Triple Threat Read Free

could get you for conspiracy and attempt, several different counts. If that event occurs and people lose their lives—”
    “The charges’ll be a
lot
more serious,” he said jovially. “Let me ask you—what’s your name?”
    “Agent Dance. CBI.” She proffered her ID.
    He smacked his lips. As irritating as his weasely voice. “Agent Dance, of the CBI, let me ask you, don’t you think we have a few too many laws in this country? My goodness, Moses gave us
ten
. Things seemed to work pretty well back then and now we’ve got Washington and Sacramento telling us what to do, what not to do. Every little detail. Honestly! They don’t have faith in our good, smart selves.”
    “Mr. Keplar—”
    “Call me ‘Wayne,’ please.” He looked her over appraisingly. Which cut of meat looks good today. “I’ll call you Kathryn.”
    She noted that he’d memorized her name from the perusal of the ID. While Dance, as an attractive woman, was frequently undressed in the imaginations of the suspects she interviewed, Keplar’s gaze suggested he was pitying her, as if she were afflicted with a disease. In her case, she guessed, the disease was the tumor of government and racial tolerance.
    Dance noted the impervious smile on his face, his air of…. what? Yes, almost triumph. He didn’t appear at all concerned he’d been arrested.
    Glancing at her watch: 1:37.
    Dance stepped away to take a call from TJ Scanlon, updating her on the status of Gabe Paulson, the other perp. She was talking to him when O’Neil tapped her shoulder. She followed his gaze.
    Three black SUVs, dusty and dinged but imposing, sped into the parking lot and squealed to a halt, red and blue lights flashing. A half dozen men in suits climbed out, two others in tactical gear.
    The largest of the men who were Brooks Brothers-clad—six two and two hundred pounds—brushed his thick graying hair back and strode forward.
    “Michael, Kathryn.”
    “Hi, Steve.”
    Stephen Nichols was the head of the local field office of the FBI. He’d worked with Dance’s husband, Bill Swenson, a bureau agent until his death. She’d met Nichols once or twice. He was a competent agent but ambitious in a locale where ambition didn’t do you much good. He should have been in Houston or Atlanta, where he could free-style his way a bit further.
    He said, “I never got the file on this one.”
    Don’t you read the dailies?
    Dance said, “We didn’t either. Everybody assumed the BOL would strike up near San Francisco,
that
bay, not ours.”
    Nichols said, “Who’s he?”
    Keplar stared back with amused hostility toward Nichols, who would represent that most pernicious of enemies—the federal government.
    Dance explained his role in the group and what it was believed they’d done here.
    “Any idea exactly what they have in mind?” another agent with Nichols asked.
    “Nothing. So far.”
    “There were two of them?” Nichols asked.
    Dance added, “The other’s Gabe Paulson.” She nodded toward the warehouses some distance away. “He was wounded but I just talked to my associate. It’s a minor injury. He can be interrogated.”
    Nichols hesitated, looking at the fog coming in fast. “You know, I have to take them, Kathryn.” He sounded genuinely regretful at this rank pulling. His glance wafted toward O’Neil, too, though Monterey was pretty far down on the rung in the hierarchy of law enforcement here represented and nobody—even the sheriff himself—expected that the County would snag the bad boys.
    “Sure.” Dance glanced toward her watch. “But we haven’t got much time. How many interrogators do you have?”
    The agent was hesitating. “Just me for now. We’re bringing in somebody from San Francisco. He’s good.”
    “Bo?”
    “Right.”
    “He’s good. But—” She tapped her watch. “Let’s split them up, Steve. Give me one of them. At least for the time being.”
    Nichols shrugged. “I guess.”
    Dance said, “Keplar’s going to be the