“Yeah, right, that’s what they all say,” the officer replied.
“You’ve got to listen to me,” Hugh pleaded. “There is definitely something fishy going on here. That girl is just a hitchhiker who I was giving a ride to Burley. She has no idea how to drive a truck. Didn’t anybody think to check her license?”
The officer didn’t say anything. Though Hugh could see he was thinking about it.
He picked up his mic. “Two ninety-eight, three fifty-seven,” he said.
“Two ninety-eight,” Hugh heard from the speaker.
“Say, Johnny, did you get an ID on the lady in the perp’s truck?”
“No. Sorry. I thought you did. She said she was the guy’s wife is all I know.”
“Thanks. Three fifty-seven out.”
The officer pulled the patrol car over to the side of the road, parked, and turned in his seat to face Hugh through the heavy-gauge, wire-mesh screen that divided the front seat from the back. “What else can you tell me about this?”
“Me tell you? I was hoping you’d tell me why you pulled me over and shoved me into this car in the first place.”
“OK. There’s something not right here, so I guess I owe you that,” he said. “I got a call from dispatch that someone reported a road rage incident with a truck exactly matching your truck’s description. The caller reported the truck driver tried several times to run him off the road.”
“Go on,” Hugh said.
“The caller also said the truck driver pointed a gun at him, making threatening gestures as if to shoot him.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Hugh exclaimed.
“No, sir. We take those kinds of threats very seriously.”
“That wasn’t me, officer. There must be some kind of mistaken identity, or a crank call, or something. I never carry a gun in my truck.”
“That’s what Johnny said. Your truck came up clean in the search.”
“Look, since things aren’t adding up here, can you give me the benefit of the doubt, and go back to my truck to check out what I’ve told you?” Hugh asked.
The officer turned back straight in his seat, pulled the car onto the highway, made a U-turn, and headed back the way they had come.
Hugh’s truck was still there. As they got closer they could see another vehicle there as well. Hugh had a bad feeling in his gut when he saw it was a blue Buick.
Officer Donovan pulled up next to the truck, and it was then that they saw Jenny surrounded by four large men, all talking animatedly.
“Officer, be careful out there. I think it’s possible that those guys are hijackers.” Hugh warned.
Donovan unsnapped the strap on his pistol, and loosened the baton in its holster, as he approached the group.
Hugh couldn’t hear very well from where he sat in the officer’s car, but the four men’s body language told him that officer Donovan was not going to get a friendly reception.
Just as he was thinking this, two of the men circled behind the officer and grabbed his arms. One of the other two snatched the officer’s pistol from its holster, and the other grabbed his baton. The man with the baton whacked Donovan over the head, causing him to go limp. But he was still being held upright by the two other attackers.
Hugh went berserk when he saw this. He pressed his back against the back seat, drew his legs back, and with an explosive force that he didn’t know he was capable of, kicked the wire-mesh screen out of its attachments and sent it crashing into the front seat.
Losing no time, he scrambled over the back of the front seat as best he could with his hands handcuffed behind him. He then charged out through the open driver’s side door. In a rage, he flew into the group, bent on freeing the officer first.
He launched himself into the air, and landed with bone-breaking force with both feet on the right knee of the guy holding the officer’s right arm. The hijacker crumpled to the ground.
Then, almost at the same instance, he pivoted and, with all his pent up fury behind it, arched his back violently upward like an uncoiling spring, and smashed the back of his head into the face of the man holding the officer’s left arm. The man fell to the ground.
The violent action caused Hugh to lose his balance, and he fell with all his weight onto the man. As he fell, he accidently jammed his knee into the man’s throat, crushing his airway.
The man gasped, choked, writhed under Hugh’s weight, and drew his last breath lying there, his crushed airway choking him to death.
Released, the patrol officer staggered back, then collapsed to the ground … just barely still conscious.
Hugh rose awkwardly to his feet, and turned to deal with the other two hijackers. What he saw turned every ounce of blood in his veins to ice. They had Jenny by her arms, one on each side of her. The one with the officer’s gun was holding it to Jenny’s head.
Jenny stood there, frozen with panic, pleading with her eyes.
Hugh lost all reason. Almost insane with rage, with no concern at all for his own well-being, and regardless of his being handcuffed, he covered the distance between them in two strides. Just as he was about to take a kick at the two guys holding Jenny, or die trying, he heard a gun shot.
“Oh, God. Jenny! Nooooo!” he cried.
With two powerful, swift, round-house kicks to their heads, he put down the two guys, and immediately turned to see how badly Jenny had been wounded. He didn’t see her at first, and then he found her bending over Officer Donovan, now lying on his back on the ground.
