The Drifter

by Nick Petrie

  The Marine was silent. There was just the roar of the engine, carrying them forward.

  Then it occurred to Midden that maybe the Marine didn’t know what he meant.

  “Yes,” said Midden. “Go. Do it.”

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the Marine’s jaw clenched, the tendons popped on his neck, every muscle standing out clearly on his arms.

  52

  Peter

  Now, Peter told himself.

  And let go.

  The static rose up in him, through him, without pause or hesitation. Like a beast straining against a leash, suddenly released.

  He bit down hard to keep himself from roaring aloud.

  What he wasn’t prepared for was how good it felt.

  The power. The release.

  The white static moved his arms. The black plastic center block that locked the handcuffs gave way and the yellow cuff flew free from his strong left hand. The white static grinned through his mouth as it whipped the end free of the cuff locked to the truck.

  The man in the black canvas chore coat stared at him, eyes wide, holding on to his cargo strap like a lifeline.

  Peter ignored him and let the white static focus on the bomb.

  The scarred man’s design was good. The layers of protection were solid. The junction-box lids were epoxied shut, so he couldn’t get to the C-4 directly. The weakest point was the heavy conduit conveying the wires from the central control box. If he could break the threaded connectors, he could pull the wires and free the blasting cap from the C-4 inside.

  He took hold of the closest length of armored conduit and gave a hard jerk. No quick snap of the connectors, nothing gave way. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. He braced his knees on the drums, set himself, and let the white static pull until his shoulders ached. But after a moment it was clear that the connectors and conduit were too strong to break that way.

  He could crack them all eventually by stressing the joints, repeatedly bending the conduit back and forth. But it would take minutes for each drum, and he’d never get them all, not in time. Not before they arrived at wherever Lipsky had chosen for his ground zero.

  His mind worked hard, riding the static like some animal tamer. Running through possibilities, searching for an answer, while also trying furiously to keep himself intact inside the rush of blinding white electricity. The hardest part was the pure joy of the static, the pleasure in destruction. He hadn’t remembered how good it was, how alive he felt. Part of him, a disturbingly large part, wanted to leave the bomb in place just to watch it explode. To watch the world come down.

  But he ignored that urge and channeled it. He leaped up onto the plastic drums for better leverage, and crept across the ordered conduit like a fly testing a spiderweb for weaknesses, and all the while the heaving truck tried to throw him to the floor. He had to get to Boomer’s ignition system, the big central control box. If he could get only one box open, it had to be that one, where the cell-phone igniter connected the twelve-volt battery to the wires for the blasting caps. That way he could essentially pull all the wires at once.

  The control box was at the center of the bomb. This plastic lid also was epoxied in place, but there was a little overhang, a thin lip where Peter might get a grip. Peter caught one edge of the loosened handcuff strap under the lip, and again set himself. Using his back and legs for leverage, he put the white static to work, roaring aloud as he pulled until his muscles screamed. Then he pulled harder. But the epoxy was stronger than the handcuffs had been. Stronger than Peter.

  He kicked at the plastic box with his bare foot, hoping the box would crack and he could gain purchase there, but Boomer had used exterior-rated boxes, with thicker walls and stronger corners. Peter’s foot did nothing.

  He looked down from his perch on the drums at Midden, who still hung on to the cargo strap while the truck leaped and lurched under his feet. Peter saw the steel clip at his front pants pocket.

  “Your knife,” said Peter, barely recognizing his own voice. “Give me your knife.”

  The man seemed lost in his head, banished to whatever purgatory or hell he was making for himself there. He didn’t seem to notice that Peter had spoken.

  “Hey,” said Peter, the white static roaring fully through him now. “HEY! Make yourself useful. Give me your knife.”

  The man didn’t respond for a long moment.

  The chemical fumes of the fuel oil mixed with the thumping of the truck over the potholes to give everything a terrible urgency. Every moment of travel that much closer to the time when the world would turn to fire.

  Then the man’s dark, dead eyes rose to meet Peter’s while his right hand went to his pocket and took out the knife.

  He opened it with his thumb, revealing the wide, wicked blade. The serrations designed for nothing other than opening up the flesh of a man.

  He looked at Peter for a long moment.

  Then swung his arm and lofted the knife underhand in a gentle pitch devoid of spin, one workman tossing a tool to another.

  Peter smiled as it came, plucked it easily from the air, and in the next movement plunged the knife into the lid of the central control box.

  53

  Dinah

  Dinah crossed North Avenue at the top of the hill, looking down toward the bridge where she hoped to put the truck into the river.

  Miles clutched her waist and whimpered softly in the seat beside her. She wanted to put her arms around him, but the skinny man with the spooky eyes had his own arm wrapped around her son’s neck, and she needed both hands to drive anyway. She’d take her son back soon.

  Halfway down and picking up speed, she realized that she’d forgotten about the rebuilt bridge with its thick concrete guardrails. If she wanted to put the truck in the river, she’d have to turn a hard right at mid-bridge and jump the curb.

  But she couldn’t see it working now. She couldn’t see this truck breaking through the thick concrete to make it to the river, not at an angle, not already slowed by the high curb, and the river only a few dozen yards across. If she made the turn at high speed, she’d flip the truck. She could see it happening in her mind.

  They wouldn’t make it to the water. She’d likely just flip the truck.

  With the hundreds of car accident victims she’d seen at the hospital, she could see clearly the trauma of the accident, to her and to Miles. They had their seat belts on, but Miles was only eight. The seat belts wouldn’t do enough.

  It would break his neck.

  And the man with the scars was behind them somewhere with his triggering device.

  So the truck would explode anyway, with them both still in it.

  But at least the blast would be in an open area, with only a few big residential buildings around them. Hopefully, most of the people would still be at work.

  Thinking all this with her foot pressing harder on the gas and the bridge getting closer and closer.

  Then they were at the river and Miles was crying, “Mommy, I’m scared.” And the curb and guardrail were so high. She couldn’t make her arms turn the wheel, she just couldn’t. For a brief moment she saw the river shimmering below them, stretching toward the business district.

  Then the bridge was past and the road ran uphill again.

  As if on its own, the truck slowed for the light.

  “Go right here,” said the man with the spooky eyes. His gun still pressed into her son’s side. “We’re going downtown.”

  She turned right down the narrow corridor between the tall new condominiums where the tanneries had once stood, seeing the river in tantalizing steel-gray glimpses between the buildings, bounded now by concrete banks on both sides. Sometimes she drove to work this way, liking the vitality of it, the big buildings and storefronts, the way the city was always making itself new again.

  Then she caught her first glimpse of the tall whit
e tower at the edge of downtown, the tallest building in the state. She knew their destination.

  And how many people would die.

  She thought of the road ahead. There were four more bridges before they came to the left for the tall, white bank building. All had been repaired or rebuilt in recent years, but one bridge had a block-long approach and open space to one side. She thought she could get up some speed and put the truck through the fence, over the bank, and into the water. She pressed the gas down.

  “It’s okay, Miles, honey,” she said. “Everything’s going to be okay. I love you very much.”

  She pushed the truck down the hill and around the curve where the road changed to four lanes, picking up as much speed as she could handle. Four blocks ahead was the Cherry Street Bridge. She was going almost fifty. The traffic was thin on this Veterans Day afternoon.

  It wouldn’t snow for another month at least, she thought.

  She had always loved the first snow.

  The bridge came into view. She could see her path. She took her hand off the gearshift and put it across her son’s body, as much to simply touch his small, vulnerable body as anything like a hope that she might protect him from what came next.

  “Go straight, slow down,” said the man with the spooky eyes. “Slow down and go straight or I shoot the boy!” He jabbed the gun hard into Miles’s side and the boy cried out in pain.

  Her foot moved instinctively to the brake.

  But before she could press down, a tan SUV with a big tubular bumper came up fast on her left, pulled even, then swerved hard right into the Mitsubishi’s left front tire. Right at her feet.

  She couldn’t see the driver, but she recognized the Yukon.

  There was a crunch and something gave way, something important. The steering wheel jerked and spun in her hand. She began to fight it automatically but forced herself to let go of the wheel, pivot her foot to the gas, and stomp down.

  By the time the truck began to tilt, she was turned in her seat with her strong right arm pressing her son’s chest hard into the back of his seat, and her left hand on the barrel of the spooky man’s pistol.

  54

  Peter

  In the cargo box, the plastic drums shifted in their webbing as the truck lurched hard to one side. Peter dug his toes into the lines of rugged conduit to hold himself, the white static powering his muscles to lock himself in place while he hacked the plastic cover off the central control box. It came off in sharp chunks, but it came off. Inside was the cell-phone-turned-detonator and the twelve-volt battery tucked under the neat bundles of colored wires that led to the blasting caps and the C-4. It was almost beautiful in its elegance.

  It was possible that Boomer had built in a false circuit to kill anyone trying to disable the bomb, but Peter didn’t have time to even contemplate that. He had to take this apart now or die in the attempt. He could clearly envision the scarred man with his phone in his hand. Beginning to make the call that would complete the circuit and set off the bomb.

  He traced the wires with his finger, thinking that the battery was the key to everything. Without the battery, the blasting caps would not explode. Without the blasting caps, the C-4 wouldn’t go, or the rest of it.

  The truck tilted beneath him. The static flared as Peter’s muscles responded. He dropped to his belly and wedged his feet farther under the conduit. Then reached into the control box, through the wires, to the big battery. Grabbed it hard and maneuvered it out from beneath the bundled wires.

  Boomer had actually soldered the power wires to the battery’s terminals in great greasy conductive lumps. The white static burned cold as he wrapped the wires in his fist and pulled.

  Trying to free them from the big battery.

  Hoping to hell there wasn’t anything else he should have done instead.

  55

  Lewis

  Here we go, kid. Hang on to that dog. Remember, do what I tell you.”

  Mingus growled over the roar of the engine as Lewis turned the wheel and punched the Yukon’s front end hard into the Mitsubishi’s driver’s-side tire. He saw Dinah’s face in her window, her eyes wide. Metal shrieked and the seat belt bit into him.

  The Yukon’s nose dropped as the bigger truck crushed its front suspension, then pushed it hard away. But something had broken or bent at that side of the Mitsubishi, the tie rod or axle, forcing it into an abrupt turn. The right-side tires left the ground as the truck began to tilt.

  “Charlie, you okay? Charlie?”

  No answer from the backseat. The Yukon sputtered and died.

  Lewis looked through his cracked windshield to see Dinah in the cab of the Mitsubishi, wrestling with the skinny guy in the uniform for the gun. The big truck heaved across two lanes of traffic and up a curb to smash its passenger side into a lamppost.

  “Charlie, get out right now and run away as fast as you can.”

  Lewis slipped off his seat belt and climbed out of the ruined Yukon to help Dinah. He looked over his shoulder as he ran and saw the black Ford pull up a block away.

  The scarred man had something in his hand that looked like a cell phone.

  Even at that distance, Lewis could see the look of rapture on the scarred man’s face as his thumb stabbed down on the keypad.

  Lewis sprinted around the front of the Mitsubishi and hauled open the passenger door.

  56

  Peter

  The detonator phone’s screen flashed white as an incoming call activated the vibrator.

  The circuit closed. The vibrator hummed.

  But the wiring hung torn from the big battery like a broken spiderweb.

  Peter remained miraculously alive.

  “Go go go,” he said as he pulled his feet from under the conduit and jumped to the plank floor. Midden was kicking the twisted roll-up door free of its broken latch, sheared off by the impact of the collisions.

  Together they hauled up the door and saw the scarred man standing outside the Ford SUV, pressing a button on his cell phone again and again. Midden took a target pistol from his coat pocket and shot out two tires on the Ford without appearing to aim. Boomer looked up from his phone, startled.

  A dog growled low and deep.

  Peter knew that growl.

  The growl sounded like his white static felt. Like overwhelming fury harnessed to an unrelenting will.

  “Mingus, get him.”

  Not that the dog was waiting for permission. He bolted past the open roll-up door, all fluid muscle and flashing teeth and orange polka-dotted fur that shone somehow bright under the pale November sky.

  Boomer’s eyes grew wide, and he turned to run. Mingus growled happily at the sight.

  Mingus wouldn’t actually eat the man, would he? Although Peter hoped the dog would at least chew on him some.

  Behind the big Ford, a black unmarked police car glided to a halt, a cockeyed gumball flashing red on its roof. Lipsky unfolded himself from behind the wheel with his pistol in one hand and his badge in the other.

  “Nobody move!” he shouted. “You’re all under arrest!”

  Lipsky looked good, Peter had to admit. The detective clearly had his survival strategy worked out. He’d be the good guy. The savior of the city.

  But the man in the black canvas chore coat reached out his hand, the target pistol like a pointing finger. The single report was surprisingly quiet in the still air.

  A faint red hole appeared in Lipsky’s forehead.

  He looked vaguely surprised, just for a moment. Then he dropped like a stone.

  Peter jumped to the ground and ran around to the cab of the truck. Thinking of Dinah up there with Felix.

  But Peter was too late.

  Felix lay curled into a ball on the median. Lewis held Miles securely in his arms, grinning wide while Charlie helped his mom out of the truck.

  As it turned out,
Lewis was a hero after all.

  “The cop is dead, and the bomb’s out of commission,” said Peter.

  “That’s good,” said Lewis, “’cause this kid’s heavy.” Although the way he held the boy, hands locked tight together, face half buried in his hair, it looked like he’d never let Miles go.

  Peter had wondered what Lewis would do if he had the chance. If Lewis would step into that empty space.

  He felt happy for Lewis, and for Dinah. This might be the best possible result.

  For himself, he felt only relief as the pressure began to ease in his head. The white static deflating like spent foam from a fire extinguisher, leaving behind it only the shakes, the beginning of a killer headache.

  He went to find the man in the black barn coat.

  Midden stood in the open cargo bay of the Mitsubishi, with his target pistol pressed into the soft flesh under his own chin. Finger on the trigger, knuckle gone white with pressure.

  “I think you’d better give me that,” said Peter, reaching out his hand.

  Midden stared at him, dark eyes swimming in unwept tears. “I’ve done so much,” he said. “You’ll never know.”

  “I do know,” said Peter gently. “Really, I do. Give me the weapon.”

  But he didn’t wait for the other man to move. He extended his hand with infinite care and took the pistol from the other man’s hand. Then looped an arm around the man’s shoulder and pulled him in close.

  “You’re okay,” he said. “It’s all okay. My name’s Peter.”

  The sound of sirens rose up around them as they stood, coming no doubt from the Veterans Day parade less than a mile away.

  Peter had another thought. “Lewis,” he called out. “Hey, Lewis.” He stuck his head around the corner of the truck.

  Lewis stood watching Dinah with a dopey grin on his face. Dinah looked deeply confused but not entirely unhappy. The boys jumped up and down like maniacs.