Mute (28 page)

“I know what we are, Mr. Sneed,” Colon snapped.
“I’m more furious than you that our security was compromised. Three soldiers
left their posts for unexplained reasons. One of them said he forget he was on
watch and called his mother because he suddenly worried about her. The other
two had even worse excuses. As for the cameras, well, it’s not unheard of that
a bird accidently strikes one and takes it out. That happens. But what
shouldn’t happen is
five
cameras getting destroyed by birds—all the ones
near where the explosives were stolen.”

“I’d call you crazy as a coyote if I didn’t know
better,” Sneed said. “On the same night you had a flock of birds committing
burglary, I had a pelican foil a car chase that could have bagged our lead
suspect.”

“I heard about that. I wish Officer Skillings a
speedy recovery.”

Realizing that he hadn’t even mentioned her
condition, Sneed coughed and cleared his throat. He saw no use in dwelling on
people who couldn’t help him solve the case any longer—especially with the
stakes raised sixteen times higher.

“Do you want me to send a team to Patrick to sweep
the scene?” Sneed asked.

“We’re bringing down federal agents for that.
You’re about to have some more company in our task force meetings.”

Sneed loved when investigators from the federal
alphabet soup of agencies got together and tore a case in 50 different
directions. His team already had a thick case file and they could benefit more
than anyone from adding to it with the evidence on Patrick.

“How about we join those agents on base?” Sneed
asked. “We can tell you if it matches the prior crime scenes.”

“No can do. We can’t give you access to classified
areas,” Colon replied staunchly.

“I got news for you. Those ‘classified’ areas of
yours were visited more than Disney World last night.”

“There was a crowd all right, but not like you’d
see in a theme park. We found unusual tracks along the path where the bombs
were dragged toward the lagoon. We’ve got gators, horses, dogs, bare human feet
and stuff I just plain don’t recognize. A whole section of fence along the
lagoon whittled away from acid burns. That’s how they got in.”

“Horses, huh? I reckon I heard about some missing
horses over the past few days. One rancher in West Melbourne said a horse leapt
the gate, jumped down into a canal and followed it all the way to the lagoon. I
didn’t buy that shit then. Now maybe I do. Somebody’s stocking a zoo down
there.”

“A zoo capable of reducing sixteen buildings to
rubble,” Colon reminded him. “If the Lagoon Watcher’s motive is to protect the
lagoon, then he’s upped the ante. He thought that several murders and a plague
of bacteria would make us adopt his demands—those 150 steps to clean the lagoon
on his Web site. Nobody listened, so he figures that if he blows up some
buildings, he’ll force us to comply.”

“Americans never cower to terrorists,” said Sneed,
fully aware that he sounded like a patriotic country music song. “Doesn’t he
know that our colors don’t run?”

“That sounds good, until civilians start getting
carried out in body bags. We must form a concerted effort to sweep every
potential target in this county for bombs every few days. And check all
abandoned buildings for his lab.”

“I’m on it. I’ll make sure the Watcher can’t show
his face or his truck in public without somebody recognizing him and calling it
in. We should have another break in the case soon. I have a sneaking suspicion
that our lead witness will have a lot more to say.”

“If she said more than nothing, that would be
good,” Colon said dismissively. Getting sneered down upon through the nose of
the military man roiled Sneed up so bad that he snapped a pencil between his
fingers.

“I’ll catch that killer and bring all sixteen of
your bombs back just as they were before
you
lost
them,” Sneed
said. “And in the meantime, try not to lose any F-16s or stealth bombers.”

After an audible swallow, Colon issued some cold
formalities and hung up. Sneed couldn’t help grinning after dominating that
match of wits, but the stomach that had felt so satisfied minutes earlier now
bulged full of moldy cottage cheese. Gagging, he thought of an explosion
ripping open the side of a local building and the flailing bodies of office
workers tumbling out through the flames. Sneed spat a glob of stomach acid into
his trash can.

“Not on my watch,” Sneed said to himself.

Then he remembered that the incineration could
happen in sixteen different places at any time. Pregnant women. The elderly.
Children. He brought the lip of the trash can up to his chin.

Chapter 28

Moni didn’t know how long someone had been knocking
on her door. She couldn’t hear the rapping through the Saturday morning rain
pounding her roof and windows, until the knocking elevated to a forceful thud.
If it had gone on any longer, it might have awoken Mariella. The girl didn’t
usually sleep past ten, but after the traumatic visit from Moni’s father the
night before, she figured the girl needed rest.

Mindful of another incursion by that monster, or
maybe someone or something a whole lot worse, Moni stuck her pistol down the
back of her sweat pants and concealed it underneath her oversized shirt. The
thunder rolled through the sky. The African artifacts on her bookcase shook
from the vibrations. Tropic hid under the kitchen table. She slinked to the
door without passing before the window. Through the keyhole, Moni saw the curly
weave atop DCF Agent Tanya Roberts’ head. The keyhole made her face puff up
like a black jack-o-lantern. By the look in her eyes, someone had lit that
pumpkin’s candle with kerosene. Her fist banged on the door, which shook in
Moni’s face.

Moni pulled away and ducked below the keyhole.
Would a DCF agent come by on a Saturday morning for a routine checkup on a
foster child? She doubted it. Tanya had an issue with her, but Moni couldn’t
see why. No one besides Aaron had witnessed her father’s visit last night. As
much as he hated her, Moni’s dad wouldn’t confess because that would land him
in jail for violating his parole. Maybe Mrs. Mint had bitched some more about
how the girl had been making her job too hard—like elementary school teachers
ever had it easy, Moni thought. Something like that, she could handle.

The thunder rumbled once more as Moni reached for
the doorknob. Tropic yowled from under the table. Moni winced. Her head pounded
as the veins in her skull swelled under the pressure of a torrent of blood. She
shouldn’t open that door. She should grab Mariella and leave out the back.
Digging her fingers into her temples, Moni fought against the pressure
triggered by fear.

If
I can’t confront a doughy DCF agent, I’ll never save Mariella from those
mutants in the lagoon.

Moni swung open the door. She found more than the
rotund Tanya Roberts. A six-foot-three carriage of muscle leapt out from behind
the cover of the garage. Officer Clyde Harrison dripped with rainwater from his
matted black hair to his steely black boots. His uniform clung to his stacked
body, and showed off a pair of pecs that powered arms strong enough to snap her
neck in a heartbeat. He stared at Moni, but not with any malice or twisted
pleasure in his task. She saw subtle sympathy in his eyes. Harrison stood there
like a tank ready to steamroll over a village, even if he’d regret it later.

His reluctance didn’t offer Moni any relief. Her
headache subsided, but her heart rate ramped up as the unmistakable reality
struck her. She had been on the other end of that doorway so many times. Moni
had accompanied DCF agents, even Tanya in a few instances, when they removed
children from dangerous homes. Sometimes the parents didn’t protest, but that
only happened when the parents were junkies or the kids were hell-raisers. In
most cases, Moni restrained the enraged parents while the DCF whisked the kids
away. A DCF agent would rarely take an officer on a call for any other reason.

Wedged in the doorway with Mariella’s kidnappers
facing her, Moni felt like a slippery cork plugging a fire hose.

“Where is she?” Tanya asked. Her voice sounded
mighty big with that gorilla at her back.

“Mariella is sleeping. She had a busy night eating
pizza with our friend Aaron from the investigation team,” Moni said. “If
there’s some kind of problem, we can…”

“I heard through the grapevine that you had another
guest last night—one with a rap sheet longer than my arm.” Tanya reached into
her shirt pocket and drew out a photo of Bo Williams barging into Moni’s house.
Moni’s jaw nearly dropped off her face.

She could argue all she wanted, but she couldn’t
refute that photo. Whether against her will or not, she hadn’t prevented her
father from encroaching on the vulnerable girl. A cop should have no problem
keeping known criminals from taking a seat on the couch besides a child. Her excuses
wouldn’t convince a judge otherwise.

Her father’s voice rang inside her head.

“You been fucking up my whole life,
you little whore! All you do is screw up!”

“How did you get that?” Moni jutted a trembling
finger at the photo. “Who’s been watching me?”

“Sorry, Moni,” Harrison said as he stepped forward.
“We can’t let this go on any longer. A lot of lives are at stake here, not just
one girl’s.”

“Sounds like Sneed put you up to it,” Moni said.

Harrison didn’t reply. From his expression, he
didn’t need to. Sneed had hated Moni’s little arrangement with Mariella from
the moment she carried the girl off the boardwalk in that accursed park. Only
Moni had prevented that fat oaf from plopping Mariella on his plate under the
hot lights of the interrogation room, and tearing out every shred until he
found the evidence he hungered for. The girl might never recover from the
traumatic reliving of her parents’ gruesome dissections, but Sneed wouldn’t
care. As Harrison had said, that little girl was only one life.

Moni spread her elbows out so Tanya couldn’t wedge
her walrus-like body through the doorway. “Excuse me!” Tanya said. Moni held
firm.

Harrison sighed. “You really want it this way,
huh?” He grabbed Moni’s arm and spun her around as easily as a turnstile. Without
summoning any rage or noticeable effort, Harrison shrugged off Moni’s squirming
against his unrelenting grip.

“Let me go!” She shouted so loud that a hurricane
couldn’t drown her out. “Run, Mariella! Run and she’ll never catch you!”

Moni kept watch on the door to Mariella’s room. She
didn’t leave. The DCF agent waddled through the house. Scoping out the African
war goddess artwork, the black coffee-skinned Tanya snorted as if to say, “You
think that owning all this cheap shit makes you a real black woman?”

Tropic hissed at Tanya from underneath the table
and flashed his sharp teeth as she halted before the kitchen. She found the
hallway to Mariella’s room and jammed it with her flabby hips. Even if Mariella
tried making a run for it, she’d lodge in Tanya’s arms and get stuffed into the
back of her car.

Moni’s head rumbled as if a thundercloud swept in
through her ear. She thought of Sneed screaming at poor Mariella. He wouldn’t
stop until she cracked and crumbled. All of the love and trust that Moni had
invested so much time in building with the girl would get destroyed forever.
Moni would never see her precious Mariella again.

“Stop it!” The scream intensified the throbbing in
Moni’s head. No pain concerned her anymore. She reached into the back of her pants
and drew her pistol. She bashed Harrison in the temple with its handle. As he
staggered into the wall, Moni slipped free and bolted for Tanya.

Before Tanya realized what had happened to her
backup, Moni grabbed the DCF agent by the back of her collar. She heaved her
away from the girl’s door. Tanya fell on her ass. Moni aimed her gun square in
the middle of the woman’s shocked face. “Back off,” Moni said without a thought
about what a serious line she had just crossed. Each raindrop splattering against
the windows rattled the painfully swollen recesses of her brain. She ignored
it, along with the consequences of seeing this through. She didn’t give a damn
about anything besides keeping Mariella out of Sneed’s clutches.

“Girl, have you lost your damn mind?” Tanya
bellowed as she scooted away from the gun. Moni’s aim followed her.

“Drop it, or else we’re gonna have a problem here,”
Harrison said as he drew his gun on Moni. Blood trickled down his temple from
where Moni had struck him. It must take an anvil to knock him out. “I know you
love that girl, but you won’t be much use to her with a bullet in your skull.”

Moni thought about taking a dive, and turning the
gun on Harrison. Then she asked herself what the hell she was doing; she had
already flushed away her career, and bought herself jail time by turning a gun
on an officer. She had never even shot at a criminal when she had plenty of
reason. If she fired that gun,she’d never see the outside of a cell, or
Mariella, again.

“I’m sorry.” Moni lowered her gun and wiped a tear
from her eye. “This isn’t who I am.”

Her head pulsed from her relentless headache, which
made her involuntarily jerk the gun up once more. Moni flicked its aim away
from Tanya, but by then Harrison had barreled halfway across the room. He
wouldn’t stop. He plowed into Moni, swatted the gun from her hand and pinned
her against the wall.