Shadow Tyrants (Oregon Files 13)

The car almost made it, but the rear end clipped the front bumper of the truck as it passed. The car spun out in a haze of tire smoke and came to rest against the median backward, blocking the way. Andreas brought the truck to an abrupt stop.

Tires squealed behind him as a van screeched to a halt sideways about ten feet behind the trailer.

A beautiful dark-haired woman leaped out of the Fiat and began cursing in Arabic as she examined the damage to her car. It didn’t seem extensive, just cosmetic, but she was furious.

“I’ll handle her,” Andreas said to Georgios. “You check on the cars. As long as they’re okay, we don’t mention this to Ms. Taylor, understand?”

Georgios nodded and got out.

Andreas climbed down and looked at the front of the truck, which looked undamaged. He approached the woman, who was yelling at him before he even got to her.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” he said in his native Greek.

“You speak English?” she asked, her eyes blazing.

“A little,” he said.

“Who pays for this?” she shouted, pointing at the scraped fender and crumpled bumper. “Is rental!”

He offered to give her his insurance information, but she started shouting again in Arabic, ignoring the angry honking of horns from cars backed up by the incident. Andreas looked at his watch, impatiently trying to figure out how he could get going as soon as possible.

* * *

—

MacD waited in the driver’s seat of the van until the truck driver’s companion rounded the end of the trailer a

nd unlocked the door to check the vehicles. When he raised it, MacD jumped out and yelled, “Hey, man, you have a problem with your tire!”

The trucker turned and looked at MacD in confusion.

“What tire? What you mean?”

“On the right side,” MacD said. “Ah saw it when you passed me earlier. This way. Let me show you.”

“Where?”

MacD led him around to the side of the truck, out of sight of the van.

* * *

—

As soon as MacD and the trucker were no longer in view, Juan silently slid open the van’s side door, and he and Tiny sprinted to the trailer, hidden from the eyes of drivers behind them by the angled van.

They jumped into the back of the truck. Juan was ready to pick the lock on the Cadillac’s trunk, but it was unlocked and opened right up. They tossed their equipment bags in the cavernous space and got in. Using a magnetic handhold, Juan pulled the trunk lid closed over them.

“You were right,” Tiny said, practically sprawling across the immense interior. “Lot of room.”

Juan smiled and activated his comm unit, saying to MacD, “We’re in.”

* * *

—

MacD was crouching by one of the trailer’s frontmost tires when he got the word from Juan.

“Sorry, dude,” he said to the guy he’d learned was Georgios. “I thought the tire was flat, but it looks okay.”