James Born - Burn Zone

At the warehouse he shoved William Floyd in front of him and immediately saw Lina, apparently unharmed, still tied to a chair. He ran to her and saw Colonel Staub's body near the office and the small phone on the floor near his hand. The colonel's pistol lay on the ground near Lina. He snatched it up, then started to untie Lina. "Where is Pelly?"

"Gone," she paused and said, "Félix is dead."

"Where? How?"

"He and Pelly shot it out. He's over there." She nodded toward the main shelves.

"Where'd Pelly go?"

"Don't know. He left with a crate of cash."

He finished untying her. "Call for the cavalry, then keep an eye on your Pale Girl," Duarte said, pointing at William Floyd, sitting sullenly on the concrete floor.

He spun and raced to the body of Félix Baez. Before he reached his friend, he could tell he was dead from several major wounds. Duarte checked his pulse still. As he did, he noticed the wound on his arm. The long-sleeved shirt Félix had been wearing covered it. Now the sleeve was ripped, and the wound just below the elbow was exposed. It was a gunshot that had passed through his forearm. Immediately, it occurred to Duarte how he had been wounded. It made everything fall into place.

Félix had killed Cal Linley and Forrest Jessup. Duarte should have figured it out by how the DEA man had taken his informant's death. He had seen the signs when Félix lost control at the Ryder manager in Lafayette. His obsession had gotten the best of him. His questioning had gotten out of hand. Way out of hand. On the night that Duarte had tried to see Forrest Jessup, he had fired at the man's killer. Félix had taken the bullet in the arm and kept running.

To be certain, Duarte used a box cutter on the lowest shelf to cut a small clump of hair from Félix.

As he walked back to Lina and Floyd at the office, he took an envelope from the manager's desk and saved the hair.

He sat down on a plastic chair as if he had lost all energy in his body.

The pickup truck with the weapon was just outside, and the men involved were largely neutralized. This was not his normal day at work. This would be something to tell his father.

THE SCENE AT THE WAREHOUSE HAD REMAINED ALMOST UNDISTURBED after more than four hours. Alex Duarte had settled into the manager's chair inside the office, answering any questions the local homicide detectives or FBI agents had. Although the FBI agents spoke mostly to Lina.

The Houston bomb techs did a lot of staring at the weapon after carefully removing it from the crate, but they were professionals and admitted they had never even seen a nuclear warhead. They wanted nothing to do with it.

Duarte had noticed several of the cops make quick phone calls to their homes insisting that their spouses take the children and start driving. One burly young man ended the conversation with a loud "Now!"

They had removed Félix and Staub, maybe because they looked like there might be a chance to revive them. There wasn't. Duarte wondered how he would handle his friend's involvement in two unsolved homicides. That was for later.

No one had touched the body of the naked female physicist in the trunk of the Audi. They had photographed her and sketched that part of the crime scene, but she had apparently looked dead enough and spooked the paramedics that they were waiting for the medical examiner's team, which was tied up on another death in a different part of the city.

William "Ike" Floyd had been sequestered by local FBI agents as soon as they arrived. He sat in a chair surrounded by young, clean-cut agents in the far corner of the warehouse. Lina supervised to ensure no one talked to him and he didn't say anything.

At the open bay door, several Suburbans pulled up, and there was some commotion. By this time, Duarte was too tired to care who was arriving but could tell it was a boss.

Out of the newly arrived crowd he saw Meg Ruley emerge. Even though it was early in the morning and she would've been traveling most the night to get here from New Orleans, she looked like a recruiting poster for the federal government. Tall, attractive, professional, with the perfect combination of business suit and hairstyle. Now she wore an FBI badge clipped to her belt, with a small automatic pistol just behind it. That was an old trick to ensure the local cops knew you were also a cop and not just some administrator here to screw things up.

Duarte could tell by the way she took command and sent one of her Department of Energy representatives over to the bomb that she was not about to screw anything up. He doubted she ever had.

She saw him through the glass and waved like they were old friends. She motioned him out.

As he reached the door, he heard one of the DOE scientists near the trunk of the Audi say, "That's Marise Tuznia."

Meg stopped her march toward Duarte and said to the man. "And she is?"

"Ukrainian physicist. I thought she taught at Rice or somewhere out here."

Duarte remembered the young man in Omaha who said the plan involved "U-cranes."

Meg said, "They must have killed her after she armed the bomb."

Duarte said, "No." Meg and the DOE man stared at him. "Staub killed her before she could do it. Lina saw the man who worked on the warhead."

Meg nodded. "Thanks. That'll help." She walked closer to him, placing a hand around his waist like they were on a stroll.

She said, "I heard that you may be privy to several things that need to be held in the strictest secrecy."

Duarte remained silent.

Meg said, "We'll worry about that later." She looked around the busy open bay. "You did a fine job here. And I don't just mean for an ATF agent. I mean you did a bang-up job and averted a major catastrophe."

He just stared at her.

"I mean it. You did a good job."

"You, too."

"Yeah, but I expect the FBI to do a good job."

"Glad someone does."

She kept her smile, used to dealing with all sorts. He wondered at her exact position in the FBI, because this woman was a boss even if she didn't broadcast it. She looked like a pretty good boss, too.

She handed Duarte an envelope.

"What's this?"

"Just a note."

"A note?"

She smiled, revealing perfect teeth that could have been a predator's if she wanted them to be. "It's a letter saying you are not allowed to speak about this case or the sources used in this case, mainly William Floyd, for any reason."

"You can do that?"

She caressed his face. "You are so cute." She lowered her hand and looked at him, losing all sense of good humor. "I wouldn't want to see that cute face behind bars for violating the terms of that letter." She turned and nodded to Lina, who had been standing close by. She started walking toward them. As Meg walked away, she called out to Duarte, "I'll be in touch. We'll have a drink."

Duarte was impressed with how the woman had carried out her duty even if he didn't agree with the duty itself.

Lina stopped next to him and said, "I am so sorry about Félix."

Duarte nodded.

She kissed his cheek and gave him a quick hug. "Sorry about this whole mess."

He just watched as Lina followed Meg to a waiting FBI Suburban.

In the time since he had first taken a Jeep across the open border into Mexico, then chartered a plane to Argentina, where he had acquired new identification and established a residence, Pelly had tried to adjust to his role as a man of leisure.

He had had time to shave properly, establish several bank accounts in Argentina, Switzerland and Spain.

Now he sat in a small office of a doctor on the southern coast of Spain in a town called Gijón, where he was about to start a form of electrolysis that this doctor claimed would eliminate the need for Pelly to shave.