Heat Lightning (12 page)

Wigge merged left, leaving I-94 to take I-35 north, staying in the left lane, picking up speed. Going somewhere. The shooter settled in one lane to Wigge's right, and fell back until he could see only the top of Wigge's truck, and let the ex-cop pull him up the highway.

And they kept going, out of the metro. The shooter got on the phone, said, "He's past 694, still going north," and the scout came back: "I'm coming up behind you. I'll take it for a while."

The scout was in a new rented Audi A6, gave the shooter a wave as he went past. A minute later on the phone: "Okay, I've got him."

They rolled in the loose formation, through the night, then the scout came up again, "He's slowing down, he may be looking--I'm going on past."

The shooter slowed, slowed. The scout called, "I'm past him, still going away. He's definitely looking, he's going maybe fifty."

The shooter slowed to fifty, wondered briefly if Wigge had a trailing car. Well, if he had, there was nothing to be done.

The scout: "I'm off. I'll let him get past me. . . . Okay. He's still up ahead, still slower than anything else on the road. Look for a trailing car ..."

The shooter couldn't see a trailing car. Couldn't see Wigge, either.

The scout: "I'm back on. I can see him, way up ahead. . . . I'm gaining on him, again." Then: "Okay, he's picking it up. He's picking it up. Really picking it up . . ."

They played tag, letting Wigge out of sight between exits, a delicate task made easier by the GPS video/map screens in the Audi. Thirty miles out of St. Paul; forty miles; coming up to fifty. The scout: "He's getting off. He's getting off at the rest stop. I have to go by, it's over to you. I'll come back quick as I can."

The shooter slowed again, back to fifty, and then moved onto the shoulder of the highway and stopped. He didn't want to pull into the parking lot, then have to sit in the truck without getting out. Wigge would be watching the vehicles coming in from behind, which was why the scout kept going. If the shooter waited, he might lose him, but he had to take the chance.

He made himself wait three minutes, then pulled back onto the highway. Another minute to the rest stop, two lanes, one for eighteen-wheelers, one for cars. The rest stop pavilion was a round brick building, sitting in a puddle of light, with a bunch of newspaper stands out front. A couple of kids were wandering around, and a couple of adults, killing time while somebody peed.

And there was Wigge, out of his truck, walking down the sidewalk, away from the pavilion, under a row of dim ball lights. Farther on, sitting on a picnic table, was the Indian, Bunton.

Jackpot.

THE SHOOTER called the scout: "We've got Bunton."

His mind was racing. There were a number of techniques for capturing two men, but the conditions here were difficult. He would need to run a dialogue on them; he would need to convince them that they might save their lives with cooperation. . . .

As he watched, looking at Wigge's back as Wigge strolled down the sidewalk, Bunton got up, stretched, and wandered away from him. The land east of the rest stop fell off into a ravine, and the edges were heavily wooded, oaks and a few maples. The two men moved at a leisurely pace toward the tree line, and Bunton turned his head, looked back, and disappeared into what must have been a trail.

A moment later, Wigge went in after him. The shooter waited, fifteen seconds, thirty seconds, then climbed out of the van. Behind the cover of the door, he tucked his pistol into the waistband of his pants, pulled on a University of Iowa baseball hat, and started after them, ambling along as easily as Wigge had.

Fifteen cars were spotted up and down the rest area, people coming and going, one whining kid, overtired, his parents urging him back to the car: "Only an hour to go," the father said as the shooter passed them.

The shooter walked past the point where Wigge had left the sidewalk, continuing all the way to the end of the parking area. He wasn't sure, but there appeared to be another pavilion back in the trees; not sure, but then a cigarette lighter flared. That's where they were. The shooter stepped into the trees, paused, watched, then began moving, quiet as a mink. Four steps, stop. A dozen more, always with a tree between himself and the targets. He heard voices then, two men talking, the sound low and urgent. He could take them both, right here. Have to be careful about Wigge--a former cop, a security guy, there was a good chance he'd be armed and know how to use the weapon. Another step . . .

"Hey!"

The voice came from behind and to one side, sharp, demanding, and hit the shooter like a thrown rock. He twisted and saw a tall man there, and the man had a gun in his hand and the gun was pointed more or less at the shooter. Without time to think, the shooter snapped the pistol up and fired four times, aiming at the man's eyes.

The shooter was a professional, shooting by instinct, and the man went down like a sack of gravel. But the gun, silenced as it was, wasn't silent, and the shooter heard "Jesus Christ!" and then Wigge was coming, and the shooter ran to meet him, needing to get the first shot, Wigge lifting a gun from his pants pocket, and behind him, Bunton had launched himself into the ravine.

The shooter shot Wigge in the knee and Wigge went sideways and fumbled the gun, tried to recover it, and fumbled it again, and then the shooter was there, the sap in his left hand, and he whacked Wigge behind the ear and Wigge went flat, groaning, and the shooter dropped on his shoulders and pressed the muzzle of the gun against Wigge's head and said, "Bunton. Who are the others? Two names. Who are the others?" As he asked, he could still hear Bunton, his footfalls diminishing, circling back toward the lights of the rest area. And he thought about the dead man, lying on the trail--anyone could look in here . . .

"Fuck you," Wigge said, and he tried to push himself up, a one-handed push-up, and the shooter's running tactical assessment took over and he half stood, lifted the sap, and hammered Wigge again, and the big man went flat and stayed there, his body slack.

The shooter ran back toward the rest area, hurdled the dead gunman, heard a motorcycle start, slowed to a stroll as he came out of the trail, saw Bunton firing out the exit lane. He hadn't tried to rouse the other people, hadn't tried to call the police. He'd simply fled. . . . The shooter watched him go, then put his head down and lifted the cell phone. "Where are you?"

"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."

Chapter
10

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.