Live Wire by Cristin Harber

car.
    Another Russian walked to a third vehicle, and the cars made their own little caravan as they pulled out of the parking lot.
    Sugar rubbed her protruding belly. “They’re playing line leader, and everyone wants to go home?”
    “Smart-ass.” The cop grimaced. “There goes Tahiti.”
    “Parker, what’re you hearing?” Jared asked through the encrypted channel on Sugar’s speakerphone on the center console.
    “Nothing on the wires.”
    “Zellers?” her husband snapped. “Where are they going?”
    “Jeez. Let me just snap up my mob-mind-reader and check.”
    “Asshole. Clearly you’re not in control of the situation. Task force is done. Titan is in.”
    “Look,” Zellers grumbled. “Titan means red tape. You guys cause your share of problems.”
    “Like not reporting a hostage situation to your superiors?” Parker asked, sounding none too thrilled with the direction the conversation was taking.
    “Alright,” Sugar interrupted. “Clearly, we’re not all playing nicely—”
    “Hang on, I’m hearing something.” Parker paused. “What do you know about…?”
    “What?” Jared snapped.
    “Give me a second. I’m trying to figure out what the hell they’re talking about.”
    “Damn it, Parker.”
    “My wife’s in that car,” Parker said. “Chill a second, Boss Man.”
    Jared shut his trap. Score one for Parker. Sugar waited to see what Parker would find. He worked fine under pressure or when Jared was yacking down his neck. He could handle this situation with Lexi, but still, he worked better when no one screwed with him.
    “Zellers…” Parker’s unsteady voice didn’t bode well for whatever he had figured out. “What do you know about a chemical called Chepetsk?”
    Zellers’s head dropped. “Goddamn it.”
    “What?” Sugar asked.
    He rubbed his temples. “If that’s what this is about, we actually do have a problem, and I have to call my new wife and beg for forgiveness. I’m not going anywhere today.”
    “ What is it ? ” Jared jumped in.
    “Chepetsk isn’t a chemical. It’s a place. A city. Kirovo-Chepetsk.”
    “Yeah. That.” Parker agreed. “What’s the deal?”
    “There’s a chemical plant there. It’s on a couple of converging rivers. They make fertilizers. The waste hit the water stream, and the company pays off whoever they need to pay off to make the stuff illegal and profitable. The stuff is poison; the town folks drink it.”
    “So why are they in Maryland fighting over it?” Jared asked.
    “Searching everything I can find now,” Parker said. “Other than the obvious, fertilizer can be used to make explosives. But why we’re talking about it is another question.”
    “They hired a scientist from these parts, basically, and brought him in from wherever—Iowa, Nebraska, I don’t know—against his will. Who knows the whole story—whether the guy thought he signed on for a good job and it turned bad, or a bad job and he got in over his head—but the Feds caught wind.”
    “Caught wind how and when?” Jared asked.
    Zellers blew out and stretched in the driver’s seat, putting the car in drive and merging into traffic as they followed the caravan from a good-enough distance. “Not sure, exactly. We have a bit of a communication issue.”
    “Shocking,” Jared said.
    Zellers ignored him. “From what I’ve heard, the Feds grabbed him, got what they needed from him. So now he’s gone, and to the Gornovsky folks, the guy is missing, and they’re turning on each other.”
    “ Missing , as in witness protection? Or missing , as in the scientist dude is bled out somewhere for snitching?”
    Zellers shrugged. “Missing. What does it matter?”
    Jared growled. “They’re fighting over this guy, and you people lost him? He could be in Russia.”
    “Not my people.”
    “Freaking bureaucracy,” Jared snapped. “Where is he? Is he out of the country? With a Russian faction?”
    “Not likely. He’s not Russian—just, ya know, does well with