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

it up to the lock, back side against the door metal.”

Morgan placed his foot on the runner, gripped the side handle of the cab, hauled himself up, and did what he was told. The locking mechanism clicked, and the lock button popped up.

“You’re friggin’ amazing,” he said.

“Kreskin is amazing.” Shepard grinned. “I’m incredible. But kiss me later. You got quick work to do.”

Morgan climbed into the cab and slid over to the passenger seat. He looked around but could see nothing more than the darkened slumber bunk. There was no way to see from there into the big container behind the cab.

He then examined the dashboard, noting a grip for a cell phone, and spotted something unusual: a small surveillance monitor, probably attached to a camera in the cargo box. If you were only hauling something harmless—like chickens—you didn’t need to check if they were happy or not. He locked the doors, crawled between the seats into the back, and waited.

Ten minutes later, the driver hauled himself up into the cab and shut the door. Morgan stood on no ceremony. He jammed the barrel of his PPK behind the guy’s ear.

“Both hands on the wheel,” he said. “And let me see your knuckles go white.”

The driver hunched and did as he was told, but slowly. Morgan could practically hear the guy’s brain whirring and teeth grinding as he looked at the driver’s hands in the dim light. He had heavily calloused knuckles, so he was a martial-artist type...or just liked punching bricks. Morgan kept the gun barrel bruising the guy’s skull flesh as he worked his way into the passenger seat.

The driver turned only his eyes and stared at him. He was Asian, in his thirties, with thick black hair banded in a “samurai” bun on top. His eyes were like a shark’s: dark, shiny, and dead. His coiled muscles bulged under a lightweight black jacket.

“What you want?” the driver snarled in a heavy accent Morgan recognized. Not Japanese, not Chinese. Korean. Kadir had taken pains carefully explaining to him the difference one day. He now knew they were far from the same, no matter how similar the skin color and eye shape. “No got money,” the truck driver now said.

“Don’t need any,” Morgan said. “I’m rich. Where’s your phone and the keys?”

The driver glanced down at his right side. “Pocket.”

“Don’t even breathe fast. I’m cranky.” Morgan reached into the driver’s jacket, yanked out the things, and eased himself back on the seat, keeping the PPK trained on the driver’s face. He pocketed the cell and tossed the keys in the guy’s lap.

“Right hand only. Turn it on, but just the electrics. And then hands back on the wheel.”

The driver inserted the key and turned. The dashboard glowed, and the surveillance monitor flickered—showing the length of the cargo box in black and white. It was empty. He gripped the wheel again, his fingers white.

“Where are they?” Morgan growled.

“Where what?” The driver turned and looked at Morgan fully now, his nostrils flaring.

“Your cargo.”

“What cargo? You crazy, man?”

“The Tomahawks,” Morgan said, catching a reflexive flicker in the driver’s eyes. “Tell me right now where you dropped them, and I won’t blow your kneecap off.”

Then the driver smiled like a panther. “You gonna shoot me? Big bang right here?”

Morgan smiled back. “You’re right.” He reached inside his jacket, took out a black, five-inch, snap-on Gemtech suppressor, and popped it onto the end of his barrel. “I prefer the threaded versions, but these are usually okay for a couple of shots.”

The driver’s neck veins bulged, his eyes blazing. “Screw you! I tell you nothing, dickhead.”

“All right, which knee’s your favorite?”

The driver made his move. He yelled like a Tae Kwon Do black belt; his right hand released the wheel and bladed hard as he swung it in a lightning arc at Morgan’s silencer. But Morgan simply dropped flat on his back and flicked the barrel down. The driver’s stiff hand smashed into the passenger headrest and broke it right off the mount. Then the driver launched himself out of his seat, and Morgan saw his left hand snap up from his boot, gripping a very long serrated blade. Morgan raised his gun barrel and shot him in the heart.

The cab flashed white, but there was barely a sound, other than the driver’s skull bouncing off the steering wheel as he toppled over to the left.

Morgan looked at the corpse. “I was hoping you’d do something like that, dickhead.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was 3 a.m. when Morgan found himself lying in the grass once again, staring through his binoculars at a cluster of buildings across a wide clearing. But this time it was dark, cold, and wet, and his black jeans were soaked through from a recent rain. His knees trembled from the chill and adrenaline.

The Shelby was nestled behind him in a hedgerow of high bulrushes, with Neika curled up in the back seat. His instincts told him this might get ugly and he wasn’t going to risk her taking a bullet. Shepard had a fix on the Shelby, so he could send someone out to rescue Neika if Morgan didn’t come back. At the very least, she’d make it to his funeral. Before he could prevent it, he saw a flash of Jenny and Alex wearing black on either side of a gravesite. He swept that image from his mind, choosing to review how he’d gotten here instead.

Using the dead driver’s cell phone, Shepard had hacked into its apps, reversed the navigation history, and pinpointed the location where the driver had probably delivered the Tomahawks. How the hell the missiles had been hijacked, remained undetected and were then smuggled out here, Morgan had no clue, but he’d run down that tidbit later.

At the moment he was way southeast in backwoods, hayseed Kentucky, looking at a ramshackle white farmhouse, a few smaller outbuildings, and a towering grain silo with a peeling black cupola. The missiles were definitely there somewhere because he could see