Shock Wave

two

Bill Tasker watched his supervisor lean back in his cheap, prison-made chair. The heavyset man defied physics every time he stretched his girth across it. Tasker always held his breath during this movement, but so far he’d never had to take any emergency medical action.

“Billy,” started the fifty-five-year-old supervisor, “I just wanted to say you done good yesterday. Made a good arrest. Had one dumb-ass killed, but that was his own fault. Just wanted to say you done good.”

“Thanks, boss.” Tasker knew where this was headed, because he had been waiting for a talk like this the last few weeks.

“I know you got roughed up by the FBI pretty good over this Alpha National Bank shit. But no one here ever believed anything the Bureau was saying.”

Tasker nodded. At night, when things were quiet, all he thought about was his recent brush with the FBI. He knew he’d been the victim of a frame-up, pure and simple. Even though frame-ups are largely a Hollywood invention, Tasker had had an FBI agent named Tom Dooley plant evidence that pointed to him stealing a satchel of cash from an Overtown bank during the recent riots. The real story was still confused, but it looked like Dooley himself had taken the money, though nobody seemed to know where it was, and now Dooley was in jail waiting for trial and the FBI was embarrassed by the whole situation.

The supervisor said, “I know people wonder where the cash ended up, but no one I ever talked to thinks you had anything to do with it.”

“Thanks, boss.”

The supervisor went on. “That’s why I’m glad you got a good long-term case going now. I’m just sorry you’re tied in with the Feds on it.”

“No, you were right, we need the ATF in on this. They know Stingers. And they’re a good outfit. Hard workers, regular guys. I like working with them.”

“I know you’ll do us proud.”

“Thanks, boss.”

Later that afternoon, Bill Tasker sat on an intracoastal seawall near the Bay Front area, talking with a lean City of Miami cop named Derrick Sutter. Sutter had been on the original robbery task force with Dooley and Tasker that had started it all. The two of them caught up on news as they spilt a bag of plantain chips. Sutter had saved his ass during the ordeal over the stolen money, even caught a bullet from Dooley. Tasker wouldn’t forget that.

Sutter stretched his long thin arms as he took a deep breath of salty air. He cocked his head, giving Tasker a look. “You want me to work on another task-force investigation?”

Tasker nodded. “Technically, this is a joint investigation, not a task force.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Task force is a long-term, multiple-case commitment. A joint investigation means we don’t have to get friendly with the Feds because it’s a one-shot deal.”

Sutter was still on edge. “You remember the last one we was on?”

“I recall a little of it.”

“I remember ’cause I got shot.”

“Yeah, I know. But this could be a good case. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have someone I trust in with me.”

“I don’t understand why the Feds are involved at all. FDLE has all the jurisdiction we need, unless you set the deal up in Texas or something.”

“We called ATF because they have the expertise on Stingers. Hell, they made a great case on the IRA with a Stinger in West Palm. Then ATF had to call the FBI because there must have been a terror-related angle.”

“How’d the Bureau link terrorists to a redneck selling a Stinger?”

“What else is a Stinger for? Doesn’t matter, anyway. They’re in the case, and I want you, too.”

Sutter ran his dark hand over his darker face. “You know I’m still pissed off the damn FBI rejected my application. I think it was a racial thing.”

“I thought it was because you were nine hours short of a bachelor’s degree.”

“That’s what I mean. It was a racial thing.”

“I thought you got booted out of Florida International for missing class your last semester.”

“It was a racial thing.”

Tasker just looked at him.

“Yeah, little white French-Canadian girl from Hallandale. She never let me go.”

“That’s how you were oppressed?”

“Let me have a little racial anger, my brother. I’ll help you on the damn case as long as the Feds leave us alone and no FBI guys shoot me again.”

Tasker had to crack a smile at that one. “I can almost guarantee no one in the FBI will shoot you during this case.”

At the Miami field division’s main office of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, known simply as ATF, Bill Tasker sat at a desk, shaking a Magic 8-Ball.

“Will I see a naked woman in the next twelve months?” he asked the ball quietly.

NOT LIKELY, showed on the octagonal globe inside the ball.

“Figures,” muttered Tasker, placing the ball back on the desk.

“What figures?” asked Camy Parks, the ATF agent working on the Stinger case with him.

“Just testing my luck.” He said it staring at the ball so his eyes didn’t try to involuntarily dart toward the gigantic opening on Camy’s low-cut white blouse.

“Guys worry about luck. Women worry about skill.”

Tasker quickly moved his gaze up to Camy’s delicate face.

She smiled and said, “Guys worry about those more than women, too.”

Tasker blushed at being busted.

“Things still not on track with your ex-wife?” she asked.

“Not yet. What am I saying? Not at all.”

“What’s her beef?”

“She isn’t ready. That’s her best answer. Her worst is that she still has feelings for some lawyer she was dating.”

“A lawyer-yuck. Why?”

“Don’t know. I don’t think she even knows.”

Camy sighed. “Women, what a pain in the ass.” Her delicate Tennessee accent made every word sound like a compliment.

Tasker nodded, keeping his eye on her for any hint of a joke. Maybe the rumors he’d heard about her were true. He watched her compact, incredible frame move as she cleared some of the folders off her desk.

“It’ll be a relief to take a break from this stuff.”

“That all the cruise-ship case file?” asked Tasker.

“These are just the reports. I have a file cabinet full of photos and a whole aisle in the evidence room.”

Tasker looked at the photographs taped on separate sheets of paper. The first was of the Krans-Festival flagship, the Sea Maiden. One porthole was burned black around the edges. The second photograph was of a red suitcase.

“This couldn’t have held the bomb?”

“No, that’s the same model and color. All we had left was a handle and some of the top of the bag.”

Tasker read the label: Samsonite.

“You worked this all by yourself the past two years? What about the Bureau?”

“They had a guy on it for the first month, then something happened and they pulled him off. I got a Department of Transportation agent on it with me, and we’re in good shape with the leads.”

“You close to an arrest?”

“Not at all. Just caught up on leads and lab work. Nothing new in eighteen months.”

“Any other hard evidence?” asked Tasker, trying to remember the details of the two-year-old case.

“Just the handle to the suitcase that contained the explosive, a photo of a car we believe was involved and the explosive fingerprint. And about three hundred bogus leads.” She pulled out a black-and-white security-camera photograph of a light-colored Toyota Corolla with a big dent in the roof where the windshield met it.

“What kind of explosive did they use?”

“It’s called TATP. God help me, I can never say the full name. It’s homemade and really unstable and nasty.”

“You think the bomber killed himself since this attack?”

“I doubt it. We checked all the unattended death records for the tri-counties. There are just too many missing persons. For all I know, he’s rotting out in the Everglades after standing too close to one of his own bombs.”

“One can only hope.”

She smiled at him. “People were real interested in the case, but then interest just dried up.”

“I remember the news coverage-for a week. The people at Krans-Festival fell all over themselves saying it was an isolated incident.”

“Yeah, they thought it would hurt the cruise industry, but it really didn’t. The one baggage handler was killed. The city is holding it as an open murder case, and the survivors didn’t see anything unusual.”

“Why wouldn’t the FBI be all over that?”

“Maybe because the casualty was an Italian laborer on the ship. Maybe ’cause there wasn’t much damage and it didn’t look too sophisticated?”

“That wasn’t big enough, but they want a piece of my Stinger deal?”

“It’s crazy, I know. At least I know the agent they assigned to us.”

“Lail?”

“Jimmy Lail.”

“What’s he like?”

“Different.”

The test was perfect. He felt more and more comfortable with the TATP. The liquid explosive was a little unstable, but that only added to the fun. For a homemade explosive that couldn’t be traced, he’d take the risk. Even though it had been made in a wash basin in an old dilapidated garage, he had to admit that in the couple of years he’d had the explosive it had held up well. He didn’t take any chances with it, either. That was the saving grace of the tiny detached garage. He kept his Corolla, his tools, three hidden guns and the explosives in it, away from everything and everybody else.

He walked in through the rear kitchen door, wiping his feet carefully to avoid his wife’s wrath. She was peeling carrots for a salad at the cheap, uneven kitchen table, and as he came inside, he leaned down to kiss her.

“How was work?” asked his wife.

“Good, no problems.”

“Carlos called for you about an hour ago.”

He nodded silently as he tramped through the cluttered house out to the garage. He always parked the Corolla behind it so no one could see it from the street. Sometimes he even pulled an old parachute over it because the crease in the car’s roof caused it to leak a little and the old silk parachute deflected light rain. It also hid the car completely. Just in case.