Learning to Stand

by Claudia Hall Christian

  Until a year ago.

  A year ago, Bobby uncovered Cee Cee’s environmental disaster. Behind the Board’s back, Cee Cee got involved in oil production from shale in South America. He had poisoned an entire region before anyone at Pecos Oil knew what he was doing. A thousand or more children died of mercury poisoning in a small valley near the edge of Brazil and Peru.

  Bobby went to the site. He took photos of the wreckage including mercury poisoning in the well water and documented the deaths of the children. The Board of Directors was incensed. They began conversations with the elders of the region and the Brazilian government. Clean up was going to cost Pecos Oil a bundle but as a family business, the Board was dedicated to making things right.

  In the meantime, his baby girl had grown into a beautiful teenager. She had lots of interest from those horny Texas boys. His baby girl only wanted on boy: Tristan Joiner. She pined for him for a year before Tristan noticed her or said hello. They went steady for six months before Tristan asked Beth Ann to a junior high school dance. Beth Ann begged her parents to let her go.

  Bobby and Estefanie talked. Estefanie liked the boy and Tristan reminded Bobby of Cecil Sr. Tristan was polite, kind and he treated Beth Ann like a Queen. What more could a father want?

  In an effort to be good parents, Bobby and his wife Estefanie invited Tristan’s mother, Buffy Joiner, to dinner. A simple invitation: ‘Come for dinner. Let’s talk about our kids.’ That’s all.

  Bobby was fired from Pecos Oil the next day. Cee Cee Joiner stood in front of Bobby beaming from ear to ear as he said the words: ‘You’re fired, asshole.’

  Pecos Oil forbids personal relationships within the company. It was a stretch but Cee Cee said Tristan and Beth Ann’s relationship violated company policy.

  Bobby received almost twenty job offers in as many hours. He picked the best job and the family moved to Long Beach. They weren’t there two weeks when Tristan appeared on their doorstep. Bobby knew what it was like to be alone at fifteen so he took the boy in. His mother told them they could keep Tristan for all she cared. So they did.

  Tristan fit right into their family life. Of course, they had to make firm rules for Beth Ann and Tristan. And for the most part, the kids were pretty good about following them.

  Alex shook her head. She was missing something. Something big. Rubbing her forehead, Alex wasn’t sure where to begin to look for what she was missing.

  At least no one had tried to kill her in the last… two days? Yeah, two days since getting blown up in the tunnels. Alex was so lost in thought she jumped when her brand new, acquired thirty minutes ago, cell phone rang.

  “Alexandra?” A woman’s voice yelled over what sounded like a plane engine.

  “This is Lieutenant Colonel Hargreaves,” Alex said.

  “Honey, it’s Charlene… Charlene O’Brien,” Charlene’s voice shifted to speak to someone close to her. “Yes, that’s correct. You can speak with her.”

  “Alex? I’m going to give you the Nicaraguan National Police Chief. Her name is Aminta Granera.”

  “Is this Lieutenant Colonel Hargreaves?” A woman’s voice came on the phone.

  “Yes ma’am,” Alex replied in Spanish. “How can I be of assistance?”

  “Mrs. O’Brien’s home has been burglarized,” the police chief replied in Spanish. “She is flustered but otherwise appears to be well. You placed her on our protect and watch list a couple years ago?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “According to her request, we have secured a plane to take her to the United States.”

  “Where should we meet her?”

  “She will arrive at your Buckley Air Force base in four hours,” the police chief said. Her tone dropped to a whisper, “And Alex? She’s really freaked out. She won’t tell us what’s going on or even what was taken, but she’s terrified. I’ll send one of my most trusted officers with her.”

  “Bless you for helping her, Aminta. I owe you one.”

  “Let’s say I’m working off my debt.”

  Alex laughed.

  “I will give you back to Mrs. O’Brien,” the police chief said. “Go with God, Alex.”

  “You as well, Aminta.”

  “Alex?” Charlene asked. “You’ll come and get me right? Not that Jakker. You know he scares me. Just you Alex.”

  “Joseph and I will come and get you.”

  “Oh God, Joseph. Yes. And Alex?”

  “Yes, Charlene?”

  “Is Nancy with Joseph? She was my best-friend when the boys worked together and... I could really use a friend.”

  “She’ll be there. Would you like me to call your children?”

  “I will,” Charlene said.

  She was silent so long that Alex thought she’d hung up.

  “Charlene?”

  Alex heard the sound of Charlene crying.

  “I’m okay, Alex. Just overwhelmed at the idea of going home. I kept our house. I guess you know that. Would you mind...?”

  “I’m on it,” Alex said. “Have a safe trip. We’ll see you very soon.”

  “Bless you, Alex.”

  Alex looked at the cell phone when Charlene hung up.

  “What was that?” Trece poked his head in the door. He and White Boy were guarding her door.

  “Charlene O’Brien. Is Nancy here?”

  “Joseph’s Nancy? Yeah, she arrived last night with the kids. You didn’t see her?”

  “I went straight to bed.” Alex began picking up her belongings. “I need to speak with Joseph.”

  “He’s waiting for you to finish up. He and Troy need to talk to you about the Fey bank account. Do you want me to send them in?”

  “Great,” Alex said.

  Trece moved to close the door.

  “Hey Trece? Why does Cee Cee Joiner have so many kids?”

  “I don’t know. White Boy says it’s about money.” Trece turned to talk to White Boy. “You wanna tell her your theory.”

  “Um...” White Boy blushed. “Um...”

  “Chris, why does Cee Cee Joiner have so many kids?”

  “Well, Alex, the only thing Joiner cares about is money, really. We’ve never been able to figure out how he gets his money. So I figure he gets money for having kids. You know like the opposite of regular people. Regular people, like us, have kids and go broke. Joiner has kids to get rich.”

  “It’s not like he likes kids,” Trece said. “We’ve guarded him… three…”

  “Five.”

  “Five times on family vacation. He treated his women like garbage. Most of the time, he’d be out catting around while the women are taking care of the kids. I’ve never seen him speak to any of his kids.”

  “Me neither. He looks at them like they are… what’s the word you use?”

  “Fungus,” Trece said.

  “Yeah, like mushrooms,” White Boy said.

  “Who would pay him?”

  White Boy and Trece both shrugged their shoulders.

  “Ok, thanks,” Alex said. “Joseph and Troy?”

  “I’ll get them,” White Boy said.

  “Thanks,” Alex said. “Trece? Charlene is coming home. She needs us to open her home for her. Do you...?”

  “I think your contractor, Jacob Marlowe, has some people who will help. We’ve shared a couple laughs with his guys. I bet they know people who clean and stuff.”

  “Thanks, but...”

  “I’m not leaving you alone,” Trece said. “Never again. I’ve cleaned plenty of floors. If I have to do it myself, I will.”

  Alex smiled. Her eye’s held her friend’s eyes for a moment. Their history – the good and bad – flowed back and forth between their eyes. Sniffing at forming tears, she nodded.

  “Troy and Joseph are here,” Trece said. “I’ll send White Boy to talk to your contractor.”

  Alex moved her laptop and maps to make space at the small table for Troy and Joseph. She stood when they entered, but the weight of their dour, withdrawn faces caused her sit
back down.

  “Give it to me straight,” Alex said.

  “Well Alex, it’s really more complicated than...” Troy started.

  “Straight.”

  “The Boy Scout was laundering money through the Fey Special Forces Team account.”

  F

  CHAPTER THIRTY-three

  “Do we know how much?” Alex asked.

  “Millions,” Troy said. “Nothing stayed in the account very long. He took a percentage off the top, and then moved the money on.”

  “To where?” Alex asked.

  Troy’s face went completely blank.

  “Not a chance.” Alex shook her head at Troy. She’d taught him the go-blank-when-you-don’t-want-to-answer trick in Special Forces training.

  “Joseph?”

  “It will only upset you,” Joseph said.

  “Joiner,” Alex said. “The Boy Scout worked for Joiner. Right?”

  Troy’s head moved in a slight nod.

  “Joiner paid the Weasel from the same accounts Robert Powell moved money into,” Joseph said. “We have a straight link – Robert Powell, the Weasel, and Joiner.”

  “Follow the money,” Alex said. “But we still don’t know why.”

  Alex jumped from her seat to pace along the edge of the room. Troy and Joseph watched her walk back and forth.

  “What’s in the storage vault?” Alex asked. “We cleared out everything except the three lower storage areas. Those were yours and Charlie’s areas.”

  “If they were my areas, Alex, then they would have been the Boy Scout’s area.”

  “We never took him to the vault. I didn’t like him, never trusted him. He never went there,” Alex said. “I’d be surprised if, even now, he had any idea where it was located. Plus...”

  “Plus?” Troy asked.

  “Max bought the building,” Alex said. “Or our little real estate empire bought it. Max received his dual citizenship – French and US – a couple months ago. He was able to purchase the building which includes all of the storage areas below. Access to the tunnels has been closed off. We’re researching the ownership of the other storage areas. For now, no one gets in or out of them.”

  “There are other questions, Alex,” Troy said. “Why would Cee Cee Joiner need to launder money? How did Joiner get an inside connection into the Fey Special Forces Team?”

  “Why did someone kill his children?” Alex flushed with rage. “My entire life has been tainted with the stench of Cee Cee fucking Joiner.”

  She threw her pencil against the wall.

  “Let’s slow it down,” Joseph said. “I understand how you feel, Alex. I’m angry too. But anger…”

  “Won’t get us anywhere,” Alex and Joseph said one of Charlie’s favorite sayings together.

  “Yes,” Joseph smiled. “Troy brought some white paper.”

  Troy stood to tape a roll of white butcher paper to one wall of the room.

  “Ok, Alex, you talk, and Troy will write,” Joseph said. “We think we’ve found a pattern. Let’s see what it builds. Start at the beginning.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of knowing Cee Cee Joiner,” Joseph said.

  “You have to start. You took the call.”

  “All right,” Joseph said. “Almost eight years ago, the President called me to ask if we might retrieve his best-friend and financial supporter. The President said his friend had ‘run a foul’ with some ‘natives’ in Brazil. He was very solicitous. Said he knew our record. We’d worked together for...”

  “Four years? Is that right?”

  “Almost five,” Joseph said. “We’d never received a direct request from the White House. It was a new president, so...”

  “I was talking about this with the police detective. We were in...”

  “South America,” Joseph said. “We retrieved three alive, two dead engineers. Fuck, did they work for Pecos Oil?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “I wondered the same thing when I was talking to the police detective. Troy can you...?”

  “Got it,” Troy said. “I have a list here of things to check.”

  “Perfect,” Alex said.

  “Do you remember why they were held?” Joseph asked.

  “It was such a long time ago...” Alex said. “Files?”

  “Everything was wiped,” Joseph said.

  “Don’t you have the record of your small journals, Alex? The ones you found in the vault last fall? We had those Marines transcribe and translate them last winter.”

  “I have the transcripts on my laptop,” Alex said. “I’ll look through them while you guys talk.”

  “I got the call while we were stuck in the jungle. I say stuck because we didn’t have transport, but we were camping out.” Joseph smiled at the memory. “Dwight was learning to hunt with a bow. He’d bring back the wildest stuff and we’d cook it up. It was fun.”

  “The Jakker wasn’t flying you?” Troy asked.

  “He was,” Joseph said. “He started flying us a couple years before this. He was... Alex? Where was Zack?”

  “Let’s see eight years ago? I bet Tina was having Brittanie. He was with her when she had all of them.”

  “He was there at the beginning. He’d better be there at the end,” Troy laughed.

  “Well...” Alex raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

  “They aren’t his kids?” Troy asked.

  “We don’t know that,” Joseph said. “Zack says they are his kids. It’s just that he was either flying Dragonladies or with us the year she was pregnant with Samuel.”

  “And the ‘miracle baby’ Brittanie. They got divorced right after Samuel,” Alex said. “He tried for custody but the court wouldn’t do it. He’ll probably try again when he settles in Denver.”

  “Back to Joiner,” Joseph said. “I know he’s a reptile but...”

  “Found it! “ Alex looked up form her laptop screen. “Oh sorry, Joseph, did I cut you off?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The engineers were picked up while they were investigating some oil find. They weren’t held very long... I have both three and six months down. Maybe different people. When I contacted the captors, they wanted us to take them. We didn’t negotiate at all. They were happy to have us come and get them.”

  “That’s right. There was torrential rain that fall. Massive flooding.”

  “I remember this now,” Alex said. “The weirdest thing was that they were picked up because of some title issue. The engineers thought they had clear title to a piece of property but so did this tribe.”

  “Both sides were sure they were right,” Joseph said. “Remember, we checked it out and found that both had clear title to the land. The tribe had lived on the land for centuries so had tribal rights to the land. The oil company had purchased land that should not have been sold.”

  “Was the oil company Pecos Oil?” Troy asked.

  “The journal doesn’t say and I’m not sure I ever knew. I’ll have to ask the police detective.” Alex clicked ahead in her journal transcripts. Peering at the computer, she said, “Huh.”

  “Huh?” Troy asked.

  “I never put it together, but we’d just saved those guys when the president called. We left to try to get Joiner. They weren’t that far away from each other in jungle distance.”

  “Jungle distance?”

  “Distance measured by tribe or region instead of miles,” Joseph said.

  “Same tribe?” Troy asked.

  “Sort of,” Joseph said.

  “Related by marriage,” Alex said. “Wow, I feel really dumb. I never...”

  “We ran so fast and hard, Alex. There’s no way we had time to sit back and look at anything.”

  “But I wonder Joseph,” Alex said. “When they took the big team journals after killing everyone, I thought they wanted to learn something about us. What if they took them so we don’t find out something about them?”

  “You mean like Joiner’s behind all of this?” Joseph asked. />
  “This can’t be just Joiner,” Troy said. “There’s no way one man, even a wealthy man, had access to insert the Boy Scout onto a Special Forces team. No way.”

  Alex felt like her head was going to rip in two. Her hands instinctively grabbed at her forehead.

  “Alex? Are you all right?”

  “I get these headaches some times. Let’s finish up and I’ll lie down for a while.”

  “Why was Joiner held?” Troy asked.

  “I don’t think we ever knew why he was held,” Alex said. “Executive privilege or some shit. We only knew he pissed off this group.”

  “He was held in the Amazonas Basin,” Joseph said.

  “Very close to where Bobby Lopez said those kids were killed.”

  “But that was eight years ago!” Troy said. “Bobby found the shale mess last year...”

  “Takes a while to set up operations, I guess,” Alex said. “We only got him out because Tommy knew the tribe that held him. When Tommy was in high school, he built a clean water facility in the region. He lived with the tribe during the summers. I wonder if that’s the water Joiner polluted.”

  “God, Tommy would be pissed,” Joseph said. “Tommy was...”

  “A wonderful friend,” Alex said. “I miss him.”

  “Me too,” Joseph said. “Back to Joiner.”

  “There’s not much more to add,” Alex said. “We have four boys poisoned with Mercury; a mercury spill in the Amazonas Basin killed thousands of children; and we have greedy Joiner in the middle of everything.”

  “And a dead Special Forces team,” Troy said.

  “Ok, I need to lie down,” Alex said. “Joseph, Charlene is on her way here. She wants us to come and get her at Buckley. She specifically asked for Nancy. I’m happy to take care of the kids...”

  “Why don’t you lie down, and I’ll sort something out,” Joseph said.

  “I asked Trece to find someone to open Charlene’s home,” Alex said.

  “Great,” Joseph replied. “Go lay down.”

  Alex collected her pad of paper and laptop.