Crimson Highway David Wickenhauser (beach read book TXT) 📖

that was covering him. Then he felt a corner of the blanket lift, and something slip underneath the cable tie that was binding his hands together. And suddenly, his hands were free.

He then felt a metallic object thrust into his palm, and he realized he had been handed a knife, his own knife … or was it a miracle.

Thank you, Lord.

He quickly cut the ties around his feet, and removed his gag. He knew he had only mere moments to work his escape from the car, and get away, but a plan was forming in his mind.

 He quietly eased the door open on the side away from where the men were working to try to cut the lock on the trailer doors. He dropped onto the ground, keeping the car between him and them, and reconnoitered the setup.

He saw a chance. He could spot only three men, and they had all their attention focused on the rear of the trailer that they were trying to break into. If he could cross the space between the car and the trailer without being seen, he could slip alongside the trailer and into the, hopefully, unattended cab of his truck.

It was a risky maneuver, but there was a chance that it could work … with luck. And, he’d already had one miracle today, so maybe another could happen.

He gauged his move when all three had their heads turned away from him, and then darted silently out from behind the car, and sneaked over to the side of the trailer. He stood there for a moment, expecting a cry of alarm, but all he heard was cursing from the frustrated hijackers stymied by the titanium lock.

Too bad for you guys, wait until you see this, Hugh mouthed silently.

He crept alongside the trailer, ever closer to the cab of the truck. He hoped that they hadn’t posted a guard on the truck. But, he thought, why should they? We’re out here in the middle of the desert. They think I’m bound and gagged in the back seat of that car.

He eased open the driver-side door of his truck and climbed up. So far so good. The key was still in the ignition; and why wouldn’t it be?

He knew he was going to have to make his escape quickly and successfully, so he rehearsed what he was going to do in his mind before he turned the key in the ignition.

OK. Time to go.

He hit the starter, and immediately threw the truck into reverse. He popped the clutch, and rammed the trailer violently backward into the three guys who were still hovering over their lock project.

Their surprise was total. Two of them were injured by the trailer slamming into them. But the other managed to slip out of the way.

Hugh kept the truck in reverse until it had smashed into the car that he had been riding in. He wished that he could have kept going backward and completely disabled it, but he had to get out of there.

He quickly jammed the gearshift into third gear, and started forward, aiming at the second car that was parked at an angle in front of the truck. This was the blue car that belonged to the escorts. He wondered briefly what had happened to them.

Hugh cringed at what it was going to do to his bumper, but he stayed on course, and smashed into the other car. He continued to push it until it went into a ditch and rolled over onto its top.

Hugh swerved violently to avoid the ditch, and then set a course for the road they had come in on.

Then two things happened at the same time.

At Hugh’s left, the man who hadn’t been injured by the backward-moving trailer, had jumped onto the running board and was attempting to open Hugh’s driver-side door.

And another, who he hadn’t seen before, was clinging to the passenger side door. This wasn’t a man. It was Jenny!

First things first. Here we go again.

Hugh slammed the door lock button to his door with his elbow, while at the same time rolling down his window. But, before he could throw a punch to knock the guy off his truck, the man managed to get his head and an arm inside the window, and was trying to pummel Hugh with his fists.

Whoo, boy, this is really going to hurt you, he thought as he stabbed a finger at the window’s up button. The powerful window motor quickly raised the window. The man managed to pull his arm out but the window caught the hijacker right across the Adam’s apple … and then kept going up.

A sickening sound of tearing flesh accompanied the rising window as it split open the man’s throat, sliced neatly through his windpipe, and then stopped just short of severing his spinal cord.

“Shit!” Hugh exclaimed out loud, and quickly lowered the window before the man’s severed carotid artery could begin spraying blood all over his truck. As the window lowered, he hit the man’s forehead with the heel of his hand, which thrust him out and away from the truck.

The man fell in a heap alongside the moving truck, never to rise again. His life’s blood stained the highway with its growing pool of crimson.

Then Hugh’s attention was diverted to what was happening on the passenger side of the truck. Jenny clung tenaciously to the mirror mount on the outside of the now-speeding truck, and was screaming for him to stop and let her in.

That it was a pitted, bumpy road was not helping in her desperate attempt to stay with the truck.

Hugh quickly brought the truck to a stop, and opened the passenger door so Jenny could climb in. Everything was happening so fast, and he was in so much pain, he couldn’t even think right now whether