Fuse of Armageddon Read Online Free PDF Page B

nose or scratched her chin. “It’s obviously not a practical joke. Call it now?”
    Kate checked the signal strength on her cell phone. “I hate being set up, but how much choice do we have now?”
    Frank shrugged. “By the book, Kate. The dispatcher’s got it all recorded. You don’t make the call, someone will wonder why.”
    Kate gave the body one last flash with the beam. A few more flies rocketed off the body and threatened Kate’s airspace. She grimaced again and dialed the number.
    Kate expected the cell phone reception to quit midway through the ringing of the number she’d just dialed. She hated the unpredictability of cell phones, hated that she’d grown dependent on them despite her mistrust of the technology. She didn’t like being dependent on anything or anyone.
    The signal was strong. A woman’s voice answered. “Yes.”
    Kate was mad at herself for assuming it would be a man on the other end. Gender stereotyping at its best.
    “Hey,” Kate grunted, hoping to get some identity without having to reveal herself. She stepped back from the van as she spoke. Now flies were coming in from all around, over her shoulders, headed straight to the dead body. Superpowers. This early in the day and every fly within a hundred square miles knew about it.
    “Who is this?” the voice on the other end said.
    “A friend.” Kate was playing this one blind.
    “Who is this?”
    “You don’t have any friends?” Kate said, lifting her eyebrows in Frank’s direction.
    “Why are you calling?” No friendliness in the woman’s voice. As if Kate were clairvoyant about the woman’s lack of friends. With attitude like this, Kate could understand why the woman was so lonely.
    “It’s a long story,” Kate said. In the background, she could hear a sound like the clicking of a keyboard. Was the woman on the other end in front of a computer?
    “Make it about five seconds longer.”
    “Huh?” Kate said.
    “Caller ID.”
    Kate shook her head. Her cell was unlisted. No way the person on the other end could—
    “Katherine Louise Penner,” the voice said. “Boulder City. Interesting. Phone owned by the police department. That mean you’re a cop? How’d you get this number, and why are you calling?”
    “How in—?”
    “Faster computers than anything you have in the sticks.”
    “ You start talking,” Kate said, going from bewildered to mad in a hurry. “If you have anything to do with what’s in front of me, we’re on you like a ton of bricks.”
    “Bad cliché aside, you really have no idea, do you?”
    “No idea about what?”
    “See what I mean?”
    Kate rode her temper like a wave. “Start talking, lady, or—”
    “Recognize the DC area code? That should be a clue.” The click, click, click of the woman’s keyboarding continued. “By the way, don’t call me lady.”
    “Look,” Kate said, “I’ve got someone who looks like a dead Arab in front of me covered in blood, and you’re the number I was told to call when I found it. I can track you down and then we’ll see how much you like playing these games. Can you spell accessory ?”
    “Hang on.” The woman’s voice lost its edge. “Dead Arab? Covered in blood? Upside-down?”
    “Yeah.” Kate got quiet too. How’d the woman on the other end know the body was upside-down? Why was she more curious about the body than the fact that her number had been included with the tip that led to the body?
    “What’s on his back?” the voice asked.
    “What?”
    “His back. Can you see it?”
    “No,” Kate said.
    “Find something to spin the body around.”
    “What?”
    “If I’m going to have to keep repeating myself, I’m going to get in a lot worse mood. Trust me, Katie, you’re not going to like that. Not—” more clicking of the keyboard in the background—“with a résumé like yours. Seems like you managed to make every official with any weight in Vegas want you dead. I guarantee if you mess with me, this is the one stunt