Burn Zone

47

ALEX DUARTE WOKE UP IN HIS NEW ORLEANS HOTEL ROOM CONFUSED and tired. He had dreamed of Agent Ruley and the case. In the short hours he had slept, Ruley had come to him in some kind of uniform, in her business suit and in a bikini, and each time she had said the same thing. "You fucked up. Now it's time for the first team to take the field." In real life, she had been the model of professionalism and quiet competence. He wished she had the confidence in him to let him work with her, but he knew he was essentially on his own. He had made a mess of things. He did not deserve to work with the team now trying to find out what was on the Flame of Panama and where it had gone.

He sat up in bed and saw it was seven on the nose. He tried to clear his head and decide on his next move. Then his Nextel rang.

"Duarte."

"Good morning, sunshine."

He could picture Alice Brainard's smiling, pretty face behind the voice.

"Good morning."

"Sounds like you had a rough night. Did the NEST people get up with you?"

"Oh, we spoke."

"They were really nice to me."

"That's a shocker. How many dinner invitations did you get?"

She laughed, then said, "Two."

Duarte sat up in bed and said, "What are you doing now?"

"Just looking through newspapers and breaking news online."

"Anything on this mess?"

"Nope, not a word."

"That's something, then." He thought about it and said, "Can you look in the Lafayette paper?"

"What for?"

"I don't know. I'm just looking for something that might point us in the right direction. Anything on murders, racists, Nazis. Anything at all."

After a few seconds, she said, "Here's an article on a set of three murders in Lafayette. A U-Haul worker and a young couple."

"I knew about them."

"Let me take a look in some of the other regional papers."

Duarte heard her hum to herself while she scanned some pages.

"Here's a dead man found outside of Houston. They call it breaking news, and the cops are still on the scene. "

"Anything unusual?"

"The body was that of Charles Kilner of Daytona Beach. Wanted in Florida for possession of crack. What do you think?"

Duarte considered it. "Don't know. That's the first time I've heard his name." But it still sat in Duarte's brain. He went on to say, "I know you got the one blood sample. I'm sorry, it's just happening so fast I can't keep up with everything."

"So you're still working on the case?"

"Not as far as the Department of Justice is concerned, but we're still poking around."

"Who's 'we'?"

"Félix, Lina and I."

"Anything else I can help with?"

"You've already done enough." He paused, then added, "I do have a cigarette butt for a DNA sample."

"Send it on." She chuckled at her intentionally tired tone.

He said, "Alice, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the help. When I get home, I intend to spend a lot of time showing you how great I think you are."

There was another silence, then Alice asked, "When are you coming home?"

"As soon as I can. I promise."

He had never meant something as much in his life.

William "Ike" Floyd had all of his belongings together and was all set to meet Mr. Ortíz later that evening at a warehouse in Houston. Mr. Ortíz had e-mailed him that everything was in order. Ike wrote back that he had no problems. He smiled a little writing that because he had had some problems but solved them himself. Three problems that had been eliminated, and no one would ever know.

He walked into the Jacinto Arms' small front office. The same, tired-looking young woman who had sat there the last two days never even set down her People magazine. Her big, brown eyes just gazed up at him.

Ike smiled. "Just need to settle up."

She leaned up on the stool and tapped a few keys of her computer. "That'll be one seventy-seven fifty, Mr. Johnson." Her eyes stayed on the keyboard of the computer.

Ike dug out some money and laid down a hundred and eighty bucks. "You know where this address is?" He showed her the warehouse address Mr. Ortíz had given him.

She squinted at his handwriting on the small notepad. She hit a few keys on her computer and then typed in the address.

After half a minute, Ike heard a printer working hard. Then the girl silently pulled out a Mapquest map to the warehouse.

Ike smiled and started to thank her when he noticed a police car turn down the access road next to the hotel. He stepped over to the big window and saw several cars and one set of police lights down the road near where he had left Charlie.

"What's going on?" he asked the doe-eyed girl.

She shrugged. "Cops found a body."

"When?"

"Last night. You didn't hear the sirens?"

"No. I was out like a light."

"They already had a photo of the dead guy. Asked me if he was registered here."

"Was he?" Ike didn't think she had seen him with the Charlies.

"Nope. Only you and two families from Illinois. Cops talked to them. They talk to you?"

He shook his head, then said, "Thanks for the map."

The woman said, "You give back the Ryder truck?"

Ike nodded and said, "Yeah, all set. Have a good day." He walked out of the small office smiling, knowing that once he left here, there was no way to trace him. Nothing could stop him from his mission now.

Alex Duarte had spent forty minutes on the phone trying to track down a Houston ATF agent who knew about the murder Alice had told him about.

Now he had on a young man with a slight Spanish accent who had graduated from the ATF academy in Glynco, Georgia, a few months earlier.

The new agent explained all he knew about the body the cops had found with a bullet in his head.

The agent said, "Yeah, the cops think he had been hitchhiking, and a trucker or someone tossed him out of the vehicle, then shot him. Oh yeah, and he's got a Klan tattoo on his arm."

Duarte said, "Was the body found anywhere near a place called Santa Anna's Pit Stop?" He heard the agent ask someone else in the room.

"Yeah. Someone says it's across the street near an old motel." There was a pause and then, "How'd you know that?"

Duarte considered this, then said, "I've got some more checking to do, but I'll call you back tomorrow. Then I'll give you everything."

He hung up without waiting for an answer.

He was on to something.

Pelly felt his mouth drop open when they entered the cavernous warehouse in an industrial section of Houston. It felt like a giant aircraft hangar. The sheer space inside the metal walls and roof was mind-boggling. The stacks of crates and even full cargo containers were almost as impressive.

What surprised Pelly most was the fact that this giant industrial complex was owned by the Balast Corporation, which was a subsidiary of the Central Trust of the Americas, which was wholly owned by an unnamed individual whom Pelly knew to be Mr. Ortíz. Or, more accurately, his boss, Lázaro Staub.

Staub nudged him as someone hustled off to find the manager. "Not bad, eh, Pelly?"

"When did this happen?"

"We bought it three years ago as a transshipment point for goods going into and out of Central and South America."

"I never knew."

"No need to. This is completely legitimate. We never send loads here."

"But we'll use it for a nuclear bomb?"

Staub chuckled. "You worry too much. It'll only be here long enough for Dr. Tuznia to arm it. Then the professor will be paid, and he'll go back to whatever low-paid college job he has."

"What are we paying him with?"

"Cash."

"You have that much cash with you?"

"Of course not. I had it shipped here."

Pelly saw a heavyset middle-aged man hustle down the steps of a glass office in the corner of the giant hangar. Even though the whole facility was air-conditioned, Pelly could see this piglike man sweating as he bolted toward them.

He wheezed. "Mr. Ortíz. It's an honor to have you visit."

The man had the Texas twang Pelly had heard in the movies.

The colonel said, "Thank you indeed, Mr. Duplantis. I hope you were told I might be utilizing the warehouse this evening for an hour or so."

"Yes sir. We slow way down after five, so it's no problem."

Pelly caught the man's eyes darting to him and noticed the startled look on his face. Pelly didn't care. He was still upset over meeting, then losing, Lina and then finding out she was the FBI agent Colonel Staub had been working with all along.

Pelly ran his hand over his cheeks, and even he was a little surprised how hairy they had become. He gave the warehouse manager a slight snarl and smiled to himself when he saw the man flinch.

There was nothing to do now but wait for the Ukrainian nuclear scientist Dr. Tuznia. And for William Floyd.