Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

generator if someone
cuts the power. But what it doesn’t have is access to the outside
world. No cable, no phone line, no internet, nothing that can be
tapped into.”
    “Then what’s the laptop for?”
    “Security,” Willis said. “Here, let me show
you.”
    They walked over to the desk. Willis flipped
open the laptop and hit a few keys. The screen split up into four
quarters.
    “It’s a closed-circuit system,” Willis said.
“Four cameras. Two outside, covering the entryways. Two inside, one
an overhead of the main floor, the other watching the door to the
living quarters. They switch to night-vision once the light gets
below a certain level. Plus the system is equipped with an
attention alarm that trips whenever something larger than a dog
moves into the frame.”
    “What’s the alarm like?”
    Grinning like a school-boy playing a prank
on his teacher, Willis clicked on a lightning bolt icon in the
corner of the screen. An incredibly loud, high-pitched,
ingratiating screech filled the room. It sounded like a million
owls on steroids, all shrieking simultaneously.
    My hands flew to my head on their own
accord, but even with my ears covered, the sound pierced my mind
like an ice pick through the skull.
    It stopped abruptly.
    I pulled my hands away but my ears were
still buzzing so I stuck the tips of my pinkies in there and
wiggled them around but it didn’t seem to help.
    “How did you turn it off?” I said, not sure
if I was shouting.
    “It shuts itself off after three seconds,”
Willis said. “Just long enough to let you know something is going
on out there.”
    “Or bring you back from the dead,” I said.
“Damn that thing is loud.”
    “That’s the whole point.”
    I looked around a final time and nodded my
head in admiration. “It’s a sweet setup, I must admit.”
    “And I haven’t even showed you the best part
yet,” Willis said. “Come here. Check this out.”
    I followed him into the walk-in pantry and
watched him from the door as he made his way into the far corner.
He knelt down, grabbed a piece of fishing line from the floor, and
pulled sharply.
    A square portion of the floor lifted,
revealing a four-foot hole with a ladder descending down one side
into the darkness below.
    I started laughing; I couldn’t help myself.
“Oh man, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
    “Pretty cool, huh?”
    “Hell yeah.”
    “You never know when you’re going to need to
make a hasty exit,” Willis said. “The ladder leads to a rainwater
storm drain. Once you reach the bottom, cross to the other side
until you hit the wall, then turn to your right. About fifty feet
down is another ladder. That one leads to an old automotive garage
on the next street over, two buildings down.”
    “And I suppose you own that building
too?”
    “Of course,” Willis said. “And inside the
building is a 2000 Ford Taurus with the keys in the glove
compartment. It looks like crap on the outside but its got a brand
new heavy-duty Twin cab engine under the hood. That baby can
move.”
    I laughed under my breath. “You’re a slick
little bastard, aren’t you?”
    The corner of Willis’s mouth turned up
briefly in what he considered a smile. Then he closed the trap door
and we exited the pantry.
    Once back in the main room I noticed a black
duffel bag sitting on the floor by the bed. “Is that the rest of
the stuff?”
    Willis nodded.
    I picked up the bag, set it on the bed,
opened it. Inside was a MK23 MOD 0 .45-caliber handgun. Next to it
was a Gemtech Blackslide sound suppressor.
    “That was your service pistol, right?”
Willis asked.
    “It sure as hell was,” I said. I again
marveled at how adept he was at obtaining information but this time
I was smart enough not to mention it, lest it be considered an
insult.
    I picked up the handgun, screwed the
suppressor onto the end of the barrel, and aimed it at the wall.
Even with the silencer, it was as perfectly balanced as I’d
remembered. I’d shot thousands of