Night of Thunder

understand it.” He was pushing her in a wheelchair down the hallway from the release office at the Knoxville hospital. She wore blue jeans, a polo shirt, an FBI baseball cap that he had brought her, and a pair of flip- flops.

“But that FBI unit-that was one guy, and he wasn’t even in the FBI. That was you?”

“I have no comment for the press.”

“And this,” she added, reading more from the paper, “‘Other federal units converged on Piney Mountain Baptist Prayer Camp, where they encountered Johnson County Sheriff’s Department Detective Thelma Fielding with evidence that she planned the robbery, Tennessee’s most violent since the 1930s. Fielding resisted arrest and was shot dead.’ That was you too.”

“I don’t honestly remember.”

“Aren’t you a little old for all that cowboy stuff?”

He laughed. It was so good to have her back. His chest swelled. Who said snipers have not hearts or that mankillers are isolate and stark? Through her, he was connected to it all. She was all: civilization, democracy, honor, civility, loyalty, the radiance of sheer life itself. He felt so damned good!

She looked wonderful, her eyes bright with the furious Nikki-intelligence that had always marked her presence on earth. Her face had color in it, her blonde hair was pulled back in a pony tail, and she had that cut-to-the-chase directness he’d always loved so much. She was quite a kid and he thought anew how lucky he was to end up rich, most of all, in daughters.

“Once cowboy, always cowboy, I guess. Didn’t know I could move so fast, nor be so lucky still. I suppose I’m supposed to feel bad about putting those people down, in the modern fashion, but then I remember they targeted my daughter, so I can’t work up no tears.”

“Any tears.”

“Any tears.”

“What boy who loves me can ever compete with you?”

“Nah. You’ll meet him and forget clean about the old goat. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, and just getting you back into the world to meet him and have a great life and contribute wherever you go, that’s enough for me. Now let’s go, Mommy’s waiting in the van. We have to get you back to Bristol.”

He pushed her to the elevator, then the lobby. People waved at Nikki and she waved back, and then he took her outside, into sunlight and southern heat. The clouds had broken, the sun shone, and the trees flashed green as their leaves played in breeze.

“It’s so stupid,” she said. “I can walk perfectly fine.”

“These hospitals have rules. You don’t go home on your own two feet, honey.”

They waited, and then Julie pulled up in a rented red Ford passenger van. The door popped open, and Miko hopped out and threw herself at Nikki. The two daughters embraced.

“Your daddy,” said Nikki, “your daddy is still a tough old bird, sweetie. I fear for the boys you start bringing home in a few years.”

“I don’t like boys,” says Miko. “I like my daddy.”

“She’ll sing a different tune pretty damn soon,” said Bob.

Gingerly, Julie and Bob got Nikki, still a little fragile despite her protestations, into the backseat of the van. Julie got in next to her, got her seat belt on, and Miko got into the front seat. Bob climbed into the driver’s seat, engaged the engine, and pulled out for the long, last trek up I-81 from Knoxville to Bristol.

Brother Richard watched them, listening to his iPod.

Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?

Run to the sea, but the sea it’s aboilin’,

Run to the moon, but the moon it’s ableedin’,

Sinnerman, where you gonna to run to,

All on that day?

He was parked two blocks back in a recently stolen Dodge Charger, 6.7 liter Hemi V8, the car idling smoothly, giving no evidence of the 425-horsepower beast under its hood. He’d been on the Swaggers for three days now, knowing that sooner or later Nikki would leave the hospital. He knew they’d rent a van, and he ID’d the handsome woman who was the mother of the girl he had to kill.

Now he watched the little scene at the hospital doors, so sweet, the theme of family wholeness after an ordeal, the subthemes, the heroism of the father, the faith of the mother, the weird special talent of the daughter, the innocence of the younger child. But he wasn’t thinking about the family or themes; he was thinking tactically, of details involved in the action ahead. He knew that no matter how well the van was driven by this extremely competent man, it was too tall, too slow, too stiff, had too high a tipping point, to stand up to the assault of his Charger.

He knew so much. He knew which route they’d have to take to the I-81 ramp, and he knew exactly where he’d take them, right after Exit 66 and its outlet mall, where the traffic would be thinner, the road straight, the embankment low, and the precipice steep, and the jolt would force the van over and down it would go, bouncing, bouncing, snapping the spines of all inside.

I never meant to do a family, he thought, but I am the Sinnerman, and that girl has seen my new face and when she remembers, I am done. That’s what the Sinnerman does. He does what is necessary.

Bob drove through traffic idly, looking neither left nor right, paying no particular attention to anything. He turned a corner, then had a sudden inspiration.

“I could use a nice chocolate Softee,” he said.

“Daddy, you’ll get fat.”

“I’ll get a Diet Softee then,” he said, laughing.

He pulled into the immediate left, a convenience store parking lot.

Julie said, “Okay, everybody out.”

“Mommy, I-”

“No, no, just out, out, fast.”

There was something new and hard in her voice.

She shepherded the two girls, but not into the store for the treat, but instead into another rental, a car, where she directed them to lie low.

“Mommy, I-”

“Do it, honey. Just do it now.”

She turned back into the cab of the van, where Bob had cinched his seatbelt tight.

She made eye contact with him, and spoke not with love but with the mission-centered earnestness of officer to sergeant.

“This time, get him!”

All of a sudden, they turned right, just as he was himself caught in an unexpected snarl of traffic. Agh! They’re getting away. Brother Richard felt a spurt of anger. He could control so much, but not traffic. But just as swiftly it cleared up, and he darted ahead, took the right-hand turn and saw that they’d pulled into a convenience store, probably for a Coke or something, and were now pulling out, back on the road. He idled by the side of the road, let the van put some distance between them, then cut back into traffic and began his leisurely stalk.

He stayed far behind, occasionally even losing visual contact. But he reacquired the van as it pulled up the ramp to I-81 North. Again without haste, he let some distance build, took the ramp, and slipped into traffic. There it was, maybe half a mile ahead, the red van, completely unaware of his presence. He accelerated through the gears, the Charger growled, shivered at the chance to show off its muscularity and all 425 of its horses, and Brother Richard felt that octane-driven bounce as the car flew ahead, pressing him into the seat.

The miles sped by, the van always in the slow lane, holding steady at fifty-five, Richard a mile back, forcing himself to keep his power-burner at the same rate. He’d lose the target on hills or turns, but it was always just there, ahead of him, easily recoverable. The exits ticked by, until at last, almost an hour later, Exit 66, with its much-ballyhooed promise of consumer paradise at cut rate, took the majority of the northbound cars.