Rogue Commander, Leo Maloney [classic books for 11 year olds TXT] 📗

as a glowing blue dot on his laptop’s nav app.

Unfortunately, the truck was already moving from west to east through southern Kentucky, so he had no point of origin. Finding that out would be up to Morgan, but Shepard had no doubt that he’d do it...somehow.

“Heads-up,” Shepard said. “Got some news. That rig just pulled up somewhere. Might be a truck stop, on One Twenty-Seven just west of Lexington, right after the river.”

Morgan squinted through the windshield at the fading sun. “Well, talk about timing. It’s obviously chow time. I think I’ll go spoil his dinner.”

“Okay,” Shep said. “Don’t let him spoil yours.”

Morgan concentrated on the dinnertime traffic, which was nothing like the snarls back east. Within the half hour he was on the other side of Lexington, gunning the Cobra down a double ribbon of highway. The night had fallen fast, and the roadside lamps threw shimmering glows on the tarmac like hovering flying saucers.

He spotted a “Flying J” sign pinned to a tower above a twenty-four-hour eatery. To the left was a large gas-up area with extra-high roofing so big rigs could fit, and to the right was the truck parking area, with eighteen-wheelers snuggled flank to flank like beached whales. In one quick scan, he counted no less than thirty. He pulled the Cobra around to a smaller parking lot meant only for cars, where he tucked it behind somebody’s U-Haul before cutting the throbbing engine.

“Shep, you there?”

“Yeah,” Shepard said. “Just making popcorn.”

“Whatcha gonna watch?”

“Road Trip.”

“Funny. Listen, there’s about thirty rigs parked in this lot. Which one is it?”

“Can’t help you there, Cobra. I’ve got the truck pinned to a nav, but it’s not deep detail or satellite overhead. Just the general location.”

“Okay, I’ll recon it. What’s the plate number?”

“Z two six ATR.”

“Got it.”

Morgan got out, stretched his back, and shook out his knee. Then he zipped up his field jacket, pulled his watch cap on, closed his door, and came around for Neika. She squatted right there on the blacktop, peed a long river, and then looked up at him as if to say, “Okay, good to go.”

He leashed her, and they strolled over to the truck park side, where almost all the cabs were dark. The drivers either slept in their tucked-away bunks or were inside the restaurant shoveling food. It didn’t take long to cruise past the tails of all the trucks, where he checked every plate against the letters and numbers in his head. But he came up empty, so he walked the walk again, as if he were holding a lottery ticket and one of those plates just had to be the winner.

But none of them were Z26 ATR. He walked Neika into a small picnic area under the trees. “Shep, you copy?”

“Five by five.”

“No match here. Bet they switched license plates.”

“Shit,” Shepard spat. “I know the damn truck’s there somewhere. Now what?”

Morgan merely smiled, looked down at Nieka, and scratched her thick scalp. “No worries,” he assured his eyes-and-ears-in-the-sky guy. “The nose knows.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” Morgan said. “Hang tight.” He bent down and took Neika’s big head in his hands. “We’re going to do a little search, girl.” The moment she heard search, her tail flicked. “You do this right, and I’ll buy you a pig’s ear.”

Military working dogs don’t stay with the same human handlers throughout their careers. When a handler finishes his or her tour, the K9 gets passed to someone else, which is why all the training and signals are uniform. Morgan knew this, and he’d worked with enough MWDs in the past, so he also knew how to run Neika through a sniff track.

If the Tomahawks were on any of the trucks, or had been so recently, she’d pick up the scents of high-explosive warheads. But even if the warheads were, God forbid, nuclear, she’d still hit on the solid-fuel rocket boosters.

He walked back into the truck park and looked around. A tired driver was jumping down from his cab. He glanced at Morgan, just another guy with a dog, before trotting away toward the eatery.

Morgan began with Neika at the tail of the first truck, holding her leash loosely with his left hand as he whispered, “Neika, search.”

They started cruising along the flank. She dropped her head and sniffed the big wheels and the well while Morgan ran a finger along the ledge of the long box. She trotted beside him, occasionally rising up on her hind legs. She poked her nose into the metal gutters, snorted at rivets, and stuck her face in the front wheel well. She sensed nothing and moved on, Morgan close behind.

They started at the nose of the next truck, then the tail of the next, and, by the time they’d sniffed out six trucks, Morgan was getting edgy. Whichever one it was, the driver could show up any minute and just take off. But at the tail end of the seventh truck, Neika acted differently, with shivers rippling through her and the hair standing up on her spine. She tucked her gleaming black nose up under the floorboards, snorted deeply a few times, then backed out, looked up at Morgan, and sat.

Morgan’s smile crinkled his eyes. Bomb dogs never barked or whined; they just sat. But just to be sure, he pulled her away from the rear of the truck, made a small circle, and had her go at it again. Sure enough, she sniffed, shivered, and sat, looking up at him with an expression that said, “What do you want? An engraved invitation?”

He bent down, ruffled her furry head madly and crooned in her ear, “Good girl, Neika. Good girl!” He walked her quickly back to the Shelby and locked her inside with a couple of large Milk-Bones. Then he quick-marched back to the truck. “Shep, I’ve got a hit.”

“Seriously?”

“Don’t I sound serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

“I’m at the cab now. Looks like nobody’s home.”

“Wait,” Shepard said while he hammered at his laptop. “What’s the model?”

“Kenworth.”

“Take out your cell and hold