The first shot glanced off the left corner of Lane's windshield as his truck screamed past the sniper. The second one came whizzing through the cab at a back to front angle nearly catching his hand on the gearshift. His breath was coming in short huffs as his hands and feet worked together to keep the big machine on the road and gaining speed. He knew he wouldn't be able to dodge a rifle bullet, but he could get just as much of his truck between him and the shooter as he could, to try to keep from being wounded. As he shifted into the last gear on the big truck's 18 speed transmission, he fumbled for his CB mic to talk to Justin. "Hey! You okay back there?" He was practically screaming into the mic. Relief flooded him when Justin,s voice came over the radio, "Yeah I think I'm cl..argh!" The .50 caliber slug ripped through the flesh on his right side and slammed through the instrument panel on the dash. The impact of the slug had nearly thrown him into the windshield, and a hot searing pain ran down his rib cage. Every alarm in his truck was screaming at him warning him of mechanical failures and his body felt light and weak. "What happened?...Justin!" Lane's voice clearly relayed his fear to Tony and the other agents in Langley. "Lane," Justin's voice was shaky. "I've been hit!" "How badly Justin? Where and how bad?" "It ripped through my right side, in and out and tore up my damn truck!" Lane was worried and downright scared as he snapped, "I don't care about that truck! How bad are you hit?" Justin's voice was quiet as he said "I'm bleeding pretty bad Lane, but I can make it. We can't stop here, not now." Lane didnt want to agree with him, but he knew that Justin was right. This country was wide open and stopping within a mile of that sniper would be a death sentence for both of them. "Tony, how far out is the tactical team?" Lane was getting testy now. The tactical unit was running behind and had left them unprotected. "Lane,they are twenty minutes from your location,and air support will be there in twelve." "That's not fast enough Tony! Justin's down, hes not going to be able to drive that truck much further before he passes out from blood loss!" "Can you get to some type of cover? A building,or something to hide in?" "Hide from what? Those rounds ripped through these trucks like they were wet paper sacks! Those were military grade, armor piercing rounds!" "Okay, you make the call on what to do for Justin, you're in the field,you make the call." "Justin,can you make it ten more minutes?" "I think so, I'm hurting pretty bad, but I don't feel like I'm dying yet." The evident pain in the young man's voice was extremely evident as Lane considered his options.

"Are the trucks nearing their next checkpoint?" Tony Jackson was speaking to his chief team leader. "I need to know when they plan on making their stop for the night. We must make sure we have teams watching those rigs closely." "Yes Sir Mr. Jackson, they will be crossing the next checkpoint in about twenty minutes. Also, we are trying to research the best locations for them to take their breaks today." "Well,make sure I have the list of scheduled stops before they make them. I want to check them out myself." "Of course, I will be sure to get them to you as soon as we have had time to analyze our choices. What I do know so far is that we are most definitely going to need to reconfigure their stop point for tonight. The way it looks right now they will be in the greater Houston area around 9:00 tonight. We are still trying to figure out the most secure location to park." "Okay" Tony replied. "We need to have that location scouted and secured by our Houston team by lunchtime today. I don't want anything going wrong with this shipment." "Yes Sir. I will make sure to coordinate with our Houston field office to make sure we have a tactical team in place at least eight hours before they arrive." "Very good. That will give us time to secure the area." "Breaker one nine. How bout ya Cowboy?" "Yeah, go ahead Gunner" Lane spoke into his cb microphone. "It's bout time to put some groceries down our neck Lane. My belly button has done turned around and kissed my butt goodbye" Justin replied. Lane laughed at the way Justin expressed himself with oddball sayings like that. he was constantly making him chuckle at the remarks he came up with. He remembered the time Justin's Sig .40 caliber handgun had jammed during a firefight outside Baghdad and he had calmly squatted next to the Humvee they had been riding in to get the casing out. He had said "Well this thing is just about as useful as an ejection seat in a helicopter" and had made Lane laugh with bullets thudding all around him. Justin had that easy air about him no matter what situation he was in and that made him a good partner in Lane's book. Someone who could be counted on to keep their head when it mattered most. "Yep, I think i could use a bite too" Lane called back to him. "There is a little mo n pop truck stop about thirty miles ahead, if you can wait that long they have some good ham and eggs there." "10-4 on the ham and eggs" Justin replied. "I can wait til then. Do you think that location is secure?" "I don't know about secure,but we can park where we can see the trucks at all times and the place is small enough that nobody could mess with them without being noticed." "Alright, that works for me. I know I sure am hungry." "10-4, I will holler at you about a mile before the exit." "Okay!" Lane knew that Tony didn't like them making unscheduled stops, but they had to eat and there was no way to keep a tactical team close enough to shadow them without giving away the fact that they were traveling with the two trucks. He knew that this truck stop was small enough that they could monitor the trucks and cargo fairly easily and that if someone did try to mess with their rigs, it would be noticed before they could get away. He let Justin know that they were nearing the exit about twenty five minutes later and began downshifting his truck to slow down for the exit ramp. Just as he was about to change lanes and make the exit, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A vehicle parked along the road that ran under the interstate. It was parked at an odd angle, positioned so that he could see the exit ramp that they would have to take to get to the truck stop. He couldn't figure out what it was that caught his attention, after all this was Texas and broken down cars and trucks were fairly common to see here. But, this one was different. Then he saw it. The slight gleam of sunlight hitting glass just behind the vehicle in the brush. he knew it wasn't a bottle or some other piece of litter because it was about a foot off the ground. His gut immediately tightened as he grabbed for his cb mic. "Gunner, hit the gas and mash on it, we got a shooter at two o' clock low!" Justin checked the position that Lane had called out and he too saw the glint of glass in the brush. Both men mashed their throttle pedals as hard as they could and began gaining speed again.