Smokescreen (32 page)

W
ithin minutes, the FBI had replaced the two male agents with two women and reassigned the men to new locations. A third agent, a lone male who looked more like a nerdy kid than
any
kind of government employee, was tasked with tagging Kunz. He arrived on a skateboard, wearing baggy shorts, a worn-out T-shirt and a black baseball cap. Its brim rested at his nape.

Long after they were all in place, and the FBI agent on Wexler reported that he’d gone to Los Casas, Ben headed to work to help cover him. Technically Wexler wasn’t due at work until 10:00 p.m. His showing up at 3:00 p.m. didn’t do much to put Darcy’s mind at ease.

Since it was her day off, she cruised around Devil’s Pass, looking for any other known GRID members. By 5:30 p.m., she’d run into plenty of excitement about the July 4th festival but no other known terrorists. That both heartened and disturbed her.

In the past, GRID members had worked in teams, and so far, she’d only identified Needle. But maybe things were different on this leg of their current mission. They certainly could be. GRID could be just traveling through Los Casas on the way to another destination. Yet all Kunz needed was a safe place to park the fire
work bombs until time for his minions to set them off. No better place existed than Broken Branch Redemption’s compound. Unfortunately, the damn place was perfect.

Her skin crawled. It was remote. It was secure. It functioned under the protection of the “freedom of religion” edict, and all that made her job not only difficult, but nearly impossible. There was no way she or any government authority could legally get in to take a look around, and Colonel Drake would never approve of Darcy making an illegal attempt. Not with these stakes.

Irked at being hamstrung, Darcy left the open-air theater where an opera rehearsal was scheduled for tonight. Dozens of eager people ready to party now took to the streets in a prefestival celebration. Ben had warned her that half the county would start celebrating today and be in the streets until midnight on the Fourth. Darcy couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind intentionally partying for four days and nights straight. But more than a few were already three sheets to the wind and the stench of beer and booze was strong on the street.

She stopped at the grocery store, picked up a few items and then took them back to the cottage.

After storing them, she fixed herself a sandwich and grabbed a soda from the fridge. Too many honchos were in town for a simple pass-through. Santana and Kunz.

And Kunz had broken the cycle. He had not been wearing a red shirt.

Did that mean he was authentic, or a Kunz-clone? Did it mean anything at all?

Feeling her anxiety level spike, she sat down in the middle of the living room floor and meditated. There was nothing left for her to do but wait until dark, then stake out Los Casas and observe the shipment.

At 8:00 p.m. Ben phoned.

“Time must be getting close. Wexler just shut down two lanes going in each direction and gave me the rest of the night off. He said he’d take the incoming.”

“Can he conduct your inspections?” Darcy mentally reviewed Wexler’s dossier. His expertise was in management, not specific to entomology, like Ben. With the amount of food imported, someone with Ben’s expertise as a chief inspector should always be on duty.

“Normally, if he runs into anything suspicious, he just calls me in to come take a look.”

It was what he wouldn’t call Ben in for that worried Darcy, and judging by his tone, Ben worried about that, too.

“I’m on my way there.”

“Better let the colonel know.” Ben sighed. “This feels like it and Wexler’s got a narrow window. He’s only scheduled to work until 11:00.”

It did feel significant, but then often when the instincts were on high-alert, an operative got that sensation and it proved false. She’d contact Home Base on the first hard sign. They had already been given a heads-up, and with the FBI being on-site, that’s really all she had to give them at the moment. “Why did Wexler really want to work tonight?”

“He said he didn’t want to take Elizabeth to the opera. It’s true that he hates it, Darcy. He bitches every year.”

“But he goes.”

“Normally, yeah.”

“So why not this year?”

“I don’t know.”

She couldn’t imagine Lucas Wexler liking opera. So without Needle’s decoded segment—which Langley had not yet verified as decoded accurately—Wexler’s working tonight really didn’t prove a thing. To avoid the opera, if they had one, he’d likely volunteer for a stint in the Foreign Legion.

Darcy scanned the Jeep for listening devices or explosives—just in case Kunz had seen and/or recognized her—but found none. She pulled out her hotline-to-Home Base phone and put it on the seat beside her. Her nerves stretched tight, preparing for what could come. She cranked the engine and blew out a long, steadying breath.

Watch it, Darcy. You don’t have much wiggle room on the nerves. Keep it cool and calm. Just observe, and if they bring anything across the border, hang back and see where they go with it.

She turned right and pulled onto the dirt trail that led to Los Casas, her tires kicking up a dust devil behind her.

Every instinct in her body warned her the last of the fireworks would come in tonight and that Kunz’s GRID goons would take them to Santana at Broken Branch Redemption. It was the logical place for the other two shipments to already be stored. Kunz certainly hadn’t been in contact with anyone else around here, and it’d be atypical for him to wait until three days before he intended GRID to use the bombs to position them inside the States. That left just too little time to flex if their plans hit a snag.

Former missions proved Kunz liked lots of flexibility and always had at least two backup plans.

About a third of the way to Los Casas, Darcy heard her phone ring and answered.

“You almost here?” Ben asked. “Wexler is acting really edgy. I’d say they’re due to arrive.”

“I’m on my way. Watch him closely. Whatever is done, he’ll be in the middle of it.” She swept a wind-blown lock of hair back from her eyes. “Who else is working tonight?”

“Mick. Bobby Meyers is on the schedule now and coming in later.”

Bobby Meyers had been at Los Casas for about five years. His dossier was clean. “Did you say Mick? The Oasis’s Mick?”

“Yeah. He fills in when someone’s out sick. James Grady was on the schedule until nine, but he’s down with the flu. Frankly, I think he wanted an excuse to miss the opera rehearsal, too.”

What was wrong with these men that they just couldn’t say no? “Is Mick qualified to be there?”

“He’s been filling in since long before I got here, Darcy. No clue what his qualifications are, but when I’ve worked with him, he’s always been on the ball.”

Something didn’t feel right. Something just didn’t feel right. Ben was saying something but he was breaking up. She was hitting a dead zone. Probably trouble on his end. She was on satellite—good almost anywhere. “You’re breaking up, Ben. We’ll talk when I get there.”

“No, Darcy! Land…”

“What? I didn’t get that.”

“Land…”

The line went dead.

What had he been trying to tell her? She hit a rut that jarred her teeth and dialed him back. Her phone was dead.

Landline.
Ben had been talking on a
landline.
It was her phone that was out—and now it was dead.

She checked the phone. It appeared to be fully operational. So why was it dead?

Her chest went tight and blood pounded through her temples. She hit the ledge of a deep rut—

And the rear right tire went flat.

You’re going to miss the shipment, Darcy. You’re going to fail. Colonel Drake blew it, trusting you with this. Thousands are going to die…just like Merry.

She fought the voice inside her head, fought the bitter memories but they wouldn’t go away. Darcy with Merry in their dorm room at college. Darcy standing as maid of honor at Merry’s wedding. Merry showing up unexpectedly at Darcy’s house right after Darcy had been pulled by emergency extraction from a mission that had gone south. Two FBI agents had died and Darcy had gone home to mourn. In her mind, she saw it. Merry’s silhouette shining through the windows, leading the terrorists to believe she was Darcy. The bomb crashing through the window, shattering the glass, landing at Merry’s feet. The explosion that killed her instantly. Darcy, running into the thick smoke and fire to try to save her, only to realize that she was already dead. The huge wooden beam falling, hitting Darcy in the head, knocking her out.

The darkness.

The fury.

The guilt.

Tears flowed down her face. “I can’t fail again. I can’t…fail again.” She fumbled for Wexler’s phone, tried Ben, but couldn’t get through. Her phone was still dead. This phone of Wexler’s was dead. Dead like Merry. Like all the people who would be killed with GRID’s bombs.

“I can’t fail!” she screamed.

You can do this, Darcy.

Ben’s voice. Ben’s calm, quiet, gentle voice.

You amaze me. Then, you were doing what came easy to you. Now, you have to do those things in spite of your mind and body putting on the brakes every time you turn around. You can do this….

“I
can
do this.” Darcy gritted her teeth, willed her heart rate to slow down. She wasn’t the woman she had been then. She was wiser, stronger, more disciplined. She’d learned to compromise, to improvise, to do what she had to do to make it through tough situations. She’d learned to struggle and persist and, God knew, she’d learned to endure.

“I
will
do this.” She reached for the car door, half climbed, half fell out of the Jeep. “I
will
change the tire. I
will
get to Los Casas before Santana and GRID take off. I
will
succeed in this mission.”

Steadier now, she walked to the back tire and took a serious look, blinking hard until the spots obscuring her vision left her eyes. The tire seemed to be intact. She checked the valve. “Damn it.” The stem had been tampered with so the air would leak out.

First the phone from work was bugged, then dead; clearly service had been cut to it. Now her tire was flat. Someone wanted to make damn sure she didn’t make it to Los Casas.

Had to be Wexler. He’d given her the phone. He had the book. He took down the coded messages and relayed them to others. Had to be Wexler.

Or Thomas Kunz.

O
fficially off-duty, Ben lingered outside the cinder block building at Los Casas and watched Wexler work the incoming traffic. He’d taken over the stall about thirty minutes ago to give Mick a break. Mick had gone inside to grab a cola from the fridge.

Something niggled at Ben. Something he couldn’t yet grasp but which just didn’t feel right—in addition to his worrying about Darcy. He again checked his watch.
9:00 p.m.
She should have been here ten minutes ago—and her damn phone was out. That could be incidental; there had been static on the line, and she’d been fine when it had gone out.

Likely, anticipation and dread just had him edgy. He wasn’t confident she’d hold up when things started coming down, and not holding up when confronting GRID could get her killed.

Mick walked back outside, a thermos in his hand. “Coffee,” he said. “Figured I needed a healthy jolt of caffeine. Lucas and his buddies kept me up too damn late at the bar last night for me to be doubling back here tonight, pulling a graveyard shift. It’s going to be a long night.”

It would be for all of them. “Bobby Meyers will be
in shortly to relieve you,” Ben assured him, then leaned back against the building, propped his foot against the blocks and watched a Lincoln Navigator pull in, turn around and back into the slot at the far end of the parking lot.

No one backed in around here except cops.

“I ran into Darcy outside the hotel this morning. She looked…upset.”

“Tired, I expect.” Two guys got out of the Lincoln. Santana’s cohorts from Broken Branch. Ben looked back down the road but saw no lights. So where were the FBI agents supposedly tagging these two jerks? Adrenaline shot through Ben’s veins, and his worry deepened. They’d somehow ditched the agents.
This had to be it.

Santana’s cohorts stood near their vehicle. Mick glanced their way, clearly noticing them, but didn’t comment on their presence. “I expect she was tired. Heard her car was acting up and you two were out late last night.”

“Yep, pretty late.” They were watching Wexler’s stall.

“So are you two—”

“Yeah, we are.” Ben swung his gaze to Mick’s. “Definitely.”

He smiled, wrinkling the skin under his eyes. The lines alongside his mouth became grooves. “Glad to hear it. You had me worried there for a while. It ain’t normal for a man your age to go without a woman for years at a stretch.”

“Waiting for the right woman. That’s all.” After Diane, he’d needed a break. She’d dragged him through hell and the last thing he’d wanted was to risk it again.
“What about you? You’ve been on your own a hell of a lot longer than I have.”

Mick hiked his eyebrows. “Who says I ever been without a woman?”

Ben frowned at him. Mick had been in love with Wexler’s wife, Elizabeth, his whole life. He’d never even been seen with another woman. The truth slammed Ben between the eyes. “You’re still with Elizabeth?”

“You know, Ben,” Mick said softly. “When a man’s got her at home, he ought not be stepping out.” Mick shrugged. “If he does, someone who appreciates her is sure to step in.”

So while Lucas was out playing around on Elizabeth, she’d renewed her relationship with Mick. Surprised, Ben grunted and looked back to the stall, wondering which had come first: Lucas’s extramarital ventures or Elizabeth’s. Either way, Ben had to give it to Elizabeth and Mick. They’d been discreet. He’d bet money that no one in Devil’s Pass suspected a thing about them, while everyone knew in intimate detail all about every one of Lucas’s affairs.

“Why are you hanging around here?”

Ben looked at Mick, who was taking a sip of steaming coffee and squinting at him over the rim of his cup. “What else am I going to do tonight? You’re here—the Oasis is closed.”

“What about Darcy?”

“After last night, she’s wiped out.” True, if not the truth.

Mick snickered. “Ride ’em hard and often, I say. They’ll always come back for more.”

An eighteen-wheeler pulled into Wexler’s stall, pulling a trailer with no markings on it. Was this it? Ben
stole a glance at the two men, who’d perked up, paying attention. This was definitely the GRID shipment carrying fireworks laced with radioactive waste.
Dirty bomb-loving bastards.
“Excuse me.”

Ben walked back inside and tried again to phone Darcy.

Still no answer.

What was he supposed to do now? Wexler was giving the paperwork a cursory glance. In minutes, he’d put the truck through.
Damn it.
Ben had to follow them.

“I’m not feeling good, Mick,” he said on rejoining Mick outside. “Guess I picked up James Grady’s bug. It hit me like a ton of bricks—all of a sudden.”

“Did you drink water out of the cooler?” Mick frowned.

“Yeah,” Ben lied. “A little while ago.”

“Damn it, I told Wexler to change out that bottle. I think it’s contaminated and that’s making everyone sick.”

“Tell him again. It’s got me.”

“Sorry to hear it.” Mick looked him over, genuinely concerned. “Go ahead home, buddy. I’ll take care of this until Bobby Meyers gets his ass in here to relieve Wexler—and I’ll let him know you’re down.”

“Thanks. I think I’d better do that.” Ben headed toward his Jeep, stopped and turned back. “Mick, get rid of that damn water, will you?”

“You got it.”

By the time Ben cranked the engine, Wexler had backed off and the truck pulled through. Raw terror struck Ben in the stomach. Terror and fury—and fear that GRID would succeed with its plans and successfully attack White House spectators at the fireworks celebration.

Determined that it wouldn’t happen, Ben tried yet again to call Darcy, but still got no answer.

Santana’s cohorts pulled out in the Lincoln and followed the truck. Ben pulled in behind them, and someone fell into line behind him. Who, he didn’t know, and their lights blinded him. He couldn’t even make out the type of car. Fortunately, they were all heading toward Devil’s Pass, and fortunately there were no other roads leading to it. No one should be suspicious about being followed.

Though, if all General Shaw had told him about Thomas Kunz and GRID proved true, Ben would never be so lucky.

Kunz and GRID suspected
every
thing.

Where the hell were those FBI agents?

Darcy whipped into Los Casas’s parking lot. Wexler’s truck was gone. Ben’s Jeep wasn’t in sight, either. He’d followed them!

Her blood chilled. He wasn’t equipped to deal with Kunz or his GRID thugs. At least, so far as she knew. And if he wasn’t, he was going to get himself killed.

She drove up alongside the concrete barrier at the open stall. Mick stood outside, under the overhang. “Hey, Mick,” she shouted out. “Where’s Ben?”

“He left about fifteen minutes ago,” he said, not seeming to be surprised to see her. “He wasn’t feeling well.”

He
was
in pursuit.
Damn it!
She stuck out her hand and bent her fingers. “I need your cell phone. Mine’s broken.”

Mick frowned. “What’s wrong, girl?”

“Oh, I left the damn iron on and I’m scared to death
I’m going to burn down Ben’s cottage. He’ll never forgive me.”

“Long as you keep coming back, he’ll forgive you just about anything.” Laughing, he passed her the phone. “Get you one of them irons that shut off automatically.”

“Next paycheck. Thanks, Mick.” Hitting the gas with a little more force than she intended, she left Mick standing in a cloud of dust.

She hadn’t passed them on the road to Devil’s Pass, which meant they’d cut cross-country to Broken Branch. There was nowhere else for them to go out there. The odds were slim to none, but she tried calling Ben at home on the off-chance he really had gone home sick.

No answer.

She tried again—this time, his cell.

Listening, she didn’t hear it ring, but there was activity—noise, actually. She focused hard, bumping across the barren terrain. Faint voices sounded in the background. Shouting. Cursing. Scuffling. More cursing. The voices grew louder, then louder.

“It’s happening!” Ben shouted. “It’s happening!”

A huge thud crackled in Darcy’s ear. Someone hitting Ben?
Oh God!
Someone throwing his phone?
No! No!

Grunting. Smacking. Something even more distant, more muffled caught her attention. Horns. Party horns and…music.

Darcy didn’t believe her ears. Was she really hearing what she thought she was hearing, or had her senses and her ability to process sensory input accurately parted ways?

There were no party horns at Broken Branch. She’d learned enough about their strict disciplinary ways to know better than that. Yet she hadn’t seen or heard anything that precluded them from music. Was Ben there, or somewhere else? If somewhere else, then where?

Think, Darcy. Think. You can’t fail again. You lost Merry. You can’t lose Ben, too!

Another man’s shout came through the phone. “No, don’t shoot him!”

Thomas Kunz’s voice. She was certain of it.

Certain? How can you be certain of anything?

Damn it, it was him. She recognized it from the Intel interceptions. Every known torture he’d ever committed ran through her mind, and terror, stark and cold and unrelenting, seized Darcy.

The bastards had Ben.