Jackknife 15
Chapter 15 Onalaska to Billings
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Three a.m. came mercifully to Cray. The pressure was off, the excitement back on. He had stumbled across the solution to decoding the control panel.
Cray carefully examined the connections. The wires were slipped through self-closing loops and wound back on themselves but not soldered. Technically, he could pull out a wire and reconnect it at will. This would involve putting his hand inside a live panel however, which was discouraged by knowledgeable people. Reinserting a wire would require tweezers and a magnifying glass, neither of which he had on hand. Only a one-way operation was possible.
It felt powerful to have established even a small capability toward independence if he so chose it. He began changing to move onto breakfast and the walk down and slipped into the drivers seat. The coffee was hot the sandwich cold, just how he liked them served. He switched on the radio to the weather, volume low, while he looked at the day’s route on the GPS screen.
Something was off. There were howls of laughter and over the top voices, almost yelling, coming from the weather news on the radio. Cray turned up the volume.
“For those of you just joining us, you may wonder what all the uproar is about,” said the lead announcer jovially, half-laughing, “Please let me try to catch you up.
“We asked the listeners to send us the most outrageous claims about the snow conditions developing over Montana, preferably by a weather caster, and we got a reporting to end all reporting. It’s from an independent operator, no shame in that, but the report will knock your socks off.
“Is the recording ready Steve? Then, roll it!”
The voice of an elderly man with an unusual speaking style, perhaps accented, started playing. His cheap microphone made his voice sound scratchy and metallic.
“Ladies and gentlemen I implore you, prepare yourselves for the storm of the century. For your own safety and very survival.
“As a witness to storms of the 1940s, I can attest, affirm, and confirm, the coming storm will be an equal in all respects, and even render them to a lower class of devastation.
“To wit, the Armistice Day Blizzard of November, 1940, began as an unusually warm day before the cold front moved in, driving temperatures downward, causing heavy snowfall in high winds. The change was dramatic, taking people off guard, and causing the deaths of 145.
“What is different this time?
“The population is higher. The people affected will be greater, maybe much greater, than the record storms of old.
“It is not unseasonably warm, but the weather is very mild for November, to what we have become accustom, leading to the same complacency. Thus, the starting point is colder, wetter, and most people are no better prepared.
“A large polar vortex disruption, driven by a Siberian high-pressure system is currently causing the jet-stream to wobble. Enough of a disruption could cause an atmospheric rupture, resulting in severe cold snaps and freezing conditions across northern America and Europe.
“In addition, strong solar events have been witnessed, suggesting heightened activity which increases risks not only for disruptions to power grids, GPS, and high-frequency radio, but also to sudden stratospheric warming, leading to significant cold air outbreaks in North America.
“In recent years, we’ve lived through cyclones, vortexes and even weather bombs, leading to serious weather impacts on our lives and infrastructure. But the volatile mix of conditions now is leading us to something more extreme. The Mother of All Bombs. Yes, the Weather MOAB. Prepare yourselves!
The weather reporters continued their laughter and mimicking of the elderly weather forecaster’s eccentric speaking style. Cray turned the volume down and radio off. Note to self, he thought, get a coat, watch the weather.
Cray finished his walk down and called Ken and Bill at a respectable five a.m. They were up and ready for him. It was a good sign it would be a good day.
They pulled out onto the interstate together, and started the next leg of the trip. Leaving the wide open plains, big skies, and farmland along very straight stretches of road for the foothills of the mountains, toward rugged terrain, and stunning scenery.
Cray enjoyed the driving. It took vigilance, tested one’s senses, and reflexes driving a double trailer load up inclines and down declines. Nothing good happened fast in this situation, every move was thought out ahead and acted upon early.
Rhea made it easy, sensing speed, inclines, momentum, gears and brakes. To Cray’s credit, she didn’t warn him much, and provided gentle caution indicators. But if a worst case scenario developed, her automated systems would kick in for coordinating gearing down and breaking or adding horsepower. The anti locking break system would probably never come into use.
Although Cray was up for the challenge to drive through to lunch, he was experienced enough not to push it and surprised Ken and Bill with an early rest area break. He surprised them further by leaving the truck and coming to the sedan to talk.
“Enjoying the drive Cray?”
“Oh, you bet. This is some truck.”
“Good to hear.”
I’ve been wondering where you are hiding the tech and load crews all this time. But I just saw a black SUV go by the entrance, so I guessed you must make them ride with security. Is that right?”
“Sorry, that comes under operational security need to know. But are you sure you saw one of ours?”
“Just caught a glance, couldn’t swear to it in court.”
“O.K., no problem. Sorry, can you excuse me a second, I need to make some calls.”
Ken pivoted on a heel, put in an earpiece and started talking jargon as he walked away. Cray noticed Bill looked very serious, eyes fixed on Ken. Cray decided it was a good time to hit the restroom and let the pros do their thing.
Cray finished his business and headed back toward the sedan when a man, probably another trucker by his looks, approached him gleefully.
“Hey there, nice rig. It yours?”
“I’m driving it.”
“Contractor then. You an independent?”
“Depends on who’s asking.”
“Oh, I’m Craig Hamilton, independent driver. I applied to Silver Logistics but didn’t get hired. Wondered if you could give me a tip or something.”
The man named Craig’s eyes shifted to over Cray’s shoulder and his demeanor changed.
“Anyway, sorry to bother you. Have a good day.”
Craig walked away quickly and Cray turned to see what he had been looking at. There stood Bill, Wyatt Earp style, jacket pulled back revealing a shoulder holster and big black shiny piece. The look on his face was hard, ready to measure a guy for a coffin.
“There’s trouble,” said Bill, straightening his jacket before turning away toward the sedan.
Cray followed, still taken aback at witnessing Bill’s hard side.
They met up with Ken just finishing a call back at the sedan.
“Escort Two confirms the sighting, not one of ours. The vehicle can’t be found. There is no alternate route to turn off of the main road so the disappearance is a real trick. We’re advised to proceed out of this bottleneck A.S.A.P. The next junction isn’t far.”
“We encountered a potential abettor on foot. May have a vehicle here,” added Bill.
“O.K., we proceed out in standard formation, Payload in front, Escort One following. Cray, if anything happens, just proceed to the next destination as planned. Keep moving no matter what. No one on our team will ask you to stop.”
The impromptu meeting broke without a further word. Ken and Bill got into the sedan and Cray went to Rhea. They pulled out of the rest area as usual, but it felt different to Cray because of the hyper-vigilance. The added awareness only applied to unknown black SUVs. No one noticed the changes in the sky.
The added attention required by the road sloughed off some of Cray’s energy, calming him. It gave him time to reflect on what he had learned and what he had not.
There was a group of people aggressively interested in the cargo, but no details on who they were or how far they would go to get their hands on it. Bill was more than an unusually quiet man of few words, he had a hard side that was armed and dangerous. Rhea, load and driver were code named Payload, not exactly a decoy name.
The route only cut across the northeastern corner of Wyoming. Soon they would enter Montana and avoid forays into the steeper inclines of the Rockies, for the moment. Cray’s main challenge hadn’t arrived yet.
There were no complaints about skipping lunch in favor of making time to their day’s destination. No one brought it up. No one noticed the fast moving clouds, thickening, blocking more light gradually. They were all preoccupied by the enemy phantom.
The first wake-up call for Cray was a huge, slushy raindrop hitting the windshield dead center. On the console, the inclement weather warning lamp changed from a yellow-green, to yellow to light orange. A downpour of sleet started soon after the warning.
Cray eased up on the accelerator and turned on the radio still tuned to the weather reporting station. The lead weather reporter was explaining that rain, sleet and maybe even snow had been expected but it was definitely not the latest snowmageddon as predicted by an independent, eccentric, weather caster the studio had commented on, and mercilessly mocked, earlier in the day. The only change was the possibility of low-flying clouds, or a thick ground fog to follow isolated sleet and rainfall.
An incoming call interrupted Cray’s train of thought about getting a raincoat.
“This is Cray.”
“Cray, we have a support call from Escort 2 so we’re going to investigate. Proceed to the destination and wait for us. Inside if you can. If the weather gets worse, take refuge where you can. We’ll come find you.”
“Roger that. Good luck.”
Cray was now on his own, for the first time in many days, like a real, full-grown, adult trucker. It felt unexpectedly good. And, of course, this is when things started to go wrong. The mist brought by the sleet thickened. At first, Cray thought the windshield defrost stopped working, but it was just fog, thickening as predicted.
He slowed his speed to a crawl. He knew he was supposed to take shelter, preferably at the destination site but there was no place visible he could park the She Beast without blocking traffic.
It was time to fall back on the technology. He set the GPS to street level and it froze. He turned the GPS off, waited a couple seconds, then turned it back on hoping it would self-correct. The problem just got worse. It now returned an error blocking the middle of the screen it was unable to reach a satellite signal. He looked over the controls and gave up. No one had bothered to show him how to switch it to internal operation, or tell him if that were even possible.
Frustrated, Cray tried the radio and got nothing but garbled noise and static. Grand, he thought. His last result was calling for help. Ken and Bill were unresponsive so he tried the Tech crew’s channel directly. No dice.
Cray continued to crawl down the road, thinking. He realized all the systems with no outside input, cameras, visibility and proximity sensors, etc., were all behaving normally. That had to mean the GPS would work on its own internal software. He started pressing buttons at random and tapping the screen. Nothing worked. As far as the GPS went, he might as well be driving one of those old farm trucks.
Elsewhere, the outgoing messages multiplied.
INTERNAL NOTICE
TO: All Teams
SUBJECT: Hi-Po Contact
MESSAGE:
Operation Romeo Hotel reports a high potential contact. All escorts report to HQ.
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