Clark Bush felt a hand squeezing his shoulder and shaking him. A voice kept saying, “Get up, get up.” It sounded far away, dreamlike. He wanted to swat away the offending grip, which dragged him from reverie into painful reality.
His face felt like it had been stung by a squadron of scorpions. He opened an eye and saw a dim shape leaning over him. The ground under him was hard and cold. It was dark, but he recognized the porch of his mom’s house.
“Hurry, let’s go.” Fern Bush shook him again. Her shrill voice cracked. “Please. We’ve got to get away. Can’t you smell it?”
“Uwgh.” A wave of nausea swept over Clark as he made a great effort to rise. He managed to roll over. Vomited.
Fern continued to claw at him. “Hurry, hurry.”
He shunted onto his hands and knees. The movement set off a crushing headache. Sharp pain erupted in his nose and mouth, wet and tasting of copper. He gasped and swayed as he pushed to his feet and teetered against a porch support.
A few steps, then a few more. Clark lost his balance and stumbled as his mom shepherded him down the driveway. They reached the mailbox at the end of the drive. Clark clutched onto the plastic rectangle, wheezing and gagging. Bloody spittle ran down his chin.
Fern urged him down the road, all the while glancing behind them.
Clark couldn’t go on. He sank to his knees and held onto her legs.
Suddenly the air was sucked out of the atmosphere. The house behind them disintegrated in a ball of fire. A cascade of brick fragments landed all around as flames shot toward the clouds, devouring all of Fern and Sam Bush’s earthly possessions. All the mementos and photos and belongings embodying the life the couple had built together were transformed to embers and ash. Sam’s prized Mustang convertible was a heap of deformed steel and melted plastic. Fern’s beloved Mexican Talavera ceramic collection was reduced to burnt shards.
Fern slid onto her butt, buried her face in her knees and wailed. Oblivious to his injuries, Clark hovered over her, tried to comprehend what had happened. And why.
He moved his tongue around, felt loose teeth wiggling around his mouth. A broken tooth had lodged inside of his cheek. He put an arm around his mom. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember how the two of them had wound up crouching on the side of the dark road. Something had happened when he’d opened the front door. But what?
Fire engines raced past them and rumbled to a stop at the edge of the driveway. More screaming sirens drew closer, reverberating against the foothills of the Catalinas. Lights from police and emergency vehicles pulsed through the darkness. Utility workers arrived in work trucks to shut off the neighborhood’s natural gas supply.
“Ma’am, are you hurt?” A burly EMT approached, startled when he saw Clark’s face. “Over here,” the paramedic yelled to his partner.
Fern whimpered and let EMTs lift her onto a stretcher. She and Clark were loaded into a waiting ambulance and rushed to Tucson Medical Center.
The explosion had panicked everyone in surrounding neighborhoods. Residents stood outside their homes to watch the tumult and speculate on what had happened.
The emergency response was also monitored by a watcher crouching in the shadows down the road from the ruins of Fern’s home. This observer noted an ambulance speeding from the scene with lights and sirens. Someone might have survived the inferno. Unfortunately.
***
Jack squirmed around on his back under the Jeep, shining a flashlight on the undercarriage. “You have a screw driver?”
Cait knelt and handed over a small folding knife from her key ring. “Will this work? You find a bomb?”
“Come to daddy. Gotcha.” Jack wiggled out from under the bumper, sat up and held out his hand. In it was a small flat square about an inch in diameter. “Look at this. It was glued under there.”
Cait inspected the object. “Looks like a tracking device.”
“I think it’s been there since we left Albuquerque. Let me see it.” Jack took the small square and got up, looking at traffic jetting by on Speedway Boulevard. “Back in a minute.”
He hurried out to the sidewalk and stood in front of a transit shelter as a city bus creaked to a stop at the curb. The door folded open. Jack bounded up the steps and spoke to the driver. As he talked, he flicked the little object under the front row of seats.
He exited the bus, the door snapped shut and the behemoth continued down Speedway.
Cait frowned at Jack when he returned. “Now that bus is going to be followed by crazed gunmen with automatic weapons. That’s why they were shooting at that house. They thought we were in there.”
“Sooner or later those guys will realize we found it. The bus driver and passengers will be fine. But we need to get out of here.”
To shake off any followers, Cait turned off Speedway and took a roundabout path through neighborhoods. Eventually they came out on northbound Wilmot Road, which soon turned into Tanque Verde Road.
“So that bug is Sonny Para’s doing?” Cait asked.
“Makes sense.” Jack eyeballed the traffic behind them. “It would explain that white SUV trying to ram us by the Salt River Canyon. Also how they found Jason Gonzalez. They must have been tailing us when we picked him up and took him to urgent care. They saw us drop him off at the motel.”
“How did Para know we were leaving Albuquerque?” Cait braked for a red light at the Kolb Road intersection.
“Maybe they were watching your house. I don’t know. I trust Mac Spitzer to keep a secret,” Jack said of the police captain who was his immediate supervisor. “But I’m not sure I trust my brother to keep his mouth shut. Maybe Julius said something to the wrong person. The bunch he hung out with are rivals to Los Brutos, but word gets around. What happened to Russell and me made the news. Julius wouldn’t intentionally hurt me, but he’s a blabbermouth when he’s had a beer or two. I need to call him about our parents. He swore he’d watch out for them like a hawk.”
Cait turned off Tanque Verde into the lot for the Catalina Desert Inn. “Is there a chance Jason’s still there?”
“I’ll go see.” Jack walked to Jason’s room and banged on the door. He turned and headed for the motel office.
Jack looked grim when he returned. “They haven’t seen him. Not good.”
“There’s nothing we can do. Back to my brother’s place?” Cait started the ignition and got back onto Tanque Verde Road.
“It’s late. I hate to wake Chris up. Maybe we should get a motel room.” Jack fought off a yawn.
“It’s ok. He’ll be wondering where we are.” Cait shrugged her shoulders to relieve the tightness. “What a day. Being shot at left and right.”
“One thing’s for sure. Those guys must have scared Christy Mossman and Rod Stone. He’s probably back in Las Vegas by now.”