James Born - Shock Wave

Tasker kept thinking about it. “It’s still a probable-cause arrest. I didn’t get a warrant yet.”

Sutter said, “No problem. This guy was a pussycat last time. The three of us are plenty.”

Tasker nodded and they headed out, all crammed into Tasker’s state-issued Monte Carlo.

Daniel Wells couldn’t get used to taking naps during the day. When the kids were around, he never tried to sleep. Always afraid he might miss some segment of chaos they’d create. They loved it as much as he did. He worked a lot at night, when it was cooler, finishing his van and getting everything ready. He wasn’t going to pass the big rig test, but he knew how to get around it. He only needed to drive the thing twice, and after the second time he’d never go near a big truck again.

He picked up his Popular Mechanics and laid his head back on the soft pillow of his sofa. The old material felt like corduroy. He didn’t know if they used that on couches back in the sixties, when this thing was made. All the furniture was old but comfortable, and he couldn’t beat the price. Free with the trailer. This wasn’t too bad, as long as his money held out.

He wasn’t comfortable with the silence of this place at times. In one respect it was new and different, so he didn’t mind experiencing it, but it was not his natural element. He’d never been around peace and quiet. When he was a kid, if it was peaceful he and his brothers would change all that. No wonder his dad was deaf now. He and his brothers set off thousands of firecrackers and cherry bombs. Then, as Wells got more experience, he’d make his own kind of fireworks. Often he’d slice open firecrackers for their tiny amount of black powder. Storing up jarfuls. Then he’d make his own explosive devices. Float model ships filled with powder, then detonate them with a long waterproof fuse in the pond near his childhood home. When that got dull, he’d set things where others would see them and react. His best was a giant firecracker he’d been able to secure inside a plastic jar. He’d glued a clear plastic tube down the middle so the firecracker and fuse wouldn’t get wet, then filled the rest of the jar with a mixture of milk of magnesia, red food coloring and red raspberry syrup. He placed the jar on the newspaper box of the busiest convenience store in Ocala and waited across the street. The fuse smoked more than he thought it would, but nobody took the time to look for the source of the smoke. When that thing went off, his red sauce splattered eight people. They looked like slasher victims. They ran around in a panic, holding their nonexistent wounds to stem the bleeding. Then the fire department and cops showed up. It was on that day, when he was eleven years old, that he realized what was really important. At least to him. He also realized that the fact that it was fake didn’t matter to him. He could have put nails in that jar and really hurt people and would have felt the same way. This wasn’t a joke or a phase, this was a drive.

All these thoughts rushed through his head as he dozed off again on the flowered couch near the bay window of his rented trailer. Then something woke him. He didn’t know what. A noise out of place, something man-made.

He sat up and looked out onto his wide front yard with the winding lime driveway. He could see all the way to the gate, and it was all in order. The gate was closed and nothing moved. Then he froze. On the edge of the driveway closer to the road, he saw a line of disturbed pine needles. The thick carpet of needles had ruts through it and was patchy in places where he’d walked, and then there was the giant burnt swath. But they always had a certain look when newly turned over. The black on the bottom had a different color until the sun baked it for a few hours. That was what caught Wells’ eye as he looked outside. Then, while he was still motionless behind the tinted window, he saw movement. Someone had entered his yard and was crouching on the far side, slowly making his way toward the house. He looked around. The gun was under the seat of the Toyota. He had two cheap nine-millimeters in the van, but they were in pieces right now, waiting to be cleaned. He slid off the couch and into his kitchen, reaching up onto the counter and snatching his keys as he slid along the cheap linoleum.

Whoever was coming would get a surprise at the front door. He looked over his shoulder at the cable that ran from inside the house out to the roof and into the canisters in the dead hanging plants lining the porch. He cursed himself for not having anything as spectacular in the back.

He could run now or wait to see the bedlam. He slipped out the rear door and settled into the bushes. Then he worked his way around in the bushes and scrub pines until he could see the porch. There were three men. He was too far away to recognize any of them, but one was in a blue uniform. They were crouched behind his van, surveying the house. They had no idea he was already outside. He started to tingle inside. This was always the best time. The expectation. This was going to be great.

“Bullshit. I don’t want to go ’round back. The redneck probably has a dog or something,” said Sutter in a harsh whisper.

“Did you hear any dogs?” asked Tasker, confused as to why his normally kickass partner was hesitant.

“I’ll go in the front with you guys. This place is so far out west he can’t run nowhere. We go in fast enough and it won’t matter.”

Tasker didn’t like having this sort of discussion at the scene of an arrest.

The Homestead cop, Driscoll, kept a former Marine’s eye on the trailer, unconcerned about the spat between partners.

Tasker leaned into Sutter and said quietly, “I don’t see why you can’t cover the back. You’re still on the arrest.”

Sutter replied even quieter, “Snakes.”

“What?”

“Too many woods. I can’t handle the idea of snakes.”

Tasker just stared and decided not to pursue the issue. He spoke a little louder so the Homestead cop could hear now. “We don’t have the warrant yet, so we gotta see him or get him to come out.”

Now Sutter looked shocked. “You tellin’ me that if he don’t answer, you’re leaving without him?”

Tasker knew his partner was right.

The three men low-crawled to the end of the van and waited. Tasker casually looked in the small rear windows and saw the van was empty except for a box in the rear. He looked closer at the welded box and saw that it was a gas tank of some kind. He forced himself to concentrate on the trailer for now and shifted his attention back to the task at hand. After waiting a few minutes, the three men walked quickly at an angle to the edge of the trailer. Tasker had been careful to find an approach with no windows in direct line. They paused at the edge of the metal steps that led to the porch which covered twenty feet of the front of the trailer.

Tasker cringed as their weight on the porch made the trailer shake. They fanned out, with Driscoll covering the bay window and Sutter and Tasker on either side of the door.

Tasker knocked once. He looked at Sutter.

Sutter said, “We gotta move.”

Tasker tightened his hand around the lever that operated the front door. He cranked it down and felt something click on the other side of the door. Before he could determine if it was the handle or not, he heard a sound above them and saw three separate flashes above the hanging plants. Then the deafening boom. He was on the ground with Sutter when the burning sensation ate its way up his face and over his eyes. Even with his ears ringing from the explosion, he could hear the other two men screaming.

Wells stood slowly and surveyed his trap. All three men were down and yelling obscenities and gurgled coughs. This was technically perfect. It’d had the exact consequence he had intended.