Eddie walked to the patrol unit, opened the trunk, and retrieved a tire tool. He returned to the pickup, stuck his upper body back under the bed cover, and reached for the shirt with the tool. He dragged the shirt along the bed until it was at the hatch opening. He spread the shirt out, holding the light on it, until he could read the blue letters.
Tornadoes.
He flipped the jersey over. A number nine on the back.
Eddie now wondered, Could an on-duty patrol officer claim the $25 million reward?
Inside Apartment 121, Gary Jennings couldn’t sleep. He rolled over close to his wife, his chest to her back- she had taken to sleeping on her side with a pillow between her legs-and slid his hand around her round belly. She was seven months’ pregnant and bigger than he was now, but he didn’t care.
He was going to be a daddy.
Gary wished his own dad could be here to see his grandchild; he had died eight years ago of a heart attack right after that incident in college. His father had died of embarrassment. He had been embarrassed by his son. And Gary couldn’t blame him. Jesus, he had been a real fuckup in college, a frat rat, drinking, partying, playing golf, earning eighteen hours of fucking-off credit per semester, and screwing girls- What the hell was a sixteen-year-old girl doing at a goddamned frat party?
And he’d still be a fuckup today if he hadn’t found Debbie.
Debbie had changed his life. She had said he would forever be a fuckup if he didn’t give up his sinful ways- well, she didn’t say fuckup, she said lost child, which he translated into fuckup. And, man, he was tired of being a fuckup. And she said he’d never have any money. And, man, he was really tired of being broke. So he had figured, what the hell, it was worth a shot. All he had to do, she had said, was go to church, quit drinking beer and smoking dope, and cancel his subscription to Playboy.
And she was right.
Only two years since he had given up sinning, he was married, soon to be a father, and working at a great job. He had hired on six months ago; right now, he was just a code monkey, grinding out computer code twelve hours a day, wired on Snickers and Red Bull.
But the long hours were about to pay off: his stock options vested in six months and they’d be worth a million bucks after the IPO. One million dollars. As soon as the lockout period expired, he would cash out. He would tithe 10 percent to the church, Debbie would insist on that (although he might be able negotiate her down to 7.5 percent), pay 15 percent in taxes, and net about $750,000. He’d put a hundred thousand in an education trust for the baby so she wouldn’t be a fuckup, then he’d buy Debbie a real nice house and use the rest to start his own Internet company.
Lying next to Debbie and looking forward to the future, a slight smile crossed his face. He had finally found his place in this world. Gary Jennings counted his blessings as he drifted off to sleep.
Gary jumped up in bed at the sound of his apartment door being battered off its hinges. Debbie woke and screamed. Men were suddenly inside their bedroom, shouting and shining bright lights and pointing guns, men wearing black uniforms with POLICE in white letters.
DAY FIVE
Lieutenant Ben Brice carries a black XM21 sniper rifle fitted with a Starlight Scope and a Sionics suppressor. Twenty ammo magazines, six high-explosive and two white-phosphorous grenades, a. 45-caliber handgun, C-4 explosive, a claymore mine, and morphine are packed in his web gear. An Uzi, his backup weapon, is secured to his rucksack. An eleven-inch Bowie knife is strapped to his right calf. He carries the tools of killing because he is a professional killer, an Army Green Beret special operations soldier. We Kill for Peace reads the tattoo on his left arm. Seventeen days in-country and Ben Brice has already seen enough killing for a lifetime. But he knows the killing has only just begun.
And after this night, he will never know peace.
He is walking through smoke and ashes thick like gray confetti and out of the smoldering hamlet in the Quang Tri province of South Vietnam, leaving the china doll and his soul behind.
He stops.
He is standing above an irrigation ditch; down below is a tangled mass of pale bodies. The stench of death hangs in the humid air like a thick fog. The sounds of death rise from below, the last gasps and groans of the dying.
He drops his rifle and jumps down into the ditch. He checks each body for life, frantic now, trying to find life, any sign of life. But there is no life to be found. There is only death. He counts forty-one-old men, women, and children.
His boots are soaked in blood. His hands are dripping with blood. The china doll’s blood and brains cling to his fatigues like souvenirs of death.
He is drenched in death.
He extends his bloody hands to the heavens and screams into the still night: “Why, God?”
He feels faint and his body sways. He closes his eyes. He falls forward, down onto that white blanket of death.
But he is not falling.
He is floating.
He opens his eyes. Below him, the pale bodies are now bright white-a blinding white world as far as he can see. Above him, his parachute is deployed, but he doesn’t remember the violent jerk when the chute caught air.
He’s sailing now, skimming the surface, almost able to reach out and touch the white, as pure as the driven… snow. Pure white snow. A white world of deep heavenly snow. Sailing faster and faster, higher and higher above the snow.
Dark objects down below come into view. Trees. Tall thick trees of timber country. And among the trees, curled up and shivering and wrapped in a blanket of snow like a present under a Christmas tree, is God’s little creature.
He floats down to the creature and lands on both feet. He unbuckles the parachute harness and lets it drop and disappear into the deep snow that he walks through without effort to the cold and shivering creature. He’s now wearing his dress uniform and the green beret and all the medals pinned to the jacket and the Medal of Honor around his neck. He removes his jacket, squats, and wraps the coat around the creature; he gently lifts it from the snow, takes it into his arms, and holds it close, warming God’s little creature. He brushes the snow from the creature’s face and through his tears he sees her, his saving Grace.
“Ben, wake up! They got him!”
And then she is gone. Ben opened his eyes to Kate leaning over him.
“Got who?”
“The man who took Gracie.”
“Might be him. I’m just not sure.”
Coach Wally Fagan was staring through the two-way mirror at the sad young man in the white jail uniform sitting at a metal table in the bare interrogation room; his cuffed hands were spread flat on the table, and he appeared dazed and confused. He had blond hair and blue eyes, but he didn’t seem nearly as big as the man who had asked for Gracie after the game. He seemed different.
