by ANDREA SMITH
“Easy peasy,” he said aloud. “Now we’ve got to get Harlan’s card back to him.” No problem there. Monday was one of Dalton’s days off. He’d hit up Harlan early with some excuse for doing so.
Chapter 14
The sun had barely risen when Dalton started up his truck and headed down the road toward the Hatfield place. He knew that Vince had already hit the road for his first shift job in Portsmouth, so the gate would be unlocked.
They had several security cameras around the property, but he had no issue with getting Harlan’s ass out of bed before he had a chance of discovering he’d been missing something from his wallet.
He pulled his truck around the drive toward the last mobile home on the left. He got out, took the few steps up to the porch and banged his fist on the door of the trailer. From inside, he could hear Harlan cussing, his voice still heavy from sleep or a hangover.
“Hold on, I’m coming, no need to break my fucking door down!” Harlan yelled as he flipped the locks on the door, jerking it open. “What the hell?” he said, his eyes squinting up at the sunlight filtering in through the open door.
“Mornin’,” Dalton called out cheerfully. “You ready?”
Harlan had no choice but to step back when Dalton’s frame closed in on him from the open door.
“Ready for what? What the fuck are you talking about?” Harlan scratched his jaw in confusion.
“Dude,” Dalton said, “Remember we talked about it last week? At the bar? You mentioned going four-wheeling and we agreed on Monday since I don’t work on Mondays.”
Lines of confusion still lingered on Harlan’s face. “Seriously, dude? Shit, I must’ve been pretty damn drunk. It ain’t ringing no kind of bell for me.”
Dalton released a disappointed sigh. “Remember you telling me about racing four-wheelers over on the ridge?”
Harlan was thoughtful. “Yeah, yeah--I remember that part, I just didn’t know we actually made plans to do it, is all. Hell, I’ve got shit to do around here today, Dalton. Being tied up all day yesterday and last evening put me behind on stuff I need to get done here. Hang on, let me go get my jeans on. Do me a solid, will ya, and get some coffee going on the machine over there? Coffee’s in the cupboard above it.”
“Sure thing,” Dalton said, turning towards the kitchen area while Harlan, clad in boxers and a wife-beater, disappeared toward the back of the trailer to get dressed.
Dalton saw Harlan’s keys and wallet on the countertop that divided the kitchen from the living room. He quickly dug the key card from his pocket, slipping it inside the wallet before he continued on to where the coffeemaker sat and started preparing the brew.
Harlan returned a couple of minutes later, wearing jeans and pulling a sweatshirt over his head. He ran a hand threw his tousled hair, pulled a couple of mugs out of the cupboard, and remained silent until he’d filled them with the freshly brewed coffee. “Cream or sugar?” he asked Dalton.
“Nope, black is fine, thanks.”
They sipped their coffee in silence. It was unusual for Harlan to be as quiet as he was this morning. Dalton figured either he wasn’t a morning person, or he was wracking his brain trying to remember a conversation they’d never had.
“So, listen Dalton,” Harlan finally spoke, breaking the silence between them, “We’ll need to take a rain check on the four-wheelin’ today. I’ve got a list of chores to do before Daddy gets off his shift or he’ll have my hide.”
Dalton shrugged. “No problem, buddy. Anything you need my help with? I’ve got the whole damn day at my disposal. Be glad to lend a hand to a friend.”
Harlan looked over at him. “We are friends, aren’t we?”
Dalton smiled, “I’d like to think so.”
Harlan shifted a bit. “Well then, uh . . . now don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but that’s all we are, Dalton. Just friends, know what I mean?”
A puzzled look planted itself on Dalton’s face. What the hell was Harlan getting at exactly? He was clueless, until Harlan finished his thought.
“I mean, I don’t judge people, believe me. I believe everybody should live and let live, no matter what their preferences are. It’s just . . . well, it’s just that I don’t swing that way, brother.”
“Dude,” Dalton said, still clueless, “I’m not following you. You need to just spill whatever it is that’s on your mind here.”
“My sister talked to Ella Johnson’s daughter-in-law the other night and Ella had told her that you’re . . . well . . . you’re gay?”
And then it dawned on Dalton. It was all he could do to contain his laughter. Ella Johnson had obviously mistaken the response he’d given about not being in the market for a gal as meaning he was gay.
That explained Harlan’s uneasiness the day before in the barn when he’d ripped the ass end out of his pants; and the way he was in a hurry to cover his boxer clad frame just this morning when Dalton had shown up unexpectedly.
Dalton belted out a laugh that rattled the windows of Harlan’s trailer. “For Chrissake, Harlan,” he guffawed, “You know me better than that! I was just trying to avoid having her fix me up with God knows how many available women from her church. I didn’t tell her I was gay, I just told her I wasn’t in the market for a chick. Jesus! She sure as hell twisted that around, didn’t she?”
Harlan appeared a bit skeptical momentarily. “Well, I mean, you haven’t seemed interested in checking out any of the chicks around here, so it kinda made sense and all . . . you know, that you might be queer,” his voice trailed off.
Dalton stood up, still chuckling, “As soon as I find one that meets my fancy, and isn’t already taken, don’t worry, I’ll make my signature moves,” he replied with a wink.
Harlan didn’t look totally convinced. If Dalton had learned anything at all since living in these parts, he knew for a fact it wasn’t a community known for embracing diversity. Like at all.
“Besides that Harlan, if I was queer, trust me, you wouldn’t be my type,” Dalton said, giving Harlan a hearty slap on the back. “So, do you need my help today or what?”
“No, thanks on the help,” Harlan replied, grinning, and then flipped him the bird, “And fuck you on the not being your type comment.”
Dalton got up to leave, but Harlan called after him just before he hit the door. “Meet you at The Peak for a beer later?”
“Sure thing,” Dalton replied.
“I’ll be up there around eight. See ya then mother fucker.”
Dalton left knowing that Harlan was none the wiser on anything, and that was a good thing. Things were brewing, and although Dalton couldn’t put his finger on the particulars of it, his instincts were now in high gear and he sensed shit was about to get real.
Chapter 15
Dalton had made sure he hadn’t had more than two drinks when he’d met Harlan at ‘the Peak’ that evening. He also made sure he’d bought Harlan a good share of moonshine Jell-O shots to get him good and loaded.
He kept the conversation low key, mentioning only that it’d been a while since they’d been called out to the landing strip, and wondering if something was going on with Duel’s little side gig.
“Fuck that landing strip,” Harlan scoffed, “We don’t need no landing strip. Got bigger plans,” he said, his voice now slurring.
Dalton wasn’t sure what Harlan meant by bigger plans, but when he pressed Harlan for the deets, his friend clammed up.
It was one a.m. and the bar was empty as Courtney helped Dalton get Harlan into his truck after he’d scarfed his keys earlier. “Don’t worry Courtney,” Dalton assured her, “I’ll pick my truck up in the morning.”
“No worries, Dalton. Hope he doesn’t puke all over you,” she said with a laugh as she went back inside the bar to close up.
Dalton’s plan had been executed perfectly so far. He only hoped Harlan was pa
ssed out for a while as he needed the cover of being in Harlan’s truck to unlock the padlock on the front gate for access to the property. The Hatfields always locked the gate after dark.
Jack had been on his ass so hard, he knew he shouldn’t wait, hoping for a better opportunity when nobody would be around the family compound, which wasn’t often. But tonight they were all tucked in, lights out.
Dalton located the key for the padlock on Harlan’s chain and extricated it without having to turn off the truck. He didn’t want Harlan waking up just yet. He quickly got out of the truck and unlocked the gate, jumping back into the truck and driving it towards Harlan’s trailer.
He parked Harlan’s truck on the far side of his mobile home so that he could slip out and make tracks towards the metal building just a few yards behind the burn barrels.
He exited the truck quietly, deciding Harlan could sleep it off in his truck. He wasn’t about to wake him up and drag him inside the trailer. Time was of the utmost importance.
He’d dressed in black exactly for this purpose, and like a ninja on steroids, Dalton made quick and silent tracks to the back of the property.
Once he arrived there, he glanced around the area for any surveillance apparatus.
Thankfully, there were no motion activated lights on the building which told Dalton they didn’t want to draw any particular attention to this building. It was so far back from the main cluster of the individual dwellings, he doubted anyone still up would have seen the lights anyway.
Once he reached the main door, he swiped the cloned smart card down the pad and breathed a sigh of relief when the red light turned green and the sound of the lock mechanism clicking. He turned the handle and stepped inside of the building, pulling the heavy metal door shut behind him.
Inside the building, grow lights with timer switches illuminated the interior. There were several rows of steel tables that held marijuana plants, in various stages of the growth cycle.
Clip-on fans were posted throughout the building to circulate air, and Dalton glanced upward to see a sprinkler system most likely timed to dispense mist to keep the humidity at the optimum level for the cannabis.
This was a hydroponic weed operation. With all the gauges and timed environmental conditions implemented, it was clear Vince and Harlan were skilled in the business.
Dalton counted about sixty-five plants. Certainly not a major grow operation, which was puzzling since there was plenty of room for more plants.
He quickly did the math in his head and figured the total harvest value at around $200K. It didn’t make sense they weren’t harvesting more to get a better return on their investment with the operation. There certainly was more than enough room.
Dalton tripped over an extension cord that was stretched across one of the aisles and skidded to the floor, landing on his ass. Luckily his boot had drug one of those heavy-duty rubber industrial mats that had been placed on the floor of the building along with him so his ass had landed on the thick cushioned rubber instead of the hard concrete.
Had he not tripped, he might have missed that as he got to his feet, dusting off his backside and bending over to pull the mat back into place, he noticed what it had been covering.
A trap door. On a concrete floor? But that’s exactly what it was. Great care had to have been taken in the construction of this metal fab building, which by all appearances had a partial basement that had been cleverly hidden.
Dalton certainly was not prepared for what he was about to discover as he descended the wooden steps to the underbelly of the Hatfield’s grow operation.
Chapter 16
It was two days before Dalton could get a meeting with Jack. Harlan had cussed Dalton out the following day when he’d ran into him at the gas station on his way to work at the McCoy’s place.
“Nice leaving me out in my damn truck, Dalton. Everybody loves waking up in their own puke.”
“Sorry, dude,” Dalton had replied as he filled up his truck, “Don’t you remember me trying to get your ass out of the truck and you telling me to leave you the fuck alone?”
Harlan had ran a hand through his hair, his brow furrowing as if trying to remember something that clearly hadn’t happened. Dalton should have felt like a shithead, but it was all about the greater good.
“Naw, can’t say that I do,” Harlan replied, “Guess I’ll have to take your word on that one. Took me all damn day to clean out my truck, not to mention the splitting headache I couldn’t get rid of.”
Dalton had put the gas nozzle back onto the pump, screwing the cap on his tank. “Well, I’m sorry dude. Thought you could handle your liquor better than that. I had to hoof it back to the motel. It was no picnic for me either. Next time we’ll have to put you on a two shot limit.”
“Fuck you, Dalton,” Harlan had replied, “I can drink your pansy ass under the table any day of the week.” He had said it with a big grin so Dalton had known he was forgiven.
“So, what have you got for me, Edwards, that you couldn’t have sent it over the cloud?” Jack asked, his voice not hiding his irritation that Dalton had scheduled this meeting mid-week, which happened to interrupt his vacation.
Dalton pulled out a flash drive with the pictures he’d taken of the Hatfield grow operation, and the more interesting operation he’d discovered inside the hidden basement of the metal building. He handed it over to Jack.
“I didn’t want to send this via the cloud because of security reasons obviously. I’m not sure exactly what all this means, but here are the actual pics I took with my burner phone,” Dalton said, pulling up the photos he’d saved in an album he had titled ‘Crossfire Hurricane.’
“Catchy title,” Jack replied dryly, “Where have I heard that before?”
“Nowhere good,” Dalton replied with a wicked laugh.
“So, what the fuck am I looking at?” Jack asked, flipping through the photos. “It’s obviously a grow operation, not a huge one at that. What the hell is Hatfield doing?”
“Hydroponic poppies. You know Jack, the poppies that produce the nectar that led to two opium wars back in the mid-nineteenth century?”
“Shit, Edwards. I know what harvesting poppies yields, but what the hell? Hydroponically grown? How large is this grow room? What’s the opium yield per plant? How long does it take from seed to harvest? And what is Hatfield doing with it? Chemically producing heroin, morphine, codeine?”
Dalton took a sip of his coffee, patiently waiting for Jack to chill a bit. He knew dropping this bomb of sorts would promote a lot of questions and complicate the purpose of their discussion.
“If you’ll quit with the string of questions, I’ll give you my perspective on what’s going on with the poppies, Jack.”
Jack shifted in his seat and gave him a nod, taking another gulp of his coffee.
“Okay, so Vince, he’s got over four hundred poppy plants down there, and they look close to harvest. I took a bulb from one of them,” Dalton said, reaching into the pocket of his jacket and placing the bulb on the top of the table.
“Is he making heroin down there?” Jack asked.
“Nope,” Dalton replied, “There’s no lab equipment or additional chemicals required for that. My guess is Vince and Harlan are doing one of two things with this.”
“I’m listening.”
“The easiest process would be if they’re extracting the sap in its milky form, and combining it with the harvested weed to make Black Russian Hash.”
“Street value?” Jack asked.
Dalton shrugged, doing the math in his head. “Providing their grow operation is in lock-step with the opium yield, probably a half million.”
“Your second scenario,” Jack prodded.
“The hydroponic weed is separate from the poppies. There is absolutely no indication at that site that the Hatfields are doing anything other than harvesting th
e opium sap as a raw material. Meaning they’re letting the sap ooze out, allowing it to darken and then scraping the gum into balls or bricks, wrapping them and selling them to a refinery. Low tech. Easily moved to a processor who’ll handle the chemical enhancements necessary to produce a number of end products.”
Dalton might’ve been a screw-up within the DEA because of his extracurricular activities that ultimately had landed him smack dab in the middle of Appalachia, but he had earned his degree in Forensic Science. He knew his stuff.
“What are the end product options, Edwards? Feels like I’m having to pull teeth here,” Jack grumbled.
“Black Tar Heroin, Morphine, White Heroin, about any type of street opioid you can think of. Then, of course, if the processor has several gigs going, it could be mixed with crack, coke, meth for speedballs, and of course, synthetic fentanyl. My gut tells me, that is what’s going on here. Vince has low risk, can move it domestically, and combined with his weed grow he can cop more than a million bucks a year without much out of pocket cost.”
“So,” Jack said, leaning forward and poking the poppy bulb with his spoon, “You think he’s doing this shit independently of the shit coming in on that landing strip?”
“Absolutely,” Dalton replied, chewing on a toothpick. “And I think it’s a fairly new endeavor for him. There’s more tension between the two families. And get this: we haven’t had a shipment come in for a couple of weeks now. I tried to get some info out of Harlan, but all he told me was that they had bigger plans. Might just be that Vince pulled the plug on allowing Duel to lease his land for that landing strip.”
“Shit. This is heating up. You need more agents down here?”
“For what?” Dalton asked, “I’ve been here for months. This whole county is a tough nut to crack. More agents coming in under cover would do nothing to expedite this investigation. In fact, it would more than likely cause panic. You don’t seem to get how this community operates. Like nothing I’ve seen before, even when I lived in Texas.”