Whitewash

by Alex Kava

  This fucking weather put him on edge. Christ! These clouds looked like something alive, gunmetal gray, ghostly globs crawling overhead with bellies ready to burst open. Angry demons with enough electricity to light up the sky for miles. This kind of stuff wasn’t a good sign, not that he was superstitious. There was just too much about this he didn’t like.

  For starters, he didn’t like that the target was a woman. Not that he hadn’t taken out women before, but all the times before—okay, it was only twice—but both times the women were slutty con artists who should’ve known better than to steal or cheat on their mob-boss boyfriends. This woman wasn’t like that. As far as Leon could tell, she wasn’t like any of his previous hits. It wasn’t that big a deal. The price was right. Hell, like the asshole said, he was already here. Even had the credentials and security key card.

  He had watched her checking out the Crown Victoria, realizing even before she popped the trunk that it wasn’t her car. That’s when it occurred to him that it might be the goddamn other guy’s car. It was probably the reason she needed to disappear, too. A shame, really. She was a good-looking broad.

  21

  EchoEnergy

  Back in the lab Sabrina pounded the computer keys. The lightning flashed now in sets of three and four, not finishing before the thunder came in slaps and crashes. She probably shouldn’t be on the computer. She tapped in her password for the third time and for the third time she was denied access. The computer continued to ask for it, insisting on a special code. Yesterday morning her password alone had worked fine. All she wanted to do was check the processing line for Reactor #5.

  Lansik was the only one with the code to change the process, but any one of the scientists, including her, had access to view it. Which she had done just yesterday, logging on to check and post operational stats. A glimpse of the real-time program would show the flow, the temperatures and output and help her figure out the problem. Now all of a sudden the computer required a code just to view the system.

  She sat back and ran her fingers through her wet hair, wanting to yank instead. She was soaking wet, creating a puddle around her. It wasn’t like this was a nuclear facility where a breach of security could mean a Chernobyl-like meltdown. However, if what she suspected was true, and a mistake had been made to use the reactor while bypassing the flushing tank, there could be toxins being released into the river.

  Sabrina’s clothes stuck to her and she shivered in the air-conditioned lab. She couldn’t imagine what it meant if, in fact, Grade 2 garbage was being processed. No way could that happen without EchoLab’s knowledge. They’d be drawing samples, testing combinations, adjusting coke temperatures. It simply wasn’t possible and certainly not possible without using the flushing tank. Grade 2 garbage usually included unrecyclable mixtures of over twenty-five kinds of plastic, nylon, rubber, metals, wood and fiberglass, and that was just for starters. Unlike slaughterhouse waste, processing this mix of garbage could give off residue such as PCBs and dioxin, which would be very toxic. The hydrogen in water worked to stabilize and break it down. Bypassing water would not only be a mistake, it would be deadly.

  But as O’Hearn had told her, they weren’t processing Grade 2 garbage.

  O’Hearn. Sabrina had told him about the reactor yesterday afternoon. Could he have changed the access as a safety precaution until Lansik returned? And why would he change it? Unless there was a problem, a mistake, and O’Hearn didn’t want anyone else to notice it.

  Sabrina grabbed the wad of scratchy paper towels she had gotten from the employee restroom and wiped her face and arms. This was silly. She prided herself on being logical and levelheaded. There were always explanations. Sometimes you had to dig for them.

  Another burst of lightning sent the electricity in the lab flickering. The fluorescents blinked. The computer screen went black. The hum of the machines sputtered. A crash of thunder left the entire lab dark and silent.

  Sabrina sat still, willing herself to calm down, to breathe. It was a typical Florida thunderstorm. It would soon pass over. She watched shadows of tree branches dance on the lab’s walls. The rain continued to pound the windows. Then from somewhere down the hallway, outside the lab’s door, she heard footsteps.

  The middle of the morning and it looked like twilight in the lab. The wall of windows that overlooked the back park became picture frames of spidery lightning and animated branches. But most unnerving was the silence. Without the rattle and hum and vibration of machines, the footsteps echoed on the tiled hallway floor, and Sabrina sat perfectly still, paralyzed in front of the dead computer screen.

  She saw the tunnel of light lick up and down from the window of the door to the bottom, slipping under. A flashlight, she told herself, and began to breathe again. She could almost fake normal by the time the door slid open and a security guard poked his shaved head into the lab. He ended up being the one who jumped, startled at her presence, but he turned it into a cough and a high step into the lab like he meant to do that.

  “Everything okay, ma’am?”

  He pointed the flashlight in her eyes. Whatever his intent, Sabrina found it more annoying than intimidating.

  “Just trying to get some work done.”

  “Generators should kick on in a little bit,” he said, this time revealing a slow southern drawl. He moved the flashlight off her face to inspect the lab, swiping the light over shelves and into corners, even though unlike the hallway it was light enough in here to see without the spotlight.

  That’s when Sabrina saw a gun in his other hand, up and ready as if he expected someone to jump out at him from the shadowed corners. She tried to remember if EchoEnergy’s security guards were armed. Other than having them check her credentials at the guard hut, she hadn’t ever met up with one. She watched the way he handled it. In the flashes of lightning he looked as though he was moving in slow motion, a blue-haloed character in a video game.

  “Are you the only one in here?” he asked without glancing back at her, focused now on Dr. Lansik’s half-opened door.

  Suddenly there was something unsettling in his intensity. The electricity had been knocked out by the storm. That was it. Why would it warrant a SWAT-like search?

  “There are usually several of us here on Saturday mornings,” she answered, not wanting to admit she was alone with this Robocop.

  As he reached Dr. Lansik’s office the lights blinked twice before staying on. The lab rustled and choked, coming back to life. It was enough to break his spell. Like a sleepwalker he stood up straight, his head jerking around as if seeing the surroundings for the first time. Settling on Sabrina’s eyes, he holstered his weapon and clicked off his flashlight.

  “Back to normal,” he said, and Sabrina couldn’t help wondering if he meant the lab or himself.

  22

  Washington, D.C.

  Jason Brill stood over his desk, glaring at the open file folders scattered across the surface alongside the legal pad with his own messy notes. Then he looked up and focused on the dartboard attached to the far wall. Without taking a step closer, he tossed two darts, one right after the other—pop, pop. He should have been pleased—both darts struck the bull’s-eye—but the exercise was an absentminded stress relief. Not at all a competition. Tossing the darts and having to focus on the bull’s-eye helped him think. That he was good at it, a dead-on shot, didn’t really matter to him. What did matter was finding a way to get the Appropriations Committee to authorize EchoEnergy the $140-million military contract. Somewhere in this pile he had to uncover information that would make that happen.

  Jason had been in D.C. long enough to know there was no such thing as a sure thing. He didn’t need Senator Allen to remind him. But the measure had already passed the subcommittee where Senator Allen was the chairman. That was half the battle. Somewhere on the full committee there was opposition that Jason hadn’t anticipated. Opposition that Senator Allen evidently thought he couldn’t overcome. If Jason could get an overriding majority they would
n’t need to worry about one or two opposing.

  Jason flung another dart across the room, turning away just as it hit the bull’s-eye. He continued to stand over his desk and he flipped through several pages from one of the folders. He scanned every other line, not sure what he was searching for. He figured he’d know it when he saw it. His upbringing may not have taught him which fork to use at a formal dinner—the people he came from might say “crick” when they meant creek—but one thing Jason had learned, and learned well, was where to look and how to find dirt on anyone who happened to get in the way. And how to use that tidbit of information to its fullest capacity. In other words—or rather in the words of his relatives—to put the screws on. He had learned valuable lessons in how to milk a grudge, win and manipulate trust and not only figure out a person’s weaknesses, but more important, discover what it was he or she held most dear. All were lessons that had equipped him for dealing politics in D.C., much better than any degree from some university.

  Jason tossed that set of papers back in the folder and pulled out a neatly stapled set from the next folder. He knew Senator Sherman Davis of Louisiana’s pet project was to rebuild medical facilities that had been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. A noble cause, but Jason smiled as he read one of the last pages in the thick, stapled proposal. There, at the bottom, after an exhaustive read, was a paragraph that the largest facility, a state-of-the-art medical center—one that would rival the likes of the Mayo Clinic—would be called the Sherman Davis Medical Center.

  That was Washington, D.C., or at least the D.C. Jason saw. At the heart of even the grandest and most generous ventures Jason could usually uncover the true motivation and too often it included either pride and ego or old-fashioned greed, sometimes both. But Sherman Davis was the least of Senator Allen’s worries. Or in “D.C. talk,” Sherman and John Quincy were even in the exchange of favors and both were content to stay that way. No, Sherman Davis wouldn’t be a problem when the contract came to a vote.

  Jason put down that stack and picked up another. Senator Shirley Malone, the senior senator from Indiana, seemed harmless at first glance. A tall, graceful woman who wore tailored suits and salon-coiffed hair, she looked nothing like Jason’s perceived stereotype of a beef-eating, polyester-wearing Midwest housewife who had only gotten into politics in order to finish out her deceased husband’s senate seat. However, after several elected terms of her own, Senator Malone had become a force to contend with.

  When Jason first started looking for opposition he immediately thought, competition. It would make sense that any of the senators from oil-producing states would oppose—maybe even want to trip up any contract, and therefore, any success EchoEnergy might enjoy. He set aside Texas senator Max Holden in his “problem” pile, but eliminated Louisiana Senator Davis. And as he separated the piles, he remembered to include alternative competitors like ethanol. Senator Shirley Malone and the great state of corn-producing, ethanol-manufacturing Indiana immediately went into the problem pile.

  So far Jason had five senators in the problem pile. Five out of twenty-eight members on the Appropriations Committee was not a bad start, definitely one he could work with.

  Jason checked the time and stuffed his problem pile into his leather briefcase. More than anywhere around the hallowed halls of Congress, the place Jason learned the most was Wally’s Tavern. And if he wanted information, or rather to find some dirt, Wally’s was where he could find it. He flung the last dart, slipped on his jacket and headed out the door, not even bothering to look at his last bull’s-eye hit.

  23

  EchoEnergy

  Sabrina snapped off her car’s air-conditioning, if only for a few minutes before the windshield fogged up again. The rain had stopped. The storms had moved through, leaving behind a freshly scrubbed blue sky and a short break from the last several days of torturous heat and humidity. It was Florida brochure-beautiful and yet Sabrina couldn’t stop shivering.

  Back at her office she had changed out of her wet clothes into a pair of running shorts, running shoes and a baggy T-shirt she kept in her locker. One of EchoEnergy’s employee benefits was the use of a state-of-the-art fitness center with indoor track and an Olympic-sized pool. But Sabrina always felt there was something counterproductive about running indoors, breathing regurgitated air.

  Even with the sunlight Sabrina felt on edge. Dwight Lansik was missing. She was sure of it. Reactor #5 seemed to be processing Grade 2 garbage without anyone in the lab knowing about it. Maybe Lansik had approved it, but Sabrina doubted he would agree to bypass the flushing tank. If all that wasn’t bad enough, the thunderstorms and Robocop security guard had frayed the last of her nerves. Ironically, the fiasco had kept her mind off her father.

  She managed the pitted two-lane highway with ease, no tanker trucks to battle on the weekends. She rolled down the car windows when the windshield started to fog again. Then she breathed in the fresh air, crisp with pine and wet dirt. Despite the deluge, the air was now lighter, no longer the hot, thick blanket that wrapped around you like a wet Turkish towel.

  Sabrina had chosen to stay at the university for her undergraduate and graduate studies when her mother, who grew up in Philadelphia, suggested she give the East Coast a chance. She barely left the city except for one or two yearly conferences where she saw more of the luxury hotels than the designated host cities. She couldn’t remember the last time she had taken a vacation, at least not one that didn’t include a conference, a workshop, a presentation or a guest-teaching session.

  She didn’t mind. Her main goal for the last ten years had been to make tenure. It had superseded everything else in her life, including, some might say, a life outside her career. Even Daniel claimed she treated him at times like a distraction or obligation. He hated coming in second behind her career, sometimes third behind her family. Her only defense was that she just wasn’t good at relationships. People, in general, were illogical, prone to mistakes, too unpredictable. She was used to dealing in resolutions and equations that, despite the complex factors involved, could always be solved with logic and patience.

  The truth was she never once—not even a little bit—felt the kind of passion that she watched and observed in her parents’ relationship. Maybe she simply didn’t want to settle for anything less. And maybe that was why her family still came before Daniel.

  When Sabrina decided she needed to leave Chicago to be closer to her father she didn’t even discuss it with Daniel. She simply told him her decision. He assured her it wouldn’t change things between them. Likewise, even her dean insisted she take a sabbatical from the university rather than resign her post.

  “How much time do you need?” both men had asked her separately, both with genuine concern.

  Six months. She wouldn’t need more than six months, a year at the most. Her father’s condition remained unchanged, perhaps a slight decline if anything. In another month her year would be up and she’d need to ask for more time from her dean. She already knew she wouldn’t be asking for more time with Daniel. Now it was just a matter of how to tell him. What initially seemed to be a temporary glitch in her disciplined, orderly life had become a limbo in too many ways.

  Sabrina thought of her brother, Eric. She approached I-10 and noticed the sign: Pensacola, 190 miles. Why would her father hallucinate a visit from Eric? Wishful thinking seemed possible, but why such an elaborate story?

  She hadn’t seen Eric since their mother’s accident. As far as she knew, her father hadn’t seen Eric, either. Funny how the same event could change people in such different ways. One day you’re arguing over turkey or ham for the traditional Christmas feast. The next day you’re taking sides over whether your mother’s battered remains should be cremated or buried.

  It had been an accident. Slippery Chicago streets. A car spinning out of control and slamming into their mother’s car. When her father called and said, “Your mother’s been in an accident,” Sabrina had grabbed a pen and notepad from her office desk ready
to scratch down the details and which hospital. Nothing had prepared her for her father’s follow-up. “She’s gone.”

  Sabrina still remembered her hand with the pen hovering over the notepad. Her breathing stopped. Every buzz and hum around her came to a sudden halt, replaced by the banging of her heart. She waited for what seemed an eternity for the words to register, for her father to continue with something, anything that would erase what he had just said. Instead, she had heard his sobs. She had never heard her father cry before, and a sudden lump in her throat obstructed any hope she had of breathing. She remembered gasping for air, not sobs, not a cry but a primal struggle to catch her breath. How could she be gone, just like that? Yes, life was funny that way. One day you’re splurging on red and white poinsettias and a few days later you’re arranging them in front of your mother’s casket.

  Eric blamed their father. How could he let her go out in the snow to deliver one of her sculptures all by herself? He knew she hated driving on slick streets. The arguments were ridiculous and painful. A hurt and stubborn father and an angry son throwing down a gauntlet neither would retreat from. One man running as far away as possible, the other turning deep inside himself. And a daughter and sister left without either.

  As Sabrina entered the outskirts of Tallahassee, she decided the lousy day called for a drastic pick-me-up measure. Instead of heading to the condo, she’d treat herself to lunch. She’d already failed her gradual withdrawal from caffeine; she might just as well give in to a cheeseburger at the Club Diner, greasy but cheap therapy.

  24