Those are new.

“Don’t panic just yet,” he says.

I hop in, he hits the gas, and we head straight for my latest federal crime.

11

It was nearly four in the morning as Lloyd Harper flashed his ID and pulled

the tractor truck with the long empty trailer through the main gate at the Port

of Miami. Sure, he was tired — his side ached as the anesthetic wore off —

but he knew what was at stake. When he got the e-mail notification that the

hold was off, well, some rewards were better than cash.

He’d been at this long enough to know that juicy worms usually had a hidden

hook. And he’d lived in Miami long enough to know that if he got caught, the

payback would be unforgiving. But what the doctor said tonight: the pains

he’d been having in his shoulders and chest, plus the way his hands started

shaking over the past few years . . . He’d lost his wife, lost his family, in

prison they took his dignity — life had already taken so much from him. Was

it really so bad to try to get something back?

With a tap of the gas and a sharp right turn, Lloyd headed for the open metal

fence of the shipping yard, where dozens of forty-foot metal containers were

piled up on top of one another — rusted rectangular monoliths, each one as

long as a train car.

But as Lloyd tugged the wide steering wheel, a lightning bolt of pain knifed

his side. He told himself it was the bullet wound, but he knew the truth: just

seeing Cal tonight — seeing the white hair and the heartbroken eyes — just

like the ones that burned through him nineteen years ago. Tonight’s bullet

wound was nothing. The sharpest pains in life come from our own swords.

Lloyd had spent the past two decades building his shield, but this was one

blade he couldn’t stop.

“I’m here for GATH 601174-7,” Lloyd called out his window as he read the

container number from the yellow sheet.

Across the open lot, an older black man was sitting on a pyramid of three

boxes as he read yesterday’s newspaper. He didn’t bother looking up.

“Excuse me . . . sir . . .” Lloyd began.

“I ain’t deaf. My shift don’t start till four.”

Lloyd glanced at the digital clock on his dash: 3:58. Typical union.

“Okay, whatcha need?” the black man called out two minutes later,

approaching Lloyd’s truck and reaching up for the paperwork. “Lemme guess:

Startin’ this early — y’r trynna make Virginia by nightfall.”

“Something like that,” Lloyd replied.

From there, it didn’t take long for the man to find the rust-colored forty-foot

container with 601174-7 painted on the outside or to climb on his forklift and

load it onto the back of Lloyd’s tractor trailer. To be safe, Lloyd came out to

check the numbers for himself. And the seal they put on the back to make

sure the container hadn’t been opened during transit.

As he was about to climb back in his cab, he took a quick glance around the

metal towers of the container yard. No one in sight. Back in the driver’s seat,

he checked again, peering in his rearview as he shifted the truck through the

first few gears and headed for the exit. And he checked again as he drove

toward the final security checkpoint — a three-story-tall radiation portal

monitor that looked like an enormous upside-down letter U. The detector was

new, designed to catch smuggled nuclear devices. Everyone who left the port

had to drive through it. For a moment, Lloyd edged his foot toward the

brakes.

He held his breath as he approached the detector. The truck bounced slightly.

Slowly rolling forward, he kept his eye on the red and green bulbs that were

embedded in the roof of the detector. Once again, a bolt of pain burned at his

side. But when the green light blinked, he smiled, slammed the gas, and

never looked back.

And that’s why, as the eighteen-wheeler climbed and lumbered over the

bridge toward Miami . . . and as he stared into the darkness, searching for

the coming sunrise . . . Lloyd Harper didn’t notice the white, unmarked Crown

Vic that was trailing a few hundred feet behind him.

“Think he knows what he’s hauling in back?” Timothy asked.

“I don’t really care,” Cal replied from the passenger seat, never taking his

eyes off his father’s truck. “But we’re about to find out.”

12

“Guns or drugs — gotta be,” Timothy says as my dad’s eighteen-wheeler

makes a slow, sharp left toward the entrance for I-95. We’re at least three

football fields behind him, with our lights still off. But at four-thirty in the

morning, with only a few cars between us, he’s impossible to miss.

“Maybe your dad’s container—”

“Maybe it’s not my dad’s. For all I know, he’s just another feeb doing a

pickup.”

“But if you thought that, would you really have shown up at three in the

morning? Or would he have shown up at four, fresh from his new bullet

wound? I know you can’t bring yourself to say it — and I know it was just a

random hold — but you should be worried about him,” Timothy says. “Don’t

apologize, Cal. I got twin teenage girls — and no matter how much they hate

me, only monsters would let their father take a beating. In fact, it’s not that

different from Deirdre—”

“Can we just focus on what’s in the shipment? Please.”

To his credit, Timothy lets it go. And I try my best to ignore my crooked

pinkies.

According to the bill of lading, GATH 601174-7 is a refrigerated container

that’s (supposedly) carrying 3,850 pounds of frozen shrimp coming

(supposedly) from Panama. My dad definitely gets credit for that. In the world

of smuggling — drugs or anything else — you never know when you’ll be

inspected. But if you want to improve your odds, pick a quiet, seafood producing

country (like Panama), fill the container with one of its top exports

(like shrimp), and make sure it’s refrigerated (because once it’s listed as

“perishable,” it’ll move twice as fast through inspection).

This isn’t just about some really good shrimp.

“Turn for the worse,” Timothy says, motioning to the truck.

The shipment was scheduled to be delivered to a warehouse in Coral Gables.

That’s south of here. Which is why I’m surprised to see him heading for the

on-ramp of I-95 North.

“Maybe he’s smuggling people,” Timothy says.

“It’s not people,” I tell him, surprised by my own defensiveness. “You said

the shipment checked out fine. No buzzers ringing; no dogs barking. If he

were smuggling people, audio would’ve picked up the heartbeats.”

“Then what? Plastic nuclear triggers? F-14 parts? Stolen Picassos? What can

you possibly hide amidst four thousand pounds of frozen shrimp?”

I don’t bother answering. During our first year as agents, Timothy and I

ripped open a suspicious crate and found two hundred snakes with their

anuses sewed shut, their stomachs filled with diamonds they’d been forced to

swallow. There’s no end to what people will try to hide.

Next to us on the highway, an orange taxi blows by us, then races past my

dad and disappears in the horizon of night. “So you never looked him up?”

Timothy asks.

“Pardon?”

“Your dad. All those years at ICE — you had access to computers that could

find the addresses, phone numbers, and birthmarks of every known felon in

the country. You never took a glance to see where your missing dad was

living or what he was up to?”

I stare at the outline of my father’s truck in the distance and can’t help but

picture our client Alberto whispering to his father’s ashes in that rusted old RC

Cola can. “No,” I say. “Never did.”

Timothy turns my way and studies me as I fidget with the stray wires that run

down from the blue lights on his dash. There’s no end to what people will try

to hide.

Twenty minutes later, the sky’s still black, my dad’s still ahead, and the

highway — as we blow past the exits of Fort Lauderdale — is dotted with the

first batch of early risers.

“You think he sees us?” Timothy asks as my dad veers toward the exit that

sends us west on I-595.

“If he saw us, he’d try to lose us. Or at least slow down to get a better look.”

It’s a fair point. But as my dad once again clicks his blinker, I realize we’ve

got a brand-new problem. The exit and highway signs say I-75, but every

local knows the thin stretch of road known as Alligator Alley.

“Why am I not surprised?” Timothy asks as we follow the exit and no other

cars follow behind us. “Cal, I need to call for backup.”

“And where do you plan on hiding me?” I ask as the grass and trees on the

side of the road give way to miles of muddy swampland.

Connecting Florida’s east and west coasts, the narrow and mostly abandoned

lanes of Alligator Alley plow straight through the mosquito marshes known as

the Everglades. To protect the land, the road has no gas stations, though it is

lined with metal fences to keep the ample alligator population from getting hit

by cars and . . . well . . . eating people.

“There’s no way you’re leaving me out here,” I tell Timothy.

He doesn’t argue. He’s too busy realizing that at barely five a.m., with the

December sky as black as the road in front of us, there’s no one on Alligator

Alley but us. It’s like driving full speed through a cave.

“Cal, I have to put the lights on.”

“Don’t!” I shout as he reaches for the switch. My dad’s truck is still a good

half mile in front of us — two faint red dragon’s eyes staring back from the

depths of the cave. But with no other cars to hide behind . . . “He’ll see us.”

“Then he’ll see us. But I can’t drive like this. I wouldn’t worry, though —

we’re so far, he’ll never make us out.”

With a twist, Timothy flicks on the lights, and the gray road appears in front

of us. I wait for the dragon’s eyes to glow brighter . . . for my dad to panic

and hit the brakes . . . but he just keeps moving. It doesn’t make me feel any

better. I pull out my cell phone to check the time. The bars for my signal fade

from four . . . three . . . two . . . just a tiny X. No signal.

“If you want, we can turn back,” Timothy offers. “Have them call in the

helicopters and—”

“No,” I insist. I lost my father once. Now that he’s back, I need to know why.

“I’m fine,” I tell him.

“I didn’t ask that, Cal.”

“Just stay with him,” I add, squinting into the night and never losing sight of

the dragon’s eyes.

For the next few miles, we chase him deeper down the desolate road, which I

swear narrows with each mile marker. By the time we hit mile marker twenty two,

we’re so deep in the Everglades, the black sky presses down like a circus

tent after they’ve yanked the main pole.

“This was stupid of us,” Timothy says. “What if this was the whole point: to

lead us out where there’re no witnesses, no one to protect us, and only one

way to get in or out?”

I’ve known Timothy a long time. He rarely lets a hair get out of place. But as

he grips the steering wheel, I see a clump of them matted by sweat on his

forehead. “Listen, Timothy, if this were an ambush—”

Out in the darkness, halfway between us and my dad, two other red dragon’s

eyes pop open.

“Cal—”

“I see it.”

We both lean forward, tightening our squints. It’s another car. Parked on the

side of the road from the looks of it.

Without a word, Timothy pumps the brakes and shuts the lights. I assume

he’s trying to use the darkness to hide us — but in the distance, the new

dragon’s eyes shake and rumble . . . then shrink away from us. This new car

— it’s got no interest in us. It takes off, chasing my dad.

“Maybe that’s his buyer. Or his girlfriend.”

A burst of blue light explodes from the new car. I blink once, then again,

making sure I see it right. Damn.

“Cops,” Timothy agrees. “State troopers, I bet. They love Alligator Alley as a

speed trap.”

Sure enough, the new car zips forward, a blazing blue firefly zigzagging

toward my dad’s truck. The dragon’s eyes on the eighteen-wheeler go bright

red as my dad hits the brakes. But it’s not until they both slow down and pull

off onto the shoulder of the road that we finally get our first good look.

“You sure that’s a cop car?” Timothy asks.

I lean forward in the passenger seat, my fingertips touching the dash and my

forehead almost touching the front windshield. That’s not a car. It’s a van.

And not a police van. No, the siren’s not on top. The blue light pulses from

within, lighting up the two back windows where the tint is peeling.

I lean in closer. My forehead taps the windshield.

There’s a swarm of rust along the back.

My tongue swells in my mouth, and I can barely breathe.

What the hell’s my van doing out here?