Beyond Limits (Tracers #8)(51)
Elizabeth’s stomach clenched. She listened to the water lapping against the dock. “You think he planted a bomb?”
“This whole place is a bomb. Look around you.”
She did. Warning signs were posted everywhere: FLAMMABLE LIQUIDS, DANGER, FIRE HAZARD, ABSOLUTELY NO SMOKING.
“Where’s your maintenance building?” Derek asked as the guard approached them.
“Across the street there,” he said. “Why?”
“I need to check something.”
Elizabeth whipped out her phone as Derek tromped off with the guard. She should have called this in before now, but she hadn’t known what to say. Hey, Gordon, this bartender at this strip club saw this guy who might be friends with someone who might be Zahid Ameen, and we followed him out to this shipping terminal where he works and watched him . . . what? Pick up a suspicious person? For all she knew, Matt Palicek was giving a coworker a ride home. And maybe the bartender was mistaken and Palicek didn’t even know Ameen. And maybe this was nothing more than a wild-goose chase.
Except that they happened to be standing beside the Houston Ship Channel, which was on their short list of terrorist targets. And it was the middle of the night. And Derek was right—something was very wrong here.
She got Gordon’s voice mail and left an urgent message. Then she called Lauren.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“At the Pussycat. Why?”
“I can’t explain it all now, but keep your eyes peeled for anything unusual, and add a vehicle to your list: a black Avalanche. If you see one anywhere near there, get the plate and . . .” Her voice trailed off as Derek emerged from the maintenance building, followed by the guard.
“Elizabeth? You there?”
“Lemme call you back.” She disconnected. “What are you doing?”
Derek set a scuba tank on the dock beside her and dropped a coil of rope at her feet. “Going in.”
“Going in the water?”
He crouched down and started unlacing his boots. “That hull could be rigged.”
“But—” Her heart skittered. “You can’t just jump in there.”
“Why not?”
She shot a look at the guard, who was now on his cell phone, no doubt calling his supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor. This situation was spinning out of control, and she hadn’t even reached Gordon.
Derek hefted the tank onto his back, then clamped a buckle around his waist and jerked it tight.
“But what if you find something?” she asked.
“Like an IED?”
“Yes, like an IED! What if it’s rigged?”
“I’ll unrig it. That’s what we do with IEDs on boats. ’Specially boats filled with flammable liquids, ’specially when they’re moored near giant tanks of crude oil. You want to see this place fireball?”
“But—”
“Relax.” He squeezed her arm. “It might be nothing.”
* * *
For the second time in a week, he found himself in pitch-black water, feeling his way around the hull of a ship. He worked bow to stern, moving with less speed than usual, because the only fins in the maintenance closet had been about six sizes too small. The water was like a bathtub. Given the sediment in the water, visibility was nonexistent, so he moved by feel, hyperalert for any debris that might be lurking beneath him, waiting to slice up his feet. He knew that while the main channel was definitely kept dredged and clear, the inlets weren’t nearly as high a priority. Without water, this whole place would be a barnacle-covered junkyard.
Derek felt the curve of the ship’s skin. He was nearing the propeller. The prop was a high-probability area to plant a device, so he slowed his search.
Nothing.
He adjusted his regulator and continued searching. His gut was churning, and his sixth sense was gnawing at him, and he knew without a doubt that the man who’d caught a ride in that Avalanche had been up to something. Had he planted a bomb in the channel? But why target a channel when there was a perfectly good explosive right here? One that would make a hell of a fire show on the six o’clock news, too. The media’s motto was “If it bleeds, it leads,” but if it freaking exploded, get ready. It would not only lead, it would be on continuous replay for the next two weeks.
Derek did one last pass, and still nothing. He kicked to the surface and spied Elizabeth pacing the dock as she talked on her phone. She rushed over.
“What’d you find?”
He shoved his mask up. “Nothing so far. Throw me that line, would you?”
She glanced down at the coil of rope and pulled the end to a free cleat. He watched her secure the line as he swam over.
“Their chief of operations is on his way,” she said, “along with the fire chief.” She tossed him the line as he reached the dock.
“Someone needs to find the Avalanche,” he said.
“We’re working on it.”
The bulkhead was covered with razor-sharp barnacles, so he climbed the rope hand over hand to avoid trashing his feet. Water gushed from his jeans as he stood on the dock.
“Gordon’s en route.”
He looked around. “What’s he doing?” He nodded at the security guard, who was dragging a wooden barricade over to a marshy area beside the road.