Tense from his buzz cut brown hair to the razor creases of his suit slacks, FBI Agent Paul Stark glances at his own watch, nods silently, and narrows his blue eyes on the door of the even narrower Port Authority office.
"Chill out, Terra." Terra's partner, Darwin, nudges her arm and flashes the very white teeth in his very geometrical Korean face. "No action until tomorrow, unless you have plans I don't know about."
Terra glares at him, just missing Stark's glance like a racquet swipe, swift and hard, and a molten hot flash of amber. "Shut up, Dee."
Action arrives five minutes later. The metal door bangs the wall when a chocolate giant bursts in, bangs again when a pink faced uniformed officer trails behind like the last boy picked for dodge ball.
"Problem, O'Neil?" Stark asks.
"Just the Harbor boys putting the dick in jurisdiction," Lieutenant James Harlowe answers. He glances over his leather clad shoulder and slaps O'Neil with a stare that turns the portly port officer into a tomato.
"Jurisdiction is always a problem," Stark sighs. "Since we're all well acquainted with the NOPD . . . Officer Patrick O'Neil, Agents Darwin Moon and Terra Jones from ATF." He swipes his pen to his right, up Darwin's stocky compact build and down to Terra's petite five feet three inches. "Agent John Mason," he adds, pointing to the tall, lean man in a baggy brown suit on his right, "my sidekick." The room snickers.
"I love a good reunion, Stark, but at a quarter to eleven?" Harlowe perches on the edge of the table; his khaki covered knee brushes Terra's denim hip. "Didn't see enough of me at the briefing today, darlin'?" He grins when she scratches her short coffee colored hair and gives him the finger behind her head.
"There's been a change." Stark braces his hands on either side of the oversized map centered under a dangling floodlight. "We're moving the raid up to oh four hundred, tomorrow." He pauses for the indrawn breaths and quizzical glances; his eyes land hard on Darwin's boyish face like a serve expecting a volley. "O'Neil — block off everything from Henderson to Julia St. Everything." His pen draws a square on the map. "I want the Convention Center sealed off. The first cruise doesn't come in until nine; no one gets around to the boat docks until seven. Harlowe —scratch the roof coverage—"
"What?" Harlowe barks.
"No snipers?" Terra whispers to Darwin; her gaze cuts across Stark and stops on Mason's sharp scrolled brow. He blinks languidly, blankly.
"No; hostility's unlikely." Stark serves a glance to Terra. Her brow furrows; she looks at Darwin.
Darwin snickers. "Chain those SWAT dogs, Harlowe."
"SWAT, uniforms, whatever," Stark mumbles. "I just want NOPD moving. We've got 2100 square feet of explosives to seize in three hours. Plans, O'Neil." Stark extends his hand; he drops the building plans on the table and uncurls them over the map. "The port-side door stays closed; there'll be too many boats out there. This loading door will be open." He pinpoints the left wall of the warehouse.
"How about there on the right, the alley door? We'll be hustling with the just the one," Harlowe comments.
"Then get ready to hustle," Stark snaps. "Port surveillance only covers the southwest corner; we're blind on the port side and the alley. Moon and Jones are on guard; your boys will load up and transport to the FBI field office, not ATF."
Harlowe smirks at Darwin and Terra. "Juris-dick-tion," he drawls.
"All the real work's done," Terra retorts, folding her honey brown arms over her blue ATF t shirt. "We tracked the freight; FBI got the seizure order. Think you boys can actually carry the shit?"
"So," Stark interrupts, "advise your teams, Harlowe, and meet here at oh three hundred. We have to get in and out so the port opens on time."
"For the first time ever." Harlowe winks at O'Neil and then circles his midnight gaze around the table. "Catch ya'll federal fat cats at three." His bald head dips toward a cell phone as he turns and strolls out.
"That's it?" O'Neil blusters.
"Yes. Oh three hundred, O'Neil. Zero access."
"That's a wrap." Darwin crosses behind Terra and slaps her bare arm. "I'm out."
"Hold up, Dee — I need to holler at you a minute. Stark, Mason — in the a.m."
Stark's blue eyes and Mason's light brown ones trail her out the door. Stark's stare becomes a glare when he turns to Mason. "Roll around in the dirt and you'll get dirty."
Mason sweeps his sleek black hair away from his amused eyes. "She's clean."
"You figure that out from interrogating her at nights?"
Mason's square chin softens with a smile despite the cool expression on his tanned face, still smooth at this hour unlike Stark's pale stubbly cheeks. "What interests you most — what she's doing, or who she's doing?"
Stark's black tie skates the map as he leans forward. "We're here to get the mole, first and foremost."
"I am well aware of the FBI objectives, Agent Stark," Mason mocks formally. "So don't waste your manpower: she's clean."
"Someone here isn't. She could know something."
"So could you. Yet you've been putting on this show for a month and you haven't found your lead." Mason's sarcastic voice strolls slowly like his feet towards the door. "What are you going to tell the Bureau?"
"That our little cooperative effort is falling way short of cooperation, you smug son of a bitch," Stark grits, yanking the collar of his white dress shirt.
"What would you like me to do? You're dropping bait like cannon balls. 'No hostility; no serious surveillance'." Mason snickers. "The smart fish swim away, Stark."
Stark snorts as he shrugs on his jacket, pats his pockets, reaches for his briefcase. "We'll see."
"Staking out again?"
"Yes, and I expect you to come running if I call. If I can find my goddamn cell phone!" Stark rolls the building plans and the map into a bat; he points the bat at Mason. "If she goes down, I don't want any problems."
Mason shrugs as he turns the doorknob. "Your show, your problem. I'm just the sidekick, remember?"
"You don't want a ride back to the hotel?"
"I'm taking my girlfriend for a romantic walk along the river," Mason calls over his shoulder.
"Smartass," Stark mumbles.
The loose hinged door swings within an inch of Terra's face. She holds her breath, presses her back to the damp vinyl siding as the door slowly squeaks shut. No one is there. Her ears prick. Nothing. Terra skates past the door and peers around the corner. Empty space and silence; no footsteps, no sound but her own breathing. Her garnet eyes light afire, narrow; she turns back, dips under the illuminated office window and stops at the opposite corner under a gilt-lettered, rotting wood sign that reads, "New Orleans Port Authority." Terra peeks around the corner, takes inventory of a black Crown Victoria and a pearl blue 1976 Camaro. She pops her bubble gum lips. "How in the—"
"You're such an easy mark." Mason's whisper fills her ear like smoke, thick and deadly, his hand stifling over her mouth. He kicks the soles of her boots, propelling her along; his belt buckle digs into her back, his arm into the soft space beneath her ribs when he lifts her from the ground.
A quick right around the corner, a quick sleight of hand, and Terra is pressed to the back of the building, her breath against his palm steamy like the sultry Mississippi sleeping behind them. The palm gives way to two fingers pressed to her lips. Terra opens her mouth and bites down.
"Sss." Mason's thumb and index finger pinch her cheeks, making her pursed lips pouty. He pinches harder; her lips part, and his tongue penetrates. His posture sags when she grabs his belt buckle. Terra cuts her heel behind his, pivots and pins him, only to be picked up, turned, and pressed to the wall again. Mason pulls her to the corner, right to the edge.
"Somebody's going to see."
"Maybe," he grunts, popping the button fly of her jeans. "Maybe Stark. He wants to watch."
"He said something?"
"He asked if we're sleeping together." His mouth descends to capture the first moan as one finger and then another finds its way home. "'We aren't sleeping together,' I said, 'but we frequently fuck behind buildings and in the backs of cars.' Nuh uh. Nope. You know what I want." Mason pries her hand away from his belt, draws it behind her head, then the other. "You're under arrest for indecent exposure." Her narrow oval belly spasms when he yanks up her t shirt. There is a snap, a soft suck as his mouth fills with chocolate. "Terra," he sings. "What do I want, Terra?" Another smokey whisper hot in the hollow of her ear; her face tightens as her teeth grind. "What do I want to hear?"
"You're my favorite john, John."
Mason snorts, licks a bead of sweat from her nose. His amused eyes flick to the parking lot and back. "Try again."
"I'm so wet," Terra hisses.
"You are, in fact."
"I want you so bad right now."
"I want something too." His head cocks delicately to one side as he studies her strained expression. He looks back at the parking lot. "Say it."
Terra's teeth surge. "Mmm!"
"Almost. Say it, Terra. Say it now while you feel it. Now."
Her hips flop against the siding, then her head; rapid pants pulse through her lips. "I can't even remember why I like you until after."
"Maybe you don't."
"Yeah, maybe I don't," she murmurs, watching as his fingers slide out of his mouth. "Nasty." Terra raises her hand to his face, too angular for a peasant, too ethnic for aristocracy. "Where'd you come from?"
"Your dreams." Mason cradles her face and kisses her, his gaze locked on the parking lot, his eyes suddenly yellow and predatory like an owl. "Let's go out to eat. Meet me at the Marigny on Frenchman St in an hour."
"Let's walk through the Quarter. It's nice out."
"You need to change clothes."
"You didn't care what I was wearing a minute ago."
"Panties specifically." His eyes imperceptibly shift, catching the red flash of taillights. "How about it?"
"Bet that," Terra replies, her head dipped to her jeans, to the hazy red reflection on the wet cement. She snaps her bra and pulls her shirt down. "Where's your car? You want a ride?"
"I walked from the Hilton."
"Huh. Well, you better change too." She socks his arm before moving toward her Camaro. "That's a big ass, ugly ass suit."
The Camaro's roar covers the click of Mason's footsteps across the empty parking lot. He watches Terra through the rear window; her spiky short shag flicks left and right before she turns and drives away. He continues to stroll down the long service road between the Convention Center and the docks, weaving in and out of concrete posts, his shadow fading into the shade of conjoined buildings, reappearing in halos of fluorescent light, and then disappearing. Mason ducks behind a dumpster and strips down to the black neoprene beneath his suit; the brown polyester and brown leather shoes become trash. A plastic watch replaces a metal one, withdrawn from a zipper pocket at his thigh along with a pair of goggles that snap over his hair. He drops to his knees and fishes a small plastic sack from beneath the dumpster. Rubber and mesh shoes go on his feet; the remaining contents he stuffs into his wet suit before zipping up, turning, and cutting across the service road to the Convention Center.
Mason finds Stark parked just inside the main gate, the black Crown Victoria hidden in the darkness of an overhanging pavilion arch. He walks right up to the car and opens the driver's side; his arm shoots out to prevent Stark's body from falling to the ground. With a pair of tweezers retrieved from the zipper pocket, Mason pries a grainy disc the size of a bottle cap from the air vent. One hand cracks the window and shuts the door while the other inserts an ear piece and draws down a microphone. "Mason — I'm on site," he rumbles over a cough as he drops the disc into a small vial.
"Stark?"
"Stark is in the dark."
"Fine. Proceed to the warehouse and verify the contents of the crate. Report back when you have confirmation."
Mason nods silently before removing the head piece and placing it in the sack with his tools and his gun. "Going for a swim." He yanks the wet suit zip and then wraps on the window. "Keep an eye out."
Neither of Stark's eyes open when Terra wraps on the door fifteen minutes later. "Stark?" She opens the door, grunts when his head hits her sternum; her fingertips press to his throat. Coughing, she pushes him across the bench seat before grabbing her cell phone; her mouth tightens as she paces away from the open door. "Dee — something's up at the Port. I don't know," she snaps over the Camaro's idling engine. "Stark called me; now he's knocked . . . whoa." Terra's gaze cuts through the gate's iron bars to the warehouse, to the flood-lit southwest corner, to the door open in the shadow saturated east alley. "Dee, call Harbor police. Someone's in the warehouse." Her voice huffs as she runs around her car and yanks open the door. "I'll see what I can see; get back-up here now." Terra cuts the lights and then the ignition; she pockets the keys and scrambles toward the gate.
"ARMED." Five deadly letters in a calm blue-lit digital display draw a blink from Mason, another blink for the exposed wires at his fingertips. "What the . . ." He falls silent at the hammering of footsteps in the stillness outside. His footfalls are silent as he rises and walks out under cover of the open door, river water rather than sweat dripping from his nose as he peers through the hinges. His gun precedes him to the doorknob.
POP! Terra dodges right away from the bullet zinging over her left shoulder. She slams into the building next to the warehouse, taking cover; raw brick scrapes her cheek as moves to squint around the corner. POP! "Shit!"
"I have to abort," Mason grits. "I'm about to get blown, literally." He fires again as he thumps down the alley toward the river.
"Did you verify the contents?"
"No time!"
"Exit, Mason. Report back when you're clear."
Tire squeals mask his retreating footsteps. A black and gold Harbor Police cruiser screams down the service road; Terra jumps up, flailing her arms. "Take cover! I'm under fire!"
Doors fly open to shield O'Neil and another uniformed officer who drop to the ground with guns drawn. O'Neil snakes across the pavement from the passenger side to Terra. "What the hell is going on?"
"Stark called me in! I—"
"I saw you on surveillance jumping the gate. What happened to Stark?" O'Neil demands.
"O'Neil, somebody . . ." Concrete cracks; mangled metal cuts across her voice as the alley door slams into the adjacent building like a playing card caught on the wind. Terra doesn't hear the hiss of explosives igniting, but she sees the sinister flare of light that swamps the alley; her ears feel the shrill whistle just before the ravaged warehouse roof cannon-booms.
