“But you risked your ass.”
“We all did.”
“I just think that’s absolute bullshit.”
Tasker shrugged. He really didn’t care. He’d accomplished what he set out to do. Wells would turn up. Nuts like that always make mistakes. They’d have time to find him. No one had seen or heard from him or Alicia in the seven days since the tanker exploded. Tasker figured they were together.
Sutter looked at Tasker and said, “That reminds me.”
“What?”
“You guaranteed me I wouldn’t get shot by the FBI if I helped on this case.”
Tasker smiled. “I think I said I could almost guarantee it.” He sat up on the lounger. “Besides, what are you bitchin’ about? The wounds are getting less severe every time. Next time it’ll probably just be a graze in the arm.”
Sutter and Tasker sat on his patio in Kendall and laughed together over all the things that had happened in the past few weeks. They laughed so long and so hard that Tasker’s girls came out to make sure everything was all right.
Tasker put his arms around their small shoulders and kissed them each on the forehead.
“Yep, girls. Everything is just fine.”
thirty-seven
Daniel Wells took the exit off Interstate 10, heading south toward New Orleans. They weren’t going to stay here more than a night, but Wells needed to look around. He had an idea about his next show. It had been a long drive, but the kids had slept most of the way. Alicia had apologized from Tampa to Tallahassee about helping the cops, but he said he understood. He didn’t know what he’d do, either, if someone threatened to take the kids.
It had been one wild week. Starting with his attempt to light up Miami… all the way to this road trip. He’d been lucky in Miami and knew it. When old Sal Bolini slapped the cuffs on him, he had tightened his fists and pulled his hand up so Sal had closed the cuff on his left fist instead of his wrist. Then, when the younger FBI guy was not paying attention, he had just stood up and walked away a hundred feet or so, letting the crowd swallow him up. The cops all rushing to the scene were too intent on the burning tanker to notice anyone filtering through the crowd. Slipping his left hand out of the cuff had been a lot more painful than he’d thought it would, but it only took a few seconds of determined struggle. A few blocks away, he’d found a tricked-out lowrider Honda, popped the window, jumped in and took the fast little sucker all the way to Tampa. He’d used a twenty he’d found in the car’s console for some gas and a sandwich at the gas station on the west side of Alligator Alley.
Now he held the steering wheel to the Ford station wagon with his right hand because his left wrist was still sore from slipping the handcuffs in Miami. He had a white bandage over his knuckles on his left hand and still couldn’t move his thumb. Considering the alternative, he wasn’t upset by the injuries.
He had been a little disappointed that his stunt had not gotten more than a day’s play in the national news, but the memory of that scene was burned into his head. He still felt the charge from it.
Alicia, snoring lightly, snuggled up under his arm closer. He hugged her.
Still, the tanker would be nothing next to his next plan. He smiled when he saw the sign for the Superdome, then glanced down at the book he’d stolen from the Miami Public Library: The Principles of Nuclear Fission.
James O. Born
