“Don’t threaten me,” the lawyer said.
“I’m not threatening you, fuckface.”
The lawyer backed away, astounded at the pure aggression in the man. “There’s no need to get violent,” he said.
“When things go wrong, get aggressive,” Shanker said. “And you’re all wrong.”
“You can’t get away with threatening people,” the lawyer replied.
“I’m warning,” Shanker growled. “You as much as touch that boy without a court order and I’ll put you down. And I mean me personally, you personally.” He paused for effect as a wicked smile spread across his face. “Ain’t it fun being an advocate when people advocate back?”
Barbara Raye wasn’t having any of it. She reached down and pulled at Eric’s shirt. “We’re leaving.”
Shanker grabbed her hand that was holding Eric, but she wouldn’t let go. They stared at each other. Then, with one hand grasping her wrist, he pressed against the back of her knuckles with his other hand, forcing her clenched hand down and her fingers to open. He did it so easily it looked like a caress. He smiled at her. “I do hope you know how to get out of Dodge, ma’am.”
Barbara Raye’s eyes squinted at him in pure hate. “You haven’t heard the last of this,” she said, storming away. The lawyer followed her like a puppy dog.
“Nice seeing you again,” Shanker called. “Have a nice day.” He turned to Stuart and shook his head. The old hurt was back. Thank God for Dwight, Shanker told himself, thinking of his older son.
6
Miami
How many times have we been through this? Luis Barrios moaned to himself. He picked up a brick of the gray explosive, working hard to conceal his exasperation. By now they all should have been able to assemble the bomb in less than five minutes. But it wasn’t happening and, if anything, Eduardo and Francisco were slower. At least Carita was nearing the goal. “Semtex is a plastique,” he told them. “Without an igniter it’s harmless. Don’t be afraid of it.” From the expression on their faces, they still didn’t believe him. “Look,” he said, desperate to make his point. He dropped the brick. Eduardo almost fainted.
Luis picked up the explosive and flicked open his knife. The blade was razor sharp, and he deftly peeled off a sliver of the explosive. He hated wasting even a few grams, but he had to make his point. He dropped the sliver into an ashtray and lit it with a cigarette lighter. The explosive was slow to ignite and, finally, it burst into flame before quickly consuming itself and burning out. An acrid stench filled the room.
Carita threw open a window. “It smells terrible,” she said. “Maybe something is wrong with it.”
Luis was puzzled. Nothing he had heard or read suggested that Semtex had such a pungent smell. But he had made his point. “See, it’s harmless. I even keep it under my bed.”
“Perhaps,” Eduardo ventured, “we need to test it. To see if Carita is right.”
Luis nodded. He was worried about the smell. What if they had been sold a fake? It was a common practice in their business, and even he had palmed off a few bad guns to raise money. But they had only six blocks of the explosive, and he didn’t want to waste any of them. Still, Eduardo’s suggestion made sense. He rationalized it would also be good training and give them confidence. He made his decision. “We’ll use two hundred grams to make a small bomb. But we’ll use it on a real target.”
Carita drove the car past the sign that announced RTX Farm Supplies. “You all have the map memorized,” Luis said, “and should know exactly where you are.” Three heads nodded in agreement. Luis had selected an isolated target on the outskirts of Miami that was easily scouted and not guarded. Then he deliberately put them on a short timetable to give them a sense of urgency. They had practiced until it was second nature, and now it was merely a matter of execution. To make things as easy as possible and build their confidence, he deliberately chose a Saturday night.
The car slowed, and Eduardo bailed out. He rolled behind a low bush and keyed his radio. Inside the car they heard the two clicks that meant he was in position as the lookout and all was clear. Luis answered with one click.
Francisco’s jaw worked, and he broke out in a sweat. His face turned pale, and his hands shook. “I can’t do it,” he moaned. The thought of actually penetrating the compound of the fertilizer-processing plant, planting the explosive, and retreating through the fence was too much for his fragile nerves.
Luis snorted in disgust. “¡Cabrón!”
“Francisco es cagado,” Carita said, calling him cowardly. Her contempt matched Luis’s. “I’ll do it. But you better drive. He may shit his pants in fear.” It was quickly arranged, and she stopped the car. Luis handed her the black bag that held the bomb and the wire cutters when she got out. He slipped behind the wheel and drove off to circle the compound. If their timing was right, they would both arrive back at the same spot at the same time. Then it would be a simple matter to pick up Eduardo and drive away.
Carita scrambled over the low ridge of earth surrounding the tank farm and quickly cut a hole in the wire fence to slip inside. Even in the darkness she had no trouble finding her way among the white tanks that made up the fertilizer-processing plant. She scrambled over the berm that formed a separate containment basin around the largest tank and slid down the inside. She crawled up against the tank that held a liquid fertilizer and placed the bag, bomb, and wire cutters against the main valve.
Like Francisco, she started to shake. Imagination is the curse of all terrorists, and the idea of half a million gallons of fertilizer exploding was overpowering. A dog barked, and she froze. She listened. The sound was coming closer. She reached inside the bag and hit the activate button. But in her haste to get away she didn’t depress it long enough to set fully. Instead of fifteen minutes’ delay, she had less than twenty seconds. She climbed the bank of the berm as the guard dog came around the side of the tank. It grabbed her pant leg and dragged her back down. She kicked to get free of the growling animal, and much to her surprise the dog let go and disappeared over the berm, barking loudly. The bomb went off.
Luis returned to the pickup point just as the bomb exploded. A bright flash lit the sky, and for a moment he was certain he was dead. But instead of a powerful explosion vaporizing him, there was only the sound of a crashing wave. He gunned the car and sped off as a wave of dark liquid surged over the secondary levee surrounding the tank farm. It engulfed the car and pushed it sideways. The car tilted up and teetered on the edge of a rollover. Then it dropped back onto its wheels, the force of the wave spent.
To Luis’s amazement, the engine started on the first try, and he raced down the road to pick up Eduardo. A dripping form emerged out of the shadows, and Luis slammed the car to a stop. Eduardo piled in, and they drove away. “What happened?” Eduardo asked.
“I don’t know,” Luis answered. “Maybe the tank only burst from overpressure.”
“What happened to Carita?”
“She’s got to be dead,” Luis said.
“What do we do now?” Francisco asked from the rear seat.
“Make the phone call,” Luis snapped. Francisco punched at his cell phone and called the Miami Herald. When he got the night editor, he announced that the Revolutionary Jihad had blown up the tank farm as a warning to American imperialists. He broke the connection and threw the cell phone out the window. He glanced at the clock in the car’s radio. ¡Mierda! he raged to himself. They were too late to make the Sunday-morning edition. They should make the Monday-morning edition.
“I’m burning!” Eduardo shouted.
“It’s the fertilizer,” Luis said. He stopped the car beside a canal, and Eduardo dove in, desperate to wash it off.
7
Washington, D.C.
Stuart ignored the insistent ring and tried to go back to sleep. But he had forgotten to set the answering machine, and the phone kept ringing. Reluctantly he burrowed out from under the covers and glanced at the clock radio beside the bed. It was just after
seven o’clock on Sunday morning. He picked up the offending instrument. “Yeah,” he mumbled.
“Mike,” the familiar voice said, “we’ve got to talk.” It was Jenny. “Where’s Eric?”
“With me,” Stuart said. “I tried to call you, but there was no answer. I left a message on your answering machine.”
“I’m not at home right now,” she said, not bothering to explain why she was out of touch. “We need to talk.”
Her “need to talk” was Jennyspeak for face-to-face. “We’re going down to my folks’ today.”
“We’ll meet you there,” she said, breaking the connection.
“Who the hell are ‘we’?” he grumbled. Unfortunately, he knew the answer; he just didn’t know the name. Jenny was a vivacious woman with long red hair and bright green eyes and, at forty years old, looked like she was in her late twenties. She prided herself on still being able to wear a size-three dress and the briefest of swimsuits, which was, to Stuart’s way of thinking, part of the problem. As long as her body and looks held, she had no intention of growing up.
Eric bounded into the bedroom, carrying a model of the Lightning he had finished the night before. He held up the plane for Stuart’s inspection, proud of his handiwork. “You really like that airplane, don’t you?”
Eric nodded. “It’s different and Gramps says it’s still a real hot rod and maybe someday I can go up for a ride in it.”
Stuart scrubbed his hair. “We’re going to have to teach you about run-on sentences first.”
Eric was undaunted. “And then I can go for a ride? I’ll learn today.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Okay, what would you like for breakfast?”
The four-hour drive to Newport News passed in a heartbeat as Eric kept up a running chatter, his enthusiasm boundless. What am I doing? Stuart asked himself. I’ve got a great kid, and I’m missing him growing up. He made a mental promise to change that. They turned down the tree-shaded lane near Langley Air Force Base and followed it to the end, where a two-story brick home was nestled in a surrounding garden. Stuart’s mother was standing in her prize roses pretending to work as she waited for her grandson. Jenny must be here, he thought. Just being around Jenny upset his mother, a condition both women accepted. Eric jumped out of the car and ran into her waiting arms, happy to be there. Martha Stuart was everyone’s grandmother, graceful in her old age, full of love, and perfectly happy with a name that was constantly linked to the famous homemaker. But as she told everyone, “I had it first.”
“Jennifer’s here,” Martha announced, “with her young man.”
“How young?” Stuart asked testily.
“Does it matter?” She stopped him. “When are you going to put a stop to it?”
“To what, Mom?”
“To Jenny and Barbara Raye’s battle over Eric. He needs a stable home, and you are his father.”
Stuart nodded, accepting the truth when he heard it. He walked inside to meet his ex-wife’s latest lover. Shanker met him at the door. “She’s got a real winner this time,” he said. The “winner” Shanker was referring to was a very likable, handsome, twenty-three-year-old named Grant DeLorenzo. The two men shook hands as Jenny waited impatiently.
“Mike, let’s go outside and talk.” She led the way to the back garden, her legs snapping at her tight miniskirt. She started talking the moment they were out of earshot. “Grant wants to go to Colorado and start a snowboarding school.”
“I imagine that’s already been done,” Stuart said sarcastically. “And I don’t think a resort operator is going to encourage competition.”
She ignored the obvious practicalities. “We need money,” she said.
“And that’s where your mother comes in, right?”
“She wants to keep Eric until we’re established and he can join us. She said she’d help us get started.” It was the old trade-off, Barbara Raye’s money for control of Eric.
“Once she has her hooks into him, she’ll never let go.”
Jenny chewed her lower lip, not liking the truth. “This is so right this time,” she said. “I may never get another chance for happiness.”
“I’m thinking of Eric’s happiness,” Stuart said. “You know how miserable he is around your mother. Go talk to him. He’s never been so happy and content. I’m not sure what’s happening, but I don’t want to risk losing it.”
“So what are you suggesting?” From the sound in her voice, he sensed she was weakening.
For the first time in their long relationship, Stuart pressed his advantage. “Look, Washington is no place to raise a kid. So why doesn’t he stay here with my folks until I can get out of the Air Force? Mom and Dad are all for it.” She stiffened. “Jenny, your mother lives in Connecticut, and I’m not going to let him leave the state.” He was surprised by the force of his own words, and thanks to the divorce laws of Virginia, neither he nor Jenny could take Eric out of the state without the other’s permission.
“What about me?” she wailed.
Stuart sighed. “The money, right?” A little nod from Jenny. “Why don’t I help for a while? Say, a thousand dollars a month until you’re settled in.”
“That’s not very much,” she said.
He hated himself for buying his son’s happiness, but he didn’t want to take on Barbara Raye and her money. “It’s all I can afford.”
Much to his relief, she nodded, accepting the deal.
The Pentagon
Stuart had barely settled into his desk Tuesday morning when Peggy Redman’s voice came over the intercom. “He wants to see you immediately.” She didn’t have to identify the “he” nor what “immediately” meant.
“What’s bugging the good colonel now?” Stuart asked.
“He doesn’t need a reason,” Peggy replied, breaking the phone connection. Stuart bounced from his chair, grabbed his uniform coat, and hurried out of his cubicle. Halfway there he deliberately changed his mind and paid a visit to the men’s room. He finally sauntered into Ramjet’s office six minutes later. The colonel waved him to a chair before Stuart could report in, an unspoken acknowledgment of Stuart’s changed status. Until Ramjet had the new constellation of who was “in” and who was “out” nailed down, he stayed in a deep defensive crouch. When it was safe, he would set matters right and crunch the appropriate heads. With any luck, Stuart’s would be the very first.
“Mike,” Ramjet said, all smiles and flashing teeth, “we got a disconnect. No big deal, but I would like to keep it from happening again.” He tossed a thin document across his desk for Stuart to read. It was the survey sent out to the oil companies. “Since you are the office of primary responsibility for this, and you work for me, I should have signed off on this before it went out.” He leaned across his desk, his hands clasped in front of him. “Mike, we’ve all got to be playing from the same sheet of music or we all look bad.”
Stuart wanted to remind him that General Butler was the daddy rabbit for the survey and he was reporting to Butler, even if temporarily, on this project. “I didn’t know there was a problem,” Stuart hedged. “I did forward it to you.” He almost added “as a courtesy” but thought better of it.
“I sent it back to you,” Ramjet said. “Somehow it ended up on General Butler’s desk without my concurrence.”
Stuart shook his head and tried to sidestep the issue. “Sorry, sir. I was on leave, and it never came back to my office. By the way, any feedback yet?”
Ramjet’s face turned red as his blood pressure skyrocketed. Feedback was the last thing he wanted. His jaw worked as he forced into his voice a friendliness he didn’t feel. “No, not yet. But I’m worried the oil companies will respond negatively to your survey and complain to their friends in Congress.”
“Any response to the survey on their part is voluntary,” Stuart reminded him.
“Be that as it may,” Ramjet concluded. “I’ll be the one taking the heat if anything goes wrong.” He kicked back in his chair, his teeth
grinding. No little turd like you is going to make an end run around me and ruin my career! he raged to himself. Again he tried to sound friendly. “Mike, we’ve all got to be team players on this. I would appreciate it if it doesn’t happen again.”
Stuart knew he was dismissed. “Yes, sir,” he said. He stood and quickly left the office. He shot a glance at Peggy Redman, an unspoken understanding between them. The flap over the survey was a minor bureaucratic squall, worthless in itself but typical of how careers were made or broken.
Ramjet waited for Stuart to close the door before he picked up the phone to call officer assignments at Randolph Air Force Base outside San Antonio, Texas. It was time to sideline Stuart before he could do more harm.
Dallas
The corporate offices of RayTex oil were not what the two FBI special agents had expected. They’d inadvertently gotten off the elevator on the floor immediately below the top floor and stumbled into the working offices. The staff bustled with friendly activity and flowed between functional but cheerfully decorated offices. Down the hall an open door revealed a spacious day care center for children. “My wife would love to work here,” the junior agent said.
“You can always tell a woman’s touch,” the senior agent allowed, alluding to L.J.’s reputation. A junior engineer escorted them to the top floor, which was in total contrast. Dark-suited men and women moved quietly through exquisitely decorated offices.
Lloyd Marsten came out of his office to meet them, further impressing the two agents. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “But I was on the phone with Miss Ellis. She’s in St. Louis; otherwise she would be most interested in talking to you.” They shook hands as the agents introduced themselves. He led them into his office and motioned them to sit down. “How can we help you?”
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