Heat Lightning

G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS
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    Copyright © 2008 by John Sandford
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without
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copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase
only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada
     
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sandford, John, date.
Heat lightning / John Sandford.
p. cm.
    eISBN : 978-0-399-15527-7
    1. Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Veterans—Crimes against—
Fiction. 2. Government investigators—Minnesota—Fiction.
3. Minnesota—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.A516H
813’.54—dc22

     
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
    http://us.penguingroup.com

For Benjamin

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    Heat Lightning was written in cooperation with my old friend and hunting partner Chuck Logan, the author of a terrific bunch of thrillers of his own—the latest being South of Shiloh from HarperCollins. Chuck and I have shared a number of adventures that later turned up in our books, and that taught us about things like tracking blood trails through the North Woods. . . .
     
—JOHN SANDFORD

1
    THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT: the shooter was going to work.
    He jogged through the night in a charcoal-colored nylon rain suit and black New Balance running shoes, with a brilliant reflective green strap over his shoulders, like a bandolier. With the strap, he jumped out at passing cars; nothing furtive here, nobody trying to hide anything. . . .
    He ran carefully, taking his time. The old sidewalk, probably laid down in the first decades of the twentieth century, was cracked and shifting underfoot. A wrong step could leave him with a sprain, or worse. Not good for a man with a silenced pistol in his pocket.
    The night was hot, cloudy, humid. Lightning flickered way off to the north, a thunderstorm passing by. The tempest would miss by ten miles: no relief from the heat, not yet. He ran through the odor of summer flowers, unseen in the darkness—nice houses here, well-maintained, flourishes of Victorian gingerbread, fences with gardens, flower heads pale in the dim ambient light.
    Stillwater, Minnesota, on the bluff above downtown, above the St. Croix River. Third Street once had so many churches that it was called Church Street by the locals. The churches that remained pushed steeples into the night sky like medieval lightning rods, straining to ward off the evil that men do.
     
THE SHOOTER passed the front of the redbrick historic courthouse, which was guarded by a bronze Civil War infantryman with a fixed bayonet and a plaque. He paused next to a hedge, behind a tree trunk, bent over with his hands on his knees, as if catching his breath or stretching his hamstrings, like runners do. Looked around. Said quietly, “On point.”
    Dark, silent. Waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.