Chapter 2

The modified pick-up truck came out of the sun straight at her and she couldn’t really see the outline because of sun in her eyes.

A little dust cloud rolled off to the north like a dust devil with no end staying close to the ground because the atmosphere was pressing down severely on the sweltering landscape.

Patricia Smith tried to look innocent but in reality that was easy because she had no memory of being guilty about anything except not really being certain about anything that had happened in the past.

Way up high in the cloudless sky, she saw the trail of a passing high flying jet. It was so high and far away that she felt certain it was a large commercial jet probably flying coast to coast. What really bothered her was the fact that she was fairly clear about being between two coasts, one to the East and the other to the West, but she still had no idea where she was, and she had no clue about what those coastlines were called and, for the life of her, she knew deep down, she didn’t really care because she didn’t belong here at all.

The speeding pick-up truck was getting close enough that she could make out the fact that there was a shell on the back and it was painted in garish colors like it was a police car or an ambulance being dispatched to the scene of some problem.

When the vehicle came around the last turn in the road, she could read the writing that said, “Arizona Highway Patrol – Road Hazard Removal Unit”.

The windows were heavily tinted and she was unable to see inside but the thing had a nasty looking angled blade in the front that looked like it was designed to scrap up messes and move them out of the way so traffic could continue to move without slowing down.

Patricia was apprehensive about the way the thing just sat there out in the middle of the highway and just revved the engine with the doors and windows all tightly closed.

“Do you guys have any water?”

She asked the question weakly knowing that the loss of hydration was her biggest problem at the moment and the one that had to be solved quickly or she might fall into a stupor of unconsciousness that could quite easily turn deadly if she got no liquids.

The door opened and the tallest black man she had ever seen got out and approached her with a couple of plastic bottles of the life-giving stuff in his hands. He was constantly looking around in all directions like a person anticipating an ambush or a trap designed to capture him out in the open terrain like some wild beast to be disposed of like litter no longer wanted.

“Let me see your ID and driver’s license if you have one.”

She passed him the stuff she had found at the wreck and omitted to tell him about the car or the dead occupants because she instinctively knew it would be the “Kiss of Death” to reveal the circumstances of her abandonment. The presence of the guns alone was enough to bring unwanted scrutiny on her at a time when she had not the slightest idea who she was and what she was doing out on an almost deserted road in a place frequented by drug smugglers and illegal aliens that spoke little English.

Patricia had an urge to pee that forced her to ask the rescuer to turn the other way when she squatted down on the other side of his transport truck. It was not a real ambulance but it sufficed in most road accidents to patch people up until they could get to a real medical center for some more professional care. She got the impression that the huge black man in the highway patrol uniform mostly picked up the wandering illegal aliens that had missed their connection if they had one to begin with. Some of the “crossers” were completely independent because they were afraid of getting involved with some coyote ready to sell them to the highest bidder. If the crosser was male it was usually for some type of slave labor for a year or more and if it was a female, the work would be done flat on her back in some out of the way place where her labors would fetch the highest fee in the shortest possible time. Those unfortunate girls didn’t last longer than a couple of years before they became homeless drains on a society that didn’t want them in the first place.

The troopers name was Harold.

He told Patricia to call him “Sergeant Harold” and she figured that was the stripes on his sleeve.

Sergeant Harold called the situation in according to protocol and she heard her name and description being broadcast to all listeners on that broadband station reserved for emergencies and police business. For some reason that she couldn’t accurately pin down, that made her quite nervous because one never knew who was listening to such transmitted data looking for such details on a quiet day.

She had a feeling that things were not quite what they seemed on the surface and she was glad she had not mentioned the wrecked vehicle or the two dead bodies that were more shadows in her mind than real live people snuffed out for no apparent reason.

The girl huddled down in the back seat keeping quiet because she was in a quandary about her true identity and the reason for her being in this strange place and in the company of a pair of goons that looked suspiciously like they were planning to make life very rough for her if they hadn’t been taken off the board by the fickle finger of fate.

The highway patrol command post was not a typical outpost of law enforcement on a major corridor connecting the dots of human density from point A to point B. It all interlocked like some gigantic Chinese puzzle but the tiny cogs like Sergeant Harold were flies in the ointment because they never did understand the so-called “big picture”.