Chapter 2

The next morning, Jimmy paid for more fuel from the roll of bills taken from the mob soldier. So far, we had been living high off the hog from the money taken the previous day. I had never thought to ask how much money there was in the two rolls, but now I was curious.

Jimmy said, "I haven't bothered to get an exact count, but a quick check showed more than $6,000 in each roll. That's a lot of money for a couple of soldiers to be carrying around, so I'm a little suspicious about where it came from. I think that we need to go somewhere private and do a thorough search of the car. It may have some interesting surprises for us."

We traveled about 100 Klicks (Kilometers) down the road when Jimmy spotted a rest area that was deserted and looked like it might have a back side that would be private enough. We pulled in, and Jimmy found a secluded place for us to park for our search. We spent over two hours going over the car in minute detail, and we found a veritable gold mine of weapons and money.

There were four AK-74s, two more of the pistols, and four cases of ammunition. Not only that, we found another $400,000 in hundreds stowed under the back seat. The situation looked even crazier. We probably would never know what was going on with the car and the two mobsters, but it was getting hard to believe that they were two low level soldiers out on a morning drive.

Jimmy said, "We have enough money now that we don't have to hurry south, so we have time for you to learn to drive at least well enough to spell me while we are on the highway. This seems like a good place, there's plenty of room and it's deserted. I don't think that we could find a better place."

I agreed, so we spent the rest of the morning with me practicing all of the things that a beginner had to learn to drive safely. By the time noon came, I was comfortable enough driving that Jimmy had me pull away from the rest stop and drive down the highway. He reminded me to drive between 100 and 110 KPH so that I would not draw attention. If somebody wanted to pass, I was to stay in my lane and not try to help the passer. I wondered what Jimmy was talking about with "help the passer," but I realized what he meant the first time I was passed. I had the strongest urge to slow down so that the other car could get around me quicker.

I was really nervous when I had to pass an old geezer in a clunker going about 55 KPH. I just gritted my teeth and followed directions exactly, and I nearly fainted with relief when the ordeal was finally over! Shit, that was no fun. I hoped that I didn't have to do that very often. Jimmy reassured me that I had done everything exactly right, but I still hated the thought of having to do it again.

I drove until we spotted a restaurant with a convenient entrance, so I drove to it and parked in one of the places where I could just drive in. Jimmy congratulated me on doing so well in my first experience driving, but I was still a bundle of nerves when we finally sat down at the table and ordered our lunch.

Jimmy bought a newspaper, and that's when we found out what was going on with the car, etc. The girl was the daughter of a crime boss and she had been kidnapped. The two men found with her were not local, and it was speculated that they were members of the kidnap gang. The ransom had been $1,000,000 and had been paid. No mention was made of the rape of the little girl, and there was wonder at how she and the two men had happened to be where they were when they were found. Well, now we knew, and we were scared shitless that somebody would recognize the car.

We were going to have to swap cars as soon as possible, just to be on the safe side. That was going to be hard to do. It looked like we would have to steal a car and abandon the one we had. Jimmy said that he knew how to do it. All I would have to do would be to drive the car we had to the next rest stop, and Jimmy would meet me there with the stolen car. We would change cars there and head to Florida as fast as possible.

We ate lunch and returned to the parking lot. Jimmy looked around and spotted an SUV that was three years old. It was a light green and there was nothing about it that made it stand out. He said that it was ideal for our use, since we could sleep in it if we had to. He had me leave and waited until I was out of the parking lot before going after the SUV.

Jimmy caught up to me at the next rest stop. We swapped everything from the car to the SUV and drove away. We just left the car sitting in the lot of the rest stop and wondered how long it would be before somebody found it. If we were lucky, some kids would steal it and break the trail to us.

We stopped at the next rest stop and dumped the stuff we didn't want from the SUV in a dumpster bin. Hopefully, nobody would notice the stuff we threw away. When that was done, Jimmy drove us away from the rest stop and pushed as fast as he could to get us well away from the scene. He drove around 160 KPH, much faster than I was willing to drive at this stage in my driving skill level.

One of the features of this particular brand of SUV was that the rear seats could be unfolded into a bed, and that was why Jimmy had selected it. We set it up and drove through the night, each one of us taking a turn at driving and sleeping. We only stopped for fuel and potty breaks. I had driven much slower than Jimmy, so we were just entering Georgia when the sun came up. We stopped for breakfast at the first likely place and were back on the road as quickly as possible.

A couple of hours later, Jimmy saw what looked like an abandoned rock quarry, so we drove to it to see if it was a good place for me to learn to shoot. It was, so we found a suitable place and I started practicing. Jimmy ran through all of the standard gun safety rules before he let me shoot. I practiced for a while with a two-handed stance and got pretty good. Before we left, I also practiced some shooting with one hand as if I was protecting myself. I wasn't very good at that, yet, but Jimmy said that I showed a lot of promise.

While we were about it, I also practiced with the AK-74 and was better with that than I was with the pistols. Jimmy had me start wearing the pistol in the holster just over my ass. This was no quick draw location, but it was reasonably comfortable and not easily spotted. We also moved two of the AK-74s to the floor right behind the front seats so that we could get to them quickly if we needed them.

While we were riding through Georgia, I found out that Jimmy had been a captain in the Army infantry and had washed out of Special Forces training because of a tendency to suffer from vertigo. He had been discharged shortly after the 2013 bomb event. He couldn't get on with any union, so he had been unemployed since being discharged. His money had run out about four years ago, so that's why he was a hobo.

We kept driving except for stops to eat, for potty break, and for fuel. We wound up in Ft. Lauderdale about noon, so we had time to drive around and look the place over. Jimmy wanted to come to Ft. Lauderdale because he had visited the town back when he was in the Army, and he wanted to see it again. He was so disappointed with how much it had changed that he was ready to go anywhere, just so long as he could escape from Ft. Lauderdale. The beach front was now nothing but gambling houses, saloons, and brothels cheek by jowl. All-in-all, a very depressing place!

We headed north and west, looking for a nice quiet town, more in the nature of rural Florida to try to get the sour taste of Ft. Lauderdale from our mouths. We drove into the little town of Ochnee and decided to stop for a beer at a little bar on the main street. It was a good thing that Jimmy was driving because the only thing available was parallel parking, and I wanted nothing to do with that.

We had parked, but not gotten out of the car when we heard gunshots coming from up the street. Four men ran from the bank carrying sacks and brandishing guns. It took less than a minute for several people to show up with shotguns to contest the field with the people who appeared to be bank robbers. Jimmy announced that the townsfolk didn't stand a chance because their shotguns were loaded with birdshot. They would have to be unbelievably lucky to do any damage with shot that small. He and I, in our Lone Ranger mode, grabbed up the AK-74s and joined in the battle against the bank robbers.