CHAPTER Eleven
“Don’t you have a radio in this goddamn truck?” Stefan asked.
Janos pointed to a portable tape recorder on the seat between them. “I’m taking a night class in German. I listen to language tapes during my trips. I don’t need a radio.”
“Always trying to learn something new, eh, Janos? Trying to improve yourself. If you’d used your brains and worked with me, you wouldn’t be driving a fucking truck.”
Janos didn’t respond.
Suddenly, Stefan sat up in his seat and stared ahead. “Slow down,” he ordered.
Janos brought the truck’s speed down to forty kilometers an hour. “Looks like a traffic backup,” he said. “Maybe an accident.”
“Turn this thing around,” Stefan yelled.
“Where?” Janos said. “There’s a chain-link fence in the middle of the highway, in case you haven’t noticed. And there are vehicles right behind us.” He paused to look in his sideview mirror. “Including a police car.”
Stefan pulled a pistol from the inside pocket of his leather jacket and placed it on the seat under his right thigh. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. If there has been an accident, no problem. If it’s something else – like a roadblock–”
“They’re after you, aren’t they?” Janos interrupted. “They’re looking for the little boy!”
In a calm, but menacing voice, Stefan said, “You are in this thing all the way now. If we get caught, I’ll tell the police you were in on the kidnapping from the beginning. Do you really think they’ll believe a Gypsy could be innocent of anything? Stay cool and keep your mouth shut. I’ll do the talking.”
Janos sat behind the wheel, sweating, inching his truck forward. It took forty-five minutes to reach a turn in the road that allowed them to see the police cars up ahead.
“Shit!” Janos exclaimed, “It is a roadblock.” He drummed the steering wheel with his fingers and beat a tattoo against the floorboard with his left foot.
“We’re dead.”
As they neared the front of the line, Janos noticed the cops searched only some of the trucks – every third one. He counted back to his own truck. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. He was a number three.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bob shielded his eyes against the light from the rising sun. He knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer. Lack of sleep and the emotional strain of the last twenty hours had taken a toll. His eyes burned and his head felt as though a dagger was embedded in each temple. He continued to throw himself into the vehicle searches, crawling over and around the cargo in the back of every third truck. But it drove him mad to think his son could be hidden in the windowless cargo bays of one of the trucks not being searched.
“Where are you heading?” the officer asked Janos.
“Thessa . . .” Janos began. His voice broke and Stefan finished answering.
“Thessaloniki,” Stefan said. “My nephew has lost his voice. Too much yelling at last weekend’s match between Panathenaikos and AEK. You young men and your football.”
Stefan laughed. The policeman just stared back.
The cop waved at Janos to get out of the truck’s cab. “Open the cargo bay,” he instructed.
Stefan gripped the pistol under his thigh, just when a second police officer, armed with an automatic rifle, stepped onto the passenger-side running board. Two other armed policemen stationed themselves in front of the vehicle.
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EVIL DEEDS
Mystery / ThrillerEvil Deeds is the first in a 4-book series that follows the Danforth family from the kidnapping of their 2-year-old son in Greece in 1971 to present day. The book (and series) is a roller coaster ride of action and suspense. This book, as with all o...
