“Open the gate.”
The guard made some unintelligible sounds.
Leonard yanked the gun from the guard’s mouth and pressed it against his forehead.
“I can’t open it from here, they have to do it from inside!”
Leonard’s mind raced with possibilities, all of them bad. Precious seconds were ticking by. “Tell them there’s a UPS delivery for Special Agent in Charge Holly Simpson. I’ll blow your brains out if you try anything cute.” He nodded to the picture sitting on the counter of two girls in pigtails. They looked like twins, around six or seven years old. “Nice-looking girls,” Leonard said. “Yours?”
That got through. The guard struggled to his feet and picked up the phone. He waited a few seconds. “UPS,” he said, but that was all he said.
Leonard squinted.
The guard held up his good hand in a defensive gesture. After a few more seconds, the guard replaced the handset into its cradle. Leonard heard the whine of an electric motor. Through the shack’s rear window, he saw Ernie’s motorcycle pull behind the UPS truck. He knew his brother was retrieving the three-by-six piece of lumber from the back. The heavy iron gate began rolling along a large inverted V-shaped track bolted down to the concrete. As it opened, Leonard knocked the guard unconscious with a blow to the head. Then he pulled a folded envelope from his pocket and placed it on the counter.
Being careful to stay out of the camera’s line of sight, he walked around the back of the truck where Ernie already had the three-by-six in hand. Without looking at his brother, he climbed back in and pulled the truck forward, just inside the gate where it blocked the camera from seeing the motorcycle behind its rear bumper. With the gate fully open, he knew Ernie was setting the board down atop the gate’s V track. He gave his brother a few more seconds to climb back on the bike before driving down the driveway toward the building’s front entrance. In his side mirror, Leonard watched the gate attempt to close, but when it hit the board blocking its path, it reversed direction and stayed open.
Leonard pulled the truck over at the curb in front of the main building’s glass facade and stopped. Come on, Ernie, move it.
At the entrance, Ernie coasted the bike up the curb’s wheelchair ramp, killed the engine three feet from the glass doors, and lowered the motorcycle’s kickstand.
Are we really doing this? Leonard thought. He was tempted to yell for his brother to stop, but knew Ernie would ignore him. He watched his brother slide off the bike, remove the bungee cords securing the lid, and open the ice chest. Leonard knew he was flipping the arming switch and setting the timer for fifteen seconds.
Come on, Ernie. Come on!
Slowly, Ernie walked away from the bike and climbed into the van’s passenger seat.
Fighting the urge to peel rubber, Leonard pulled away from the curb and started out the driveway.
Eleven seconds.
Less than a minute had passed since their UPS truck had first appeared at the guard shack. Trembling from adrenaline, Leonard remembered to breathe. He sucked in a huge lungful of air and audibly blew it out. Quite literally, there was no turning back now.
Seven seconds.
Unconsciously, Leonard pressed the gas pedal a little harder than he needed to. The truck’s engine roared as he accelerated down the driveway. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Ernie remove his helmet, lean forward slightly, and stare into the side mirror.
Three seconds.
Mother of God, what are we doing? In his own side mirror, Leonard saw a man in a business suit step through the glass doors. The man looked at the motorcycle, then scanned the area for its rider.
“Adios amigo,” Ernie said.
The man vanished in a blinding flash.
One second he was there. The next, he wasn’t.
Forty pounds of Semtex quite literally vaporized him.
A huge mushroom of fire and smoke roiled skyward, looking as though a small nuke had detonated.
The blast wave accelerated through the glass facade with hideous results.
Traveling at five miles per second, superheated carbon oxide gas separated human flesh from bone, instantly incinerating both. Within twenty feet, the force tore arms and legs from torsos. At thirty feet, entire bodies flew. Necks snapped. Eardrums ruptured. Skin peeled. At forty feet, people were slammed into the walls of their cubicles like rag dolls, knocked lifeless from the force of the shock wave. And at fifty feet, those who weren’t dead were dying.
A chilling silence ensued, broken only by the hiss of a few fire sprinklers, the crackling of flames, and the soft moans of those still clinging to life.
Flat on her back, a woman with no sense of her body stared at the charred ceiling tiles as a fine mist rained down on her. She tried to move her right arm to cover her eyes, but it wasn’t there. Her life ended thirty seconds later.
Choking and coughing, a man in a shredded business suit crawled on his hands and knees across the debris field, heading for the far end of the building where children were screaming in the day-care area.
Chapter 12
Nathan looked at Harv while his call went through.
“Director Lansing’s office.”
“Hello, this is Nathan McBride. The director’s expecting my call.”
“One moment please, Mr. McBride. I’ll put you through.”
A sonic boom, probably from a fighter jet, reverberated through the room.
The line went silent, totally and utterly silent. No clicks, no electronic buzz, no crackling. Nothing. He was about to hang up, thinking he’d been disconnected, when a man’s voice came on the line.
“This is FBI Director Ethan Lansing. Am I speaking with Nathan McBride?”
“Yes.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. McBride?”
“I have you on speaker, Director. Harvey Fontana is with me. Are we being recorded?”
“Yes.”
“Will you reconsider, please?”
“I’ll tell you what, Mr. McBride, because of who your father is, and because he’s also a friend of mine, I’ll agree to keep this conversation off the record. Hold the line, please.”
Once again Nathan found himself listening to complete silence. Coming through the hotel room’s window, he heard the muffled whine of a siren, followed by the staccato blast of a fire truck’s air horn. A few seconds later, Lansing was back.
“Now that we’re off the record, I’ll agree to keep this conversation private because you and Mr. Fontana saved a dozen lives the other day. You’re owed a debt of gratitude for that. I’ll also thank both of you for your military service to our country.”
Nathan felt the director’s gratitude was genuine. “I appreciate you saying that. May I ask how much you know of our past?”
“All of it.”
“I know you’re a busy man, so I’ll get to the point. We want a green light to pursue the Bridgestone brothers.”
“I see. As private citizens, you’re entitled to do that provided you conduct yourselves within the confines of the law.”
“Director Lansing, may I speak freely?”
“You may.”
Nathan frowned at a second siren outside. From the window, Harv shrugged. “Circumstances may dictate a certain amount of flexibility,” Nathan said. “You’re aware of how we found Frank Ortega’s grandson?”
“Yes, I’ve had a complete briefing.”
“I’m asking for a temporary extension of that flexibility.”
“If I understand what you’re asking for, then you must know that as a sworn law-enforcement officer, I can’t agree to it. I did not approve the interrogation of those individuals at the farmhouse outside Sacramento, and I’m disappointed it took place.”
“Director Lansing, I’m not recording this call either, you have my word. No one was seriously hurt at the farmhouse.”