Jeffery Deaver - Triple Threat

She pulled out her phone, briefed TJ Scanlon about Paulson and Nichols and turned on the flashing lights suctioned to her windshield.

1:52.

Dance left rubber on the concrete as she sped out of the parking lot.

Fast…

# # #

Albert Stemple was parked outside CBI, looking with some contempt at the press vans that were lolling near the front door. Dance parked behind him. She strode to the Dodge.

A reporter—a man with an aura of Jude Law, if not the exact looks—pushed to the barricade and thrust a microphone their way.

“Kathryn! Kathryn Dance! Dan Simmons, The True Story dot com.”

She knew him. A sensationalist reporter who oozed toward the more tawdry aspects of a story like slugs to Dance’s doomed vegetable garden.

Simmons’s cameraman, a squat, froggy man with crinkly and unwashed hair, aimed a fancy Sony videocam their way as if about to launch a rocket-propelled grenade.

“No comment on anything, Dan.” She and Stemple shoehorned Wayne Keplar out of the car.

The reporter ignored her. “Can you give us your name?” Aimed at the suspect.

Keplar was all too happy to talk. He shouted out, “The Brothers of Liberty,” and began a lecturette about how the fourth estate was in the pocket of corporate money and the government.

“Not all reporters, Wayne,” Simmons said. “Not us. We’re with you, brother! Keep talking.”

This impressed Keplar.

“Quiet,” Dance muttered, leading him toward the front door.

“And we’re about to strike a blow for freedom!”

“What are you going to do, Wayne?” Simmons shouted.

“We have no comment,” Dance called.

“Well, I do. I’ve only been arrested ,” Wayne offered energetically, with a smile, ignoring Dance and mugging for the reporter, whose disheveled photographer was shooting away with his fancy digital video camera. “I’m not under a gag order. Freedom of speech! That’s what the founders of this country believed in. Even if the people in charge now don’t.”

“Let him talk, Agent!” the reporter called.

“I have no comment at this time.”

Simmons replied, “We don’t want your comment, Kathryn. We want Wayne’s.” He then added, “Were you hurt, Wayne? You’re limping.”

“They hurt me in the arrest. That’ll be part of the lawsuit.”

He hadn’t been limping earlier. Dance tried to keep the disgust off her face.

“We heard there were other suspects. One’s wounded and in FBI custody. The other’s at large.”

Police scanners. Dance grimaced. It was illegal to hack cell phones, but anybody could buy a scanner and learn all they wanted to about police operations.

“Wayne, what do you expect to achieve by what you’re doing?”

“Makin’ the people aware of the overbearing government. The disrespect for the people of this great nation and—”

Dance actually pushed him through the door into the CBI Monterey headquarters, an unimpressive building that resembled one of the insurance agencies or law offices in this business park east of the airport on the way to Salinas, off Highway 68.

Simmons called, “Kathryn! Agent Dance—”

The CBI’s front door was on a hydraulic closer but she would have slammed it if she could have.

Dance turned to him. “Wayne, I’ve read you your rights. You understand you have the right to an attorney. And that anything you say can and will be used against you in court.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you wish to waive your right to an attorney and to remain silent?”

“Yup.”

“You understand you can break off our interview at any time.”

“I do now. Thanks very much. Informative.”

“Will you tell us where you’re planning this attack? Do that and we’ll work out a deal.”

“Will you let our founder, Osmond Carter, go free? He’s been illegally arrested, in contravention of his basic human rights.”

“We can’t do that.”

“Then I think I’m not inclined to tell you what we’ve got in mind.” A grin. “But I’m happy to talk. Always enjoy a good chin-wag with an attractive woman.”

Dance nodded to Stemple, who guided Keplar through the maze of hallways to an interrogation room. She followed. She checked her weapon and took the file that a fellow agent had put together on the suspect. Three pages were in the manila sleeve. That’s all? she wondered, flipping open the file and reading the sparse history of Wayne Keplar and the pathetic organization he was sacrificing his life for.

She paused only once. To glance at her watch and learn that she had only two hours and one minute to stop the attack.

# # #

Michael O’Neil was pursuing the case at the crime scene, as he always did: meticulously, patiently.

If an idea occurred to him, if a clue presented itself, he followed the lead until it paid off or it turned to dust.

He finished jotting down largely useless observations and impressions of witnesses in front of where the trooper rammed the suspects’ car. (“Man, it was totally, like, loud.”) The detective felt a coalescing of moisture on his face; that damn Monterey fog—as much a local institution as John Steinbeck, Cannery Row and Langston Hughes. He wiped his face with broad palms. On the water, fishing from his boat, he didn’t think anything of the damp air. Now, it was irritating.

He approached the head of his Forensic Services Unit, a dark-complexioned man, who was of Latino and Scandinavian heritage, Abbott Calderman. The CBI didn’t have a crime scene operation and the FBI’s closest one was in the San Jose–San Francisco area. The MCSO provided most of the forensics for crimes in this area. Calderman’s team was clustered around the still-vaporing Taurus, practically dismantling it, to find clues that could tell them about the impending attack. Officers were also examining, then bagging and tagging, the pocket litter from the two suspects—the police term for wallets, money, receipts, twenty-dollar bills (serial numbers, thanks to ATMs, revealed more than you’d think), sunglasses, keys and the like. These items would be logged and would ultimately end up at the jail where the men would be booked—Salinas—but for now the team would examine the items for information about the “event” Wayne Keplar had so proudly referred to.

Calderman was speaking to one of his officers, who was swathed in bright blue crime scene overalls, booties and a surgeon’s shower cap.

“Michael,” the CS head said, joining the detective. “My folks’re going through the car.” A glance at the totaled vehicle, air bags deployed. “It’s real clean—no motel keys, letters or schematics.”

Rarely were perps discovered with maps in their possession with a red grease pencil X , the legend reading: “Attack here!”

“We’ll know more when we analyze the trace from the tires and the floor of the passenger compartment and the trunk. But they did find something you ought to know about. A thermos of coffee.”

“And it was still hot?”

“Right.” Calderman nodded that O’Neil caught the significance of the discovery. “And no receipts from Starbucks or a place that sells brewed coffee.”

“So they might’ve stayed the night here somewhere and brewed it this morning.”

“Possibly.” Oakland was a long drive. It could take three hours or more. Finding the thermos suggested, though hardly proved, that they’d come down a day or two early to prepare for the attack. This meant there’d probably be a motel nearby, with additional evidence. Though they’d been too smart to keep receipts or reservation records.

The crime scene head added, “But most important: We found three cups inside. Two in the cup holders in the front seat, one on the floor in the back, and the rear floor was wet with spilled coffee.”