by Jonas Saul
Jane nodded.
“I need to hear it.”
“Yes … yes, we’re clear. Sarah drives.”
Boris stepped forward, handed the envelope to Jane, then retook his place.
“My remote detonator will be active for one more hour. Then it transfers to your detonator. If I detect a tail, the police, or anything I do not like, I will blow you all to hell and worry nothing as the only witnesses to this transaction will be dead.” He spread his arms. “I was never here.” Boris kicked his heel into the dirt and walked away briskly. The two men behind him followed.
After a moment, a vehicle’s engine turned on from the other side of the church.
Blair dropped back to the dirt on one knee, then vomited. Jane tilted sideways, dragged down by her son.
Sarah looked over her shoulder as two large SUVs picked up the dog and the men behind them. The Russians were leaving and they had left them alive.
For now.
Whatever just happened between Jane and Boris seemed to satisfy him. But where was the bomb? What was that about a detonator?
I’m sorry, Sarah. Vivian hovered in her head.
“Sorry about what?” Sarah asked out loud, her mouth suddenly as dry as sun-bleached sand.
She stumbled away from Jane. At the SUV, she checked the rear but no device could be seen. The suitcase with her money was still there, untouched.
She looked in each area of the large vehicle but failed to find the device. With each passing second, sweating profusely, hands shaking, she grew more and more afraid.
“Jane?” Sarah shouted as she stepped around the vehicle. Her heart was in her throat. She thought of the worst-case scenario and dismissed it as lunacy. There was no way. Couldn’t be.
Jane was on her knees in the dirt beside her son, rubbing his back as he vomited again.
“What’s wrong with Blair?” Sarah asked. “Are those nerves or does he know something I don’t?”
Jane slowly turned until their eyes met. After placing a hand on her knee, she forced herself to stand.
“I’m sorry, Sarah.”
“About what? Why are you sorry?” Sarah fought the urge to run at Jane and pound the answers out of her lunatic mouth. “Where’s the bomb that Boris said he had the detonator for?”
“I paid him this morning. The rule was, I go alone. So I did.”
“Then why are we here?” Sarah moved closer. Something told her she wasn’t going to like the answer and she wanted to be close to Jane to break at least one bone.
“We came—” something caught in Jane’s throat. She swallowed. “We came to pick this up.” She raised the manila envelope. “In here are our passes to the Expo. Our booth number. Everything we need to go and set up.”
“Then why kill the guards?” Sarah stomped her foot and threw her hands up. “You’re lying! Something doesn’t add up.”
“The vest you’re wearing.”
Sarah looked down at the vest. She recalled how it was thicker than other vests she’d seen before. The red light turned green when it clicked on. Sarah stared at Jane as she remembered even Jane’s vest appeared smaller somehow.
“There are two bombs,” Jane said. “Two dirty bombs. They are radioactive and are set to explode at four this afternoon. Boris holds the detonator for one more hour. After that, I can detonate with mine. There is nothing else we can do now except continue on with the plan.”
Sarah suspected she knew exactly where the bombs were but had to ask anyway.
“Where. Are. The. Fucking. Bombs?” She ground her teeth together and waited for her death sentence to be voiced out loud.
“You are wearing one. It’s the vest. When you put it on and clicked it in place, a little light turned green. That turned the bomb on.” Jane held an arm up to ward off the sun. “Blair is wearing the other one. That’s why he’s sick. He has known the plan since this morning when my guards forced him to put the vest on.” She looked down at Blair. “That’s why he’s throwing up. The radiation is already working through his system.” She turned back at Sarah. “Sorry, but I just don’t know why your sister didn’t tell you to not click the vest on this morning. It can’t be taken off. Any attempt at removing the vest activates the device. Any attempt at cutting wires activates the device. Take it off and you blow yourself to hell.”
Halfway through her little speech, Sarah had stopped listening to the rantings of a mad woman. She turned inward and reflected on why Vivian had deserted her at her weakest moment. The drugs were gone out of her system. She had beaten heroin. She was out of the Mexican danger now and into the arms of a terrorist mad woman.
Radiation. A silent enemy. Working through her body. Killing her. It was over. It was truly over. There was nothing she could do to come back from this.
Blair vomited clear bile, his stomach empty now.
The pit of Sarah’s stomach clenched and her knees lost their ability to function properly. Careful to not bang the vest-bomb she wore, Sarah dropped gingerly to her knees and wept, thoughts of Aaron and Parkman on her mind. Thoughts of what could have been. Thoughts of regrets and lost time.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” she whispered to Aaron as she balled up her fists full of Nevada dirt and coughed out a cry that unleashed the pain of a lifetime spent missing out on love and kindness.
Sarah Roberts cried in the dirt that she was about to join by the day’s end as she had no doubt that Vivian had truly deserted her.
Jane Turner had executed all the people who knew who she was and what she was up to. Sarah was as good as dead, but still breathing.
It was over. The Sarah Roberts that anyone knew was gone. She had lost herself along the way and now Aaron was going to lose her.
She cried harder, all the while whispering Aaron’s name through the mucus mixed with tears that dripped from her face.
“Aaron, Aaron, Aaron …”
Chapter 54
After meeting at the airport briefly, Agent Puig sent her field agents out to locate Jane Turner and Sarah Roberts. The rest of them were invited back to her office where they were served an early lunch while they waited for news. Somewhere along the line, the investigation got away from them and Agent Puig appeared to be the last person the blame was going to fall on.
Parkman sat in one of the chairs at the back of her office and sipped from a cup of coffee. Whitman and Spencer were lounging in various positions while on computers, researching the Turner woman. Since losing the plane at the airport, nothing new had turned up. As far as they knew, Jane Turner came to Vegas with Sarah to purchase a bomb of some kind. Where she would use that device was still a mystery.
Aaron sat across from Parkman looking up conferences going on in Vegas as Vegas was a city known for trade shows and huge conferences.
Airport security cameras showed Jane Turner, Sarah Roberts, Blair Turner and several of Jane’s security detail had entered the United States via the McCarran Airport the previous evening. Finding them now in Sin City was going to be a nightmare. Finding them before Jane did anything rash was what worried Puig.
Parkman drank more coffee while he watched Aaron typing on the laptop Puig had loaned him.
“Find anything interesting?” he asked.
Aaron looked up, shaking his head. “Nothing really. A soap trade show is in town. They can make roses and books and all kinds of cool things with soap.”
“Is that getting us any closer to finding Sarah?”
Aaron’s face tightened. “Parkman, I have no idea. What I’m searching for is a target. Something that might induce Jane Turner to use her weapon. Bombers usually target where people are together in groups and conferences offer that. With what little I know of her, I just thought I’d look for places in Vegas where a large number of people would be gathering.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But a large number of people are gathering almost anywhere in Vegas. Check every casino. There are concerts happening every day. The Blue Man Group, Phantom of the Opera, The Cirque de Soleil
shows. Without locating Turner, it might be hard to narrow just one location as her potential ground zero. Just saying.”
“Wow, you really know how to make a guy feel useful.”
“Aaron, don’t be so sensitive.”
“Parkman, I don’t know all this investigative stuff. I’ve never been a cop. I’m killing time until something comes up. And what if I hit on something? Then what?”
“Exactly.” Parkman pointed a finger at him with his free hand and drank more coffee with the other. After swallowing, he said, “And that’s why you should keep doing it.”
Aaron glanced down at his screen. “Like this trade show at the Venetian. Ironic that it’s an International Lawmakers Trade show, isn’t it?” He looked up. “During a time like this, the crisis we’re going through?” He cocked his head to the side. “Wasn’t Jane living in India for a while?”
Parkman nodded. “She was married to an Indian man.”
“Right. Well, at this conference, there’s a large Indian presence presenting their take on the legal issues facing India.”
“I highly doubt Jane Turner would want to kill a bunch of old lawmakers from the country that gave her the wealth she currently enjoys.”
“Got it.” Aaron looked down at the laptop. “Just saying.”
Parkman smiled to himself. Aaron had to have the last word. After what they went through in Mexico, that was fine with him. It was probably the last time Parkman or Aaron should ever go to Mexico again if they wanted to stay alive. And even then, they’d be smart to keep a watchful eye on their backs and sleep with one eye open and a hand cannon under their pillows.
He drained the rest of his coffee and set the cup down as Puig’s office door opened and Detective Collins and his partner Munro entered.
“Anything?” Collins asked.
Puig shook her head. “I haven’t heard back from any agents in the field. How about you? Has the LVPD found anything?”
Collins adjusted his shirt, tucking it in his pants to look neater. “No hotels have them registered. No names on a manifest coming or going. Nothing we can trace like a Visa or debit card transaction. Absolutely nothing. They entered Vegas and disappeared. At our end, it’s like they were never here in the first place. If we didn’t have proof that plane landed last night, I wouldn’t believe they were here at all.”
“Then where are they staying? A rented house? An apartment?”
Detective Munro stepped forward. “We checked that. There’s no real estate with Turner’s name on it in Vegas. We even checked her married name, Singh. Got a few hits there, but nothing leading back to her late husband or her.”
“That leaves us in a tight spot.” Puig rose from her chair, pushing it away from her with the backs of her knees. She walked to the window and looked out at Las Vegas. “If we don’t find them in time, we’ll learn of their whereabouts when Jane Turner detonates her device.”
“If she plans on using it in Vegas,” Collins added.
Parkman wondered what his point was. Why buy it in Vegas, then take the risk of transporting such a device? Turner would want to minimize the time it was in her hands, use the device and escape the city, or country, whatever she planned on doing afterwards.
“What are you saying?” Puig asked without turning away from the window.
Collins’ cell phone rang. “Just a second,” he said to Puig before answering it. “Collins here.” He stared at the floor. “Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Just tell me.” His eyes widened. “Repeat that,” he snapped. He looked up at Puig who had turned around at the change in his voice. Parkman sat up, then got to his feet. Aaron did the same. “When was this?” Collins asked. “Log the note in as evidence. Then text it to my phone. I want a copy on me.” He clicked the call off.
“You won’t believe this,” he said, his tone tight, clipped. “Sarah Roberts left me a message. Makes sense since she wouldn’t be privy to the FBI mobilized in their effort to locate her. And since she worked with me and trusts me from years before—”
“What message?” Aaron snapped.
Puig had been about to say something, her mouth still agape, but Aaron’s voice stopped anyone from speaking.
Collins turned to face him. “I can see what she likes in you.”
Detective Munro smacked his arm. “What was the call about?”
“A maid at the Red Mist Motel on the outskirts of Vegas found a note in room 2A, along with damage to their hotel phone.”
“This note,” Puig said. “Tell us.”
“The note said that Sarah Roberts was in town and would love to meet up with me later at the International Lawmakers Conference at the Venetian Hotel, Sands Expo. The note said to bring my,” he used air quotes for the next word, “friends, but to be there before four in the afternoon. That must be where the bomb is set to go off.” Collins was clearly proud, or honored, that Sarah chose him as the one to get a hold of during this crisis. “The last line of the note said it was a matter of life and death.”
“Why do you look so happy?” Aaron asked.
“Because Sarah’s family to me. My son, Russell, is Sarah’s cousin. I’m her uncle.”
Aaron took a step back. “Wow. I did not know that.” He frowned. “Or maybe she told me when I met her, but that was years ago. I might’ve forgotten.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Collins added. “It was mentioned earlier. You must’ve missed it.”
Munro slapped his arm again.
Puig walked to the middle of her large office. “Are we done with the little family get together? Can we get back to work?”
Collins faced her. “We might want to attend this conference and seal it off. It’s almost noon. We’ve got time.”
Puig hesitated in front of Collins for a moment, then walked behind her desk and picked up the phone.
Aaron headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Puig shouted, the phone in her hand, the other hand hovering over the digits.
“A conference. I’m a free man. I’m on my way to pick up my girlfriend.” As he walked by Parkman, he said, “See. That’s the conference I was just talking about. I was doing something useful after all, wasn’t I?”
“Is this a pissing contest or are we judging dick sizes next?” Parkman asked him before he was out of earshot.
Aaron didn’t laugh or reply. He just kept on walking.
“Wait, Aaron.” Parkman stepped out of the office behind him and stopped in the doorway. “You need to let the pros handle this.”
“Not this time.”
He was too far for Parkman to grab him. How would he hold Aaron down anyway? It was no use.
Behind Parkman, in the office, Puig’s voice could be heard loud and clear.
“Security. I have a male, Caucasian, name of Aaron Stevens, coming your way from my office. Make sure he doesn’t leave the building.”
Chapter 55
Sarah forced herself up off the dirt by sheer willpower. Her body shook with unused adrenaline, her muscles weak. Why fight it? Strapped to a bomb she couldn’t defuse or take off, she was dead. Without any help from Vivian, this situation was hopeless.
“Sarah?” Jane used a motherly tone. “We have to go. Come. Get in the car.”
“Fuck you,” Sarah spit out. “I ain’t going anywhere with you,” she yelled.
“We had a deal.” Jane sounded incredulous. Like she couldn’t believe Sarah’s stance on this matter.
“Fuck your deal.”
Sarah took in the scene. The guards lying dead. The vest wrapping her vital organs with death. Blair on his hands and knees crawling in the dirt. Jane watched over the carnage she had caused with impunity, as if nothing could touch her.
Within a couple quick steps, Sarah grabbed Jane’s collar, drew Jane close, and drove the hard part of her forehead onto the top of Jane’s nose. Something cracked. A piece of cartilage.
Jane yanked herself away, screaming and grabbing at her face.
Sarah rushed her again,
driving fist after fist in flesh until she fell to the ground, exhausted, panting like she’d run a race. It felt good to let out all that rage. It didn’t solve anything, but it felt good.
