"The hell you are", Lautenberg said. "Hopgood, I've been easy on you because you're new, and I don't like making enemies. But wouldn't it be kinda dumb for some fugitive to pass right through one spot he's sure to be looked at?"
"This guy's clever. He took out a whole regiment of TMCC and blew that big Mississippi Grog cannon into orbit".
"Be news to his mother", Lautenberg said. "Until she passed, Max here was taking care of her every day of his life. Kansas militia trusted him with a gun, I know that. My Ingrid's married to Tom Stormcloud over in Topeka. He's Stormcloud's cousin".
Valentine had no idea what spring this torrent of bullshit was coming from, but it fitted his faked papers like a jigsaw piece. Lautenberg had just glanced at them briefly back at Nancy's.
"Now, you can detain this kid", Lautenberg said. "I can wait here, getting madder and madder every hour. And when General Cox in Albuquerque runs out of black-label bourbon and has to listen to those three coochies of his bitch about how they're all outta lipstick and undies, well, I might just call you a bad name or two when he asks what was keeping me. You ever talked to Cox when he's bone-dry on whiskey?"
Hopgood looked from his thick sheaf of wanted posters at Valentine, then at Lautenberg, and back again.
Lautenberg patted his hip pocket. "Lord, Corporal Guadalco, you smoked three cigarettes with Max here last October. You showed him a picture of your kids".
"Oh yes, I remember, remember very well", a corporal in a non-regulation straw hat spoke up.
Hopgood wilted. "I'll cut him loose this time, Lautenberg. But your reputation's riding on this".
"My reputation's riding on about three hundred tires", Lautenberg said. "I just want them spinning again".
Valentine felt the cuffs come off, and showed his relief.
"Thank you, sir", he said to Hopgood.
"Smile, Hoppy, and have a cigar", Lautenberg said, extracting a gleaming silver case. "You road rangers know I'm just trying to get from A to B and back to A. Smuggling fugitives doesn't come between A and B. Or A and Z for that matter - it's a whole 'nother alphabet".
As the groups parted, Lautenberg offered Valentine a wink, and slipped something into Guadalco's hand as they shook.
And with that, the convoy got moving again. The scout cycles blatted out first, then the combat craft; the big tow trucks, capable of pulling a disabled truck or moving an unexpected obstacle with their thick cable winches; Lautenberg's Winnebago office on wheels; the "money trucks" with the tanker and "chuck wagon" RV guarded by a truck full of dummy soldiers; a few "gypsy" vans traveling with the convoy for protection like pilot fish hovering close to a shark; more cargo trucks; then the rear guard: the "remount" truck and more cycles.
"The Spikes must really have it in for that Valentine fella", the heavyset commander of the overwatch car said. By "Spikes" he meant the Kurians; their towers did look a little like spikes, glimpsed from a distance.
He had thoughtful eyes and a patchy beard. The rest of the car, Zuniga at the wheel and Swell at the ring gun, called their commander "Salsa". He spread hot sauce from an endless supply of tiny red bottles he kept in a machine-gun belt case on everything he ate, save fruit.
"Nice of the road chief to stand up for me. I was in a cell once before. Thought I'd cashed out".
"What were you in for?"
"Fighting and public drunkenness".
"That where you got your face rearranged?" Zuniga asked.
"Yes", Valentine said, which was almost true.
"What you guys talking about?" Swell called down from the ring gun. Swell loved riding in the wind, leaning on the canvas-covered poker, but always wanted details of in-cab conversations shouted up to him.
"We're talkin' about how your mother undercuts all the other whores", Salsa shouted up. Then to the others: "I swear to God, I should make him drive so he doesn't miss nuthin'".
"Except he bitches about how he feels cooped up in here", Zuniga said, leaning over to pass gas at a volume that rivaled that of the motorcycle sixty meters ahead.
"Phew, Max, I think this kid could drop a Hood with that", Salsa said.
"What's that?" Swell shouted.
Valentine winked at Salsa as he tied Swell's shoelaces together.
And with that, David Valentine passed out of Oklahoma.
* * *