The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(75)

“Twice the size,” said Lewis. “Twice the size of Oklahoma City.” His eyebrows climbed his forehead. “That’s a big fucking bomb.”

Peter had learned about ANFO bombs in Iraq, named for their two major components, ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil. They were used by miners and farmers and guerilla fighters in asymmetric warfare. And domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

Clearly, thought Peter, someone had big plans.

“What’s the target?” he said. “If you were going to blow something up, something big, what would it be?”

Lewis shook his head. “I can’t think of anything you’d blow up for money. If you set this off at a bank, you’d vaporize the vault. Hell, the whole block.”

“Unless you were going to hold something ransom.”

“Like what?” said Lewis. “Lambeau Field? Threaten to blow up the stadium in Green Bay, you’d have every Packer fan in the state on your ass. And who the hell would pay?”

“This doesn’t feel rational,” said Peter. “Or at least not profit-driven, not how I can figure it. Timothy McVeigh didn’t make a nickel, he just wanted to make a point.”

“Lot of good it did him,” said Lewis. “Lethal injection. But what about all that cash you found? That don’t seem too ideological to me.”

“Me neither,” said Peter. “They didn’t need it to pay for materials, the shit’s already here. Unless the ideology is a diversion. Hiding some other motive. Like money.”

“Always comes back to money,” said Lewis. “Who we got on this thing that we know about? Who are the players?”

Something clicked. “Skinner,” Peter said. “That’s gotta be it. If you blow up the right thing, something happens in the markets.”

Lewis shook his head. “Shit. Whatever happened to armed robbery?”

But Peter was looking around. “Wait a minute,” he said. “There’s gotta be a starter charge. You can’t just light a match under this stuff.”

Lewis nodded. “You need dynamite or Tramex or something like that.”

Neither component would blow up by itself. You needed another material to create a starter blast, something to get the temperature up. Create the conditions for the big bang.

But Peter knew what they had planned to use. He looked at Lewis, and saw that Lewis knew, too.

Four beige rectangles, pliable as modeling clay, would do nicely.

Currently stashed in the secret panel under Peter’s truck.

“We need to get the cops here.”

Peter didn’t answer. He was walking through the rest of the room, looking at what had been left. The folding table and chairs were cheap and could have been bought at any home store. But there was nothing personal, no papers. Not even fast-food wrappers. These people were not amateurs. Their only mistake was losing the C-4, and that was probably because Jimmy had taken it from a locker at the veterans’ center.

At the back of the room, Peter saw an old cast-iron door set into the brick wall. It was heavy with rust, probably the same age as the building itself. There were rust flakes on the floor, too. The giant strap hinges shone with new oil, and tool marks on the door showed where someone had worked to get that door open.

Peter reviewed his mental map of the building. This wall was the end of this building.

But it wasn’t an outside wall.

He had another mental map. This one of the block and the buildings on it.

He was pretty sure he knew what was on the other side of that old cast-iron door.

“Peter.” Lewis didn’t raise his voice, but it carried an urgency that Peter hadn’t heard before. “We need to call the cops. You listening to me?”

“I hear you,” said Peter. “But calling the cops is no guarantee. And just getting rid of this stuff won’t get the guy who killed Jimmy. We might lose Dinah’s payday. And we’d probably lose yours, too.”

Lewis looked at him. “I’ve done my share of shit,” he said. “But I can’t let this thing go for some payday. Not for your revenge, neither.”

“It’s not just that,” said Peter. “If we call the cops right now, we won’t know who put this together, or how. They’ll just start over. We need to get deeper into this.”

“That’s what the goddamn cops are for.”

“Lewis, it’s not even a bomb yet. Right now it’s just supplies and suspicion. It’ll take them hours just to mix it up and get it in the truck.”

“Or we get sidetracked and come back and it’s gone. You ever think of that?”

“What I think,” said Peter, “is that under that slick mercenary veneer is a guy who actually gives a shit.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lewis looked at his watch. “You got four hours. Then I’m calling the cops.”

“I have a better idea,” said Peter. “Is there a Radio Shack or something around here?”





34



Peter left Lewis to keep an eye on the warehouse, with a pocketful of shotgun shells and the Glock in his belt.

Peter had rung the doorbell only once, but Mingus’s barking would wake the dead. Dinah wore thick flannel pajama bottoms and a UWM sweatshirt. Not what Peter had imagined when he pictured her sleeping.