Hard Target by Leo J. Maloney

Author:Leo J. Maloney [Maloney, Leo J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyrical Press
Published: 2021-04-29T16:24:08+00:00

Chapter 10

The adrenaline from Alex’s morning wore off relatively quickly, yet her lingering nervous energy kept her alert on the bike. She kept the Brooklyn Knights jacket on, though she wore a cheap windbreaker over it.

She figured that it would be safe to take off the windbreaker when she got out of Illinois. Of course, the state seemed to be endless. She’d been on the road for over two hundred miles traveling southwest along Route 66 and was still inside the state.

Of course, the smart move would be to head east and be out of Illinois in less than an hour. The problem was that the Feds and whoever else was after her would also know that.

Sticking to her route was counterintuitive, or—to put it less kindly—so crazy it might just work. Either way, it would be virtually impossible for her current enemies to predict, so she was happy.

Of course, there was no denying that she was also getting tired. She’d taken many calculated risks on this job—and many of them in the last several hours—but there was no percentage in riding a motorcycle on a highway while fighting fatigue.

It was time to stop, and Alex took it at a sign when she saw actual signs for the Pontiac-Oakland Auto Museum. She thought of her father, grateful that he and her mother were far away from this mess. And with any luck, Dan Morgan had done what he had promised to do for their great world tour and thrown away his cell phone.

Alex was the only person in danger right now; she’d certainly failed her team badly enough today. She didn’t want anyone else to suffer for her inability to smell a trap.

She caught a sign for the Roadway Inn as she approached Pontiac. The sign said the motel was only a mile off the highway, so Alex followed it. As she approached she saw it was an old-school motel, and like a lot of places she’d seen over the last two hundred miles, the sign claimed it was historic. More importantly, the sign also read Vacancy.

Alex was pleased to see that there were half a dozen motorcycles parked together in front of connecting rooms. She doubted the authorities could connect her to her new Harley; it still felt better to park it somewhere it wouldn’t stick out.

She paid for the room in cash, though she had to show ID at the desk. That was fine; she had multiple Zeta-issued fake IDs that would stand up to virtually any scrutiny. Even the credit card was almost certainly safe to use, but Alex preferred to be extra-careful.

She’d paid in cash on her couple of road stops, where she’d bought some new T-shirts, underwear, and toiletries. At her first stop, she bought the windbreaker that she was now glad to take off. The same shop had offered Route 66 memorabilia, Native American jewelry, and custom leather wristbands and accessories. The guy who ran the shop had made her a black strip that had the word Raven stitched into the leather in script.

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