by G. K. Parks
“If you put twenty on that, then you’re on,” Michael said. He fell silent, and I tried to come up with something positive to say. When I attempted to meet his eyes, I noticed his were screwed shut, and his shoulder blade was twitching. “There are some things I’d like to discuss,” he began, sounding resigned to whatever his fate may be.
“Tell me later.”
“No,” the fear in his brown eyes shocked me, “just in case. I want to do it now.” I nodded, and he continued. “First of all, this has been one hell of a ride.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I warned, looking away. “If this is the kind of shit you’re going to be sputtering, then I’ll wait downstairs for the bomb squad.”
“Alex, in the event,” he attempted to clear his throat, “have them tell my mom first. She’s a strong lady.” He let out a long exhale. “And inside the locked safe in my bedroom closet are copies of my personal files. The Bureau will want those.” I nodded. “Next to the bed is,” he began, but seeing a perfect opportunity to lighten the mood, I interrupted.
“I’m sure Sam or Mark will clear out your porn collection,” I teased, and I caught a smile. “But just for my own clarification, they aren’t going to find any crazy ass shit like S&M gear or some fluffy suit. Damn, what are those people called?” My mind went blank, but hopefully, the banter would keep his mind on more positive things. “Y’know, the ones who dress up like giant stuffed animals to screw. Stuffies or fluffies?”
“Plushies,” he chortled. “Is this your way of confessing to it being your kink?”
“I don’t have any kinks. You’re the one with a closet full of porn, S&M gear, and a plushie suit.”
“You do realize you’re absolutely insane, right?” he asked. I shrugged, and his reflection smirked at me. “Only a lunatic would stand inside an apartment with a ticking time bomb.”
“You’re not so bad. Sure, you get moody sometimes, but I’ve learned to ignore it,” I teased.
“Alex,” his tone was back to serious, and I rubbed a hand over my face, “make sure you get these bastards.”
“I promise.” Before either of us could say another word, I heard the sound of sirens getting louder. “Stay put. Help has arrived.”
By the time I made it to the ground floor, officers were clearing the building. The bomb squad arrived, and Boyle pulled up. “Agent Parker,” Boyle called as he got out of the vehicle, “fill us in.”
I told the group of bomb technicians everything I knew. One guy nodded, donned the heavyweight protective gear, and went into the building to evaluate the situation.
“We lost Cline,” I admitted to Sam. “He was too far ahead of us, and when we reached his apartment, we found the door open. We assumed he was inside, but he wasn’t. I guess he opened his door and continued running. Motherfucker completely threw us off the scent.” I shook my head. “And now Carver is standing on top of a bomb.”
“This isn’t your fault,” Boyle said. He looked nauseous. “Frank Farlow was arrested with a box full of plastic explosive. It’s stable since it wasn’t attached to a detonator. But this is the smoking gun that we needed.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “At this moment, I couldn’t care less if that psycho makes it out of interrogation alive. We’ll find out how to deactivate the bomb upstairs and what other targets these fucking yahoos are planning to hit. For once, I’m actually in favor of the Patriot Act and deeming someone an enemy combatant.”
“Can I call dibs on the waterboarding?”
“We’ll take turns,” he said. Clearly, we were both worried about Carver.
Most of the time the risks associated with this job seemed minimal or reasonable. For example, the risk of being shot could be minimized by wearing Kevlar, or I could decrease my chances of being caught by surprise by going over advanced hand-to-hand combat maneuvers. But how were we supposed to prepare for situations like this? There was no way to control the situation or the outcome, and that was one thing I would never be willing to accept.
Ten minutes later, the bomb tech came outside. The building had been cleared, and a few of his team members followed him inside with various tools and equipment. As Sam and I waited as patiently as possible, praying to whatever entity might be willing to listen, Jablonsky’s SUV screeched to a stop a few feet from us.
“Where’s Carver? What’s the status of the bomb? Do we have an update on Cline’s location?”
“Michael’s still upstairs. The bomb squad is,” I faltered slightly, “they’re upstairs, working on deactivating it. Cline’s in the wind. He got away from me. He tricked us. That’s why Michael is where he is.” I was starting to lose it. “Goddammit,” I swore and kicked the tire on Mark’s SUV.
“Agent Parker, go back to the office. Review the information on Frank Farlow and get whatever information you can out of him. There is work that needs to be done, and you standing here isn’t helping anyone,” Jablonsky commanded, pointing to the open driver’s side door on his SUV.
“I don’t want to leave Carver.”
“I wasn’t making a request. Get to work. You don’t need to be here,” he insisted.
Obeying his orders, I climbed into the SUV, shut the door, and drove back to the OIO, unwilling to consider the possibility of what might be happening inside the apartment building.
Eight
“Listen up, you son of a bitch,” I snarled, circling the table in the center of the room like a shark, “your actions scream terrorism, and you are one phone call away from being sent to Guantanamo. Unless you want to avoid becoming some camel jockey’s bitch, I suggest you answer my questions to the best of your ability.”
Frank Farlow glowered at me with disdain. “I’m the only true patriot in this building. I’m taking a stand and protecting what our forefathers worked so hard to create, and you can’t do a thing about it.”
“You wanna bet? Where’s Forrester Cline?”
“Who?” It was a challenge, and I slammed him face first into the tabletop. He screamed in pain and sat back, blood running down his face. “You broke my fucking nose.”
“That’s just for starters.” Exhaling and loosening up my shoulders, I stood in front of him. “Where’s Forrester Cline?”
“I don’t know.” He leaned down, trying to stop the bleeding with his handcuffed hands. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Did you sell him explosive devices or any other weapons?”
The cameras were off, and no one was watching from the observation room. Boyle had given me the go-ahead to treat our captive as an enemy combatant, which greatly limited his civil rights; although, bashing the guy’s skull in might still be questionable. Violence only sought further violence, but god help him if Carver didn’t make it out of that apartment in one piece. Right now, I needed Farlow to fear me.
“The second amendment gives us the right to bear arms.”
“Did you provide him with any explosive devices?” I asked again, my patience thinning. The brief look of glee that passed over his bloodied features was enough of an answer. “What did you give him?”
“Oh, you’ll see.” The asshole smirked.
Putting on a pair of gloves, I went behind his chair, grabbed his short, greasy, brown hair and yanked his head backward and gave his nose a hard squeeze, refusing to let go.
“Shit,” he cursed and attempted to wriggle out of my grasp. He was handcuffed to the bar in the table, and his chair was bolted to the floor. He wasn’t going anywhere. “Help. Someone. Help. Get this crazy bitch off of me,” he began calling out in hopes that one of my fellow agents, Michael’s friends and colleagues, would take pity on this excuse for a human being.
“Answer my question,” I growled in his ear.
“Plastic explosive and instructions on making pipe bombs and letter bombs,” he frantically exclaimed. “Now, let me go.”
“What about the sensor in Cline’s apartment? How can it be disarmed?”
“What?” he genuinely sounded confuse
d. “I didn’t give him any sensors. I just gave him the basics.”
“Why? For what purpose?” My teeth were clenched. I believed he didn’t know anything about the motion sensor detonator which meant Cline was acting on his own.
“Forrester wanted to take care of some problems.”
I released the pressure on Farlow’s nose, and he winced. Walking around to the other side of the table, I stared at him, waiting for some elaboration.
“He was wrongly accused, and the state was harassing him. They were following him, tapping his phones without just reason. He was being set-up. Framed for a murder he didn’t commit. And the sickest part is this nation claims to be protecting its citizens, but it’s completely subverted from what it was intended to be. Only the true patriots can understand what is truly constitutional. You stand there with your badge and gun claiming to have some authority over me, but you have none.”
This guy was a nutbag. He had a lot to say, particularly when it came to ratting out Cline’s motives and maybe explaining the circumstances surrounding Haze’s murder, but I didn’t want to go near any of that. That needed to be on the up and up, and I already tainted my interview with violence.
“How much explosive did you give to Cline?”
“Enough for three small bombs. He wanted more, but,” Farlow shut his mouth, and I knew the rest of the explosive he wanted was in the package we confiscated.
Slamming my chair against the table and jarring my captive, I stormed out of interrogation, stopped the first person I found, and told him to send someone to get our suspect cleaned up after he accidentally hit his nose on the table while trying to strong-arm his way out of the cuffs. I had gotten everything I could out of him, and there was no reason why the man needed to make a bloody mess in our interrogation room. It wasn’t very sanitary for any future persons of interest who might be forced to sit in the same chair at the same table.
Back at my desk, I made a few calls to get arrest warrants signed for the other two Farlow brothers. If their family militia group was buying and selling explosives, we had reason to bring them in for questioning. After issuing a BOLO on Forrester Cline, I went to talk to the mobile unit that brought Farlow in. They said the package was left in an out-of-service washing machine which must have been used as a drop. They already pulled the laundromat’s video surveillance and were hoping to identify whoever left the plastic explosive for Farlow. Just as I picked up my phone to call for an update on Carver’s situation, the elevator doors opened and out came Jablonsky, Boyle, and Carver.
“Are you sure, kid?” Jablonsky asked.
“Yes. I want to nail these bastards,” Carver responded.
Jablonsky nodded once, clapped him on the back, and went into his office. Boyle threw an arm around his shoulders and whispered something to him. Carver grinned, and Boyle went into the conference room, calling the two agents from the mobile unit to join him.
“Hey,” I launched myself into Michael’s arms, “you’re okay. I’m sorry for leaving you there and everything.”
“It’s okay.” He hugged me back. “Careful, Alex, people might think we slept together,” he whispered teasingly in my ear.
“Jerk.” I filled him in on everything that transpired while he spent the afternoon standing around in Cline’s apartment. “We have some strong leads. Someone else will have to do the follow-up interview, but we’re making progress. Are you sure you don’t want to take the rest of the day off?”
“Nah, but I have a few things I need to take care of while we wait on the other two Farlows to be brought in.” He glanced at the rest of our team, which was working on the new leads inside the conference room. “Thanks for having my back. Can you do me a favor and stay on top of whatever breaking news is going on with the earlier bombing from today?”
“Yeah, no problem.” I gave him a strange look, wondering what he was going to be doing instead.
“Great. You can read me in over dinner. I’m thinking surf and turf.” He winked. “After all, you did offer to buy whatever I want.”
“Apparently, I should have been more concerned with my pocketbook than your well-being.”
He snickered as I grabbed a notepad and headed for the conference room. Charts and dozens of pictorial representations of the explosion from this morning were covering a corkboard someone had pushed into the conference room. Boyle was studying it, and Jablonsky came in and asked that we all take a seat. For once, our fearless leader also sat instead of standing as he gave us the update. Today had taken a toll on him too.
From the preliminary investigation, it seemed the cause of the explosion inside the storeroom was the result of a package bomb. The restaurant was expecting a shipment of jarred pickles, and the box thought to contain them had been unopened and left in the storage room. The photos of the scene indicated scorch marks, broken glass, and charred wiring. To the untrained eye, it looked similar to the detonator remnants used in Haze’s car.
“Our team is going over the scene and checking for leads on who sent and delivered the package,” Jablonsky concluded. He sighed heavily and briefly locked eyes with each of us. “I’m sure everyone’s aware of this morning’s situation. Agent Carver is fine, but it is imperative that we locate and apprehend Forrester Cline. However, if any of you end up in pursuit, feel free to exercise extreme prejudice in taking him down. I’m not willing to risk any of our lives for his apprehension.”
No one was opposed to these more stringent measures. If you fuck with one of us, you fuck with all of us.
A junior agent opened the conference room door. “Sir, John and Tim Farlow have been brought in for questioning.”
“Thanks, Cooper,” Mark said. After the man left, he surveyed the room. “Okay, we’ll let them stew for a few minutes. In the meantime, I need everything you can get on the three Farlow brothers, Forrester Cline, and anyone who might be able to give us some answers. The more ammunition we can use against them, the better off we are.” He stood up from the table as everyone went back to work. “Parker, I need a minute.”
Getting up, I followed him to his office. He waited for me to take a seat, and then he shut the door and sat on the edge of his desk in front of me.
“Boyle said I could exercise some creativity,” I began, but Mark held up a hand to silence me.
“I don’t care what happened with Farlow or how it happened. It doesn’t matter.” He swallowed and blew out a breath. “But you’re not going anywhere near him or his brothers. Whatever we manage to get out of him might be the key to putting Cline behind bars for the rest of his life, and nothing any of us do should jeopardize that. I was told he broke his own nose while fighting against his restraints. There is no one to contradict that, so we’re keeping this as the official story, understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” I got up to leave. “And Parker, we protect our own, even if the methods we employ aren’t always particularly sound.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. He didn’t know anything about the motion sensor or how to disarm the bomb. If,” I looked away and began again, “I regret my actions.”
“Then don’t do it again.” He jerked his chin toward the door.
Under different circumstances, I would have been suspended, pending an investigation, and possibly charged with assault. However, Carver’s life had been hanging in the balance, so desperate times and all that. It didn’t make it right, but it did make it entirely understandable.
Nine
Sitting completely motionless at my desk with my eyes closed, I was reevaluating the mental image I had of all the evidence we collected so far. In the last six hours, much of our case had fallen into place. We still hadn’t located Cline, but assuming Farlow was correct in the amount of plastic explosive Cline possessed, there would be no more targets. Bomb number one went off inside Haze’s car. Bomb number two went off early this morning at the diner across from the municipal building, and the third bomb was rigged to a motion sensor in Cline’s bathro
om. Perhaps Cline was the innovative type and researched how to rig an explosive to a motion sensor without asking his supplier for assistance. Too bad he didn’t accidentally blow himself up. That was wishful thinking on my part.
“Hey,” one of the techs said, and I opened my eyes to find him standing over me, “I just got into Haze’s voicemail box. You need to listen to this.”
I took the offered thumb drive and plugged it into my computer. There were countless threats from Cline to Haze dating back almost a month. Each message becoming more heated than the last until Cline finally threatened to kill Haze. More specifically, he threatened to shoot him in the heart.
“Did you pass this along?” I asked.
“Yes. SSA Jablonsky and SAC Boyle both have copies.”
He retreated from my desk, and I checked the call logs and cross-referenced the number. The prepaid burner cell’s timestamps on the phone log matched the voicemail messages left by Cline. We had him for first degree murder. We also had him for an attempted bombing, and I was certain by the end of the night we’d have him for the detonations at the impound lot and the diner.
Picking up the phone, I dialed Det. Jacobs and shared the newest development on his homicide case. It was only fair. Apparently, the police department tossed Haze’s apartment and found the original crime scene. Haze had been shot on the landing of his fire escape. From the looks of his apartment, there had been a struggle, and Jacobs determined the ADA tried to escape his attacker by going out the back. Unfortunately, Cline had come prepared and shot him from the level above.
“Agent Parker, we’ve been reviewing the security tapes from Haze’s building. It seems apparent his killer is Forrester Cline.” He muttered barely audible expletives. “I guess it’s a tossup to see if the state or federal government indicts first.”
“Hell, the state’s got the death penalty, so just make sure you have a damn solid case.”
An eye for an eye would make the whole world blind, but it was overwhelming to think such sinister and destructive individuals existed this frequently in modern society. As a human race, it was sometimes hard to argue we were evolved when shit like this kept happening. Every day, there was another serious threat, whether it was a mass shooting, explosion, or some other multi-casualty event.