Endangered Species (30 page)

“Not right now, Arnie.” Wager nodded to them all. “You people did good. But we’ll have to take it from here.”

The youth sitting in the rider’s seat scratched at the silky hairs of a mustache beginning to darken his upper lip. “You need us, man, we be here.”

“Thanks.”

Wager and Mallory walked slowly down the alley, their shoes loud against the gravel. The sun drew out the odor of rotting garbage from the cans.

“Nice bunch of citizens,” said Mallory.

“They’re not so bad.”

“You have a lot of gang activity in Denver?”

“Some. Nothing like L.A.” Wager had to admit, “It’s coming in, though.”

Mallory grunted. “Tell me where it’s not.”

But whatever crap the gangs pulled, at least Arnie and
sus broders
weren’t trying to blow up an atomic bomb plant. At the green garage, Wager peeked in through the dusty window. The dark Toyota sat jammed into the dim space. Mallory verified the location to somebody on the other end of his frequency. Across the yard between the back porch and the garage, the house was silent. From a neighboring home down the block, a radio or stereo blared the monotonous and self-righteous chant of a rap song. Wager keyed his radio, and Max answered.

“We’re in place.”

“All right. I’m going up.”

They listened for the sound of footsteps on the front porch, the ring of a doorbell, the thump of heels in the house. But there was only silence. A couple of minutes later, Max’s voice said, “No answer, Gabe.”

“We’ll go in through the back.”

“Ten four.”

They sprinted across the lawn, weapons in hand, and pulled to a stop at the small landing that served as a porch. No sound from inside. Only the distant rap song and a high-pitched buzz from some insect bouncing the purple-and-white flare of a hollyhock bloom. The wooden four-by-fours holding up the small porch smelled hot and dusty from the sun on the old paint.

“You ready?” whispered Mallory.

Wager nodded.

The agent had the warrant; he muttered something into his radio and went first. Both hands gripping his pistol, Mallory slammed his heel against the door near the handle. The frame split, but the door held. Another heavy kick, and then Mallory’s shoulder drove it open with a splintering rip. Wager darted in behind the man, stepping to the opposite side of the doorframe.

“We’re in, Max.”

“Right.”

In the silence, they moved cautiously toward the front door, where Max waited, listening for any sound. The rooms had the sparse furniture of a rental unit, as well as the closed-up feeling and stale odors of an unaired house. Wager opened the door to Max, who was standing out of the line of fire with his weapon half-hidden at his side. Across the street, on the porch of a brick bungalow, a youth had come out to stare their way.

“Nobody?”

Wager shook his head, and Max closed the door quietly behind him. Quickly, they scanned the rooms downstairs: kitchen, living room, a small bedroom with its half-bath off the living room. Above their heads, the upstairs floor creaked with Mallory’s weight as the man moved rapidly.

“I’ll check the basement,” said Wager.

From the kitchen a stairway led down to a large and undivided concrete room with a washer and a dryer near the bottom step. A line of window wells let dusty light into the space. A small worktable next to the appliances was covered with grime and a few dead beetles, legs pointing stiffly to the floor joists and cobwebs above. In the center of the room, a larger table, almost six feet long, stood. It was dustless, and its surface was littered with shreds of gleaming metal, tin shears, and, on one end, a jumble of metalworking tools: a hand riveter, molding blocks, wooden mallets, and steel hammers. At the table’s far end stood the twin cylinders of a gas welding set, mounted on a dolly. Welding rods sprouted from a quiver, and a pair of goggles dangled from a brass control knob. On the grimy concrete floor, sheets of brown paper had been kicked around by busy feet. Wager unfolded a large sheet; it was a full-scale diagram for another cylinder, complete with measurements for hollow nose, payload compartment, and base detonator. Against a wall and catching the light from the basement window leaned a square of unused aluminum plate. The rest of the basement, except for a hot-water heater and a dusty furnace, was empty. Wager went back up, to find Max glancing through the kitchen drawers with quick efficiency. Mallory was in the living room, delving behind the cushions of the weary-looking furniture.

“No telephone,” the agent said. “They didn’t plan on being here long enough to need one, apparently. You find anything?”

He showed Mallory the diagram.

The FBI agent spread it out and studied the drawing and figures. “They’d never get something this big past the security out there.” Then he went to his radio and described the diagram to someone on the other end. “Yeah—seven feet, eight and a quarter inches long; diameter, sixteen inches. … Right—as soon as you can.”

Wager told him, “The workroom’s in the basement. It’s where they made their rocket or whatever the hell it is.”

“Show me.”

Max looked up as Wager and Mallory came into the kitchen. “Nothing here. My guess is they rented furnished. A little crap in the refrigerator, and that’s it.”

Mallory said, “Wager’s found something in the basement.” He led them down the stairs, and they stood a moment surveying the table and equipment. “Looks like they finished up here,” he said. “I think—”

Whatever he was going to say was silenced by a faint scrape from somewhere in the upper part of the house. The three men looked at each other and then moved quickly and silently up the basement stairs. Max headed for the back door. Mallory took the stairs leading up to the bedrooms, and Wager darted through the front door to the porch and down the front steps, to look along the side of the house.

The blur of a figure falling from one of the second-story windows caught his eye, and he shouted for it to halt. The man crashed feet-first through the low shrubbery lining the house’s foundation, and a frightened face flashed Wager’s way. Then the man sprinted for the back. Above, Mallory leaned through the open window to shout “FBI—halt!” and then speak quickly into his radio.

Wager ran after the figure and heard the thud of heavy feet as Max came down the back porch stairs. The fleeing man dashed for the alley fence and, ignoring the gate, sprawled over the sun-warped boards. Wager had the eerie feeling of watching himself run after Flaco Martínez and for a tingling instant expected the hot flash of a round fired in his direction. Pistol in hand, he sprinted for the alley and tried to deny the image of the gun flash jabbing at his face. Somewhere up the alley, a car engine raced, and after a moment, Arnie’s Chevrolet sped past, a blur of motion and screaming rubber and scorched oil. A second later, from out of sight beyond the corner of the garage, came the wet crump of a body hit by something solid and then a shocked silence.

Rounding the garage, Wager saw the car angled across the alley and, in the weedy gravel under the front bumper, a pair of sprawled legs. Arnie was already out of the car to lean over the front fender and stare down; the other youths were piling out of the back, their excited voices a garble of Spanish and English.

“Here he is, man! Fucker tried to get away, man—we stopped him!”

Wager holstered his weapon and pulled to a halt beside Arnie. On the ground at the nose of the car, a young man lay unmoving. His cheek was claw-marked by gravel scrapes, and a slow welt of blood started to rise up through the dirt. It wasn’t King or Simon.

Wager checked the man’s pulse. It was strong, but his breath came in quick, shuddering gasps.

“Fucker alive, man?”

“Yeah.” Wager glanced up. “You people better clear out of here.”

“Hey, man—he was getting away. We helped you out, right? He was a—what you say?—excaping felon, right?”

“Right. But there’s going to be a lot of paperwork on him, Arnie, and a lot of cops here in a few minutes. Believe me, you don’t want to get caught up in it. Take off now, before they start getting here and you can’t take off.”

Arnie nodded. “OK, man. You don’t forget me and the Tapatíos helped you out, right?”

“Believe me, Arnie, you’re forever in my memory.”

He and Max watched the car back rapidly down the alley and swing out of sight. Mallory, puffing, trotted up. “Where’re those people going?”

“I told them to get the hell out of here. Fewer complications that way.”

“You nuts, Wager? You want to get blamed for assaulting this man?”

“Call it a hit-and-run, Mallory. The guy did run out in front of a car, right?”

The agent shook his head. “It’s your town.” He knelt by the man, who was beginning to make noises.

“Recognize him?” Wager asked.

Mallory nodded. “Wayne McGonagle. One of King’s hangers-on from San Diego.” He spoke to the grunting man. “McGonagle—you hear me?”

The man’s eyes blinked open and then winced shut again. “My head!”

Max was bending over the man, hands running lightly along his legs and torso. “No weapons. Want me to call an ambulance?” The nose of a plain brown sedan skidded across the alley’s mouth, and three men in suits tumbled out and ran toward them.

“Wait a minute, Max.” Wager, too, leaned over the man. “Where’s King and Simon?”

“I don’t know. …”

Mallory snorted. “Wayne, you’re in big trouble. You won’t be riding a bicycle for a long time.” The agent explained to Wager, “He runs a mountain-bike shop in El Cajon.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“You heard the man, Wayne.”

“My head—it really hurts!”

Wager leaned into the man’s vision. “Can you hear me?” He waited until McGonagle nodded. “You’re under arrest on suspicion of murder. You got a right to remain silent …” Wager gave the youth the Miranda, as Mallory talked quietly to the three men and then came back to listen. “You understand everything I told you?”

The youth stared up at Wager. “I didn’t kill her.”

“You were there? You were in the house?”

“Not when she was killed, no. I was out getting some stuff. I got back, and. …”

“Who did it?”

“I don’t know. I came back, and they said we had to get out right away. They said she was a spy.”

“Who said she was?” asked Mallory.

“Libby. He said Dick had been suspicious of her, and then Libby caught her trying to make a phone call. They said she had found out about what was going on. Libby said she tried to call the FBI or somebody and tell them. She admitted it, they said.”

“Simon and King were the last ones to see her alive?” Wager asked.

McGonagle’s head nodded, and he winced. “My head hurts. It’s starting to hurt bad.”

Mallory rocked back on his heels, his shadow a wedge of black across the sweating man’s torso. The sun beat full in McGonagle’s clenched face. “We want King and Simon, and we want them now.”

“They’re gone.”

“Where?”

Beneath the pain and the mud and the blood on his face, McGonagle stiffened against saying anything else.

“Where?” Wager asked.

No answer.

Wager reached out and grabbed the man’s matted hair and jerked his head.

“Ah—!”

“Where?”

The answer was muffled with gasps. “Don’t know! Swear to God—don’t know. They didn’t tell me!”

“Let’s get him back in the house, Gabe.” Max glanced around at the silent alley. The three federal agents went back to their car, and Max’s large hands lifted the young man up onto wobbly legs. He and Wager walked McGonagle slowly down the graveled lane and up the back steps. They sat him at the small breakfast table in the kitchen, and Max handed him a wet dish towel to wipe his face.

“Why are you here?” asked Mallory. “What’s your part in it?”

“Tubes …”

“What tubes? What are you talking about?”

“A metal tube—a cylinder. I’m a metalsmith. They used aluminum—it’s hard to work with. You got to know what you’re doing to weld aluminum.” He groaned again. “God, my head hurts. I think I got a concussion. Can you please call an ambulance?”

“You do us a favor, we do you a favor,” said Wager. “Did you make explosives out of the tube? A shape charge?”

The wet, red face squinted painfully at Wager. “You know about it?”

“A shape charge to attack a building—that right?”

“They didn’t tell me what it was for. I just fabricated the metal. They took it disassembled, but I don’t know where.”

Wager made certain. “They took it in Simon’s car—they drove away with it this morning. What time?”

“A couple hours … two, maybe three hours ago. But they didn’t tell me what they were going to use it for. I swear it!”

Wager stared back at McGonagle. But it wasn’t the twisted, scraped face he saw. “You knew it was going to be used for explosives.”

The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Finally, he admitted, “Yeah. I figured that much.”

“And you finished it in time for use today.”

“After it’s filled, reassembled, and armed, yeah.”

“How long will that take?”

McGonagle started to shake his head and then winced as Wager leaned toward him. “I’m not sure! A couple hours, at least. Maybe more.”

Mallory looked at Wager. “There’s no way they can sneak something that big into the security area.”

“They won’t bother to sneak it.” What Wager saw in his mind’s eye were the aerial photographs on the wall of Mallory’s office. They had reminded him of something when he first saw them, but now he knew that something wasn’t another photograph—it was the real thing. They reminded Wager of how the Rocky Flats plant looked when they flew over it on the way to Steamboat Springs. And that was the answer to Mallory’s question. “Air,” said Wager. “A bomb.”

“We considered that already—they can’t get past the air defenses!”

Wager focused on McGonagle again. “They’re going to try, aren’t they? They’re going to try to bomb a target from the air, aren’t they?”

The man swallowed. “Libby didn’t say outright. But from the way they talked—impact … wind resistance … worried about keeping the weight down—yeah. They didn’t want me to put fins on the tube, but yeah, I think that’s what they’re going to do.”