Power Play (FBI Thriller 18)

They found the Lazy Elf Motel on the edge of a middle-class residential section, on the seedy side, painted a pale yellow. There were half a dozen cars parked in the parking area. The E in Elf was blinking on and off. The manager wasn’t in the office. Together, they approached room 217, the end room on the second level, pressing against the dirty plaster of the outside wall. When they reached the door, Savich leaned in, listened.

He didn’t hear a thing. He turned quickly and shook his head at the Morganville officer who was standing on the far side of the motel parking lot. He wasn’t surprised, but he still felt a punch of disappointment. Blessed was gone. He whispered to Sherlock at his elbow, “I don’t hear anyone. He’s not here.”

She shook her head. “You know the drill, play it safe.” She nodded to the door.

Savich reared back and kicked the door in. “FBI, freeze!” The old door slammed back against the wall.

They went in high-low, fanning their Glocks, but there wasn’t anyone in the tatty old room.

An ancient cathode tube TV stood drunkenly on the edge of a dresser as if someone had brushed against it and hadn’t cared if it crashed to the floor. Three dresser drawers were all lopsided, shoved in carelessly. The small table beside the bed had one ashtray on it holding three butts. Sherlock scooped them into a small evidence bag. There was no sign of luggage.

As Savich went through the drawers, Sherlock checked the bathroom. Empty, two threadbare towels tossed on the floor, a squeezed tube of toothpaste on the ledge of a chipped porcelain bowl. She shook her head as she walked back into the room.

The bed was unmade; a used towel lay wrinkled on the floor. When she leaned down to pick it up, she saw something beneath the bed. She dropped to her knees and pulled out a camel wool coat. She rose, frowning. “It’s Blessed’s. Why would Blessed leave his coat?”

They heard a cell phone ring from the neighboring room.

Savich grabbed her around the waist and ran back through the open doorway, nearly threw her against the motel wall beside the open door, and flattened himself against her, his hands covering her head. There was an instant of silence, and then a huge blast shook the wall. A ball of orange flame exploded out the open doorway, shattered the wooden railing behind them and spurted down and out like a water hose directly onto an old Chevy in the parking lot below them. Pieces of the bed frame and the antenna from the TV flew out the door with the flames, struck what was left of the burning wooden railing and fell onto the walkway and the empty parking lot next to the burning Chevy below them. Smoke curled into the air from the doorway, black, oily, smelling like Hell itself.

They breathed in, but it was hot and the smoke burned their lungs. Savich looked down at her, made certain she was all right. He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek, so thankful for a moment he didn’t speak. His ears were ringing; he imagined hers were, too. “We’re okay,” he said. “Thank the Good Lord this wall is concrete block.” Savich hit 911, relayed their location and reported the fire even though he knew the cops below them would already be calling for a fire truck themselves. He was on the phone when the yells and screams started and half a dozen people, some in their underwear, came bursting out of their rooms. A fire alarm went off.

Savich yelled, “FBI. The explosion is over and you’re safe. But there’s a fire. Leave your rooms and wait for the fire department. We’ll be coming to speak to each of you as soon as we can.”

As they walked down the stairs toward the still burning Chevy, they heard muttering, saw a few panicked faces and a few people shuffling back inside to get their things. Sherlock said, “I think some of them will make a run for it. This isn’t what you’d call a family sort of place.”

Two policemen ran up the stairs past them, broke into the room next to Blessed’s when no one opened the door. Thick smoke belched out. One of them looked in, covering his face. “There’s a dead man in there, looks like the manager, killed by the blast. The wall between the rooms is blown out.”

Savich said, “Blessed did that. He had the manager in his control, told him to set the bomb off when he heard the phone ring. Blessed knew we were in the room. He’s still got to be close by.”

Blessed watched Savich and Sherlock burst out of the motel room and press themselves against the concrete outer wall only a second before the bomb blast. It wasn’t fair. It was a fine blast, well nigh perfect, like wild orange lightning, spewing flames and black smoke. He watched it slam into the Chevy, igniting it like a torch. All it had managed to do was scare the crap out of the cheating couples with their quickies before going home to the spouse and kids. They burst out of their rooms, terrified, many in their underwear.