Whirlwind

60

Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Texas

From their desks in the FBI’s Dallas Division on Justice Way, Agents Grogan and Quinn could see the Stemmons Freeway.

Cars passed by like time ticking down on the case, Grogan thought, as he worked at his terminal while Quinn worked the phone. Grogan clicked on the sketches of their suspects, the man and woman.

We’re gaining on you.

Waves of information were rolling in on the double in Fate. Pieces were coming together fast. The victims were tentatively identified as Arlen and Brice Gribbley of Mesquite, Texas. They were brothers. Arlen had a criminal record. The motel towel found in the Fate residence was being analyzed. The details Kate Page had provided at the scene were good: the information from the dying man, naming DOA as a link near Lubbock, was a solid lead.

Page had also reported hearing a baby.

Grogan and Quinn interviewed the neighbor Hazel Hill for her account of seeing a woman and a baby, stressing that the woman had short dark hair under a wig. Rockwall County’s canvass of the neighborhood had yielded reports of muffled sounds of firecrackers, then a Ford pickup racing down Briscoe Street-that description fit with the vehicle description the manager of the Tumbleweed motel had given on the couple with a baby who’d stayed in Unit 21.

Then there was the discovery of the laptop belonging to Lamont Harley Faulk on the road a few doors away, as if it had been lost or discarded.

Fate PD had confirmed Faulk owned the home where the Gribbleys were killed. The Dallas PD had tentatively ID’d Faulk as the male found murdered in the garage he’d managed, Ray’s Right Fix Auto Repair. Faulk was found with his head in a vise-the violence suggested outlaw motorcycle gang, but no assumptions should be made.

Using all of the new information, and assistance from the DEA and Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the FBI had established a link to DOA’s network and an address near Lubbock. Everything pointed to the baby being in the Lubbock area.

And now Quinn was confirming details for a warrant.

She finished her call and stood. “Our information from the RA in Lubbock and the DEA is good, Phil.”

“Yup,” he said, looking at a new text from the Assistant Special Agent in Charge. “And the ASAC already cleared SWAT for immediate deployment. We’re going with them. Let’s get moving.”

Grogan drove.

They took the Stemmons Freeway south and within twenty minutes they were at Dallas Executive Airport, previously known as Redbird Airport. Flashing their credentials at the security gate, they drove directly to the hangar and the waiting jet.

It was a Gulfstream the Dallas Division had on a standby lease. The FBI’s Dallas SWAT team was already aboard with equipment.

As Grogan and Quinn climbed in, the pilot’s voice crackled through his headset over the intercom. “Got some rough weather in front of us-this could get bumpy, folks.”

Once Grogan and Quinn had buckled up, the jet lifted off.

The skyline unfurled and the Metroplex shrank under them.

During the one-hour flight, the jet shuddered several times as Grogan and Quinn reviewed with SWAT commander Steve Elling more details and the context of their target address for this arrest-and-rescue operation.

Two of the murdered men, Arlen Gribbley and Lamont Faulk, did time in Hightower Unit. According to the TDCJ and the DEA, both had dealings with Jesus Ramos Ramirez, aka DOA, a drug dealer and ex-member of an outlaw motorcycle gang. Ramirez had an affiliate with a meth lab in a place called Vickson’s Farm in Anton, just northwest of Lubbock.

“It all fits with Kate Page’s information from Brice Gribbley, the connection to DOA, to Vickson’s farm outside of Anton.”

After they’d briefed the SWAT commander, the captain announced that they’d be beginning their descent into Lubbock. The sky had darkened with broiling clouds. The SWAT team began pulling on their gear, and Quinn reviewed the supplementary information that had come in from TDCJ on Lamont Faulk, concerning other prisoners he was known to associate with. Among the list of those recently released was Mason Varno. But he’d had no ties to Lubbock, so they’d given him a lower priority.

Still, that name.

Mason.

Quinn blinked thoughtfully, flipping through her notes from Kate Page on the dying man’s words. “One of the things he said sounded like (and here Quinn spelled everything phonetically) May-SOO.”

Her notes indicated they’d taken May-SOO to mean “Ray’s Shop.”

Could it actually be Mason? Mason Varno?

She’d tell Grogan that after this operation she’d run Varno down, too.

At that instant, the jet yanked from under her, her seat belt cut into her thighs and several SWAT members crashed to the floor.

“Sorry, guys,” the captain said once the plane leveled. “Everybody stay in your seats and buckle up. The NWS just issued a tornado watch for the region and that could be upgraded to a tornado warning.”

Without warning, the jet was shoved up then down and up again. Then Quinn heard the staccato of stones hitting the fuselage as her window began blossoming with shattering ice balls.

Hail!

She saw lightning and rain before the nose of the jet dropped to an unbelievable angle. Her stomach churned as it rocketed down.