The car was as immaculate on the inside as it was out. The dash gleamed and the leather seats had been treated with softener to the point where they were more warm and comforting like that of a mother's embrace.
Looking down, he saw a spot of dirt on the mat. How did that get there? He never wore his work boots in the car and kept a change of clothing and shoes in his work locker so as to not to take a chance at messing up his car.
It wasn't a big problem — it had been three weeks since he had shampooed the carpets in the car anyway, so it was probably due for it again. He didn't have any plans for this evening, so that would work nicely.
He noted the click of the car locks as he put the key in the ignition. That was something different — it was only supposed to lock when he got the car up to twenty miles per hour. Something he'd have to call the dealership about tomorrow. Yes, he had his oil changed at the exact intervals, paid extra for synthetic and the tire pressure was always within two PSI of what the manufacturer recommended. The dealer hated to see him coming, but his money was good. And, after a particularly vehement argument about his last vehicle and some of its problems, threatening to have their facility shut down due to building code and fire violations, helped them see things his way. He had power and knew how to wield it with scalpel-like precision, or ax-like — whatever the situation called for.
He turned the key. There was a loud click and then the smell of something burning. What the hell? It seemed like it was coming from under the dash, on the passenger side.
Then he realized that the car was on fire. He yanked at the door handle. It didn't open. He pulled and pulled on it until it came free in his hand. The car filled with smoke and fire licked at his legs.
Pounding on the unyielding windows, they didn't give either. The smell of cooking meat and horrific pain threatened to overwhelm his senses. He screamed, his lungs searing from the choking smoke in the burning interior. Great pain. Then nothing but blackness.
Chapter 8
FBI Special Agent Jeff Silver looked into the open trunk. Whoever had cooked this victim had done a very good job. He could see there wasn't much left except for burnt meat with some white bones showing through. He'd been called in on his day off to deal with this crispy critter that the fire department had found.
The Albuquerque Police had pitched the case towards the FBI when they determined that the cause of the fire had probably been an incendiary device. In the days after 9/11, anything like someone cooked in their trunk with explosives or other restricted materials could be part of a larger terrorist plot.
Jeff figured that it was just an excuse to write the case off the police department books — it was going to be difficult to even determine an ID on the victim, much less track down who had done it and why.
In one sense, he could understand where they were coming from, Albuquerque was crime ridden enough to keep the police department more than busy, why add a who-done-it to the mix? The FBI had more resources and didn't have to answer to the taxpayers for unsolved cases.
On the other side, it was more crap duty for a junior agent. There were terrorists, home-grown and otherwise, everywhere if you read the daily briefs. Two years out of college with an accounting degree and a minor in Spanish — not that he had any interest in accounting. It was just something to do to get a degree since his old man — God rot his twisted soul — had paid for college, with the idea that he would take over the Mickey Mouse tax firm that had been in the family for years. Jeff hadn't minded being recruited by the FBI in his senior year. The recruiter had promised more excitement than doing tax returns for the rest of his life in Detroit. When the posting for New Mexico had been offered, he had jumped at it, looking to get away from the horrid winters.
It had been a major mistake. He got all the shit investigations not wanted by anyone else in the office and was lambasted by the higher ups when he couldn't produce the desired results. Hell, most of the cases were unsolvable — and this looked to be another one.
The smell was something he knew he'd never forget — sweet, burnt meat, nauseating and it made the hair on the back of his sweaty neck stand up on end. In the heat of the summer sun, it was enough to make a maggot gag, though there were flies buzzing around the body in the trunk.
It barely looked human. Leg bones looked to be sticking out of one end and what might be a charred skull at the other. And animals didn't wear shoes.
He glanced around where the car was parked, in a semi-abandoned industrial park. It had burnt itself out, without anyone noticing. A garbage truck driving by had noticed the burnt-out hulk and called the police. The patrolman who had pried the trunk open, against all crime scene procedures, would never make that mistake again. The smell of his vomit behind the car added a sour taste to the sense slamming odor.
The fire had been so intense that it melted the rear license plate into unrecognizable metal. But the front plate was intact and had come back registered to a rental car company. The company would be faxing over the information that they had on the renter.
He couldn't imagine what caused this amount of heat and fire. He could see that part of the frame under the trunk had melted and the tires were charred and flattened.
Stepping back, he motioned to the flat bed truck driver to do the best he could to roll the remains of the vehicle to the crime lab where they would attempt to remove the body and start trying to identify it.
That was going to be the tough part — what burned hot enough to destroy tooth enamel? The fingers had also received similar attention.
Jeff wondered if this was an isolated incident or was a sign of something much bigger and worse to come.
Leo wondered about the repercussions of the information that Jackie revealed. That they were going to have to make a trip back to her office was maybe something he could exploit. Could he use her as bait to lure the people trying to kill them?
As hard as Leo thought he could be, hell, he used to kill people for money, it wasn't something he felt that he could do. He liked her. There was a naivete about her, hardened by something that he couldn't place. Maybe it was the recent loss of her boyfriend? Or was it that she had almost been killed today? More things to think about when he should be figuring the angles on how to keep from getting killed.
Besides, she was cute. Not stunning, but she could be that way if she wore something besides her almost shapeless clothing and no makeup. Though he wasn't much better himself, pretty much having slept in his clothes last night, not shaving and spending several hours shooting. He agreed with Jackie about needing to get something to eat. His shooting session had taken a great deal out of him, besides the pounding he took from the brutal recoil. It took one hundred ten percent concentration to pull off the almost perfect shot and that translated into tiredness deep down into his soul — much more than physical and mental.
She broke into his thoughts by saying, “I still don't want to learn how to shoot.”
Leo, trying to maneuver through rush hour traffic, couldn't answer for a few minutes. Then he said, “You came very close to being killed today. It was the same for me two days ago. These people won't stop until they kill us both. But I suspect that our deaths are part of something a great deal larger.”