The Gatekeeper

JULY 3
Twenty-Nine

Jake started awake. He had dozed off while leaning back in a desk chair with his feet propped on a conference table, and they’d slipped to the floor. He shook his head to clear it. Syd was sitting across the table smirking at him.

“Comfortable?”

“These chairs were designed by sadists,” Jake complained, trying to stretch out a kink in his back. George had appropriated office space from the Sacramento field office, and told the two of them to stay put while he dug up information on Randall Grant. Jake had tried to convince him to let them go to a motel, but George made it clear it was the office or a holding cell. And frankly the way his eyes lit up when he mentioned the cell gave Jake pause. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Yup.” Syd pointed down. “Stretched out on the floor.”

“Really?” Jake eyed it dubiously. The rug was of questionable vintage, covered with old coffee stains.

“It beats a cave in Pakistan where they’re burning dung for fuel.”

“I suppose.” He checked his watch: 5:00 a.m. They’d been here for nearly twelve hours, and his stomach was rumbling. Even cafeteria food sounded good at this point. He should call Kelly back, too, now that things had settled down. It was 7:00 a.m. in Texas. She was probably already awake. But better to talk to her on a full stomach, he reasoned. “You up for a trip to the mess?”

“I got the sense we weren’t allowed to leave this room.” Syd raised an eyebrow.

“And that’s stopped you when?”

“Good point. Let’s go.”

George opened the door as they were about to step out. “Making a break for it?”

“Just heading down for some food,” Jake said. “We’re wasting away in here.”

“Doesn’t look like it would kill you to miss a meal,” George joked, eyeing Jake’s stomach. “Desk work has done you in, my man.”

“Bullshit. I’m still at my fighting weight,” Jake said defensively, trying not to be obvious about sucking in his gut.

“Not you, my dear, you’re perfect.” George winked at Syd. “Anyway, you might want to hold off on the prison break. I’ve got news about your boy.”

“Yeah?” Jake’s heart sank. George’s humor sounded forced.

Syd sensed it, too. “Bad news,” she said flatly.

“Yeah, I think so.” George opened a file and slid out a photo. “This your guy?”

Syd looked at it first. Without commenting, she simply nodded, then handed it to Jake. Typical morgue photo, the flat light made it look black-and-white even though it wasn’t. It was Randall Grant, all right. Someone had shot him at point-blank range near the temple. Death must have been mercifully quick, if there was such a thing.

“Crap.” Jake handed it back. “Where?”

“ Texas. When I accessed his fingerprints from the lab, I saw that another field office had matched them this morning. Made a few calls, but they’re not releasing any information yet.”

“Meaning what? They don’t know who killed him?”

“Meaning, I get the sense they’re dealing with something big down there. Mobile units were called in, and they’re raising the threat advisory level to orange, maybe even red on the basis of this.”

“Just because a scientist was killed?” Syd asked, puzzled.

“This guy Randall was a physicist, right?” George asked. “And you think he might have been smuggling nuclear info to the wrong people?”

“Maybe.” Syd turned it over in her mind. “But how did he end up in Texas?”

“No sign of him on any of the plane manifests.”

“Maybe he didn’t fly commercial,” Jake said. “Was there anything that might clue us in to what he was doing?”

“Like I said, my compadres in the great state of Texas aren’t talking.” George glanced at Jake. “But I was thinking you might have an in.”

“Why would Jake have an in? He never worked there,” Syd said.

“No, but his fiancée is the one who found the body.”

“What?” Jake took the form back and scanned it. It was a basic FBI FD302 report. Kelly’s name popped out at him. He flashed back on what little she’d told him about the case, something about Jackson Burke and a strange blue powder. “Oh, shit,” he said.

“Call your girl,” George said, nodding toward the phone on the desk. “And let’s see if we can figure out what the hell is going on.”

Dante watched as the lead-lined barrel holding the bomb was lowered into the center of the float. There had been a screwup with the one meant for San Antonio-the yokels in charge of the warehouse got snared in some FBI sting. He shook his head. Man, it was hard to find people you could trust these days. And he hated that their failure reflected poorly on him, at least in Jackson ’s eyes. He needed to make sure that from here on out, everything went smoothly.

Dante still couldn’t believe the FBI had found the Laredo warehouses. Now he’d have to come up with a fresh crop of illegals to man the float. That was one thing Jackson was absolutely adamant about-there had to be immigrants, especially Mexicans, tied to the initial blast. Not a serious problem, Dante still had Minutemen willing to serve as coyotes. The trick was getting another float ready in time. Thank God he’d kept the construction materials in a separate warehouse.

Dante watched as his guys wrapped white, red and green streamers around a wire-mesh frame. He had to grin at the incongruity of it. Who knew the arts and crafts program at Corcoran would come in so handy one day?

His phone buzzed. Dante checked the number, then snapped it open. “Do you have them?”

“Sir, this is Curtis Clay.”

Dante frowned, searching his mind. Remembered a beady-eyed little guy, sidekick to one of his boys in California. “You’re not supposed to have this number.”

“Yeah, I know, but…Jonas told me to call if something went wrong.”

Dante’s lip curled. Sure, everyone did each other in prison, but the ones who kept it up on the outside-he could hardly stomach the thought. The only reason he’d tolerated Jonas was that he was smart and took orders without giving him shit. “So?”

“So-” Curtis cleared his throat. “Jonas never came home last night, then I saw something on the news about a big bust over in Winters. Buncha bikers, and it was right near where you sent him.” There was a note of accusation in his voice. “He said he’d be home by dark.”

Dante could have sworn he heard sniffles. “Yeah, well, maybe he got smart and threw you over for some pussy.”

A pause, then Curtis whined, “They said some of them were dead, too. But they’re not saying who.”

“What about the bitches?”

“What bitches?”

“The ones Jonas was supposed to pick up.” Dante closed his eyes and fought the urge to hurl the phone against a wall. Shit, if this was true, he was down more men. And Jonas had been part of the next phase of the plan. He didn’t have anyone else in the area he could trust with it. He should have known better than to call in the Rogues. Dante had never been keen on using bikers, they were too loosely organized, too likely to narc when they got caught. They were probably singing right now. He went over what they knew, trying to remember if any of it pointed to him, or worse, to Jackson.

“They didn’t say anything about that on the news.”

“Fuck the news. I want you to call around, find out what the fuck is going on. I want to know where they were taken, and what happened to the women in the house.” Dante started composing a list in his mind. He needed to get in touch with one of his soldiers on the inside, make sure the biker pricks got the message that anyone who talked would suffer. Winters P.D. probably didn’t have their own jail, and even if they did, wouldn’t want to risk locals overrunning it. So that meant they’d be stowed in either Vacaville or Davis: Vacaville if he was lucky, he still had a good network there. Worst-case scenario they would have been driven to the federal pen in Sacramento. It would be harder to get to them there, but not impossible.

If the news was covering this, the Feds probably stashed the girls in a safe house somewhere. Weighing what had happened, Dante decided bothering with them was no longer worth it. They’d been bad luck, ever since the girl was snatched shit started rolling downhill. And they were so close now, he couldn’t risk fucking things up any worse. Plus, with Grant dead, the only reason to mess with his family would be to exact revenge on his corpse. And for that he could wait. Feds wouldn’t be watching them forever.

Creeper came out of the office, motioning for his attention. Dante held up a hand to indicate he needed one more minute.

“You got that, Curtis? I want to hear back from you in an hour, max, and I want a fucking hell of a lot more than what you saw on CNN.” He clicked off without saying goodbye and looked at Creeper. “What?”

“They found the guy.”

“What guy?” I’m surrounded by a bunch of fucking morons, he thought.

“The scientist guy, you know…” Creeper shuffled his feet.

“What, in Houston?”

“Yeah. Feds are all over it. Thought you’d want to know.” He beat a retreat back to the office, clearly spooked by the expression on Dante’s face.

Dante still clenched the cell phone in one hand, squeezing it hard. He barely saw the progress on the float. He recognized this feeling, it was the one you got when a job was about to go really, really wrong. He’d had it that day in the bank, right before the off-duty cop pulled his piece and he wound up in Corcoran as an accessory to murder. If the Feds had the warehouse, the minute they saw the powder they’d know something big was in the works. And then they’d be shutting down every interstate, every bridge. He shook his head. One day away. They were so close.

He reviewed the list in his mind. He needed to get the other drivers on the phone and check their status. If it came down to it, he’d revise the plans. That was what separated a great general from a mediocre one, according to Jackson: the ability to adjust to changing circumstances on the battlefield. Dante took a deep breath. In the end, it would all be okay. He’d make sure of it, even if he had to drive a fucking float himself.