IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON, AND ALEX DUARTE HAD PUSHED THE tiny Cobalt he had rented to its limit of about seventy-five miles per hour. It was the last car in the Hertz office at their hotel in New Orleans. Now, Duarte, Lina Cirillo and Félix Baez were already past Lafayette, well on the way to Houston.
Lina, in the passenger seat, said, "I gotta say that when you called me this morning I never thought I'd be on my way to Houston this afternoon. I'll say one thing for you, you are decisive."
From the backseat, Félix Baez chimed in. "I still think this whole thing sounds thin. The radioactive cargo. The lead. Our trip. I don't see how this will help us find out who killed Gastlin." He sat amid a half-empty case of Beck's beer.
Duarte didn't like that his partner had started drinking as soon as they left at nine in the morning. He said, "I told you, I did some checking with the Houston ATF. The phone call to Jessup's house from Jacinto City near Houston is only a few hundred yards from where the body of the Klan guy was found last night. It's too much of a coincidence." Duarte didn't want Félix to think they had forgotten about his murdered informant. "Besides, this might tie into Gastlin's death. If we're really trying to help find that cargo, then this is the right move. New Orleans is covered by the NEST team. They wouldn't be following up on something like this."
That answer seemed to satisfy Félix.
Duarte kept his foot pressed to the floor as the small engine whined and they moved closer to Houston.
Félix said, "Still wish we could've found a flight."
Lina shot back, "You wouldn't have been able to drink this much on a plane."
Duarte calmed them both down by adding, "If none of us are supposed to be on this case, it's best that there is no record of where we travel right now."
Thanks to the wonders of computer-generated maps, they found the crime scene a few minutes after exiting the interstate highway. A lone patrolman sat in his cruiser keeping the scene secure until a final search could be made.
The sun was low, but still provided enough light to see the area.
Duarte identified himself and asked a few questions. The patrolman only knew that someone walking his dogs had found the body and that it had been dead only a short while when it was found. No one had heard anything or seen anything.
Then they found the pay phone in front of the little store named Santa Anna's Pit Stop. It appeared to be little used.
As Duarte surveyed the area from the phone, he turned to Lina, who was doing the same thing. "The only thing I see worthwhile is the hotel."
Lina said, "The cops already checked it."
"But they didn't have a photo of who they were looking for."
Lina said, "Good point. Let's go."
They let Félix snooze in the backseat as they parked in front of the little office of the Jacinto Arms. The young woman on duty looked as happy to see Duarte and Lina as she would to see masked robbers.
"Sixty-five a night is the best I can do." She said it with no emotion, almost like a computer.
Duarte flashed his identification. "Just have a few questions."
"Already talked to the cops. Don't know nothin'."
Duarte held up the driver's license photo of William Floyd and set it on the small counter. "Was this guy a guest here?"
Her big brown eyes slowly tracked down to the photo, and then she actually seemed interested for a moment as she studied the photo. "Yeah, he was here."
"Can I see his registration?"
She fumbled with a few cards next to her computer and handed Duarte one.
He looked it over, but all it said was "Bill Johnson, New York."
Duarte said, "You get anything else from him? What he was driving? Any information could help."
She nodded and typed in a few keys. "He was drivin' a Ryder truck but said he was done with it. I didn't see what he left in." She handed a sheet of paper from the printer to Duarte. "But he asked for directions here. It was still in my Mapquest on the computer. No one else needed directions."
Duarte stared at not only the address where Floyd was headed but a concise map, too. Man, was modern police work getting easier.
Pelly and Staub had eaten a good meal at a chain sports bar a few miles from the warehouse. It was the first restaurant Pelly had seen in the area. Now they were sitting in a small office by one of the doors to the warehouse, waiting for both William Floyd and a professor from a nearby university whom the colonel had somehow heard would arm his nuclear weapon for a crateful of cash.
Pelly hadn't looked in the sealed crate yet, but knew the footlocker-size box did indeed have a lot of cash in it.
The manager, Mr. Duplantis, had been told to leave, and the colonel had been shown how to set the alarm. In the bright fluorescent light of the office, Pelly wondered if Colonel Staub ever worried about the moral consequences of his acts.
Pelly justified his own actions one of two ways: business reasons or teaching someone a lesson about making fun of him and his condition. But a nuclear weapon set off in the U.S.? That was going to kill a lot of people no matter where they sent it. He mulled over the prospect as he sat in silence with Colonel Staub.
After more than an hour, the bell for the front door rang. Pelly looked up at the colonel, who nodded for him to answer it.
Pelly walked past the big bay door that allowed trucks into the facility and went to the small door marked PUBLIC/ADMINISTRATIVE. He opened the hollow metal door, then froze for a second. This wasn't who he had expected.
Alice Brainard had gotten Scott Mahovich working right away on the samples that Alex had sent her. She had a growing sense of the importance of this case.
No one was saying that a nuclear weapon had come from the cargo ship, but they weren't taking any chances. No one at the sheriff's office had asked her about the FBI interview. She had just continued her work. But all she could think about was Alex Duarte and his safety.
Scott, the DNA scientist, popped into her office. "I'm working on these samples you gave me, but in light of the interest by the FBI, I'm going to have to report what I've been working on."
She cut her eyes up from the clothing she was searching for fibers. She was past the point of leading this guy on. She was not in a cute workout leotard. She didn't have on makeup or have her hair in anything but a ponytail.
She leveled her stare and said, "You will work those samples up, keep your mouth shut and stop bothering me."
"Or what?"
"Or I'll get up, march over to you and you'll have to tell all your deputy buddies how a girl kicked your ass."
He hesitated.
She stood up quickly, scooting the chair out from behind her.
He held up his hands. "Okay, okay. But when will it end? Am I going to just keep doing samples for your boyfriend?"
"Yes, until he doesn't need our help anymore." She went back to work, ignoring the tall, gangly man. She thought, That felt kinda good.
Pelly heard the colonel call out, "Who is it?"
Pelly smiled, knowing this was not what his employer expected either. He stood aside so the guest could enter. "Please, Dr. Tuznia, come in."
The forty-year-old woman did not look like a nuclear scientist. She was very well-built with dark hair that ran across her pretty face. If it weren't for her Slavic cheekbones, she would have looked Hispanic.
Her hips swayed in a very unprofessorlike way in her midlength skirt. Her large breasts jigged slightly as she walked. Pelly didn't even mind the fascinated look she gave him. As she stepped through the door, she ran a confident hand across his overgrown face and winked.
"That is impressive," she said, her accent sounding like a Russian spy in a cartoon. "Hypertrichosis?"
Pelly nodded.
"I like it." Her long straight nose was the perfect highlight to her high cheeks and white teeth.
Pelly didn't want to miss the look on the colonel's face as she walked into sight. This was the spitting image of every woman he had ever ordered whipped. She even looked like the secretary the colonel had beaten for using the phone for personal calls.
Staub stood inside the office, smiling at first, then, failing to hide his surprise, said, "Who the hell is this?"
The professor stepped into the office and offered her hand. "Marise Tuznia."
Staub took it, his mouth still agape. He didn't give his name.
"I thought Dr. Tuznia was a man."
"He was. That was my father. I am also a Ph.D. in physics. I could call my brother. But he is a doctor of dentistry."
Staub stood speechless.
Pelly enjoyed every second of it.
The professor said, "Now, Mr. Ortíz, do you have my money?"
Staub nodded. He stepped over to the crate he had had brought up to the office, popped opened a big folding knife and cut the seal around the top. Then he pried off the top of the crate.
Even Pelly had to catch his breath at the sight of the U.S. currency stacked inside the box.
The good-looking professor stooped down to the crate and ran her hand over a couple of rows of cash.
Staub said, "Do you wish to count it?"
She gazed down at the fifty-dollar bills and shook her head. "Even if you are off by a million or two, I'm still rich." She stood and said, "Where is the device?"
"On its way."
The professor looked at Pelly and smiled. "What could we do with the free time?"
Pelly smiled until he saw the look on his employer's face.