Michelle Gagnon - The Gatekeeper

“Who?”

“The cop. Why’d he laugh?”

“Told him it was about time the Chinese had to deal with something stamped Made in Texas,” Creeper said.

It was the longest sentence Creeper had uttered in the four years he’d known him, which was startling in and of itself. But that, combined with the fact that he’d made a joke, and to a cop, no less…Dante processed that, then cracked up. “Jesus, Creeper. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Christ. It’s like looking for a truck in a truck stack,” Rodriguez muttered as he scanned through the printout with a highlighter.

“Tell me about it,” George complained, rubbing his eyes. “I might need glasses, this is giving me a headache. Jake, you wear glasses?”

“Nah. Not an old man yet,” Jake replied.

“Fuck you,” George said good-naturedly.

The three of them were ensconced in the trailer adjoining Leonard’s, scouring tax returns from the shell companies linked to Jackson Burke. A search of the remaining warehouses on Kelly and Rodriguez’s list had already been completed-the lead she’d used to stay assigned to the case. But unfortunately nothing had turned up. No more strange powder, or any evidence of radioactivity at the sites. Leonard had another team digging through the shell companies’ real estate holdings, but so far they hadn’t found any outside the list. Rodriguez’s friend at the IRS had been thorough.

That left them working the transportation angle, trying to track down semis. Problem was, Jackson ’s corporation owned a lot of legitimate businesses that used trucks to ferry goods and materials around the country. Any of the trucks could have been diverted from their usual routes to deliver the bombs.

Working on the theory that a major purchase, like a truck, would serve as a deduction, Jake, George and Rodriguez were going through years’ worth of depreciation forms. There were at least fifty trucks claimed so far, and they were only halfway through the stack. No way they could issue an APB on all of them, not without Burke finding out. And the Bureau was insisting they keep a lid on things until there was more concrete evidence. Jake suspected nothing would convince them short of the new senator showing up on Capitol Hill with a vest bomb.

ASAC Leonard had begrudgingly agreed to Kelly’s terms, which included keeping Jake on the case. He wasn’t happy about it, but Kelly had insisted. The tradeoff was that Syd was escorted back behind the yellow tape. Jake suspected Leonard hadn’t put his foot down because he knew he could assign Rodriguez, George and him the scut work. They’d been at it for hours now, and even though he’d never admit it to George, his eyes were swimming from the lines and bars of standardized IRS forms. They noted down the make and model of each truck and the company that purchased it, then ran that information through the DMV database for a plate number. Not that they’d be using registered license plates, as Jake pointed out. Leonard dismissed the complaint, which confirmed Jake’s suspicions.

“I think we’re going about this all wrong,” Rodriguez said, pushing back from the table.

“Yeah?” George asked. “You want to switch off, handle the DMV queries for a while?”

“Hell no. But I was thinking…if Burke is trying so hard to cover his tracks and smear some illegals for this attack, wouldn’t he take every precaution to make sure the trucks couldn’t be linked back to him?”

“Maybe. But they were purchased through shell companies, and it’s hard to prove he’s involved with those.”

“Hard, but not impossible. My contact found out in less than twelve hours. She’s good, but you know that if this goes down, they’ll have teams tearing apart every aspect of it for months.”

“You’re right,” George said. “And at that point, even a hint of an association with the attack would destroy him. That’s probably why there wasn’t anything in the other warehouses. Burke used one of his own for the nitty-gritty of the assembly, but for the rest of it, he could rent a different space. That way it wouldn’t link back to him if things went south.”

“No politician would risk it,” Jake agreed. “So what are we thinking? He rented the trucks? Paid cash, maybe?”

“Can you even do that?” George asked. “I thought you needed a special license to drive those.”

“You do,” Rodriguez said slowly. “But he probably wouldn’t use drivers linked to his company, either.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “He’s been using ex-cons and skinheads to do his dirty work. Maybe he recruited some of them?”

“Good theory,” George agreed. “Gotta be some truck drivers in that group. Question is, how do we track them down?”

Jake jerked upright. “Dante.”

“What?”

“Dante Parrish. The Corcoran warden mentioned him as someone high up in the Brotherhood leadership, but Syd and I didn’t get around to tracking him down.” Jake shuffled through some papers. “We got the lead on Madison, then Randall disappeared and I completely forgot about him.”

“Okay. But if Syd had trouble digging something up, why would we have better luck?” Rodriguez asked.

George shrugged. “Hey, we got the resources of the entire U.S. government at our disposal. It’s worth a shot. Why don’t you call Syd? Maybe she found something out and forgot to tell you.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Jake dialed her number. He’d been meaning to check on her anyway. He knew that getting escorted off the scene must’ve smarted. Syd wasn’t acclimated to being told that her security clearance was insufficient.

She picked up on the third ring. “Hey, I only have a sec. The plane is about to take off.”

“What? Where are you flying?” Jake said. “I thought you went back to the hotel to sleep.”

“Hard to sleep when we’ve got a bombing to thwart,” she said archly.

“Syd…”

“Relax, I won’t get you in trouble. Just tell your girlfriend I headed back to New York in a huff.”

“Is that where you’re going?” Jake asked. “Back to the office?”

“Not exactly.”

Jake shut his eyes. Why was every woman in his life so bullheaded? “Syd, this is nuts. If you figured something out, tell me and I’ll let them know. We could have a swarm of agents on this.”

“Not big on swarms. I work best alone. You of all people should know that, Jake.”

“Shit.” He knew that his chances of swaying her were slim to none. He could rat her out to Leonard and have her tracked on a flight manifest, but he squirmed at the thought. They were partners, even if he was the only one who seemed to get what that meant. And besides, thanks to her former profession, she probably had a drawerful of identities on hand. It was unlikely she was traveling under her real name. Although in retrospect he wondered if he was even privy to that information. After all, what kind of parents named their girl “Sydney”?

He sighed, then said, “All right. I need to know if you dug up anything on Dante Parrish before we got sidetracked.”

There was such a long pause Jake wondered if he’d lost the connection. “Nice one, Jake. Totally forgot about our friend Dante,” she finally said. “Huh. You’re right, if we could track him…”

“We’re pretty sure he was tied to Madison ’s kidnapping, right? So if he’s part of the larger plot-”

“Then he might know where the trucks are headed. It’s a long shot, but maybe. Wish I could help, but my sources came up dry.”

“Maybe we’ll have more luck. And, Syd?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful, okay?”

“You know me, babe.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” Jake muttered to the dial tone.