The second book in the Bill Tasker series, 2005

I want to thank my friends at Putnam, especially Neil Nyren and Michael Barson, for guiding me through my first year.

I should acknowledge my agent, Peter Rubie, whose odd mind provided the impetus for the story.

My good friend Reed F. Coleman came up with the title Shock Wave. I am in his debt.

I would also like to thank all the cops out there who supported me on the launch of my first book. You guys are the best.

He took a deep breath, not only to calm down, but in response to the Latina in a red bikini crossing Ocean Avenue. Her abdominals formed an olive-colored sign pointing to her pierced navel. She held that South Beach-distant attitude on her precise Cuban features as her long, jet-black hair fanned out behind her. She was one of many, but he definitely noticed her.

Looking down at the gym bag, he felt for the SIG-Sauer P-230 pistol he had tucked in between the seats in case of emergency. Really, it was in case of disaster. In an emergency, the six other cops watching him would swoop in and rescue him. If that failed, he might need the little.380 with its eight shots. The last thing he wanted today was a disaster. His first undercover gig since his last disaster. Even though that one had had nothing to do with undercover, or even a fuck-up on his part. He patted the gym bag to reassure himself. It was small scale as far as undercover deals went: five pounds of pot for some supposedly untraceable handguns. But there would be a good payoff. Many times, guns like these were used in homicides. Once they had the firing marks and ballistics, he figured they’d be able to connect one of them to something good. If not, they had a creep willing to trade guns for dope off the street.

Bill Tasker scanned the street in front of the Clevelander Hotel to make sure all his covering surveillance was in place. Working with his own guys from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement made him feel a lot more comfortable. God knows he didn’t want to deal with the Bureau right now. He’d seen firsthand how they could lose targets on surveillance. The FDLE agents had two Miami Beach cops with them, but it was for courtesy as much as to be able to call in every cop in the city if there was a problem. Everyone had been briefed and knew what to expect. He wasn’t too worried.

He caught the last possible glimpse of the girl in the bikini as she headed down the slightly elevated dune toward the water. At this part of the beach it was a fifty-fifty chance she’d go topless, maybe even nude. Tasker didn’t have to check to see if the other FDLE agents saw her; they didn’t miss much. She wasn’t even his type. He went for the natural-girl-next-door, not the if-you-don’t-have-a-Porsche-I-won’t-talk-to-you type. But he couldn’t deny her obvious attributes, real or store-bought.

Tasker snapped up his head as he caught sight of the Ford F-150 coming down the street.

He tracked the truck with his eyes and grabbed his cell phone. He never used a radio on an undercover, just in case he forgot and left it on or the bad guy found it. Whatever could go wrong during an undercover did go wrong.

“You guys see him?” he asked over his Nextel.

“No problem, Billy. We’re set,” a voice answered. Then, “He’s not alone. Be ready.”

Tasker tensed. Could be a rip-off. The team had discussed this but everyone figured no one would rip a lousy five pounds of pot. The big deal here was the fact that the guy wanted to pay with guns. Tasker watched as an older white Ford truck crept toward him. That was one of the reasons he’d chosen South Beach as a meeting site: over here, a pickup stuck out like a porn star in Utah.

Tasker pressed the button on his Nextel. “It’s cool. I’ll see what they have to say. Tell everyone to stay back.”

“Ten-four,” the voice said.

The truck was now half a block in front of him. The bearded driver recognized Tasker sitting in the driver’s seat of the rented Suburban. FDLE liked using big rental cars so they had room to put in a camera, and if the car got trashed during an arrest or shot up somehow, all they had to do was turn it back in. They were down to one of the last rental companies in Dade County.

The pickup made a quick turn across the oncoming traffic, pulled down the side street and parked in the space for people checking into the hotel. The big bearded guy named “Bud” stepped out of the driver’s side and gave the area a good look. A smaller guy, about thirty, dressed sharper in slick pants and a silk shirt, spent a few seconds checking his look in the truck’s side mirror.

Tasker could see right off that this was the man with the guns. The redneck he’d dealt with the last time was just a middleman. That was always what happened. You meet someone, identify him and then have to arrest someone else. In this case, Tasker had had an analyst do a workup on Lloyd “Bud” Wilson, a landscaper from south Dade, and now he saw that Bud wasn’t any smarter than he’d seemed when they met last time. He just knew someone with guns.

Tasker made a quick safety check of the Suburban. He glanced up at the passenger-side visor, just able to see the tiny microphone for the transmitter. If it worked, the surveillance agents would hear what was going on. His Nextel was on private and the gun was still hidden in the seats.

The big redneck, Bud, waved as the pair approached the truck. Tasker rolled down the passenger window so they could talk to him without walking into the street.

Tasker leaned over and said, “Hey, Bud, who’s your friend?”

Bud ran his thick fingers over his sunburned face, “Well, Willie, this here is the fella that can put his hands on the guns.”

“Thought you were bringing them today.”

“We brung a sample.”

The smaller man held up a small satchel.

“Sorry, Bud, we had a deal. Don’t have time to waste on a guy that dicks me around.” Tasker started to roll up the window.

The smaller guy stepped in front of Bud. “Willie, I thought we could talk.”

Tasker ignored him. Bud had obviously told him Tasker’s undercover name and didn’t seem to mind having this slick little bastard cut in.

Tasker paused and looked at Bud. “I don’t hear anyone talkin’, Bud, ’cause you’re the only one I know. Now, I came in good faith and expected at least six handguns. I don’t see them, so I’m leaving.” He put the big Suburban in gear, but gave the two crooks a second to convince him to stay.

Bud put his hand on the half-closed window and said, “Now, hold on there, Willie. Gene here is gonna get the rest from the truck.” Without waiting for Tasker to reply, the short guy, Gene, grabbed the keys from Bud and scurried back to the truck, cutting across the open courtyard of the Clevelander. Bud leaned into the window. “I’m sorry about this, Willie.”

“Who is that guy?”

“Gene-he’s a mover and shaker down in Homestead. I had a little trouble coming up with the cash for the guns, so he’s fronting them. He’s just watching his investment.”

The idea that anyone in the rural community of Homestead would be considered a mover and shaker made Tasker smile. He kept his eyes on the short man as he headed back with a heavy backpack he held across his shoulder. Bud opened the rear door and slid in before Tasker could say anything. Gene jumped up front with the bag. Tasker hoped that move wouldn’t prompt the surveillance guys to come in. No one liked a bad guy behind the undercover agent.

Gene said, “Sorry, Willie, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t a cop.”

Tasker finally acknowledged him. “What made you decide I wasn’t?”

“You were ready to drive off. Just a businessman.” He had a harsh, Brooklyn accent. His hair was combed back, but it was a cheap cut. His watch looked like a Cartier but had an odd band. “Besides,” Gene added, “if you’re a cop and I ask you, you’re required by law to admit it.”

Tasker stared at him, then at Bud, trying to decide if one or both of them might be mentally challenged.

Gene asked, “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“A cop?”

“No, I am not now and have never been a cop. How’s that?”

“That’s good. Now, what’ve you got?”

Tasker kept a close eye on Bud, then said to Gene. “What have you got?”

Gene started to say, “We can play games all-” when Tasker just reached over and grabbed the backpack off his shoulder.

Gene cleared his throat and said, “Or you could take a quick peek.” As Tasker rummaged through the bag, Gene continued. “I brought a good assortment. Three Tec-9s, two Taurus nine-mills and a couple of Smith.38s.”

Tasker nodded, still looking in the bag. “Not bad. Where’d you get ’em?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis.”

“Can I sell ’em or will they be hot?”

Gene smiled. “I wouldn’t sell them to a gun shop or nothin’. Now, what do you got?”

Tasker set down the pack and leaned down to retrieve his gym bag. He slid the brick of pot he’d checked out of evidence for this reverse sting and held it in his lap. “Five pounds of Colombian gold. Fresh and wrapped tight from the field.” He held up the brick so Bud in the backseat could see it. As he did he noticed the backside of the brick for the first time. On the inside of the wrapper, where he hadn’t felt it, was an evidence tag that read in bold letters: FDLE EVIDENCE MIAMI OFfiCE #1043.

Tasker thought, Holy shit, how did I miss that? He held the brick firmly with the back to him. Gene tried to take it, but Tasker wouldn’t budge. A thin film of sweat formed over his forehead.

“Let go. Let me take a look,” said Gene, tugging on the pot.

Tasker said in a louder voice, “Looks like we’re good to go.” That was the verbal signal over the transmitter for the arrest team to move in. He kept his hand on the pot.

“Willie, what gives?” asked Bud from the backseat.

Tasker looked up and didn’t see anyone moving toward him. He knew that time seemed to stand still whenever an undercover agent gave the arrest signal, but this was ridiculous. Maybe they hadn’t heard him. He needed to give the visual sign, too. All he had to do was flash the lights, but the only way to manage that was to let go of the pot.

Gene finally pulled the pot brick loose, freeing Tasker to flash the lights.

“What are you doing?” asked Gene.

Tasker saw a blocking car coming from the south and then a couple of the agents sitting around the hotel bar and pool ease toward them. Then everything happened at once.

Gene flipped over the pot, Bud saw the activity outside the Suburban and pulled a Taurus nine-millimeter and Tasker knew he had to bail to stay out of the line of fire. He reached for the door handle.

Gene realized what the sticker was, and said, “He’s a fucking cop,” as he swung the brick hard into Tasker’s face, slamming his head against the window.

Bud panicked and slid to the rear driver’s-side door, away from the approaching agents and, without looking, kicked open the door and jumped out.

That was a mistake. A kid impressing a model in his dad’s Jaguar XJ-8 was taking advantage of a break in traffic and caught the slow-witted Bud clean at about forty miles an hour. The door to the Suburban and Bud seemed to mix into a crumpled mix of man and metal.

Tasker, coming out of his daze, saw Bud’s blood-streaked face, an eye already out of the socket smeared across his side window. The body, stuck on the grill of the Jag, slid past the end of the Suburban’s hood, then onto the pavement, until poor Bud slipped under the blue Jag’s wheels just as the kid brought it to a stop. Even Gene and the arrest team were momentarily stunned by the sight.

Then Gene made a ballsy move. He jumped into the backseat and out the missing door. He sprinted like a scared deer, his short legs pumping in fast motion. He shot past the stopped arrest team car and headed south down Ocean. Easily the fastest guy Tasker had ever seen in person.

Tasker got out, hearing another agent asking if he was okay. It still sounded like he was in an echo chamber. He nodded, waving the agent off to go chase Gene. Three other FDLE agents with their badges on chains around their necks and their heavy ballistic vests showing from under large untucked shirts gave chase to Gene, the would-be gun dealer.

Someone handed Tasker a handheld radio so he could hear the gasped description of where the chase was headed. Two agents were trying to free Bud’s lifeless corpse while the others fanned out to see if they could help corral Gene.

Tasker monitored the radio as he retrieved his gun from the battered Suburban and started walking west on a side street, still listening as the arrest team would lose, then find Gene. He pictured the foot chase and started to see a pattern. Gene wasn’t the dumb-ass he seemed. He had led the arrest team away from the hotel and now seemed to be heading back. Back to the truck, for which he still had the keys.

Tasker waited, and then, as the chase came back his way, ducked into the covered entrance for some construction going on a block west of the old run-down Clevelander. He quickly looked around and picked up a piece of scrap three-quarter-inch plywood about the size of his leg. He heard someone call out that Gene had turned down the street and Tasker caught a glimpse as he approached. He owed this mope a swat in the face, so without any warning he calmly stepped to the edge of the temporary construction wall and swung just as Gene appeared.

The old plywood split easily across Gene’s face, but the effect was spectacular. The short man flew back off his feet and landed with a splat on the cracked sidewalk.

Tasker leaned over the gasping, bleeding man and said, “You’re under arrest.”

Bill Tasker watched his supervisor lean back in his cheap, prison-made chair. The heavyset man defied physics every time he stretched his girth across it. Tasker always held his breath during this movement, but so far he’d never had to take any emergency medical action.

“Billy,” started the fifty-five-year-old supervisor, “I just wanted to say you done good yesterday. Made a good arrest. Had one dumb-ass killed, but that was his own fault. Just wanted to say you done good.”

“Thanks, boss.” Tasker knew where this was headed, because he had been waiting for a talk like this the last few weeks.

“I know you got roughed up by the FBI pretty good over this Alpha National Bank shit. But no one here ever believed anything the Bureau was saying.”

Tasker nodded. At night, when things were quiet, all he thought about was his recent brush with the FBI. He knew he’d been the victim of a frame-up, pure and simple. Even though frame-ups are largely a Hollywood invention, Tasker had had an FBI agent named Tom Dooley plant evidence that pointed to him stealing a satchel of cash from an Overtown bank during the recent riots. The real story was still confused, but it looked like Dooley himself had taken the money, though nobody seemed to know where it was, and now Dooley was in jail waiting for trial and the FBI was embarrassed by the whole situation.

The supervisor said, “I know people wonder where the cash ended up, but no one I ever talked to thinks you had anything to do with it.”

“Thanks, boss.”

The supervisor went on. “That’s why I’m glad you got a good long-term case going now. I’m just sorry you’re tied in with the Feds on it.”

“No, you were right, we need the ATF in on this. They know Stingers. And they’re a good outfit. Hard workers, regular guys. I like working with them.”

“I know you’ll do us proud.”

“Thanks, boss.”

Later that afternoon, Bill Tasker sat on an intracoastal seawall near the Bay Front area, talking with a lean City of Miami cop named Derrick Sutter. Sutter had been on the original robbery task force with Dooley and Tasker that had started it all. The two of them caught up on news as they spilt a bag of plantain chips. Sutter had saved his ass during the ordeal over the stolen money, even caught a bullet from Dooley. Tasker wouldn’t forget that.

Sutter stretched his long thin arms as he took a deep breath of salty air. He cocked his head, giving Tasker a look. “You want me to work on another task-force investigation?”

Tasker nodded. “Technically, this is a joint investigation, not a task force.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Task force is a long-term, multiple-case commitment. A joint investigation means we don’t have to get friendly with the Feds because it’s a one-shot deal.”

Sutter was still on edge. “You remember the last one we was on?”

“I recall a little of it.”

“I remember ’cause I got shot.”

“Yeah, I know. But this could be a good case. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have someone I trust in with me.”

“I don’t understand why the Feds are involved at all. FDLE has all the jurisdiction we need, unless you set the deal up in Texas or something.”

“We called ATF because they have the expertise on Stingers. Hell, they made a great case on the IRA with a Stinger in West Palm. Then ATF had to call the FBI because there must have been a terror-related angle.”

“How’d the Bureau link terrorists to a redneck selling a Stinger?”

“What else is a Stinger for? Doesn’t matter, anyway. They’re in the case, and I want you, too.”

Sutter ran his dark hand over his darker face. “You know I’m still pissed off the damn FBI rejected my application. I think it was a racial thing.”

“I thought it was because you were nine hours short of a bachelor’s degree.”

“That’s what I mean. It was a racial thing.”

“I thought you got booted out of Florida International for missing class your last semester.”

“It was a racial thing.”

Tasker just looked at him.

“Yeah, little white French-Canadian girl from Hallandale. She never let me go.”

“That’s how you were oppressed?”

“Let me have a little racial anger, my brother. I’ll help you on the damn case as long as the Feds leave us alone and no FBI guys shoot me again.”

Tasker had to crack a smile at that one. “I can almost guarantee no one in the FBI will shoot you during this case.”

Bill Tasker sweated as he cranked the pedals of his Trek mountain bike. He rode on the grass swale while his eight-year-old, Emily, steered her smaller Mongoose on the road next to him. Her long blond hair, in a ponytail, bounced behind her with each stroke of the pedal. Her muscular little body propelled the bike smoothly over the paved road. Another year or two and he wouldn’t have to ride in the grass so that she could keep up.

Tasker’s ten-year-old, Kelly, was in her weekend art class at the Kendall Community Center. He used the two-hour class time to take Emily on little adventures she liked, generally something athletic, in keeping with her attributes. Only having them every other weekend made each visit special. He took any minute he could to spend with the girls. Even if he couldn’t live with them, he wanted them to remember all the fun they had when they did see him. Things like this would keep their mother from saying he was too focused on his job, that work was always his first priority. Real type-A personalities didn’t find time to ride bikes with their daughters. Did they?

They tracked west on Coconut Palm Drive in the Redlands, having to deal with only the occasional car. Emily told him about school and gymnastics and her friends near his old house in West Palm Beach, about an hour and a half north of southern Dade County. Her permanent good mood was infectious, but Tasker was still troubled. He had tried to ask his youngest daughter about her mom’s dating status. His ex-wife had come on strong while he was in the soup with the FBI but had cooled things off when he was cleared. She’d been vague about the reasons, but he knew one of them was a defense attorney named Nicky Goldman. Tasker knew him a little from his days working in West Palm, and he did seem like a nice enough guy, but that didn’t lessen the pain of knowing his ex-wife was dating a lawyer. A defense lawyer at that. At least personal-injury attorneys didn’t risk public safety to win a case. Tasker’s uncle had been a lawyer until he’d become a judge in the mid-eighties. He was a man of integrity and had real disdain for most of the modern attorneys. Tasker respected his uncle’s views and attitudes. Now, with televised trials and million-dollar jury awards, it seemed lawyers had mortgaged their souls for some success. All that was fine until he thought of one of them interacting with his daughters or, worse, interacting closely with Donna.

He pulled his bike onto the road for a minute, coasting next to Emily. Catching his breath, he asked, “How’s your mom doing?”

“Fine.”

That was a hard answer to follow up on. No useful information, but indicating that there was no real problem. Damn. He hit it another way.

“What’s she doing this weekend, since you and Kelly are gone?”

“She said she was going to stay in bed all weekend.”

“She sick?”

“No.”

Damn. He pedaled back onto the grass.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“I’m tired. How far are we going?”

He smiled. “One more block and we’ll turn around after a quick break. How’s that?”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

They turned north on the next block, but Tasker kept them pedaling for a few more houses. Then he saw it. The small, lime-green one-story with a carport and rotting shed next to it. The guy he’d arrested on South Beach, Gene, had given him the name of the man with the Stinger for sale. A little research had turned up this address.

“Let’s take a quick break,” he said, stopping the bike with Emily in front of him so he could see the house but make it look like he was talking to her. He memorized a few details: the location of the house numbers, the shape of the front bay window, the white chipped paint on the latticework by the front door. A pickup truck with a toolbox on the rear and side of the bed was parked on the grass. The door had a faded magnetic sign that had something about large pests written on it.

Then Emily said, “Let’s head back. I need a drink.”

Tasker nodded as he started off and took one more look over his shoulder at the house.

“Nice job on the setup, Willie,” said Camy Parks. “Nice middle-of-the-day deal, plenty of time to set it up and check out any leads on him. I like it.”

Tasker smiled. He was happy with yesterday’s meeting, too. He could’ve let Bernie Dashett run out and get the Stinger, but by putting him off until today he’d been able to get surveillance on him and plan things more carefully.

It was an hour before he was supposed to meet with Bernie, and everything was going well. The FBI had put a surveillance team on his house, the briefing was completed and everyone was ready to head out to the undercover location at the Cutler Ridge Mall. Although Tasker had seen FBI surveillance teams firsthand, he didn’t think this good-old boy from the sticks would be able to pick them up.

Jimmy Lail bopped up and said, “Dawg, I got your back on this. Things slide shallow and I’ll be in the shit.”

As Tasker tried to decipher that comment, Sal Bolini, who hadn’t said a word, approached them. “Well, kids, I’m outta here.”

Camy asked, “You’re not interested in a potential terror case?”

“Doesn’t involve my informant. I checked with him and he never heard about any Stinger for sale, so you can call me if there is a problem.”

Tasker asked, “Did your snitch know Dashett?”

“The FBI doesn’t have snitches. We have informants or sources of information. I didn’t even bother to ask my informant about your mope. This informant is too valuable to taint with this penny-ante shit.”

“So you’re done with the case?”

“If I need something else, I’ll read Snoop Dogg’s 302.” He gave Jimmy Lail a look almost as condescending as he’d given the other agencies involved.

Tasker never understood why all the Feds referred to their reports by numbers. The FBI used 302, the DEA wrote a DEA-6. All Tasker ever wrote were investigative reports. Nothing fancy, but somehow he still managed to make arrests and solve cases.

Bolini patted Tasker on the back and said, “Good luck, kid. Don’t decide to take the money and run.”

Tasker flushed as the older FBI man walked away casually.

Jim Cobb had been an FBI agent for nearly four years, the whole time stuck down here in Miami, following different suspects as part of the SOG, or Special Operations Group. What sounded like a great assignment had turned into the most monotonous, mind-numbing task ever invented. All he did, with a squad of other agents, was follow people. No arrests. No investigation. Just surveillance. Following people running errands, meeting other mopes and mainly going about their lives-while he wasted his. Now he was doing the same thing. Watching this guy who just gave a missile to the main suspect, Bernie Dashett, while everyone else got to kick ass and take names.

Cobb heard over the radio that the deal had just gone down. He knew the arrest team would be over here in the next few minutes and decided he needed to do something to make a name for himself. He could see the guy who’d handed off the missile, wandering in and out of a small, detached garage. If he pulled up nice and easy to the street, he could cut across the yard and get the drop on the man before he even knew anyone was on the property.

As Cobb watched the man move around, he couldn’t resist the urge to jump in and make the arrest. His bosses might be so impressed they’d bump him over to counterterrorism or some other high-profile assignment. He’d have to come up with a reason why he’d acted alone. He thought about it and decided that he could always say it looked like the man was about to drive away. That’s why he’d made the arrest without backup.

Cobb checked the black belly bag that held his Glock model 23. He unzipped it and checked the compact.40-caliber pistol. He pulled a set of handcuffs off the car’s brake release, where he always stored two sets. Putting the car in drive, he eased off the curve and slowly headed right for the house. He could feel his heart rate climb. This was only his fourth actual arrest where the defendant hadn’t surrendered at the U.S. Marshals’ office at the courthouse.

He parked the car casually without squealing the tires or turning on his blue light. That was a little disappointing, but he knew he had to keep it calm. He stepped out of the car and then up the slight slope of the side yard to the carport. His hand was shaking as he unzipped his pouch and slowly drew his Glock. He kept his eyes on the door to the garage and started to creep toward it.

Just as he got to the door, he heard someone say, “Excuse me, can I help you?”

Cobb spun to see the man he had been watching standing at the rear of the garage. He must have walked out the other side while Cobb made his way over.

Cobb raised his gun and placed the sights at the center mass of the man, right at his chest. “FBI, on the ground.” The man looked stunned, so Cobb added, “Now!”

The man complied, falling straight to the hard cement floor of the carport with his arms naturally splaying out. Cobb knew he just had to wait till the troops arrived. He was gonna be a star.

The phone kept ringing even after Bill Tasker woke up, making him realize it wasn’t a dream. He reached across to the nightstand and fumbled with the receiver.

“Hello.” He sounded like an old frog with throat cancer.

“Long night?” asked a female.

“Kinda.” He waited to identify the voice, then realized it had to be his ex-wife, Donna. “What’s up? The girls okay?”

“Just making sure you remembered I was dropping them off about six.”

“Can’t wait.”

“How’s everything with you?”

Tasker wanted to make a comment about her recent reversal on their relationship, but let it slide. “Good, good. Made a big case yesterday. I bought an air-to-air missile.”

Donna said, “Wow, that is big. I saw in the Post that the FBI bought one, too. Are there that many floating around?”

“Where’d the FBI do it?”

“ Cutler Ridge.”

The FBI had started their normal bullshit again.

At the ATF impound lot, Bill Tasker looked over the old Chevy 1500 truck that Bernie Dashett used for his exterminator business and to deliver the Stinger missile. Camy had gone into her office and left him to look through the toolboxes that ran around the entire truck bed walls. The toolboxes had been unlocked, but nothing appeared missing from inside. Anything that had been loose in the truck bed had been thrown into the cab.

He opened the door and had to step back from the stench of tobacco and something else. He couldn’t be sure what caused the musky odor, but felt confident it had to do with Bernie Dashett’s occupation.

A metal cage with springs inside sat on the seat. Tasker lifted it and examined it closely. This had to be the cage Wells said he fixed. He set the large cage outside on the ground. The cab was still a mess. He couldn’t tell if it was always like this or was the result of the search by impounding agents. An empty duffel bag lay crumpled on the floor in front of where the cage had sat. He found a lone sheet of paper that wasn’t stained and wrinkled. An official receipt from Naranja Engineering, for forty dollars, for repairs and alterations on a possum trap. The receipt was dated two days earlier. The day of the arrest.

Early Monday morning, after a good weekend with the girls and a pleasant conversation with his ex-wife when he dropped them off, Tasker found himself again in Naranja. He had already been by Wells’ house twice. Once at six-thirty, then again at seven. Finally he saw movement about seven-fifteen. It was early, but he didn’t have much time. He parked on the street and walked up to the front door over the long, narrow driveway.

A wiry boy about six with a buzz cut showing just a haze of blond hair answered the door. Tasker flashed back to his childhood summers of sunburnt heads from Mom’s buzz cuts the day after school let out.

“I bet they call you Buzz,” said Tasker, leaning over with a smile.

The kid slammed the door. Tasker heard him yell. “Mama, there’s some weird guy at the door.”

After a minute’s wait and some peeking from behind the curtains, a surprisingly beautiful woman answered the door. She seemed different from the other day somehow, more striking. Her blue eyes and light complexion made her look Scandinavian, but her accent marked her as a southerner. Not Florida. Alabama maybe.

“Can I help you?”

Tasker showed his badge and identification. “I’m Bill Tasker.”

“I remember you.” Her tone wasn’t harsh, just cautious.

“Mrs. Wells, I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute.”

“Daniel says he tried to explain at the jail, but you wouldn’t listen. You don’t understand. My Daniel is a good man. A smart man. He has three years of college. He only left the University of Florida to help his daddy when he got sick. He’d never do nothin’ like you said.”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” Even in a night-gown with the boy hanging on her leg, this girl exuded grace. The words “southern belle” came to mind. There was something else. Something that didn’t fit with his image of a southern belle.

She looked at him. “What do you need?”

“I’d like to look at his workshop.”

She shook her head, tentatively. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Tasker nodded. “I understand your reticence.”

She gave him a quizzical look.

“I understand your reluctance,” Tasker said. “But I need to check some information.”

She thought about it. “I don’t know,” she started slowly. “I don’t wanna get him in worse trouble somehow. You ain’t got a warrant, do you?”

“No, nothing like that. I want to see if I can back up Daniel’s story at all.”

She looked up at his face, almost studying it. “That other fella just tried to trick me into saying stuff the other day.”

“What other fella?”

“The FBI agent, Mr. Cobb. He told me all kinds of things, but he didn’t want to help Daniel. If Daniel can’t work, we’ll lose this place. I don’t think I should make it worse for him.”

“Mrs. Wells, I am not with the FBI. I swear to God, all I want is the truth. The truth might be that Daniel tried to make some extra money and didn’t tell you a thing about it. But if the truth is that he wasn’t involved, then that’s what I want to find out.”

She assessed him carefully. Looking up into his eyes and taking a step closer, she asked, “You swear that’s what you’re doing?”

Tasker looked into her beautiful face and felt himself hesitate as he lost concentration. This girl had to know she had this kind of effect on men. She was better than a polygraph. She knew no mortal man could look into her eyes and lie.

Tasker said, “I swear to you I just want the truth.”

She took a long moment, squeezed the boy at her side and then sent him into the house with a playful swat on the butt. She looked at Tasker again. “Okay, I’ll open it up. I don’t know why, but you look sincere. I don’t think you’re trying to hurt Daniel.”

“I do just want the truth. We have enough to hold him now, anyway. But if I find anything, then I’ll know we were right. And if I find something that helps him significantly, I’ll let the prosecutor know before his bond hearing this afternoon. That’s why I’m bothering you so early.”

She nodded slowly, obviously still coming to grips with the bizarre fate of her husband. She led him through the carport to the detached one-car garage. An oversized van with faded signs that said NARANJA ENGINEERING was parked at the end of the driveway.

She stood on her toes in her bare feet to reach the keypad that opened the door. “Go ahead. I got to get my other two fed.” She hurried past him toward the house without another word.

He nodded and proceeded to scan the top of the workbench. Nothing more than tools and some instructions for a welding torch. The garage as a whole was very neat and orderly. He knew the type. A place for everything and everything in its place. His father had run the dry cleaners in Boca like that.

He looked in a few containers, one with rusty roofing nails and one with a noxious smelling, gooey liquid. Then on a small, neat desk he found something that immediately caught his attention. A personal check. Bernie Dashett had written a check to Naranja Engineering for forty dollars. Giving an alibi was one thing. But this kind of detail was unheard-of. Tasker snatched up the check and headed back through the carport. As he neared the front door, Mrs. Wells stepped outside. Now in a sundress, she looked like the girl next door, if you lived next door to the set of Baywatch.

“Find anything?”

Tasker almost stuttered. “Maybe. We’ll know by the hearing. What if we talk then?”

“You help Daniel and we’ll talk any time you like.” She smiled and Tasker knew it was time to get to the office.

“Billy, you gotta get back on the horse what threw ya,” said his supervisor, in his typical Long Island take on English.

“Sure, boss. Just take me a few days to get a handle on something decent.”

“In the meantime, I got a lead request from our Pensacola office about some fugitive down here.”

“What’s he wanted for?”

“Selling some kind of homemade explosive. Got him as part of a RICO on dope smuggling as well as separate charges having to do with an incendiary device. Could be fun.” He handed Tasker a folder with six sheets of paper and a photograph. The wide, dark-haired man had a surfer cut. He looked like he might be thick with broad shoulders and a perpetual five-o’clock shadow.

“I’ll jump right on it. Do you mind if I let my buddy from the city tag along?”

“Free manpower, no problem.”

“He just likes to get out once in a while, and I screwed up his chances on the Stinger case.”

“Don’t forget, he’s on your badge outside the city. Keep a good eye on him.”

“Believe me, boss, with Sutter you always keep an eye on him. If you don’t, he’ll have your woman, your money-and still be your friend.” Tasker winked and headed out.

Daniel Wells jerked the old parachute off his Toyota Corolla. When he climbed into the car, he realized the silk chute hadn’t kept out much water. The mildew smell made him feel like fungus was growing in his sinuses. He had spent the morning cleaning things up around the shop. Trashing old containers he didn’t need anymore. Keeping track of old accounts payable to collect. He just had a feeling his life was about to change, and the media calling him had not stopped, so he thought it was best to send Alicia and the kids away for a little while.

He had plans that had to be set in motion. Big plans. It was really all he could think about anymore. Even while he sat in jail over the weekend, his mind worked out the details that would make him a success. He’d put on a show that everyone would remember. That’s what he lived for anymore-putting on the shows. Although he had been setting small fires and playing pranks since he was five, the real urge, the feeling that kept him sane, had kicked in during his senior year in high school. After filling a milk carton with black powder and then leaving it at the table the jocks took every day, whether someone was sitting at it or not, Wells used an old garage-door opener to detonate the device. The noise and smoke were enough to give him shudders of delight. The fact that two of the star football players suffered permanent black powder marks and scars on their faces only gave him a sweet reminder every time he passed them in the halls. And he had never told a soul. He learned that when you tell someone, you get caught.

Then a year later, the same trick at the Tri Delta house at the University of Florida. This time it had detonated prematurely and set a small fire, which the sprinkler system took care of. He read in the paper about a “prank” gone bad and the subsequent editorials about how someone could have been killed. That’s when it hit him. What if someone died during one of his shows? At first it concerned him, then it excited him. The thought never really left his head.

Too bad his attempt to set off a quarter-stick of dynamite under the visiting Florida State bench a year and a half later had gotten him thrown out of school. Old Bobby Bow-den would’ve shit in his pants if that baby had gone off. His story-that he came home to help his sick dad-still held up to this day. Unless he was talking to someone who was at the game that day.

Considering all the shows he had either put on or helped others put on during the years, it was amazing that the baggage handler on the cruise ship was the first person ever killed. At least that Wells knew of. He had built remote bomb devices for a couple of people and didn’t know what had happened those times. The local Nazis, the ones that called themselves the American Aryan Movement, had a pretty good plan to blow up a Metrorail People Mover bus. The problem was they didn’t want anyone in it when it happened. Wells had built them a nice, clock-operated, dynamite-based, flammable bomb, but the cheap bastards had stiffed him on the thousand-dollar payment. That was just plain uncool. He’d gotten them back, but still figured they owed him some cash. That was something he’d see to as soon as he had the time.

Now he had to get serious about his new idea. This one would get some attention, and he might even brag about it, but only after he was out of the area.

Bill Tasker stared at the red numbers on the alarm clock next to his rumpled bed, making a game of trying to guess how far they’d advanced every time he opened his eyes. When he was a student at Florida State, he’d been a subject of a psychology grad student’s test of internal clocks. At the time he’d done it for extra credit; now he found it interesting, if for no other reason than it took his mind off how he’d let Daniel Wells walk. All he could think about was getting to the ATF lab and finding out what the results showed. He looked at the clock again: 4:43. Shit. He decided to make use of the early hours and go for a run.

Thirty minutes later, with no hint of the sun arriving any time soon, Tasker picked up his pace, cutting through the Kendall neighborhood he knew so well. No women in bikinis like at Haulover Beach or calm water like at Biscayne Bay-just some simple, efficient exercise to get him in the right mind-set for the day. He went through the details he might have to put into the search warrant for the Wells house. He could already provide an accurate description, and he knew the layout for tactical considerations. In comparison to some drug warrants, it was easy. He didn’t have to rely on some informant with no eye for what cops needed to know when they came through the door. Tasker had been inside the small house a couple of times. His main concern was the kids and Alicia. If Wells was a mad-dog bomber, would he be calm when they knocked on the door? Tasker still had a hard time believing the whole thing. Daniel Wells appeared to be a normal, decent guy. There was nothing about him to indicate he was capable of something like trying to blow up a cruise ship. Why? What would drive a man to do something like that? Had he been paid by someone else? Had he been pissed at someone in the cruise industry? Tasker was going to have to do some digging on this one.

He was showered, shaved and had finished eating just as the sun started to peek over the house across the street. He used the early hour for a quick drive by Daniel Wells’ house. It was as quiet as every other house in the south Dade neighborhood. He just made a few quick notes about the placement of street numbers and colors in case he needed to put it all in a search warrant.

The sun had just popped up over the Naranja neighborhood about ten minutes south of Bill Tasker’s town house in Kendall. He sat in his state-issued Monte Carlo, Derrick Sutter nodding off next to him. Three FDLE agents were at the rear of the house and three more in a car behind him. When they pulled in front of the Wells residence, all the agents would converge at once on the small house. He’d finished the search warrant about six the night before. By ten, after the FDLE legal counsel and assistant state attorney had reviewed it, the duty judge for the Dade Circuit Court had signed it. He hoped he wasn’t too late. His boss waited in his big Crown Vic, probably smoking a cigarette and thinking of everything that could go wrong. That was his job. The former NYPD detective was a good guy and let his agents run their own cases. That’s all anyone could wish for.

Tasker didn’t see the big step van Wells used for work. He noticed the old Toyota was not next to the garage, either. This was a dilemma every cop faced at some point: Do I go in or wait till he’s home?

Tasker nudged Sutter awake. “What do you think? Should we wait till there’s a car here?”

Sutter blinked hard. “Just cause there’s no car don’t mean nobody’s home.”

“House is dark and quiet.”

“All of them are. It’s only six.”

“No cars.”

“That’s true, but when will he be back? Could be waiting a long time. We’ll get burned before eight o’clock. Every redneck down here will think we’re looking for a grow house or chop shop. Shit, not one of these crackers got a job.”

Tasker smiled. Sutter sounded just like a racist carrying on about black residents of Liberty City. He picked up his Nextel and called his supervisor. He could tell he was awake by the smoke pouring out of the cracked window. “Boss, you out there?”

“I’m here.”

“We were discussing what to do. Looks like no one’s home. You wanna wait?”

“Nah, let’s hit it. If your man’s not there, we’ll grab him later. If there is anything you need for your case in there, it don’t matter if anyone’s home or not.”

“Ten-four.” Tasker set down the Nextel on his seat and looked at Sutter. “Looks like we go.”

“He sounded just like a boss at Miami PD. If you wait, it may cost overtime.”

Tasker nodded and then picked up the car radio to broadcast to the other agents. “We’re gonna go in a minute. We’ll do like we briefed, slow and easy. Don’t enter the garage. If no one’s home, we’ll get the Metro bomb techs just in case. The team at the front door is going to knock nice and polite, then see what happens. There may be kids inside.” He heard the acknowledgments from the others, then turned to Sutter and said, “Showtime.”

“Let me guess, your life depends on this, too?” asked the sixty-year-old man from behind his thick, dark glasses. Computer screens glowed behind him, giving him an electronic halo, like an angel. To Tasker, Jerry Ristin had been an angel when he’d helped him piece together the identity of a man who’d been part of the bank-robbery scheme. If Ristin hadn’t contributed his incredible skills as a crime analyst, Tasker might be in jail right now.

“No, Jerry, it’s not life and death, just normal urgent.”

The older man chuckled. “Whatcha need?”

“Sort through the phone books we took from Wells and see if there are any interesting links or contacts. Crooks, foreign spies, Al-Qaeda terrorists, that sort of thing.” He winked.

“Billy, for you, anything.” He took the three small personal phone books, flipped through the pages and added, “How about something by end of next week?”

Tasker controlled his anxiety about waiting, but knew the analyst would do it right. “Jerry, you’re the best.” Before he could say anything else, Tasker heard his supervisor bellow from the other side of the squad bay: “I thought you was off today?”

Tasker shook his head. “No, sir, tomorrow. I’m headed up to West Palm right now to meet my kids as they get home from school. I even have my P-car outside.” Tasker still used the old federal term for personal car as opposed to an official government vehicle, or G-car.

“I want you to step back from this case,” said his boss, as he walked closer, “but I’m not sure baby-sitting so your wife can get laid is the right choice.”

Tasker nodded thoughtfully. “I didn’t look at it like that, but it’s too late. I already committed.”

“You do more shit like that and you will be committed.”

Tasker smiled and headed out the door.

Bill Tasker threaded his Monte Carlo through the typical Kendall-north-to-Miami traffic with his mind never once registering what he was doing. A hundred other things seemed to press in on him as he tried to get control of his life. He needed to figure out exactly what he wanted. What would it take to be happy? The answer kept coming back to his girls. He needed to spend more time with them and less time worrying about the million things a police job can throw at you.

Pulling onto the 836 expressway headed toward the office, he barely noticed other cars as they whipped past him or slammed on the brakes. He just wrapped his head around the thought of raising his girls right. He’d start today. After a short day at the office, he’d surprise them with a quick trip to the house in West Palm Beach. Maybe take them out to dinner. He immediately felt the change in his mood as he became more determined to complete this simple act by the end of the day. By the time he pulled into the front lot of the FDLE Miami Regional Operations center, he actually had a smile on his face.

Five minutes later, Tasker sat next to the criminal-intelligence analyst in his squad bay. He looked down at the pile of paper which contained all kinds of information on Daniel Wells. He had past addresses, even one from Gainesville when Wells had attended the University of Florida. The printouts also showed that Wells might have been married once before Alicia. There was so much information it was daunting, but still nothing pointed to where the former engineering student had disappeared to so completely.

The analyst, Jerry Ristin, looked up from his computer screen, his thick, tinted glasses obscuring his eyes. “Well, kiddo, you got a lot to work with, but nothing that jumps out. He had a lot of jobs.”

“I thought he owned his own business.”

“He did. Looks like he contracted out as part of his business.”

“Anything interesting?”

“He worked at the Port of Miami for three weeks about two and half years ago.”

“Yeah, I knew that. When I have time, I’ll check it out. I’m planning on canvassing his old neighborhood today, see if anyone has anything to add. We didn’t do it the day of the warrant because we were hoping he’d come back.”

Ristin asked, “The couple of times you talked with Wells, did he ever say anything that might tip off where he’d go? I know you had to think of this, but I’m seeing if I can jog your memory.”

Tasker had gone over that question in his head a thousand times. “I remember him saying something about sending the kids away, and maybe Tennessee. Shit, he could be anywhere.”

“True, but you can look anywhere.”

Tasker smiled at the older man’s confidence. He’d been around a long time and had cracked a lot of cases that other people got credit for over the years. “Got any suggestions?”

“I knew you’d ask.”

“I’m ready, let’s hear ’em.”

“Call someone over at the FBI. See if they have anything on him. See if they can contact agents in Tennessee to follow up the lead there.”

Tasker frowned.

“I knew you wouldn’t like it, but it needs doing.”

Tasker said, “You’re right, but I’ve already been thinking about it. I just need to decide who to call. I’m not sure the Great White Hope will talk to me.”

“Who’s that?”

“Jimmy Lail-just some young agent who was born in the wrong culture.”

Ristin shrugged. “Do what you need to do. I know you want this guy. I’ll check his phone books and see if they lead us anywhere.”

Tasker sat for a minute, looking at the printouts and watching the analyst attack his computer. Ristin had saved him once with that thing. Tasker hoped he could do it again.

The small round table had nicks in its Formica top. The sleek, twenty-something waitress clearly resented having to work in her family’s small restaurant near the Orange Bowl and showed her dissatisfaction with every gesture of her delicate hands and every expression on her flawless face. Tasker sat, mesmerized by this striking girl, as she tossed plates onto the marred table and ignored empty water glasses. She was one of the reasons he loved coming here. The look on FBI agent Sal Bolini’s face was the main reason Tasker had asked him to meet him in such an out-of-the-way restaurant.

A thin film of sweat started to form across Bolini’s tall forehead. The heat from the kitchen, as well as the owner’s sparing use of the air conditioning, had had the effect Tasker wanted.

Tasker said, “You could take off your coat. No one’ll complain.” He smiled, comfortably cool in his polo shirt and khakis.

“I like the coat concealing my gun,” Bolini said, using a napkin to mop his face.

“A belly bag conceals pistols and keeps you cooler.” Tasker leaned back and patted his black bag. In truth it didn’t hide the fact that you were armed, it only hid what type of pistol you had. No one ever asked, but if you wore a belly bag in Miami and weren’t just off a flight from Stuttgart, you were carrying a gun.

“The bags go against the idea of being in plainclothes. If I were to wear a bag, everyone would know I was a cop.”

“What about an untucked shirt? Wouldn’t that accomplish the same thing, and you’d stay a hell of a lot cooler?”

“While I normally would enjoy a discussion on fashion, I can end this by saying that we at the FBI have… a certain image.”

Tasker nodded. “I see.”

“An image you tried to tarnish.”

Tasker flushed. “Tell me, Agent Bolini, what was I supposed to do? Take the fall on a false charge so the Bureau looked clean? It was your own agent who took the money and framed me. Should I have kept my mouth shut?”

Bolini remained silent for a few seconds and then said, “It was your attitude. That cop attitude that the Bureau is a bunch of fuck-ups and we were all against you. That wasn’t the case. Tom Dooley was an anomaly. Never happened before and won’t happen again.”

“Never happened before? What about that spy, Hanson? Or the agent indicted in the Midwest for murder? I’d say it happens more than you admit.”

Bolini’s face darkened. “This is why you called me? To nitpick? Get to the fucking point.”

Tasker cursed silently. He needed a favor, not another pissed-off FBI agent. He took a deep breath. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I need to run something past you. Something you may be interested in.”

“I’m listening.”

“You heard about arresting the wrong guy, Daniel Wells, on the Stinger deal.”

Bolini couldn’t hide his smile. “Yeah, I heard.”

“I know you’ve got some good contacts in the south county and access to some decent databases.” He paused.

“Yeah, go on.”

“This guy Wells is in the wind and I need help finding him.”

“If he was the wrong man and you got him turned loose, why do you need to find him?”

“I think he’s the guy who set the bomb on the cruise ship a couple of years ago.”

Bolini sat motionless and silent, staring at Tasker. Neither man spoke as Bolini seemed to gather his thoughts. “The Sea Maiden? What are you saying?”

“That Daniel Wells is responsible for the cruise-ship bombing.”

“The same Daniel Wells that you had released?”

Tasker kept it professional, even though he felt the mocking sting in every word Bolini uttered. “That’s correct,” he said slowly.

“You got a warrant for him?”

“Not yet, but I will.”

Bolini started to laugh, silently at first, then in big gasps, rocking his firm, six-foot frame. “This is precious. We make the arrest, you get him off and now you want us back on the case. That is just fucking hysterical.” He wiped his eyes.

“Tell me, Mr. Hot-shot FDLE Superagent, why aren’t Melissa Etheridge and Ice-T helping you on this?”

Tasker stayed calm, somehow. “If you mean Camy Parks and Jimmy Lail, they’ve opted out.”

“I thought the princess was all over the cruise ship.”

“Not with me.”

“I see. So ATF jumped onboard with the FBI in thinking you’re a mistake waiting to happen. Smart move on their part.”

“How do you figure?”

“Legally, they can’t be associated with you. They also can’t go after a guy they just arrested, then had to let go. You managed to insulate this guy Wells perfectly if he is involved in anything else.”

“I got evidence he was involved in the Sea Maiden bombing.”

“Does Camy Parks agree with your theory?”

“She hasn’t looked at it closely.”

“How can that be?” Then he paused, running his hand over his perfectly trimmed hair. “I see. No matter what you find, she’s been told to lay off. That’s rough.”

Tasker kept watching the man. He seemed sincere, for the moment.

Bolini asked, “When are you looking at getting a warrant?”

“Maybe today.”

Bolini’s eyes opened wide. “That’s crazy. What’s the rush? Shouldn’t you find him first?”

“Why wait? I’ve got enough.”

“Like when you arrested him for the Stinger?”

Tasker scooted back from the table, drawing looks from a couple of the other diners. He said, “That was based on what one of your agents saw. An FBI agent.”

“So now it’s the Bureau’s fault again. Isn’t it time you found a different scapegoat? Couldn’t you be wrong about the cruise ship?”

“I’ve got evidence.”

“Like what?”

“Wells is on a list of buyers for TATP, the explosive used in the bombing. The stuff he bought is a chemical match for the explosive, and the explosives-maker can positively ID Wells. And he’s gone. Out of the house. No info. Just disappeared.”

“What about family?”

“Gone.”

Bolini considered all that and said, “Outta sight, outta mind. It’s an ATF case, I’d drop it.”

“Can’t do it. I’m the one who let him out on the street.”

“So what-he’s no threat now.”

“How do you know that?”

“A redneck like that. You got him running. He hasn’t the time to cause any trouble. Shit, you probably scared him straight. He’s probably deciding where to move so no one ever bothers him again about a prank at the port.”

“A prank? Someone got killed because of that prank.”

“Hey, don’t get so hot. I’ll tell you what. If you want to hand over all your stuff to me, I’ll take a look at it. Maybe that’ll help.”

“Work with the FBI on this?”

“Oh, hell no. The Bureau would never touch you again. I mean I might take a look at it myself, then decide if it’s worth pursuing.”

“No way. At least I know I’m making an effort to find him. If you guys won’t help, then you can go to hell.”

“Whoa, is that why you asked me to lunch? To tell me to take a hike? What are you looking for from me?”

“I need to at least find Wells. That’s why I called you. He’s got relatives in Tennessee and a few other places out of state. He’s in your intel base. Could you check around and see if you can find him?”

“Sorry, slick. You got into this mess, you can get out. If my bosses knew I helped you, I’d be on airport-security detail, checking for bombs shoved up people’s asses.” He took the last bite of his Cuban sandwich and added, “You’re on your own.”

Tasker thought, What else is new?

…

In the woods on the side of the trailer he’d rented, Daniel Wells pulled down his mask again and applied the flame to the wire weld. The heat inside his van varied from miserable to unbearable, but he kept at it.

He’d been lucky to find this place west of Homestead, so close to his own house but out far enough that no one would bother looking for him. He’d even been back to the house twice without anyone the wiser. He’d read the search warrant the cops had left and knew that they had made the surfer from Florida City talk. He’d have known anyway, from his friend. But this just made it seem more official. He kept the note from Bill Tasker. He did owe the guy, but his special feeling was bigger than his debt to a state cop. He might call him just for laughs. The effort they had put into linking him to the two-year-old bombing actually made him feel better, more satisfied. It showed that what he had accomplished did matter. It had wreaked havoc on the ship and with the cruise lines for a while. He’d done some welding work for them and knew that the bookings would drop and cause more and more people to worry. It was like making the mood last longer than just the bang. Unfortunately, the cruise lines had gotten back on track pretty quickly and he needed something else to satisfy him.

He knew that his next move would have to be big. Even if he’d tried something smaller so he could enjoy Alicia and kids a while longer, that had all changed now. Now he needed to make a statement and show people what one man can do if he set his mind to it. The dang Muslims bragged about everything they did, but it always took a whole bunch of the little buggers to pull something off. They caused terror, there was no doubt of that, but they had to plan for years, use all kinds of confederates, and then die in the act. Wells hoped to show those little bastards that one smart, determined American could pull off an equally spectacular plan with only a little planning and no extra people who could blab. The most important point was that it would be one man… who survived… and didn’t get caught.

He took a break, sitting in the van with the side door open. He turned off the torch and took off the welding mask. This was a great place. Cash rent, a landlady who didn’t even know his last name. Plenty of room, too. Wells didn’t even know where the property line ran, with all the pine trees and scrub brush clogging the yard. He had the Toyota behind the double-wide and the van in the cleared driveway, where he could work on it. The thick pad of pine needles made it easy on his knees when he had to stoop down outside the old van.

He looked at the crease across the top of the Toyota parked fifty feet away and thought about the piece of rebar he’d blown across the field that day. That was a good experiment, and it led directly to the device he had loaded on the Sea Maiden. That had been a good plan. Pack the suitcase with some TATP, two bottles of lighter fluid to make sure something burned, and lots of old rags. He’d just placed it with a stack of luggage a family from New York had set on the dock to be loaded and it went right up the plank. He had a timer that would’ve made it blow as it was headed out to sea but before it reached a cabin. At least that was what he thought. The damn baggage handlers must have thrown it so hard it detonated. That’s why the handler had been killed. With Wells, it wasn’t a numbers game. He couldn’t care less as long as it caused confusion. Confusion and terror for the passengers and crew. He imagined it had, but he was sorry the explosion hadn’t been on a higher deck with a more visible result. He would have been happy with the big bang and people scurrying about like mice, but the killing had spooked people. The death had added another element to his feeling, his urge. Made the story last a little longer, too. But now, he didn’t care. He might want some numbers this time. After this, he’d be a damn folk hero. This was definitely a big plan, and he loved that he was the only one involved. No one to betray him to the police.

When it was all over, he’d have to go deep underground. Get the kids and Alicia and head out to the Northwest maybe. When people saw what he’d done, he could pick and choose where he laid low. Every fanatical crackpot group would want to hide him and the family from the authorities. Where would he go? He had to think of the kids. He couldn’t go with the white supremacists. They had good accommodations, but he didn’t want the kids affected by all that negativity. Besides, most of those guys were pretty stupid. And the local group, the American Aryan Movement, still owed him a thousand bucks for building a bomb. That simple fact stuck in his head and pissed him off every time he thought about it. He wanted the kids around smarter people, folks who would set good examples.

Maybe the tax protestors? He didn’t really care about them much. He’d never paid much in taxes anyway, but it was something to consider. He’d find someone. Keeping Alicia in line would be the biggest problem. She’d been pretty good, but his uncle said she’d left last week, and even though she’d paged him, it sounded like from a bar when he called back, and she hadn’t seen the kids since she left. That worried Wells a little bit. He could always let her go. She didn’t know too much. Hell, even if she did, she didn’t know what any of it meant. But, man, could she shake it.

He picked up his mask and set it in place on his head, then used his striker to light the torch. He turned and started to weld the two metal surfaces again, melting the rod to form a perfect seam. The sparks kicked past him as he worked closer to the open door. He didn’t even notice the smoldering pine needles as he crawled into the van to work the seal closer to the other side. The small patch of ground popped into a low but spreading flame. Wells concentrated on his work, still marveling at how much he was accomplishing on his own.

About twenty minutes after starting back to work, Wells felt a tug on his boot. He jumped out of his skin, turning to see a fireman, in full protective uniform with his helmet under his arm, standing next to the van. Behind him, two more firemen hosed down a patch of blackened pine needles.

Wells shut off the torch, raised his clear visor and scooted out to talk to the fireman. He quickly stood between the fireman and the van in an effort to block the man’s view. He looked over his shoulder at the other men scurrying excitedly to ensure the fire hadn’t spread. Wells now realized how much smoke the needles had put into the air and wasn’t surprised someone had called the fire department. In a small way, this little scene of turmoil caused Wells to feel his special feeling of satisfaction.

The fireman said, “You didn’t even notice you almost burned down your trailer?”

“Don’t get mad, Officer,” said Wells evenly. “I’m sorry, I was working in a lot of smoke and didn’t see this. I accept responsibility.”

The tall fireman pulled out his notebook, still pissed off. “You scared the shit out of your neighbors.”

“I said I was sorry. Isn’t it your job to do things like this? If none of us made mistakes, we wouldn’t need the fire department, would we?”

That softened the man. “I need a little information.”

“Sure.” Wells shifted to hide his work.

“Name?”

“Westerly. Dave Westerly.”

“What’s your address way out here?”

“Don’t know. It’s on the trailer.” Wells looked at the other firefighters cleaning up their equipment. “What’s this for?”

“Just goes in our records, that’s all.”

Wells led the taller man toward the trailer as the fireman took a few more notes. He walked with the fireman as he circled the trailer and the Toyota making notes and checking for any remaining embers.

The fireman finally said, “Looks all clear here, Mr. Westerly. Use a little more care with that torch, will ya?”

“You bet, Officer,” said Wells, watching the man walk over to his waiting friends on the big truck. He turned to the van, wondering if the fireman would have wanted to know why he was welding a big gas tank inside the cabin of his van.

Tasker had driven to work before traffic started to build. Inside the office, he found his reliable criminal-intelligence analyst, Jerry Ristin, staring at his computer screen through the thick, brown-tinted glasses that seemed permanently affixed to his head.

“Got anything for me, Jerry?”

“Hi, Billy, I’m fine.”

Tasker felt embarrassed for not greeting the older man properly. “Sorry, Jerry.”

“There’s more to life than work, Billy.”

“Yes, sir,” Tasker said slowly, like a kid talking to an adult.

“Now, what I have that you’d be interested in is simple-two flags on the license plates for your good friend Mr. Daniel Wells of Dade County.”

“Two hits, no shit?”

“Yes, shit,” said Ristin in a professional monotone. “One was in Homestead. And one was in the city.”

“Miami PD?”

“Yup.”

“That must’ve been Sutter running him for some reason. He’s working the case with me.”

“Regardless of Detective Sutter’s work, I can make a few calls and give you an idea of what you may or may not want to follow up on.”

“Jerry, you’re the best.”

“Please, tell me something I don’t know.” The older man smiled and winked, as Tasker jumped up to see what else he could find out.

Donna Tasker looked at the computer screen in the main office. She had checked the entire district, trying to see if any of the names that Billy had given her were registered. There were a lot of Wellses, but when she looked deeper, none came close to the ones he was looking for. It was six in the evening. Between phone calls to her friend in Broward County, and then to another friend in Martin County, she had blown three hours on this.

It really didn’t bother her; in fact, quite the opposite. Billy had never asked her for help before. She had to admit she felt a little thrill helping him put together a case, even though she had no idea what the case was about. But if he thought it was important enough to ask for help, it was important enough for her to do. She hadn’t done that when they were married, and she regretted it. She’d got so wrapped up in her own problems and worried about so many little things that she’d missed his attempts to get help.

After he’d shot his friend, the corrupt West Palm Beach cop, things had just unraveled. Billy had done what he had to do, but it had still haunted her ex-husband. He’d drift off sometimes, and she just knew what he was thinking about. Maybe someday she could make it up to him. Set things right. He was such a good guy, she hated to see him unhappy.

She made one last check of the system, then grabbed her cell phone and hit the first speed dial.

“Hello.”

She recognized his voice and smiled.

“Billy, it’s me.”

“Hey, everything all right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You don’t usually call out of the blue like this.”

She smiled to herself, feeling like a teenager with a crush. “I wanted to see if you’d recognize my voice if I just said, ‘It’s me.’ ”

“Promise I’ll never forget. How’s that?”

“Great.” She paused for a second. “I wanted to tell you that I couldn’t find Wells’ kids listed anywhere in Palm Beach County.”

“Damn.”

“And I checked Broward and Martin, too.”

“You did all that for me?”

“Of course.”

“I’m touched.”

“Don’t be a dork.” She smiled again and said, “I gotta go.”

“Thanks, Donna. You saved me a lot of time.”

After she hung up, she found herself thinking about her ex-husband for another five minutes.

Bill Tasker blinked hard, still clearing the CS from his eyes. CS was older and not used as much as the modern pepper spray, but not because it didn’t work. Police had moved to pepper spray because it was safer. CS was effective, lingered and was a bitch to clean up. Eight hours and five showers had cleared most of the irritant from his face, but every few minutes he’d feel a burning sensation and blink. It was probably as much psychological as it was physical. But the gallon of snot that had poured out of his head wasn’t psychological, just gross. Driving his personal Cherokee, because the CS had also made his issued car unusable for the foreseeable future, he turned off Pines Boulevard in western Hollywood into the new set of housing developments. The miles of new, similar houses caused the native Floridian in him to flash in anger. The houses were needed for New Yorkers escaping the cold and people escaping Dade County. It didn’t change the fact that the land had been a marshland next to the Everglades just a few years ago, and now it was a wasteland.

Camy Parks was a perfect example of a former Dade resident now living on what should have been a wildlife preserve. Tasker had been able to get her address in about five seconds on the Internet and was on his way to set her ass straight about this case. It was her investigation, and ATF needed to be involved. Tasker sure could use the help.

He found the cream-colored, two-story, zero-lot-line abomination of a home with no trouble. Camy’s ATF-issued Ford Crown Vic sat in the driveway next to a Saab that Tasker assumed was hers. There were several cars on the street near the house. No lights were on in front. It was only about nine, so Tasker wasn’t worried about waking her. He rapped on the front door, then rang the doorbell to be sure she knew she had a visitor. He had thought about bringing along Sutter, but after their little confrontation at the ATF office and Sutter’s lingering misery from the CS he’d decided to leave his partner out of this plan. Besides, after dark all he’d be interested in was getting the lovely lesbian ATF agent in bed.

Tasker heard Camy call through the door. “Who is it?”

“Bill Tasker.”

She opened the frosted glass door a crack, then said, “Billy, what are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

She opened the door wider and looked at him. “What happened? Have you been crying?”

“Yeah. Most of the day, as a matter of fact. Can I come in?”

She hesitated.

“It’s important.”

Camy sighed and opened the door for him. She had on a terrycloth robe and her hair was loose around her shoulders. She looked almost wild like this.

“Thanks,” he said, stepping into the open room with high ceilings.

“First, tell me why you were crying.”

He explained the event at Wells’ trailer in decent detail, only leaving out that he and Sutter had fallen for the second trap in his car. He could see she was at least slightly amused by the story once she knew no one was seriously hurt.

Camy said, “I’m sorry, Billy, but just because this guy Maced you, I can’t rejoin the case.”

“What are you talking about? It’s an ATF case. He is the guy who bombed that cruise ship. I know it. I also think he’s got something else planned.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, but this afternoon in his van I saw he had a big metal tank welded in the back. Unless he’s driving across the Kalahari, I don’t think the tank is good for anything but blowing up.”

Camy considered this.

“Are you gonna let a disagreement get in the way of saving people’s lives?” Tasker looked hard into her eyes.

He jumped when he heard a male voice say, “Letting Wells out wasn’t a disagreement, dawg. It was a double-cross.”

Tasker snapped his head in the direction of the man and was shocked to see Jimmy Lail in a silk, flowered dressing robe standing near the entrance to the bedrooms.

Tasker stared, speechless, then turned to Camy. Without thinking, he blurted, “I thought you were a lesbian.”

She froze, then smiled. “I never said I was. That rumor started and it was no one’s business, so I ignored it.”

Tasker looked back at Jimmy Lail, saying, “Or were you just ashamed of your culturally challenged boyfriend?”

Camy didn’t answer, but Jimmy crossed the room toward Tasker, his bathrobe flapping open slightly. “Listen, dawg. Don’t try an’ dis me.” He moved past the couch and kept coming at Tasker.

In a smooth motion, Tasker wrapped his right hand around the handle of his ASP expandable baton in his back pocket and pulled it, not snapping it open but holding it in his palm like a eight-inch stick. He held up his hand and applied a little forward thrust as Jimmy came to him. The weight of Jimmy’s body running into the point of the closed ASP aimed right at his solar plexus knocked the wind out of his sails and then the man off his feet. He stayed on the ground, gasping for air.

Tasker calmly turned his attention back to Camy like nothing had happened. “So what about it? Help me stop this guy.”

“If I ignore orders, it could be the last case I ever work.”

“Seems like it’s that way with every case for me.” He smiled.

“Can we do it quietly? Keep a low profile?”

“Everything I do is low-profile.”

Camy looked at her pissed-off boyfriend and then at Tasker and simply said, “Okay, we’ll help.”

Derrick Sutter had covered most of the obvious topless clubs in the city without finding the lovely Alicia Wells. Not that it was unpleasant duty, but he was getting tired. All he could figure was that the doorman at the Tittie Shack had tipped her off and she was long gone.

He pulled his Buick Century, the one issued to him from the now-closed robbery task force, into a spot near the Club Orion off Biscayne near I-395. He still had use of the car until the lease ran out in two months. He was the only guy from the task force left with one. Not that Dooley needed one in jail. As he thought about his former partner, he realized what a crazy few months this had been.

He straightened his tie in his reflection in the car’s window, checked to see if his eyes showed any lingering signs of the Mace attack from yesterday and moved his Glock from his hip to his waist so one of the girls brushing up against him wouldn’t notice it. He stopped in front of the simple entrance to the strip bar, looking up and down the street, trying to figure where the employees might park their cars. Every time someone walked in or out of the bar, a blast of loud music pounded in his ears. The dance club across the street had two uniformed cops at the door. He couldn’t see who they were, only that they were in uniform. Sutter figured he was far enough away that they wouldn’t recognize him.

Just as he was about to walk inside, the door opened and a woman walked out and immediately started up the side street. Sutter wasn’t paying attention but realized it was one of the dancers and saw she was blond. As he started after her, he realized the small lot behind the building held the employee vehicles.

“Alicia,” he called as he closed the gap on the fast-walking woman.

She gave no response.

When he was a few feet behind her, he said, “Alicia Wells,” and reached out for her arm.

She spun toward his touch, and before he could react he had a small canister of OC pepper spray pointed at him.

“No, wait,” was all he got out before she hit the button and covered him with orange spray. He immediately felt his eyes burn. He blinked, but it did no good as he went to his knees. “Jesus, what is it with your family and Mace?”

“Just leave us alone. Daniel didn’t do nothing wrong.” She stared to cry.

He coughed and felt snot pour from his nose. He coughed out, “Just want to talk to him.”

“Bull. He says you’re gonna arrest him.” She started to move away from him. “Please leave us alone.”

One of the cops from the dance club had trotted down the street when he heard both Sutter and Alicia yell. The wide, young black officer saw them on the sidewalk.

Just as the cop arrived, Sutter tried to stand. The cop put his hand on Sutter’s shoulder and said, “Hold on.” Sutter jerked away, not knowing who had grabbed him. Without warning, the cop pulled his own spray. Sutter opened his eyes just in time to realize a cop was with him and he was being sprayed again.

This time the accumulation of different pepper sprays caused him to go to his knees and vomit. He tried to gasp, “I’m a cop,” but it didn’t come out. He heard the cop yell to Alicia Wells, then spit up again.

Daniel Wells was mad at himself as well as at the Big Rig Academy of South Florida. He’d just mangled another row of orange cones, but he’d also learned to accelerate smoothly and was cornering much better. That didn’t seem to matter to the teacher. After he’d paid for the second chance, the school had changed instructors on him. This guy, a big tree trunk with a gigantic wad of tobacco in his mouth, oddly named Baby, had bitched about everything from the weather to the cops that had whipped his ass at a bar a few nights before. Wells wasn’t sure if the change in the instructors was because they thought he needed a fresh perspective, like they’d told him, or because the other instructor was sick of him.

Wells had listened to the man brag about how it had taken four cops to stop him, then bitch about how they hadn’t let up once they had him cowed. He ended by saying, “Fuckin’ cops. Always around when you don’t need ’em.”

Wells had listened to this as he tried to concentrate on the course. He stopped the big truck and turned to his mountain of an instructor.

“That sucked,” said the man. “If we’d turned you loose with one of these over in Vietnam, we woulda won the damn war.”

“That’s why I’m here. Wanna learn.”

“Learn? Son, they’s some things you can learn and they’s some you can’t. You can’t learn to drive one of these babies.”

“But I need to.”

“No, son, you don’t. Ain’t that much money in driving, and there ain’t enough money to cover what you might do in one of these things.”

Daniel held back a smile, thinking, If you only knew.

The big man continued. “You seem like a smart fella. You could probably do anything. Get a big-ass lawn mower and start a landscaping business. You don’t need a big rig, and we don’t need people thinkin’ you learned to drive at our school.”

“But I paid.”

“And you done got your money’s worth, too. Now, unless you want to try an take it outta my hide, it’s time for you to skedaddle.”

Wells looked at the man’s earnest expression and opened the door to the big training vehicle with BIG RIG ACADEMY painted on the side. He slid out of the cab and walked away silently. He let a small smile escape as he pocketed the truck’s extra key he’d taken off the ring. There were three more keys, so no one would notice, and he had one more piece of his plan in place.

Nothing was adding up on this case. No matter what Tasker did, Daniel Wells seemed to stay one step ahead of him. This wasn’t some kind of master criminal, either. He had no record. Or maybe that was the mark of a master criminal: no tracks. Either way, with the effort and manpower Tasker was putting into looking for this guy, he’d have thought someone might at least run into him at the grocery store. The southern section of Dade County just wasn’t that big. He had people covering every angle but had yet to put his hands on Wells. The Big Rig Academy proved he was still in the area. Tasker and company couldn’t even find his stripper-wife.

Along with the case problems, Tasker felt guilty about leaving the girls alone during the morning. It was so unusual to have them on a weekday. Thanks to a Jewish holiday that the Palm Beach County school system called a “fall break,” he had been able to have them on a rare Thursday and Friday.

Now Bill Tasker sat at his kitchen table while his girls played a PlayStation game. He’d worn them out before dinner shuttling from a Home Depot to hobby shops, letting them think he was looking for a certain type of glue, when he was really looking for signs of Daniel Wells. He figured that Wells might be looking in places like that for supplies of some kind. If Donna knew he was dragging the girls around on that kind of mission, he’d have been in for a fight. And that woman could fight. He still missed her, but she could lay a big hurt on you if you crossed her.

He looked up at Kelly and Emily as they concentrated on the TV screen. The two sisters shared no qualities other than being sweet. Kelly, the artistic, cerebral, quiet ten-year-old. And Emily, the athletic firebrand. He didn’t deserve such beautiful, well-mannered girls. That was one of his biggest problems in a nutshell. He didn’t deserve much of anything. He’d always been focused on work and tended to exclude everything else. Even after the West Palm shooting, while he was under investigation he could only focus on that. After he’d eventually been cleared, he’d still sulked about it to the point that Donna had thrown his ass right out of his own house. Now that he did deserve.

Every time he made a promise to himself that he’d spend time with his family, something happened to side-track him. He loved them and loved doing things with them. He just couldn’t let things at work drop. Tomorrow he had one meeting in the morning at the office with everyone-then he was coming straight back to these two. He didn’t care what happened.

He looked down at his and the other agent’s notes and knew there was a pattern somewhere, he just couldn’t see it. Unlike the FBI profiler, he didn’t think his own analysis was beyond question. He needed something confirmed. The one thing that the profiler had said that he continued to contemplate was the bomber’s motivation. To be in control. Tasker ran that through his maze of a mind to see if he could relate to it at all. From some of the shit he’d pulled, it seemed like Wells liked to lose control, not gain it. But maybe he was misreading what the profiler had meant. That psychobabble tended to cloud issues. Tasker thought in practical terms, and he couldn’t see a practical reason for Wells to risk his family and bomb that ship. On the other hand, he was running awful hard if he was not involved. What scared Tasker the most was that he felt Wells was working on something else. That had to be the reason he hadn’t left town. That’s why he had a gas tank welded in his step van. Tasker knew he was up to something, and that’s why when he looked up at his daughters and saw they were occupied, he went back to his notes.

Tasker had raced home from the office to do something with the girls. He didn’t want to know what Donna did with a free Thursday night. She had seemed in a good mood and had even said she’d pick the girls up right from his town house. If Emily hadn’t had gymnastics and practice for some play, they could’ve stayed another night. He’d made use of the afternoon. He had learned the intricacies of the board game Cranium and learned about the interesting lives of a pair of young black twins separated at birth and now living on Nickelodeon.

By late afternoon, he stood in his small front yard, throwing a junior-size football to Kelly, who would toss it a few feet to her little sister, who could wing it back to Tasker like an NFL quarterback. At least like a Baltimore Ravens quarterback.

He stopped one pass in front of his face, just before it took his head off, as Emily said, “Let’s run some patterns.”

Tasker smiled as she hustled over to him to line up. Kelly, avoiding the discomfort of sweat, casually strolled up to Tasker. “I’ll hike the ball. She can run any pattern she wants.”

Tasker smiled at his ten-year-old’s attitude, obviously borrowed from his ex-wife. She had her mother’s looks and mannerisms. Tasker wasn’t sure if some young man would be lucky to meet her in twelve years, or doomed. To him it didn’t matter, because she was perfect.

Emily said, “Hit me past your car by the tree.” She took off like a small blond rocket.

Tasker let a high floater sail and watched as his youngest daughter plucked it right out of the air, never breaking stride. She tucked the ball under her arm and darted across the yard, dodging imaginary tacklers all the way back to him.

“What do ya think, Daddy? Can I play in the league at home?” Her high, doll-like voice made her seem younger than eight years old.

“Sweetheart, you can do anything you put your mind to.” He leaned down to kiss her, when he saw a Ford Crown Vic rolling down the residential street. As it crept along slower, he realized it was Camy Parks. The fading sunlight reflected off her light-orange hair. He said to his daughters, “You guys go in and play on the PlayStation for a few minutes. I’ll be right in.”

The girls didn’t need coaxing. They raced into the house from the front door. Tasker stood near the patio courtyard as Camy parked in his driveway. She smiled, strolling up to the surprised Tasker.

“Didn’t mean to chase off your girls.”

“No problem. What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’. Just thought I’d give you a rundown on the surveillance. Sutter relieved me a little early and I wasn’t up to his efforts to get in my pants, so I decided to drop by and fill you in.” She smiled, obviously pausing to see what he’d say about getting in her pants.

He avoided the whole issue. “I appreciate it, but a call would’ve been fine.”

“You’re on my way home, and I was curious what your house looked like. I knew it wouldn’t be a bachelor pad.” She looked the house over. “This is very nice. Cozy.”

Tasker smiled. “You should see my other house. It’s beautiful.”

“The one your ex-wife has?”

“Exactly.”

“Your girls are cute as can be. Their mother must be a knockout.”

“She is,” he said as a casual statement of fact. Tasker couldn’t take his eyes off her. In simple jeans and a T-shirt after a full day of work, she looked like a miniature model from Victoria’s Secret.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Camy said, “You wanna talk out here or can we go inside?”

“It’s nice out. Let’s sit on the patio.” He led her through the wooden gate that stood in front of the open patio. “Wanna beer?”

“Sounds good,” she said, sprawling into a lounge chair.

Tasker hustled inside, checking on the girls, who were playing one of the Super Mario Brothers games, and then grabbed a couple of Icehouse beers from the fridge. He had already decided that he didn’t want to introduce Camy to them. She was just a coworker and he didn’t want to confuse them. Besides, if they saw Camy, they might slip up and tell their mother about the sleek, beautiful red-haired woman Daddy was talking to. He didn’t need that.

He checked his watch and noticed that his ex-wife Donna would be by to pick up the girls soon. He might need to hurry this up a little bit.

“Here you go,” he said, setting the beer on the small table next to her.

She sprang up and spun to face him as he sat on the lounge chair next to her. “I’m not sure this surveillance is a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“I watched that place for a little over five hours, and in all that time only one car came and went. A black F-250 owned by an E. Conners. He’s the listed owner of the crappy little house, and it just looked like he was doing errands.”

“Is he in the KKK?”

“Yeah, all that checks out. The house belongs to Conners. ATF knows that much. Something’s not right. It’s not the kind of place that they just hang out at. Conners is probably the only one of those morons who owns a house, so he’s the leader. The house has an orange grove around it, and Conners owns the twelve-acre pepper farm on the same street. Daniel Wells doesn’t even show in our intel base.”

Tasker thought about it. He also thought about the hand that Camy had placed on his knee and left there. This lead might be thin, but it was all they had to go on for now. “Let’s do this: we sit on it over the weekend. If there’s no movement, next week we’ll get together and talk about it again.”

“That’s fine.” She leaned into him a little. “Now that you’ve got me in this thing, I want to go all the way.” She cut her green eyes up to his.

He could feel her breath across his face. His body tightened. “I’m glad you’re here. I mean on the case.” No, he meant he was glad she was here.

“I’m glad of both.” She smiled.

As he was thinking of something intelligent and profound to say, he heard a voice from the fence.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

Tasker jumped at the woman’s voice and jerked his head toward the open gate. His ex-wife, Donna, stood at the opening, looking right at him. He couldn’t get a sense of her feelings. Was she pissed? Surprised? She was smiling, but she didn’t exactly look happy.

Tasker stood up, causing Camy’s hand to flop back in her lap. “Hey, Donna.” He glanced at his watch. “Didn’t realize it was so late.”

“Apparently not,” Donna said, looking over at Camy.

Tasker cut in. “Donna, this is Camy Parks. Camy, this is my ex-wife, Donna.”

They smiled and nodded at each other.

Donna asked, “Do you work with Billy?”

“I’m an ATF agent. We’re involved”-she waited a second-“in a joint investigation right now.”

Donna looked at Tasker. “I’ll get out of your way. Are the girls ready?”

Tasker gulped a little air and nodded.

Then Camy said, “I was just leaving.” She was moving toward the gate before Tasker could say anything. After she was past Donna, she said, “Call if anything happens tomorrow.”

“Sure thing,” was all Tasker could say.

Camy said, “Nice meeting you,” to Donna and turned toward her car.

“She’s cute,” said Donna, as she watched her hips sway away.

“That she is.” Tasker felt like he was having the same conversation twice in twenty minutes. He added, “She’s an ATF agent working on a case with me.”

“So I gathered,” Donna said. “I saw what she was working on.”

“It’s not like that. She has a boyfriend.”

“She may have a boyfriend, but she was interested in you. A woman can tell these things.” She walked over and sat on a lounger. “Billy, is it smart to have the girls around women?”

“Aren’t they around men?”

“No.”

“What about Nicky? He is considered a man, isn’t he?”

She let it go and said, “I mean, women the girls don’t know.”

“How would they meet them?”

She shrugged.

“What’s the story on Nicky Goldman? Is he divorced?”

She nodded.

“How does his ex-wife feel about you seeing him?”

“They didn’t have kids, but she’s fine with it. You know her.”

“I do? Who is it?”

“Laura, the woman who builds the websites and helps at the girls’ school.”

Tasker stared at her. “Nicky was married to Laura Parker?”

“That’s her maiden name. She changed it back after the divorce. Why’s it so surprising they were married?”

“She’s a little out of his league, isn’t she?”

“Oh, and I’m not? Thanks a lot.”

This chat wasn’t going to get any better. “Sweetheart, you’re outta my league.”

She smiled and said, “Don’t you forget it.”

“You know you’re outta Nicky’s league. What do ya see in him?”

She gathered her thoughts. “He’s sweet, and very neat.”

Tasker laughed. “That’s the new criteria? Sweet and neat? According to that, Richard Simmons would be a great catch.”

“He’s very nice.”

“Is he a boyfriend or a girlfriend?”

She frowned at that, as she let out a short snicker but didn’t scold him.

“What happened to the girl who loved excitement and thrills?”

She looked into his eyes. “Excitement shut me out and thrills moved to Miami.”

That hurt enough for Tasker just to keep his mouth shut.

…

Bill Tasker pulled onto Krome Avenue and headed north. The road was most famous for the huge INS holding facility through which it seemed like half the population of Dade County had come at some point. He picked up speed in the Gold Cherokee he was still using for work. His friend at the dealership said his Monte Carlo was being rehabbed. It no longer made the technicians at the Chevy dealer cry or vomit. The residue of the CS with which Daniel Wells had booby-trapped the car was slowly being eliminated.

In the distance, Tasker could see the parking lot of the empty convenience store that served as the surveillance post. It was two blocks from the small farming road where the house they were watching sat. From the store they could see the side yard and driveway. On the bright side, no one coming or going from the house would be likely to see them. As he came closer to the vacant store, he saw Jimmy Lail’s tricked-out Honda parked next to the shabby white building. Tasker had to admit that, although the car was an embarrassment to look at, no one would ever make it as a police vehicle.

He pulled in behind the Honda, expecting Jimmy either to call him on his Nextel or come out and greet him. After a minute of no response, Tasker climbed out of the Cherokee and eased up to the Honda’s driver’s window. Through the tint, Tasker could see Jimmy’s head resting against the glass. He was asleep. Not just dozing, but all-out dead asleep.

This was not an uncommon event on long surveillances. The hard hours and boredom contributed to cops just drifting off. That was why, when there was enough manpower, you traded off the eye every hour or so. Tasker wasn’t angry, but he didn’t think he could let this slide without some sort of practical joke. He knew Jimmy Lail didn’t like him and that you shouldn’t play jokes on people you don’t like or who don’t like you, but Tasker couldn’t help himself.

He took a minute to look around the lot to see what he could do. There was no one around, so he didn’t have to worry about startling an innocent bystander. The area had a few gang members who harassed local businesses or picked on the poor migrant workers occasionally if the dope trade was slow, but generally people didn’t frequent this part of Krome Avenue.

Tasker wasn’t sure how soundly asleep Jimmy was, but he’d work in stages and find out.

Jimmy Lail kicked his little supercharged Honda in the ass and shot north on the turnpike extension toward Pembroke Pines. A quick, surprise booty call on Camy might be just the trick to straighten out her attitude. He decided not to mention Tasker’s prank. He got the feeling that Tasker didn’t do shit like that to brag, just for his own entertainment. He’d find out on Monday.

He cranked up the bass on his DMX CD and eased back into the seat. He hit the fifth speed dial on his cell phone, barely able to hear the numbers beep over the thump of the bass.

“Hello.” The male voice was short and to the point.

“Hey, it’s working like you said.”

“What?”

He raised his voice. “I said, it’s working.”

“Jimmy, cut that rap bullshit off if you want to talk to me.”

Jimmy hit the mute button on his stereo, shocked by the sudden silence. He spoke back into the phone. “I said, it’s working.”

“Told you. Sorry you have to do it but we need the time.”

“No sizzle off my shinizzle.”

The phone went dead as the man hung up.

Jimmy shrugged and hit the number-one speed dial.

“Hello,” a female voice said.

“Hey, my lady. Just finished my five-O duty and thought we might share some lunch.” He laughed, then said, “And then eat.”

“Who’s this?”

Jimmy sat up straighter. “Whatchu mean? Camy, it’s me, Jimmy.”

Her giggle carried over the phone. “Really. How was I supposed to know that?”

Jimmy relaxed. “Everyone’s in a funny mood today.”

“Anything happen on surveillance?” she asked.

“Wells didn’t show yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Tasker is on it the rest of the day and night.”

“That was nice of him to take two weekend shifts.”

“Why not? Whole thing’s his fault.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”

“Check it out, awright. I arrested Wells and he sprang him.”

“You didn’t arrest him for the bombing. We arrested him for something he didn’t do.”

Jimmy sighed. “That’s just work, baby. What about it? I’ll be to your crib in thirty minutes.”

“Sorry, Jimmy. I can’t see you today. Got too much going on.”

“More important than me?”

“ ’Fraid so. Sorry.” The line went dead.

Something was up with that girl, and he didn’t like to think what it could be.

…

Tasker settled into his surveillance like most any cop looking at a sixteen-hour stint: slowly. He pulled his Cherokee back a few feet to catch the shade of the empty building’s overhang as the sun slid west across the sky. Even though he knew he could leave the area for food or a bathroom break, he was prepared and had packed two sandwiches, though more out of economic need than dedication to duty. His little cooler held four canned Cokes, and his empty Gatorade bottle was on the seat next to him. The big bottle, or as the drug guys call them, the “portable John,” eliminated the need for repeated runs to the nearest gas station, which in this case was ten minutes away. Tasker asked his neighbor to save the bottle since he wouldn’t buy Gatorade. Being a Florida State alumnus, he had an aversion to anything developed at the University of Florida. He had bought Powerade for years before the commercial showing the origins of Gatorade began airing. Keith Jackson aside, he had no reason to be reminded of anything worthwhile coming out of Gainesville.

The day was uneventful, with several more cars than usual visiting the house. From his current position, with the help of binoculars, Tasker could clearly make out faces coming and going at the old, run-down house. None of the drivers coming up or down Krome even seemed to notice him. No pedestrians walked past. That was the only way to tell his Cherokee was running. He had his fanny pack with a Beretta model 92-the.40 caliber-and two extra magazines in his belly bag. To be on the safe side, he had pulled his Heckler & Koch MP5 nine-millimeter machine gun and put the short black weapon on the front seat with an extra thirty-round magazine next to it. It seemed like overkill. He wasn’t what some cops called a “gun queer.” He just thought that if something happened way out here in the middle of nowhere he should be prepared. He had just been issued the.40-caliber Beretta to replace his old nine-millimeter. Between the two guns he had almost a hundred rounds in case of trouble.

The hours passed, until the sun finally set over the Everglades and he stepped out of the car to stretch. He turned off the engine and leaned against the warm hood, twisting one way, then the other. In a matter of seconds, he felt first tiny gnats, sometimes called “no-see-ums,” then the bigger, louder mosquitoes started to land and attack his ears, neck and exposed arms. He tried to brush them off a few times, but they landed in greater force each time. Finally he retreated back into the Cherokee and slammed the door, cursing the tiny bloodsuckers. He cranked the engine and then spent ten minutes killing all the mosquitoes that had followed him into the vehicle. The small incident turned his mood sour and focused the frustration of the case. In fact, he felt frustration at this surveillance. There had to be a better use of his time. How had he gotten talked into it? As he tried to recall the chain of events that had him sitting next to a swamp watching an old man’s house with seventy-five mosquitoes at eight o’clock on a Saturday night, an old Chevy Caprice rumbled into the lot and parked near the rear edge, about a hundred feet from Tasker. His lights were off, but the engine was running. He kept an eye on the vehicle as five young men poured out of the lime-green, beat-up car. They huddled around the hood talking for a few minutes, then, almost in a single-file line, started slowly strolling toward Tasker’s car.

Four of the men stopped next to the building as the one in the lead came to within a few feet of the Cherokee. Tasker looked at his passenger seat, where the Miami Herald sports page was covering his MP5. He looked through his tinted window, knowing the twenty-year-old white kid couldn’t tell who was inside. He heard the guy in jeans and a plain white T-shirt say, “Yo,” then, after no response, get louder and say “Yo” again. Two of his friends came up to join him. One moved to the passenger side of the car. Tasker smiled thinking of a Discovery Channel show he’d watched with his girls about the pack behavior of wild dogs hunting antelope in Africa. The big difference was that the antelope didn’t have automatic weapons.

The leader took a step forward and tapped on the window. “Yo, mister.”

Tasker knew that they had a problem with gangs out here. Some preyed on migrant workers, some sold crack. Tasker hoped these might be the bullies who bothered the poor migrants. Rolling down the window, he could’ve made these losers a mile away for redneck dropouts from some high school south of Kendall.

The leader said, “Man, why didn’t you answer me?”

Tasker kept his voice low and calm, “Didn’t know I had to.”

The kid looked at him sideways and said, “Yo, whatchu doing out here? You lost?”

“I’m fine, thanks.” He started to roll up the window.

“Wait, wait, wait.”

Tasker stopped the window. “What?”

“This here is private property.”

“Is it yours?”

“Naw.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” said Tasker, rolling the window the rest of the way up.

The kid stepped closer and rapped on the window with his knuckles.

Tasker appreciated these young men breaking his boredom, but he had to put an end to it. As the window came down again, he said, “What’d ya want, son?”

“Naw, man, what do you want?”

“I don’t want a thing from you.”

“Then you must got something. ’Cause out here you either keep driving, you need something or you got something. So what do you got?”

Tasker shrugged, sliding his hand under the unfolded Miami Herald. “I don’t know. All I got is this submachine gun.” He pulled the MP5 up from under the newspaper. “You want some of it?”

The young man stumbled back, saying, “No sir, I’m sorry to bother you.” By the time he was on his feet, his friends were in the car, throwing it into drive.

Tasker chuckled as they burned rubber out of the lot. His temporary good mood faded quickly as he felt the frustration rising in his mind again.

“It’s as hot as Pamela Anderson’s ass out here,” said Derrick Sutter to Bill Tasker.

Tasker looked at the empty lot and tall sawgrass along the unkempt edges of Manny’s abandoned market and had to agree. He’d brought his partner lunch at the surveillance post and thought he’d break up Sutter’s day with a visit.

Sutter looked at the FDLE agent and said, “What’s bothering you now? You got everyone to agree with you, Wells is a bad guy. You got the FBI to work on a Saturday. You’ve performed miracles, and you still don’t look happy.”

Tasker smiled at that. “Something’s not right with this.”

“The case?”

“This surveillance. You think Wells would be here?”

“No, not really. He does seem too smart to be mixed up with them. He’s got a job, or at least did have a job, which most of the Klan jerk-offs don’t, and he seemed too normal. But that doesn’t mean shit, because apparently he’s not if he likes blowing things up.”

“This seems like a huge waste of time.”

“Almost everything you investigative agencies do seems like a waste of time. I’m a street cop. Hit fast and hit hard-that’s what I like.”

“But this specific surveillance used all our manpower and brought the rest of the case to a dead halt.”

“Yeah, that’s true. But I’m a black man watching the Klan. I can’t complain. Told my dad and even he was impressed.”

Tasker smiled at Sutter’s positive outlook, then caught sight of a pickup truck coming out of the street. It was the third time in twenty minutes it had come up Krome Avenue and driven past them. He let his eyes follow it. The big F-250 had three men in the bed and two up in the quad cab.

Sutter said, “What is it?”

“Just nervous.”

“About the truck that’s filling up with rednecks?”

Tasker nodded. “Exactly.”

“Now you were about to tell me why you were worried about the case.”

“Jerry Ristin called me yesterday.”

“On a Sunday? Our analysts aren’t quite that dedicated.”

“It was a sensitive matter. He didn’t want to talk in front of the whole group.”

“That include me?”

“I’m tellin’ you, aren’t I?” Tasker looked outside to see the F-250 slowly pass again, headed toward the house, this time with another man in the back. “Jerry said one of the numbers in Wells’ personal phone book comes back to the FBI.”

“No shit! What’d you suppose he was doing with that?”

“We’re gonna find out.” Before he could add to his comment, Tasker saw several men at the corner of the yard looking back toward Manny’s Market. “I got an idea.”

Sutter cut his eyes to Tasker. “This doesn’t sound like a smart idea, but go ahead. What’s your plan?”

“I pull away, maybe down the road, and see if they hassle one guy sitting alone.”

“So I’m bait?”

“Yeah. You could be better bait if you rolled down the window.”

“So they could see I’m a black man?”

“They are supposed to be the KKK.”

“All you want is a pretext to question them and maybe get in the house.”

“And end this fucking surveillance.”

“Go hide like a baby.” Sutter smiled.

Tasker said, “Let me call for reinforcements.”

Alicia Wells blew her nose like her mama had taught her, mouth open and with full force. The honking sound was not very ladylike, but it cleared her clogged nose.

Ever since Daniel had told her of his plans, she had been sinking lower and lower into a funk. She wasn’t sure if it was the idea of moving to Montana that upset her so much as the idea of moving to Montana with Daniel’s two boys.

The other thing that was bothering her was Daniel’s comment that he was going to do something in Miami. She didn’t want Daniel doing something he’d get in a lot of trouble for, and she didn’t want anyone getting hurt.

She sat on her couch and started to sob again as the rush of ideas flooded her mind again. She had some money and could just take off. Daniel wouldn’t find her if she didn’t want him to, and he wasn’t the kind of man who’d bother her mother to find her, or even look that hard. But it didn’t seem right somehow. She couldn’t just walk away. She wouldn’t ever see him again, or little Lettye. She could live without seeing the boys, but even the thought of losing them forever had a sobering effect.

She looked out her window at the backyard of the main house. Mrs. Garcia’s granddaughter was kicking a ball in her pretty white dress. The squat Cuban lady held her two-year-old granddaughter’s hand to steady her from time to time. That was all Alicia wanted: a normal life, and to watch her kids grow up. Was that too much to ask? She started to cry again.

Tasker knew it was a dream, but he went with it anyway. In his mind he was with an old girlfriend and she wanted him, not the satchel of cash he was accused of taking. Her dark, shapely legs were about to encircle him when, just like in real life, somebody pounded on his front door and ruined the moment. It took a couple of seconds for him to realize the rapping was real and he was still in his own bed, alone. He rolled to his right and looked at the alarm clock. Who would be pounding on his door at seven-fucking-thirty in the morning? Normally he’d be up and around, but his interview with Sami Al-Soud at MCC had kept him up late, as he and Sutter had contemplated, over a beer until nearly two in the morning, what the hell was going on with the case.

He sat up in bed and ran his hands through his sandy, short hair. He slipped on a pair of gym shorts that were lying on the ground and pulled an FSU T-shirt off the chair near his bedroom door. He padded through the town house, clearing his head as he went. Just as he reached the door, the pounding started again. He turned the knob, leaving the chain on, and peeked out the crack.

He let his eyes adjust to the sharp Florida daylight and said, “What the hell are you doing here? Is everything all right?”

His ex-wife, Donna, in jeans and a casual shirt, smiled back. “I just needed to see you.” She hesitated, then added, “You alone?”

“Yeah, sure. Come in.” He closed the door and unlatched it, then reopened it to let her walk in.

As she crossed the threshold, she said, “I’m sorry, bothering you like this, but I need to talk to someone. That’s not correct, I needed to talk to you.”

They sat on the couch. “You want something? Juice? I could try and make coffee.”

She smiled and shook her head.

“The girls are okay, otherwise you would have said something. Why aren’t you at work?”

“Called in sick. I left the house for here as soon as the girls were ready for early-morning activities at school.”

Now he just looked at her. It was a treat to be able to look at such a pretty girl up close, and without being self-conscious. That was one of Donna’s great charms; she was an unpretentious, natural beauty. No need for makeup; looked as good at seven-thirty in the morning as at seven-thirty in the evening. He waited for her to gather her thoughts.

“I was feeling lonely and missed you. Then last night I just couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

He waited for the “But.”

“So I took a chance and raced down here first thing.”

He smiled and felt a rush of emotion sweep over him. Then he checked back to reality. “What about Nicky Goldman?”

“We broke up.”

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t like lying but had managed to keep a straight face.

“So am I. He was sweet. But you were right-being sweet and nice doesn’t make you Mr. Right.”

“What does?”

She let loose with that brilliant smile. “A lot of things.” She reached over and pulled him to her for a long kiss. When she was done, she said, “So what do you want to do today?”

He stared at her for a moment. “What do you mean?”

“We have the day to hang out. What would you like to do with it?”

He paused, brushing a strand of blond hair from her face. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“That’s why it’s called a surprise.”

“What I mean is, I didn’t take the day off.”

“You have such a flexible schedule I didn’t think it’d be a problem.”

“Usually that’s true, but we’re right in the middle of something that’s going morning to night until we’re done.”

“With no days off?”

“Not for a few days, anyway.”

She looked into his eyes. “It’s still work first, family second, isn’t it?”

“No. Absolutely not. It’s just that this is really important. I mean life-and-death important, and it’s basically my fault that we’re in it.”

A tear built up in her eye, then ran down her cheek.

He went to brush it away, but she caught his hand. “Is the redhead working with you?”

“Camy Parks? Yeah, her and half a dozen other cops.”

Donna stood quickly and turned to the front door. “I understand.”

“Donna, wait.”

She paused at the door.

“Please stay.”

“So we can spend the day together?”

“An hour, anyway.”

She opened the door and stepped out without a word.

Tasker focused on east Palm Drive as it turned into Southwest 344th Street, the empty Homestead speedway a few miles behind them. Sutter sat in the backseat of the Cherokee, talking-more like reasoning-with Alicia Wells. She had come in from the cold, like a spy from the sixties. And she had problems. Alicia told the investigators some of her story, but obviously held back quite a bit. What she did say was that Wells might have a secret box near the Turkey Point power plant and she thought she could find it. Knowing that the discovery of physical evidence might help them find the elusive repairman from Naranja, Tasker decided Alicia could talk in the car and headed out to this quietly modern part of the county.

Alicia sat, half-turned toward Sutter in a sundress and, clearly, no bra. She had garnered a few stares back at the office, which was another reason Tasker thought it best to hustle her out of the FDLE building. She had cried on and off during the brief interview, and now Sutter was waiting for her to regain her composure. He handed her a tissue. She held it to her nose and cut loose with a deafening honk as she blew her nose. Tasker thought a semi had rolled up behind him.

Alicia said, “That’s better, thank you.” She wiped her eyes again.

Tasker asked, “Still up this road, right?”

“I’m guessing it’s on the dirt road to where we used to fish. The boys told me that Daniel could see them from where he liked to park on the bank of the canal.”

“And you can find it?”

“I’m not stupid. Just choose not to deal with everything. Wish I didn’t have to talk to you fellas, but I do.” She looked at Sutter. “And I’m sorry I pepper-sprayed you.”

Sutter smiled. “It was a good move. A smart move. I never expected it.” He handed her another tissue. “And believe me, I cried and blew my nose a whole lot more than you are now.”

She smiled and let out a short giggle.

Tasker said, “You said Daniel worried you. Did he give any specifics?”

“Naw, only that it was gonna be spectacular and on Thursday.” She blew her nose again, earning an amazed stare from Sutter. “And that it was gonna be in Miami.”

“Anything else?”

“Just that he didn’t seem to care if people got hurt. He might be a little confused. He gets that way sometimes. Focused on something and then forgets other stuff. If he was working in his workshop, he’d sometimes forget to eat.” She put her hand on Sutter’s knee. “I couldn’t live with myself if someone got hurt and I didn’t do anything.”

Sutter said, “There’s a lot of that going around.” He threw his intense stare over to Tasker in the driver’s seat.

Alicia went on. “Daniel is a good man. He’s a great father and treated me better than I ever been treated. I don’t want him in trouble, neither. I reckon if you catch him before he hurts someone, he might just get probation.”

Tasker remained silent. He didn’t want to mislead her. He left his eyes on the straight road and kept driving.

“Daniel is a little different in some ways.”

“How do you mean?” asked Sutter.

“He likes order in his workshop, but everywhere else he likes things just… goin’ nuts. I mean, he lets those boys of his run wild. They’re holy terrors.”

“If everyone who let their kids run wild was crazy, we’d all be in asylums,” said Tasker.

She leaned forward and rested her hand on his shoulder. He looked up in the rearview to see her piercing blue eyes. It felt like electricity was shooting through his body where her hand touched.

Alicia said, “No, it wasn’t like they were bad. He punished them if they sassed or didn’t eat good. He liked them to start fires and break stuff. He watched them and sometimes gave pointers on how to make it worse.”

Sutter said, “They ever hurt anyone?”

“Not that I know of.”

Tasker thought back to the FBI profiler. Maybe she wasn’t so full of horseshit. “Did he ever say he liked to be in control of things like that? Like fires or breaking things?”

“Naw, but he told me once that he liked when things were out of order. When they were in… I can’t think of the word he used.”

Tasker and Sutter said in unison: “Chaos?”

“Yeah, that’s it. He liked to see how people reacted to chaos. He had an idea, a what-do-you-call-it?”

This time nothing popped into Tasker’s mind.

Alicia said it herself. “He had a theory that the bigger the flash, the crazier people acted. Didn’t matter if there was any real danger-it was all show.”

Tasker asked, “He ever say how he tested this chaos theory?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“You don’t have any idea where he might be staying?”

“Nope. He just calls me or my mama from a pay phone. I don’t even got an idea where he uses the pay phones. One time it was in a Publix, ’cause I heard the people talkin’ on the store speaker.”

“He have any close friends he might go to?”

“Naw. He did call one fella a lot, and the guy called him, too. He came by the house a coupla times.”

“What’s his name?”

“Never heard it. He was from up north. New York or Boston. Talked real fast, and funny, but always dressed nice, like he was a banker or a lawyer.”

Tasker thought of one more thing as she said, “Turn here.”

He slowed and pulled off the paved road onto a soft, muddy road that cut between two long strips of Brazilian peppers. Some people called them Florida Holly, but they definitely weren’t native plants. The thin long branches of the low trees crept out toward the two-lane asphalt road. Tasker turned off 344th onto the uneven, winding trail. Several times the Cherokee almost bogged down, feeling like it might get stuck in the soft sand.

Once he had a grip on the vehicle’s handling, he asked Alicia, “Why was Daniel learning to drive a big rig?”

“He just wanted to learn. I asked him if that meant he’d be gone truckin’, ’cause I didn’t want to stay alone with them kids. He said he wouldn’t be leavin’. But he kept going to that school.”

Tasker nodded. He slowed the car when he saw the narrow canal with the lime-green water. The patchwork of canals here were used to cool the power plant. The fresh water was pumped in and out of the plant, keeping this marsh area off-limits to developers. As a result, it was also one of the largest habitats for crocodiles in the Northern Hemisphere. Over the years, Tasker would occasionally see one on a bank or in the water, but never up close. Their reputation for being more aggressive than alligators made him keep his distance. This little dirt road was about as close as you could get without trespassing on Florida Power and Light land.

Alicia said, “This was his place. He came out here all the time.”

“Any idea where the box is buried?”

She shook her head.

Sutter said, “Can’t be that hard to find. Look for disturbed dirt.”

The problem was that with the dirt-bike tire tracks and the soft dirt, it was a giant upturned sandbox.

Tasker said, “Let’s look at it like a crime scene. Figure where he would stand to fish and how far he could see.” He had Alicia point out the tree Wells usually sat under. Tasker took his place and turned to survey the field. Almost immediately, he saw the square patch of upturned dirt near the edge of the brush line where they had entered.

Tasker said, “Jackpot.”

“Where’s Alicia?” asked Bill Tasker.

“I got a room at a hotel in case Wells tries to look for her.”

Tasker nodded, avoiding words that rattled in his head. He blinked hard at the bright overhead light as the small Latin doctor inspected the last of his stitches.

“Not bad,” said the forty-year-old doctor, with a light accent. “You won’t have much of a scar on your arm, and the two deeper cuts on your left leg will look like a Christmas wreath. Good work if I do say so myself.” He smiled, filling out crow’s-feet that showed he was sincere. “Judging from some of your other scars, these won’t bother you a bit.”

Tasker timed the throbbing in his head and let out a quick “Thanks.”

“You’ll be sore for a week. That was some tumble you took. Next time you two are fishing, you should ride in the truck’s cab.”

“Will do,” managed Tasker.

“Nothing’s broken, but I want you in bed for at least five days. Understood?”

Tasker nodded.

“Why don’t I believe you?” The doctor looked at Sutter, standing silently in the corner of the small walk-in clinic’s main exam room. “Like I don’t believe the fishing story. But my job is to patch up, not lecture.”

Sutter said, “Good plan.” He handed the man a stack of twenties. “We gotta boogie.”

“Let me get his prescriptions and give this to the cashier,” the doctor said, as he ambled out of the room.

Sutter quickly turned to his partner. “Tell me again why we didn’t go to Jackson and you claim worker’s comp?”

“No time. They’d have me on my back for a week.”

“Like this guy wants.”

“And I will. After we find out what the fuck is going on and grab Daniel Wells.” Tasker looked at him. “And these twenties came from where?”

“Your front pocket.”

“Derrick, that was evidence.”

Sutter nodded his head. “So, when you bend the rules and don’t use worker’s comp and lie to a doctor, it’s to save time. When I do something like that, it’s ‘destroying evidence.’ ”

Tasker’s eyes bulged of their own will. “It is destroying evidence.” They sat in silence a few seconds. Tasker realized these were extraordinary times. “Okay, what do you think we should do next?”

“Let’s go talk to Bolini and figure out what the damn FBI is up to.”

“Not if we’re just fishing. We need some proof.”

“This feels too damn close to the business with Dooley. Fuckin’ Bureau causing shit, and we got our thumbs up our ass.”

Tasker winced as he pulled his shirt up to look at his bruised ribs. Along with the twenty-seven stitches he’d just received in three different places, his legs had a few good patches of road rash, his left arm was turning blue with bruises and he thought one of his teeth felt funny. “We’ve gotta tie up the loose ends.” He slid off the examining table.

Sutter put his hand on Tasker’s tender shoulder. “I know exactly how to tie up the FBI loose ends.”

“Now, this is embarrassing,” said Derrick Sutter, pulling off his makeshift Klan hood. Tasker followed his lead, waving it in front of his face to dissipate the odor.

Camy, still standing in the room, quietly slipped into the bathroom, but not before both Tasker and Sutter got a good eyeful. Tasker believed that was a calculated move. He wasn’t sure to what purpose, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

Sutter said, “See, I told you I knew a way to tie up the FBI loose ends.” He smiled, showing his gold tooth on the side of his mouth. “I just wish his end was a little more tied up. I think he shit the bed.”

Tasker shook his head. “Nope, just had his bladder let go. Happens to the best of us.” He winced at the pain his own voice brought to his banged-up head.

Sutter snapped two more digital photos while Jimmy Lail thrashed in the bed.

“You guys are in such deep shit! This is kidnapping.”

The bathroom door opened and Camy, now covered by a thick terrycloth robe, said to Jimmy, “I think they call this kinky sex. I don’t recall you objecting.”

Jimmy’s face flared red as he yanked his legs again. “Now, tell me, what the fuck is going on?”

Tasker kept his voice calm and even. “Blackmail. Simple and direct.” He looked over to Sutter, who snapped another photo. “You talk and we erase the photos. Tell us everything and you can have the camera. Hold out and you’re an Internet star before you get to work in the morning.”

Jimmy stared at him. “I never thought you’d stoop this low.”

“You should be more optimistic.” Tasker waited for Jimmy to calm down and said, “Now tell me about Sal Bolini’s connection to Wells.”

“Kiss my ass.”

Sutter smiled, handed the camera to Tasker, and said, “Maybe if I snuggle up close and bury my face in the covers. That’d make a good photo. At least it’d look like he has some taste.”

“Fuck you both!”

Sutter started to unbutton his shirt.

Jimmy immediately said, “Okay, okay, okay. What do you want to know?”

Tasker asked, “Is Bolini protecting Wells?”

“Sort of.”

“Did he tip him about the search warrant at his house?”

Jimmy hesitated.

Sutter unfastened another button on his shirt, and Tasker raised the camera.

Jimmy nodded with some passion. They had definitely found his weak spot.

Tasker continued in a good interrogation voice. “Has he told him to lay low?”

Another nod.

“Why?”

Jimmy shrugged. Sutter started to open his shirt.

“Okay, okay, stop doing that.” He cleared his throat. “Wells has been giving us info for years. He’s saved a lot of lives.”

“According to who?”

“Bolini.”

Sutter stepped in. “What about the Klan surveillance? That was all bullshit, wasn’t it?”

Jimmy nodded. “It was designed to buy time for Wells to clear up some personal business so he could leave the area.”

“What personal business?” asked Tasker.

“Dunno.”

Sutter slid one shoulder out of his shirt.

Jimmy kept an even voice. “You can come down here and give me a blowjob, but I really don’t know. Now, have I earned that camera?”

“Did Bolini know he bombed the cruise ship?”

“Yeah. After. Wells said he wouldn’t do it again.”

Tasker was speechless. Too bad this moron wasn’t the responsible party.

Jimmy said again, “Do I get the camera?”

“One more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We need you to call Bolini and set up a breakfast meeting.”

“Where?”

Tasker said, “Denny’s over off Thirty-sixth.”

Jimmy thought about it, then nodded.

Tasker looked at him. “And after I meet with him, you’ll get the camera to see the photos erased. I don’t want him warned.”

Jimmy said, “That’s bullshit. I want that camera or there’s no deal.”

Tasker looked at Camy. “All right, leave his ass locked up till morning.”

Jimmy said, “Shit, get me a phone.”

Camy added, “I’ll keep an eye on him tonight.” She winked at Jimmy, who brightened slightly.

Tasker saw the look Sutter gave the chained FBI man and thought it was best to get him out of there fast. Besides, if Tasker didn’t get off his feet and give his aching head, back, shoulder and hip a rest, he might faint.

Daniel Wells watched the dial of the old fuel pump roll up slowly. He put five gallons in the van itself. Why not, it wasn’t going anywhere after today. Then he started filling the tank he’d welded inside the van. He was careful not to let the clerk see he had the nozzle actually inside the beat-up step van. It probably didn’t matter because the guy never looked up from his perch inside the tiny building. There were sixty-five gallons in it already, and he intended to use at least eighty gallons. He looked at the tank. No leaks, and the bags of scrap metal fit on top and around the sides like moldable sandbags.

He looked at his watch. No, no, he wanted to wait at least two more hours. He looked up at the interstate a few blocks east. He’d put the van in place in an hour and a half. First he’d find someplace to eat. His stomach had been growling, but he was so excited he hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. He needed to clear his mind and think. After this he’d have to clear out, get the kids and be ready for anything.

He shut the pump off at ninety-six gallons, including what he’d put in the van’s tank. He checked his wallet. A hundred and sixty-three bucks pretty much wiped him out. He walked toward the cashier, looking over his shoulder at the van. Still no leaks. He had stripped off the sign for his business, but you could still see the outline of the letters. In a couple of hours, that old van would be in a million pieces and no one would care what was written on it.

Miami police detective Derrick Sutter was now completely in his element and intended to show the FBI what that meant. Whereas the Feds were just driving around aimlessly hoping to see Wells, Sutter knew who to ask. He’d already called four of his snitches and had them out and about. Now he was checking with the convenience stores and gas stations along Seventh Avenue. They might not talk to most cops but they’d talk to him. And he didn’t have to spend half an hour introducing himself. They all knew him. This was what local cops were paid for: knowing the community and its residents.

The first three places were able to say quickly they hadn’t seen a blue pickup or even a white man anytime during the day. Sutter gave them each his cell number, increasing the number of eyes working for him every time he stopped. If Wells was still in the area, Sutter would hear about it.

Farther south, moving toward a more industrial area, Sutter stopped at a place with a sign that simply said GAS. The clerk was encased in a cement building the size of a port-a-let with one pane of thick bulletproof glass and an old window air conditioner cemented into the side of the building. It hummed and labored in the humid Florida heat.

Sutter tapped on the glass with his open badge case.

The clerk looked at him without moving.

“I need to talk to you,” said Sutter in a loud voice.

“So talk,” said the young black clerk calmly, as he set down some kind of textbook and leaned into a microphone. His hair was braided neatly against his scalp.

“Come on out.”

“Can’t.”

“What d’you mean?”

“No key. Boss locks me in for four hours, then lets me out for a break. That’s how he keeps three stations running.”

Sutter snapped his head back. “Where do you shit?”

“I don’t.”

“What if there’s an emergency?”

“I call his cell.”

“What if you got robbed?”

“Can’t be. No way in and the glass is solid.” He rapped the tinted slab of ballistic glass with the edge of his book.

Sutter scratched his head. This was a new one. “Tell you what, I’m busy right now, but I’m gonna rap with your boss later. That cool?”

“Cool,” said the young man, obviously not a fan of the system.

“Let me ask you about your customers. You been here since eleven or so?”

“Yep, since ten.”

“You see a white guy in a blue pickup?”

“Nope. Only white man I seen was in a big ol’ step van. He bought a lot of gas, too.”

Sutter nodded and started to walk away. He paused and opened the folder he’d carried all day long. He pulled out an eight-by-ten photo of Daniel Wells. “Was it this man?” he asked the clerk, holding the photo to the window.

“That was the man,” said the clerk with no hesitation at all.

Tasker jumped from his Cherokee and fell into an all-out dash after the fleeing Wells. The loose gravel on the shoulder of the highway made him slip one way, then the other, jarring his battered body, but he regained his footing and kept moving. Sensing Sal Bolini trying to stay close behind him, he focused on Wells.

Tasker skidded to a stop in front of the van, torn between chasing Wells and checking the van. He glanced inside, then leaned in the open doorway into the van and froze, seeing the clock on the metal box welded into the rear. He knew how much gas had gone into the box a few hours ago. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what would happen when the big hand of the clock caught the little hand. His bladder almost let go when Bolini skidded into him, saying, “What is it?”

Tasker leaned out of the way. “Look.”

Bolini stuck his head in, then popped out. “You know anything about detonators?”

“Enough to see we only got a minute left.”

“What do we do?” Bolini started to pant like a dog.

“It looks like we could just rip the clock off the tank and it’ll be inactivated.”

Bolini shook his head. “No, no, no good. Wells is too fuckin’ smart for that. He’d have it booby-trapped.”

Tasker thought about the CS Mace trap and had to agree. He looked up at the traffic. “We gotta do something. This thing could take out the whole overpass.”

Bolini floated a suggestion. “What about running?”

Tasker just stared at him. He then jumped into the back and started pulling the bags of scrap metal away from the tank. He handed them to Bolini, who tossed them away from the van.

Bolini said, “I got an idea. The keys in it? We could drive it outta here.”

Tasker looked and shook his head. “I got a plan B,” he said, jumping out and racing back to his Cherokee. He jumped in, cranked the engine and threw it into drive two.

Bolini jumped back as Tasker eased the Cherokee onto the bumper of the van, then gunned the engine. The big van wobbled but moved forward, following the contour of the ground. It slid off the shoulder onto the slope that led to a pond in the center of the loop coming off the interstate.

The van picked up momentum as the decline of the slope grew. Tasker started to back off with the Cherokee, but gravity had grabbed it too and he started sliding in the loose dirt right behind the van. He hit the brakes, but in the pebbles and debris on the slope the Cherokee didn’t slow down at all.

The van hit the water with a splash, then rolled and floated into the shallow water. Tasker couldn’t stop the Cherokee, and followed. The Jeep felt like it was sucked in by the van as Tasker reached over to open the door and get the hell out. The quickly rising water slammed the door back on him. He hit the window button, but the electrical system had already shorted.

Tasker prayed that the water would disarm the bomb as well. He knew the Cherokee wouldn’t be any protection against a gas bomb that big. Even with the bags of shrapnel removed from the van.

He banged on the window with his fist, then, without hesitation, pulled his Beretta from the belly bag, pointed out the side window, pulled the trigger and blew it out. He tried aiming low so the round would travel harmlessly into the muddy water.

He slid out of the shattered window, feeling the glass slice his left knee and bumping his back hard as he reacted to the cut. He flopped completely into the water and struggled to his feet in the four-foot-deep pond. He slogged to the edge, knowing the bomb was about to explode. Gasping for breath, he flopped onto the bank, exhausted.

Tasker felt like a train-wreck survivor. He was wobbling his way through the neighborhood after his partners and Wells, blood running down his face, hair burnt in patches, legs bloody and soaking wet. This was no dignified day at the office.

Bolini was checking the area of the blast for injuries and to explain to responding cops what happened. Tasker couldn’t risk losing Wells. He was about to sit down and rest for a second when he heard the gunfire. It was coming from the end of the street. He picked up his pitiful pace.

He reached the last street just in time to see a semi tractor-trailer driven by Daniel Wells roll down the street, blaring his horn. In its wake he saw Jimmy Lail standing with Camy over Sutter, who was down, a block away. He turned and moved as fast as he could to the injured Miami cop.

“What happened? You all right?” he gasped as he came upon his partner.

Sutter seemed more pissed than injured. “That jerk-weed shot me.”

“Why?”

Jimmy, walking up behind, mumbled, “It was an accident.”

Tasker stood up and spun to meet the FBI man face to face, but instantly realized how embarrassed Lail was and that it really had been an accident.

Camy started to jump in the Honda. Jimmy followed her. She said, “We need to find the truck.”

Tasker nodded his head. “Go, go. Bolini will be here in a second.”

A minute later, Bolini pulled up in his Ford Taurus and Tasker grabbed Sutter, then piled in, Sutter careful with his leg but fully mobile.

As the car started to roll, Bolini said, “Wells shot you?”

Sutter shook his head but didn’t elaborate, and Bolini let it ride.

“Which way?” asked Bolini.

Tasker said, “He’s gotta be headed to the area where the undercover Miami cop saw him. Head toward Biscayne, we’ll pick him up.”

Bolini stepped on the gas.

From the front passenger seat, Tasker turned around to Sutter. “That’s it!”

“What?”

“The van was a diversion. The real attack is the tanker. He wanted to drive the tanker into the small side streets. That’s why he learned to drive the big rigs.”

Sutter’s eyes widened. “You mean he’s gonna detonate the tanker?”

“Exactly. And that’ll make the van look like a firecracker.”

Bolini pushed the Taurus up to fifty in the tightening traffic, swerving in and out and up over curbs. He fumbled with his Nextel. “Hey,” he yelled into the handset. “It’s Sal. I need every swinging dick in that office out here. I’m going down to Biscayne by Bayfront Park. We got a semi that may be used as a bomb.” He listened to someone, then said, “Now!” And shut the phone. He turned to Tasker and said, “We gotta get to him before he arms the bomb. I’m no bomb tech. None of that red-wire, blue-wire bullshit.”

“I’m with you,” said Tasker. He still didn’t trust the FBI man, but he’d been a help and now seemed to realize the truth of the situation. Sutter sat, quietly simmering in the back. Tasker was impressed with Sutter’s restraint, unless it was due to loss of blood.

Tasker turned to face his quiet partner in the backseat. “You okay?”

Sutter, holding the red-stained towel Camy had given him to his ankle, nodded curtly.

Tasker’s Nextel chirped, followed by Camy’s voice. “We’re off the interstate, headed for Biscayne. I’m gonna call Miami PD and fill them in.”

Tasker responded, “Ten-four. We’re near the interstate, coming up on Fifth Street.”

When Bolini made a turn onto Fifth, heading for the Port of Miami, he said, “Up there, straight ahead.”

The tanker was slowing in the growing traffic. There were still a lot of cars between them and Wells.

“Shit,” said Bolini, slowing to a stop behind traffic and pounding the steering wheel in frustration.

Tasker yanked the door handle and was gone.

Tasker had never been in a big truck like this before. Still, the clutch was on the left, gas on the right and brake in the middle. The gear shift had a diagram with what looked like ten gears. He stomped on the clutch and jammed the shift stick into first, grinding the gears in the process. He eased off the clutch and on the gas, feeling the huge truck start to inch forward. He thought he hit a curb, then realized it was the hood of a Ford Mustang as the Freightliner rolled right over it. He spun the wheel to the left to try and center the semi tractor-tanker in the road and squished an abandoned Toyota, then a Corvette. The rig straightened out and he hit the gas as he found he had more room. Driving this big rig didn’t seem that hard, except for the cars that kept getting stuck under his wheels. He had to blink hard to clear the blood and sweat out of his eyes. He could see that people were getting the message and abandoning their cars. In front of him, a whole family fled from all four doors of a brand-new Buick. He prayed that no one was stuck inside any of the cars he had already flattened. He had no choice. He knew the buildings would intensify the blast’s shock wave. He headed for the causeway leading to the port. At least it was open. He hit the intersection at Biscayne, and traffic cleared. He stomped on the gas and heard the engine rev higher. He wasn’t sure how to shift gears, so he just pointed the tanker toward the open road. When he spotted the bridge, he looked behind him. The timer read 00:42 in red numbers.

A week later, Bill Tasker sat on his patio, Derrick Sutter in the lounger next to him. A week of rest had helped him recover only a little. He still wasn’t supposed to drink beer because of the antibiotics and painkillers he was using, but he decided one Icehouse with his partner wouldn’t kill him. Even though he had seen a lot of corpses that looked better than he did right now. He had thirty stitches in different cuts in his legs. Fifteen on his arms. Ten in one gash along his hairline. One wrist was broken, which he hadn’t even realized at the time. Both legs had torn muscles, and his right ankle was sprained. He’d had to have a buzz cut to remove his burnt hair and allow the doctors to examine his head properly, and he had a couple of decent burns on his face and shoulder.

Sutter, on the other hand, had a bandage on his foot near his ankle and a pair of crutches. Dressed in a sharp pair of pants and button-down Oxford shirt, he was casually telling Tasker about his passionate affair with the lovely Camy Parks.

“I’m telling you, Billy, sometimes she’s like a wild animal, and sometimes she really is a princess.”

Tasker held up his hand. “I get the idea.” He looked toward the sliding glass door. “My girls are inside.”

Sutter shrugged. “Sorry.”

Tasker asked, “How long you gonna be out of work?”

“They say I can be back at light duty next week. What about you?”

“Won’t say. Need to be evaluated Friday. I figure two weeks.”

Sutter smiled. “Why? Take some time. Two weeks ain’t shit. You need a couple months, all you been through.”

“How’s Jimmy Lail doing?”

“Camy says he’s obsessed with finding Wells. She says he’s on surveillance every day, looking for him.” Sutter started to laugh. “You heard he had his car stolen, too?”

“Really. The Honda? Where?”

“Off Biscayne. The day we chased Wells. With everything else going on, no one made a big deal about it.” He looked back at Tasker. “Camy says he doesn’t care about the car, or anything but Wells.”

Tasker nodded. “I know the feeling.”

“But he’s got help. Now the FBI knows what one of their snitches tried to do. They’ve got everyone out beating the bushes. Lot of local cops, too. But the FBI is definitely leading the charge.”

“The name Eric Rudolph mean anything to you?”

Sutter smiled and nodded.

Tasker thought about the similarity between the Atlanta Olympics bomber and Wells. Both had gotten away with it for a while. Rudolph had evaded a massive FBI hunt for five years, until some local cop found him digging in a dumpster. Tasker decided he wouldn’t hold his breath until Wells was captured.

Sutter tapped a Miami Herald on the table between them. “You okay with this bullshit?”

Tasker smiled, looking at the headline: FBI AVERTS DISASTER. “Yeah, it’s true. Bolini came through.”

“But you risked your ass.”

“We all did.”

“I just think that’s absolute bullshit.”

Tasker shrugged. He really didn’t care. He’d accomplished what he set out to do. Wells would turn up. Nuts like that always make mistakes. They’d have time to find him. No one had seen or heard from him or Alicia in the seven days since the tanker exploded. Tasker figured they were together.

Sutter looked at Tasker and said, “That reminds me.”

“What?”

“You guaranteed me I wouldn’t get shot by the FBI if I helped on this case.”

Tasker smiled. “I think I said I could almost guarantee it.” He sat up on the lounger. “Besides, what are you bitchin’ about? The wounds are getting less severe every time. Next time it’ll probably just be a graze in the arm.”

Sutter and Tasker sat on his patio in Kendall and laughed together over all the things that had happened in the past few weeks. They laughed so long and so hard that Tasker’s girls came out to make sure everything was all right.

Tasker put his arms around their small shoulders and kissed them each on the forehead.

“Yep, girls. Everything is just fine.”

Daniel Wells took the exit off Interstate 10, heading south toward New Orleans. They weren’t going to stay here more than a night, but Wells needed to look around. He had an idea about his next show. It had been a long drive, but the kids had slept most of the way. Alicia had apologized from Tampa to Tallahassee about helping the cops, but he said he understood. He didn’t know what he’d do, either, if someone threatened to take the kids.

It had been one wild week. Starting with his attempt to light up Miami… all the way to this road trip. He’d been lucky in Miami and knew it. When old Sal Bolini slapped the cuffs on him, he had tightened his fists and pulled his hand up so Sal had closed the cuff on his left fist instead of his wrist. Then, when the younger FBI guy was not paying attention, he had just stood up and walked away a hundred feet or so, letting the crowd swallow him up. The cops all rushing to the scene were too intent on the burning tanker to notice anyone filtering through the crowd. Slipping his left hand out of the cuff had been a lot more painful than he’d thought it would, but it only took a few seconds of determined struggle. A few blocks away, he’d found a tricked-out lowrider Honda, popped the window, jumped in and took the fast little sucker all the way to Tampa. He’d used a twenty he’d found in the car’s console for some gas and a sandwich at the gas station on the west side of Alligator Alley.

Now he held the steering wheel to the Ford station wagon with his right hand because his left wrist was still sore from slipping the handcuffs in Miami. He had a white bandage over his knuckles on his left hand and still couldn’t move his thumb. Considering the alternative, he wasn’t upset by the injuries.

He had been a little disappointed that his stunt had not gotten more than a day’s play in the national news, but the memory of that scene was burned into his head. He still felt the charge from it.

Alicia, snoring lightly, snuggled up under his arm closer. He hugged her.

Still, the tanker would be nothing next to his next plan. He smiled when he saw the sign for the Superdome, then glanced down at the book he’d stolen from the Miami Public Library: The Principles of Nuclear Fission.