Joe was thinking maybe if he did this one big job the way the attorney was demanding he could be done with this fake-crash business forever.
He had a difficult time getting his head around the problem of who to pick to be the crash victims, and how to persuade them to go as far with it as the attorney was suggesting.
Moms and kids? That was going to be a tough one to pull off.
Joe stood up and pocketed the cash the attorney had left on the table to pay for their coffees and tip. He had a rule. Never leave cash lying around on a table.
He walked out of the diner to begin thinking about the crash team he had to put together, and the strategy he would use.
Chapter Eight
Nearly the same time as Joe was strategizing what he hoped was his last fake crash, Hugh was pulling into the Spokane precision parts manufacturing plant to pick up the load due for Phoenix.
He spotted the shipping office, parked his truck nearby, and told Jenny to wait while he went to the office to find his assigned trailer and pick up his bill of lading.
When he returned to the truck he cranked up the big diesel and searched down the line of trailers until he found the one assigned to him.
After backing in and hooking up, he stopped to look at the shipping papers.
“Looks like we deliver at sixteen hundred in Phoenix – actually Mesa – three days from now.”
“What are we hauling?”
“The BOL says we have precision parts for the Boeing manufacturing plant in Mesa.”
The shipping papers agreed with the information he had previously been given with the pre-load info that had come over his Qualcomm from dispatch.
“I’m guessing it’s a high-value load,” Hugh said. “Parts for the Apache helicopters Boeing builds there for the Army.”
As a former combat Marine Hugh was more than passing familiar with the Army’s Apache attack helicopter’s ability to save the lives of soldiers and Marines in the field of combat. The Boeing plant was contracted to turn out the newer model AH-64Es, as well as to upgrade the older D models.
“As far as I’m concerned, every Army rotary pilot who has ever strapped himself into one of those things deserves a medal. I might not be here right now if it hadn’t been for those guys swooping in to even the odds for us.”
“You don’t think because this is a high-value load …?” Jenny started to say.
Hugh cut her off, “No. Don’t worry about that. For one thing, your uncle and his friends are permanently out of the hijacking business. For another thing, I wouldn’t think there is a big market for stolen Apache helicopter parts. They would be difficult, if not impossible, to sell.”
Hugh spent some time tapping on and viewing the map app of his new phone.
“OK, here’s the plan,” he said. “We’ll bed down here for the night outside of Spokane. We’ll make it to Twin Falls tomorrow, and Las Vegas the day after tomorrow. If everything goes well we’ll make our delivery at sixteen hundred the next day at the Mesa plant.”
“That makes for some reasonably easy driving days. No sense in killing ourselves the first time out in a while. We aren’t allowed to deliver early anyway.”
At the truck stop on Interstate 90/Highway 395 south of Spokane, Hugh backed into a spot in the northwest corner that was adjacent to a grassy area. It was a bit of a walk to the facilities, but it afforded maximum quiet and privacy.
Hugh noticed it was right next door to the Freightliner shop where his friend and mentor James had taken Hugh’s truck for repairs after that last altercation with Jenny’s uncle. Hugh had had to take drastic measures, cutting brake airlines, and breaking a side window to regain control of his truck when it was being hijacked.
“How do you want to do this?” Hugh asked Jenny after he shut down, did a quick post-trip and signed off for the day.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we are obviously way beyond how things were when you first came on board as a hitchhiker. I’m talking about meals and other chores.”
“Oh, no problem. If it’s OK with you, I’d like to be in charge of the meals, cooking and such.”
“That’s a relief. I was hoping you’d say that.”
“I bet you were, buster,” Jenny said, laughing.
Hugh and Jenny took care of business in the truck stop restrooms – Hugh finishing first, of course. It took him only a minute to buy a couple of the latest Bluetooth headsets and a dashcam.
He waited outside for Jenny so they could walk back to the truck together.
When they met up, Hugh could see Jenny was lugging a heavy, gallon-sized jug of milk, the opaque kind of jug with a screw-on cap.
“What’s that for? We’ve got plenty of milk already. Good Mann Ranch Jersey cow milk.”
“It’s for this.” Jenny’s hand went inside a plastic bag and came out with a female urinal gadget. It looked like a funnel specifically shaped for the female anatomy.
“We’ve got a his and hers now,” she said.
“You’re so cute,” Hugh said. “But, yes. Good thinking.”
Hugh was always amazed, and grateful, at Jenny’s acceptance of the hardships particular to life on the road as a long-haul trucker. Restrooms were sometimes few and far between, and stopping to look for one when the need arose was sometimes not practical or even possible.
Hugh realized how different, and more attractive, Jenny was than the big-city female reporter with the expensive
