The Panic Zone Part 14

"Nothing to substantiate?"

"Zilch. The Tanzanians are keeping him for a while. He could've been blowing smoke. You know how these guys make claims to leverage deals, or deflect attention."

"Keep looking and keep me posted."

Lancer reached for his mug, remembering it was empty.

Like my apartment. Like my life, he thought, glancing at the framed photographs of his wife and daughter next to his phone.

Take nothing for granted.

He sat up and went back to Salelee's file.

He realized that this latest threat was at risk of being rolled into so many others that had arisen over the years. As of last fall, U.S. security agencies were tracking about five thousand people, two hundred suspicious networks and investigating at least seventy-five active plots.

Lancer reviewed a few in the database. There was a threat to destroy a U.S. airliner over the Pacific. Nothing came of it. Then there was the group in New York arrested in a plot to use fertilizer-based explosives in attacks on packed nightclubs. On the international side, in the Chechen Republic, a man tied to extremist groups, who possessed large amounts of the lethal poison ricin in a barn outside of Grozny, had tickets for a charter tour of Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., which included a visit to the White House. And in Turkey, a plot to bomb the U.S. emba.s.sy in Ankara was foiled.

Lancer exhaled. That was just a sampling.

He'd been deployed to the Anti-Threat Center from the FBI because he'd requested it. Besides, the people at the center wanted to take advantage of his counterterrorism experience. But Lancer knew he was afforded special consideration because of his "personal investment in U.S. national security," according to the handwritten letter he'd received from the director.

He looked at the faces of his wife and daughter.

My personal investment in U.S. national security.

Lancer was given a special a.s.signment, allowed to operate as a one-man flying squad, investigating where his skill and instinct took him. He was cleared to cut across jurisdictional and agency boundaries to help on hot files and cold cases. His primary concern was soft targets that could yield the highest number of civilian casualties on U.S. soil.

Salelee's claim could involve a soft target, Lancer thought and reviewed possibilities, the bigger ones.

There was an upcoming spiritual gathering at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum that would draw one hundred thousand attendees. The Texas State Fair in Dallas would see over two million people pa.s.s through its gates. In Columbus, a music festival was expected to bring one hundred thousand people to Ohio Stadium.

Then Lancer looked at another big one: the Human World Conference coming up in New York City. It would be a family-friendly gathering of music and love, aimed at spreading harmony around the planet. There would be addresses by n.o.bel laureates, actors, authors, artists. Music groups would perform free concerts. It was set for Central Park and was expected to draw about one million people.

This one was on the radar of every local, state and federal security agency. There was a long list of potential attack methods to consider: suicide bombers, a truck or bus filled with explosives or a chemical, biological or radiological device--a dirty bomb.

Lancer considered recent history.

Some terrorist groups claimed to have chemical, biological or radiological weapons. While there had been few attacks on civilians employing such methods, those carried out were lethal.

In 1995, a cult known as the Supreme Truth released sarin, a deadly nerve agent into the Tokyo subway system killing a dozen people and injuring at least five hundred others.

In 2001, a series of anthrax attacks was launched in the U.S., using letters containing anthrax spores. At least five people were killed. In 1979, nearly nine hundred miles east of Moscow, several vials from top-secret biological and chemical military experiments vanished.

Take nothing for granted, Lancer thought and went back to the letter he'd been reviewing. It involved an older case and was written by a dying CIA scientist who'd overseen deadly cla.s.sified U.S. military experiments that were long abandoned. The letter went first to the CIA, but upon a.s.sessing it, the agency referred it to the National Anti-Threat Center.

The scientist was concerned about rumors among fringe elements of the underground research community that an unknown international group was somehow now attempting to replicate parts of those "terrible experiments."

Lancer questioned himself: Doesn't that const.i.tute a threat? Doesn't it require investigation? He looked at the letter. The scientist was living out his final days in a remote cabin in Canada.

If Lancer chose to follow intelligence of this sort, policy required he make a face-to-face interview.

He read the letter one more time.

Take nothing for granted.

Lancer picked up the phone to make travel arrangements to Canada.

19.

Quiggly Ranch, Ram River Ridge, Wyoming.

The Quiggly place was thirty miles outside of Big Cloud in the foothills of the Laramie Mountains.

In the late 1800s, Lance Quiggly drove his herd from Texas to establish his Five-Spur brand here after purchasing five hundred acres of gra.s.sy rangeland in the river valley. But each time the operation was pa.s.sed to a succeeding generation, it was parceled and subdivided.

All that remained were forty acres where Emma Lane had come to search for answers. She turned down the dusty road to the ranch, praying the Quigglys would come to her aid again.

"Of course we'll talk to you," Mave Quiggly told her earlier when she'd called. "Anything we can do to help."

Driving out, Emma sensed the purity of this place and the goodness of its people. When she reached the house, Mave stepped from the porch and greeted her with a hug.

"Come on in, I'll put the kettle on."

She took Emma to the sofa in the living room, which opened to the large kitchen, where Mave gazed out the window.

"The fellas saw you drive in, they're coming up from the river now."

As the older woman busied herself, she punctuated her tasks by checking on Emma's well-being, patting her hand and shoulder.

"We went to the funeral service," Mave said. "We sat at the back of the church."

The kettle boiled and Emma struggled to hold herself together as Herb Quiggly and his teenaged son, Rolly, entered the kitchen from the rear door, telegraphing concern as they approached her.

"Herb Quiggly." The elder man shook Emma's hand. "This is our son, Rolly."

Rolly's acne-ravaged face was as still as a mountain lake as he nodded to Emma, his eyes lingering on her cuts and sc.r.a.pes.

"You drove out here all by yourself, in your condition?" Herb asked.

"Hush now." Mave set a tea set down. "Emma's a strong young woman. She wants to talk to us and after all she's been through, we're going to listen."

Emma slid both hands around her teacup to steady herself.

"I need to know what happened that day, what you saw. Did you see the second car?"

"No, we saw nothing at all. We told the deputy we'd been out to Three-Elk Point. Rolly and I wanted to look at a bull J. C. Fargo was selling.

"We were northbound on that stretch, not another vehicle in sight until we saw your SUV on its roof. Rolly said he thought they were making a movie, or something. Kevin Costner shot part of one of his films out here years back."

Rolly nodded.

"But he didn't think that for long," Mave said. "We saw you there--saw your husband halfways out, saw the baby's seat caught up in the twisted metal like it was in a steel web."

"Did you see Tyler? Could you see him inside?"

"No," Rolly said. "Just saw that baby seat in the mess, heard you and smelled the gas."

"Could you hear Tyler crying?"

"I don't recall--you were screaming pretty loud," Rolly said.

"We had to get everyone out of there on account of the gas," Herb said.

"But you didn't actually see Tyler in his seat?"

Herb and Rolly shook their heads.

"It was twisted up in there," Rolly said.

"And you saw no other cars in the area?"

"Nothing," Herb said.

The Quigglys were patient with Emma as she continued pressing them. But as they recalled details for her, their voices faded until she heard only fragments.

"It happened fast...like a blast furnace...n.o.body could've survived..."

Their recounting of the aftermath had catapulted her back to those terrible moments on the highway.

Emma struggled with what the Quiggly family was telling her: There was no other car.

It can't be true because if it is it means my baby burned to death. But I saw someone. I saw someone save him.

Didn't I?

Emma's hands shook.

"Careful, Emma, careful." Mave rushed to her.

Hot tea had splashed over the cup's rim, onto Emma's hands and to the floor.

"I'm sorry."

Mave hurried her to the kitchen sink and ran cold water gently over her wrists and hands. It was an act of kindness and as the water soothed her skin Emma felt something deep inside break apart. Mave Quiggly comforted her until she was calm again.

"Thank you," Emma said. "I should be going."

"Maybe we should take you home and have Rolly drive your car back?"

Emma shook her head then collected her purse.

"You sure, you're okay?" Herb asked as they saw her to the door.

"I am convinced there was another car."

Rolly was scratching the back of his head, a habit familiar to his parents when something was gnawing at him.

"What is it?" Herb asked.

"Well, I was just thinking."

"Is it something Emma needs to hear?"

"Well--" Rolly continued rubbing the back of his head "--there was a car."

Emma stared at him.

"I didn't see any car," Herb said.

"Rolly, don't be talking this way if you're not sure," Mave said.

"There was a car in the area," Rolly said.

"But, Rolly," Emma said, "in the statement you gave to police, in all of your statements, no one saw a second car at the scene, or on the highway."

"That's just it," Rolly said. "The deputy asked me if I saw any cars at the scene or on the highway, and I didn't. But I saw this car just before we came to yours."

"Where was this?" Mave asked him.

"At the junction. Mom, you had leaned over to look at the gas gauge and tell Dad how he shoulda stopped in Big Cloud. I just looked east and it was way out there. I couldn't tell you the make. It could've been white. This car was way off by the T-stop near Fox Junction, way off kicking up dust on that dirt road. It was moving real fast."

Less than an hour later at the Big Cloud County Sheriff's Office, Reed Cobb's head snapped up from the glossy pages of a hunting magazine. Some fool was spanking the h.e.l.l out of that bell at the front counter. Cobb's utility belt squeaked as he got up and went to straighten them out.

"Emma? What the--?"

"There was a second car," she said.

"What?"

"There was a second car fleeing the cras.h.!.+ Rolly Quiggly saw it. I just came from the Quiggly ranch."

"Hold on--"