Aim and Fire (17 page)

Robertson cleared his throat. “They’ve also specifically requested that you serve as the liaison for Agent Wentworth here, and assist her in her investigation in any way possible.”

“What about my suspension?” Nate asked, clearly surprised.

Tracy beat Robertson to it this time. “Agent Spencer, I think you’d agree that the threat of a potential nuclear device loose in the El Paso area would certainly trump any internal investigation into an agent’s cases, wouldn’t you?”

“Absolutely, ma’am.”

“Excellent. Chief Agent Robertson, I’ll need whatever data your crime lab has procured from the scene, as well as any preliminary reports. Once I’ve had a chance to review your office’s progress, we can discuss follow-up leads and other necessary investigations.”

“Sounds good. Of course the resources of our entire de-154

partment are at your disposal.” Robertson’s round face turned dark and serious. “I suppose you know those bastards killed two of our men.”

“Yes, and on behalf of everyone at the Washington headquarters, you have our deepest sympathies,” Tracy said.

“Yeah, I already got the obligatory phone call. What I want, however—especially if these guys are up to what you both seem to think they are—is them stopped, one way or the other.”

Tracy looked him straight in the eye. “We’ll do everything we can.”

“Good.” Tracy didn’t miss the covert look that was exchanged between the two border agents; the old-boy network rearing its head. Welcome to Texas, sweetheart, she thought.

“Do you have any other questions, Agent Wentworth?”

Robertson asked.

She rose, smoothing her suit jacket and picking up her carry-on. Nate had somehow reached around her and snagged the larger case. “Not at this time, sir, but I’ll certainly be in touch.”

He nodded. “Good luck and good hunting. Nate, you be sure she gets anything she needs.”

“Yes, sir.” Nate was at the door again, opening it. “After you,” he said.

Once outside the office, he paused. “Can you wait here for a moment? I have to go pull that info for you.” His gaze strayed across the room to where a serious-looking man in the regulation black slacks, white shirt and tie was typing on a computer.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

Tracy asked.

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“No, there’s likely to be some fireworks, and I’m sure you got better things to do with your time. Besides, this will just take a minute.” He strolled over to the other man’s desk and leaned over him, their low conversation punctuated with the occasional nod. The other man leaned around Nate to look at her, his face darkening with anger. Nate shrugged his shoulders, holding out his hands in an “I don’t have a choice” gesture.

“This is total bullshit!” The white-shirted man gathered several file folders and tapped out commands on his computer with forceful stabs of his fingers, then tossed a small flash drive at Nate. Rising from his chair so fast he sent it rolling backward into the wall, the man stalked toward Robertson’s door. Nate, who had stayed where he was, nodded at Tracy to meet him at the main entrance. She shouldered her bag and slipped away, leaving the other man banging on the chief border agent’s door.

She noticed Nate’s grin as they walked out into the bright sunshine. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

Slipping on a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses, he gave her a sidelong glance. “Maybe a little.”

Tracy returned the appraising look. “Is there a history between you and the agent formerly in charge of this investigation that I should know about?”

“Travis just likes to be the head bull, that’s all.”

“Whereas you just blend into the background and do your part, take one for the team, that sort of thing, right?”

He met her gaze, then broke first with a genuine smile.

“Something like that. This is my ride.” He stopped at a battered black Bronco with what looked like fresh paint on the hood and doors. “Doesn’t look like much, but the AC

works. I take it you haven’t had a chance to check into your hotel yet?”

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“What gave me away?” She walked to the back of the SUV and waited for him to open the door. When he did, she saw the pistol grip of what looked like a shotgun sticking out of a sleeve attached to the back of the rear seat.

“That doesn’t look like regulation,” she said.

Nate didn’t give it a second look as he set her bags down inside. “I hunt, too.” He didn’t elaborate, and Tracy didn’t ask.

She got into the clean passenger’s seat, and when he turned the engine over, true to his word, a blast of cool air wafted from the vents. Nate drove her to the Holiday Inn a few blocks from the Border Patrol offices—nothing but the best for government agents—and waited in the lobby while she dropped off her things. When she came out, he was leaning against the wall.

“Had any lunch yet?” he asked.

“I thought we’d grab something on the way out to the crime scene—I’d like to see it for myself.”

“I doubt another hour is going to change anything out there. Come on, I know a great place on the way. They serve up chimichangas as big as your head.”

She glanced over at him with a frown. “For someone who was in such a hurry to get some action on this, you’re sure laid back now.”

“I just thought you’d like a chance to get situated a bit, review the materials we’ve gathered so far and have a decent meal before we run out into the middle of the desert looking at sand and scrub for several hours. You’re a real hard charger, ain’tcha? Most visitors from up north take the travel day off and start fresh the next morning.”

“I just don’t see the point in wasting daylight, especially if our suspects are on a timeline,” she said. Then her stom-Aim and Fire

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ach rumbled, and Tracy shook her head, grimacing at her traitorous body. “However, a real meal would be good, and you’re right, it’ll be easier to review all of this without my computer bouncing around on my lap.”

“All right, then. And don’t worry about me—I’ll be sure to keep up with you.”

Tracy thought he might have winked at her, but she couldn’t be sure with the sunglasses.

Nate drove to Leo’s, a local place that was crowded, even at the after-lunch hour. The waitress greeted Nate by name, and showed them to a quiet corner booth. Tracy decided to follow his lead and ordered the chimichanga platter with beans and rice; her only difference was to get the salsa verde sauce instead of the red sauce Nate went with.

Tracy sipped some water. “Now, Agent Spencer, shall we get down to business?”

“Call me Nate, if you don’t mind—no need to stand on formality, and calling each other ‘Agent’ all day always gets on my nerves.”

“Fair enough, and I’m Tracy.” She flipped open her laptop screen, and Nate remained quiet for several minutes, munching on the complimentary tortilla chips and salsa.

Downloading the contents of the drive, she scanned them quickly, comparing them with the written reports. “Not much here so far,” she finally said.

“Well, the victims have barely been cold. Usually you all aren’t in such a hurry to get down here and poke around.”

“Time could be critical. So, what’s your take on this?”

Tracy asked.

Their meals arrived, the waitress warning them about the hot plates, and Nate waited until she was gone to speak.

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“You already know about the e-mail, and when this whole thing happened, it just seemed to match up. What would be worth killing two dozen illegals over? Maybe a shitload of
chiva,
I suppose, but they’d all be carrying it—don’t make much sense to off your mules right after the crossing.

And they weren’t abandoned, like some coyotes do, because the truck was gone. These guys had a plan, and a backup, and when it looked like they were busted, they didn’t hesitate to break out the hardware and kill anyone that got in their way.”

“So, the question now is, where’d they go? If they’ve been on the move for the past couple of days, that would give them a range of roughly three thousand miles, give or take a couple hundred. That puts them into any major city on both coasts. We can’t alert everywhere—there’d be mass hysteria across the country.”

Nate scooped up a forkful of crisp, deep-fried tortilla and spicy shredded beef, chewed and swallowed. “That’s good, because I think they’re still around here. They came across the border here for a reason. If they had wanted to hit a major city, they wouldn’t come in here, then drive it across the country. Too much risk of discovery.”

“Okay, if they’re still here—and I doubt they’re planning on setting it off in El Paso, it’s just not central enough, no offense—what’s their delivery vehicle, private plane?”

“It’d have to be, wouldn’t it? We’ve already got agents looking into the records of anyone of, ahem, certain nationalities with a private pilot’s license in Texas and the surrounding states. I’ll say one thing about Travis—that guy I ticked off back in the office—he’s an ass, but he is good at his job.”

“Okay, so if that’s covered, then we try to find the truck.

Talk about a needle in a haystack, but I might be able to Aim and Fire

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even the odds a bit. Excuse me.” Tracy pulled out the black cell phone and opened it. “Hi, Stephanie?”

The FBI’s agent’s voice was as clear as if she was sitting across from them. “Hello, Tracy. How’s Texas?”

“Hot. Listen, is there any way that you can find out if any satellites were over—” she flipped through the reports until she got the location of the massacre, then used her laptop to translate that into geographic coordinates and gave them to Kate Cochran.

“Great minds think alike. I’m already following that up.

I should be in touch with you with whatever we find shortly.”

“Good, we’re going out to take a look at the actual scene, and I’ll call in if anything else comes up.”

“All right. Otherwise, I’ll be in touch as soon as we have anything of import. Thanks, and good luck.”

Tracy closed the phone and turned to the remains of her meal. “Hopefully that’ll cut our haystack down to a more manageable size. This was delicious, but I’m more than done. Shall we?”

Nate took care of the bill, and they headed back out to his Bronco. He navigated through the neighborhood to the highway, heading southeast out of town toward the crime scene. Tracy tried not to let her anticipation show by tapping her foot on the floor or her fingers on the armrest, but she couldn’t stop the thrill of knowing that she was in the field, doing actual on-site investigation.

Now all I have to do is crack this case before these guys
do something horrible, like kill several hundred thousand people,
she thought as the reality of her situation hit her.

The sobering thought dissipated her excitement, and turned the food in her stomach into a leaden lump as Tracy 160

realized the lives of tens of thousands might be in her hands, and if she failed them, each one would be on her conscience for the rest of her life.

With an effort, Sepehr al-Kharzi kept his hands from trembling in zealous excitement. The team that was about to insert the nuclear payload into the rocket was performing flawlessly, and he had never been more proud of any operation that he had overseen than this one.

Although there had been many successful insertions of sleeper cells in the U.S. over the past two decades, he was the most impressed with the men that made up this one.

They all worked together and lived in an El Paso suburb, spread out enough so as not to attract too much attention, but close enough to stay in contact easily—and to keep an eye on each other, to prevent slip-ups. Sepehr had seen all too many times how promising missions had been busted because of the wrong phrase said in the wrong place, or one member of the cell doing something out of the ordinary, and drawing attention to himself. In that way, the fact that this much larger operation had remained off the government’s radar for so long was even more impressive.

That was in part due to Joseph’s foresight in taking care 162

of his personnel. If there was an immigration problem, his lawyers were available to any employee, day or night. If one of them broke the law, accidentally or otherwise, he got as much help as he needed to take care of the problem.

Spaceworks offered generous salaries and benefits packages, as well. The boss understood that religious zealotry and sound business practices could operate alongside each other without too much difficulty.

And now, everything was coming to fruition, praise Allah. The plan was in its final stages, and soon they would wreak the most terrible blow upon this nation that anyone had ever seen.

Over the past several hours, the rocket team had removed the nose cone and brought it inside the building.

It had been lined with a thin layer of lead when it had been built years ago, to prevent nosy American satellites from trying to see inside. Because of this, they could handle the nuclear bomb with relative impunity.

Sepehr watched intently as a team of four white-suited, gloved, booted and helmeted men cycled through the airlock and into the room where the nose cone and the device both sat after being cleaned repeatedly, to make sure every part was functioning at optimum capability. They had already attached the altitude timer to the bomb, and, with one man at each corner, they transferred the device into the custom-designed space inside the cone. The team leader ran one final series of tests on it, then turned and gave a thumbs-up to the men in the observation room.

“All that remains is to reattach the cone to the rocket, and the final countdown to launch can begin.” Sepehr turned to see Joseph walking toward him. “The cone is also lead lined to prevent any radiation leakage or detection, as well as to defeat any attempt to hack into the rocket’s guidance system.”

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“How will you control its flight, then?” Sepehr asked.

“We have a tight-beam laser guidance system that will transmit any course corrections within one-ten-thousandth of a second, guaranteeing that, if we wanted to, we could put this missile down within one yard of its intended target.”