CHAPTER 1

.....June 16th, 2006
.....Saturday
.....11:30 PM

.....'Twas a big ol’ starry-skied Wyoming night. Stars, stars, and more stars crowded at each other on the blanket of measureless black. One of them lost its grip and became a shooting star, falling from the tapestry as crickets chirped.
.....The full moon rose from behind the craggy bluff of the Teapot Dome, looking askew at the empty plain below.
.....All in all, it was another typical night in the outback of Big Wonderful Wyoming, what with nearly a hundred thousand square miles of not one whole hell of a lot happening.
.....An unimaginatively-drawn state stuck near the center of the United States map, Wyoming is a splotch of scrub pushed to one side by Nebraska and with spare mountains donated to the western border by Idaho.
.....Throughout its history, small towns would occasionally pop up and, lacking the modesty to give up and go away, remain.
.....Natrona County offered up a few of those towns strewn across its arid landscape, a square-shaped county stuck near the heart of Wyoming like a postage stamp licked and planted on top of another postage stamp. In between the towns lay miles of nothing, interrupted occasionally by more nothing.
.....Jackrabbits frolicked on the two-lane blacktop that ran a straight line through Natrona County, a strip of tar that was still cooling hours after sundown. The critters paused in their play; ears cocked, suddenly alert.
.....Down the stretch of pavement, a rebel yell began to build as a pair of cockeyed headlights blazed out of the darkness.
..... “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-”
.....A battered sixties-vintage Ford Econoline roared along the road, oily smoke pouring from a crude smokestack jutting through the roof of the vehicle.
.....A peeling sticker slapped across the rear bumper read GOT METH?
..... “-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!”
.....The van rolled up the ribbon that was laid down through the middle of Nowhere, USA. As the Detroit dinosaur bore down on them, one of the jackrabbits zigged when it should have zagged and was snuffed out in a beat of its pattering heart, its insides turned outside and spattered across the tarmac that would serve as a sunrise breakfast platter for the crows.
.....No one in the van noticed.
.....With a crackle of air frying, the Delco radio struggled to pull in the signal from a distant AM station.
.....“In the 2004 round of Homeland Security funding, the state of California received about $5.00 per capita, New York $5.25...”
.....The cowboy riding shotgun spared the radio a sour look.
..... “... and Wyoming, with a population of only half-a- million people, received near $40.00 per person. The big question here is: what does The Cowboy State do with that kind of money?”
.....He eyed the driver. “Can’t you get anything else on that damn thing?”
.....“Tape deck’s broke,” the driver replied. “You want me to sing for you?”
.....“Spare me.”
.....Caught by the headlights, the squat rectangle of a road sign emerged from the darkness ahead. Holding his cowboy hat down with one hand the passenger leaned out, cocked his arm, and let fly with a beer bottle as the van passed the town limits sign.
.....With the backwash of Milwaukee’s Best serving as ballast, the missile flew true, streaming a trail of foam.
.....Boosh!
.....Beer and shattered glass dripped down across the white-on- green surface.

.....The road rose to look down on the small town that lay sleeping behind the sign, streets empty, all of the lights out for the night. All dark except the sparkling gleam of an after hour oasis set as bait on the edge of the far end of town: a convenience store of glass and beer posters, neon hum.
.....Welcome to Kwickie-Stop.
.....They already had beer. The van barreled on. As it swept past the parking lot, a banana peel was spat from the passenger window. Caught in the backwash of the vehicle, it spun through the air, hit the pavement and flopped along. Slid to a stop.
.....Settled to the asphalt on splayed peel...

.....The air coming up off of the pavement was stagnant, the night breeze late for its shift. A flagpole stood sentinel off to the side of the mini-mart, American flag hanging listless.
.....A weathered blue El Camino was parked indifferently out front, engine block ticking as it cooled in the night air. The vehicle's faded-glory skin was bandaged with Bond-O and bumper stickers.
.....I BRAKE FOR HALLUCINATIONS one read.
.....Twenty feet behind the vehicle the banana peel was sprawled, locked and loaded on the tarmac.
.....Inside the Kwickie-Stop, talk radio venom spewed from the store speakers. Perched over a rack of corn chips and dips, the security camera stared down at the teenaged clerk behind the counter.
.....Colby Elkhart was tall and still awkward with his body, acne drooling from the corner of his mouth. His Kurt Cobain-tribute mop split to the sides of his beaky nose.
.....He was also one very seriously spooked convenience store clerk. The boy snuck a look though his bangs out to the aisle, then up to the camera.
.....He met the blinking red gaze of the camera nervously, then returned his attention back to the only customer.
.....It was young Mexican dude. Of course. A tweaker by the look and vibe of him, with lank, unwashed hair that hung down over his face. A distressed fatigue jacket hung over a Creed T-shirt, with thrashed jeans slung low on his skinny ass.
.....He had a liter bottle of Mountain Dew tucked under his arm, and he eyed the medicine section with baffled intensity. He picked absently at a facial scab. The bigger one of many.
.....He sniffed, then darted a hooded look to the clerk.
.....“Where’s the decongestants?” Accusingly, as if the clerk had ran the supply into the back on his arrival.
.....“What kind?” Colby sighed. He was well used to sighing tonight, his night off. He’d been called in to cover for the regular overnighter, who had called in drunk. Not in so many words, but still the same result. Do someone a favor and it always came around to bite you in the ass, he thought.
.....His ass was already aching in anticipation.
.....“Sudafed, Dimetapp, Triaminic,” the tweaker shrugged as he navigated the slender aisle up to the counter. Colby took a step back away from the funk of the stale sweat, the smell of dirt and oil soaked denim.
.....If the tweaker noticed, he didn’t show it. “I don’t really care, just as long as it has pseudoephedrine. That’s the only shit that works for me.”
.....Colby managed to rein in a look of distaste lurking just out of sight. “We usually keep it behind the counter.”
.....The tweaker leaned over the counter, looked. He didn’t see it.
.....“It’s summer,” Colby clarified. “We don’t have it out yet.”
.....“I got the allergies real bad.” The tweaker sniffed again, as if to prove his point. “So you have it in the back?”
.....The clerk paused. For too long... the freak was making him nervous.
.....“Um...yeah,” he finally nodded.
.....“So can you go get some for me?”
..... “I’m not allowed in the back when the store is empty.” He shrugged. “Security reasons, y’know?”
.....“Hey…I’m here,” the tweaker smiled helpfully. It was an ugly smile, a rictus brace of gray, eroded teeth that made him look as if his skeleton was trying to escape through his mouth.
.....“I’ll keep an eye out for you.”
.....Great.
.....“What do you need?” Colby finally offered. He just wanted to get rid of the guy.
.....“Whatcha got?” The tweaker reconsidered, then decided to play his hand all the way through. “Fuck that, I’ll take whatever ya got back there.”
.....“I’m only allowed to sell one pack a customer per visit. It's the law. A federal law.”
.....“So you want me to buy a pack, step outside, come back in, buy another pack...”
.....Colby shook his head impatiently. “It doesn’t work that way.”
.....“...I’ll be comin’ in an’ out all fuckin’ night.”
.....Now there was a prospect that Colby really didn’t want. He glanced back up at the security camera long enough for the tweaker to follow his gaze, and then headed into the back.
.....The clerk out of sight, the tweaker reached over the counter and snatched up a pack of Parliaments, and stuffed them into his fatigue jacket.
.....Fuck the camera.
.....Besides, he figured that it was just one of those dummy cameras. By the looks of the place, management was too cheap to keep a real camera going.
.....They were.
.....The Harding Police Department wasn't.

.....A handful of minutes up the road from the Kwickie-Stop, an ancient fortress crouches in the center of the sleeping town, seemingly chiseled from rough-hewn stone.
.....It abides, as it has for over a hundred years.
.....In a darkened room two flights up, a plasma screen HDTV monitor takes up almost the entire length of the far wall. It is surrounded by six smaller monitors, three on each side of the larger sister, each tuned to a different part of town.
.....The home theater monitor is a Samsung HPR8072, the best damned 80” plasma screen monitor that public money can buy.
.....A dispatch desk oversees the monitors, lit in the gloom by a red light flashing a silent warning. Voices crackle over the police band, urgently plotting their positions.
.....A burgundy-nailed hand sleeved in dark uniform reaches in, taps a button.
.....The tweaker in the convenience store hits the big screen.

.....The clerk returned from the back, a carton of Contac in one hand, and one of Advil Cold and Sinus in the other.
.....“Which did you want?” he asked, sliding the packages across the counter.
.....The tweaker eyed them hungrily and licked his cracked lips, then slapped down with the plastic. “Both.”
.....Of course.
.....Colby rang up the soft drink and the cold medicine, picked up the credit card and eyed it suspiciously.
.....Twyla W Gomez read the name on the card. The clerk looked over the card to the tweaker.
.....The dude sure as hell didn’t look like any Twyla he had ever met, but he just wanted the guy out of his store and pronto. He gave the card a swipe.
.....There was a hum as the debit machine considered the data and the two eyeballed one another without looking like it during the pause.
.....Finally the machine beeped: APPROVED.
.....He handed the plastic back and slid a receipt across the counter for the man to sign. With a flourish of hiccupping scrawl, the tweaker obliged. He tucked the cold medicine under his arm, grabbed up the Mountain Dew and made his way to the door.
.....The metallic funk of tweaker hung around to cover his back as the doorbell chimed adios.

.....The door sighed shut behind the tweaker. He paused to unwrap the Parliaments, leaving the cellophane to drift off in the sudden breeze. He batted a cigarette out of the deck and raked a safety match against the tattered seat of his jeans, the sputtering flame sparking his narrowed eyes as he lit the cigarette.
.....As the tweaker stepped off of the curb towards the El Camino, he stopped in his tracks. Cocked his head... listening.
.....Sniffed.
.....Something was off. His tweaker sense was tingling, a feral recognition of impending bad juju. He could feel it in the air, in his diaphragm. Through the soles of his battered Chuck Taylors.
.....Something was behind the building, and it felt big.
.....He turned, craning his head to look up over the roof of the Kwickie-Stop as the roar of sustained thunder began to build.
.....The American flag stirred to life, began to flap heroically with the sudden wash of wind and parking lot debris. There's a lot of dust in Wyoming, and a good part of it started to fly. It roiled about the tweaker as a metallic whine began to build, then switched to the thundering hubbub of helicopter blades slicing through the night.
.....The ground itself seemed to tremble as the dark form rose up from behind the convenience store, nearly invisible in the darkness. It paused to hover, and the harsh beam of a spotlight lanced down from the belly of the beast to pin the tweaker.
.....Below the CHUP CHUP CHUP of blades, the speaker squawked to life:
.....“This is the Police. Put your hands in the air and remain motionless.”
.....The Mountain Dew and cold medicine hit the asphalt as the tweaker ignored the second order to obey the first. Slowly his hands rose to clasp behind his neck, just like on TV, but his eyes darted towards the El Camino, measuring.
.....“I said put your hands up, Muthafucka!”
.....A steely crackle erupted from the darkness about him as rounds were chambered into automatic weapons. Black forms shifted in the night, invisible to the eye save for the movement.
.....And in holding with the tradition of tweakers not being the quickest animals on the uptake, he made a break for his vehicle...
.....Deadly fireflies spark from the darkness as full-auto gunfire erupts.
........and in glorious Sam Peckinpah slow motion, the fool was torn apart.
.....Flames belched from the muzzles of automatic weapons and the night was slashed by the passage of untold NATO-approved .223 rounds. Empty shells arced through the night to rain off of the pavement, spent cordite smoking from their lips. Blood hosed from the tweaker as flesh was punched from his shuddering body, held up only by the crossfire, tracers leaping in from every direction.
.....Behind him the plate glass windows of the convenience store shattered, cascading down like glass hail.
.....Inside the store, the clerk hit the floor, covering his head. A bumblebee's nest of bullets roiled above him, perforated paper and product swirling about him in a confetti maelstrom. The cash register exploded and change rained down, bills wafting after.
.....If he wasn’t actually being bitten in the ass, at least it sure was being puckered.
.....Outside the Kwickie-Stop, a late-arriving trooper scurried from the cover of darkness across the parking lot. The halogen glow from the street lamp glinted off the matte surface of the bulky tube slung over his shoulder. Combat boots slapped on pavement, broken glass crunching under heel as the trooper moved in, bent on joining the rhubarb.
.....The trooper didn’t see the banana peel splayed in the shadows, and the heel of his boot connected perfectly with it.
.....As the heel flew up the trooper went ass-over-teakettle, the ass part slamming into the pavement with a jolt that tightened the trigger finger of the Surface-to-Air-Missile launcher that he was carrying.
.....The launcher launched the rocket with a loud whoosh as it shimmied a trail of fire across the parking lot towards the El Camino, punched through the rear window, exited the windshield and entered the store.
.....The missile slammed into the glass-framed shelves of beer and the cooler exploded.
.....With absolute hell unleashed around him, the clerk couldn’t even hear himself scream. A brief fireball belched over him and dissipated. As the debris of shattered bottles and foaming cans poured around him, the boy decided that he might stand a better chance making a break for it.
.....He lurched up and scurried hunched towards the door, hands over his head as he burst through the frame of the glassless front door.
.....“Don’t shoot!”
.....The walls of the convenience store bulged as a fireball erupted through the windows, the shockwave hurling the teenager through the air. He hit the ground, moaned and rolled over onto his back...
........ to look up into the smoking muzzles of a circle of M-16s.
.....“I work here...”

.....After a brief glimpse into the abyss, the plasma screen image of the interior of the convenience store cuts to snow.
.....With the tap of another button, the picture switches to a view of the Kwickie-Stop parking lot.

.....Cops milled about in black paramilitary gear, alert in case they came under fire from a surprise attack by a drug-crazed squad of tweaker support. They moved tight-shouldered and cautious through the gray cloud of cordite that swirled beneath the rotors of the hovering helicopter.
.....Colby was on his stomach being cuffed. He was crying.
.....I’m not even supposed to be working tonight, damn it.
.....Reading the boy his rights, the arresting officer’s voice was as cold and emotionless as the helicopter squawk box.
.....“... under arrest for violation of Federal Statute three-ten- slash-seven-six, sale of a controlled substance...”
.....“Hey, Kehoe!” a voice called out urgently.
.....The cop paused in the reading of charges, turned. Another officer knelt by what was left of the tweaker, holding up an opened wallet. He didn’t hold it too high because a chain still connected it to the tweaker’s belt. Smoke curled up from a bullet hole in the battered leather.
.....“This guy’s a minor!”
.....Kehoe's eyes narrowed. “... to a minor. You have the right to remain silent, that is to say nothing at all.”
.....A roiling piece of fastfood wrapper, waxy paper and grease engulfed in oily flame, was sucked up in the helicopter’s backwash. Dancing in the vortex, it swept up and connected with the flag, which curled around it, embracing the spark.
.....“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...”
.....The flag went up in flames.

.....