ALEX DUARTE LISTENED ON THE PHONE HE HAD YANKED OFF THE nuclear weapon. He could tell the line was open by the sound of the other phone falling on the ground and what he took to be a few seconds of heavy breathing or wheezing, but now there was just silence.
Then, away from the phone, he heard Lina shout, "Alex, it's clear here. I think Staub is dead."
He tried to shout back but knew the tiny phone speaker wouldn't broadcast his words clearly. He knew he had to get back to her.
Duarte loaded the cowed William Floyd into the cab of the truck and drove as carefully and defensively as he ever had back toward the warehouse. He felt confident he had disarmed the weapon, but he was going to have plenty of professionals looking it over in the next hours. The warehouse sounded safe now, and it provided some cover for the truck.
At the warehouse he shoved William Floyd in front of him and immediately saw Lina, apparently unharmed, still tied to a chair. He ran to her and saw Colonel Staub's body near the office and the small phone on the floor near his hand. The colonel's pistol lay on the ground near Lina. He snatched it up, then started to untie Lina. "Where is Pelly?"
"Gone," she paused and said, "Félix is dead."
"Where? How?"
"He and Pelly shot it out. He's over there." She nodded toward the main shelves.
"Where'd Pelly go?"
"Don't know. He left with a crate of cash."
He finished untying her. "Call for the cavalry, then keep an eye on your Pale Girl," Duarte said, pointing at William Floyd, sitting sullenly on the concrete floor.
He spun and raced to the body of Félix Baez. Before he reached his friend, he could tell he was dead from several major wounds. Duarte checked his pulse still. As he did, he noticed the wound on his arm. The long-sleeved shirt Félix had been wearing covered it. Now the sleeve was ripped, and the wound just below the elbow was exposed. It was a gunshot that had passed through his forearm. Immediately, it occurred to Duarte how he had been wounded. It made everything fall into place.
Félix had killed Cal Linley and Forrest Jessup. Duarte should have figured it out by how the DEA man had taken his informant's death. He had seen the signs when Félix lost control at the Ryder manager in Lafayette. His obsession had gotten the best of him. His questioning had gotten out of hand. Way out of hand. On the night that Duarte had tried to see Forrest Jessup, he had fired at the man's killer. Félix had taken the bullet in the arm and kept running.
To be certain, Duarte used a box cutter on the lowest shelf to cut a small clump of hair from Félix.
As he walked back to Lina and Floyd at the office, he took an envelope from the manager's desk and saved the hair.
He sat down on a plastic chair as if he had lost all energy in his body.
The pickup truck with the weapon was just outside, and the men involved were largely neutralized. This was not his normal day at work. This would be something to tell his father.