Far Gone

by Laura Griffin

  Shay stood up and shook out his stiff legs. He stretched his neck. He rested the gun on his shoulder, liking the weight of it. It was a world-class weapon, and he was glad to own it, especially since it was outlawed on the Left Coast.

  Ross continued to stare at him. “So this is getting pretty intense. You really think it’s going to go down?”

  “Yes.”

  They climbed out of the creek and started trekking toward the house. He looked out over the land he now called home. In some ways, it was the same as his family’s—craggy ridges, weathered fence posts, dusty roads. But the old place had gnarled oaks and rich pastures, while this land was covered with cacti and thirsty scrub trees.

  He thought of his mother in the nursing home, sitting in her chair, gumming her food like a baby, staring at the landscape for hours and hours without really seeing it.

  He looked at the empty creek bed. Lost Creek. When he’d come here, it could have been called Lost Hope. But he’d found something here. He’d formulated his plan here, the plan that would redeem his family and send a message to those who would take away his property, his livelihood, his rights.

  Message Three was coming.

  “How do you know they’ll be there?”

  He looked at Ross and slapped him on the shoulder. “Trust me, they’ll be there. I guarantee it.” Shay was confident, because he knew his enemy. And he knew his enemy, because he was disciplined. It all came back to training—an irony that wasn’t lost on him as he neared the zero hour.

  They crossed a field, and a faint noise droned above as they ducked into the barn.

  Ross checked his watch. “On time again.”

  Shay smiled up at the cloudless sky. “Like clockwork.”

  ♦

  Torres pulled up to the oil derrick and surveyed the line of vehicles. Two ICE pickups and two rental cars. The Lincoln would belong to Maxwell, which left the Taurus for the agents down from Philly.

  A gray pickup zoomed up the road, trailed by a cloud of dust. North pulled up beside him and climbed out.

  “How was Phoenix?”

  “Fine.”

  “Where’s Andrea?”

  “No idea.” He slammed the door.

  Hey, ho. Looked like North got the brush-off. Torres had been rooting for him, but apparently, he’d blown it.

  “You met these guys yet?” North scowled at the vehicles.

  “Nope. Santucci and Theilman. Word is, Santucci’s smart, Theilman’s an asshole.”

  They entered the trailer and found everyone squeezed around the plywood table littered with coffee cups. A ravaged doughnut box sat in the center, with a few globs of jelly stuck to the lid.

  Maxwell made the introductions. Special Agent Theilman was pale, pudgy, and balding, and Torres couldn’t imagine anyone less cut out for the Texas border region. Special Agent Santucci was thin, dark, and quiet. He didn’t say a word, just nodded from the end of the table.

  Torres grabbed a seat while North hit the coffeepot.

  “I think we should just pick him up, bring him in for questioning,” Theilman was telling Maxwell.

  “He could take the Fifth and leave us with nothing,” Maxwell said. “And then he knows we’re on to him, so he goes home to destroy any evidence he has before we get a search warrant. We need more evidence than we have now before we confront him.”

  “All due respect,” Theilman said, without any, “what do we have now? I been briefed twice since yesterday, and I gotta tell you, I’m not seeing it.”

  “North?” Maxwell looked at him. “You want to bring our Philadelphia colleagues in on the latest?”

  All eyes swung to North. Continuing with tradition, their SAC was letting him take the lead on this, just in case it fell apart.

  North sat down and glanced around the table. “First off, we have surveillance footage showing Shay Hardin’s pickup truck parking at the El Paso Airport three days before the bombing.”

  “But we can’t prove he was on a flight,” Theilman stated. “Our team ran the footage from the airport and didn’t see this guy. So what’s your theory?”

  “I think he traveled to the East Coast on a fake ID,” North said, “then rented a vehicle and drove to Philly. The night before the bombing, he approached Khalil Abbas as he was leaving the mosque after evening prayers. We have witnesses who saw Abbas leave the building, but no one actually saw him get into his minivan and drive away.”

  Theilman’s eyebrows tipped up. “You think Hardin kidnapped him?”

  “And then murdered him so his remains could be found at the crime scene.”

  Silence dropped like a brick. North glanced around, probably noting all the skeptical looks.

  “Why him?” Santucci asked.

  “His vehicle, for one thing. He owned a minivan, which Hardin could use to hold the bomb. But more important, he was known to be radical. Hardin knew he’d grab our attention the second we traced the van.”

  “How’d he know we’d trace it?”

  “We did it in Oklahoma,” Torres said. “The VIN on the truck axle led us directly to the truck-rental company.”

  “After he had Abbas and the van,” North continued, “I think he—and possibly an accomplice—spent the night assembling the explosive.”

  “Where?” Theilman asked, as if North had a crystal ball in front of him.

  “I don’t know. A rented storage unit? A warehouse? Could have been a lot of places. In the morning he drove to campus, parked in front of the designated building, and walked away. We have a stoplight cam that caught the minivan coming through an intersection nearby, just before the bombing. We have the plate, but you can’t see who’s driving. Then a few minutes later, according to ATF, the detonation was triggered by a cell phone.”

  Theilman shifted in his metal chair, looking constipated. “Where’d he get the explosives?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You guys nail down where these clerics supposedly got the explosives?” Torres asked.

  Theilman shot him a look. “No. But this still seems like a stretch, no matter how you look at it. There’s a lot of supposition.”

  “But it would explain a few things,” North said.

  “Such as?”

  “The DOA near the mosque.”

  Theilman looked puzzled. “What DOA?”

  “You’re talking about the homeless guy. I heard about that.” Santucci looked intrigued now. “He turned up a block away with a bullet in his skull. You’re saying he witnessed something?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What about this Carmen Pena we been hearing about?” Theilman asked. “How does she fit in?”

  “Kirby’s mistress,” North said. “She died in an Austin house fire, which first looked like a gas leak. Investigators say there was a gas leak, but they also recovered fragments of a pipe bomb that was on a timer. The device wasn’t large, but together with the gas leak, it was enough to cause a deadly explosion. Kirby may be the father of her child, who was injured.”

  Theilman shook his head, and Torres glanced at Maxwell. He looked skeptical, too, now. Obviously, the boss wasn’t yet sold on the Carmen Pena angle.

  More ass shifting by Theilman. “Why all the subterfuge? If he wanted to kill this woman, why not come right out and murder her, make a big statement?”

  “That’s the thing,” North said. “He’s not making a big statement. Not yet. This statement is personal, and it’s for Kirby. He’s telling him, ‘I know who you are. I’m coming for you and your children.’ What’s more terrifying than that?”

  The room went quiet. The only sound was the wind whipping against the flimsy trailer walls.

  “I don’t know.” Theilman shook his head. “I buy some of it but not all of it. So Hardin’s a weapons guy. Maybe he’s smuggling guns to Mexico or something. That would explain all the secrecy at his ranch. But covert assassinations? There’s no physical evidence that says he did that. Meanwhile, we’ve got Khalil Abbas’s van and Khalil Abbas’s
DNA at the crime scene.”

  “Exactly my point.” North glanced around. “This is Hardin’s game. Lead us in one direction, and we look all the more incompetent when it turns out to be something else. He did the same thing when he murdered a federal judge six years ago and set it up like a suicide. Our investigation was a dead end, just like he planned. One of his core objectives is to embarrass the federal government, and he’s doing a great job of it.”

  “Which brings us back to the point of this meeting,” Maxwell said, finally stepping up to the plate. “How, exactly, are we going to get evidence for a search warrant?”

  “Gavin Finch.”

  Everyone looked at North.

  “He’s our best chance.”

  ♦

  Fear churned in Andrea’s stomach as she bumped along the dirt road. Gavin had agreed to meet her at the deserted ranch adjacent to Lost Creek, but the odds of him bailing out on her were high.

  She drove over a rise and pulled up to the old wooden windmill. No Gavin. She got out of her Jeep and looked around but saw no sign of the little blue Ford. The late-afternoon sun made the scrub trees cast long shadows across the yellowed grass.

  She checked her phone. No e-mail messages. She checked her call history in case she’d missed something, which she hadn’t. She’d spent her entire day on pins and needles, dodging Jon’s calls and trying to figure out what she was going to say to her brother.

  A faint hum in the distance had her turning and squinting as a speck of blue appeared on the horizon. She put her hand on her Kimber until the car drew near enough for her to see who was at the wheel.

  Gavin skidded to a stop beside her and climbed out.

  “I thought you went home,” he said, slamming the door.

  She met his gaze, and a lump formed in her throat. He seemed completely oblivious to why she was here. Annoyed, even.

  “I know about Philadelphia, Gavin.”

  No change in his face. Nothing at all. He glanced away, and Andrea’s chest convulsed.

  This is what heartbreak feels like. She stood frozen for a moment, watching him. And then she lunged.

  “You son of a bitch!” She pounded him with her fists. “How could you do it? How could you?” She clobbered his shoulders, his neck, his bony arms. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Stop!” He ducked behind his arms.

  “You just hate everyone? Is that it? You couldn’t just kill yourself and get it over with?” She clawed his arms away from his face so he couldn’t hide. She landed blow after blow after blow. “You selfish shit! Where is your soul?”

  “Stop, God damn it! I didn’t know!”

  He shoved her away with both hands, and she stumbled back, panting. Her heart galloped inside her chest as she stared at his guilty face. “Bullshit! How could you not know?”

  He lifted a hand to the scratches on his neck, and his fingers came away bloody. “Damn, Andrea.”

  “How could you not know?”

  He glared at her. “I didn’t, all right?”

  She stepped back, hands bunched into fists. She didn’t believe him. She didn’t believe a word out of his mouth. “You’re a liar.” Her voice trembled with rage, and she could see the fear in his eyes.

  “I didn’t know. I swear. I found out this weekend.”

  For an instant, she clung to the words. She wanted them to be true. But something was broken now, and she no longer trusted him.

  “You have to believe me.” He stepped closer. “I swear to God, Andie. I had no idea he’d do anything. I knew he hated Kirby, but I had no idea about it.”

  “Right.”

  “You have to believe me.”

  “Then what’d you come out here for?” She gestured angrily in the direction of Lost Creek. “You think I believe you’re out here as a ranch hand? You think I’m that dense?”

  “He hired me to set up his system.”

  Andrea stared at him. Finally, something that sounded plausible. Her shoulders tightened as she waited for the confession she’d been dreading.

  “He needed e-mail, Internet access. He wanted something below the radar so the feds couldn’t eavesdrop on what he was doing.”

  “How can you say you didn’t know? What’d you think he needed all the secrecy for?”

  “I knew about the secrecy, all right? But he told me it was about guns. Hardin has a business. He needs to communicate with his customers and doesn’t want to tip off the police.”

  “He’s selling guns.” She didn’t hide her skepticism.

  “To collectors. It’s a good business. He deals with people who want to exercise their rights without having the government invade their privacy—”

  “Cut the constitutional horseshit, Gavin! You helped him set up a criminal enterprise! You expect me to believe you didn’t know what else he was doing?”

  “I didn’t,” he insisted. “I didn’t find out till Saturday.”

  Andrea squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted to believe him. More than anything. But it defied common sense.

  “Gavin—”

  “Just listen, okay? I saw the headlines in town about Kirby’s daughter, but I didn’t make any connection until I found some papers at the house—maps of Philadelphia, the bus routes, stuff like that.”

  She stared at him, her head spinning. This entire plot had seemed like such a distant possibility until right this moment. “You have to come with me.” She took his arm. “You have to talk to the FBI. Tell them everything you know.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I can’t leave yet. I need more time.”

  “You have to talk to them now, before anything else happens!”

  “I need to go back and get some things, stuff I can trade for immunity. He might have evidence lying around. And what if he’s planning something else? Maybe I can find info about what it is or who all’s involved.”

  “You can tell them what you know. But you have to come now so they can act on the information.”

  “I can’t go yet, Andrea.” He shook off her grip. “I need more stuff, and I can’t leave Vicky.”

  The words stopped her cold. She stared at him. “Vicky Leeland?” She gaped at her brother as everything fell into place—the summer job, the ditched semester, his burning need to be out here in the middle of nowhere.

  “Jesus Christ, Gavin,” she said through clenched teeth. “For a genius, you’re amazingly stupid, you know that?”

  He watched her warily.

  “Ross Leeland is a gun nut. He is a combat veteran with a history of domestic violence. And you’re screwing around with his wife right under his nose? Have you lost your mind?”

  He just looked at her.

  “If he finds out, he’ll kill you.”

  “Andrea, listen.” He stepped closer. “Ross doesn’t like me much. If I disappear without an explanation, he’ll know something’s up, and he’ll take it out on Vicky because he knows we’re friends.”

  She bent her head forward and rubbed the bridge of her nose where a headache was forming. This was so messed up. “Fine, go get her,” she snapped. “I’ll wait here.”

  “I can’t get her this minute. We need time to come up with a story.”

  “Yeah, well, tough shit, Gavin. Time’s up.”

  “Twenty-four hours. That’s all I’m asking.” He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the ranch. “I’ll find a way for us to leave without raising suspicion.”

  “We don’t have twenty-four hours. You need to talk to the FBI today.”

  “I’m not leaving without her.” He crossed his arms. “He’ll hurt her, Andie.”

  She looked at him, torn.

  But then she thought of Jon in the car last night. He was convinced another attack was imminent. April nineteenth was just four days away. What if Gavin brought them evidence they could use to track down the other parties involved?

  Andrea muttered a curse. She looked out at the ever-lengthening shadows
made by the setting sun. She knew what she should do. She looked at her brother.

  He’ll hurt her.

  “Twelve hours,” she said. “Meet me back here at six A.M., unarmed, and be prepared to answer some tough questions. Vicky, too. Does she know about this?”

  “She doesn’t even know about the guns.”

  Andrea highly doubted it, but she’d let the FBI be the judge.

  “Come alone,” Gavin said. “Hardin’s paranoid. He notices any cops sniffing around here, he’ll know something’s up.”

  She stared at him, wondering whether Hardin actually did know he was under FBI surveillance.

  He knew about her—that was for certain. The bullet in her motel room had conveyed that message. And he’d gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to cover his tracks.

  “I can’t promise that,” she said. “But know this, Gavin: you have one chance here. One. If you stand me up, you’re screwed. You’ll be in a world of hurt, and I won’t be able to do a thing to help you.”

  “Fine.” He held her gaze, and she saw something in his face. Distrust? The irony formed a bitter lump in her throat.

  “Six A.M.,” she repeated.

  He climbed into his car, and she watched him disappear over the ridge.

  She drove back toward the highway with the sinking feeling that she’d made a terrible mistake.

  chapter twenty

  JON SAT UP, INSTANTLY alert. Loco was barking. He looked across his darkened bedroom as a shadow moved—

  He grabbed his gun just as the light switched on.

  “Rise and shine.”

  “Holy shit, Andrea.” He lowered the weapon. “What the hell? How’d you get in here?”

  “Back door was unlocked.” She propped her shoulder against the wall beside his bedroom door, and he looked her up and down, heart pounding. She wore jeans and a leather jacket over one of those thin T-shirts.

  “I’m on my way to pick up Gavin,” she said. “Figured you’d want to come.”

  He glanced at the clock: 5:12. He got out of bed and walked across the room to glare down at her, hands on hips.

  All yesterday, she’d evaded his calls. He’d even gone by her motel looking for her. He’d started to think she’d gone back to Austin.