Beyond Limits (Tracers #8)(49)

“Don’t you want to know who he is?”

“Yeah, but what about Ameen?”

“He’s not here. This guy is.” He jammed to a stop at the edge of the parking lot. “Make up your mind, Liz.”

“Follow him.” She took out her phone and called Lauren. “Are you nearby?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you pull into the Pussycat and stake out the lot? Keep an eye out for the maroon Sentra while I follow up on something else.”

“Got it.”

Derek was speeding down the road now, and traffic was light, which was both good and bad. He neared an intersection.

“There he is, three cars up,” Elizabeth said. “Can you get closer?”

“Not without getting burned.”

“I need the license plate.”

“I’ve got some binoculars in back.”

She twisted in her seat and scrounged around in the back of the cab, where he’d stashed cowboy boots, a duffel bag, boxes of ammo. She grabbed the binoculars as he turned the corner.

Derek cursed.

“What?” She straightened in the seat and looked for the Avalanche. It was a distant pair of taillights getting farther and farther away. “Can you close the gap?”

He didn’t answer, just kept a steady thirty-mile-per-hour pace. They bumped over a set of railroad tracks. She glanced around. The area was industrial—chain-link fences and warehouses and grassy lots filled with heavy machinery.

“We’re near the ship channel,” she said.

“I noticed.”

His tone was clipped, and she understood why. The Houston Ship Channel was one of the country’s busiest waterways and served as headquarters for America’s booming petrochemical industry. It was on the FBI’s short list of targets for a terrorist attack.

The Avalanche hung a left. Derek hit the gas. He neared the corner, then switched his lights off as he swung into the turn.

They were on a dark dead-end street, no traffic whatsoever, only a few signs glowing in the distance.

Derek smacked the steering wheel.

“Keep going,” she said. “He turned in somewhere.”

They passed the first sign, which was spotlighted from the ground. EastTX Shipping, it read. Up the road she spied another sign for Amfreight. She couldn’t read the third sign, so she lifted the binoculars.

“Oil Trans.” She looked at him. “Okay, we have three options. What do you want to do?”

He swung into the first driveway. A security guard stepped from a gatehouse, clipboard in hand, as Derek pulled over.

“Now would be a good time to flash your badge,” he told her, but she was already getting out of the truck.

“Special Agent Elizabeth LeBlanc, FBI.” She approached the guard. “We’re in pursuit of a suspect. Black Chevy Avalanche. Anyone pull in here in the last few minutes?”

No one had. Same verdict at Amfreight. They neared Oil Trans, which had not only a guardhouse but also a ten-foot security fence topped with razor wire.

“Gotta be door number three,” Derek said, pulling over again.

Elizabeth slid out and gave her spiel to yet another security guard.

“He pulled in a few minutes ago,” he said, frowning. “You say he’s wanted for something?”

“We just have some questions.”

The guard trudged back over to the gatehouse, and Elizabeth followed, aware of Derek’s footsteps close behind her.

The building was a closet-sized space barely big enough for a vinyl stool and a computer terminal. Mounted above the window was a pair of monitors showing views of traffic coming and going.

The guard tapped his keyboard.

“Matt Palicek.” He glanced up from the screen. “That’s who you’re looking for?”

“He was in the Avalanche?”

“That’s right. ID badge checked out and everything. Looks like he’s on our tank maintenance crew.”

“Y’all do a lot of tank maintenance this time of night?” Derek asked.

The guard looked him over and seemed to assume he was law enforcement, too. The bulge under his leather jacket probably had something to do with it. “Not usually, no.”

“Could you rewind that tape, see which way he went?” Elizabeth nodded at the monitor.

The guard hesitated only a moment before tapping a few more keys. The screen blurred.

“Like I say, it was just a few minutes ago.” Another tap. The Avalanche appeared on the monitor as it passed through the security gate. About fifty yards inside the perimeter, the taillights glowed, and the vehicle made a right.

“Hmm.” Another frown from the guard.

“What?”

“He turned west. His crew uses the east parking lot.”

“What’s on the west side?” Derek asked.

“Some storage buildings. The three-nineties, the docks.”

“What’s a three-ninety?” Elizabeth asked.

“Our biggest tanks. Three-hundred-ninety-thousand-barrel capacity.”

Derek looked at Elizabeth, and she knew what he was thinking.

“We need to take a look,” she told the guard, holding her badge up again to drive the point home.

“I can’t leave my post—”