The Gatekeeper

Thirty-Two

“Christ. It’s like looking for a truck in a truck stack,” Rodriguez muttered as he scanned through the printout with a highlighter.

“Tell me about it,” George complained, rubbing his eyes. “I might need glasses, this is giving me a headache. Jake, you wear glasses?”

“Nah. Not an old man yet,” Jake replied.

“Fuck you,” George said good-naturedly.

The three of them were ensconced in the trailer adjoining Leonard’s, scouring tax returns from the shell companies linked to Jackson Burke. A search of the remaining warehouses on Kelly and Rodriguez’s list had already been completed-the lead she’d used to stay assigned to the case. But unfortunately nothing had turned up. No more strange powder, or any evidence of radioactivity at the sites. Leonard had another team digging through the shell companies’ real estate holdings, but so far they hadn’t found any outside the list. Rodriguez’s friend at the IRS had been thorough.

That left them working the transportation angle, trying to track down semis. Problem was, Jackson ’s corporation owned a lot of legitimate businesses that used trucks to ferry goods and materials around the country. Any of the trucks could have been diverted from their usual routes to deliver the bombs.

Working on the theory that a major purchase, like a truck, would serve as a deduction, Jake, George and Rodriguez were going through years’ worth of depreciation forms. There were at least fifty trucks claimed so far, and they were only halfway through the stack. No way they could issue an APB on all of them, not without Burke finding out. And the Bureau was insisting they keep a lid on things until there was more concrete evidence. Jake suspected nothing would convince them short of the new senator showing up on Capitol Hill with a vest bomb.

ASAC Leonard had begrudgingly agreed to Kelly’s terms, which included keeping Jake on the case. He wasn’t happy about it, but Kelly had insisted. The tradeoff was that Syd was escorted back behind the yellow tape. Jake suspected Leonard hadn’t put his foot down because he knew he could assign Rodriguez, George and him the scut work. They’d been at it for hours now, and even though he’d never admit it to George, his eyes were swimming from the lines and bars of standardized IRS forms. They noted down the make and model of each truck and the company that purchased it, then ran that information through the DMV database for a plate number. Not that they’d be using registered license plates, as Jake pointed out. Leonard dismissed the complaint, which confirmed Jake’s suspicions.

“I think we’re going about this all wrong,” Rodriguez said, pushing back from the table.

“Yeah?” George asked. “You want to switch off, handle the DMV queries for a while?”

“Hell no. But I was thinking…if Burke is trying so hard to cover his tracks and smear some illegals for this attack, wouldn’t he take every precaution to make sure the trucks couldn’t be linked back to him?”

“Maybe. But they were purchased through shell companies, and it’s hard to prove he’s involved with those.”

“Hard, but not impossible. My contact found out in less than twelve hours. She’s good, but you know that if this goes down, they’ll have teams tearing apart every aspect of it for months.”

“You’re right,” George said. “And at that point, even a hint of an association with the attack would destroy him. That’s probably why there wasn’t anything in the other warehouses. Burke used one of his own for the nitty-gritty of the assembly, but for the rest of it, he could rent a different space. That way it wouldn’t link back to him if things went south.”

“No politician would risk it,” Jake agreed. “So what are we thinking? He rented the trucks? Paid cash, maybe?”

“Can you even do that?” George asked. “I thought you needed a special license to drive those.”

“You do,” Rodriguez said slowly. “But he probably wouldn’t use drivers linked to his company, either.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “He’s been using ex-cons and skinheads to do his dirty work. Maybe he recruited some of them?”

“Good theory,” George agreed. “Gotta be some truck drivers in that group. Question is, how do we track them down?”

Jake jerked upright. “Dante.”

“What?”

“Dante Parrish. The Corcoran warden mentioned him as someone high up in the Brotherhood leadership, but Syd and I didn’t get around to tracking him down.” Jake shuffled through some papers. “We got the lead on Madison, then Randall disappeared and I completely forgot about him.”

“Okay. But if Syd had trouble digging something up, why would we have better luck?” Rodriguez asked.

George shrugged. “Hey, we got the resources of the entire U.S. government at our disposal. It’s worth a shot. Why don’t you call Syd? Maybe she found something out and forgot to tell you.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Jake dialed her number. He’d been meaning to check on her anyway. He knew that getting escorted off the scene must’ve smarted. Syd wasn’t acclimated to being told that her security clearance was insufficient.

She picked up on the third ring. “Hey, I only have a sec. The plane is about to take off.”

“What? Where are you flying?” Jake said. “I thought you went back to the hotel to sleep.”

“Hard to sleep when we’ve got a bombing to thwart,” she said archly.

“Syd…”

“Relax, I won’t get you in trouble. Just tell your girlfriend I headed back to New York in a huff.”

“Is that where you’re going?” Jake asked. “Back to the office?”

“Not exactly.”

Jake shut his eyes. Why was every woman in his life so bullheaded? “Syd, this is nuts. If you figured something out, tell me and I’ll let them know. We could have a swarm of agents on this.”

“Not big on swarms. I work best alone. You of all people should know that, Jake.”

“Shit.” He knew that his chances of swaying her were slim to none. He could rat her out to Leonard and have her tracked on a flight manifest, but he squirmed at the thought. They were partners, even if he was the only one who seemed to get what that meant. And besides, thanks to her former profession, she probably had a drawerful of identities on hand. It was unlikely she was traveling under her real name. Although in retrospect he wondered if he was even privy to that information. After all, what kind of parents named their girl “Sydney”?

He sighed, then said, “All right. I need to know if you dug up anything on Dante Parrish before we got sidetracked.”

There was such a long pause Jake wondered if he’d lost the connection. “Nice one, Jake. Totally forgot about our friend Dante,” she finally said. “Huh. You’re right, if we could track him…”

“We’re pretty sure he was tied to Madison ’s kidnapping, right? So if he’s part of the larger plot-”

“Then he might know where the trucks are headed. It’s a long shot, but maybe. Wish I could help, but my sources came up dry.”

“Maybe we’ll have more luck. And, Syd?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful, okay?”

“You know me, babe.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” Jake muttered to the dial tone.

“So we’re trying to track down Dante Parrish?” George asked.

“Yeah. Syd didn’t have any luck, but maybe the long arm of the U.S. government will.” After all, Jake thought, the FBI likely had databases she couldn’t touch. “And while we’re at it, let’s see if we can gain access to prison records. I want the names of any Aryan Brotherhood gang members who did time with Mack Krex and Dante Parrish. Maybe some of them have licenses to drive big rigs.”

“Probably a lot of them do,” George said, cocking his head to the side. “It’s a pretty common job for ex-cons. Bosses don’t care if you killed someone, long as you didn’t do it while driving.”

“Well, it’s worth a shot, right?” Jake pointed out.

Rodriguez shrugged. “Hell, I’ll switch out one mindless search for another. At least this one doesn’t involve tax forms. Doing this made me realize I forgot to file this year.”

“And you call yourself a government employee,” George said.

“Hey, what they’re paying us, we shouldn’t even have to file. That should be a perk of the job, you ask me.”

“Amen to that, brother.”

Jake watched them tap knuckles. “All right. I’ll call the prison since the warden knows me. You two start on Dante. Anything you can find on him would be helpful.”

“Including an address?”

“That, and his exact location on a GPS.” Rodriguez snorted. “Sure. We’re on it.”

Jake watched as they set to work with renewed vigor. It wasn’t much of a lead, in fact it might prove to be more busywork. But at least it was their own busywork. And if they found something, he was not above rubbing Leonard’s face in it.

“No, I understand completely that there’s no official organizer. Still, you must keep track of-” The agitated voice erupted in another stream of accusations, and Kelly winced, holding the phone away from her ear. “I’m afraid you misunderstood me,” she said when he finally trailed off. “We have no interest in interfering with your right to free assembly. We’re just trying to find out if you have a list of participants-”

There was a renewed tirade about McCarthyism and witch hunts. When he invoked Abraham Lincoln, Kelly said, “Thanks for your time, sir,” and hung up.

Leonard glanced at her. “No luck, huh?”

“Same as the rest of them.” Kelly leaned back in her chair. She had spent the past few hours calling parade organizers in cities under the Houston field office’s jurisdiction, asking for the names of everyone who had been issued a permit for a float. Unfortunately, by and large the parades were ad hoc affairs. Sometimes it was even hard to determine if anyone was in charge.

Kelly had to admit, she was happy Jake and the others were in the other trailer. It would have been distracting having him here. She’d had to fight for him to stay, but figured she’d rather have him where she could keep an eye on him. Especially after the way he’d behaved during her Berkshires case. And separating him from Syd, who had an even weaker moral code, was a critical part of her plan. The best way to make sure he didn’t do something reckless was to keep him close by. Ideally, one trailer over. She, Leonard and three other agents were manning the phones in this trailer. Every other field office nationwide was doing the same thing, trying to procure lists of participants in Fourth of July parades.

Unfortunately, they were encountering a number of obstacles. Some parades were issued a single permit that covered the entire event. Other cities authorized individual permits, but were more than happy to include any float that showed up at the staging area. And the organizers rarely knew where the floats were arriving from; they were constructed everywhere from people’s driveways to the streets on the morning of the Fourth. It was a mess.

“They’d probably be a lot more cooperative if we told them why we needed to know,” Kelly pointed out.

“What, and start mass panic?”

“It wouldn’t hurt to tell people to steer clear of the parades tomorrow,” Kelly said.

“We tell people to skip the parades, they’re going to want to know why,” Leonard argued. “You’re basically suggesting we tell every city in the country to cancel Independence Day.”

“Why not, if it saves some lives?”

“Because it won’t make a difference. If the bombers get wind of the fact that we’ve figured out their plan, they could drive into a populated area and detonate this afternoon. Our best chance is not to let them know we’re on to them.”

“I don’t think we’re making much progress,” Kelly said.

“Look, Agent Jones.” Leonard glared at her. “We’ve got agents on the ground tracking down as many floats as they can find, in addition to driving around every major city with radiation detectors. We’ve called in the National Guard and every law enforcement officer available. Tomorrow they’ll be reporting to staging areas at dawn, checking each entry. We’ve spent a long time preparing for something like this. We’ve got it covered.”

Kelly couldn’t help saying, “Like you had Katrina covered?”

Leonard’s voice was edged with irritation. “We’re not FEMA, Jones, and this isn’t the first major bomb plot we’ve encountered since 9/11. We’ve dealt with this scenario before, and prevented it from happening. And remember, you’re free to leave at any point.”

Kelly set her jaw. Leonard had adopted a tone she hated, the old, you don’t know what you’re talking about, useless female voice. It triggered something in her memory. “Where’s Burke right now?”

“He’s still in D.C. But we’ve been told to steer clear of him for now. Legal is sorting through the paper trail between him and the shell companies. If they come up with a definitive link, they’ll arrest him. Until then, he’s officially not a suspect.”

“ Phoenix,” Kelly said suddenly, eyes widening.

“What about it?” Leonard had turned back to his files.

“It’s one of the targets. Has to be.” She could have kicked herself for not thinking of it earlier. If Burke planned on using the attack as a springboard to jettison himself to the next level of political power, he’d need a valid source of righteous indignation. And if an attack happened in his district, he’d be poised to take full advantage when disaster struck.

“You think he’d take out his own constituents?” She had Leonard’s full attention. His shaggy brows knit together.

“Getting back to Hurricane Katrina,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him. He rolled his eyes, but kept listening. “Could anyone outside the state have named the mayor of New Orleans or the governor of Louisiana before? And suddenly they were all over the news. That’s what Burke wants, to develop a following for his pet cause. And if one of the main targets was his home base…”

“He’d have that in spades,” Leonard said slowly. As he lifted the phone receiver, he pointed a finger at her. “Mind you, this doesn’t mean we’re saying he’s connected.”

“Of course not.” Kelly shrugged. “Maybe we got an anonymous tip.”

Leonard grinned as he dialed the Phoenix field office. “For a pain in the ass, you come in useful sometimes, Agent Jones.”

Syd waited by the curb. Less than a minute after she rolled her bag into the taxi zone, a large black Suburban pulled up, Maltz at the wheel. She threw her bag in the back and climbed into the passenger seat.

“Thanks for coming down here.”

Maltz shrugged. “You’re the boss. Jagerson is still recovering, so I’ve got Fribush and Kane with me.”

Syd glanced back at them. She’d worked with Fribush before. She didn’t know anything about Kane but he looked capable enough. Aside from slight variations in height and hair color, Special Ops guys were basically replicants: same body type, same square jaw, same army/navy surplus attire.

“Kane’s local,” Maltz said. “He thinks most of the floats are assembled in the warehouse district south of town. Figured we’d start there.”

“Sounds good,” Syd said, leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes. She’d been trained to go for a week straight with less than an hour of sleep a day. Consequently, she could drop off nearly anywhere, at anytime. She’d passed out at takeoff and woke up as the wheels touched ground, but still felt groggy. Just because she could do it didn’t mean she enjoyed it.

“How are the Grants?” Maltz asked.

My, he was chatty today, Syd thought, surprised. “I have no idea,” she said. She didn’t. In fact she’d completely forgotten about them when the FBI made it clear her services were no longer required. And now, with Randall dead, that connection had been broken. “Why do you want to know?”

Maltz shrugged. It was hard to tell with his perpetual ruddiness, but she could swear he was blushing. “They seemed like nice girls. Nice family,” he said

“I guess,” Syd said dubiously, thinking of Audrey. Nice wasn’t the first word that came to mind, but then she hadn’t spent much time with them. Maybe they were nice people to flee through the countryside with. Anything was possible, she supposed.

“You got everything?”

“Most of it,” Maltz replied. “Kane’s got a good base of supplies.”

“Good,” Syd said, relaxing back in her seat. As she watched the passing landscape she ran through possible strategies and scenarios in her mind. The desert sun outside the window burned hot, reminiscent of the countless other sand-blown cities she’d driven through over the years. This one was notably less exotic, however: Phoenix, Arizona.

She was surprised Phoenix hadn’t occurred to the others. It hit her the minute Burke’s name was mentioned. Of course he’d target his hometown-it was the natural choice. In the trailer she’d waited for it to dawn on the Feds. Obviously they didn’t have as much experience with warlords and ambitious generals, since they kept droning on about warehouses and driving radiuses. She’d almost told them, but after the brush-off they’d given her, decided against it. She knew how to stop one of the attacks. And perversely, she decided to help. Hard to say whether this was a knee jerk reaction to being told she was useless, or something else. Maybe it was because as an operative, she’d frequently been forced to stand by and do nothing while all sorts of terrible things happened, since there were “bigger issues at stake.” She’d always hated that expression, it usually meant a slew of innocents were about to draw their last breath and no one really gave a shit.

So here she was, then. Syd Clement, former spook, on a mission to save Phoenix from becoming even more of a barren hellscape than it already was.

“I’ll go in first,” she said, turning to Maltz. “Check each one out. If I need you, I’ll give the signal to move in.”

“You sure? We could split up, it would go faster.”

“If you got what I asked for, this shouldn’t take long at all,” she said, glancing at her watch. Nearly 3:30 p.m. Syd closed her eyes and said, “Wake me when we’re close.”