First to Kill (18 page)

“I’ve already got that covered.”

“Hasn’t Holly risked enough? Greg has access to nearly everything she does.”

“
Nearly
being the operative word.”

“Beyond access to the NCIC, what else would we need?”

Nathan sipped his coffee and said nothing.

“You want her to get the credit if we catch them.”

Nathan didn’t answer.

“The reverse is also true. She could take the fall if we screw up.”

“We aren’t going to screw up.”

“A lot of things could go wrong, Nate.”

“Lansing’s people are not going to collar the Bridgestones before we do. To steal a line from General Patton, ‘I’m going to beat that gentleman to Messina.’”

Chapter  11

Leonard Bridgestone pulled a gray pickup behind a supermarket and parked near its loading dock. As expected, the area was deserted. Ernie parked the stolen UPS truck next to the pickup and together they untied the tarp covering the pickup’s bed.

Leonard helped Ernie haul the Enduro motorcycle out of the bed and get it upright on the asphalt. He checked the large ice chest strapped to its rack. He squinted as his brother gave the ice chest a soft caress before pulling a ten-foot-long, three-by-six piece of lumber from the bed of the pickup. Leonard followed him to the rear of the UPS truck and hoisted its roll-up door. Bound and unconscious, the driver was stripped down to his underwear. Although the driver’s uniform didn’t fit Leonard perfectly, it was close enough. Ernie slid the three-by-six in next to the driver. Shaped by a table saw, two of its squared edges were cut at 45-degree angles along its length so it could be easily driven over when the time came. The bottom of the three-by-six also had a V-shaped channel cut along its entire length.

“Are we sure about this?” Leonard asked. “It’s not too late to call it off.”

“Of course we’re sure, they killed Sammy.”

“This won’t bring him back.”

Ernie frowned. “What, you having second thoughts?”

“Getting out of the country is going to be a lot more difficult.”

“Shit, we’ll get out. Is that your only reason?”

Leonard didn’t like the accusatory tone. “Do I have to spell it out for you? Use your fucking head, Ernie. This is a huge thing with huge consequences.”

“Hey, take it easy. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“Once we do this, there’s no turning back. You know that.”

“I know,” Ernie said.

“Do you really? Do you have any idea? I wonder…”

“We already talked about this.”

“Well, we’re talking again.”

“So talk.”

Seeing it was hopeless, Leonard slammed the roll-up door and latched it. “Let’s just do this before I change my mind.” He retrieved a helmet with a dark visor from the front seat of the pickup and handed it to his brother. Ernie pulled it on, swung his leg over the motorcycle, and pressed the starter button. Its four-stroke motor hummed to life in a deep-throated rumble. His brother nodded. He climbed into the UPS truck and pulled away from the loading dock, heading for Kern Parkway. He was sorely tempted to drive in the opposite direction and never look back. He thought back to the raid at the compound and had to admit seeing Sammy’s lifeless eyes had hammered him. His youngest brother, someone he’d sworn to insulate and protect, was dead. Murdered. By a sniper, and a damned good one at that. Leonard hadn’t wanted to involve Sammy in Freedom’s Echo, but Ernie had talked him into it. He should’ve known better, should’ve known something like this would happen. And now they were about to raise the stakes.

He forced his mind back to the task at hand and merged into traffic. In the side mirror, he watched his brother gun the motorcycle’s engine to keep up. He scanned the traffic in both directions, looking for cops. Close to his destination, he turned right and slowed. Behind him, Ernie pulled over to the curb and stopped. He drove the brown delivery truck into a driveway and rolled to a stop at a guard shack with an automatic gate.

His hand on the butt of his gun, a security guard, sharply dressed in a blue uniform, came out of the shack and approached the UPS truck.

“Where’s Malcolm?” the guard asked. Then he smiled. “Too many beers last night?”

“Couldn’t say,” Leonard said. “Probably got a case of the flu.”

“Yeah, it’s been going around lately. Since I’ve never seen you before, I’ll have to ask for some ID.”

“No problem, glad to do it.” Keeping his head down so the bill of his cap covered his face, Leonard climbed out of the jumper seat and walked around the front of the truck. A few more paces and he’d be out of the camera’s line of sight. Before the guard could react, he pulled a .45-automatic from his jacket and pressed it into the guard’s belly. “Open the gate and you’ll live to see another day.” In one smooth movement, he removed the guard’s gun, shoved him back toward the shack’s entrance, and pushed him through its open door. Staggering backward, the guard lost his balance and fell with a grunt.

Leonard jammed the barrel of his automatic into the guard’s mouth and pushed until the man’s head met the cabinet under the counter. “Open the gate right now.”

When the guard didn’t move, Leonard stomped on the guard’s left hand with the heel of his boot. Fingers crunched. The guard howled and bit down on the blue steel lodged in his mouth. Chips of teeth flew.

“Open the gate.”

The guard made some unintelligible sounds.

Leonard yanked the gun from the guard’s mouth and pressed it against his forehead.

“I can’t open it from here, they have to do it from inside!”

Leonard’s mind raced with possibilities, all of them bad. Precious seconds were ticking by. “Tell them there’s a UPS delivery for Special Agent in Charge Holly Simpson. I’ll blow your brains out if you try anything cute.” He nodded to the picture sitting on the counter of two girls in pigtails. They looked like twins, around six or seven years old. “Nice-looking girls,” Leonard said. “Yours?”

That got through. The guard struggled to his feet and picked up the phone. He waited a few seconds. “UPS,” he said, but that was all he said.

Leonard squinted.

The guard held up his good hand in a defensive gesture. After a few more seconds, the guard replaced the handset into its cradle. Leonard heard the whine of an electric motor. Through the shack’s rear window, he saw Ernie’s motorcycle pull behind the UPS truck. He knew his brother was retrieving the three-by-six piece of lumber from the back. The heavy iron gate began rolling along a large inverted V-shaped track bolted down to the concrete. As it opened, Leonard knocked the guard unconscious with a blow to the head. Then he pulled a folded envelope from his pocket and placed it on the counter.

Being careful to stay out of the camera’s line of sight, he walked around the back of the truck where Ernie already had the three-by-six in hand. Without looking at his brother, he climbed back in and pulled the truck forward, just inside the gate where it blocked the camera from seeing the motorcycle behind its rear bumper. With the gate fully open, he knew Ernie was setting the board down atop the gate’s V track. He gave his brother a few more seconds to climb back on the bike before driving down the driveway toward the building’s front entrance. In his side mirror, Leonard watched the gate attempt to close, but when it hit the board blocking its path, it reversed direction and stayed open.

Leonard pulled the truck over at the curb in front of the main building’s glass facade and stopped.
Come on, Ernie, move it.

At the entrance, Ernie coasted the bike up the curb’s wheelchair ramp, killed the engine three feet from the glass doors, and lowered the motorcycle’s kickstand.

Are we really doing this?
Leonard thought. He was tempted to yell for his brother to stop, but knew Ernie would ignore him. He watched his brother slide off the bike, remove the bungee cords securing the lid, and open the ice chest. Leonard knew he was flipping the arming switch and setting the timer for fifteen seconds.

Come on, Ernie. Come on!

Slowly, Ernie walked away from the bike and climbed into the van’s passenger seat.

Fighting the urge to peel rubber, Leonard pulled away from the curb and started out the driveway.

Eleven seconds.

Less than a minute had passed since their UPS truck had first appeared at the guard shack. Trembling from adrenaline, Leonard remembered to breathe. He sucked in a huge lungful of air and audibly blew it out. Quite literally, there was no turning back now.

Seven seconds.

Unconsciously, Leonard pressed the gas pedal a little harder than he needed to. The truck’s engine roared as he accelerated down the driveway. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Ernie remove his helmet, lean forward slightly, and stare into the side mirror.

Three seconds.

Mother of God, what are we doing? In his own side mirror, Leonard saw a man in a business suit step through the glass doors. The man looked at the motorcycle, then scanned the area for its rider.

“
Adios amigo
,” Ernie said.

* * *

The man vanished in a blinding flash.

One second he was there. The next, he wasn’t.

Forty pounds of Semtex quite literally vaporized him.

A huge mushroom of fire and smoke roiled skyward, looking as though a small nuke had detonated.

The blast wave accelerated through the glass facade with hideous results.

Traveling at five miles per second, superheated carbon oxide gas separated human flesh from bone, instantly incinerating both. Within twenty feet, the force tore arms and legs from torsos. At thirty feet, entire bodies flew. Necks snapped. Eardrums ruptured. Skin peeled. At forty feet, people were slammed into the walls of their cubicles like rag dolls, knocked lifeless from the force of the shock wave. And at fifty feet, those who weren’t dead were dying.

A chilling silence ensued, broken only by the hiss of a few fire sprinklers, the crackling of flames, and the soft moans of those still clinging to life.

Flat on her back, a woman with no sense of her body stared at the charred ceiling tiles as a fine mist rained down on her. She tried to move her right arm to cover her eyes, but it wasn’t there. Her life ended thirty seconds later.

Choking and coughing, a man in a shredded business suit crawled on his hands and knees across the debris field, heading for the far end of the building where children were screaming in the day-care area.

Chapter  12

Nathan looked at Harv while his call went through.

“Director Lansing’s office.”

“Hello, this is Nathan McBride. The director’s expecting my call.”

“One moment please, Mr. McBride. I’ll put you through.”

A sonic boom, probably from a fighter jet, reverberated through the room.

The line went silent, totally and utterly silent. No clicks, no electronic buzz, no crackling. Nothing. He was about to hang up, thinking he’d been disconnected, when a man’s voice came on the line.

“This is FBI Director Ethan Lansing. Am I speaking with Nathan McBride?”

“Yes.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. McBride?”

“I have you on speaker, Director. Harvey Fontana is with me. Are we being recorded?”

“Yes.”

“Will you reconsider, please?”

“I’ll tell you what, Mr. McBride, because of who your father is, and because he’s also a friend of mine, I’ll agree to keep this conversation off the record. Hold the line, please.”

Once again Nathan found himself listening to complete silence. Coming through the hotel room’s window, he heard the muffled whine of a siren, followed by the staccato blast of a fire truck’s air horn. A few seconds later, Lansing was back.

“Now that we’re off the record, I’ll agree to keep this conversation private because you and Mr. Fontana saved a dozen lives the other day. You’re owed a debt of gratitude for that. I’ll also thank both of you for your military service to our country.”

Nathan felt the director’s gratitude was genuine. “I appreciate you saying that. May I ask how much you know of our past?”

“All of it.”

“I know you’re a busy man, so I’ll get to the point. We want a green light to pursue the Bridgestone brothers.”

“I see. As private citizens, you’re entitled to do that provided you conduct yourselves within the confines of the law.”

“Director Lansing, may I speak freely?”

“You may.”

Nathan frowned at a second siren outside. From the window, Harv shrugged. “Circumstances may dictate a certain amount of flexibility,” Nathan said. “You’re aware of how we found Frank Ortega’s grandson?”

“Yes, I’ve had a complete briefing.”

“I’m asking for a temporary extension of that flexibility.”

“If I understand what you’re asking for, then you must know that as a sworn law-enforcement officer, I can’t agree to it. I did not approve the interrogation of those individuals at the farmhouse outside Sacramento, and I’m disappointed it took place.”

“Director Lansing, I’m not recording this call either, you have my word. No one was seriously hurt at the farmhouse.”

“That’s beside the point, Mr. McBride. This isn’t Nicaragua, or the former Soviet Union, and you aren’t a CIA operations officer anymore. You’re a civilian now, governed by the laws of our land. The Constitution isn’t just a piece of paper, it’s a fundamental building block of who we are as a society. It defines us.”

The man’s a politician
, Nathan thought.
Of course he is, he has to be, it goes with the
territory
. Forcing himself to relax his grip on the phone, he continued. “Frank Ortega’s wife said something to me, and I agreed with it. She told me life is never as simple as a book of rules.”

“Diane is fine woman and I don’t disagree with her from a philosophical perspective. But what you’re talking about is a very slippery slope. One digression could be regarded as a mistake, two is a pattern. I want containment at this point. Involving you further has considerable risks. Can you imagine the fallout if this ever leaked? The FBI can’t afford that kind of coverage from the media. We’re already under the microscope with the presidential-powers issue of wiretapping  suspected Al Qaeda operatives.”