Stephen Hunter - Night of Thunder

“You still there? Does that help?”

“It sure does. Can’t see just how yet, but I’m getting pieces in a row and pretty soon a pattern will be there. Now let me ask you something. This here’s a long shot. Does the biblical passage Mark 2:11 about Jesus curing a crippled man mean anything to you? Would it fit into anything along these lines?”

“We really weren’t people of the book, Gunny. Some drivers are but not us. So no, it doesn’t mean anything to me, and I don’t think it connects to Big Racing in any way.”

“Okay, well, thanks. Really appreciate your taking the time with all you got do do. You’re a good fella, I can tell.”

“My pleasure.”

“All you must have to do and you gave me a hand. That’s marine all the way.”

“Fact is, we don’t do much day before. We’ll run the car this afternoon for a last minute check, I have a signing at my retail trailer in NASCAR Village that’ll be a madhouse but will move a lot of souvenir hats, and other than that it’s just relaxing and trying to keep the mind clear.”

“Well, good luck. I know you’re good enough, I just hope the breaks go your way.”

“Can’t control that, so never worry about it,” said the boy.

Bob sat, ruminated, took notes. Nothing. Then he realized he was hungry, slipped his.38 Super into the Kydex holster, locked on his belt after checking it for the millionth time to be certain it was cocked and locked, and eased out the door. Nothing seemed to be moving in the blazing August heat. A few cars were in the lot, but it was mostly dead space. A couple of stores down the big road was a Denny’s, so Bob headed down to it, completely in Condition Green, giving his world a three-sixty every few minutes on the hunt for anything unusual, looking into shadows, looking for irregularities like the exhaust from a parked car or the same hat showing up on different people, that sort of thing. But it was just a hot day in small-town America.

He ate breakfast, though it was nearing one, and halfway through the meal had an idea of something proactive to do. He would read the entire Book of Mark, and maybe that way he’d get a feel for verse 2:11, see something in it that might have given his daughter some insight that would turn Eddie Ferrol and his associates homicidal.

So he spent the afternoon in his room reading the Bible, enjoying it more as a story-it was a great story, the way Jesus could have run and didn’t want to go up on that cross, reminding him of too many marines who could have run and didn’t and stayed to die-than as anything else. When he was done reading the chapter the second time, he had nothing.

Think. Another thing to do was to look up Eddie Ferrol’s home, then visit it well after dark. Almost certainly Eddie wouldn’t be there, but who knows what clues he might have left behind. Then there was the Carmody and the B.J. Grumley cousins; maybe by now, more information on them had emerged. But he’d have to get that through Nick, as calling Thelma and betraying an unusual interest in that case would not be an intelligent move. But Nick hadn’t called either. Bob called again, and the same thing happened-no answer. And there was no call from the kid in the computer store.

He was tired and felt room-bound and restless at the same time. After a good start, the day was turning out to be worthless. He’d learned nothing, made no progress and-

He knew the sound, the almost liquid sloshing of a heavy airborne engine that could spell only one thing, and that was helicopter. He’d ridden in enough of ’em, and one had saved his life in Vietnam by getting him to the field surgical hospital at Dak To before his life signs slipped away after a Russian sniper had blown a hole in his hip. This one was no Huey, but a larger, more powerful craft and it grew louder and louder, signifying close-by descent.

Bob went to the window, looked out, and saw a large ship settle in the empty parking lot, its rotors a heavy blur that stirred up whirlpools of dust and debris for a hundred yards. It was a Blackhawk no less, much weathered by the winds of wars here and there across the planet but now wearing the starred emblem of law enforcement and the announcement, SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT JOHNSON COUNTY TENNESSEE across its nose. A handful of grit flew into Bob’s face, and the force of the air beat him back, but he saw the chief Tommy Tactical of them all, Sheriff Reed Wells, drop heavily from the large cargo hatch and head his way.

The sheriff wore a black Nomex jump suit that was hung with belts containing gas grenades, flashbangs, knives, and radio gear. A low slung holster was strapped to his thigh with a tricked-up, cocked and locked.45. His upper body was encased in a stiffly uncomfortable armored vest, with SHERIFF in white letters across the front. Both his knees and his elbows were protected by thick plastic and foam pads. He had a black baseball cap that bore the star emblem of his department, tear-shaped shades, and carried a shorty M4 with a 30-round P-mag, a suppressor and a couple of thousand bucks’ worth of optical sights, flashlights, lasers, and maybe even a can opener bolted onto various rails that ran around the gun’s forearm and receiver top. Lord, the man looked war.

Bob stepped back to let the warrior king clamber in, all rattley and clanky, as if he’d just gotten off his horse sometime in the fifteenth century. But it wasn’t a raid, and the sheriff gestured to Bob to sit, while he himself sat heavily on the bed. Bob saw immediately that the sheriff couldn’t put the M4 down because it was looped to him by a single strand of sling that ran diagonally around his body. But he laid the gun in his lap and took off his hat and glasses. Outside, the noise of the Blackhawk lowered as the pilot shifted to an idling pitch.

“Mr. Swagger, I am beginning to grow annoyed. Your daughter’s case is closed. Thelma closed it last night. We here are very sorry about what happened, but I took it for granted that you’d move on out of here today.”

“Yes sir, don’t mean to overstay my welcome. I’se just going over some loose ends and was going to type ’em up and send ’em off to Thelma. She did damned well, by the way.”

“She saved your life as I recall. Or at least at the time, it certainly seemed she did.”

“Long as I live, I will never forget the sound of that hammer being pulled back and the speed of her draw. The gal is superfast and shoots straight. I was a lucky man and will be forever grateful.”

“Let me ask you about a few loose ends myself. What you went through last night would send most men to the hospital. At the least, they’d be throwing up in the grass for a week. They’d also be changing underpants right away, to be crude but truthful. And that’s just the hostage situation and the trigger pull on the empty chamber. On top of that, you saw a man killed at close range, his brains blown out, and the bullet that took his life passed within six inches of your head. Again, a source of major psychological trauma. When people see people shot, it robs them of sleep for weeks, sometimes months, sometimes years. But from all reports, you hardly noticed and were up and perky in seconds.”

Bob realized he’d misplayed the scene last night. Some macho twist in his mind made him make certain that Thelma and the three FAT officers understood he was as much man as they were and his close call was meaningless to a man who’d had thousands of close calls. Duh! Stupid. Now they were curious about his fortitude. Where did it come from, what did it mean? He should have thrown a weeping jag and pretended to be too distraught to continue. But it hadn’t occurred to him. Another foolish old man’s mistake.

“It was so fast in the happening and so unreal. I still can’t believe it happened. Maybe my rough times are all ahead of me, and that’s when the sleep goes away.”