L aks’s driver, though not much of a conversationalist, had been the living embodiment of professional competence until around dusk, when he swung the wheel hard left, crossed the road’s oncoming lane, smashed through a barbed-wire fence, and let the rig’s momentum carry it some distance into a pecan orchard. There it rested for only a few moments before all its electronics went dead and the engine stopped running: an event that seemed to coincide with a blinding flash of light in the sky off to the right.