Traveller - L.W. Samuelson (free e books to read online TXT) 📗

the Ebola virus in his car causing him to contract the disease that had been created by Triton Labs.
Mengala had never been so sick. It was only when he had agreed to call his security men off of Professor Bloomen that Dr. Clark had given him a treatment for the disease. Only by taking it had he survived and now he wanted revenge. He wanted to make sure Tellez suffered for the pain he had caused.
He also suspected that Tellez had killed one of the workers at the lab. Nate, one of the animal keepers, had been found with his throat ripped out. Mengala had hired Nate to scare Tellez away from his investigation of Triton Labs, an investigation that had shut the lab down for several months. Only through the intervention of the United States Pentagon had Triton be able to resume operations. Mengala had good reason to hate Tellez or Bloomen or Blake Hollister as he was now known.
Dr. Mengala had spoken to the South African Defense Force and found out that they were looking for Tellez also. They had pursued Tellez in the township of Soweto but somehow he had escaped. Their intelligence officers hadn’t been able to ascertain his whereabouts until six months ago. By following a letter trail and tapping a Tellez sponsored orphanage’s telephone calls, they had traced him to Tucson, Arizona.
Dr. Mengala had hired two private detectives to track and photograph Tellez/Hollister. So far they had several incriminating pictures of him sheltering and helping illegal aliens. Recently he had been photographed with a man who looked so much like Tellez that Mengala surmised that they were related. The man had been identified as Traveller Orlovsky. A quick investigation of Traveller’s origins had ended in the same dead end trail as Tellez’s.
Dr. Mengala had compiled his information and photographs before calling a good friend located high in the echelons of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Over the last several days a Border Patrol agent working with the FBI had discovered what Mengala had suspected. Professor Bloomen and Porter Tellez were the same person, a person with no past. They had also discovered that Blake Hollister was deceased and that Tellez had stolen his identity. Dr. Mengala was sitting in his office when he received a telephone call from his friend, INS Deputy Chief Smith.
“Dr. Mengala, I have great news. We’ve taken Blake Hollister into custody.”
“That is good news. What’s he charged with?”
“Illegal immigration, human trafficking, and identity theft. We’ll be able to hold him without bail until our investigation is done.”
“What about his friend?”
“We’re working on that. The FBI and the Border Patrol are trying to locate him as we speak.”

Chief Patrol Agent Donovan received a phone call from the Arizona Highway Patrol a half hour after Dr. Mengala had been informed of Porter’s capture. The Benwarain Blues Band’s bus had been sighted by a patrolman on I-17 going north presumably toward Flagstaff. An intercept had been set up at the I-17 and I-40 junction. In addition to the highway patrol, there were several FBI Agents and over a dozen U.S. Border Patrol officers awaiting the arrival of the band.


Chapter 51 - Captured

Jesse slowed the bus as he approached the road block. The highway patrolmen were waving cars and trucks through the sawhorse barriers. He crawled the bus along with the rest of the traffic expecting to be waived through. Tim was riding in the seat behind Jesse.
“I wonder what’s going on?” Tim asked.
“They’re looking for someone. Sure glad I don’t smoke dope anymore,” Jesse quipped, “otherwise I’d think they were after me.”
Lori had awakened when the bus slowed down. She walked to the front of the bus rubbing her eyes. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I hope this doesn’t wake Traveller and Austin up too. They didn’t get much sleep last night,” Tim said. Both men were in the back end of the bus. It was partitioned off into sleeping quarters and the door was closed.
“Traveller finally drank some of that special tea Porter gave him. I don’t think he’ll wake up for a while,” Lori answered.

The bus had been creeping forward for over fifteen minutes. As Jesse approached the roadblock, more and more officers appeared at the barriers. When he looked in the rearview mirror, he saw that the traffic had been stopped well back of the bus. Suddenly, two patrols cars came in from each side of the freeway with their lights on. They filed in behind the bus. The officers in front motioned for Jesse to pull into a turnout so the other traffic could go by.
Suspicious now, it didn’t surprise him to be stopped by the man in the dark blue uniform, but he wasn’t alarmed. They had done nothing wrong.
Jesse pulled up to the barriers and stopped. He watched a group of patrolmen approach the doors of the bus. He turned to Lori and said “Better warn Traveller, there’s something wrong.”
Lori dropped to the floor and crawled to the back of the bus. She knocked lightly on the door of the sleeping quarters and whispered a warning to the two sleeping men.
When the policemen got just outside the bus, Jesse pulled the doors open and asked, “What seems to be the problem officers?”
“Step out of the bus,” the lead patrolman ordered.
“Did I do something wrong sir?”
The patrolman raised his voice and demanded “You two gentlemen step out of the bus now.”
“But officer we didn’t . . .” Jesse began to protest until he found himself staring into the barrels of the guns of several policemen.
“Hands up, out of the bus!”
Jesse and Tim both raised their hands. The minute Jesse stepped off the bus, he was thrown to the ground and handcuffed. Tim was just coming down the steps when he was pulled from the bus to be thrown alongside his friend. He, too, was cuffed. Both were dragged away to a patrol car.
Several officers entered the bus with their service revolvers drawn and pointed at Lori. “Please don’t shoot!” she screamed with her hands up.
The patrolman in the lead rushed up and pushed her face first into one of the seats. He grabbed both arms and held them together behind her back. She was handcuffed as other officers filed by.
The door of the sleeping quarters was just opening when it was kicked in by an officer knocking Austin down. The first officer barged into the room, jumped on Austin and grabbed his arms. Another followed behind. He trained his revolver on Traveller. “Don’t move!” he yelled.
Lori also yelled, “Don’t let them take you. You’ve got to escape!”
Traveller stayed calm, kept his eyes locked on the man with the gun. “It’s okay, I’m not armed,” he said before he impelled into the officer’s chest.
The patrolman fell over the officer bent over Austin knocking both of them into the door. The handcuffs clattered away as one bowled into the other. Traveller moved like lightning to shut the door. He grabbed the gun, threw it aside, and then held his hand over the man’s mouth. At the same time he put his foot on the other officer’s head preventing him from crying out.
Traveller caught Austin’s eyes and motioned to the bed, “Rip the sheet up and make some gags and something to tie these two with, quick.”
While Traveller kept both policemen secure, Austin bound and tied them. One of the other officer’s was already pounding on the door and yelling, “You guys okay in there?”
“We’re fine,” Traveller mimicked the one who had stuck the gun in his face. “We’re just cuffing them.”
“Let me in.”
“I will. Just a minute,” Traveller said.
“You’ve gotta get out of here. There’s no telling what will happen if they take you in,” Austin whispered.
“How am I going to do that, there’s two police cars behind the bus,” Traveller said.
Austin grabbed Traveller and moved him away from the policemen before he whispered, “I’ll jump out and create a diversion. When you leave, go left. Get down in the median and run back toward the road blocks. Keep low and move like you’ve never moved before. On three.”
At the three Austin burst out of the door and ran between the two police cars. Both officers jumped from their vehicles to give chase. Not until their backs were turned did Traveller burst outside. He shut the door behind him before he impelled into the median. Crouching down, he ran north toward the roadblock. He glanced back to see swarms of officers running to the back of the bus. A gunshot rang out from where they were heading, but he kept moving.
Traveller ran east into the maize of police cars, ambulances, and border patrol vehicles. Arriving at one of the ambulances, he ran around behind it and kept it between himself and the bus. He waited a few minutes watching the traffic going through the road block as it crawled north. The people driving the cars kept glancing back toward the bus while their passengers looked backward trying to see what was going on.
Traveller knelt down and inched toward the line of traffic waiting for a pickup with an open box he could climb into. After several minutes a blue Ford pulling a horse trailer crawled past. Rather than jump into the back of the truck and risk being caught, he did a series of impellments until he found himself on the passenger side of the trailer. A couple of the drivers behind saw a bluish blur but couldn’t distinguish what it was.
Traveller stepped onto the wheel well of the horse trailer and flattened himself against the side. He stayed there as the truck turned at the junction and headed west. Traveller talked to the horse nearest to him and petted it so he wouldn’t be stomped. It wasn’t until then that he realized he had impelled. By the universe! I thought Willy’s blood was weighing me down. I’m still a Benwarian. Acroluminous! I was thinking too much just like Porter told me.
Several minutes later, the traffic opened up. The cars flowed around the slower moving Ford. When there was a large enough gap behind the horse trailer, Traveller grabbed the back end of the frame above the tail gate and hoisted himself inside between the horse he had befriended and the wall of the trailer.
The alien rested by leaning on the horse’s back. He reflected on what had happened. Since the time he had known Lori, she had constantly cautioned him not to let the authorities arrest him if there was any way he could escape. She said he would be locked away forever. Traveller had read enough about incarceration to know he wouldn’t be able to take it. Even a short stay might cost him his sanity.
Traveller thought about Austin. His suggestion to escape back into the roadblock as he created a diversion was sheer genius. Traveller would have been caught otherwise. It wasn’t until then that the gunshot was remembered. By the universe! Surely they didn’t shoot him. If they hurt any of my friends, I’ll destroy them! Damn, I wonder why they were after us? We haven’t done anything wrong. Lization! I’m an American citizen. What am I going to do now?
The truck started slowing down. Traveller looked out between the metal bars of the horse trailer to see that they were exiting the freeway. He decided to wait until the driver reached his destination and then he would plead for the man’s kindness and mercy. I hope he’s a good human. I’m not