The Big Time

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

WHEN TROY REACHED THE edge of the bridge, he could just make out the dark shape of his father in the middle. The chop chop of the helicopter seemed closer, but it droned back and forth, still moving without an apparent purpose.

"Dad?" he called out.

"Yes," his father said softly. "It's me, Troy."

Troy stepped out onto the steel bridge, his feet clapping the metal with an empty sound. When he reached his father, he stood facing him, and his dad put a hand on each of Troy's shoulders.

"I know this is where you come to dream your biggest dreams," his father said.

Troy thought he saw the glimmer of tears in his father's eyes. Troy's own eyes began to fill, and he said, "But this is a nightmare."

"I didn't mean it to be, Son," his dad said, wincing and looking up into the starry sky. "You have to believe that. I was never going to take your money. I was just going to trade it. You have to understand. They said they'd kill me, Troy. I took their money and invested it because I thought I couldn't lose. I was in the big time. It was all going so well-my condo, the planes, the Porsche-and then the economy, it just…no one thought it could ever happen. I…I…"

His father hung his head, and his shoulders sagged. He clasped his hands, wrung them together, and swayed. Over the sound of crickets, Troy heard the growing thump of the helicopter's blades pounding in the night. Above, the fat beam of a spotlight stroked the stars, wavering, and then burst through the trees to light up the bridge. They turned and shielded their eyes against the white light. Troy's father took Troy's arm and pulled him into a tight hug. He squeezed the back of Troy's head so that it almost hurt.

"I'm sorry, Son," his dad said. "I love you, but I have to go."

Behind him, Troy heard the shouts of men.

He opened his eyes. Over his father's shoulder he could see the dark shapes of the agents advancing with flashlights. His father was trapped.

"You can't," Troy said, grasping for a hold on his sleeve even as his father stepped away.

In horror Troy watched as his father ducked beneath a steel beam and turned to face him from the outside edge of the trestle.

"I love you, Troy," his father said, raising his voice above the thundering helicopter. Then his father looked around at the men running toward them and at the helicopter, still beyond the trees but sweeping the branches above with wind from its blades so that they shook and trembled in the swirl of light and noise.

Someone shouted, "Stop!"

Troy's father held up a fist that told Troy to be strong.

Then his father jumped.

The helicopter sprang into the open sky between the trees, its spotlight glaring down at the murky Chattahoochee below.