Page 56 of South of Nowhere

She walked to the passenger side and shot the view from there. The car was about four feet from the edge of a low cliff that dropped straight into the raging torrent of water—a flooded gulley that was an extension of a spillway under the levee.

“Reminder to self—avoid that. Don’t want to flood the engine! LOL!”

Lavelle set the phone on a low cliff, under an overhang, to keep it out of the rain. The lens was pointed at the rear wheels of the car, where she’d tucked the trunk carpets and floor mats.

“ ‘Gently,’ ” she called to her audience. “That’s the key word.”

She walked out of frame toward the driver’s door.

The phone recorded the action perfectly in 60 fps high-def video.

It caught the rear left wheel rocking back and forth ever so slightly.

It caught a little more of the car’s progress forward—until the wheel got stuck on a branch under one of the carpets.

It caught Fiona’s voice as she called, “Just a little more gas. And over the final hurdle!”

It caught the engine revving harder.

And it caught the rear wheels leaping over the branch and spinning madly in the mud as the Camaro slid sideways and tumbled over the edge into the water, accompanied by Fiona’s panicked scream, which lasted only seconds before becoming a horrible choking, one final cry, and then silence broken only by the slap and splash of the frantic water.

23.

The team—Colter decided it was a reasonable description—returned from the motel to the command post, where Sergeant Tamara Olsen was sitting and speaking on the phone. When she saw Colter, she smiled, before noting his somber expression.

Colter said, “We confirmed explosives.”

“Sabotage,” she whispered.

He added that they had not ruled out the possibility that the perps, whoever they were, had placed additional explosives farther down in the levee, which had misfired or were meant to explode later.

“Christ,” she muttered as her shocked eyes went to the levee. “And Corporal McPherson…”

The soldier who had just been in the water perhaps exactly where those charges were.

She turned her eyes to Colter. “You got him out in time. Thank you.”

Tolifson was finishing a call in the cab of his truck. He disconnected and joined the others. “Talked to the FBI. Have to say the response was underwhelming. They asked if we knew there was another live IED, and I had to say no. But we thought there mightbe. And…” He sighed. “When he asked how we knew it was an explosion, I sort of…”

No, he didn’t.

He winced. “Mentioned the bees. Which was greeted with some silence. They said they’d send somebody. But it was not ‘We’re sending some agents!’ it was ‘Yeah, we’ll send some agents…’”

The lack of emphasis was clear.

“ATF?”

Though still known by that trio of initials, the organization had recently changed its name to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“Same thing.”

Olsen said, “Think it’s extortion? They blow the top, send a blackmail note and if we don’t give ’em the money or Bitcoins or whatever they want, they blow the rest of it?”

Dorion asked, “But then why are they waiting to send the note?”

Tolifson said, “Hold on.” He placed a call and had a brief discussion. He disconnected and looked up. “That was Marissa Fell, in the office. She would’ve forwarded ransom emails or told me about the phone calls right away. But I thought she should check for mysterious letters or packages. None, though.”

Colter asked, “Anybody with a score to settle with Hinowah? You come down hard on a meth dealer or gangbanger?”

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