Michelle Gagnon - The Gatekeeper

“No sign of him on any of the plane manifests.”

“Maybe he didn’t fly commercial,” Jake said. “Was there anything that might clue us in to what he was doing?”

“Like I said, my compadres in the great state of Texas aren’t talking.” George glanced at Jake. “But I was thinking you might have an in.”

“Why would Jake have an in? He never worked there,” Syd said.

“No, but his fiancée is the one who found the body.”

“What?” Jake took the form back and scanned it. It was a basic FBI FD302 report. Kelly’s name popped out at him. He flashed back on what little she’d told him about the case, something about Jackson Burke and a strange blue powder. “Oh, shit,” he said.

“Call your girl,” George said, nodding toward the phone on the desk. “And let’s see if we can figure out what the hell is going on.”

Dante watched as the lead-lined barrel holding the bomb was lowered into the center of the float. There had been a screwup with the one meant for San Antonio-the yokels in charge of the warehouse got snared in some FBI sting. He shook his head. Man, it was hard to find people you could trust these days. And he hated that their failure reflected poorly on him, at least in Jackson ’s eyes. He needed to make sure that from here on out, everything went smoothly.

Dante still couldn’t believe the FBI had found the Laredo warehouses. Now he’d have to come up with a fresh crop of illegals to man the float. That was one thing Jackson was absolutely adamant about-there had to be immigrants, especially Mexicans, tied to the initial blast. Not a serious problem, Dante still had Minutemen willing to serve as coyotes. The trick was getting another float ready in time. Thank God he’d kept the construction materials in a separate warehouse.

Dante watched as his guys wrapped white, red and green streamers around a wire-mesh frame. He had to grin at the incongruity of it. Who knew the arts and crafts program at Corcoran would come in so handy one day?

His phone buzzed. Dante checked the number, then snapped it open. “Do you have them?”

“Sir, this is Curtis Clay.”

Dante frowned, searching his mind. Remembered a beady-eyed little guy, sidekick to one of his boys in California. “You’re not supposed to have this number.”

“Yeah, I know, but…Jonas told me to call if something went wrong.”

Dante’s lip curled. Sure, everyone did each other in prison, but the ones who kept it up on the outside-he could hardly stomach the thought. The only reason he’d tolerated Jonas was that he was smart and took orders without giving him shit. “So?”

“So-” Curtis cleared his throat. “Jonas never came home last night, then I saw something on the news about a big bust over in Winters. Buncha bikers, and it was right near where you sent him.” There was a note of accusation in his voice. “He said he’d be home by dark.”

Dante could have sworn he heard sniffles. “Yeah, well, maybe he got smart and threw you over for some pussy.”

A pause, then Curtis whined, “They said some of them were dead, too. But they’re not saying who.”

“What about the bitches?”

“What bitches?”

“The ones Jonas was supposed to pick up.” Dante closed his eyes and fought the urge to hurl the phone against a wall. Shit, if this was true, he was down more men. And Jonas had been part of the next phase of the plan. He didn’t have anyone else in the area he could trust with it. He should have known better than to call in the Rogues. Dante had never been keen on using bikers, they were too loosely organized, too likely to narc when they got caught. They were probably singing right now. He went over what they knew, trying to remember if any of it pointed to him, or worse, to Jackson.

“They didn’t say anything about that on the news.”

“Fuck the news. I want you to call around, find out what the fuck is going on. I want to know where they were taken, and what happened to the women in the house.” Dante started composing a list in his mind. He needed to get in touch with one of his soldiers on the inside, make sure the biker pricks got the message that anyone who talked would suffer. Winters P.D. probably didn’t have their own jail, and even if they did, wouldn’t want to risk locals overrunning it. So that meant they’d be stowed in either Vacaville or Davis: Vacaville if he was lucky, he still had a good network there. Worst-case scenario they would have been driven to the federal pen in Sacramento. It would be harder to get to them there, but not impossible.

If the news was covering this, the Feds probably stashed the girls in a safe house somewhere. Weighing what had happened, Dante decided bothering with them was no longer worth it. They’d been bad luck, ever since the girl was snatched shit started rolling downhill. And they were so close now, he couldn’t risk fucking things up any worse. Plus, with Grant dead, the only reason to mess with his family would be to exact revenge on his corpse. And for that he could wait. Feds wouldn’t be watching them forever.

Creeper came out of the office, motioning for his attention. Dante held up a hand to indicate he needed one more minute.

“You got that, Curtis? I want to hear back from you in an hour, max, and I want a fucking hell of a lot more than what you saw on CNN.” He clicked off without saying goodbye and looked at Creeper. “What?”

“They found the guy.”

“What guy?” I’m surrounded by a bunch of fucking morons, he thought.

“The scientist guy, you know…” Creeper shuffled his feet.

“What, in Houston?”

“Yeah. Feds are all over it. Thought you’d want to know.” He beat a retreat back to the office, clearly spooked by the expression on Dante’s face.

Dante still clenched the cell phone in one hand, squeezing it hard. He barely saw the progress on the float. He recognized this feeling, it was the one you got when a job was about to go really, really wrong. He’d had it that day in the bank, right before the off-duty cop pulled his piece and he wound up in Corcoran as an accessory to murder. If the Feds had the warehouse, the minute they saw the powder they’d know something big was in the works. And then they’d be shutting down every interstate, every bridge. He shook his head. One day away. They were so close.

He reviewed the list in his mind. He needed to get the other drivers on the phone and check their status. If it came down to it, he’d revise the plans. That was what separated a great general from a mediocre one, according to Jackson: the ability to adjust to changing circumstances on the battlefield. Dante took a deep breath. In the end, it would all be okay. He’d make sure of it, even if he had to drive a fucking float himself.

Kelly awoke to the sound of pounding on her door. Blearily, she rolled over and checked the time: 8:00 a.m. She’d finally dropped off to sleep well past midnight. Her laptop sat open beside her on the bed, screen saver pulsating green. Next to it was the motel notepad on which she’d scrawled notes about Jackson Burke.

“What the hell, Jones. Are you alive in there?”

It was Rodriguez. She sat up slowly, straightening her blouse, wishing she’d changed out of it before falling asleep. It had been her last clean one, and now it was a wrinkled mess. “One minute.” Kelly checked herself in the mirror on the way to the door and frowned.

“Jesus, I was about to get a battering ram.” He looked her over. “Finally got some sleep, huh?”

“Not enough. What’s up?”

“They got an ID on our guy.”

“Yeah?” Kelly quickly skimmed the faxes he handed her. The dead guy was a nuclear physicist from a DoD research lab. That was a far cry from the extremists they’d been rounding up so far. But it didn’t bode well for the powder.