Coulter didn't smile or even move.
"How long does it take the academy to teach you the stance: Feet twelve to eighteen inches apart, jaw set, eyes and head swiveling like an owl scanning for field mice, hands protecting your manhood?"
The corners of Coulter's mouth lifted just a little.
"You grin too much like that they'll have to send you back for a refresher."
The agent smiled a little more. "I heard the manhood comment from a thirteen-year-old... girl, only she preferred the word, dick."
CJ shook his head. "What's the world coming to?"
"She was the daughter of a senator. I swear they're the worst."
They went silent and CJ continued shuffling his feet as though trying to pace in place, noticing a shuttle arrive from the gates, the third one so far. There was no vantage point from which one could see inside the shuttle, had to wait for people to come out into the waiting area. He shuffled some more until, finally, a few people started wandering out, dragging their most precious possessions behind them, backpacks or purses slung off their shoulders. And then Stella appeared, a huge smile on her face.
CJ met her halfway and gave her a big hug, wanting more than ever to never let her go. When she started becoming uncomfortable, he pulled back and walked her toward the agent. "Stella, this is Special Agent Ryan Coulter. He'll be spending time with us today."
She shook his hand and said, "Why?"
"They have some crazy notion that there may be more attempts on my life."
"More?"
"Someone threw a bomb at him this morning, Ms. Summers," Coulter said.
"A bomb!"
CJ held up his hand, wishing Coulter hadn't jumped to it so quickly. "Not so loud. You'll have the airport being evacuated."
Stella took a deep breath and looked directly at CJ, pulling her eyebrows together. "What does he mean, bomb?" she whispered.
"It wasn't necessarily thrown at me. I was sitting at an outdoor table with Rebecca O'Reilly, Eveleen Danohough and Detective DuPont. I think the actual targets were the women."
Stella looked CJ up and down as though checking for missing body parts. "And?"
"And what?"
"What the hell happened? This baa... thing was thrown at you and you're standing here. Fortunately, it must not have gone off."
"It went off, alright. DuPont is in the hospital with a nail in his head, or, ah, it's not in his head anymore. They took it out. He also caught a staple in his arm, one of those huge ones, like a ten-penny nail bent twice."
"I know what a huge staple looks like, Clint. Was this a small bomb? Why didn't anyone else get hurt?"
"It did a lot of damage, could have easily killed any one of us except that..." CJ suddenly noticed a familiar figure separating from the stream of people coming off of the next shuttle, a bureau image wearing a Washburn face.
Stella looked over her shoulder. "Oh yeah. Forget to tell you. Ran into Josh in Atlanta. We had the same connecting flight. You didn't tell me for sure that he was coming."
"I didn't think he was. Apparently he didn't see fit to call and tell me."
"Call and tell you what, Dad?" Josh said as he hugged his father.
"I never heard from you after the conference call between your boss and Agent Taffer. You suspected you'd be loaned but you never called to confirm, so I just figured it wasn't going to happen."
"Sorry. It was so last minute. I don't always have my bags packed and affairs in order in preparation for a field assignment. Had a lot to do."
Coulter stepped forward and extended his hand. "Special Agent Brian Coulter. I, also, wasn't briefed as to your pending arrival, Agent Washburn."
As the two agents shook hands, Josh said, "Just got off the phone with Special Agent Taffer. I expect you'll receive a call shortly." Josh turned to his dad. "Taffer filled me on the IED. How is Detective DuPont doing?"
"The last I heard, he was out of surgery. The nail didn't penetrate far. The staple, however, nicked the humerus, tore up some muscle on the way in."
"It was an IED?" Stella whispered at Josh. "I thought those were roadside bombs, or devices buried in the ground waiting for someone to step on them."
"IED stands for Improvised Explosive Device," Coulter said, "and it can be anything someone could build in their garage or kitchen and it can be buried, hidden under or inside something, or thrown. Improvised is the key word here. There are no rules."
"Oh. Not exactly comforting."
"The scene is being scoured for bomb fragments right now to see if we can figure out how it was built. It appears to have been a chunk of explosive material inside a sealed container around which was taped nails, staples and sharp pieces of metal."
"Over-sized coffee mug," CJ said.
"Could be," Coulter said.
"No. I mean that's what came to mind when I saw it coming at us. It could have been something else, I guess. I recall camouflage, like green camouflage duct tape with something else taped to the outside of it. Maybe a timing device, like a cell phone."
"There have been shreds of duct tape found," Josh said. "It's often used to adhere a layer of enhancements to the outside of a container loaded with explosives."
"Enhancements?" Stella said.
"In this case the enhancements were nails, staples and other pieces of shrapnel. Taffer said something about pieces of a phone also being discovered. They may have used that as the timer. As a drive-by, the individual could start the timer, let's say five seconds, just before tossing it. Plenty of time to get far enough away so as to not be affected by the blast, but not enough time for someone on foot to react and run away or find cover."
"I still don't get it," Stella said. "You saw it coming at you and then it exploded, but here you are, standing right before me. What happened?"
By this time they'd all moved toward the baggage claim area, remaining a distance back so they could talk without being overheard. Agent Coulter's phone rang and he moved away to answer it.
"The only thing we could figure out," CJ said, "was that the device hit a tree. There was a good sized tree right next to where we were sitting. Or maybe it hit the table or umbrella. Whatever the case, it bounced back into the street and rolled up against the inside of the car wheel. The wheel and the car absorbed the bulk of the blast. Only a couple of pieces of shrapnel managed to find Detective DuPont, who was the closest to it and who basically shielded the rest of us."
"Agent Taffer said that there was hearing damage," Josh said. "It appears your hearing has recovered."
"About 80 percent in my right ear," CJ said. "Rebecca seemed to be recovering okay, too. I do worry about Ms. Danohough and Detective DuPont. They were the closest. Eveleen was having a hard time; constant ringing, near totally deaf in her right ear. I heard the emergency medical tech say something about bleeding from hers and the detective's ears. I don't think that's good."
"No it's not," Josh said, and then he and Stella stepped away to fetch their bags from the carousel.
When they returned, Stella said, "Is it a long walk to your rental, Clint?"
"Ah... That's right; I haven't told you that part yet," CJ said. "The car under which the IED got lodged was mine. I don't think it's going anywhere under its own power ever again."
"Oh."
"The rental company is already involved. They weren't happy, but it wasn't my fault after all."
"Did they give you another car?"
"Yes, but I haven't picked it up yet. My hearing and balance are still having issues, so I thought I'd wait."
"I guess you all are rolling with me, then," Josh said.
Agent Coulter stepped back into the circle, stuffing his phone back into his pocket. "That should work out fairly well since I'm officially turning the responsibility of these two people over to you, Agent Washburn. I've been directed back to the crime scene."
As Coulter walked toward the elevators that would take him back to the parking garage, appearing to be pleased with his change in assignme
nt, Josh stared after him.
"Is there a problem, Josh?" CJ said.
"I told you on the phone yesterday, and you agreed, that I didn't think it was a good idea to send me out here just to babysit you again. I didn't really mean it literally. I thought I would be more instrumental in the investigation and the operation."
"Sorry to disappoint you. You know that Taffer is going to have his own people in the center of it."
"Yeah, but this is one step above fetching coffee. It's not what I'm trained to do."
"Nice to know we're above coffee," Stella said.
"You are still a rookie," CJ said, "despite what happened in Arizona."
"I realize that, still...."
"You might say the Tommy Clark case accelerated you through preschool and kindergarten. You're in first grade now."
"Thanks for that image, Dad."
CJ put his arm around his son, even though it hurt his ribcage and his shoulder to do so, suddenly realizing Josh was as tall, if not an inch or two taller, than his father. "Baby steps, Josh. Baby steps. Be sure to find out how Taffer likes his coffee."
Chapter 21
CJ directed Josh out of Tampa, across the bridge into St. Petersburg and toward the area of town where the bomb blast took place. They took the exit off of I-375 and turned left onto Martin Luther King, Jr. Street. Josh found it necessary to navigate around two news media satellite trucks and people standing in the street gawking. At the police roadblock he presented his credentials and they passed him and his two passengers through with barely more than a word. Josh parked the car and they headed out on foot for the last block.
"The cop at the roadblock must have radioed ahead," CJ said, nodding toward the FBI agent coming toward them. Before CJ could make introductions, Taffer extended his hand to Josh.
"Special Agent Washburn, I presume," he said. "I'm John Taffer, Assistant Special Agent In-Charge. You'll be answering to me while you're here."
"Good to meet you, sir," Josh said.
Taffer pointed. "Check in with Agent Coulter, who you already know. He'll bring you up to speed. I need to have a few words with these two."
Josh nodded and eagerly headed toward Agent Coulter.
Taffer turned to CJ. "Quite a mess we have here, Mister Washburn."
"It's not my mess, John. I'm just one of the victims."
"Sure. Wrong place, wrong time. The consensus among law enforcement here is that you should have stayed in Arizona."
"Or Douglas Rothbower, aka, Douglas O'Reilly, should have kept his adopted name and stayed with his wife and daughter in Indiana. He's the only reason I came here."
"He's dead. Why are you still here?"
"One of his widows wants me to stay."
Taffer snorted. "I thought we sorted that out yesterday afternoon."
"She's having second thoughts."
Taffer made a face.
"I'm Stella Summers, by-the-way," Stella said, stepping forward and extending her hand. "Clint's partner."
Taffer accepted her hand. "My apologies, Ms. Summers. Nice to meet you. Can I expect that you'll keep this guy out of trouble?"
"Either that or we'll find more trouble to get into together." She gave him her matter-of-fact grin. "My understanding is that we still have a case to work. There has been an attempt upon our client's life as well as several upon my partner's. It seems to me, Assistant Special Agent In-Charge, John Taffer, that your operation is unraveling. I hope you can get a handle on it before it leaves the confines of the US borders."
CJ couldn't help but smile.
Taffer's face seemed to be teetering between laughing or throwing them outside the police barriers. He looked between CJ and Stella and said, "How much do you two actually know?"
"Not really sure," CJ said, "We don't know what we don't know and no one will tell us, thus a lot of what we think we know is speculation. You wouldn't want us running around speculating incorrectly, now would you?"
"I don't want you running around at all. So speculate for me right here, right now. Tell me what you think is going on."
"Big picture?"
"Yeah. Big picture. A few details wouldn't hurt."
"Is this your way of finding out if we know something that you don't know so that you might be able to, as Stella said, stop your operation from unraveling?"
"Just spill it, Washburn."
"Fine." CJ twisted his torso a bit in an attempt to relax the pain spikes suddenly surging around his ribcage. When it seemed to settle a bit and he was able to get a reasonable breath, he said, "The United Irish Republican Army is stockpiling arms and explosives in Apollo Beach in preparation to shuttle it all to a waiting cargo ship before it steams off to Northern Ireland."
Taffer lifted his eyebrows about two inches. "That's it?"
"What do you mean, that's it?"
"That's all you have? That's your big picture?"
"Pretty much, yes," CJ said. "Isn't that enough? I can give you some details, local players and such, but I think that's the gist of it. I have no idea what they're planning in Northern Ireland, though my guess would be something specific as timing appears to be a growing issue."
"Why do you think that?"
"Something Douglas said just before he was killed."
"Like what?"
"It's not so much what he said, but what he almost said. He mentioned that he was intending on returning to his Indiana wife when it was all over, and that that'd be soon. Something about a summit."
"A summit?"
"He wasn't specific. He used the word, summit, and then it was like he caught himself. Maybe it was nothing."
"Maybe." Taffer's attention seemed to shift down the street, or off into another world inside his head for a few seconds. "So," he finally said, "who do you think some of the players are?"
"There's, of course, the guy who killed Douglas. and then the two who tried to kill me, Rory Pickens and Samuel Blight."
"You don't think Pickens or Blight killed Douglas?"
"Neither of them was the one who lifted my wallet, so no. They may have been involved. No way of telling there. Initially I thought that Blight was the truck driver but I really don't have any basis for that. That may have been a fourth person. The one who threw the device from the passenger seat of the truck could be a fifth. All I saw was his hand. Male, I'm fairly certain, but that's it. Altogether there are as many as five men. Then there's Eveleen Danohough, who is more involved than she's admitting. I don't think Rebecca O'Reilly knew much of anything until the last few days. The McGee family, I'm fairly sure, is out of it, though Paddy McGee did know something about what Douglas was doing, maybe in a way, supported him. That's all the players I know about."
"Humph!"
"Oh, there's the boat you or the sheriff impounded, the one on which I nearly performed a suicide mission. Maybe that was to be the shuttle."
Taffer shook his head. "For what you're thinking, too small."
CJ crossed his arms and grinned. "Then I'm damned close, aren't I? That was just their run-a-round vessel, wasn't it? Or maybe that boat had little to do with it at all, a convenient vehicle at the time to transport me from one point to another, or from the St. Petersburg Marina to a deep, open-water body dump site. Samuel Blight's wife, Nicole, may have had no idea her boat was being used for murder or she may be a player."
Taffer removed his sunglasses and ran his hand over his face as though he was trying to wipe away an annoying spider web. He put the sunglasses back on. "Here's the thing, Mister Clinton Joshua Washburn. This entire operation has gone to crap because they haven't actually started the stockpiling yet, if that's what they're doing. If they'd had weapons and explosives gathered at the Apollo Beach location like we thought they were preparing to do, and had started their shuttling, we'd have them and their ship now, but you arrived just in time to give Douglas the opportunity to break cover and tip his hand before he could get fully debriefed by us. Now they're playing this game of eliminating anybody and everybody a
ssociated with him while in the meantime, we suspect, they are writing up an entirely new game plan.
"The shuttling was to begin tomorrow, we think. Where it was coming from, Douglas wasn't able to find out. What vessel it would all be shuttled to, Douglas wasn't able to find out. The location of the other two pickup points along the US coastline, Douglas was not able to discover. He wasn't able to find out much of anything as far as the US side of the operation goes because he'd been in Ireland for the last few months, or maybe he did know a lot more but he didn't have time to pass it along to us. I say that because he had requested a meeting which was to take place tonight. That request came through only an hour before he met with you. What we did learn from him, though, is that whatever they are planning to do is to happen very soon, within the next week. And, since we'd not gotten confirmation on weapons shipment, we're not even sure that's what it is. It could be something else altogether. As a matter-of-fact, we are beginning to believe that some of what we thought we knew was as a result of false information being purposely leaked to us.
"By who?"
"That's not important right now because, Mister Washburn, all our efforts have gone south since you showed up. Why is it I should feel sorry for you in any way, or entertain the thought of involving you at all in this operation?"
"Because I'm already involved whether I want to be or not."
"If you went home you could become uninvolved."
Stella, who'd been watching the exchange from off to the side, stepped up close beside CJ. "My partner is one hell of an investigator. You should be excited to have him on your team." She pointed toward where Josh was talking with several agents. "You already have one Washburn. Now you have the opportunity to have three."
Agent Taffer's eyebrows went up. "Three?"
"As Clint's fiancée, I'm as good as a Washburn."
Taffer shook his head. "I don't believe it."
"I'm suddenly not feeling guilty anymore," CJ said.
Both Taffer and Stella looked at him.
"I thought that Douglas was killed because he came to see me, tipped his hand was the way you put it, Agent Taffer. Actually, it appears to me that making contact with you is what did the final hand-tipping. They were already suspecting him of something, having two people shadowing him. Then he was witnessed contacting you. That's what did it. My only involvement was that I was someone they saw him talking to after talking to you and before they had a chance to kill him."
Sailing into Death (CJ Washburn, PI Book 2) Page 13