As he looked across the street, he could just see the top of the camper from the stolen F-150 pickup truck. Ford always advertised that it was the best-selling vehicle in the country. That meant there was a shitload of them around. Not very obvious. He wondered how big the bed of the truck really was, then a plan clicked in his brain.

He looked at the sorry-looking men. "Okay. I'll tell you what. Let's drive out somewhere away from the prying eyes, and I'll show you what's in the truck."

Charlie brightened, his missing teeth reminding Ike of a jack-o'-lantern. "Really?" said the man.

"Yeah, I think I could find a use for you guys. But we won't all fit in the Ryder. Follow me in the F-150." He smiled, but knew they had no idea what had tickled him so much.

44

ALONE IN HIS HOTEL ROOM, DUARTE STARED AT ALL THE NOTES on the case. He knew they'd be useless now. The FBI agent and her NEST team from the FBI and the Department of Energy would run with this now.

Duarte hadn't argued with the Department of Energy man or Agent Ruley. They were right. He had screwed up. Now they had to scramble to clean up his mess. No one liked to see something like that. He should have recognized that something bigger than a load of pot was in play when his witnesses started dying.

Now Duarte realized that Ortíz, or one of his employees, had used the load as a cover for something else. The theory now was a dirty bomb of some kind. The DOE guy said they had identified the radioactive isotope as U-235, but wasn't willing to tell Duarte anything else.

On the other hand, Duarte had told them everything he knew, including how he had tried to talk to several people but they had all been killed. Nothing the cops didn't already know.

The FBI had asked him about Jessup, who they obviously knew was dead. Duarte answered honestly, saying he didn't know who had killed him. Which was true.

They were looking for someone related to Jessup, and that had to be William Floyd. It all came back to the racist from Omaha.

He looked down at the notes he had made with the initials of everyone involved. He had not shown it to the FBI agent, but he told her the suspicions he harbored.

As he looked at the page, he remembered Félix's comments about William Floyd's initials W.F. standing for "white female" in every police station in the U.S.

Duarte wished he had the resources to continue on the case. With Lina's access to the FBI data banks and to her source, they could continue to search for Floyd. He just wished he had access to her source, Pale Girl.

Then he froze.

Pale Girl. White female. William Floyd. Could it be? Would they use such an obvious code name? Was William Floyd a source for the FBI?

He had to find Lina right now.

Five minutes later, he was surprised to find Félix Baez with Lina in her hotel room. But by the look on their faces, they had been doing nothing too intimate.

When Lina opened the door, her first comment was, "Looks like you've been visited by the new kids on the block, too."

He stepped into the room and sat at the small table with Félix.

Lina said, "You off the case, too?"

Duarte nodded.

"Don't worry. Right now there are teams of FBI and DOE people swarming over the docks and in Lafayette."

"Why aren't you with them?"

"They consider me a fuckup."

"Why? You didn't do anything wrong."

"I lost the source, Pale Girl."

Duarte knew it was time. "We know Pale Girl was driving the package in New Orleans."

Lina looked up at him as she slowly sat on the unmade bed. "And how do we know this?"

"Cal Linley told me he gave it to William Floyd. Then I found the truck in Lafayette."

She held her FBI-neutral expression the whole time.

"And William Floyd is Pale Girl."

Lina was careful. "How do you figure that?"

"Look, Lina, you need to drop this FBI bullshit. If we want to contribute at all, we need to be straight with each other."

"How'd you know Floyd was my source?"

He just smiled. He didn't want to let her think he had just made an educated guess.

Lina said, "What can we contribute? The bureau is all over this."

Félix let out a big enough laugh for both of them. "You're kidding, right? If we depend on the FBI, we could be in a nuclear winter by the weekend."

Duarte nodded. "We can do things unencumbered by administration. Anything we turn up could be a bonus. It doesn't matter who finds Floyd, but someone needs to and fast."

Lina said, "We do have some information we could check. But what do we do with it?"

Duarte smiled. "That's easy. We kick some ass."

William "Ike" Floyd wasn't certain of where he was headed, but on the small access road that started right next to the Jacinto Arms he thought he would end up somewhere that would be private. The simple blacktop asphalt road seemed to go nowhere but also appeared to be quite long with nothing but acres of vacant land on each side. He was proud of himself for coming up with such a good plan and what he would tell Mr. Ortíz about the Ryder truck when he saw him.

Next to him, the oldest Charlie had been rattling on about his life before a cocaine habit had wrecked him. Of course the habit had nothing to do with him. It was disease that had consumed him. He had been a heavy-machine operator in Daytona Beach, Florida, until he smoked some crack one evening and never bothered to go back to his wife and three kids, two of which were probably his.

Charlie said, "I'll tell you what. Something like this can turn your life around. Helping you might be what I need to hold my head up high again."

Ike just nodded.

"I gotta tell ya, Ike. It's mighty impressive that you're doing so well in the National Army at such a young age. What're you? Thirty?"

"Thirty-two."

"What're we helping you with? I mean you can tell us, can't you? Another bomb, like Oklahoma City?"

Ike snorted. "That was minor."

Charlie looked at him and said, "You're crazy."

"That's not what the court psychiatrist said."

"Really, what are we gonna do?" The dirty man stared at Ike, waiting for an honest answer.

Ike returned the stare and gave him an honest answer. "We're going to plant, then detonate, a nuclear weapon."

45

AT THE EDGE OF A WIDE CANAL THAT RAN PARALLEL TO THE ROAD they had driven out, William "Ike" Floyd took his corner of the crate as they hefted it into the back of the stolen F-150 pickup truck. It just fit under the camper top fastened onto the long bed of the truck. Sweat dripped off his nose as he looked up at the three, dirty, huffing men.

"Now what?" asked the youngest of the men, his giant swastika tattoo gleaming with sweat in the bright Texas sunshine. "When can we see this thing?"

The three men all stepped to the same side of the truck in a tight bunch facing Ike.

"C'mon, let's check the van one last time."

The three men followed him to the Ryder van parked in front of the truck. He felt for the small SIG-Sauer pistol under his shirt.

"Get the wood out of there," he said, pointing at the lengths of two-by-fours.

The two younger men hopped up into the truck and grabbed the wood.

Ike hoped that Charlie would follow his friends up into the covered van. It would have made things easier.

He knew who he needed to cap first. He drew the pistol without pretense, trying to stay calm, and fired as soon as it was pointed right at the youngest Charlie's face. The sound in the van from the discharging pistol was thunderous and even stunned the other man inside.