Night of Thunder

“Been here my whole life.”

“Okay, maybe there’s some co

“Yes sir.”

He disco

“Yes, Matt?”

“Hello, Gu

“Only a week older’n last time I saw you, but it feels like a hundred years.”

“Time do race, don’t it? Only thing goes faster than my USMC Charger.”

“Only thing.”

“Anyhow, been thinking and looking and maybe I have something for you.”

“Go ahead, son.”

“Wheel marks, metal close together, part of the NASCAR racing operation? Well there is something. You see it all the time in the pits, it’s everywhere, what’s the word, upbequious?”

“Hmm, don’t know that word.”

“Red says it’s ‘ubiquitous.’ That’s what it is, ubiquitous.”

“Well, damn. Hope I don’t forget it. Ubiquitous. Everywhere.”

“What it is is, it’s the track of our hydraulic jacks.”

“For tire changing?”

“Sir, yes sir. It ain’t all the driver. Part of the art of wi

“Got it. And they roll that thing through oil and water and it leaves tracks, maybe six to eight inches apart, everywhere on the tarmac, in the pits, everywhere?”

“I’d be willing to bet, sir.”

“So if you saw a tangle of ’em, you’d think, someone’s practicing a wheel change?”

“Well, that’s what I’d think.”

Hmmmm. Swagger tried to press this new information into the pattern he’d assembled. Tire change. Someone was practicing a speed-tire change, after the fashion of NASCAR. Now why the hell would that be? The boys setting this thing up weren’t racers, weren’t ru

Then he thought, no, no, it’s not burned out. You change the tires in order to change the performance profile of the vehicle. It’s tired-up one way, for one purpose, and now you re-rubber it and you use it for some other, presumably unusual purpose. Maybe that somehow linked with this fit of exploding trucks around the area? Maybe they were deviling up the engine as well for that purpose. But what truck could it be, what new purpose could it have?

“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, Gu

“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 De

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.