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of finesse never hurts”
Many ates of the Keystone Tree Far painted white with a green s both sh to acco lot held a few dusty pickup trucks, a compact car and a black Escalade SUV The three climbed out of the Vic and headed to a door marked “Office”
A pluht jeans directed thee man sat behind a metal desk, a phone to his ear He waved thee the man said into the phone, “I’ll have to call you back”
He put down the receiver, rose, tucked in his shirt where it had ridden out and said, “Can I see that badge again?”
Gross e out to theseconds Even after the h to convey the significance of their presence
“What can I do for you?” said the man uneasily
Gross said, “A naood for starters”
The man cleared his throat, “Lloyd, Lloyd Wilder”
“And you run this place?”
“I’m the foreman, yeah Ten years now What’s this about?”
Gross perched on the edge of the ainst one wall and Chapman sat in a chair All of them peered at Wilder, ed nervously and nearly fell back into his chair
“Look,” Wilder began, “those guys told al Okay, maybe they didn’t have all the paperwork, but do you kno much red tape there is? Take h the stuff, and I can’t find anybody else willing to do this sort of work and—”
Stone, catching on to this before Gross did, said coldly, “We’re not with Iration The shield said FBI, not ICE”
Wilder looked from one to the other “FBI?”
Gross leaned down so his face was uncomfortably close to Wilder’s “FBI That fellow over there is with the counterterrorism folks The lady with MI6 out of the UK”
Wilder eyed Chapman with an incredulous look “MI6 Like James Bond?”
“Better than Bond, actually,” said Chapman “Like dear James on steroids”
Gross added, “And we could give a crap about your illegal aliens, but if you don’t cooperate ICE sure will be interested”
Wilder’s face sagged “But if you ain’t here about them, what are you here about?”
“You watch the news?”
“Yeah, I check out ESPN every night”
“I mean the real news”
“Oh, I mean some days Why?”
“Explosion at Lafayette Park?” added Gross “You hear about that?”
“Hell yes It’s all over the place”
They all stared at him pointedly and he looked back, puzzled
“But what’s that got to do with me?” he finally blurted out
“We believe the bomb was planted in the tree that came from this place of business”
“Corinned weakly “Wait a ht? This is some kind of joke, ain’t it?”
Gross oes off that close to the president of the United States, I can’t find anything remotely funny about it, Mr Wilder Can you?”
The suys really are cops?”
“We really are And ant to kno a boot in one of your trees”
As the full weight of as happening descended on hi “Oh Jesus Oh sweet Jesus” Theback and forth