Renewal 9 - Delay Tactics by Jf Perkins Read Free Book Online

slid to the center of the highway as they cleared the slow lane. Predictable behavior for idiots , was Tam’s gleeful thought.
    By the time the truck convoy was bearing down on Tam’s people, they were doing almost sixty miles per hour. Tam stuck two fingers in her mouth and gave a piercing whistle as her knees directed her horse to the left. The four columns of horses opened down the centerline of the highway like a giant zipper, two columns to each side. Gary was screaming with frustration. He wanted to run that bitch over and watch her splatter on his windshield. By the time the pattern became clear to him, he was yanking on the steering wheel to catch some horsemen, any horsemen off guard, but they were well off the pavement before he even got close. Then it occurred to him that his real problem was solved. They could drive right through the damn horses without any problem. He took a deep breath and calmed himself.
    The high speed convoy cleared the end of the horse columns. The horses on the south side of the highway crossed to the north side before the slow trucks could catch up. The whole army of riders set out through the open fields, cutting off the corners of the highway system for their next trick. Tam did not have the pleasure of watching the result of her maneuver, but she sure liked the sound of it.
    Gary was thinking about the fact that they should slow down to regroup the column when they topped the long rise. He saw the problem an instant before they hit it. The highway was covered in wet, slippery mud. He could feel the truck beginning to slide. Buried in the mud were hundreds of caltrops designed to shred tires or lame horses. Since his truck was first through the metal spikes, all four tires were punctured, abruptly taking away what little control his driver still held, and handing the truck over to brutal physics. In this, Gary was lucky. At the end of the muddy slope were three layers of concrete barriers stretching much wider than the highway. Thanks to the hard pull of one destroyed tire, Gary’s lead truck took off at a hard angle to the highway, plowed dirt from the shallow ditch, and careened up the embankment on the south side of the highway. The driver was fighting the wheel the entire way, trying to get the truck back on the road. He ran out of momentum just below the crest, and the truck rolled lazily onto its left side, spilling men and guns down the grassy slope.
    Most of the other trucks were not so lucky. Gary heard the first crunches of folding metal, and was able to climb out his window in time to watch the barriers get pummeled into gravel and bent steel rod by more than twenty trucks. They did not stop crashing into each other until the cascade of brake lights reached three hundred feet back over the hill. No fully loaded truck stops that fast, but a few exceptional cases managed to peel off into the grass rather than plunging headlong into the fray. When the sounds had finally settled into hissing, pinging machinery and the pained cries of mercenary men, over seventy trucks were destroyed. Somewhere in the middle of the massive pileup, fuel began to burn. The cries rose through the register and lost all meaning as Gary watched almost five hundred men burn alive. He had one of his first introspective ideas when he realized that if there was a God, He would see the karmic balance in burning the Knights of the White God. Gary was afraid.
    Chapter 9 – 7
    Bill met them in the barn when Terry and Seth returned and parked Big Bertha. That was the problem with driving a huge armored truck; everyone knew you were coming.
    “Did you get Mr. Cooper home safe?” Bill asked as Terry dropped out of the cab.
    “Yes, sir. No problems, unless you count Jared’s wife. We talked to his mother while the wife was beating him senseless. I’d bet lunch that a square mile of Manchester has heard the story by now.” Terry gave his hands a job-well-done dusting.
    “Good deal. You boys want to go