Going Dark(72)

Sheffield stripped off his own rain gear, then his blue FBI T-shirt, and folded it into a square and pressed the cotton hard against the wound.

Hearing the men outside getting into it with each other, his guys yelling, Magnuson’s voice in there, too, trying to quiet the mutiny.

Billy Dean opened his eyes. With a hazy grin, he looked up at Frank and said quietly, “Did we get the bomber?”





TWENTY-NINE





AFTER THE CHOPPER LEFT WITH Billy Dean, both teams did a methodical search of the island. Look, but touch nothing, Sheffield told them.

Sheffield put on his T-shirt, sticky with Billy Dean’s blood. Nicole watching him, her face slack, a bruised light in her eyes. She looked faint and Frank asked her if she was all right. She nodded that she was. But then kept nodding and nodding, looking even sicker. Frank went to her, guided her to a bench, and sat her down.

Fifteen minutes later both teams had reassembled outside the barracks tent. Speaking for the group, Dinkins said the area was clear of hostiles.

“Stay here, right here,” Frank said. “Nobody wanders from this position until I give the okay. Is that clear?”

“What is it, Frank?”

“Just stay put.”

Sheffield walked out into the field and used his cell to call dispatch. He identified himself, gave the agent an update on their mission, and told him to alert the Evidence Response Team, the Bomb Recovery and Analysis group, in case any trace of explosives had been left behind. Sheffield told the young man to notify the commander of Underwater Search and Response. Maybe during their getaway the ELF guys had tossed incriminating materials into the nearby waters. A long shot, but at this point everything was.

It was Monday morning, a long time till dawn. Everybody would be grumpy as hell, but they’d show up within an hour or two, no questions asked, and they’d work their asses off till the jobs were complete.

When he disconnected, he said to Dinkins, “No one leaves this spot.”

“I wish you’d tell me what’s going on.”

Frank wasn’t sure what put the quiver in his gut. But there it was. A reliable sensation that had saved his life a half dozen times. He hadn’t felt it for years. Thought he was past all that. Quiver-free for good. But no.

He looked at Dinkins and pointed at the ground. Stay put.

And Sheffield rejoined Nicole and Magnuson inside the tent.

Though it was clearly the group’s headquarters, not much had been left behind, and there was little to indicate the nature of the group or their mission. Weights, barbells, six cots, one of them set apart from the others, hidden behind a curtain, a makeshift table, an ice chest with its lid open. Inside it were the remains of Subway sandwiches floating on a bed of melting ice.

They looked, didn’t touch. Treating it as a crime scene, treading carefully. Nicole was on her feet. Pale, shaky, but coming around.

Forensics would be arriving soon and county PD. Later on Monday a whole shitstorm of Washington agents—Critical Incident Response Group, the Counterterrorism hotshots, probably CIA, everybody from National Security Branch eager for a junket to Miami—would be flying in. They’d be tramping around Prince Key, taking video, photographs, clicking their ballpoints, asking questions, not liking the answers, talking on phones to their superiors, asking more questions, writing up forms. There’d be an inquiry. Everyone interviewed. It was quiet now, still dark, but in the next few hours, holy Christ.

“They ran power off that solar panel,” Frank said.

“For one lightbulb?”

“Must’ve been running other things.”

“Like what?” Nicole was sounding queasy again.

“Like computers, communications, radios, hell, maybe they had a flatscreen out here, watching Oprah and the nature channel.”

“Why’s the one bed separate, and that screen?”

“The boss,” Nicole said. “Wanted privacy.”

“Or a shy woman,” said Frank. “Like Leslie Levine.”

Nicole grunted, dubious but not up to arguing. She was probably as bleak as Frank because she was bound to take serious heat for this mess. Even though it wasn’t her operation, still, she was third on the chain, and she already had a dead informant on her hands, and now this disaster. Not good.

They spent half an hour in the tent, turning up nothing that suggested the current location of Chee or the rest.

“Okay, we’re done,” Frank said. “This is a waste.”

“You were expecting a forwarding address?” Magnuson said.

“A guy can dream.”

“Chee’s like those game fish you have down here, gray ghosts.”

“Bonefish,” Sheffield said.