“Holy shit,” Tasker said aloud, dropping to the ground. He watched as the running man headed for the tree line. Now Tasker was mad enough to take a potshot at this asshole. He got up and started to sprint when another explosion cracked behind the running man. The guy didn’t even know if anyone was chasing him, that one was just a precaution.
As Mule made the trees, Tasker was fifty yards behind him with his ears stuffed from the explosions. He tried shouting, but it just reverberated in his head. The man darted through the trees and out of sight.
Before Tasker reached the trees, he heard a thump and three of the loud explosions almost simultaneously. He paused at the trees, taking cover as he looked onto the road. He was surprised at the sight of his car-stopped, Mule on the ground in front of it, his bag torn to shreds and smoking on the ground. Sutter leaned on the hood with his arms folded. “I don’t like snakes. Hope you don’t mind me borrowing your car?”
“I had the keys. How…” Tasker stopped when he saw the look Sutter gave him. He hoped his friend hadn’t damaged the steering column too much.
…
It took about ten minutes to clean up the slightly dinged fugitive. Sutter claimed he had run him down by accident and intended to stick with that story. Tasker noted the lack of skid marks and the satisfied tone in Sutter’s voice, but decided to let the matter rest.
Tasker sat in the backseat next to the handcuffed man. The pot smell even emanated from his pores. Mule had cuts above his eyes, his upper lip was still bleeding and he had road rash on his left arm, back and hip. He had a dazed look that had as much to do with the “accident” as it did with the fact that three explosive devices had gone off within ten feet of his head and he had smoked an ounce of marijuana the night before.
Tasker said, “What were those things?”
“Huh?” asked Mule.
Tasker raised his voice. “The bomb things, what were they?”
“Oh those. Little nonfragmenting hand grenades I made. Pretty cool, huh?”
Tasker noted the lack of twang and asked, “Where you from?”
“New Smyrna Beach.”
A surfer. That explained it. Tasker knew the Central Florida town because his ex-wife’s family still lived there. This guy must have been some kind of genetic freak to be from the small beach town and still smart enough to put these things together.
“You ever know Donna Andrus?”
“Yeah, I did her once.”
Tasker narrowed his eyes at the slightly younger man. “I married her once.”
Mule cringed and added. “Only kidding, man. I knew her in high school, that’s all.”
“Really, you did know her?”
He nodded. “Sure. Blond chick. Nice titties.”
Tasker didn’t acknowledge the description but thought it was pretty accurate.
“I guess I only did her in my imagination.” He wiggled his eyebrows and grinned.
Tasker turned professional and changed the subject, saying, “You’re under arrest on a warrant from Pensacola, and we’ll have to come up with charges on these things, too.”
“Man, can you cut me a break?”
“You almost killed me.”
“No, dude, those things don’t fragment. Just noise and a flash.”
“What’s in ’em?”
“Little black powder, few other things. I make one with pepper that will burn your eyes for a whole day. It’s way cool.”
Tasker had to laugh at the shirtless man. This is the kinda guy that lives at home until he’s thirty-five and then raises kids that live at home until they’re forty. “You got anything else dangerous at the house?”
Mule looked at him. “I don’t want to… what’s the word? Incriminate myself.”
Tasker thought that was fair. “I’ll tell you what. You let us back in and point out the dangerous stuff and we’ll give you a pass on it. We just don’t want kids or somebody stumbling into it. Then you might be hit with serious charges.”
Mule thought about it. “Okay, if you don’t charge me with the poppers I set off today.”
“Poppers? That what you call those things?”
“Yeah, or flashers. Depends on the relative mix of materials.”
“Let’s see how helpful you are, then we’ll decide.”
Mule evaluated him for a few moments. “I don’t know why, but you seem pretty honest. I’ll trust you on this. Besides, I got some stuff that might help me.”
In the house, Tasker flushed the last of the pot they found as Mule pleaded.
“Please, man, not my Mexican tap dance. That shit is the best. You can dump the shit I grew behind the garage, but that Mexican shit cost mucho, man.”
Tasker paused for a minute, playing with Mule for making the comment about Donna, then when his hopes rose, Tasker dumped the rest into the toilet. “You sure you never did her?”
The hairy man shrugged and nodded. “Okay, you owed me.”
Sutter was carefully setting the last package of black powder into an empty Corona twelve-pack box. Mule had pointed out everything he could think of, including a water bottle filled with a liquid he called TATP. He told them it was a little nasty, so the two cops should be careful.
Tasker remembered Camy telling him about the cruise ship bombing and how the bomber had used TATP. Had he stumbled onto the bomber by accident? Stranger things had happened.
Tasker said, “All right, Anthony, you’ve been pretty good about pointing shit out. Got anything to seal the deal?” Maybe he’d slip up and say something.
He smiled, revealing standard surfer’s chipped front teeth. “I got something, but I want some help on the warrant charges, too.”
“Can’t agree to that until we see what you got.”
“Can’t show you what I got until you agree to help.”
With that, Sutter came over to the table where Tasker and Mule were sitting.
He started, “Tell you what, slick. You give us what you got or you can go for a jog in the road again until I catch you in the car. Got it?”
Mule hesitated, then said, “In the drawer under the phone is a three-page list.”
Sutter said, “That’s better. What’s on the list?”
“Everyone I ever sold an explosive to. What kind of explosive. When and how much.”
Tasker was up and to the phone before he finished talking.
Mule continued. “I never heard of nobody doing anything wrong with my shit. Rednecks buy them to scare birds away from the crops. The Miccosukee Indians use it as part of their shows for tourists. Kids buy them for fun, and the Cubans, or at least the Alpha 66, buy them for God knows what. But they pay real good and are easy to deal with.”
Tasker looked over the list. No one had bought a single huge amount of anything, but the intel guys at FDLE might work something up on the list. Then on the last page he brushed over a name and had to go back. Daniel Wells. Thirty ounces of TATP he bought three years ago. Tasker looked up at Mule. “This guy Daniel Wells. You remember him?”
Mule thought and said, “Yeah, sure. The engineer from up in Naranja or the Redlands. What about him?”
“Why would he need an explosive?”
“Didn’t ask.”
“What exactly is TATP?”
“Triacetone triperoxide. Bad shit, man. Especially the way I make it. It could blow a hole in granite.”
Tasker’s stomach continued to tighten as he put it all together. Clues he’d seen and didn’t register. The suitcases he’d knocked over while visiting Wells-he could see them vividly in his mind. They had been red. And they had been Samsonites. No way, it couldn’t be. He gathered his thoughts and looked at Mule. “You got any of this batch of TATP left?”
“Yeah, your buddy just loaded it in the water bottle.”
Tasker wanted to be sure. His stomach was already flip-flopping. “What did Wells look like?”
“Late twenties. Good shape. Dark, short hair. He had a couple of kids with him. Think he was a single father or something.”