Gene said, “Sorry, Willie, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t a cop.”

Tasker finally acknowledged him. “What made you decide I wasn’t?”

“You were ready to drive off. Just a businessman.” He had a harsh, Brooklyn accent. His hair was combed back, but it was a cheap cut. His watch looked like a Cartier but had an odd band. “Besides,” Gene added, “if you’re a cop and I ask you, you’re required by law to admit it.”

Tasker stared at him, then at Bud, trying to decide if one or both of them might be mentally challenged.

Gene asked, “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“A cop?”

“No, I am not now and have never been a cop. How’s that?”

“That’s good. Now, what’ve you got?”

Tasker kept a close eye on Bud, then said to Gene. “What have you got?”

Gene started to say, “We can play games all-” when Tasker just reached over and grabbed the backpack off his shoulder.

Gene cleared his throat and said, “Or you could take a quick peek.” As Tasker rummaged through the bag, Gene continued. “I brought a good assortment. Three Tec-9s, two Taurus nine-mills and a couple of Smith.38s.”

Tasker nodded, still looking in the bag. “Not bad. Where’d you get ’em?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis.”

“Can I sell ’em or will they be hot?”

Gene smiled. “I wouldn’t sell them to a gun shop or nothin’. Now, what do you got?”

Tasker set down the pack and leaned down to retrieve his gym bag. He slid the brick of pot he’d checked out of evidence for this reverse sting and held it in his lap. “Five pounds of Colombian gold. Fresh and wrapped tight from the field.” He held up the brick so Bud in the backseat could see it. As he did he noticed the backside of the brick for the first time. On the inside of the wrapper, where he hadn’t felt it, was an evidence tag that read in bold letters: FDLE EVIDENCE MIAMI OFfiCE #1043.

Tasker thought, Holy shit, how did I miss that? He held the brick firmly with the back to him. Gene tried to take it, but Tasker wouldn’t budge. A thin film of sweat formed over his forehead.

“Let go. Let me take a look,” said Gene, tugging on the pot.

Tasker said in a louder voice, “Looks like we’re good to go.” That was the verbal signal over the transmitter for the arrest team to move in. He kept his hand on the pot.

“Willie, what gives?” asked Bud from the backseat.

Tasker looked up and didn’t see anyone moving toward him. He knew that time seemed to stand still whenever an undercover agent gave the arrest signal, but this was ridiculous. Maybe they hadn’t heard him. He needed to give the visual sign, too. All he had to do was flash the lights, but the only way to manage that was to let go of the pot.

Gene finally pulled the pot brick loose, freeing Tasker to flash the lights.

“What are you doing?” asked Gene.

Tasker saw a blocking car coming from the south and then a couple of the agents sitting around the hotel bar and pool ease toward them. Then everything happened at once.

Gene flipped over the pot, Bud saw the activity outside the Suburban and pulled a Taurus nine-millimeter and Tasker knew he had to bail to stay out of the line of fire. He reached for the door handle.

Gene realized what the sticker was, and said, “He’s a fucking cop,” as he swung the brick hard into Tasker’s face, slamming his head against the window.

Bud panicked and slid to the rear driver’s-side door, away from the approaching agents and, without looking, kicked open the door and jumped out.

That was a mistake. A kid impressing a model in his dad’s Jaguar XJ-8 was taking advantage of a break in traffic and caught the slow-witted Bud clean at about forty miles an hour. The door to the Suburban and Bud seemed to mix into a crumpled mix of man and metal.

Tasker, coming out of his daze, saw Bud’s blood-streaked face, an eye already out of the socket smeared across his side window. The body, stuck on the grill of the Jag, slid past the end of the Suburban’s hood, then onto the pavement, until poor Bud slipped under the blue Jag’s wheels just as the kid brought it to a stop. Even Gene and the arrest team were momentarily stunned by the sight.

Then Gene made a ballsy move. He jumped into the backseat and out the missing door. He sprinted like a scared deer, his short legs pumping in fast motion. He shot past the stopped arrest team car and headed south down Ocean. Easily the fastest guy Tasker had ever seen in person.

Tasker got out, hearing another agent asking if he was okay. It still sounded like he was in an echo chamber. He nodded, waving the agent off to go chase Gene. Three other FDLE agents with their badges on chains around their necks and their heavy ballistic vests showing from under large untucked shirts gave chase to Gene, the would-be gun dealer.

Someone handed Tasker a handheld radio so he could hear the gasped description of where the chase was headed. Two agents were trying to free Bud’s lifeless corpse while the others fanned out to see if they could help corral Gene.

Tasker monitored the radio as he retrieved his gun from the battered Suburban and started walking west on a side street, still listening as the arrest team would lose, then find Gene. He pictured the foot chase and started to see a pattern. Gene wasn’t the dumb-ass he seemed. He had led the arrest team away from the hotel and now seemed to be heading back. Back to the truck, for which he still had the keys.

Tasker waited, and then, as the chase came back his way, ducked into the covered entrance for some construction going on a block west of the old run-down Clevelander. He quickly looked around and picked up a piece of scrap three-quarter-inch plywood about the size of his leg. He heard someone call out that Gene had turned down the street and Tasker caught a glimpse as he approached. He owed this mope a swat in the face, so without any warning he calmly stepped to the edge of the temporary construction wall and swung just as Gene appeared.

The old plywood split easily across Gene’s face, but the effect was spectacular. The short man flew back off his feet and landed with a splat on the cracked sidewalk.

Tasker leaned over the gasping, bleeding man and said, “You’re under arrest.”

The man scanned the clearing in both directions for a good two minutes. As quiet as he expected it on a Thursday afternoon. He’d used this open lime pit west of Krome Avenue once before, but the amateur shooters on the weekends made him nervous. He didn’t want someone he knew to wander by and recognize him. Even though people in the area mostly minded their own business, he liked to keep a very low profile. Except where women were concerned. That was definitely a weakness.

He stepped back from his experiment. The thick metal cap had just fit into his oversized step van with his business sign faded to almost nothing on the side. Although it had been fairly easy to drag out of the van, loading it at the scrap yard had been very difficult. The heat didn’t make it any easier. The tropical humidity and brutal sun sapped most of the energy out of him. Still, he did what he had to do.

Stepping back, he made sure the metal sheet was braced against a small tree. He had used only about a quarter of the explosives he had had for over two years. He had about ten ounces left and he had calculated that to be plenty for his plan. He realized that the four ounces in the suitcase had been too much and he’d obviously set the timer improperly. He’d been rash, only doing the one test out west of Hollywood. Now there were houses all around and he’d had to move down here. He still had the crease on his Corolla where the rebar had blown straight in the air and hit the car. It was his badge of honor.

He took no chances this time. He’d moved his van two hundred yards away. He had a transmitter that would allow him to detonate the homemade explosive remotely from at least that far.