Bill Tasker stared at the red numbers on the alarm clock next to his rumpled bed, making a game of trying to guess how far they’d advanced every time he opened his eyes. When he was a student at Florida State, he’d been a subject of a psychology grad student’s test of internal clocks. At the time he’d done it for extra credit; now he found it interesting, if for no other reason than it took his mind off how he’d let Daniel Wells walk. All he could think about was getting to the ATF lab and finding out what the results showed. He looked at the clock again: 4:43. Shit. He decided to make use of the early hours and go for a run.
Thirty minutes later, with no hint of the sun arriving any time soon, Tasker picked up his pace, cutting through the Kendall neighborhood he knew so well. No women in bikinis like at Haulover Beach or calm water like at Biscayne Bay-just some simple, efficient exercise to get him in the right mind-set for the day. He went through the details he might have to put into the search warrant for the Wells house. He could already provide an accurate description, and he knew the layout for tactical considerations. In comparison to some drug warrants, it was easy. He didn’t have to rely on some informant with no eye for what cops needed to know when they came through the door. Tasker had been inside the small house a couple of times. His main concern was the kids and Alicia. If Wells was a mad-dog bomber, would he be calm when they knocked on the door? Tasker still had a hard time believing the whole thing. Daniel Wells appeared to be a normal, decent guy. There was nothing about him to indicate he was capable of something like trying to blow up a cruise ship. Why? What would drive a man to do something like that? Had he been paid by someone else? Had he been pissed at someone in the cruise industry? Tasker was going to have to do some digging on this one.
He was showered, shaved and had finished eating just as the sun started to peek over the house across the street. He used the early hour for a quick drive by Daniel Wells’ house. It was as quiet as every other house in the south Dade neighborhood. He just made a few quick notes about the placement of street numbers and colors in case he needed to put it all in a search warrant.
Near noon, Tasker was finally able to get Sutter to meet him. As usual, part of the inducement was food. They met at the La Carreta near the International Mall, off 107th Avenue.
Sutter glowered at his half-eaten Cuban sandwich. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into these places. I hate foreign food.” He held up the sandwich and then tossed it back on the plate. “I like hamburgers and pizza. Shit like that. I should boycott foreign food. Then maybe every white guy I know wouldn’t drag me to places like this all the damn time.”
“How many white guys do you eat with?” asked Tasker.
“Counting you? One. And I don’t want no more foreign food.”
Tasker had been raised in South Florida and never considered Cuban food as foreign. It was more just a different local flavor, like barbecue. He kept picking at his chicken fricassee while Sutter bitched. It was actually relaxing hearing the Miami cop complain about everything from food to television shows. To Tasker it meant the world wasn’t too far off its axis. He was still free and able to work. No one was going to indict him, even if the FBI wanted to. But he had to do everything he could to arrest Daniel Wells if he was guilty of the Krans-Festival cruise-ship bombing. If Tasker did nothing and Wells struck again, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
Sutter looked at his friend. “What are you so bent out of shape about?”
“Wells killed a guy and could kill someone else if we don’t do something.”
“So could I. Doesn’t mean I will. If that good ole boy did set the bomb on the ship, then we’ll be able to pin it on him. Those kinds of techno-freaks don’t strike every day. Look at the guy the FBI chased for so long.”
“Ted Kaczynski?”
“No, man, the crazy guy, lived in a cabin.”
“Theodore Kaczynski.”
Sutter couldn’t hide his irritation. “No, the Unabomber. Took him months to set up another attack. Only killed two or three people. Shit, we got crackheads kill more than that on a weekend.”
Tasker shook his head. “I think Wells could be a real menace.”
“But he didn’t sell the Stinger.”
Tasker smiled. That put it into perspective. He still couldn’t separate the act from the man. He had set this nut loose in South Florida. Then he said, “I appreciate what you’re saying, but I gotta forget the philosophy and ethical standards I may have met and get him off the streets. I may have followed my conscience and the law getting him released, but I’d do anything now to get him back inside.”
“What’d you have in mind?”
“A search warrant, for starters.”
“When?”
“Our legal counsel is reviewing it now. I need some info on the explosive from ATF and maybe I’ll have it signed by this evening. We can hit the house first thing in the morning.”
“And ATF won’t be involved?”
“I asked, they declined. I’ll see Camy this afternoon when I get the lab results.”
“If you’re gonna see the princess, then I’m going, too.”
“No comments, okay?”
“Me? Please, I’m a professional.”
“Good. I don’t need the ATF feeling about me like the FBI does.”
“You kiddin’? They should kiss your ass for even telling them about this. They should be sittin’ on Wells’ house right now for us.”
“Once we have him, they’ll come to their senses.”
“You don’t think it’s politics?”
“How do you mean?”
“They don’t want to piss off the FBI. They’re worried about a lawsuit for Wells’ false arrest. That sort of politics.”
Tasker considered this and said, “That’s over my pay grade, brother. We just arrest them. The bosses can work out who’s upset and who’s happy.”
Sutter smiled. “Amen.”
…
Daniel Wells was thirty years old and had only been into the heart of Miami a few times. Once as a kid when his family visited the Miami Seaquarium on Key Biscayne and his dad wanted to show the family what Hell was really like. Once when he worked a welding job at the port terminal. The day he drove to the port to have his suitcase loaded on Krans-Festival’s Sea Maiden. And today. Every time, he saw prostitutes near Biscayne Boulevard. The big park, Bayfront, was immediately east of him. I-95 was to the west.
Now he was alone in his little nine-year-old Toyota Corolla. The rear seat was out, and a sketchpad sat on the passenger seat next to him. He was a few blocks north of the federal courthouse and a little west of where the Miami Heat played. The main streets were all four-laned, but the side streets, the ones running east and west that ended at I-95, were all narrow, two-laned theaters. That’s how he liked to think of areas: theaters. How many spectators could fit in an area, then react to the demonstration? The ultimate interactive performance art. And what a charge he got from the interaction. The rush of seeing people panic. The turmoil caused by people running willy-nilly had actually given him an erection on several occasions.
This place might work if he had the right show planned. It’d have to be big and loud. People from the high-rise offices to the south would be able to see it and then who knows what the media might do to drive it. He had most of his plan mapped out, but he still needed a way to move his traveling show to this area. Maybe a problem on I-95 would divert the cops’ attention. Then he had an idea. Maybe a brilliant idea. He let out a yelp of excitement.
A homeless man approached the little car. The black man’s gray-streaked hair hung over a scarf into his face. His eyes looked surprisingly alert, but as he walked up to Wells’ car his body odor radiated out in front of him. He silently held out a small tin can with the label worn off.
Wells nodded and said, “No thanks, I’m not thirsty.” He drove on west to the interstate. Time to get back to his own kind of neighborhood. As he drove away, he looked in the rearview mirror and noticed the bum staring at his Corolla.
Tasker and Sutter waited in the small lobby of the ATF building. The receptionist behind the thick bulletproof glass had called Camy Parks ten minutes ago. Tasker hadn’t had the nerve to tell the Miami cop he’d had to stalk Camy just to give her the explosive to test. He was embarrassed enough that she was making them both wait in the lobby for so long. The receptionist didn’t care. From the looks she kept shooting Tasker, she was aware of the entire situation. With a lot of agencies Tasker wouldn’t have cared, but he respected ATF. They were one of the most kickass agencies in the federal government. They were able to tack on real charges to almost any violent crime involving a gun and they weren’t afraid to come out on anything. Now they thought he was an asshole.
After more than twenty minutes, Camy Parks came to the main door. She opened it halfway and stayed in the secure area, blocking their way like she was talking to a vacuum-cleaner salesman at her house and didn’t want to be bothered.
She nodded professionally. “Gentlemen, how are you?”
Sutter spoke up. “Right now I’m a little pissed off you left us pullin’ our puds out here.”
“Sorry, but I’m real busy.” Her gaze shifted to the main door and she smiled.
Tasker turned to see FBI agent Jimmy Lail bop into the lobby, his jeans hanging low and his shirt opened to reveal a white tank top undershirt. He saw Sutter and brightened immediately. “My brother.” He reached out to touch fists with Sutter.
Sutter nodded silently and forced the young man to shake hands instead.
Jimmy looked at Camy. “Yo, beautiful, whazz up?”
He glared at Tasker, squeezing past without a word.
Tasker said to Sutter, “There’s one positive thing out of this mess.”
The Miami cop snickered.
Camy, ignoring the childish behavior of the non-federal agents, turned to Tasker without another glance at Sutter. “The tests on that liquid won’t be done for at least ten days.”
Tasker frowned. “Can they tell us anything? Aren’t you interested in this case? You started it.”
She softened slightly. “Bill, I’ve been ordered not to get involved. My bosses think this is some kind of stunt by you to make up for what you did on the Stinger case. We’re waiting for a major lawsuit from Mr. Wells and this will look like some kind of harassment. So even if it was an exact match, I doubt I’d do much other than note in our case file that you suspect Mr. Wells of the bombing.”
Tasker looked stricken. “You mean the ATF actually thinks that I’m making this up? That I fabricated evidence?”
“We’re not willing to state that publicly, but, yes, that’s about the size of it.”
Sutter broke in: “Bullshit! You don’t want to admit that you guys couldn’t solve the case. If that explosive matches exactly, you’ll have to shit or get off the shitter. You’ll either jump in the case or have to investigate how Billy made it up.”
“That remains to be seen. I’m sure the ATF will do what’s right.”
“It’s right to help us now. Not hide behind some political motive.” Sutter’s voice had grown louder since he started to speak.
She ignored him, keeping both eyes on Tasker. “The preliminary results indicate that it is similar to the explosive used in the cruise-ship bombing. I don’t know if that will help, but it’s all we have.”
Tasker nodded. “Thanks, it might give me enough for a warrant.”
Sutter leaned in between them. “Listen, Princess, when you get off your high-fucking-horse and see my man here didn’t do nothin’ wrong, you’re gonna sing a different tune. You should save us all some time and accept it now.”
She smiled. Not a dainty, radiant smile like Tasker had seen so many times, but an evil, almost threatening smile that some street predators let out before they slash your throat. “First,” she started slowly, “you call me Princess again and you’ll be picking some of that gold in your mouth out of your shit.” Her eyes cut into him like a laser. “Second, I am not on any kind of horse, and I don’t have to explain anything to you. And third, I know all about you, Mr. I-can-have-any-woman-I-am-so-cool-and-smart-and-slick. So you can save the lectures for one of your little hoes on South Beach.”
Sutter said, “Heard I couldn’t get you.”
“Not on your best day.”
He added, “Unless I didn’t have a dick.”
She turned, letting the door swing shut and lock automatically.
Sutter stared at her perfect ass as it disappeared behind the door and said out loud, “That is some kind of great genetic code.”
Camy Parks waited in the ladies’ room for more than five minutes as her heart rate slowed to near normal. She sat on the second toilet, practicing the breathing exercises she learned in yoga. It worked eventually and she checked herself in the lone, cheap, industrial mirror. She could still look at herself in the mirror. But if Tasker was right and she didn’t help with Wells, she might not be able to look at herself for long. This was one part of being an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that she didn’t appreciate. Smaller than other agencies and often in danger of being disbanded or merged into another department, they didn’t have the capacity to butt heads very often. Fortunately, they did such a good job and worked with so many cops that it wasn’t necessary to exert influence often. Now she would have liked to have her bosses stand up to the damn FBI and say they would work on this case because it was right. Instead they came up with excuses like Tasker was just trying to make himself look good. If they knew the state cop, they’d know he wasn’t capable of something like that. She’d have to explain it one more time.
She came out of the bathroom and through her squad bay, ignoring Jimmy Lail as he sat at an extra desk, reading a hip-hop magazine. She marched down the long corridor through the administrative area to the secretary in front of the special agent in charge’s office. The SAC of any federal investigative agency was the final word. They ruled their empire as they saw fit.
“Does the boss have a minute for me?” Camy asked the lovely young Latin secretary.
The girl, whose English was questionable, just smiled and nodded.
Camy stepped up and knocked on the frame of the open front door. “Do you have a second, sir?”
The large man with a ruddy face and graying temples looked up from part of the mountain of reports littering his desk. “Sure, come in,” he said, motioning her to a chair in front of his wide oak desk. “As long as it doesn’t have to do with that FDLE agent, Tasker. That’s a dead issue.”
She didn’t even bother to sit down.