since she’d done that, and Madison ’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s going to be okay, honey, I promise,” she said in a low voice before leaving.
Madison sank deeply down in the chair. The only thing she was sure of was that nothing was going to be all right, ever again.
JULY 3
Twenty-Nine
Jake started awake. He had dozed off while leaning back in a desk chair with his feet propped on a conference table, and they’d slipped to the floor. He shook his head to clear it. Syd was sitting across the table smirking at him.
“Comfortable?”
“These chairs were designed by sadists,” Jake complained, trying to stretch out a kink in his back. George had appropriated office space from the Sacramento field office, and told the two of them to stay put while he dug up information on Randall Grant. Jake had tried to convince him to let them go to a motel, but George made it clear it was the office or a holding cell. And frankly the way his eyes lit up when he mentioned the cell gave Jake pause. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Yup.” Syd pointed down. “Stretched out on the floor.”
“Really?” Jake eyed it dubiously. The rug was of questionable vintage, covered with old coffee stains.
“It beats a cave in Pakistan where they’re burning dung for fuel.”
“I suppose.” He checked his watch: 5:00 a.m. They’d been here for nearly twelve hours, and his stomach was rumbling. Even cafeteria food sounded good at this point. He should call Kelly back, too, now that things had settled down. It was 7:00 a.m. in Texas. She was probably already awake. But better to talk to her on a full stomach, he reasoned. “You up for a trip to the mess?”
“I got the sense we weren’t allowed to leave this room.” Syd raised an eyebrow.
“And that’s stopped you when?”
“Good point. Let’s go.”
George opened the door as they were about to step out. “Making a break for it?”
“Just heading down for some food,” Jake said. “We’re wasting away in here.”
“Doesn’t look like it would kill you to miss a meal,” George joked, eyeing Jake’s stomach. “Desk work has done you in, my man.”
“Bullshit. I’m still at my fighting weight,” Jake said defensively, trying not to be obvious about sucking in his gut.
“Not you, my dear, you’re perfect.” George winked at Syd. “Anyway, you might want to hold off on the prison break. I’ve got news about your boy.”
“Yeah?” Jake’s heart sank. George’s humor sounded forced.
Syd sensed it, too. “Bad news,” she said flatly.
“Yeah, I think so.” George opened a file and slid out a photo. “This your guy?”
Syd looked at it first. Without commenting, she simply nodded, then handed it to Jake. Typical morgue photo, the flat light made it look black-and-white even though it wasn’t. It was Randall Grant, all right. Someone had shot him at point-blank range near the temple. Death must have been mercifully quick, if there was such a thing.
“Crap.” Jake handed it back. “Where?”
“ Texas. When I accessed his fingerprints from the lab, I saw that another field office had matched them this morning. Made a few calls, but they’re not releasing any information yet.”
“Meaning what? They don’t know who killed him?”
“Meaning, I get the sense they’re dealing with something big down there. Mobile units were called in, and they’re raising the threat advisory level to orange, maybe even red on the basis of this.”
“Just because a scientist was killed?” Syd asked, puzzled.
“This guy Randall was a physicist, right?” George asked. “And you think he might have been smuggling nuclear info to the wrong people?”
“Maybe.” Syd turned it over in her mind. “But how did he end up in Texas?”
“No sign of him on any of the plane manifests.”
“Maybe he didn’t fly commercial,” Jake said. “Was there anything that might clue us in to what he was doing?”
“Like I said, my compadres in the great state of Texas aren’t talking.” George glanced at Jake. “But I was thinking you might have an in.”
“Why would Jake have an in? He never worked there,” Syd said.
“No, but his fiancee is the one who found the body.”
“What?” Jake took the form back and scanned it. It was a basic FBI FD302 report. Kelly’s name popped out at him. He flashed back on what little she’d told him about the case, something about Jackson Burke and a strange blue powder. “Oh, shit,” he said.
“Call your girl,” George said, nodding toward the phone on the desk. “And let’s see if we can figure out what the hell is going on.”
Dante watched as the lead-lined barrel holding the bomb was lowered into the center of the float. There had been a screwup with the one meant for San Antonio-the yokels in charge of the warehouse got snared in some FBI sting. He shook his head. Man, it was hard to find people you could trust these days. And he hated that their failure reflected poorly on him, at least in Jackson ’s eyes. He needed to make sure that from here on out, everything went smoothly.
Dante still couldn’t believe the FBI had found the Laredo warehouses. Now he’d have to come up with a fresh crop of illegals to man the float. That was one thing Jackson was absolutely adamant about-there had to be immigrants, especially Mexicans, tied to the initial blast. Not a serious problem, Dante still had Minutemen willing to serve as coyotes. The trick was getting another float ready in time. Thank God he’d kept the construction materials in a separate warehouse.
Dante watched as his guys wrapped white, red and green streamers around a wire-mesh frame. He had to grin at the incongruity of it. Who knew the arts and crafts program at Corcoran would come in so handy one day?
His phone buzzed. Dante checked the number, then snapped it open. “Do you have them?”
“Sir, this is Curtis Clay.”
Dante frowned, searching his mind. Remembered a beady-eyed little guy, sidekick to one of his boys in California. “You’re not supposed to have this number.”
“Yeah, I know, but…Jonas told me to call if something went wrong.”
Dante’s lip curled. Sure, everyone did each other in prison, but the ones who kept it up on the outside-he could hardly stomach the thought. The only reason he’d tolerated Jonas was that he was smart and took orders without giving him shit. “So?”
“So-” Curtis cleared his throat. “Jonas never came home last night, then I saw something on the news about a big bust over in Winters. Buncha bikers, and it was right near where you sent him.” There was a note of accusation in his voice. “He said he’d be home by dark.”
Dante could have sworn he heard sniffles. “Yeah, well, maybe he got smart and threw you over for some pussy.”
A pause, then Curtis whined, “They said some of them were dead, too. But they’re not saying who.”
“What about the bitches?”
“What bitches?”
“The ones Jonas was supposed to pick up.” Dante closed his eyes and fought the urge to hurl the phone against a wall. Shit, if this was true, he was down more men. And Jonas had been part of the next phase of the plan. He didn’t have anyone else in the area he could trust with it. He should have known better than to call in the
