Shock Wave

eighteen

Bill Tasker blinked hard, still clearing the CS from his eyes. CS was older and not used as much as the modern pepper spray, but not because it didn’t work. Police had moved to pepper spray because it was safer. CS was effective, lingered and was a bitch to clean up. Eight hours and five showers had cleared most of the irritant from his face, but every few minutes he’d feel a burning sensation and blink. It was probably as much psychological as it was physical. But the gallon of snot that had poured out of his head wasn’t psychological, just gross. Driving his personal Cherokee, because the CS had also made his issued car unusable for the foreseeable future, he turned off Pines Boulevard in western Hollywood into the new set of housing developments. The miles of new, similar houses caused the native Floridian in him to flash in anger. The houses were needed for New Yorkers escaping the cold and people escaping Dade County. It didn’t change the fact that the land had been a marshland next to the Everglades just a few years ago, and now it was a wasteland.

Camy Parks was a perfect example of a former Dade resident now living on what should have been a wildlife preserve. Tasker had been able to get her address in about five seconds on the Internet and was on his way to set her ass straight about this case. It was her investigation, and ATF needed to be involved. Tasker sure could use the help.

He found the cream-colored, two-story, zero-lot-line abomination of a home with no trouble. Camy’s ATF-issued Ford Crown Vic sat in the driveway next to a Saab that Tasker assumed was hers. There were several cars on the street near the house. No lights were on in front. It was only about nine, so Tasker wasn’t worried about waking her. He rapped on the front door, then rang the doorbell to be sure she knew she had a visitor. He had thought about bringing along Sutter, but after their little confrontation at the ATF office and Sutter’s lingering misery from the CS he’d decided to leave his partner out of this plan. Besides, after dark all he’d be interested in was getting the lovely lesbian ATF agent in bed.

Tasker heard Camy call through the door. “Who is it?”

“Bill Tasker.”

She opened the frosted glass door a crack, then said, “Billy, what are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

She opened the door wider and looked at him. “What happened? Have you been crying?”

“Yeah. Most of the day, as a matter of fact. Can I come in?”

She hesitated.

“It’s important.”

Camy sighed and opened the door for him. She had on a terrycloth robe and her hair was loose around her shoulders. She looked almost wild like this.

“Thanks,” he said, stepping into the open room with high ceilings.

“First, tell me why you were crying.”

He explained the event at Wells’ trailer in decent detail, only leaving out that he and Sutter had fallen for the second trap in his car. He could see she was at least slightly amused by the story once she knew no one was seriously hurt.

Camy said, “I’m sorry, Billy, but just because this guy Maced you, I can’t rejoin the case.”

“What are you talking about? It’s an ATF case. He is the guy who bombed that cruise ship. I know it. I also think he’s got something else planned.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, but this afternoon in his van I saw he had a big metal tank welded in the back. Unless he’s driving across the Kalahari, I don’t think the tank is good for anything but blowing up.”

Camy considered this.

“Are you gonna let a disagreement get in the way of saving people’s lives?” Tasker looked hard into her eyes.

He jumped when he heard a male voice say, “Letting Wells out wasn’t a disagreement, dawg. It was a double-cross.”

Tasker snapped his head in the direction of the man and was shocked to see Jimmy Lail in a silk, flowered dressing robe standing near the entrance to the bedrooms.

Tasker stared, speechless, then turned to Camy. Without thinking, he blurted, “I thought you were a lesbian.”

She froze, then smiled. “I never said I was. That rumor started and it was no one’s business, so I ignored it.”

Tasker looked back at Jimmy Lail, saying, “Or were you just ashamed of your culturally challenged boyfriend?”

Camy didn’t answer, but Jimmy crossed the room toward Tasker, his bathrobe flapping open slightly. “Listen, dawg. Don’t try an’ dis me.” He moved past the couch and kept coming at Tasker.

In a smooth motion, Tasker wrapped his right hand around the handle of his ASP expandable baton in his back pocket and pulled it, not snapping it open but holding it in his palm like a eight-inch stick. He held up his hand and applied a little forward thrust as Jimmy came to him. The weight of Jimmy’s body running into the point of the closed ASP aimed right at his solar plexus knocked the wind out of his sails and then the man off his feet. He stayed on the ground, gasping for air.

Tasker calmly turned his attention back to Camy like nothing had happened. “So what about it? Help me stop this guy.”

“If I ignore orders, it could be the last case I ever work.”

“Seems like it’s that way with every case for me.” He smiled.

“Can we do it quietly? Keep a low profile?”

“Everything I do is low-profile.”

Camy looked at her pissed-off boyfriend and then at Tasker and simply said, “Okay, we’ll help.”

Daniel Wells still chuckled at the thought of the three cops rolling around on his porch that afternoon. But now the realities of life had squeezed out his mild euphoria over confusing the cops so well. Now he stopped the little Honda he had stolen and parked it a block away from the house he was about to visit. It was more a compound than a plain old house, with three separate structures and two full carports. He left the Honda with the broken window right on the street. That way, when the cops found it they would be able to return it to the kid who had parked it at the Wal-Mart in Homestead. Wells had simply broken the window, then cracked the steering column. Nothing fancy, but it got him where he was going.

As he walked up the long driveway to the main house, he noticed an old blue Ford Ranger pickup truck and two Dodge Diplomats. He smiled, remembering that these guys sometimes liked to pretend they were cops.

The compound was operated by the American Aryan Movement, but everyone just called them “the Nazis.” The compound was owned by one of the members’ parents who, Wells was sure, had no clue what was going on at the house. He didn’t really care what was going on, he just needed some cash to help him get a decent vehicle before all his plans had to be scrapped because of something simple like no wheels.

He walked to the front door, amused that the supposedly vigilant master race had not even noticed an intruder walk through their yard. Before he knocked, he felt the handle of the Ruger.22 he had stuffed in his waistband under his loose shirt. Then he pulled out a small clear plastic tube containing six balls. This was a little surprise he’d cooked up with a mixture of TNT he’d gotten from one of his old employers, who’d used it to clear obstructions like tree trunks at construction sites. He slid the tube back into his front pocket. He didn’t want trouble this time. He wanted to fly under the radar, but he needed money to get a car, and these guys owed him. He pounded and waited. Then pounded again until he heard someone inside say, “Okay, okay, hold your horses.”

A thin, blond man about twenty-five named Dell Linley came to the screen door and said, “Hey, Daniel. Where you been?” then opened the door for him.

Walking in, Wells said, “Been busy.”

Dell led him into a living room where four other young men sat watching TV.

On seeing Wells, several of them turned and one said, “Look what the cat dragged in. What’s new, Daniel?”

Wells shrugged. “Oh, nothing. Just came for the thousand bucks you guys owed me for the bomb I made you.”

They all laughed at once. Dell, the blond guy, said, “If we had the thousand, you think we’d be watching Gilligan’s Island on Nick at Nite?”

“I got another idea. What about giving me that old truck in the driveway and we’ll call it even?” Wells smiled to reassure the men.

The oldest and largest of the men stood up from the couch and said, “I got another idea. Why don’t you get lost and forget about the thousand bucks? Joe and Pete got arrested for that thing, and no one noticed, anyway. I think we’re already even.”

Wells backed toward the kitchen, reaching into his pocket as he did. All five men slowly started to follow him. Wells said, calmly, “No, I need some transportation. I want the truck.”

The big man said, “You must be crazy. What makes you think we’re gonna give you a truck?”

Wells pulled his hand from his pocket holding the clear plastic tube the size of a roll of quarters. He let them see the tube with the claylike balls in it. “These make me think you’ll let me take it.” He wanted to keep things quiet, but felt his urge, mixed with anger, start to build in him.

“What’re those?” asked one of the men.

“I like to call them ‘super blast balls.’ Just Silly Putty with a kick.” He let a ball drop into his right hand, then, without hesitation, threw it at the refrigerator. It exploded on contact, blowing a six-inch hole in the refrigerator with a deafening blast. In the ensuing commotion, Wells drew his pistol and blew out the overhead light. At the sound of the shot, everyone froze.

Wells took advantage of the silence to say, “Keys, please.”

Someone tossed him a set of Ford keys. He leaned down and picked them up off the floor and held them, with the explosive balls in his left hand and the gun in his right, still trained on the stunned Nazis.

“Any questions?” He backed out slowly. He knew that no matter what happened, these guys wouldn’t tell the cops anything. The neighbors were used to shots fired over here. Just as he was at the door, however, one of the men charged him. The force of the body block sent the vial flying into the air.

Wells realized he had lost the balls and let the flying man knock him out the door. He could hear the multiple explosions inside just as he and the man came to rest outside in the gravel driveway. Wells didn’t wait, just pumped two.22-caliber rounds into the man’s thigh, then kicked the screaming man off him. He immediately rose to one knee and faced the open rear screen door. He could see the smoke and a small fire caused by the detonation of the balls. He raised his pistol and waited. As the first man emerged from the confusion, Wells shot him in the knee, causing him to tumble to the ground. He repeated the maneuver on the next man, Dell, the blond guy who had greeted him. No one else tried to follow.

Wells stood up, stuck the pistol in his pants under his loose shirt again and calmly walked to the truck. The Nazis in World War Two must’ve been tougher, thought Wells, as he drove away in his new truck. Or at least smarter. He enjoyed his special feeling as he took a last look at the confusion he had just caused. And now he had a truck to drive that no one would be able to trace. He knew these morons would come up with a good story when they had the.22s removed from their legs. They’d be too scared ever to come after him.

Tasker took almost an hour going over everything they had developed on the case. Camy Parks took notes while Jimmy Lail sat back on the couch, looking uninterested. They were both still in bathrobes. Jimmy had hardly moved since Tasker stuck him in the stomach with his ASP. He was so quiet that Tasker worried he might have hurt the confused FBI agent. Finally Tasker decided he didn’t care.

Tasker told Camy about everything, from the explosives-maker to Sutter’s sighting of Alicia Wells.

Camy interrupted, saying, “I knew you guys were interested in her.”

“Only because she might give us a clue as to where Wells might really be hiding.”

“Yeah, right.” Her green eyes rolled at the suggestion. “Is she more or less sexy to you guys now that you know she’s a stripper?”

“Camy, I couldn’t care less.”

“Obviously Sutter does, since he’s the one going to topless bars.”

Tasker stared at her, wondering if she had some problem with topless bars.

She realized she was going off track and said, “Okay, what’s our plan?”

“The first thing I need is for you or Lail to see if there is any real intelligence on Wells. Then I’d like to look at what’s been done on your case that might help us. After that, I’m open to suggestions.”

Camy said, “We could have an FBI profiler look at the case. They might have some ideas.”

“Do they really work? I know we had them look at a murder in Gainesville and the profile was way off. In fact, if we’d have followed it, we never woulda caught the killer.”

Camy nodded. “A profile of the bombing might give us some insight into Wells’ personality.”

“You’re right, it couldn’t hurt.” Tasker looked at Jimmy. “Can you arrange for the profiler to talk to us?”

Camy added, “And keep it quiet so we don’t draw any attention.”

Making it look like he didn’t care, Jimmy said, “Alice Quills? She’s not a real profiler. I mean she didn’t do the full-year training at Quantico. She just went to some in-service classes and then the thing where she rode with the Metro homicide guys. If you want, I’ll call her. And going to her won’t raise any eyebrows.”

Tasker noticed the loss of accent. Maybe too tired to keep up the façade? “Will you check your intel, too?”

“Technically, we’re not supposed to have intelligence files on groups like that.”

“Hey, I don’t know if he’s in any organized group. It was your intelligence files that said he was. I’m just asking you to look.”

Jimmy just nodded.

Camy asked, “Is Sutter still involved?”

“We’re all equal partners in this thing now.”

No one said anything, so Tasker took it as agreement.

Daniel Wells backed his newly acquired Ford pickup next to the small drab building. He’d already found a duplex in Florida City that had a carport in the back to hide the van. He’d settled into his new place with just the clothes on his back and a few things he’d picked up at Wal-Mart. At least now he knew exactly where he stood. These cops were serious and he was obviously wanted. He doubted if even his friend could help him anymore. It definitely meant he had to move on his plan as soon as possible. Since it didn’t revolve around a festival or concert, he could do it any time. He had already decided that a weekday was best, but other than that he had no restrictions, other than gathering all the necessary equipment and putting it in place. The only tricky thing was the big rig. First he had to get one, then he had to drive it. A few more lessons and he’d be good to go.

He hadn’t bothered to booby-trap this place. Usually, tricks like the Mace bomb only work once before someone is careful approaching a house. He also realized that no one knew he was here. He figured the call by the fire department had given him away at the trailer. That wouldn’t happen again.

He tried to watch the little color TV that came with the duplex rental and then tried to read a W. E. B. Griffin novel about marines setting up a weather station in China during World War Two, but he couldn’t concentrate. His urge was starting to consume him. He had to pull this off, and fairly soon, or he felt he might fade away, unrecognized and useless. What scared him was not the thought of his plan for downtown Miami, which he hoped might end his need for chaos, but the fact that he was already thinking of a bigger plan. One involving a pedestrian crowd, like at a mall or a music festival.

He got up and milled around the small rented house. Unable to concentrate on anything but his plan, he sat down at the rickety kitchen table and started to sketch out some diagrams for his escape. He was worried. His special feeling had changed, and changed in a big way. He’d always been able to do other things while looking forward to his little stunts, but this was different. Like entering a long tunnel and not knowing which way to walk to get out. He missed his kids, but even that feeling was muted by his need to go through with his plans. A night with Alicia would help. He didn’t even know where she was. He looked at his sketch and realized that he had drawn bodies on the sides of the streets. He hadn’t meant to, but his hand had a will of its own.