James Born - Shock Wave

“This seems like a huge waste of time.”

“Almost everything you investigative agencies do seems like a waste of time. I’m a street cop. Hit fast and hit hard-that’s what I like.”

“But this specific surveillance used all our manpower and brought the rest of the case to a dead halt.”

“Yeah, that’s true. But I’m a black man watching the Klan. I can’t complain. Told my dad and even he was impressed.”

Tasker smiled at Sutter’s positive outlook, then caught sight of a pickup truck coming out of the street. It was the third time in twenty minutes it had come up Krome Avenue and driven past them. He let his eyes follow it. The big F-250 had three men in the bed and two up in the quad cab.

Sutter said, “What is it?”

“Just nervous.”

“About the truck that’s filling up with rednecks?”

Tasker nodded. “Exactly.”

“Now you were about to tell me why you were worried about the case.”

“Jerry Ristin called me yesterday.”

“On a Sunday? Our analysts aren’t quite that dedicated.”

“It was a sensitive matter. He didn’t want to talk in front of the whole group.”

“That include me?”

“I’m tellin’ you, aren’t I?” Tasker looked outside to see the F-250 slowly pass again, headed toward the house, this time with another man in the back. “Jerry said one of the numbers in Wells’ personal phone book comes back to the FBI.”

“No shit! What’d you suppose he was doing with that?”

“We’re gonna find out.” Before he could add to his comment, Tasker saw several men at the corner of the yard looking back toward Manny’s Market. “I got an idea.”

Sutter cut his eyes to Tasker. “This doesn’t sound like a smart idea, but go ahead. What’s your plan?”

“I pull away, maybe down the road, and see if they hassle one guy sitting alone.”

“So I’m bait?”

“Yeah. You could be better bait if you rolled down the window.”

“So they could see I’m a black man?”

“They are supposed to be the KKK.”

“All you want is a pretext to question them and maybe get in the house.”

“And end this fucking surveillance.”

“Go hide like a baby.” Sutter smiled.

Tasker said, “Let me call for reinforcements.”

Camy Parks was uneasy herself. She had just searched all the ATF intelligence files available and found pages and pages on Ed Conners, but not one sentence about the house off Krome being a meeting place. It was true the FBI had different sources, but usually not that different, and with the limited flow of information there was often something that overlapped. She couldn’t figure out why there was no overlap, unless Jimmy Lail was lying about the connection. Then she couldn’t figure out why he would lie. She looked over at Jimmy, who was sitting at her desk, bobbing his head to some beat only he could hear. Because he had such a good body and acted so goofy, she always thought of him as kind of stupid. Was he smart enough to mislead a group of veteran cops? Why?

Before she could ask him, her Nextel chirped and she heard Bill Tasker’s voice. “Camy, you out there?”

She keyed the radio button. “Go ahead.”

“We’re at Manny’s and need some help right now.”

“On the way.” She jumped up and hustled past Lail, tapping him on the shoulder. “We gotta go.”

“Whazz up?” asked Jimmy.

“Billy and Sutter need help at the house.”

“The Klan house?”

“Where else?”

“What the hell could be going…”

She looked at him as she grabbed some gear by the desk and headed out the door.

Jimmy followed at a trot.

Daniel Wells had it all mapped out. Alicia would get the kids. Wednesday night he’d grab the truck. He’d park it and get everything ready. Thursday afternoon, maybe two-thirty, or a little later, at the start of rush hour, he’d make his move. A move that would make him part of history as well as create a scene of anarchy never seen before in Miami. By five, he’s a legend and his itch would be scratched. At least for now. There’d be plenty of opportunity in Montana to plan for travel, if necessary. He settled down for his noontime nap with a smile on his face.

Tasker had pulled his Cherokee straight back into the tall grass when the pickup was parked at the house. Sutter had told him over the Nextel that there was no way he could be seen from the road. Sutter knew where he’d pulled in, and he could see the grill of the Cherokee, but someone off the road wouldn’t pick him up. Tasker had pulled his MP5 from the back of the Cherokee and checked his Beretta. If they could get these rednecks to do something stupid they might catch a break.

Over the Nextel, Sutter said, “The F-250 just rolled by real slow with five guys in the back, and none of them hid that they were staring at me.”

“Just give me the word and I’ll roll out.” He quickly raised Camy on the Nextel. “What’s your twenty?”

“Five minutes.” There was a strain in Camy’s voice.

Tasker waited. The wind would blow the sawgrass to one side or the other occasionally, giving him a glimpse of the parking lot and Sutter still safe in his car.

During a period when his vision was blocked, Sutter came over the Nextel. “Bill, they’re in the lot. I’ll beep when I need you.”

Tasker acknowledged him and then raised Camy. “How far?”

She came right back. “We’re on Krome, thirty seconds.”

Tasker said, “Just come in the lot. The truck is here and we need to-” Tasker heard Sutter beep the horn. He let the phone drop and hit the gas. The gold Cherokee roared out of the field like a charging rhino and rolled into the lot over potholes and garbage and obviously surprised the rednecks, who were now in a ring around Sutter’s door. One of them had a shotgun and two had ax handles.

Tasker brought the Cherokee to a screeching halt right next to the surprised men. He popped out of the Cherokee with his MP5 already up. At almost the same time, Camy rolled into the lot and secured the two guys standing near the F-250. Jimmy Lail had his gun up sideways and started yapping, “Five-O, five-O, nobody move.” He looked at the young man closest to him and added, “That mean you, be-autch.”

Tasker focused on the man with the shotgun and said, “Police. Drop the gun.”

The man looked at him with scared eyes.

Tasker yelled, “Now!”

The shotgun clattered to the ground.

Tasker turned his machine gun on the others. “Now the ax handles.”

The two men in their thirties let them fall to the ground with hollow clunks. Their hands wavered and shook in the air. Tasker felt the anger flash through him when he thought about what they had intended to do to his friend with those handles. He checked his emotion before he did something stupid like whack one of them in the face with the butt of his machine gun.

Sutter moved from his car to collect the shotgun and kick the ax handles out of reach. “Damn, this is the new millennium. Who uses ax handles anymore?”

No one answered.

Jimmy Lail moved closer, shoving one of the men. “On the ground, crackers.”

Tasker looked over to Camy, not surprised she had both her subjects already sitting next to the truck with their hands on their heads.

After a minute of surveying the situation, Tasker had all the men together near the truck and his MP5 slung over his shoulder.

“Now, what’s this all about?”

One of the younger men, about twenty-five, said, “We was worried when we saw y’all hanging out down here. We didn’t know what was goin’ on.”

An older man, near fifty, barked, “Dale, shut up. We ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”