American Terrorist by Lou Michel

Author:Lou Michel [Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2015-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

While millions of Americans were celebrating Easter Sunday, Timothy McVeigh was preparing to drive to Oklahoma City and stash a getaway car there. McVeigh had arranged to meet Nichols early that afternoon at a pizza restaurant near Nichols’s home. McVeigh then would drive the Mercury to downtown Oklahoma City, with Nichols following in his truck. The two would then ride back to Kansas together.

But there was a problem: Nichols failed to show. In the last few weeks McVeigh had begun to suspect that his friend’s enthusiasm for the bombing was waning, that Nichols was getting cold feet. As he waited, his anger grew. Fortier dropped out on me, he thought in disgust. Now Nichols?

Infuriated, McVeigh punched Nichols’s number into a pay phone. When Nichols picked up the phone McVeigh let loose, screaming so loud that Nichols’s son, Josh, could hear his voice through the phone ten feet away. This action was “for keeps,” McVeigh shouted, and it must move ahead. He cursed Nichols, threatened him; his voice rising, McVeigh extended the threat to Nichols’s family. One anonymous phone tip, McVeigh promised, was all he needed to put the authorities on Nichols’s trail.

“Get in your fuckin’ truck!” McVeigh screamed. “Now! This is for keeps!”

Nichols finally gave in. “Okay,” he said, “I’m on my way.”

Before he could leave, Nichols had to explain to his family why he was leaving them for at least ten hours on Easter Sunday. He told them he had to drive to Oklahoma City to pick up McVeigh, who had brought a used TV all the way from Las Vegas that belonged to Nichols. That Nichols’s family was willing to accept that as an excuse says as much as anything about the close relationship between the two Army buddies.

Before he could leave, though, Josh pleaded with his father to take him along. It was his last full day in Kansas before he had to fly out to return to his mother in Las Vegas; the long ride together would give them some time together.

But Nichols refused, saying it would be too uncomfortable with three people in the truck on the way back. He promised to spend some time with the boy on Monday, maybe even rent some videos to watch together on the TV he was bringing home.

When Nichols showed up at a pizza shop where McVeigh was waiting, McVeigh had little to say.

“Okay,” barked the still-enraged McVeigh, “let’s go.”

They drove five hours to Oklahoma City, Nichols following McVeigh’s old clunker. The ride gave McVeigh time to think about the partners he’d chosen. Nichols and Fortier had been in the Army, but they’d never been to war. They didn’t understand that war means action. Hard choices. Life and death. McVeigh had wanted a willing partner to take up his crusade of violence, and he wasn’t pleased that Nichols had gotten cold feet. Though he saw no alternative, McVeigh hated having to twist Nichols’s arm in this final stage of the plan. For McVeigh, these closing days with Nichols

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