Final Vector by Allan Leverone

Nick. Lisa was dead, and she wasn't coming back.
    Nothing changed that. The FBI could have her fucking computer forever if they wanted it. They could wipe it clean or not; he didn't care. He certainly wasn't about to use it or even look at what was on it. At least not now and maybe not ever. It was just too painful.
    Nick walked into the master bedroom and retrieved Lisa's laptop. He handed it to the two agents, who gathered up everything on the coffee table and headed toward the door.
    Agent Delaney had still not said a word during the entire visit.
    Nick decided maybe they weren't playing a good-cop/bad-cop routine at all, but rather Agent Cunningham was the one with the brains in the partnership, and the man knew it. Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt and all that.
    The pair paused at the front door. "We'll get everything back to you as soon as we can," Agent Cunningham said again almost apologetically. "Thank you for making that call to the police. You did the right thing. Hopefully we can use this information to help avert a serious tragedy before it occurs."
    The FBI agents stepped out the door and into the cool night.
    Nick could hear the lonely sound of crickets chirping in the front yard, and a lump rose in his throat. He was thankful the agents were on their way out.
    "Thanks again, and enjoy the rest of your evening, Mr. Jensen."
    He almost reminded her again to call him Nick but didn't bother. He watched them walk to their unmarked car, then closed the door and prepared to face another night alone. Enjoying his evening was out of the question. Nick's goal was simply to get through it.

Chapter 18
    The full moon shone brightly down from the glittering nighttime sky, casting an eerie glow over the scrub brush littering the desert floor, its pale white light providing a stark illumination of the sparse Arizona scenery. Visibility was close to that of daytime, even though it was well past midnight. The landscape appeared alien, almost lunar in nature, despite the fact that the Tucson city limits were only a few miles to the northwest.
    Vehicular travel over this portion of the two-lane county road was nearly nonexistent; most people on the roads at this time of night preferred the wider lanes and high speed limits of the interstate highway that followed a more or less parallel course, weaving through the countryside of the Southwest just a few miles away.
    On this deserted highway, heavy black smoke poured from the scene of a recent automobile accident. Two late-model sedans had come together almost precisely in the middle of the road, and both cars were slewed sideways, apparently from their desperate and unsuccessful last-second attempt at avoiding each other. Now the road was almost completely blocked, with little more than a narrow passageway available on either side.
    Two miles east, moving slowly in the direction of the accident, an olive green military transport truck with a large cargo bed covered by heavy-gauge camouflage canvas lumbered past a gigantic billboard advertising Joanne's Diner--Bottomless Cup of Coffee with Trucker's Breakfast Special! Immediately after the truck passed, two men emerged from behind the sign, walking quickly through the moonlit semidarkness to the center of the highway.
    Dimitrios carried over his shoulder a large Road Closed sign bordered with reflective tape. He placed it in the center of the highway, facing east, while Brian carried an armful of orange rubber traffic cones and placed one every six feet along the pavement, moving outward from the large sign in both directions until the entire road was blocked off.
    The men worked quickly and efficiently, and inside of forty-five seconds, they had completed the task of eliminating any ve-hicular access to the crash scene. Out to the west of the staged auto accident, identical signage had already been set up, complete with rubber cones blocking off access to the four-mile