Raleigh pushed his brother’s hand aside and leaned in close to him. “Millions,” he whispered, “millions. A gamble? You bet. But what if . . . ?” He let the words hang.
Clarence leaned his head against the steering wheel. What if?
“We wouldn’t have to do nuthin’ anymore,” Raleigh said. “We wouldn’t have to, you know . . .” His words faltered.
Clarence knew what he meant. Kill anyone. He didn’t enjoy that, either. But expediency, survival, sometimes dictated otherwise. Not a big deal.
But what if? Millions. A long shot, yeah. But what if? He allowed the thought to linger for a moment, then cranked the Terrain’s engine.
CHUCK’S CHASE TEAM pulled out of the Walmart parking lot and turned north, toward the now massive supercell knifing toward I-35 in the direction of the sprawling Osage Nation northwest of Tulsa. The vehicles in the tiny caravan bore the ravages of two weeks on the road and too-close encounters with previous storms: two cracks in the windshield of Chuck’s Expedition, a bowed-in door on Metcalf’s Navigator, a cratered roof on the camera rig.
Chuck monitored the supercell’s progress on his computer and checked the in-coming reports. Law enforcement, Noble County: large tornado near Ceres. Chaser report: wedge tornado west of 177 just south of Marland.
Ty leaned over Chuck’s shoulder. “What’s a wedge tornado?”
“Big, broad, and nasty. A twister that looks like a massive black triangle with its apex on the ground. Wedge-shaped. Almost as wide as it is tall.”
In an effort to get ahead of the tornado-producing supercell, Chuck jumped on the Cimarron Turnpike Spur north of Stillwater. The Spur connected with the main turnpike leading east. He followed the turnpike a short distance, exited at route 18, and ran north. By the time the team reached Pawnee, the pursuit slowed, the road jammed with chasers, TV sat trucks, and sightseers.
“Gotta get out of this mess,” Chuck said over his cell phone to Metcalf. “Follow me.”
“Where we goin’, sahib?”
“Farm roads.”
“No, I mean where are we headed?”
“Oh, give me a home . . .” Chuck sang.
“You gotta be kiddin’. Not back to where the friggin’ buffalo roam?”
“I don’t think ‘friggin’ was in the lyrics.”
Chuck led them north on back roads paralleling route 18 until they intersected 18 again near Ralston. Their alternate course appeared to have put them ahead of most of the chasers.
“We gotta get back on 18 here,” Chuck said to Gabi, who continued to doze on and off. “It’s the only way across the Arkansas River.” The team’s vehicles rattled across a narrow, two-lane, steel-truss bridge spanning the stream.
Gabi sat up, looked around, eyes a little glassy. “Where are we?”
“Just entering the Rez.” He wasn’t quite sure Gabi remembered what they were doing. “The storm we’re chasing is about ten miles northwest of us.” He pointed to his left at a mass of roiling darkness that pulsed with almost continuous lightning, a plasma of high-voltage anger. He glanced at the radar display on his computer. “Uh, oh.”
“What?” Ty asked.
“It’s losing its tornado signature.”
“It’s dying?” Gabi asked.
“Not necessarily. Storms cycle. They strengthen, they weaken, they strengthen again. We’ll stick with this one. It’s already proven itself. I think it’ll come back.” But suddenly, as though a pebble had been tossed into a still pond, there it was: a ripple of doubt spreading through his psyche, challenging his new-found confidence.
Not wishing to dwell on negatives, he changed the subject, speaking to Gabi. “How are you feeling?”
“Like howitzers have been going off in my head.” She managed a weak smile. “That’s an improvement, in case you were wondering.”
A strong gust of wind shook the SUV. “Good sign,” Chuck said, acknowledging the gust. “Strong inflow. It’s still a damn healthy storm.”
He addressed Gabi again. “You’ll make it through the day then?” He hoped the question sounded empathetic, not like he was concerned she’d screw up the chase.
“I’ll be fine. Long as I don’t have to wrestle bad guys.” A little laugh.
The short caravan approached the small burg of Fairfax. “For your trivia files,” Chuck said, “some of the scenes for Twister were filmed around here.”
Once through Fairfax, the vehicles sped north through open farmland and grassy prairies until they reached U. S. 60, where they turned east. Chuck picked up his cell phone and spoke to Metcalf. “We’re headed toward Bartlesville. We’ll try to set up someplace west of there.” And pray this storm cycles.
“Let’s stay on the main roads, okay?” Metcalf said. “No herds of hairy beasts there.”
It wasn’t sudden, just a gentle pull of the Expedition to the right, toward the shoulder, and then clop-clop-clop.
Stormy stood up on the back seat and half-growled, half-whimpered.
“Unbelievable,” Chuck said.
Gabi looked at him.
“Flat tire.” The incident with the tractor on Tuesday come home to roost?
He pulled onto the shoulder, turned on the flashers, and set the parking brake. The weather radio blared another warning. This one for Pawnee County. A different supercell, not the one they’d been tracking. Chuck expanded the view of the radar on his computer. He turned the screen so Gabi and Ty could see.
“There’s a monster supercell north of Stillwater now.” He pointed it out.
“Not far from where we started,” Ty noted.
“Yeah. And it’s got a great TVS.”
“Good for it,” Ty said.
“TVS. Tornado Vortex Signature. It’s a Doppler radar algorithm that suggests the presence of a strong mesocyclone. That doesn’t mean there is a tornado, just that there’s a high probability of one.”
Ty nodded his understanding. “Want me to start working on the tire while you monitor the storms?” he said.
Ty pitching in. A bit of a surprise.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Ty got out of the SUV and began unloading the luggage from behind the rear seat so he could get at the tools in the floor compartment.
Metcalf rapped on the Expedition’s window.
Chuck opened the door.
“How much more can go wrong, jefe?” Metcalf said, his face tinted in various shades of crimson. “Do you plan this shit ahead of time or does it just happen to you?” His jaw kept moving even after he’d finished speaking.
Chuck pressed his lips together and held his gut-reply in check: For you, I plan. Out loud: “This isn’t the end of the road. There’s another cell coming up behind us that might be an even better candidate. Give me some space to work. We’ll be back on the road in fifteen minutes.” Maybe, maybe not.
Ty wrestled to get the jack set properly near the right front fender. Several cars and vans swept past them on the road, most giving friendly toots. After two weeks in the field, Chuck and his team had become easily recognizable entities by other chasers.
Chuck focused on the radar images. The northern storm, the one they’d been racing to get ahead of, continued to weaken, losing its TVS. The new contender, however, looked increasingly robust. A hook echo. Strong rotation. Gotta be a tornado. Then something else. “Whoa,” he exclaimed, startling Gabi, who’d been half-slumbering again.
“Debris ball,” he said. He pointed at the core of the hook echo, now colored vividly, a dot of death. “That’s airborne wreckage. A tornado. Probably hit a small town.” He read the name on the map underlay. “Morrison.”
He scrambled from the vehicle and knelt by Ty, who was now busy loosening the lug nuts on the wheel. “Much longer? We got a new target.”
“Five minutes, ten
at most.” He didn’t look at Chuck. Turbulent gusts, bearing the essence of plowed earth and cow manure, jiggled the SUV. Thunder rolled over the flat landscape in a nonstop barrage, more ominous than loud, as if emanating from a distant battle . . . but drawing nearer. The sky, black and ragged, pulsed with electricity. In the middle distance, a coyote slinking along a low ridge line, perhaps fleeing the storm, seemed to disappear into the prairie, given shelter by the vastness of which it was a part.
Chuck looked down the road; he could see the chasers that had passed him braking, halting on the shoulder, probably seeing the same thing he had. The new storm. He watched as they pulled out again and made a right at an intersection a few hundred yards beyond. Reversing course. Heading south. The fresh storm now the target du jour.
He jogged to the camera truck. Metcalf, Willie, Boomie, and Ziggy stood near the cab, scanning the sky.
“As soon as the tire is repaired, we’re on our way,” Chuck said. “We’re going after the storm to the southwest.”
“What happened to the other one?” Willie asked.
“Crapped out. At least temporarily. But this new one’s really cranking. You know, a bird in hand and all that.”
“Let’s get on it then,” Metcalf said.
Chuck pivoted to return to the Expedition. Another chaser vehicle, antennae sprouting from its roof, flew past him, eastbound. No wave, no horn, no acknowledgment. Maybe a newcomer to the storm chasing game.
He reached the Expedition, where he found Gabi standing outside and Ty finishing his work. Gabi, brushing wind-blown hair from her eyes, stared down the road after the vehicle that had just gone by. She turned to Chuck. “Did you see that?” she said, a hint of excitement in her voice.
“What? The chasers who just passed us?”
“A black GMC with a grill guard.” She let the words hang.
Chapter Twenty-four
SUNDAY, MAY 11
MID-AFTERNOON
BLACK GMC, GRILL guard. Chuck let Gabi’s observation sink it. “The SUV spotted at the crime scenes?”
“It fits the description,” Gabi said.
“But hardly a unique vehicle. Lots of black GMCs around, quite a few with grill guards.”
“Yeah, but how many others like it have we seen the past two weeks? Driven by chasers, I mean.”
Gabi had a point. The answer was None.
Chuck watched the departing SUV’s brake lights come on. He expected it to pull to the side of the road, or make a right turn, like the previous chase vehicles had. But it didn’t. Instead, it turned left—going after the initial storm? The one that had weakened? Did they think it would cycle, become a potent supercell again? Not impossible. But why roll the dice? Why not follow the crowd and pursue the southern storm? Tornado warnings on it continued to be issued one after the other, as if rolling off an assembly line. It appeared to be one of those rare supercells that would live for hours, a carrier of death packing a long-lived, violent tornado.
Gabi placed a hand on Chuck’s arm. “So, can we follow those guys?”
Ty, finished changing the tire, joined Chuck and Gabi. “What’s up?” He followed their gazes to the black SUV, now speeding northward, away from the main road.
“Gabi thinks that might be the vehicle law enforcement is looking for,” Chuck said.
“We need to follow it,” Gabi responded, perhaps hoping for an ally in Ty.
Chuck weighed his options—only two, really. Go in pursuit of the black GMC and possibly miss a shot at accomplishing what he’d been hired to do: lead Metcalf and his film crew to an EF-4 or -5. Or go balls-to-the-wall after a supercell that probably harbored a million-dollar payday. Frankly, not a difficult choice.
The GMC disappeared over the flat horizon.
“I’m sorry, Gabi,” Chuck said. “I—” He stopped abruptly.
“What?” she said.
He ducked into the Expedition and pulled up a computer display showing the locations of all the chasers, at least those with their transponders turned on.
“Sam’s chasing,” Chuck said.
Gabi shot him a quizzical look.
“Sam Townsend. You met him at the Gust Front Grill.”
“The Vietnam vet,” Ty reminded her.
“Yeah.”
“What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?” Gabi asked.
“The road the black GMC turned on leads in the general direction of the Gust Front.”
The statement didn’t seem to resonate with Gabi immediately, as though her thoughts were mired in mud, likely the side effects of the meds she’d been taking.
Ty understood right away. “So, if those are the bad guys, maybe they’re going after Sam’s rumored fortune.”
“Even then, a long shot,” Chuck said. “The odds of any kind of storm hitting there, let alone a twister, are infinitesimally small.”
“But,” Ty said, “it might be the only chance they ever get. If they’re who we think they might be.”
Metcalf, in the Navigator, laid on his horn and leaned his head out the window. “What’s the hold up, Chuckie?” he yelled, his words barely audible in the ripping wind and rolling thunder. “We need to get this circus train moving.”
“A minute,” Chuck yelled back. He understood his contractual duty was to Metcalf, but he wanted to help Gabi, too. Maybe for something beyond altruistic reasons, but all the same, he wanted to act the faithful lieutenant. But he couldn’t. Too much at stake. It always came down to money, didn’t it?
“I just can’t do it, Gabi,” Chuck said. “I told you the first night we met, my client would take precedent and you said you understood.”
Grasping the roof of the Expedition for support, she offered a counter-suggestion. “Let me take the Expedition and follow those guys,” she said. “You and Ty can go with Metcalf and find your tornado.”
Her thought process, Chuck could see, remained addled.
“No,” he said. “I can’t run an intercept on the storm without the equipment in the Expedition. Besides, you’re in no shape to be going off on your own chasing criminals.”
“Let me decide what I’m capable of or not,” she snapped. “As a federal agent, I’ve got a job to do, too.”
“You don’t even know how to get to the Gust Front from here, Gabi. Settle down.”
“Don’t tell me to goddamn settle down. I know better than you what the hell I’m doing.” Argumentative. Irritable.
Ty stepped to her side. “Truce,” he said. He made a “T” with his hands, like a referee signaling for time out. “Let’s consider a Plan C.”
“Really?” Gabi said. Still upset.
“I’m listening,” Chuck said, ready to accept any solution that would get them moving and Gabi to drop her harpy act.
“How about you and Gabi take the Expedition and head for the Gust Front? I’ll ride with Metcalf. Over the cell phone, you can keep in touch with me and get us in a position where we can film the tornado. We can kind of watch what the other chasers are up to, too.”
Chuck considered the idea, but decided against it. “Too dangerous,” he said. “I need to be there, in person, making sure there are escape routes and that there’s time to bail if we need to.”
“I’ve been paying attention,” Ty said. “You do everything using radar imagery and roadmaps. On your computer. So, you can vector me remotely. Just tell me what to do, where to go. I can follow orders. Army, remember?”
“I don’t know, Ty. I don’t like the idea of being separated.” Chuck wished now he’d purchased transponders, locator beacons, for the vehicles, but he’d never envisioned that his team members might have to operate independently.
“Your son has a good idea,” Gabi interjected. “It could work.”
Could being the operative word. Not
will.
Metcalf appeared, his anger boiling over, his words uncontrolled. “What the hell is going on?” he screamed, pushing Gabi and Ty away from the Expedition and leaning into its interior, getting in Chuck’s face. “Are we going to miss another opportunity? I give you a break, we get a tornado swarm, yet here we sit like cow pies on the prairie. Unbefuckinglievable.”
Chuck shoved Metcalf away and got out of the car. “Button your mouth, Jerry, and listen to me. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
He told him about Gabi being FBI, about her migraines, about why she was on the chase, about the black GMC and the Gust Front Grill, and finally about Ty’s plan. Metcalf stood silent, shaking his head, his jaw slightly agape.
“A second,” Chuck said after he’d finished. He ducked back into the SUV and pulled up the latest radar loop on his laptop. The northern storm appeared to be cycling, regenerating. Not dead.
He stepped back out of the vehicle. “Here’s an addendum to Ty’s plan,” he said to Metcalf. “The southern supercell is still the Big Show. You, Ty, and the camera rig will go after it. But the northern storm looks like it’s making a comeback. Let’s hedge our bets.”
“How?” Metcalf said.
“You’ve got two Panavisions left, correct?”
Metcalf nodded.
“Send one of them and a cinematographer with me and Gabi. Just in case. Your guy could use that Steady Camera thing to shoot, couldn’t he?”
“Steadicam.”
“Yeah, Steadicam.”
“Anything to get us moving.” Metcalf, his head tipped skyward as though beseeching unseen gods, trotted toward the camera truck.
Moments later, one the cinematographers, Boomie, joined Chuck, Gabi, and Ty.
A crack of thunder like an exploding artillery shell rent the clamor of the wind and tumbled across the grassland in a diminishing wave of sound. Soon, it melded into a low-decibel grumble, mingling with the residue of a thousand other explosions.
Supercell Page 21