumbling, she dug several wadded-up bills from her purse and tried to give them to McCabe. He pointed to the driver who had greeted him earlier and said, “Give it to Roy here. He’s honest, and he’ll see to it that the money gets back to its rightful owners.”

  Grudgingly, Lindy handed the bills to the driver called Roy. “Now what?” she asked McCabe.

  “Now you go home and don’t be around when these fellas recover from our little dance. And I go get some coffee and something to eat and some sleep for what’s left of the night.”

  Lindy watched him go and said, “I don’t get it. He was worried about me being here when those guys wake up, but he’s staying.”

  “That’s because he knows he can take care of himself,” Roy told her. “Those dumb bastards picked the wrong guy to tangle with.”

  Lindy frowned. “He’s just a truck driver, isn’t he?”

  “Just a truck driver?” Roy laughed. “Honey, that’s Jackknife McCabe. Ex-Special Forces. He was in Desert Storm, then went back to Iraq years later, after stopovers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and probably half a dozen of those other ’istan places that used to be part of Russia. Lord knows where-all he’s been and what he’s done, because he won’t talk much about it. But I’ll tell you this much…those fellas who were hasslin’ you, they’re lucky to be alive right now. I reckon a lot of bad guys who’ve run up against ol’ Jackknife…ain’t anymore.”

  Israeli Jets Hit Iranian Nuke Facilities

  WASHINGTON, D.C., NOV. 16, 03:42 PM, US/EASTERN, ASSOCIATED PRESS. Sources at the White House and the Pentagon, as well as in Tel Aviv, confirm that Israel has launched an air strike against the Iranian nuclear facility in Bushehr. Israeli fighter jets armed with conventional missiles and bombs attacked the facility before dawn this morning. Sources within the Israeli air force say that the target was completely destroyed. However, a spokesman for the Iranian government issued a statement claiming that damage was minor and that the only casualties were innocent civilian workers.

  The facility has long been rumored to be an important part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Israeli intelligence officer said, “We have set them back at least five years with this action.”

  Iranian officials called the attack an act of wanton, lawless aggression against a peaceful nation and called on the world community to express its outrage over this unilateral assault by Israel. The Secretary General of the United Nations has convened the Security Council and has promised a full investigation of the incid
ent.

  The White House is withholding comment for the time being. Press Secretary Davisson said, “I assure you, the President is on top of the situation and will be issuing a statement as soon as she is certain that she has all the facts concerning this incident. I can tell you, though, that she considers this situation to be very grave, and that the response of the United States will be measured and appropriate.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The President’s index finger stabbed angrily at the remote control as she switched through the channels on the TV monitor that had been set up in the Oval Office. The story was the same on every network.

  “…aggression by the Israelis…”

  “…unconscionable arrogance…”

  “…unprovoked act of war…”

  Well, almost every network.

  “You’re an absolutely terrible singer. Just appallingly bad.”

  The President jabbed the button that turned the monitor off. One by one, she looked at the advisors gathered around her.

  During the campaign that had gotten her elected, she had promised a rainbow administration, and she had followed through on that promise. The Vice President was young, handsome, and black. The Secretary of State was Hispanic. The National Security Advisor was a striking Chinese American woman who was rumored to be bisexual. The Secretary of Defense was female, too, a former general in the Air Force. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the only white male in the room other than the President’s husband, who sat quietly in a corner, if the Oval Office could really be said to have corners.

  Despite the carefully calculated diversity of the group, at this moment, after being called to this emergency meeting in the White House, they all had a couple of very important things in common: They were scared, and they didn’t know what to do.