Night of Thunder

Then a glare spotlighted him.

He looked up to see another bird just a few feet up. He felt himself pinned, silhouetted in the harsh light. He raised his hands, holding Nick’s badge up for all to see.

The bird got even lower, and in its own light he now saw KFOXTV written on its boom.

He climbed up to the roof of the truck and the chopper came even lower. He got a foot on the runner, launched forward, and eager hands pulled him in.

He was aboard next to a guy with a fancy haircut and a guy with a camera, both so excited they looked about to pee. But he wedged past them, knowing all too well the interior of the Huey, and leaned into the cockpit.

The pilot handed him a set of earphones, which he slipped on, finding a throat mic at the ready.

“I’m with the FBI,” he said, gesturing with the badge.

“Yes sir.”

“Listen, can you run this baby south to 421, then follow 421 all the way over Iron Mountain out to Mountain City?”

“Sure can.”

“When we get there, I’ll talk you in the rest of the way. You drop me where I say, and then you make tracks.”

“Read you, Special Agent.”

“Then let’s rock and roll the fuck out of here.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

The boss waited. Radio reports were incoherent, inclusive, communicating only chaos and conflicting intelligence. Choppers down, but Caleb had to bring a chopper down. How many? One? Two, three? Hard to say. In the end, it was pointless to listen, and so the boss turned off the unit.

The boss checked the time. After midnight. Here, so far away, the night was calm, the sky full of radiance, the temperature at last bearable, and a sliver of gibbous moon let low gleam smear the southern hemisphere. When the hell would it be here? Why wouldn’t the hands on the watch move more quickly? Why was breath so hard, neck so stiff, mouth so dry?

Suddenly, there it was. The boss felt immense relief. It felt so good. They were here. It was done.

The black bird, running low over the mountain crest, finding this unlit field behind the prayer camp without a problem. He was such a good pilot and now he could be taken care of too.

The boss lit a flare, the only signal necessary.

It’s done. They said it couldn’t be done. But I did it. Now I’m free and clear and rich and untouchable. I’m a legend. They’ll wonder for a hundred years what became of me, what I did with all that money. They’ll tell of the boss who beat the game.

The helicopter set down, pitching up a whirl of wind and dust and leaves, blowing and bending the grass away from its roar. But Grumleys didn’t jump out. That old man in his blue suit didn’t leap out, dancing as was his way when gleeful, and there were no Grumleys shouting and pounding and strutting as was expected, everybody hungry for their share of the swag, neatly pre-cut into bales of cash, one for each boy, two for the old man, and the rest for the boss, as planned. Then the boss would jump aboard the chopper, and it would continue its run in the dark, low and unfollowable, another hundred miles to an obscure rural field where an SUV waited along with some phony passports. They’d be in Mexico in a day.

But no, none of that happened.

No Grumleys got off.

Just one old man: Bob Lee Swagger.

“Howdy, Detective Thelma,” Bob said. “Nice to see you.”

“Swagger,” she said. “Goddamn you.”

“I do annoy people.”

She saw the badge.

“You were FBI undercover all the time?”

“No, ma’am. I am Nikki Swagger’s father, pure and simple. But I have a great friend in the Bureau and we linked up. Now I’m working for him. But I’m still working for Nikki.”

“It wasn’t personal.”

“It never is.”

The two faced each other in the flicker of the flare as the helicopter skipped away into a high orbit.

“No way that hayseed gun store gets hold of imported Norwegian Raufoss armor-piercing rounds without someone running a request on police stationery through Justice under the sheriff’s signature, the sort of thing someone running an anti-meth lab program might have, right, Thelma? But who runs the department? That matinee-idol sheriff? He’s so dumb he doesn’t know how many feet he’s got. They’ll figure that out down there soon enough. I already did.”

“Swagger, don’t make me do this. I see I have to run hard now, and I can’t waste time here with you.”