James Born - Burn Zone

He squeezed through to the rear wall and tapped it with the long screwdriver he had brought with him. The hollow twang echoed in the container. He looked around, surprised at the volume of the tap.

He stooped low and unscrewed the thick, heavy screw holding the two halves of the wall together. He reached for the upper screw, but was short by a foot. He tugged one bale of pot over and stood on it, easily reaching the upper screw. The sides of the wall then slipped out and revealed another two feet of the container.

Tucked to one side was the package he had been told to retrieve. It was completely covered in a wooden crate. He nudged it and nodded. They had told him a little more than six hundred pounds.

He shoved back the bale of pot and then walked out to his pickup truck parked at the entrance to the restricted area. He pulled the old open-bed Ford next to the container and then lowered the tailgate. He had an appliance handcart and slipped it out. He had to do some fancy negotiating to slip the cart between the bales of pot, but found that with the crate on it to steady the cart, it was easy to pull out. He left the crate strapped to the cart and was able to tip it into the bed of his truck. The crate was about four feet long and two feet wide. He had no clue what could be in there that might start a revolution, but he was going to get it to the kid from Omaha and get it to him now.

He went back to the container and tried to reset the false wall, but found that he had popped the bracket holding one side out of the container wall. He just lugged out the two pieces of sheet metal and stuck them in the truck as well.

He looked inside again. He saw a clipboard with some documentation hanging inside the container. It wasn't in English, so he just left it on the wall.

As he left, he reset the lock and didn't even think about leaving the keyhole facing out like every shipper knew to do. He just did it out of habit.

ALEX DUARTE WATCHED FÉLIX BAEZ MAKE SOME NOTES BUT knew it was bad news. Félix said into the phone, "Yeah, John, I'll hold." He looked at Duarte, his pockmarked face dark. "They found Gastlin's body. He'd been cut up pretty bad."

Duarte considered this. He knew it was wrong, but he was trained to look at situations first. This meant their case was over. Now they had to find out who had killed him and why. Was it related to the case? Was it Ortíz?

Duarte said, "Have they done an autopsy yet?"

Félix shook his head. "No, and they might not. They're not even certain it's him. They have his torso and a finger. He's missing his head and left hand."

Duarte held his breath. He hadn't heard of anything like that since Bosnia.

Félix looked away from the phone like he was on hold and caught Duarte up on the conversation. "The finger is whole, but they're not going to check DNA."

Duarte knew they needed to know if it was Gastlin as quickly as possible.

Félix listened on his phone some more. When he looked up, he said, "I don't know, Rocket. This doesn't sound like they can even confirm it's him. Got any ideas?"

Duarte thought about the problem and the red tape that would be involved in getting the body to the U.S. for examination. The Panamanians could say they didn't even know if the victim was American. He didn't know how they operated down there. He just pictured Byron Gastlin in pieces in a drawer in a foreign morgue. He shuddered. No one deserved that. Then he thought about who would miss him if something like that happened. Gastlin had to have family that would care. Duarte had not talked about the drug dealer's personal life with him at all. He hadn't cared at the time.

Who would miss Duarte? His folks, of course. Alice. He froze. Alice could help.

He tapped Félix on the arm as the DEA agent listened to the other agent in Panama.

Félix looked up. "You got an idea?"

"I do."

"I'm all ears, man."

"We want this off the record and fast, right?"

"Yeah, the faster we find out the better."

"If someone prints the loose finger and faxes it, there might be enough of the print to identify or maybe not. If not, we're screwed."

"So?"

"If they mail the loose finger, we could have someone print it quietly, without any attention to it, and do it fast."

"I'm not following you, Rocket."

"Can your man get one of the severed fingers?"

"What? You loco, amigo?"

"I can get it identified without too much administration if they can get it to the U.S."

"You mean the FBI? I don't know."

"No, Félix. Alice could print him. He was booked into the Palm Beach County jail. It'd be quick."

"Snap, Rocket. That's a balls-up idea. Would she do it?"

"I don't know. See if you can get a finger first."

Félix spoke into the phone for a few more seconds. He looked back at Duarte. "He's with a cop at the morgue now. He's gonna check. Man, that's one stone-cold cool squeeze you got."

Duarte nodded.

"Why don't you publicize her more?"

He thought about it and almost shrugged, then said, "Because I'm an idiot."

Félix held up his hand as he focused back on the person on the phone.

Duarte heard him say, "No, really. Your pocket. Man, you are dope." He looked at Duarte. "All we need is a mailing address."

Cal Linley pulled to the side of the road about a mile from the little hotel in Metairie where he had been told to hand over the crate to the guy from Omaha, Ike. He wanted to go straight there, but his curiosity had gotten the best of him, and he couldn't resist. He had to see what was in the box. It was heavy, and it was important. They had had help in Panama and here, or else all that pot never would've made it through security.

He parked his old Ford F-250 in the parking lot of a closed grocery store. There was plenty of light from the streetlamps, and he lowered the rusty tailgate and hopped into the back. He rapped the crate with his knuckles and then tried the end by tugging on it. It didn't budge.

He went back to the truck's cab, dug into the rear-seat compartment and pulled out the extra tire iron he carried, as much for protection as for use in helping other people with flats. The narrow edge of the iron fit into the gap between the boards of the crate, and he peeled off the end.

He peered inside, but couldn't see anything. There was a soft metal foil, like lead wrapped around some kind of machine. He used his flashlight to look deeper. All he saw were wires and a shiny cylinder and some electronics.

He had finished the ninth grade at Pancetta High before being expelled for hitting a smart-ass Mexican kid in the head with a two-by-four. He was never charged, but he never went back to school either. His experience with electronics was limited. Mostly he used a lift to unload ships for minimum union wage and that was it.

He knew he wasn't prepared to make a rocket or even a firecracker, but he thought he had figured out what was in the box. Based on what he had just seen and what he had been told by President Jessup, he figured he was carrying some kind of equipment that concerned the oil business. He knew President Jessup used to be a big shot in the oil business in Houston. This thing he was carrying had something to do with funding a revolution to make America safe again. The machine he was looking at right now had to do with oil wells, maybe a new drill head or something that stopped oil flow. It was all making sense now.

He looked at the machine again and thought, Or maybe it's some kind of stolen technology that the National Army of White Americans will use to make a fortune and fund their political party better.

Either way he was happy to be a part of it.

He closed the box, hammering the nails back as best he could with the edge of his tire iron.