John Sandford - Heat Lightning

“Just got back on, south of you, heading your way.”

“When you get in, get all the way down to the end of the parking area. Car parking area. I’m back in the trees. I’ve got Wigge, but the Indian is on the loose, and if he calls the police, we’ll have trouble.”

“Three minutes… ”

The shooter hurried back down the path, caught the dead man under the armpits, and dragged him into the heaviest clump of brush. He stepped back out on the trail and looked toward the body: almost, but not quite, invisible. Saw the dead man’s gun, kicked it off the trail. If Bunton didn’t call the police, he wouldn’t be found until morning.

He continued back to Wigge, knelt next to him. Wigge was moaning, a quiet, steady sound, almost like a meditation vowel. The shooter stooped, grabbed him behind the shoulders, rolled him up and over, and then lifted him in an unsteady fireman’s carry. He was fifty yards from the end of the parking area, through the brush. He walked steadily toward it, Wigge’s weight crushing his shoulders and chest, but he kept going; and as he arrived, he saw the lights of a car rolling past the rest stop pavilion and continue to the end of the parking strip. He stood behind a thin screen of weeds until he saw the scout’s car, then called, “Open the back door on your side.”

His partner hurried to do it, and the shooter turned his head up the parking strip. He couldn’t see anybody watching, not that there might not be somebody. Decision time, and a necessary risk. With Wigge still draped over his shoulders, he took five big walking steps across the grass verge to the car, stooped, and slipped Wigge into the backseat.

Stepped back, slammed the door, slapped his hands together, as if dusting them off. “I don’t know how badly he’s hurt. We might have to hold him for a while.”

“If he dies…”

“Then we’re in no more trouble than if he died here. We need to talk to him. Take him to the barn. I’ll meet you there.”

WHEN HIS PARTNER was gone, taking Wigge, the shooter walked back to the van. He’d killed an outsider, and that had broken the protocol. There’d been no choice-he’d fired in self-defense-but that might not make a difference. The unknown man was still dead. That meant that time was running out: if the unknown man wasn’t found until morning, and if they hadn’t connected him to Wigge until tomorrow afternoon…

They had to move on the Indian. They needed the last two names.

The whole game now shifted into the high-speed lane.

The protocol was gone. Now everybody and everything was up for grabs; and it was not too early to begin planning their exit.

A lot to do…

MAYBE TOO MUCH, the shooter thought later, his head in his hands. The years of killing had turned him into an animal-and then had tried to drag him down even further, turning him into a devil. Wigge, mostly conscious now, although the consciousness came and went, was spread on the rotting wood floor of the barn, a fluorescent lantern providing the only light, and Wigge was trying to scream.

Trying unsuccessfully, because of the lemon in his mouth, held in place with duct tape.

The shooter got up and slipped outside, into the cool of the night. Checking the countryside, looking for anything, for interlopers, for interference. For an ear, or an eye. And getting away from the sound of Wigge, whose moans sat heavily on his once-Catholic soul.

INSIDE THE BARN, Wigge humped against the electric spark, but did no more than hump against it: the scout had waited until Wigge was conscious, then had nailed his hands to the floor, seven-and-a-half-inch spikes right through the palms. Not out of cruelty, but to underline Wigge’s helplessness, and the extent to which he would be mistreated if he did not cooperate. Wigge had passed out again as his hands were nailed down, but the scout was patient and efficient, and took off the big man’s shoes and pants and underwear, then popped an ammonium carbonate capsule under Wigge’s nose, and had started with the battery…

The interrogation might have gone on to daylight hours, but Wigge’s heart quit a little after three o’clock in the morning and he died.

He’d given them one name.

The scout called the shooter, and the shooter said, “Maybe he really didn’t know the last man.”

“He knew,” the scout said. “But he was a hard man. Harder than he looked.”

“So now-we have the Indian and the Caterpillar man.”

“And a dead man at the rest stop,” the scout said. “Now we have to move, or we could be closed down.”

“The thing that worries me is that the Indian has no ties-he might just leave, and if he’s out roaming the highways, we might never find him,” the scout said. “We should concentrate on him. The Caterpillar man has a home and family, if Wigge was truthful, and I think he was. The Caterpillar man will be there.”

“The coordinator has an idea about the Indian,” the shooter said. “We need to meet. You may have to work yet tonight.”

“We’ve got no time,” the scout said. “Everything has to go fast.”

“Huh.” The shooter looked at the dead man. “Poor soul,” he said. “This poor soul.”

The scout said, “Operationally… taking him to the monument is crazy.”

“But necessary,” the shooter said. “The sooner we do it, the better. We need the darkness. Call the coordinator from your car. I’ll take this poor soul in the van.”

VIRGIL WAS in the shower, tired but feeling pretty good, the best he’d felt since Bunton had whacked him. He was washing his hair, taking care with the bruise behind his ear.

Whatever Mai had done, it had worked. He turned the heat up, let the water flow over his neck, did the second wash… and his cell phone went, and he said, “Shit,” and almost simultaneously thought, Mai? and he dripped shampoo all over the bathroom and half the motel room going after it.

The caller ID said, “Bureau of Criminal…”

“Yeah? Flowers.”

“Dan Shaver. I got the duty tonight.” Shaver worked with the BCA. “You looking for a guy named Ray Bunton?”

“Yes. You find him?”

“No-but he’s calling you,” Shaver said. “He wanted your cell phone-I didn’t give it to him, told him to call back. He said he’s moving, but he’ll call from somewhere else. Doesn’t have a cell. Anyway… should I give him your number?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Did he say when he’d call?”

“He said he’d call me back in fifteen minutes,” Shaver said. “That was two or three minutes ago. He said he had to drive to another phone.”

VIRGIL JUMPED BACK in the shower, rinsed off, brushed his teeth, got dressed, stared at the phone. More than fifteen minutes: then the phone rang, and he looked at the caller ID: “Number Not Available.”

He clicked it: “Virgil Flowers.”

“Flowers?” An old man’s voice, harsh with nicotine.

“This is Virgil. Is this Ray?”

“Yeah. Listen, man, some really heavy shit is going down,” Bunton said; slang from the sixties.

“That’s what I want to talk to you about, Ray,” Virgil said.

“Fuck that. I don’t know what’s happening, and neither do you. I’m digging a hole. Anyway, what happened is, two guys got shot up at the rest stop on I-35. The one up past North Branch. The one on the side going north. Maybe… half hour ago. I was there, but I didn’t have nothing to do with it. Some motherfucker come out of the woods with a fuckin’ silenced pistol and started mowing people down… Jesus Christ, it’s like some kind of acid flashback…” And he made a huh-huh-huh sound as if he’d started trying to weep but couldn’t get it done.

“Ray, Ray, stay with me, man. Two guys shot. Are they dead?” Virgil asked.