Exiled Omnibus Page 17

  The din of jackhammers filled the air. Road construction had slowed the traffic to a crawl, and the massive tankers filled with fuel formed clusters from the east. One of the truckers became caught behind the slowing traffic and stopped adjacent to Brooke. She waved at him through his open passenger window. When she caught his attention, she only pulled the shemagh down to expose her mouth. Nothing more.

  “Hey! Where do you guys fuel up?” Brooke asked.

  “Forty-Ninth Street. Ten blocks behind me.”

  If she could convince a trucker to drive out with one of those tankers, then not only would she be able to fill the cruiser, but she could get a free ride home. As she walked, a gust of wind blew pieces of a newspaper against her leg. Before she tossed it into the trash, her eye caught the front page. “The War with Mexico,” was the headline.

  According to the article, Congress was planning an emergency session to prepare a declaration of war later that afternoon. The president would also be giving a speech to address the nation. Brooke crumpled the newspaper in her fist. She’d heard enough of the president’s speeches.

  Just below the lead story on the war, another article caught her eye. It highlighted the problem of thieves hijacking tankers. More than twenty thefts had been reported in the last month.

  The closer Brooke moved to Forty-Ninth Street, the thicker the soot became. Plumes of smoke poisoned the sky above and cast a light rain of black over the city. Tanker truck tires rolled their imprints across the roads, cutting paths along the black pollutants lining the asphalt. Each of those tankers carried fuel that would be shipped to every corner of the country.

  Brooke wondered how long the oil boom in Texas would last. Once there was no more water to keep the rest of the country alive, the black sludge extracted from the earth would do little but seep back down into the depths from which it had come.

  Brooke made it to the chain-link fence of the fueling station. Her fingers poked through the patterned diamond spaces between metal wires. She leaned forward, the fence bending as she took in the semi-trucks being loaded down with cylindrical tanks of fuel.

  A group of truckers stood in front of their rigs. Most of them sipped coffee, each of their faces smudged in grease and dirt. Their clothes were soiled, and those that didn’t wear hats had tangled and matted hair, all the attributes of someone Brooke would have normally avoided.

  Brooke pinched her fingers in her mouth and let out a whistle that broke up whatever trucker stories the men were telling. They all turned and stared at the woman with her face concealed standing on the other side of the fence.

  The truckers pointed to each other, shrugged, trying to figure out what she wanted. Eventually, one of them meandered over. Brooke thought he looked too thin to be a trucker. The rest of them were a little wide around the midsection, but he looked like he hadn’t eaten in a week. He took one last drag of the cigarette in his mouth and flicked it to the ground.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I need fuel,” Brooke answered.

  “There’s a station just down the road.”

  “I know. But I need a lot of it and a way to transport it. My car broke down outside the city.”

  “Then call a wrecker.” The trucker spat on the ground and turned on his heel to leave.

  “I can pay you,” Brooke said.

  The trucker stopped. He walked over to the fence. This time he came nose to nose with Brooke and poked his own fingers through. Dirt and grime consumed his nails both underneath and on top. He gave a grin, flashing his yellow-stained teeth.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “Three hundred now. Another three hundred when we get to the vehicle.”

  “A grand.”

  “What? I don’t have that much money.”

  “Then you’re shit out of luck, sweetheart.”

  The trucker pursed his lips and kissed the air between them. Brooke recoiled as the trucker’s weight buckled the metal back toward her. He laughed and then started to walk back. She could try another refinery, but she didn’t want to waste more time. Every second spent idling was one more for the police to catch up with her. She rubbed her hand nervously and then felt the small bump under her glove.

  “Wait!” Brooke said. “I don’t have a thousand in cash, but I have this.”

  Brooke poked her hand through the fence, pinching her wedding ring. The sunlight caught the diamond, and it shimmered. The trucker’s face changed as he walked back over to her. When his hand went out to grab the ring, she pulled it back through her side of the fence.

  “Three hundred now, and then you get the ring once we’re there,” Brooke said.

  “All right. I leave in twenty minutes. I’ll pick you up on that street corner there when I come out,” he said then disappeared.

  A thin circle of pale flesh was now exposed on her left ring finger. The small, circular golden band resting in Brooke’s palm felt foreign to her. Of all the memories that could have flooded her mind—from her wedding day or when Jason had asked her to marry him to their first date together—the only one that came to mind was Jason’s funeral. The sound of the guns firing. The lowering of the casket. Emily and John crying. The finely pressed uniforms. All of it came rushing back to her, and she felt disgusted with herself. She felt disgusted with the trucker, with the city surrounding her, with everything. This was what the world would cost her now. She had to give up pieces of her life that she would never get back.

  ***

  The barrel of Brooke’s 9mm Ruger LCR double-action revolver wobbled slightly on the hot metal hood of the cruiser. John squinted his left eye shut and peered through the gun’s sight. Orange plugs filled his ears, and Eric stood right behind him, hunched over and making sure John was on target.

  “Keep it steady. Just line up the sight and squeeze the trigger,” Eric said.

  John’s finger rested on the trigger and, in one quick motion, pulled it back. The pistol bucked upward, and the 9mm shell ejected and clinked against the cruiser’s roof. A spray of sand flew into the air next to an empty bean can. John let out a sigh, and Eric patted him on the back.

  “It’s all right. Just try it again,” Eric said.

  “Yeah, John! You can do it!” Emily said, watching from inside the cruiser. Pieces of two similar orange plugs filled her smaller ears. Her hair flopped up and down as she bounced on the front seat.

  John realigned the bean can in the pistol’s sights. He tried to keep the revolver steady, but the sight would slowly waver back and forth from the target. He tightened his arms and shoulders, attempting to stabilize his stance. The bean can finally rested permanently along the tip of the revolver’s barrel. He pulled the trigger, and the bullet made contact, sending the can flying backward into the desert.

  “Nice shot!” Eric said.

  John smiled. He could feel the strain of his shoulders and arms from the recoil. He wiped the beads of sweat forming on his forehead and handed the gun back to Eric like he’d showed him, with the barrel pointed away from anyone and his finger off the trigger.

  “Good job. You’ve got your dad’s eye for shooting,” Eric said.

  “Really?” John asked.

  “Yeah, just be thankful you didn’t get his back hair. Gross.”

  John had always been told he looked like his dad. The similarities grew along with his age. He’d once seen a picture of his father in high school, and even he had to admit the resemblance was unmistakable. A sense of pride rushed through him whenever someone told him he did things like his father. It made him feel like his dad wasn’t completely gone.

  “What was my dad like when he was younger? Back when he first joined the Marines?” John asked.

  “He was one of the toughest… Emily do you still have your ear plugs in?” Eric asked.

  “What?” Emily asked.

  Eric turned back to John. “One of the toughest sons of bitches I’d ever seen. He’d be real proud of you for helping take care of the family and making it thi
s far.”

  The smile across John’s face started to fade. Proud of what? He hadn’t done anything to help. His mother was the one who had saved Emily. Eric was the one who had rescued his mom in Phoenix. All John had done was tag along for the ride.

  “I haven’t done much,” John said.

  “Whoa, hey. What are you talking about? You being here, watching over your sister, that’s a big job. One that I know your dad would be glad you’re doing.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I do.”

  John desperately wanted to make his father proud. He’d heard the stories of how Jason had saved people, facing death fearlessly. He knew his dad had saved Eric in Iraq a long time ago. Would I be able to do that? Would I be able to face death and save the people around me?

  “Is it scary?” John asked.

  “Is what scary?” Eric replied.

  “Knowing you might die.”

  “Hey, that’s not something you have to worry about for a long time.”

  ***

  The trucker picked Brooke up from the corner, and she climbed inside the cab. She handed him the three hundred in cash. He counted it and shoved the money into his back pocket, and the semi jolted forward as he shifted into first gear.

  The road construction up ahead was still bad, and it took them thirty minutes just to move a few blocks. Once they made it past the construction site, the roads opened up a bit.

  “So where am I heading?” the trucker asked.

  “Get on I-20 and head west. I’ll let you know when we’re getting close,” Brooke answered.

  The sound of the jackhammers faded behind them and was replaced by honking horns and rumbling engines. Brooke wiped the smudge from her window to get a better look at the city. A layer of smog filtered the sunlight that came down in broken rays.

  “So what did you do?” the trucker asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, you’re willing to pay a lot of money to fill up one gas tank. You’re hiding from somebody.”

  “Just drive.”

  “I’m just trying to make conversation. What happened to your husband?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “You leave him? That why you’re hiding? So he won’t find you.”

  “He was killed in action in Afghanistan last year.”

  The trucker was silent for a moment. Brooke crossed her arms and retreated farther into her seat.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” the trucker said.

  Brooke didn’t say anything. Of all the people she wanted to discuss her dead husband with, some greasy trucker was at the very bottom of her list.

  “Marines?” the trucker asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I lost my brother in Iraq back in ’04. It’s funny, isn’t it? We go over there to stop the desert from spreading and then low and behold, our own goes and decides that it’s time to take over.”

  “The war didn’t have anything to do with the drought.”

  “I know. I’m just saying it’s ironic. You got kids?”

  “Look. If you need conversation, then turn on the radio.”

  “All right. Geesh.”

  The radio scrambled as the trucker turned the dial, trying to find a station. He finally settled on a talk show that was discussing the issue of the United States declaring war on Mexico.

  “Look, Tom. We did not declare war on Mexico. They did that themselves when they attacked our border. All we’re doing now is defending what’s ours.”

  “You really think we can afford this war, Frank? Water has become so scarce that we exiled the entire Southwest to save ourselves. More farmland is drying up every year, and we have China knocking on our door demanding that we pay up our debt. Retaliating against the Mexican army isn’t just foolish.

  It’s suicide.”

  “Oh, so you don’t think we can’t beat them? Is that it?”

  “No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. The resources used in war are incredibly costly, and it’s just not a check we can afford to cash right now.”.

  The two men continued their debate over the radio waves. All of it seemed too surreal to Brooke. A week ago, she was at work, repairing solar panels. Her kids were in school, and she’d been wondering what she would be cooking for dinner. Could that be right? Only a week? It all seemed so long ago.

  Signs for I-20 began to appear, and the trucker flicked his turn signal on and merged onto the east ramp. Traffic was flowing steadily now. Brooke figured it would take about thirty minutes to reach the cruiser. Once they were refueled, they’d keep along the desert until they made it out of Texas and into Louisiana. From there, her plan was to stay along back roads all the way to North Carolina. She knew it would take longer, but staying out of police custody was more important at the moment.

  Once out of the city, the traffic began to lighten. Only a few cars surrounded them when another sign for road construction appeared ahead. Orange lights flashed on a barricade, which was only big enough for smaller vehicles to squeeze through. One of the workers flagged the trucker down, and he pulled over.

  “I swear they’re never going to get this road fixed,” the trucker said.

  The bustling noise that had accompanied the construction crew in the city wasn’t echoed here. Brooke placed her hands on the cab’s cracked dash, leaning to get a better look out the window. Aside from the signs and barricades, there was nothing else. Only a few of them had safety vests on, and almost none of them wore hard hats.

  “Where’s the equipment?” Brooke asked.

  The air brakes squeaked as the tanker came to a stop. Brooke checked the side mirror and saw two men walking up the side of the tanker, hands behind their backs.

  “Drive,” Brooke said.

  “Lady, I can’t. It’s a road block.”

  “They’re hijackers!”

  Brooke could see the trucker scan the area, putting two and two together. He shifted into first and powered forward. The semi crawled a few feet, and Brooke watched the two men on the side of the tanker run for her door, the pistols they had hidden behind their backs now out in the open.

  “Do you have a gun?” Brooke asked.

  “Glove box.”

  The semi was still hovering below ten miles per hour. Inside the glove compartment was a 9mm Glock with a fully loaded magazine next to it. Brooke loaded the gun and pushed the door open. She aimed the Glock at the two men, who quickly fired at her before she could squeeze a round off.

  Brooke ducked back inside the truck’s cabin. After a lull in gunfire, she swung her torso out and fired six shots. Bullets peppered the sand in front of the two men chasing after them, and they quickly backed off. Brooke slammed the door shut.

  “Can’t this thing go any faster?” Brooke asked.

  “It’s not a stock car!”

  Gunshots rang out behind them. Bullets thumped into the metal tank, leaking fuel onto the road. The side mirror shattered into jagged shards as the bullets continued to rain down on them. Brooke could still see the figures running after them through the remaining broken glass on the mirror.

  Brooke opened the door again and fired a few more rounds. The wind and sand whipped her face now that the tanker was gaining speed. She pulled the trigger until the thundering boom of gunshots was replaced by the quiet click of the firing pin. She pulled the door shut again. The force caused the rest of the mirror to fall to the ground, and Brooke set the emptied clip and gun on the floorboard.

  “Holy shit!” the trucker said.

  The trucker’s door suddenly opened, and one of the hijackers grabbed him. The hijacker aimed his gun, and Brooke leapt across the seat to intercept him. She grabbed hold of the man’s wrist, shoving the pistol into the ceiling and slamming the hijacker’s hand in the process.

  In the struggle, the trucker’s foot came off the gas, and the semi slowed. Brooke continued to slam the hijacker’s hand into the ceiling until his grip went limp on the pistol. It d
ropped to the seat, and the moment Brooke aimed it at the hijacker, he jumped from the cabin.

  The trucker slammed his door shut and slammed his foot back on the gas. Brooke checked outside her door and saw the same men from before regaining their ground. She took aim and squeezed the trigger, narrowly missing one of them, and again they backed off.

  “You clear on your side?” Brooke asked, still scanning her side of the tanker.

  “Yeah, I-I’m good.”

  “You sure?”

  The trucker nodded, panting. Brooke could see his arms shaking, his knuckles turned white from his tight grip on the steering wheel.