Featured image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay
“I have a CDL in my wallet, well, my real wallet. I drive a truck from time to time” I answered. “They’ll stop and search a semi for passengers if it is moving away from a shit storm like the one we are about to create, but, if you have a legal and legit load with papers, and let them search the trailer, you will be on your way in just a short while. Simply stay calm and be polite. Ordinary killers will be fleeing via car, plane or public transportation. For the first twelve hours cops will pursue the highest statistical probability. That begins with house-to-house. They will cordon off a certain area with road blocks checking vehicle registration and driver information. Widen the ring a few times, then give up because something else demands their resources.”
“That really didn’t answer the question, but good enough” spoke Stretch.
“The short answer is I’ve hauled some iffy loads in my day” I replied. “You needed to know I had a CDL and why before the short answer would make any sense. Henry and I rode several thousand miles together in a big rig between jobs. It was a nice cover. If you’re sleeping in a rest area in a car, cops are going to hassle you. Eighteen wheelers are required by law to pull over and sleep there if they are out of service hours. Unless you have fluids or some other anomaly spewing from your truck, they’ll pass you bye.”
“Awful lot of detail for the current problem Old Timer” stated Slim trying to pull me back to the problem at hand.
“Two parts of the same problem” I corrected. Whenever you guys do make a dash for it you should get good IDs and enroll in CDL school to get your license. No need to go get a job hauling unless you really want to get miles under your belt. Set up a paper shell with enough resources to lease a truck with full authority, all the right plates on everything and correct commerce numbers on the side. Learn enough about the business to know how to get a load or three. If you’re not doing it for a living, it’s a great way to see a lot of the country.”
“You can stay ‘on-the-run’ so to speak from the company for years if they don’t know your new ID or the fact it got a CDL” I continued. “Take a job with one of those major fleets you see on the Interstate. You know, those ones which treat drivers like shit so they always have come drive for us messages on the trailers. Spend years doing laundry and showering at truck stops, rarely in the same place more than one night and you don’t have to make up a story about where you are going. Dispatch will have you either delivering or picking up a load when they don’t have you cooling your heels at a truck stop because they are pissed at you or simply don’t have any work.”
“Did you guys do any guesswork on how large that tile is?” I finally asked, returning to the problem at hand.
“From what I can tell it is about six feet” offered Slim.
“So, we need an 8 foot long light weight 4×4 from a lumber yard and a tiny battery operated cable winch which can lift Giant to whatever height he needs” I stated.
“I can make a fixed length quarter inch cable and a saddle harness work” piped up Giant. “They can raise and lower me.”
“You will need a zippered fanny pack strapped to your stomach for a few tools and to put the thumb drives in” I continued. “I probably have the tools you need in one of my bags.”
“Aren’t you assuming you will get the alarm disabled?” queried Henry.
“They haven’t been here that long” offered Slim. “Probably didn’t have time to properly hide and protect the control unit. I just wish we had some ears in the place.”
“For…” I questioned.
“To see if it would pay to wait” answered Slim. “They obviously plan on pulling their part of this merger from here. Maybe they are just handing the information off to the real puppet master. These guys are out in the wild, kind of like bait. The puppet master should be making an appearance if they don’t trust digital delivery, and who would, working in this world?”
“You thinking this is one sided?” I queried. Everyone else just looked at me funny.
“Yeah, maybe. If Dimitri reported in and is still alive, then definitely” Slim responded.
“Good” I responded. “You are learning. It’s easy to let your mind go down the rabbit hole in this line of work. Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one.”
“Care to share that answer?” Stretch asked.
“Go ahead Slim, it’s your theory and it isn’t a bad one, at least I don’t think it is.”
“Dimitri’s people paid for a hit and to get this data back” Slim began. “Either the data was wiped after theft or they just want to find out how compromised they are. That doesn’t make it sound like there are any weasels left inside of Dimitri’s company. Might have been, but they have since been dealt with. Whatever is left of this hostile merger should only exist in our company and the few from Dimitri’s which are now in the wild.”
“It’s that word should which makes my sphincter twitch” I said into the air without realizing it. There goes that brain firing jaw without telling me again. All three Acrobats snapped their heads up to look at me then started getting a shit eating grin on their faces. “What? Getting fucked in the ass is something I definitely try to avoid! Deal with it!”
They started laughing quietly then Stretch suddenly bellowed out laughs causing even Henry to look at him with a hairy eyeball.
“Sorry, I just had a totally inappropriate visual. Best I don’t say anything now” replied Stretch to the unasked question.
“Don’t leaving it hanging in the air like that lover” countered Slim.
“Nah, man. Old Timer will shoot me before I finish saying it” Stretch replied.
“Now even I want to know” piped up Henry.
Stretch hem-hawed around for a bit then finally said “It was just Old Timer all drunked up, naked and face down on a bed slowly coming to and realizing there is a guy on his back that whispers into his ear ‘deal with it’”
Let’s just say it wasn’t as funny to me as the rest of the guys in the room and leave it at that, shall we?
