The Laura Cardinal Novels

by J. Carson Black

  Richie waited for the Bomb Squad to go through the house. When they gave him the okay, he headed for Bobby Burdette’s basement.

  Josh got a ride with the Bomb Squad—they would take him back to the Williams PD. To tell the truth, Richie was relieved he was gone. He had the place to himself now, and in a way, he enjoyed that.

  The head of the Bomb Squad, Bill Slade, had already told him what was down here. A washer/dryer combination, a water heater, a work bench that had not been used for a long time, and a gun cabinet.

  Richie looked at the guns: a Ruger Mini-14 with a folding stock, a Remington 870 shotgun—also with folding stock—an old .30 caliber M-1 carbine, a Winchester model 70 .270 rifle, a Smith & Wesson M&P Compact .40, and a Raven Arms MP-25.

  He checked the shotgun to see if it was unloaded. It was. He sniffed the chamber. It smelled of lubricating oil. All of Bobby’s guns were well-cared for. A Hoppe’s cleaning kit on the bench. He found ammo, too. Bagged and labeled the gun and the ammo as evidence.

  Then he called Laura. When he heard her voice, he said, “I’ve got a 12-gauge shotgun here. A Remington 870.”

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s great.” The way she said it warmed him, an undercurrent of excitement in her voice, almost gleeful. They’d had their differences, but this was something they both wanted.

  “Hope we can nail him,” he said.

  “Me, too.”

  Feeling expansive, he added, “That was good work, finding that cartridge.”

  She laughed. “It was luck more than anything.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  When they disconnected, he had a big smile on his face—a good day’s work.

  Hard to see in the dust and wind, which had cast a bluish pall over the landscape, but Mark Sproule thought he saw lights ahead. “Is that a cop car?”

  Dell looked up from the motorcycle magazine he was reading. “Looks like it.”

  Yes, definitely a cop car. Headlights blinking back and forth, blue and red lights on the roof.

  Mark’s foot hovered over the brake. He shifted down.

  “What are you doing?” Dell demanded.

  “We have to stop.”

  “Why don’t you just run it?”

  Mark looked at Dell. Twenty-eight years old and he thought he ran the world. Well, he wasn’t going to get Mark killed over this.

  “It’s probably nothing anyway,” Dell said. “He probably stopped some speeder.”

  But Mark knew. And a few moments later, when he saw the lights in his side mirror, he was sure.

  They had the truck, they had the drivers. The drivers were currently sitting inside the Las Vegas Metro car that had come up from Laughlin.

  Special Agent in Charge Damien Peltier leaned in to the Suburban to grab a bottle of water. The dryness getting to him. Jordy sat inside, still on his computer.

  Great, how it had worked out. Even if they had to pursue, even though they couldn’t find a road down to cut them off. The Las Vegas Metro unit had come in handy after all.

  Making the streets safe for tourists in Laughlin.

  “Mission accomplished,” Peltier said between drinks.

  “That’s what Bush thought.”

  Peltier looked at Jordy. Always suspected he was a liberal. “What do you mean by that?”

  Jordy nodded toward the truck, sitting on the desert verge, taillights blinking. “That look like an NTS truck to you?”

  42

  “Everybody wants a deal,” Laura said to Jon, after a fruitless half hour of trying to finesse Glenn into talking. She had co-opted the tiny conference room off the hallway at Wiseman Aviation, rather than taking Traywick back to DPS. The room was mostly taken up with a table and chairs, but it was self-contained and private. Laura added, “His lawyer’s on the way. How are you doing with Michelle?”

  “Nada. We don’t have anything to hold her on, so she left.”

  Laura wondered where she had gone, what her life would be like now. “They’ve got the truck at least,” she said.

  “A truck.”

  “A truck?”

  “It sure as hell isn’t the truck—they were driving a regular semi. It’s completely empty—Jordy told me just a minute ago.”

  Laura suddenly remembered the half-thought she had before everything hit the fan: the forty-minute time lapse and Jack Taylor’s rental of a semi truck. “A decoy,” she said.

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Then where’s the real truck?”

  The real truck, Fleet Trucking no. 57, had finally cleared the wreck outside Baker, California, and was on its way to Interstate 15 going east.

  As Bobby Burdette drove into the outskirts of town, he saw a yellow Dodge Challenger up on blocks in somebody’s yard and felt a twinge of remorse.

  Maybe he should have found a place to store The Mean Green, so he could retrieve it if he ever got back here.

  But he wasn’t coming back. He had himself a white Toyota Camry—there were about a million of those on the road—waiting in the parking lot of the Mirage Hotel and Casino. The Camry would take him straight down to Mexicali, and once he was over the line, he’d be home free with a million dollars in the bank and the cash he’d liquidated from his accounts. Not a huge amount of money, but he’d be able to live comfortably. Find himself a nice place down near Cabo, live the simple life. Margaritas on the beach, maybe get him a little sailboat.

  If Cabo was too obvious, there were plenty of little fishing villages down the coast where you could disappear, as long as you could support yourself. Nobody was going to be checking passports in places like that.

  Still, he’d miss The Mean Green.

  He remembered one of his girlfriends had a poster in her apartment that said: “If you love something, let it go. If it comes back it’s yours; if it doesn’t, it never was.” Or something to that effect. Every agency in three states would be looking for The Mean Green. If he was lucky, some poor sap had already taken the car and was driving it God knew where.

  He was fine with that. He had a new life and he couldn’t afford to be sentimental. He loved The Mean Green, but if it was meant to come back to him, then it would. Otherwise, he hoped whoever took it enjoyed it while he could.

  An outside observer, privy to Bobby Burdette’s thoughts, might be surprised that Shana Yates, the woman he had slept with and lied to, did not enter into his mind at all.

  “Sir?”

  Damien Peltier wanted to bite Jordan Benteen’s head off. “What is it?”

  Staring at the semi truck that wasn’t the truck he was looking for. Tasting grit in his teeth. Gearing himself up to interrogate Mark Sproule and Dell Anders, thinking about the best way to go about it, but having a hard time thinking because of this goddamn wind.

  “Call for you.”

  “Who’s it from?”

  “CHP officer. I think you should listen to what he has to say.”

  “Oh, you do?”

  “He says it’s important. In light of what’s been happening.”

  Peltier grabbed the phone. “Who is this?”

  The man identified himself as CHPs officer Jess Harding. “You’re looking for a truck with those nuclear canisters on a flatbed?” he asked.

  Peltier grunted assent.

  “There was a wreck just north of Baker on 127. Took a long time to clear it—”

  “You need to get to the point.”

  “There was a trucker there, got caught on the wrong side of the wreck. Something not right about him. Talked a lot of bullshit. It was like he looked right through me.”

  Despite himself, Peltier felt a surge of excitement. “Yes, go on. What kind of truck is it?”

  Harding described it. A tall load on a flatbed, most of it covered with a large tarp, like the kind the Army used. “But I could see the tanks—three of them, the tarp didn’t cover them. At the time, I didn’t think much about it, but I’ve seen tanks like that before. The ones that come down here on the way to Carlsbad.”<
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  Peltier might or might have not thanked him before tossing the phone back to Jordan Benteen.

  This was his chance to shine. He knew how to lead, he knew how to cut through the bullshit, and he knew how to make spontaneous decisions. He thought about what Harding had said about the man. The way he described him. This did not sound like the eco-pussies he’d been dealing with. This guy sounded like he had left the reservation.

  “We need two things,” he said to Jordy. “We need a helicopter with a spotter. We need to cover I-15 and every other road out of Baker.” He paused, remembering Jon Service’s suggestion earlier today. He had made one decision then, but now things had changed. “Talk to the people with Las Vegas Metro. We’re going to need a hostage negotiator.”

  Glenn Traywick’s lawyer arrived and met with his client while Laura and Jon Service cooled their heels outside at a picnic table under the pines. They had been waiting almost two hours at this point.

  “Where’s Sharp?” Laura asked, staring out at a plane taking off.

  “He’s got a meeting, but he should be here soon.”

  “What do you think Traywick meant by that? Saying he had something we really needed to know?”

  Jon shrugged. “Could be anything.”

  “But the way he said it.” She folded her arms. “Like it would solve everything. Like he was going to give us something that we’d be very grateful for.”

  “He could just be bullshitting. At this point, we’ve got it all figured out—with him or without him.”

  But Laura wasn’t so sure that was true.

  Just then a man in a suit holding a briefcase came out the double doors and motioned them inside. Jeremy Sharp, the US attorney.

  “That’s our cue,” Jon said, holding the door for her as she walked back inside.

  The first time he saw the helicopter cruising over the freeway, Bobby thought it was police monitoring the traffic. The second time it came over, he started to have a bad feeling.

  He noticed, too, that the traffic on the freeway was light. No, he realized, not light—nonexistent. At least on the lanes coming from Las Vegas.

  A momentary panic, as he realized that there were no cars coming his way.

  He glanced from one side mirror to the other, saw the cop cars and dark Suburbans coming up fast, headlights winking back and forth, lights on—completely silent.

  Ahead were orange cones, marching off down an exit.

  Something blinking dark and light up ahead in the whirling dust, a mirage.

  The cars behind him, swift and silent.

  The helicopter flying overhead again, looking like a giant navy-blue dragonfly. Another helicopter, clearly marked—this one from a TV news affiliate.

  A clear path ahead, the road all to himself, leading to a dead end of more Suburbans and black and whites.

  He thought about Mexico.

  He thought about the money.

  He thought about The Mean Green.

  Run it, a voice inside his head urged.

  He knew he wouldn’t be able to thread through the vehicles ahead of him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get past SWAT, who stood like black stick figures behind car doors, aiming high-powered weapons at him.

  He could run it and fail. But if he stopped, maybe he could play one more hand.

  He still had the explosives, strapped around the first tank.

  He still had the plutonium.

  And Las Vegas was only thirty miles away.

  He shifted down, the engine dropping into a low-pitched whine. Shifted down and down and down.

  Ready to deal.

  43

  Bobby’s thinking: better make sure they call the right phone. Otherwise—

  Boom.

  Glad he bought two different kinds of cell phones, two different colors. On the back of a page from the manifest papers with a ball-point pen, he writes his cell phone number as big as he can, going over it several times to make the letters dark and thick.

  He holds it up to the window, waggles it.

  “Sir, throw the keys out of the truck.”

  Coming out of a bullhorn, just like in the movies. For answer, he waggles the paper some more.

  Silence.

  The wind worrying at the windows, chortling at him. Dust shuttling across the now-deserted patch of asphalt of I-15 north. The lights winking one hundred yards ahead. Black-garbed SWAT team members. The FBI Surburbans, just like in the movies.

  He wonders where the snipers are. He knows he’s in the crosshairs right now. The only thing stopping them is the fact that he is sitting on a shitload of transuranic waste, the biggest fucking hostage in the world.

  “Throw your keys out now!”

  Or what? You’ll take away my phone privileges?

  He walks the sheet of paper along the top of the dash, one corner up, one corner down, up and down.

  He hears Back in Black—the phone. The right phone. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t still be here to answer it.

  He picks up.

  “We want—”

  “I don’t care what you want,” he says, keeping his voice whisper-quiet, barely audible. Whoever is on the other end—and he’s pretty sure it’s the head honcho—will have to listen hard to hear him. All his concentration will be on trying to understand what he’s saying, rather than jumping ahead in his mind, finding a way to outsmart him.

  “Listen to me. I’ll only say this once. I have a load of transuranic waste right behind this cab. I have explosives strapped around it. If you come near me, I’ll blow myself and this rig sky high. Don’t think I won’t do it—I’ve got nothing to lose. If I go, I’ll go fast. The rest of you—it’s gonna take awhile. You’ll probably end up in a hospital bed with a tube up your nose and a bedpan under your ass. I’ll let you think about that, and you can call me back.”

  He hits END.

  Shocked silence. He can almost feel it. They have all that hardware, all those professionals, all those Suburbans, but he, Bobby Burdette, he’s the one who is calling the tune.

  The phone rings again. A different voice. Calm, reasonable.

  Oh-ho, Bobby thinks. When they get all calm and reasonable, they’re really scared.

  More waiting. The US attorney and Glenn Traywick’s lawyer—a broad-shouldered, gone-to-fat man, wearing black-framed glasses and a graying ponytail—cooped up together in the tiny conference room, hashing out a deal.

  Jon’s phone chirping. Listening intently. His face going from relieved to concerned.

  Laura trying to read what was going on, listening to his side of the conversation.

  “They’re sure?”

  “Dammit.

  “But they are talking to him—”

  “That’s good. They’re going to need hi—”

  Then she saw his face sag, the pouches around his eyes become more pronounced. He looked at her, but didn’t see her.

  Laura stared at him, stared at the phone he held in a death grip to his ear.

  “ANFO.”

  “ANFO?” Laura asked.

  He fluttered his hand at her—be quiet.

  ANFO. It stood for ammonia nitrate-fuel oil.

  “That’s what he says,” Jon said. “He could be bluffing, but … Yeah, all right.”

  He closed the phone and stared at Laura.

  She’d already put the pieces together, but he told her anyway.

  “They caught up with Bobby Burdette. He’s strapped explosives to the tank with the plutonium in it.”

  Just then, Jeremy Sharp came out of the conference room.

  Peltier could see from here that the hostage negotiator wasn’t getting anywhere. Although SWAT didn’t show it, he knew they were getting disgusted. Going on two hours out here in the heat and the wind, that asshole holding them all hostage.

  From where he stood, the LVMPD negotiator didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

  “What’s he doing in there?”

  Jordy said, “Waiting us out.”


  “He thinks we’re going to go away?”

  Jordy shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. I guess that’s where the hostage negotiator comes in.”

  “SWAT wants to move. They think they can get him, with nobody getting hurt.”

  Jordy didn’t reply.

  “If it wasn’t for that damn N-waste—”

  “Heard a good one the other day.”

  Peltier wiped sweat out of his eyes. “Yeah?”

  “SWAT says, ‘Hey, it’s been ten minutes. He’s not gonna ever give in.’ Hostage negotiator says, ‘Hey, it’s been three weeks. I think we’re making progress.' "

  Peltier laughed out loud. It felt good.

  The hostage negotiator, Frank Handley, was laying out how easy it would be. Bobby might not even get that much prison time. He could serve it in Arizona, where he could see his mother.

  That didn’t sound like much of a treat.

  Handley had done his research. He’d talked with Bobby Burdette’s mother. Asked her about him. From what Peltier gathered, the woman had real contempt for her son. She said something to the effect that they shouldn’t worry, he wasn’t the kind to go all the way.

  She called him a quitter.

  Everybody here hoped she was right.

  Peltier’s cell rang. It was that DPS detective, Laura Cardinal. She started to talk, just as the other phone rang—the one from Bobby Burdette. “I can’t talk to you now,” he said brusquely and cut her off.

  “What’d he say?” Jon asked.

  Laura was still looking at her phone. “He said ‘I can’t talk to you now.' "

  “Maybe they’re at a turning point.”

  Laura heard the faint thwop-thwop-thwop of a helicopter blades. “DPS helicopter’s here,” she said.

  “Let’s go. We’ll tell him when we’re up.”

  When they were settled in the helicopter, headphones on, Jon said to Laura, “Do you believe it?”