Far Gone

by Laura Griffin

“We cracked the thumb drive.”

  “Okay.”

  Jon showed him the picture on his phone. “You recognize this?”

  “Looks like a house.”

  “I know.”

  He frowned down at the image. “I don’t recognize it.” He looked up. “I heard you tell Andie the raid was a bust.”

  Which meant he’d heard a lot of other things, too.

  “I’m not sure why Shay would go to San Antonio. He doesn’t know people there, that I’m aware of.”

  “Are you sure?” Jon asked. “Can you think of any connection at all? Maybe an Army buddy?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll think about it, though. Call you if I come up with anything.”

  Jon glanced at his watch, frustrated. So far, his trip to Austin had been a waste.

  He started to leave but turned when he reached the door. “One more thing. Does Shay have a car at the Broken Spoke?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Does he keep a vehicle there? Or maybe he has a friend who does?”

  “No.”

  Jon opened the door.

  “Mark has a bike at the Pony, though.”

  Jon turned around. “The what?”

  “The Painted Pony. That bar behind McDonald’s? That’s where Mark keeps his motorcycle.”

  “Why?”

  “Got me. Maybe he doesn’t want it getting beat up out at the ranch. It’s a nice bike. He bought it off his friend who owns a shop somewhere.”

  ♦

  Elizabeth’s hands trembled as she gripped her phone. She’d missed a call from Torres, and she quickly pressed redial. Her heart pounded in her chest as she waited through the rings.

  Slowly, she lifted her head up to the grimy window and peered inside the garage. Workers streamed back and forth, coming and going as if it was a normal day. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions, but—

  “Torres here. Leave a message.” The beep seemed to take forever.

  “It’s Elizabeth.” She ducked down and glanced around her, making sure she was still alone behind the building. “Listen, I’m at this garage.” She glanced at her notepad and rattled off the address. “I think I may have found the getaway car from last week’s robbery. But that’s not all.”

  She poked her head up to peek through the window again to confirm it. Then she dropped down and glanced around. Her pulse was racing now, and she felt sweat pooling under her arms.

  “This could be crazy, but . . . you know when we went to dinner, and you said how the bomb in Philadelphia was made of fertilizer and racing fuel?” Her pulse thundered as she said the words aloud. “Well, I’m here at this bike place, and they’ve got four big blue drums lining the wall, all labeled ‘Racing Fuel.’ There’re some other drums, too, but they’re not labeled.”

  A high-pitched beeping cut her off. She peeked through a window again as a large white truck backed into one of the service bays. The driver hopped out and heaved open the truck’s cargo door.

  Fear flooded her as she looked around. Where had everyone gone suddenly? The garage was empty now, except for the truck driver and one other person. The two men muscled one of the drums away from the wall and rolled it up a ramp.

  Her grip tightened on the phone. This was happening. She’d woken up this morning determined to slog through her list, the ever-diligent agent helping out with the case. She hadn’t actually believed in the conspiracy until this moment. Now the scope of it hit her like an anvil. And although she had the power to do something, the very real prospect of failure overwhelmed her.

  “A white cargo truck just arrived.” Her voice shook. “They’re loading the drums inside and—”

  Something hard touched the back of her neck, and she gave a startled hiccup.

  A hand reached around and slid the phone from her fingers. She recognized the tattoo instantly. Randy from the body shop. Her throat went dry.

  “Turn around. Slowly.”

  She turned around. Slowly. He had a pistol pointed at her face.

  chapter twenty-eight

  ANDREA MANEUVERED THROUGH TRAFFIC aggressively, although she didn’t even know where she was going. She just knew she had to get away from Jon, and her brother, and everything else in her life that was pushing her to the edge. She glided past familiar sidewalks and storefronts, past the hustle and bustle of people going about their routines, and she felt a sharp pang of jealousy. They had jobs, commitments, places to be. She had none of that anymore. In the space of a few short weeks, her entire life had undergone a tectonic shift, and she’d lost her footing.

  Tears of frustration burned her eyes as she sailed through another intersection. You’re scared, and so you’re running away. Was he right? Was she running?

  She’d never thought of herself as a coward. She’d always thought of herself as a scrapper, a fighter, but maybe that was a lie, just one more fiction she’d created to get herself through. Maybe it was no coincidence that her career had suffered the same fate as all of her dead-end relationships. She’d been so afraid to fail that at the first sign of trouble she gave up without a fight.

  Or maybe she was simply speeding up the inevitable. Maybe people were meant to hurt each other. Trust was an illusion, and connections were as fleeting as the flush of sex.

  Her phone chimed from the cup holder, and the screen said US GOV.

  Jon. Her heart skittered. Her first instinct was to dodge him, but that would only prove his point.

  She spotted an empty parking space up ahead and whipped into it. She took a deep breath as she picked up the phone.

  “Hi.”

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  “Detective Finch?” It was a male voice but definitely not Jon’s.

  She cleared her throat. “This is Andrea Finch.”

  “Hello, I’m with the FBI, and I’m calling about your request.”

  “My request?”

  “Your threatening-letter assessment? You may recall you submitted a sample and—”

  “The letter! Yes, of course I recall. Sorry . . . it’s been one of those cases.”

  “I understand,” he said, although, really, he had no idea. “I’ve got the results back, but you didn’t list an e-mail address here, so did you want to go over this on the phone or—”

  “That’s fine,” she said, dragging a notepad from her purse. She should probably direct this call to Jon, but it wouldn’t kill her to jot down the info—although it seemed less urgent now that they had their warrant in hand.

  “Well, as you probably know, the threatening-letter database is used primarily by the Secret Service, so the majority of our files contain letters received at the White House.”

  “Okay.”

  “We ran the sample you submitted and found no links to any threats against POTUS.”

  “POTUS, President of the United States?”

  “Yes, and that’s past or present, by the way. We run submissions through the entire database.”

  Andrea watched the cars race by on Congress Avenue as she waited for him to get to the point.

  “We did find a link with something in your neck of the woods—a letter received in Austin. The letter isn’t signed, but several passages from it duplicate almost verbatim the letter you submitted, which would indicate a strong probability that we’re dealing with the same unidentified author . . .” His voice trailed off as Andrea’s pulse quickened. “This is dated . . . let’s see . . . April nineteenth, two years ago. That’s the date on the letter itself, mind you. As for the postmark—”

  “You said April nineteenth?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And exactly who in Austin received this letter?”

  “Yes, I was just getting to that. It’s addressed to the governor.”

  ♦

  Jon bullied his way onto the entrance ramp of the interstate that would take him back to San Antonio.

  “He had nothing on the floor plan?” Maxwell asked over the phone.

 
; “Nothing at all,” Jon confirmed. “Just the motorcycle lead.”

  “Sounds like you wasted your trip.”

  Jon didn’t bother to disagree. He’d netted practically no new evidence, and he’d managed to piss Andrea off again, too.

  And now time was ticking down.

  “I can’t see it,” Maxwell said, still hung up on Mark Driscoll. “They’re not exactly going to deliver a truck bomb on a motorcycle. And there’d be no way to conceal a rifle, so that’s out.”

  “The bike might still be part of the plan somehow. Maybe Hardin intends to use it as a means of escape after he parks a truck bomb. Or plants an IED somewhere.”

  “The question is where,” Maxwell said, pointing out the obvious again. “I need you to get back here ASAP to help us figure that out.”

  Jon ended the call with a renewed sense of frustration. Time was running out, and he’d never felt so far away from solving the case. The three primary suspects were in the wind, and he no longer even felt certain he understood the target. The only thing he did know for sure was that an attack was imminent.

  Jon swerved around a slow-moving rig and thought through the new intel since yesterday. He had the gnawing certainty that he’d overlooked something, some key bit of information that would explain how everything fit together.

  The job depends on the tools.

  His uncle’s saying came back to him as he sped toward San Antonio. So what tools was Hardin using this time? A fertilizer bomb? TNT stolen from some quarry somewhere?

  A thought hit him. He pulled off the freeway and swung into a gas station, then jammed to a stop and grabbed the hefty file folder from the backseat.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered, thumbing through papers.

  And then he had it, in his hand, a list of the items seized from Lost Creek Ranch. Jon scrolled through the e-mails on his phone, looking for the exchange with the ATF agent who’d checked the list provided by Gavin Finch. Yesterday Jon’s focus had been finding something on the list that could be grounds for a search warrant. Now he was hunting for something else entirely.

  Jon skimmed the list on his phone.

  He compared it to the list in his hand.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. He threw the car into gear and sped out of the lot and back onto the frontage road. He reached for his phone just as a call came in.

  “I can’t talk right now,” he told Andrea, jumping back onto the freeway. “Something just came up.”

  “The Governor’s Mansion.”

  “What?”

  “He’s targeting the Governor’s Mansion. That’s the floor plan, I’d bet my life on it.”

  “Where did you—”

  “I just heard back about Hardin’s letter,” she said. “Remember the one we submitted to the threatening-letter database?”

  “We think it’s Hardin’s. We don’t know for sure he wrote it.”

  “Just listen, would you? There’s another letter that is word-for-word the same in places as the letter sent to Senator Kirby. This letter’s addressed to the governor and dated April nineteenth.”

  Jon’s gut clenched as he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the Capitol dome that dominated the city skyline.

  “I’m on my way over there now,” she said. “I called Austin PD to give them a heads-up but haven’t heard back from my lieutenant yet.”

  “DPS is in charge of the governor’s security detail.” He cut across two lanes of traffic.

  “I know, but this needs to come from you. You’re the fed. I’m not even on the job anymore. Damn it, where are you?”

  “I’m headed toward the Capitol now.”

  “The mansion’s right across the street.”

  “I know. Andrea, there’s a fifty-cal rifle missing from the weapons we collected during the raid.”

  She didn’t respond. Horns blared over the phone, and he pictured her cutting through traffic.

  “So you’re saying—”

  “I think he’s planning a sniper attack.”

  ♦

  Torres and Whitfield didn’t get much of a welcome when they rolled into the Two Oaks trailer park. Kids stopped and stared. Men scowled from their lawn chairs. Even the pets seemed pissed off, and a chorus of barks went up from every direction.

  “Hey, good thing we’re in suits,” Whitfield quipped as they bumped over the gravel road in the “unmarked” FBI vehicle.

  Torres squinted at the numbers on the wooden posts in each yard. Their target residence was at the far end of the drive, a dingy white double-wide with a weathered wooden stoop.

  “Here we go.” Torres glanced around as he got out. The rusted frame of a motorbike lay on its side on the overgrown lawn. He was glancing around for a dog as a bark went up from inside the trailer.

  Torres looked at Whitfield. “Cover me.”

  He walked up the steps and gave a few sharp raps. The barking reached a fever pitch, and Torres put his hand on his holster as the door cracked open. A woman’s face appeared in the two-inch gap. Caucasian, thirtyish, frizzy hair.

  “Ma’am, I’m Special Agent James Torres with the FBI.” He held up his ID. “I need you to step out, please, and leave the dog inside.”

  Her blue eyes narrowed.

  “Now.”

  The door thumped shut. He heard shuffling on the other side, some yelling. Then the woman squeezed out, eyeing Whitfield suspiciously as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. We’re looking for a Randall Leeland listed at this address.”

  She folded her arms over her chest, which was barely contained by a faded black top. The look on her face told Torres they’d found their man.

  “Is he here?”

  She sighed heavily, and he got a whiff of alcohol as she opened the door and poked her head inside. “Randy! Get your butt out here!”

  She looked Torres up and down as footsteps thudded. A freckle-faced kid appeared. Couldn’t have been more than twelve, and he should have been in school. A dog poked its nose out and gave a low growl.

  Torres dug a notepad from his pocket.

  “Uh, we’re looking for a Randall Leeland, date of birth twelve ten eighty-three. He any relation to either of you?”

  “Go back inside,” she snapped at the boy, then turned to Torres. “He’s my ex-husband.”

  “Is he related to a Ross Leeland that you know of?”

  “That’s his brother.”

  “Have you seen Ross recently?”

  “Haven’t laid eyes on him in years.” She looked at Whitfield again. “What’s this about?”

  “You know where we can find your ex-husband, Randall Leeland?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Any idea where he works?” Whitfield asked.

  She darted a look at him, and Torres could tell she was impatient to get the cops off her property.

  “Try Hill Country Automotive, up on the north side.” She opened the door, and the barking started up again. “And if you see the son of a bitch, tell him he owes me three months’ back child support.”

  She slipped inside and slammed the door.

  “Hill Country Auto. I’ve seen that somewhere.” Torres pulled out his phone as they got back into the car. He’d missed a call from Elizabeth.

  “I remember now. One of her reports.”

  “Whose reports?”

  “LeBlanc’s.” Torres slid behind the wheel and pressed play on the message. He shoved his key into the ignition. As Elizabeth talked, his hands froze.

  Her voice stopped abruptly. Torres looked down at the phone, and his blood turned to ice.

  “Oh, no.”

  “What is it?”

  He slammed the car into gear and rocketed back, spraying up gravel.

  “What? What is it?”

  Torres stomped on the gas. “That was LeBlanc.”

  chapter twenty-nine

  ANDREA REACHED THE GOVERNOR’S Man
sion and spotted the unmarked FBI vehicle taking a sharp corner. She pulled into a loading zone and jumped out, frantically scrolling through her phone as she jogged up the sidewalk to meet Jon.

  “What now?” he demanded, reading the look on her face.

  “I just got off the phone with Kirsten, the senator’s scheduler. North, it’s worse than we thought. Kirby’s on his way over here.”

  “Here? He said he canceled all his public appearances.”

  “He did, but this is private.” She glanced over her shoulder at the white plantation-style building behind them. “Some luncheon for bigwig contributors hosted by the governor.”

  Jon glanced around, clearly alarmed. They were near the mansion’s side entrance, where people who looked like waiters and caterers streamed in and out with boxes and carts of food.

  “Did you tell Kirsten to cancel?” Jon asked, whipping out his phone.

  “It’s her day off. She’s not even in Austin right now. Damn it, where is that number?”

  “Who?”

  “Teddy, the assistant.” She looked at Jon. “Who are you calling?”

  “Maxwell.” His face looked grim as he surveyed the area. “Voice mail.” He left an urgent message for his boss to call him back and then set off at a jog toward the mansion’s front entrance.

  Andrea hurried to keep up with him as she searched her phone for the number. “You think it’s happening now, not tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He didn’t even hesitate. “This way, he gets Kirby and the governor. Twice the publicity.”

  An unmarked police car turned onto the street, and Jon flagged it down.

  “This is us,” he told her as two agents piled out of the vehicle.

  “Jon North, San Antonio,” he said, flashing his creds. “We have reason to believe a sniper might be somewhere in the area.”

  Everyone’s gaze tipped upward. This was a nightmare scenario. The governor’s estate was surrounded on three sides by office buildings and parking garages, providing literally hundreds of possible hides for a skilled gunman.

  “We need to get high, get a vantage point.” Jon pointed to an office building and nodded at the older-looking agent, who was thin and balding. “Get inside that gray parking garage. And you”—he made eye contact with the young, stocky one—“see if you can access the rooftop on that office building. You’ll have a bird’s-eye view of everything going on. You guys have radios?”