Night of Thunder

“No, no, this is good, consider it,” said Bob. “They’re hired by some mob who knows their one value isn’t sophistication but silence. That’s what they’re selling. So maybe the governor is organizing some new anti-organized crime task force, got ’em all scared. They contract the hit to the Grumleys who bring it off with their usual crudeness and violence but also a refusal to snitch ’em out if caught.”

“The tires, Bob. You were the one that discovered the tires. Were you wrong on that? How would that fit in?”

“Ahhh-” Bob thought, clinging to his thesis. “Yeah, yeah, they could count on their being an SUV there in the crowd, but not with off-road tires. Yeah, after the hit, which takes maybe two seconds, they chase a family out of its Bronco, speed-change the tires, and take off cross country, maybe to the top of that hill. A chopper picks ’em up. It sounds pretty good to me, partner.”

“But maybe you have biases. You’re a sniper. Everything to you looks like a sniper job.”

“From ten feet with a.50 Mk.211, it ain’t much like sniping. It’s like blowing stuff up real good.”

“Okay, I think we have to alert this command structure somehow. They’ve got to get people into the area, put a hold on all VIP transit, and maybe-I still don’t like it. It just doesn’t seem Grumley. Does it seem Grumley to you?”

“Until today, I didn’t know a Grumley from a dandelion.”

“Could they shoot up the race? From up above, fire the ten shells into the lead three cars as they move through the pack on a turn? You’d get a massive crash, cars all over the place, the race would be a catastrophe, they’d stop it, cancel it, something.”

Bob saw through that.

“And if someone laid money against the one-in-a-million shot there’d be no winner to the Sharpie 500-well, that person would win a fortune. But he’d get a visit from the Vegas mob enforcer to make sure his win was on the up-and-up, and since it wouldn’t be, he’d get a swim in Lake Tahoe with a pair of cement socks.”

“And it doesn’t seem to need a driver, a speed-tire change, or any of the other stuff. It just doesn’t seem to make any sense,” Nick said.

“And just to make it more ridiculous, the race is almost over. It’s near eleven. They start at eight and do the five hundred laps in about three hours. Man, I am so buffaloed. Come on, Nick, you’re supposed to be smart. Figure it out.”

“I’m tired, I’m old. I feel older than you look.”

“Okay, go back to basics. What do we know, absolutely.”

“We know, absolutely, they have acquired a.50 caliber rifle and a supply of armor-piercing incendiary rounds of a sort the government categorizes as ‘antimatériel.’”

“So,” said Bob, “let’s pursue this particular line. What is matériel?”

“Okay, I’d answer like this: light armor. Limousines, sure. Or, given this environment, power lines, TV trucks, light safes, radio installations, I don’t know, McDonald’s signs, news helicopters, race cars, race car trailers, propane barbecue tanks. It could be any of those. I’m afraid we’re stuck with-”

“Just make the call. You don’t have to designate a target. You just have to flood the zone with law enforcement and security and-”

“What zone?”

“I guess the race zone.”

“Yeah, but, hello, it’s full of three hundred thousand happy campers. Too bad there’s not a nice armored car in the middle of this, chock full of cash. Now that would make some sense. Okay, I’ll make the call and-”

It lay there in the room for a while. Each man considered what Nick had just blurted out. Yes, armored car. Seemingly impregnable, full of cash, stuck in traffic, yet easily taken down by such a tool as an Mk.211.

“What you just said,” said Bob, “now that makes some sense.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” But he had to fight it. “Why would there be an armored car in the middle of all this? It doesn’t track, it’s a bad idea, a red herring, it-”

Nick took out his cell, punched a number. “I’ll call a state police captain I’ve worked with. He might know something,” he said.

When he got through, Bob heard him say, “Hey, Mike. It’s Memphis, sorry for the late call. You’ve been watching the race? Cool, is it over yet? No, I could call back, it’s almost over, but let me just lay something on you. I’m here in Bristol myself. Sorry but it’s important.”

He said to Bob, “Now he’s turning the TV down. Ah, okay, Mike, we have intelligence that some very bad actors are on scene here with a piece of ugly work called an Mk.211 Raufoss antimatériel round. And a.50 caliber rifle to fire the stuff. They could use it to do all sorts of things but the more we think about it, this group seems criminal, not political, and we’re trying to figure out if there’s a target they could unzip with it. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m thinking how ideally suited the ordnance would be against some sort of armored car. Is there an armored car in play here that you would know anything-”

He listened as far-off Mike told him all about it.