Rick Mofina - Six Seconds

The driver in the rig ahead grabbed his fire extin guisher and ran to the car, followed by Graham and the truck driver from the rig behind them. They got within twenty yards when the air split-thwack-boom thwackboom thwack-boom-as lightning explosions released concussion waves that forced the men to the ground.

The air reeked of gas and melting plastic. Flames and heat engulfed the overturned car, leaving the men helpless to get closer.

“Christ almighty, there are two people in there!” one of the truckers said. “No way they’ll survive!”

As the car burned, sirens sounded. Soon, Montana Highway Patrol cars, a deputy sheriff, two firetrucks and an ambulance had arrived.

Water hissed as firefighters doused the blaze.

Moe Holman shook his head at the carnage. “We’re going to need this stretch of road to investigate. People stuck way back there will not see the pope. I’m telling you, today just keeps getting better.”

His radio crackling, Holman looked at the traffic as his people tried controlling it.

“You really think he was coming at you?” Holman said to Graham and the truck drivers as he took notes. “Sounds crazy. Maybe he had a seizure?”

“Seizure, my ass.” One trucker spit and nodded to Graham. “Looked to me like he was gunning for you, like some dang fool kamikaze.”

Graham noticed Maggie off by herself, kneeling on the grass, and went to her. She was looking at a warped object.

“What is it?”

Without touching it, she pointed at a twisted piece of charred metal, the remains of a Montana license plate and a rental logo framed around it.

“It’s the guy we just saw in the truck stop parking lot.” She checked her notes. “Maybe the same guy on the plane. And I think I saw him watching us in the restaurant in Las Vegas.” She looked at Graham. “What’s happening?”

“Get in the car. Keep trying your calls.”

Graham got Moe Holman’s attention and the two men talked alone.

“Moe, it’s possible the fatalities in this car are linked to my case and maybe an unconfirmed, uncorrobo rated threat.”

Holman’s gum chewing ceased in mid-chew.

“Here? Against the pope?”

“Could be.”

“By who and what means?”

“I don’t know.”

“We never heard anything about this at the briefings this morning. No lookouts, or anything. Maybe you got it confused with the Seattle business yesterday.”

“What Seattle business?”

“All I’d heard is they detected some kind of security breach in Seattle. I heard they took care of it but are keeping a lid on the details. Don’t think it even got into the press yet. They don’t tell us, we’re just traffic control.”

Graham considered what Holman said.

“What’re you holding back from me on your case, Daniel?”

“My case may be related to some raw intelligence out of Africa.”

“Africa? What the hell else do you know?”

“A reporter from Washington, D.C., following the story was recently killed, along with his family, while camping near Banff. Looked accidental but we’re not certain.”

“What? Do you know these people in the car?”

“No. When you run the plate and get a name, alert the FBI and the people on the pope’s security detail. Ask for Secret Service Agent Blake Walker. Give him my cell number.”

“Count on it. But I’d bet my left one the feds will call me first for everything we’ve got on this crash. I’ll tell them what you said.” Holman nodded toward a military helicopter patrolling above the crash. “They’ve re stricted the airspace for the pope’s chopper from Great Falls to Cold Butte. The show’s going to start soon.”

“I need to go,” Graham said. “You have what you need from me.”

“Could you hold off so I can send someone with you. Make me feel better.”

“How long?”

“Until we get things under control here. We can’t spare anyone at the moment.”

“I want to go now, Moe.”

Holman’s radio crackled. A busload of pilgrims from South Dakota had hit an RV near Sand Springs. No serious injuries, just another traffic headache.

“This is what happens when the state’s population triples and everyone decides to visit your backyard for the day.”

Holman resumed chewing, waved Graham off, then spoke into his radio.

To make up for lost time, Graham drove as fast as the line of traffic would permit.

He used every gap to cut in, waving apologies to drivers he’d cut off. He tried calling Walker but his phone couldn’t get through. Maggie studied maps and tried calls in vain.

When Cold Butte lay ahead, Graham’s phone rang.

“Dan, it’s Stotter. Where are you?” Static filled the line. “Graham? Can you hear me?”

“Still in Montana. At Cold Butte. Before you tear into me-”

“Cold Butte? All right. Listen, something’s come up. Arnie Danton did a luminol test at the scene and found blood near the river. I know we should’ve scoped it before. Arnie said it would’ve got by us if not for your hunch.”

“Did he find a weapon?”

“Maybe a rock. Bang them on the head, put them in the canoe. Would’ve been consistent with the river. Damn near perfect.” Stotter’s other line rang. “We’ve still got some lab work to do, so stay put and stay tuned.”

“Wait! Mike, I need help. You’ve got to reach Special

Agent Blake Walker. He’s Secret Service with papal security down here. Advise him on Jake Conlin, aka, Burt Russell. Montana DMV has him. He could be with an unidentified female and a child, male. If Tarver was murdered, it gives credence to his conspiracy story.”

“We’re on it.”

As Graham and Maggie got nearer, the traffic flowing into the small town slowed to a near standstill. People had pulled their cars off the highway to park on the grass. They opened trunks and side doors, emptied rooftop racks, collected lawn chairs, coolers, blankets, banners, placards.

Welcome Holy Father, Montana Loves The Pope.

In some cases, groups of men and teenaged boys were carrying elderly people in wheelchairs.

Approximately every twenty or thirty yards there was a volunteer or a uniformed officer directing every one in steady, peaceful streams toward the school and Buffalo Breaks, site of the shrine where the pope would celebrate Mass for thousands.

“We’ve got to split up,” Graham said. “You get to the school, ask for Special Agent Blake Walker. I’ll find the house on Crystal Creek Road.”

Before Maggie got out, she took Graham’s hand, squeezed it hard and looked into his eyes. There was so much she wanted to tell him but there was no time.

“Go find your son,” he said.

Her chin crumpled. She nodded, then hurried into the crowd as helicopters thundered above them in the eternal prairie sky.

Time was ticking down.

Montana

Thirty thousand feet above the snow-tipped Bitterroot Mountains, jet fighters from Montana’s Air National Guard met the pope’s plane.

Special Agent Walker broke from working on his computer to watch from his starboard window as four F-16s assumed protection from the four aircraft of the ANG’s Washington Wing.

The lead Montana fighter tipped his wing as welcome and soon after, the formation began its descent to Great Falls International Airport.

They were less than twenty-five minutes out when Walker and the other agents on board were simulta neously e-mailed with classified updated situation re ports.

Walker scrolled through the bulletins. The investiga tion of the border penetration at the Juan de Fuca Strait indicated involvement of a vessel from Yemen: Pre liminary analysis of suspicious items washed ashore showed them to include a “potentially volatile” but as yet unidentified substance. Nothing conclusive to con stitute a national threat or link to other cases. Urgent investigative analysis was ongoing and led by a special ized new unit working with the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force.