“So, are you satisfied with the flight, Captain Garcia?” Dak asked.

“Everything looks nominal from here,” I said.

“Don’t know what those folks at NASA would do without you to help get ’em in the air every night,” Dak muttered.

“It’s not every night, it’s more like-”

“Couple times a week.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. It was about that often, at least when I could [12] convince Dak to fire up Blue Thunder and take me out there. “Anyway, this one’s taking the crew up to the Mars ship.”

“What’s your problem, Dak?” Kelly asked.

“No problem. Just restless, I guess. Manny likes to come out here, look at ’em take off. Way I see it, it’s just one more ship taking off without me on it.” Dak looked at the horizon where the rocket had faded into the black sky. He looked hungry. At last he looked back at us.

“How about it, Manny?” he said. “Go back to the heartbreak hotel and hit the books? Or do a little off-reading first?”

“Is that one of those rhetorical questions?”

So me and Kelly piled into the back of the truck and Dak and Alicia got in the cab, and Blue Thunder roared to life. I’ve never asked just what Dak has under the hood, but I figure NASA would be amazed if they could take a look. Put wings on Blue Thunder and it could probably catch up to the VStar. Dak flipped switches on a dashboard only a little less complicated than the ones in airliners, and the lights came on in groups. There were headlights and taillights and searchlights. Yellow fog lights hung below the front bumper. Tiny running-board lights could be made to crawl around the truck, like the sign for a Miami casino. More headlights were mounted on the big chrome roll bar that Kelly and I clung to, standing up in the pickup bed. And right behind a thick Plexiglas spoiler on the hood was the truck’s crowning glory: a blue neon scrawl spelling out “Blue Thunder.” Cuban gangbangers in immaculate low-riders, not an easy group to impress, had been known to drive into ditches in amazement when Dak rocketed past. As more and more lights came on, the color became visible, a blue so rich the only place on Earth you could duplicate it was deep in the ocean, and of a transparency you could only get with dozens of coats of paint and endless hours of buffing. Blue Thunder was more a work of art than a vehicle.

Which is not to say it wasn’t a hell of a vehicle. We bounced over the dune, me and Kelly holding on to the roll bar in the back, and then all four of the big off-road tires bit into the loose sand and we were off.

I knew as well as anyone that we should have gone home and done a few hours of studying. But if we had, Dak would never have run over the ex-astronaut.

IT’S NOT STRICTLY legal to drive on the beach in Florida.

Okay, it’s against the law. Would you believe they used to have car races right out on the sand, not very far north of where we were that night, until they built the big track at Daytona? It’s true, I’ve seen the video. Now they worry about every quart of oil that might make its way into the Atlantic. I’m not saying that’s a bad idea, but if anyone thought Blue Thunder would leave so much as a drop on the clean sands of Cocoa Beach they didn’t know Dak very well. You could cook and eat your dinner right off the engine block, assuming Dak would ever let you do such a messy thing to his baby.

Dak would be spending hours tomorrow hosing off the worst of the salty sand. He would remove wheels and brakes and shocks to clean them with a toothbrush. If you think I’m kidding, you don’t know Dak.

Kelly and I hung on tight as Dak steered through the packed sand and foam, and every time he hit a wavelet spreading across the beach we’d get a fine salt spray in our faces. Looking down through the open moon roof I could hear the throbbing drums of some new South African group Alicia had discovered. I could see the dash lights, including the fuzzbuster unit I’d helped him install. It was supposed to alert us if [14] there was a cop transmitting anywhere within two miles. We knew the cops had seen us out there, we’d heard them talking about us. They were even pretty sure of who we were, and so far hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it. They had to catch us first, and there wasn’t a police vehicle in the whole state of Florida that could keep up with Blue Thunder in the sand.

Kelly had one arm around my waist and one hand on the roll bar, and that felt great. I had my arm around her, too. The wind and the spray blew through her hair and she looked great in the moonlight. Dak was staying close to the water and far from the dunes, because the soft, rolling sands were where nighttime lovers liked to spread their blankets.

Life seemed just about perfect. And that’s when we ran over the guy.

He looked like a piece of driftwood when I first saw him. He was lying on his back looking up at the stars, or what few stars you could see with all the lights of Cocoa Beach behind us. I saw him turn his head and squint against the bright headlights.

Kelly saw him the same time I did, and she shouted something and started pounding on the roof. I looked down.

Alicia straightened up-

Dak glanced up at me-

Kelly hit the roof even harder-

Dak looked forward… mouthed an obscenity… slammed on the brakes.

Blue Thunder’s wheels locked and we began to skid sideways. Dak corrected. He had us straightened out again when we ran over the man’s legs.

We came to a stop. The truck’s engine died and for a moment there was only the sound of the surf. Then everyone started shouting at once.

I don’t remember what anyone said. It wasn’t anything terribly smart, I know that. We were scared.

Kelly and I jumped out of the pickup bed and hurried around to the side of the truck. Dak had his door open, but that seemed to be as far [15] as he could go. He had his arms over the steering wheel and his head buried in his arms. He was shaking.

Alicia hadn’t been able to get out over Dak, so she came around the front. Dak’s running-board lights dazzled our eyes so we couldn’t see in the darkness beneath them. Alicia shined her flashlight down at the sand, then made a little squeaking sound and backed up a few paces.

“We cut off his legs,” she whispered. Kelly turned around and made a gagging sound, then turned back. I knelt close to where Alicia was shining the flashlight beam.

I could see that the man’s legs ended a lot sooner than they should have. Blue Thunder had thrown up some big ridges of wet, heavy sand. I couldn’t see where his legs ended because the sand covered most of them below the knees.

But I saw his shoes easy enough. They were a good five feet away from his kneecaps and three feet away from the truck.

Dak stepped out of the cab, took one look at the disembodied feet, staggered into the surf and vomited.

I felt like doing the same… and then I realized what had happened. I went over to them and prodded one with my own shoe. It rolled over. There was no foot inside.

Alicia knelt and shined the light under the truck. Kelly knelt beside her and worked her hand down into loose sand.

She pulled up a bare foot, holding it by the little piggy that stayed home, or maybe the one who had roast beef. A leg came up with it, perfectly well attached to the foot. There weren’t even any tread marks on it.

First you feel a wave of relief. Then you get angry. I wanted to kick him. What sort of jerk lies in the surf line in the dark?

But I could almost hear my mother’s voice. Oh, yeah? What kind of jerk goes joyriding on the beach in the dark? Okay, Mom. You’re right, as usual.

“Let’s get him out of there,” I said, and grabbed a foot. Dak took the other and we slid him out, where he squinted up into Alicia’s light.