Fallout

CHAPTER 16

Lines of bright orange flame gushed along the den wall like water streaming from a fire hose. With a yell, Goldfarb backed off, covering his eyes as the wash of heat swept over him.

He hadn’t triggered an actual bomb, no huge explosion — but the tripwire had set off some kind of incendiary device. Within seconds the enclosed room became blanketed with crepe streamers of blazing fire that raced out into the hall spilling along weirdly defined pathways.

And now Goldfarb knew that the house’s chemical smell, the biting volatile tang in the air, came not from Connors’s bomb-making activities in the garage — it was the residue of accelerants, flammable chemicals the militia man had painted on the walls and the floorboards, laying down the ingredients for an instant inferno. He had intended for his house to go up in flames, taking the FBI agents with it.

“Ben!” Jackson yelled. “Get out of there!”

Stacks of papers sitting on the card table curled and singed. With an idiotic numbness that just might have been bravery, he knew he had to retrieve the evidence, some of it at least. It had to be a weapon that would strike the Eagle’s Claw where it hurt.

Ducking his head, knowing that untold lives could depend on his snatching information that would prevent this Friday’s impending disaster, Goldfarb dashed inside the den and grabbed a handful of the top papers. The flames rushed in, swirling all around him.

“Ben!” Jackson bellowed, sounding close, running down the hall even faster than the flames could spread.

As he lurched back toward the door, toward blessed escape, Goldfarb’s hair curled back, crisping; his suit jacket smoldered hot. As he looked at the papers, the boxes, the flammables, he realized that all the records in this room also served as fuel for the fire.

“The whole place is rigged!” Jackson said staggering down the hall and coughing loudly. “It’s going to go up.” The lean, dark-skinned agent grabbed Goldfarb’s elbow and dragged him out of the den, then began pounding his back and shoulders. Goldfarb hadn’t even realized he was on fire. Smoke swirled thickly around them.

Goldfarb coughed as they hustled down the hall. The flames followed them like molten dogs lapping at their heels, skirling along the walls, following the lines of chemical accelerants splashed on the walls. Light bulbs exploded overhead, and both agents flinched, covering their heads.

In the kitchen another small explosive device went off, and flames burst from the cupboards. Debris from broken dishes, shattered glass and the smashed window sprayed out onto the floor.

“Here, the front door is closer,” Goldfarb said. “Pronto!”

“No!” Jackson yelled, grabbing him. “Plastic explosives! It’s booby trapped.”

They staggered past a large window at the side of the living room, but Goldfarb also saw crude wires hooked up to the sill and frame. “Connors must have had altogether too much time on his hands,” he said, coughing. “Let’s go out the same way we came in.”

“Get moving, then,” Jackson said.

The kitchen was already in flames. Broken shards of glass and stoneware made the floor an obstacle course. Goldfarb coughed, his eyes watering and stinging. His skin felt raw as if from a severe sunburn, and the chemical smoke from the accelerants and burning paint made his lungs rebel each time he took a breath.

The ravenous flames finally reached the living room, crawling rapidly along the line of flammable chemicals painted in a deadly spiderweb that looped all the walls in the house. Once the FBI agents and tripwire incendiaries provided the spark, Bryce Connors had made sure no scrap would remain, just a pile of ashes.

The two agents staggered toward the garage door where they had entered. Goldfarb looked over his shoulder to see the fire racing toward the front door, licking the flammable chemicals on the sheet rock — and finally reaching the small blocks of explosive that had been rigged to the door frame.

“Look out!” Goldfarb said.

Jackson saw it just in time. The two of them threw themselves around a corner shielded by the bulk of the refrigerator just as the explosives blew. With a ripping sound that blasted out the front of the house, the bombs took out the door and five feet of structural wall on either side. The windows in the room shattered with the sound of hissing glass.

From where they sat huddled, the overpressure shockwave struck them, making both of Goldfarb’s ears pop. His head knocked against the refrigerator, but he got up a moment later, shaking the stars from his vision. He touched his nose, seeing a trickle of blood coming out.

“Let’s not wait for all those drums of fuel oil in the garage to blow,” Goldfarb said, then sprinted toward the still-open door leading out to the garage. His feet crunched on broken glass and shrapnel scattered across the floor. He slipped, his shoes skittering on the debris, but he caught his balance before he could dive face-first into the stalagmite shards of glass.

Jackson bolted after him. The flames had spread from the kitchen into the garage already, working their destructive lines along the stacked bags of fertilizer, the two-by-fours of the workbench. The calendar curled up, brown at the edges; the red circle around October 24 turned black.

“Get your butt in gear, Jackson!” Goldfarb said as they both dashed out the side door, past the low fence, and ran toward the street.

Moments later, an explosion rocked the house and the rest of the garage collapsed. The blast knocked both of the FBI agents to the sidewalk. Smoke and splintered debris boiled toward the sky like the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb.

Shaking his head and listening to his ears ring, Goldfarb turned and saw the inferno that was left of the suspect’s house. One of the side walls groaned and collapsed.

Goldfarb held up the sheaf of random papers he had snatched from the pile inside the den. “I hope we’ve got some clues at least,” he said with a grin, then brushed a hand across his stinging cheeks. “Oh boy, what a way to start the day. I could use another cup of coffee. Strong coffee.”

Jackson stared across the street at crowds that had come out of the little shops in the strip mall. People stood around the coffee and donut shop, staring wide-eyed. Traffic had stopped on the street as the blaze continued to roar behind them. The fire department would be on its way but far too late.

Jackson picked himself up and brushed off the front of his suit. Goldfarb did the same. He shook his head with feigned annoyance, narrowing his eyes at all the spectators pointing at them.

“What are they looking at?” he said. “This is Vegas. You’d think by now they’d be used to the light shows.”