Heat Lightning

by John Sandford

  Warren got out and took a step toward the house, stepped just for a second out from behind the man holding the door. . . .

  Phem fired, and Mai saw a muted flash and was slapped by the loud whack, and Phem said, “Go . . .” and they were scrambling along behind the screen of bushes and Mai could hear a distant shouting and then gunfire, but couldn’t see the gun flashes and had no idea where the bullets were going. . . . They crossed the street as planned, running hard, and cut across a lawn and then between two houses, around a pool and over a fence, Mai clicking the radio button as they went, never stopping, to a side street, and there was Tai, backing up, reversing down the street, and they were in the back of the truck and it was rolling away.

  Tai asked, “Good shot?”

  “Good shot,” Phem said. “I make no guarantees, but it felt good going out.”

  Mai knew that Warren was dead. She asked, “Are you okay?”

  Phem smiled at her. “You are like my mother. I am okay.”

  Mai turned on the radio, to an all-news station, and they headed north through the welter of streets. They would take I-94 to a twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart store on the northwest edge of the Twin Cities, where Tai would move to another car.

  From there they would continue north up most of the length of Minnesota and along the eastern edge of North Dakota toward Canada, before they cut back into Minnesota for the last page of the assignment.

  The second car was needed should they be stopped by a highway patrolman or a local police officer. They would kill the officer and abandon the known car for the second vehicle.

  After that, they would have no backup.

  But there was no reason that they should be stopped. Both cars were rentals, taken under completely clean IDs from California.

  The entrance ramp came up, and they were gone.

  25

  THE ST. PAUL cops came out of the woodwork, from staging areas a block or so back from the golf course, and took up stations along the streets at the perimeters. A deputy chief named Purser said, “A goddamn rat couldn’t get out of there on his hands and knees.”

  Virgil, Davenport, and Rose Marie were inside, looking through the windows up at the hillside golf course. A minute passed, two, without any incoming reports. Virgil said to Davenport, “They’re not up there.”

  Rose Marie asked, “How do you know?”

  “I’m not getting the right vibration,” Virgil said. “When they saw St. Paul coming in, they should have moved. Instantly, before everybody got set. They should have made a break for it. They should have had a backup plan. They should have had somebody on the outside . . . they should have done something.”

  Davenport nodded. “They’re gone—if they were ever here.”

  Virgil dug out his notebook, flipped it open, found Warren’s cell-phone number.

  “What?” Warren’s voice was positively noxious.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling here,” Virgil said. “We dropped the net and nobody made a move. You gotta take it easy. They could be coming after you at your house.”

  “I’m three blocks out,” Warren said. “I got three guys inside and they’re okay, I just talked to them. I got guys patrolling the neighborhood. Nothing going on. We’ll be there in one minute.”

  “Keep your guys awake until we get them,” Virgil said.

  “Yeah. And you know what, Flowers? You can still go fuck yourself.”

  Virgil laughed as he shut his cell phone, stood up, looked out through the front windows at the dark hillside and the golf course. “Guy picked the right job—professional asshole.”

  Davenport said, “You might want to stand back from the window in case they’re still out there. If they’ve really got a sniper scope . . . They might be a little pissed at you.”

  “What about Sinclair?” Virgil asked.

  “I don’t know. I suggest that we put him inside and give him his phone call. He says that’s an option, and after we do it, we should get some kind of response from somebody. Find out who’s in charge, in any case.”

  “What if—” The phone in his hand rang, and he looked down at the LCD: Warren. He flipped it open. “Yeah. Flowers . . .”

  The guy on the other end was shrieking. “We’re taking fire, we’re taking fire. Warren’s down, Warren’s down, he’s dead, we got Minneapolis cops coming, we got medics coming, but we, shit, you better get here.”

  “Ah, man—you’re taking fire right now?”

  “Right now. Right now. I’m in the driveway, I’m under the car, I can hear a fucking machine gun, man, can you hear that?” The guy was shouting again. “Christ, it’s a nightmare, they got fuckin’ machine guns. . . .”

  “Warren’s down?”

  “I’m looking at him, man, his whole fuckin’ head is gone, man, he’s gone, he’s gone, I got blood all over me, I’m drowning in blood, man . . .”

  “We’re on the way, we’re on the way. . . .”

  Virgil looked at Davenport. “They just hit Warren. They’re talking machine guns. Warren’s dead in his driveway.”

  THEY TOOK Davenport’s car, and Davenport pushed it hard, out to the interstate, into Minneapolis, Del trailing behind in the state car. Warren’s neighborhood had been shut off, and two helicopters were picking through the brush with searchlights. They found a place to park, and Virgil, Del, and Davenport walked down the street to Warren’s place, where a dozen cops were milling around in the yard. Eight or ten cop cars were parked along the street and on the other side of the lake, and two hundred people from the neighborhood were out in the street, standing in clumps, watching.

  They found a Minneapolis captain named Roark who’d taken charge of the scene, who nodded at Lucas, checked out his tux, asked, “Is that the new BCA uniform?” and said, not waiting for an answer, “I hear you guys are involved.”

  Lucas nodded. “This is the lemon killings. The killers are three Vietnamese, a woman and two men. We can get prints and DNA anytime we need them—on the woman, anyway. Probably on all three. They’re running.”

  “Any idea on their vehicles?”

  Virgil shook his head. “No. But they’ll have an exit plan, so they’re twenty miles from here and moving. Or they’re getting on a plane somewhere.”

  Del asked, “You know what happened?”

  “They got him when he was uncovered for one second, getting out of his car,” Roark said. “His bodyguard swears it was one second. They don’t know where the shot came from, but we think it was from across the lake. We sent some guys over there with a flashlight, and they found a matted-down place in the brush, and a mosquito net thing, you know, a head net, and a beanbag that was probably used as a rest.”

  Virgil looked. “Easy shot, if you know guns.”

  “I talked to one of the bodyguards, he said they never thought about the other side of the lake. The lake was like a barrier, but it’s only about a hundred and forty yards.”

  “Goddamnit,” Davenport said. “They might never have been at the golf course. If they knew he was coming out tonight, that would have been enough to wait here.”

  “What about machine guns?” Virgil asked Roark. “We talked to a guy . . .”

  Roark was shaking his head. “One of the bodyguards freaked out and hosed down a ceramic statue. Blew it up, said he thought the guy had ducked for cover, so he put a couple more magazines into it.”

  “So no machine guns?”

  “We think it was one shot,” Roark said. “Big gun. Warren never knew what hit him. Blew out a good piece of his head. He was dead before he hit the ground.”

  Davenport looked at Virgil. “You think they’ll try for Knox?”

  “Yeah. They don’t know that we know where he is—in fact, they think we don’t know where he is.”

  “Better get your ass up there,” Davenport said. “I’ll get you a plane, get some guys from the Bemidji office. Take some heavy shit with you.”

  “I gotta get back to my truck. . . .”

  “We’re not doin
g any good here. Let’s go.”

  ON THE WAY OUT, Virgil got on his phone and called Louis Jarlait at Red Lake. “Louis, We figured out the lemon killers. Three Vietnamese, two guys and a woman. They’re headed your way; they’re going after a guy up on the Rainy River, outside of International Falls. I’m flying into International Falls tonight, but I could use a little help—guys who know their way around in the woods.”

  “I could get Rudy and go up there,” Jarlait said.

  “Man, I’d appreciate it. We’re gonna get some guys from the BCA office in Bemidji, but they’ll be investigator types. We need some guys with deer rifles.”

  When he was off the phone, he said to Davenport, “You should talk to Sinclair tonight. I’m wondering if he told me what he did to flush Warren out in the open. To make a predictable move.”

  “I’ll do that. You take it easy up there.”

  As they came up to his truck, Virgil said, “I’m going to call you in about one minute—they’re probably still monitoring my truck, and I’m going to tell them I don’t know where Knox is. You might get a little pissed about that.”

  “I’ll play,” Davenport said.

  IN THE TRUCK, headed down to the BCA office, Virgil got on the phone to Davenport, shouting: “Warren’s dead. They shot him at his house. . . .”

  Davenport: “Have you found Knox? Where the hell is Knox?”

  “I don’t know. His daughter says he does photography, that he might be out in North Dakota somewhere. Maybe I could put out a BOLO on his car, maybe with the North Dakota guys. I don’t know where to take it. . . .”

  “How are these Vietnamese finding this shit out?” Davenport demanded. “Where are they getting their information?”

  “Good fuckin’ question,” Virgil said. “I’ll talk to Sinclair about that.”

  “You said he wasn’t home.”

  “He’s not. I don’t know where the hell he is,” Virgil said. “He’s not answering his cell. Maybe he’s with the Viets—he was some kind of fruitcake left-winger. . . .”

  “So what’re you gonna do?”

  “I’m going to put Shrake outside Sinclair’s house. If he comes back, we nail him. I’m gonna head down to the office, start working the phones. Honest to God, we gotta find Knox. Maybe tomorrow morning we could drop something in the media, something that would get him to call in.”

  “If he sees it,” Davenport said. “Man, you gotta do better than this. You just gotta do better than this.”

  THEY SOUNDED pretty good, Virgil thought after he rang off. He’d have bought it.

  Virgil stopped first at the BCA office, transferred his outdoors duffel to a state car, including head nets and cross-country ski gloves, good for shooting and fending off mosquitoes. From the BCA equipment room, he got armor and an M16 and five magazines and two night-vision monoculars. Driving the state car, he stopped at the motel, picked up a jacket, and traded his cowboy boots for hiking boots.

  Davenport called: “Got you a plane. They’ll pick you up at the St. Paul airport. They’re starting three guys to International Falls from Bemidji, but it’s a ride. It’ll take a while.”

  “It’ll take Mai longer, unless they’re flying,” Virgil said. “If they’re flying, they still won’t be that far in front of us. I’m gonna try to call Knox, too. Tell him to get the fuck out.”

  “Tell him to leave the lights on,” Davenport said. “Tell him to leave a car in the driveway. We need to pull them in there. We need to get this done with.”

  VIRGIL CALLED Knox, and this time the phone was answered. Virgil identified himself and was told that Knox was in bed. “Then get him out of bed,” Virgil said. “I need to talk to him, now.”

  Knox came up a minute later. “What happened?”

  “Warren got hit. He’s dead. The killers are a Vietnamese intel team, apparently after revenge for the ’75 murders.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” Knox said with some heat.

  “Well, they don’t know that—or they don’t give a shit,” Virgil said. “Anyway, they’re headed your way. They know where you are.”

  A few seconds of silence, then; “How would they find that out?”

  “Hell, man, I put our researcher on it, and she found your place in an hour,” Virgil said. “You pay taxes on it and deduct them from your income tax. That is, if you’re on the Rainy River, outside of International Falls.”

  “Sonofabitch.” A moment of silence. Then: “You don’t think they’re here yet?”

  “Not yet. Not even if they’re flying,” Virgil said. “I’m flying up now, I’ve got guys started up from Bemidji and Red Lake, and we’re gonna ambush them. I need to know how to get into your place.”

  Knox gave him directions, right down to the tenth of the mile. “It’s dark out here. If you get lost, you stay lost.”

  “I’ll find it. I got GPS directions to the end of your driveway. I just wasn’t too sure about the roads out there,” Virgil said. “In the meantime, you oughta get out of there.”

  “Think so?”

  “Yeah. There’s nothing you can do at this point,” Virgil said. “Don’t use your cell phones, they might have some way to track them. Just go out somewhere to a resort and get a place for overnight.”

  “I’ll leave a guy here, tell you about the security systems,” Knox said. “He can help you out.”

  “That’d be great,” Virgil said.

  “Okay, then. Good luck. I’m outa here.”

  And he was gone.

  26

  THE PILOT’S name was Doug Wayne. He was a small, mustachioed highway patrolman who looked like he should be flying biplanes for Brits over France; he was waiting in his olive-drab Nomex flight suit in the general aviation pilots’ lounge at St. Paul’s Holman Field.

  Virgil came through carrying a backpack with a change of clothes, the ammo and the nightscopes and a range finder and two radios, a plastic sack with two doughnuts and two sixteen-ounce Diet Pepsis, and the M16 in a rifle case.

  Wayne said, “Just step through the security scanner over there. . . .”

  “Place would blow up,” Virgil said. “We ready?”

  “How big a hurry are we in?”

  “Big hurry,” Virgil said. “Big as you got.”

  WAYNE WAS flying the highway patrol’s Cessna Skylane, taken away from a Canadian drug dealer the year before. International Falls was a little more than two hundred and fifty miles from St. Paul by air, and the Skylane cruised at one hundred forty-five miles per hour. “If you got two bottles of soda in that sack . . . I mean, I hope you got the bladder for it. We’re gonna bounce around a little,” Wayne said as they walked out to the flight line.

  “I’ll pee on the floor,” Virgil said.

  “That’d make my day,” Wayne said.

  “Just kiddin’. How bad are we going to bounce?”

  Wayne said, “There’s a line of thunderstorms from about St. Cloud northeast to Duluth, headed east. We can go around the back end, no problem, but there’ll still be some rough air.”

  They climbed in and stashed Virgil’s gear in the back of the plane and locked down and took off. St. Paul was gorgeous at night, the downtown lights on the bluffs reflecting off the Mississippi, the bridges close underneath, but they made the turn and were out of town in ten minutes. Looking down, the nightscape was a checkerboard of small towns, clumps of light along I-35, the lights growing sparser as they diverged from the interstate route, heading slightly northwest.

  “Gonna take a nap if I can,” Virgil said.

  “Good luck,” Wayne said.

  Virgil liked flying; might look into a pilot’s license someday, when he could afford it. He asked, “How much does a plane like this cost?”

  “New? Maybe . . . four hundred thousand.”

  He closed his eyes and thought about how a cop would get four hundred thousand dollars—write a book, maybe, but it’d have to sell big. Other than that . . .

  The drone of the plane and darkness st
arted to carry him off. He thought about God, and after a while he went to sleep. He was aware, at some point, that the plane was shuddering, and he got the elevator feeling, but not too bad; and when he woke up, his mouth tasting sour, he peered out at what looked like the ocean: an expanse of blackness broken only occasionally by pinpoints of light.

  He cracked one of the Pepsis and asked, “Where are we?”

  “You missed all the good stuff,” Wayne said. “Had a light show for a while, off to the east. We’re about a half hour out of International Falls. You were sleeping like a rock.”

  “I’ve been hard-pushed lately,” Virgil said. He looked at his watch: nearly one in the morning. Took out his cell phone: no service.

  “You won’t get service until we’re ten minutes out,” Wayne said. “We’re talking vast wasteland.”

  VIRGIL TRIED AGAIN when they could see the lights of International Falls and Louis Jarlait came up. “We’re just out of town,” Jarlait said. “Where do you want to hook up?”

  “Pick me up at the airport. We got some BCA guys coming up from Bemidji.”

  “I talked to them. They’re probably a half hour behind us, they had to get their shit together.”

  “Okay. I’ll get them on the phone, bring them into Knox’s place,” Virgil said. “We need to check at the airport and see if they had any small-plane flights in the last hour or so with some Vietnamese on board.”

  “I’ll ask while we’re waiting for you.”

  “Careful. You might walk in right on top of them.”

  Virgil couldn’t reach the BCA agents from Bemidji: they were still too far out in the bogs.

  WAYNE WAS going to turn the plane around and head back to the Cities. Virgil thanked him for the flight, and he said, “No problem. I love getting out in the night.”

  Louis Jarlait and Rudy Bunch were waiting when Virgil came off the flight line: “No small planes, no Vietnamese,” Bunch said.