He finished his drink, laid a healthy three-dollar tip on the table and crossed the street to his van. In ten minutes, he was driving past the Orange Bowl. He could see the Interstate 95 traffic building. A smile crossed his face as he headed north to get on the interstate headed south. He’d already decided that the perfect place to leave the van was the overpass where 95 tangled with the Dolphin Expressway on the way to Northwest Eighth Street, creating a spiderweb of ramps, one on top of the other. He waved to a couple of kids who looked at him like he was the ice cream man.
Tasker had spread the word as soon as Sutter called. Wells was now in a step van. Some of the agents from down south were headed up to the city. He had a lot of people working on extremely vague information. But they were all ready to do their duty. Bolini had been very hesitant to call in FBI agents. Tasker didn’t know if the Fed thought he’d look like a fool for letting Wells operate for so long or if it was something else. He didn’t have time to talk to Bolini about it now and wasn’t sure the FBI would be able to help if they did show up.
Tasker knew the van with NARANJA ENGINEERING written on the side. A clerk from a gas station said the lettering was peeled off but you could still see it. Tasker was so worried about what Wells had planned that he hardly noticed the constant throbbing of his head or the ache in his ribs or the increasingly bloodstained bandages over his various cuts. He knew that if they had enough time they’d find him. He kept his eyes open for anything that moved. Bolini was on the next street, trying to coordinate the search with Tasker. They moved their cars like sharks through the unsuspecting drivers and pedestrians crowding the streets.
On Eighth Avenue, Tasker, cruising slowly in his Cherokee, spotted a van taking the ramp up to Interstate 95.
He clicked his Nextel radio to reach Bolini. “I may have him.”
“Where?” came back after the beep.
“Getting on a southbound ramp to 95.” Tasker punched the gas and closed the distance until he saw the side of the van. Clearly the removed letters said NARANJA. He grabbed his Nextel. “That’s him, that’s him. Ninety-five southbound.” He scanned the phone for Sutter and clicked it again. “Derrick, we see him. Southbound from Fifty-fourth Street on 95.”
A beep, then Sutter’s response: “We’re on our way.”
Tasker was up the ramp and in southbound traffic in thirty seconds. The van was in sight ahead in the right lane. Bolini pulled up behind Tasker. They followed him a mile. He made no funny moves and gave no hint of where he was headed. Tasker closed the gap to three cars. He didn’t care if Wells burned him now. There was no way he was getting out of Tasker’s sight again. One way or the other, this would be over soon.
Then Wells slowed to a crawl and started to pull off at the Eighth Street ramp near the Orange Bowl and the Miami PD. The four-story rise of ramps where the north-south highways met the east-west stood in front of him.
“What the hell?” said Tasker quietly to himself.
The van came to a complete stop right under the overpass, on the shoulder of the road.
Tasker didn’t like the looks of this one bit. He started to hit the gas, but was cut off by a big refrigerated truck which abruptly slowed to a near stop. Tasker couldn’t see anything but the truck’s rear doors.
Wells patted the van’s dash like it was a dying pet. “You been good to me.” He looked out the window, then up to the layers of roads running overhead. He smiled and twisted around in his seat. A four-inch square with a simple battery-operated clock fastened to it was strapped onto the interior gas tank. Wells never used the same type of timer twice. Sometimes digital, sometimes analog, sometimes motion sensors. He loved the variety. This timer had about five minutes on it. Long enough to clear the area and move on to the next phase of his plan.
As he was leaning out of the van, ready to move, he noticed two other cars on the shoulder, then realized one was Bolini. It only took another second to recognize Tasker in that ugly gold Cherokee. “Oh shit!” he breathed out and leaned back into the van, pushing the minute hand ahead four minutes with his finger. He didn’t know how long he had left, but it wasn’t much time. He jumped through the van and out the passenger door, then let his momentum take him down the little embankment until he ran across the loop coming off the interstate, headed toward the Dolphin Expressway and then for the fence in a dead run.
thirty-three
Tasker jumped from his Cherokee and fell into an all-out dash after the fleeing Wells. The loose gravel on the shoulder of the highway made him slip one way, then the other, jarring his battered body, but he regained his footing and kept moving. Sensing Sal Bolini trying to stay close behind him, he focused on Wells.
Tasker skidded to a stop in front of the van, torn between chasing Wells and checking the van. He glanced inside, then leaned in the open doorway into the van and froze, seeing the clock on the metal box welded into the rear. He knew how much gas had gone into the box a few hours ago. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what would happen when the big hand of the clock caught the little hand. His bladder almost let go when Bolini skidded into him, saying, “What is it?”
Tasker leaned out of the way. “Look.”
Bolini stuck his head in, then popped out. “You know anything about detonators?”
“Enough to see we only got a minute left.”
“What do we do?” Bolini started to pant like a dog.
“It looks like we could just rip the clock off the tank and it’ll be inactivated.”
Bolini shook his head. “No, no, no good. Wells is too fuckin’ smart for that. He’d have it booby-trapped.”
Tasker thought about the CS Mace trap and had to agree. He looked up at the traffic. “We gotta do something. This thing could take out the whole overpass.”
Bolini floated a suggestion. “What about running?”
Tasker just stared at him. He then jumped into the back and started pulling the bags of scrap metal away from the tank. He handed them to Bolini, who tossed them away from the van.
Bolini said, “I got an idea. The keys in it? We could drive it outta here.”
Tasker looked and shook his head. “I got a plan B,” he said, jumping out and racing back to his Cherokee. He jumped in, cranked the engine and threw it into drive two.
Bolini jumped back as Tasker eased the Cherokee onto the bumper of the van, then gunned the engine. The big van wobbled but moved forward, following the contour of the ground. It slid off the shoulder onto the slope that led to a pond in the center of the loop coming off the interstate.
The van picked up momentum as the decline of the slope grew. Tasker started to back off with the Cherokee, but gravity had grabbed it too and he started sliding in the loose dirt right behind the van. He hit the brakes, but in the pebbles and debris on the slope the Cherokee didn’t slow down at all.
The van hit the water with a splash, then rolled and floated into the shallow water. Tasker couldn’t stop the Cherokee, and followed. The Jeep felt like it was sucked in by the van as Tasker reached over to open the door and get the hell out. The quickly rising water slammed the door back on him. He hit the window button, but the electrical system had already shorted.
Tasker prayed that the water would disarm the bomb as well. He knew the Cherokee wouldn’t be any protection against a gas bomb that big. Even with the bags of shrapnel removed from the van.
He banged on the window with his fist, then, without hesitation, pulled his Beretta from the belly bag, pointed out the side window, pulled the trigger and blew it out. He tried aiming low so the round would travel harmlessly into the muddy water.