Fatal Harvest

by Catherine Palmer

  What would Billy do now? What was the right thing to say? How should he act?

  “A telephone book,” he told the man again. “I need to find an address.”

  “No telefono, señor.” He held up a pair of cowboy boots. “I make a good price for you. One hundred dollars. Is snakeskin here, you see? Very expensive.”

  Matt began trying to back out of the store. “I just…I need a phone book.”

  “Okay, eighty dollars.”

  The man was holding the boots in Matt’s face, shaking them, coming at him no matter how far away he tried to get. Matt saw strange lights around his eyes, and he had a bad feeling he was going to pass out.

  “I need something to drink,” he mumbled.

  “I make you the best price of the day. Sixty dollars. I cannot do better than this. For snakeskin? You will not find this in all of Ciudad Juarez.”

  “No!” Matt said, slapping the boots out of the man’s hand. “I don’t want them!”

  “Ai! What are you doing?” The man swung around and began calling to some men at the back of the shop.

  A flurry of Spanish words ringing in his ears, Matt found the door and stumbled outside. He needed a drink. Water. Or a Fanta.

  Behind him, three men now stood in the doorway of the shop and shouted in anger. Matt crossed the street, back toward the vendors, back to the old woman with the bread cart.

  “Please, señora,” he said. “I need water. Agua, por favor.”

  Suspicion flashing from her dark eyes, she glanced at the leather salesmen still hollering at Matt. She shook her head and shooed him away. He dug in his pocket and fished out his wallet.

  “I need a taxi!” he called out into the crowded street, waving his wallet in the air. “Where are the taxis? Donde están los taxis, por favor?”

  People hurried past him, some glancing warily. He knew he wasn’t doing this right. He was making a mess of it. He was in his element handling everything by e-mail. Ordering computer parts. Finding information. But now, here in Mexico, there was no one to tell him what to do.

  He licked his dry lips and tried to think. He probably ought to move away from the bridge. If the guards saw him causing a ruckus, they might arrest him.

  Starting back down the street, Matt turned a deaf ear to all storekeepers who called out to him. No, he thought. Look straight ahead. Don’t make eye contact. Just get away from the bridge. Get deeper into the city. Then you can buy a soda. Bottled—it would be safe, right? Or not? Why hadn’t he brought Billy? Billy would know all these things. Billy would joke around, and they’d laugh, and everything would be all right.

  In the midst of the cries of the vendors, Matt picked out a word that rang like a blessing in his ears.

  “Taxi, señor?”

  Matt turned toward the voice. “Taxi? Si!”

  The driver beckoned him toward a line of rusty yellow cabs. He opened the door for Matt, who nodded thanks as he climbed in. The man started the engine, flicked on the meter and turned to his passenger. “Where you want to go?”

  “Do you know where I-FEED is? Uh, the International Federation for Environmental and Economic Development?”

  The man frowned. “La direccion? Address?”

  “No. But I—”

  With a sigh, the driver lifted a hefty phone book from the front seat. “Federacion Internacional de…”

  “Environmental and Economic Development.”

  “Aha, si señor.” He tossed down the phone book and put the taxi in gear. “Vamonos. We go.”

  Matt closed his eyes, clutched his laptop and laid his head back on the cracked vinyl seat. The taxi made several lurching stops, brakes squealing as pedestrians scurried out of the way. Matt couldn’t avoid breathing in the choking smog—diesel fumes, burning tires, industrial smokestacks—and he grew more nauseous by the minute.

  “Señor, aqui.” The taxi screeched to a halt in front of a barred glass door just off the sidewalk.

  Matt handed the man a bill and forced himself to step out into the heat. The key weighing heavy in his pocket, he walked up to the door and turned the knob. Locked. He pressed the doorbell and waited. No one came. Maybe it was too early. What were the hours of business? Blinking away the lights that danced in front of his eyes, he tried to read a message posted on the door.

  It was written in Spanish. “I have gone to the International Food Summit in Paris, France,” he translated slowly. “I shall return on the thirty-first of this month. Hector Diaz.”

  Gone? Matt squinted, trying to make sure he had read the message right. He was too late! The man had already left for the meeting in France. What was Matt going to do now? He looked for a mail slot. Maybe he could slip the USB key in there and be done with it.

  Nothing. As reality worked its way into his brain, Matt felt his mouth fill with warm saliva. He was going to throw up. He was. He really was.

  He stumbled to an adjoining alley. Grabbing the brick wall for support, he bent over and retched. He felt as if he was going to die.

  “Too much drinking,” a mocking voice said behind him. “Borrachon!”

  Matt turned his head, but the taunter had gone on by. He clutched at the bricks and braced for a second wave of nausea.

  “Señor.” A hand tapped his back. “Give me money, por favor.”

  Matt managed to focus on a pair of bright black eyes nested in a small, filthy face. “What?”

  “Money.” The hand tugged his shirt. “Pesos.”

  It was a child.

  He knew that, and then nothing.

  “The boy has it.” Mack Harwood’s voice on the telephone brought Vince upright in the armchair where he’d sat through the night. “Banyon didn’t have any CDs when we searched him.”

  Vince rubbed his eyes, wishing he hadn’t poured himself so many martinis. “What makes you so sure he gave it to the kid?”

  “The boy is on the run—Matthew Strong. The police traced him to Banyon’s house. They think the boy killed Banyon.”

  “Jim is dead?” Vince sighed. He regretted what his security men had done, but he hated Banyon’s betrayal even worse. “If the police think this Strong kid is a murderer, maybe that’s why he’s running. Wouldn’t you, Harwood?”

  “Sir, we believe the boy has the data. We thoroughly searched Banyon’s house for CDs or USB keys, and we didn’t find a thing. He didn’t even own a computer. Banyon must have given the information to Matthew Strong.”

  “So we have no kid and no data. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “I’m reporting on the current situation, sir. We have intercepted phone calls and e-mail messages between the kid and his father. Matthew Strong is on the way to his grandmother’s house in Amarillo.”

  “And I’m assuming you’re on top of that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Stunning.” Vince shook his head. “Just get the CDs, key…whatever, Harwood. Use as many men as you need to do the job. I want that information back in my possession today—before the weekend—and I don’t care what you do to get it. Do you understand me, Harwood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Vince pressed the off button on his phone. He didn’t ask much. He had no interest in acquiring political power or influence—except where it furthered Agrimax’s interests. He had played golf with three presidents, and he knew each one envied his ability to get things done. A handpicked, pliable board of directors was better than a stubborn Congress any day. Democracy was fine, he believed, as long as the outcome of a vote was predetermined.

  Military power did not appeal to him, either. He considered the billions spent on arms each year to be an inefficient use of capital. Besides, in the long run, the cumbersome system of separate nations would evolve of necessity into a single world economy. Vince knew he probably wouldn’t live to see that day, but he was determined to be remembered as a visionary who had the skills to make his ideas a reality.

  But he had to stay on top of anything that could derail him. He was glad now tha
t the threat that terrorists might target America’s food supply had led him to build a formidable security force headed by a former Marine with combat experience. To this point, nothing had gotten past them. Harwood was intelligent and physically daunting, with no fears and no morals. As head of Agrimax’s highly trained security corps, he had seen the company through more than a few sticky situations. Despite the sick feeling in the pit of Vince’s stomach, he would pour himself a cup of coffee and trust Harwood to save his hide.

  FIVE

  The sun lifted into the eastern sky in a blaze of mauve and orange as Cole drove across the flat expanse of the Texas Panhandle. Jill Pruitt’s head lay on his right shoulder, her mop of golden ringlets obscuring her features. Beside her, Billy Younger—head back and mouth wide-open—snored loudly enough to startle the jackrabbits on the side of the road. Rising on hind legs, they abandoned their nibbling to stare at the passing vehicle. The morning light shone through their tall ears, translucent pink against the long, pale green grass swaying in the slight breeze.

  On any other morning, Cole would have enjoyed this hour. He relished the quiet of dawn. Purple shadows crept from under rocks and the gnarled roots of cottonwood trees to work their way across the grass. Butterflies drifted above the alfalfa—a beautiful bane in his battle to grow high-quality hay. Hummingbirds darted around crimson trumpet-shaped flowers of red-hot poker plants. A coachwhip snake might emerge to test the heat, or a horned toad to seek out a breakfast of insects. Overhead, meadowlarks wheeled across the sky and buzzards circled yesterday’s carrion.

  This was the land Cole loved, the terrain he relied on to provide him and his son a livelihood. But this Friday morning, he could take no joy in the Creator’s display. The night had been long and frustrating as he had driven slowly north, his eyes fruitlessly scanning ditches and underpasses for any sign of his son’s truck. He had no idea what the day ahead might bring.

  At a truck stop in Hobbs, Cole had asked about his son. No one recalled seeing the youth. A call to Josefina brought the news that a warrant had been issued for Matt’s arrest. Cole then phoned his mother, who had not heard from the boy. She didn’t answer his second call from Lubbock, and he took this to mean she had gone to sleep despite her determination to stay up and wait for her grandson. Jill sent several e-mail messages to Matt. He didn’t answer. Billy had begged to be allowed to continue the search, and Cole had relented under the teenager’s persistence.

  Somehow the hours had gotten away from him before he remembered he was supposed to call Penny. At one in the morning, she had phoned—upset, worried and angry. Cole had faced her fury more than once, and he didn’t like it. The woman he was sure he loved transformed from a confident lawyer and bright, attractive lady into a three-year-old pitching a hissy fit. She called him names and threw things.

  Cole had discovered he could provoke these tantrums inadvertently after a hailstorm damaged several acres of his seedlings. When he called to cancel his trip up to Albuquerque to visit her, she became furious, shouting and calling him names. Once she even lunged at him, scratching and slapping. Even now, though he’d been engaged to Penny for almost a year, her sudden explosions of anger still took him by surprise.

  On this night when his son was missing and his peace had been shattered, she had flown into a rage over the presence of Jill Pruitt in his truck. Cole glanced at the woman whose head weighed lightly on his shoulder. Penny Ames didn’t even know Jill. What did she have to loathe and fear?

  Jill’s focus remained solely on her students and her ministry passion. She had spent the late-night hours of their long drive talking about the ambitious garden she planted every year, listing for Cole and Billy every vegetable she planned to grow this season and what she intended to do with it. She canned much of her harvest and gave it to her church’s food pantry. The rest she sold at the farmers market to help pay for her famine-relief work. Jill also had stories to tell about her experiences as a volunteer in various far-flung places.

  Billy had nodded off after they left Lubbock, but Cole encouraged her to keep talking. He told himself he needed the chatter to help him stay awake, but in truth, Jill both annoyed and fascinated him. A bundle of bouncy, blond energy, she was an ornery little thing who wouldn’t take no for an answer. With her prickly attitude and thorny assertiveness, she had gotten under Cole’s skin like a cactus spine. She irritated him no end. But somewhere in the long hours of the night, he began to enjoy her easy laugh and mesmerizing voice. No wonder Matt had fallen under her sway.

  Not only was she dedicated to her missions and her students, but she obviously walked in close communion with God. Every other sentence, it seemed, began, “I felt the Lord leading me to…” or “The Bible says we ought to…” or “If Jesus were on earth today…” Like a filter over a camera lens, everything in her life was tinted by her focus on Christ.

  As he drove north toward Amarillo, Cole thought about his own casual faith journey. He did all the right things, of course. Even prayed and read his Bible some evenings. But he didn’t have Jill’s fire. In fact, he was the sort of lukewarm Christian God would probably want to spit out of His mouth. Cole knew this. But he didn’t have the time to change. Each day required so much effort that he didn’t have enough energy left for a deeper faith.

  As the outskirts of Amarillo came into view, he felt the woman beside him stir. She lifted a hand, rubbed her eyes and made a little mew, like a kitten rising from a nap. Then she must have realized whose shoulder she’d been sleeping on, because she jerked upright, waking Billy midsnore.

  “Huh?” he mumbled. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Where are we?” Jill asked.

  “The edge of Amarillo.” Cole glanced at her, amazed to find that her hair had not flattened in the night but actually seemed to have sprouted a few hundred more ringlets. “My mother’s house isn’t far. We’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

  “I’m hungry,” Billy said. “Let’s get some doughnuts.”

  “Wow, I had no idea I went to sleep.” Jill lifted her purse—a large fabric bag—onto her lap and rummaged around until she found a mirror. “Oh, good grief. Ugh.” She poked her hair here and there, frowning at her reflection.

  Billy attempted to stretch, which jammed Jill into Cole’s shoulder again. “How often do you get a perm, Miss Pruitt?” the boy asked. “It’s like mega-frizzy all the time.”

  “Thanks, Billy.” She tossed her mirror back into her purse. “This is natural. I used to put straightener on it and iron it, but I gave up.”

  “Iron your hair? Whoa…”

  “Yeah. Now I just let it go. But since we’re on the subject of personal grooming, when was the last time you brushed those chompers, Billy?”

  “My teeth?” He clamped a hand over his mouth. “It’s been a while.”

  “Before we start back home this afternoon, we’re stopping at a drugstore, and I’m going to buy you some personal-hygiene supplies.”

  “Miss Pruitt! That’s embarrassing.”

  “Why? It’s just a matter of fact, and you know how I feel about factual information, Billy. I insist on it. So we’ll scoot you into Mrs. Strong’s shower and give you a fresh start on the day. And I’m second in line.”

  Cole worked to hide the grin on his face. He liked a woman who spoke her mind, even when the subject wasn’t exactly tasteful. At least she was honest and forthright. Two of his favorite qualities.

  “And as for you, Cole,” she began.

  “Uh-oh, look out, Mr. Strong. She’s gonna start on you. Probably tell you to shave and roll on some deodorant.”

  Cole winced at the idea that he might rival Billy in body odor. But Jill lifted her hand and ran her fingertip lightly over the stubble on his jaw.

  “Hmm. Nope, I have no problem with this,” she announced. “It’s your relationship with Matt I’ve been thinking about.”

  Cole bristled. “What do you mean?”

  “He took off without even trying to contact his own father.
It’s normally only runaways who do that.”

  “Are you saying Matt ran away from home? From me?”

  “I just wonder why he didn’t call you. Why he called Billy instead.”

  “I can tell you one thing for sure,” Cole retorted. “Matt didn’t run away from home. He’s got a good life. I’ve given him everything he needs and wants—and Billy will testify to that.”

  “Billy said Matt called you an old dry tree stump.” She was staring at him, green eyes boring into him. “I’m just wondering if you’ve considered the ramifications of everything that has happened. Aren’t you bothered by the way your son talks about you? As though you barely exist in his life? I suspect this experience—”

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” he inserted, the warmth he had felt from her touch evaporating. “You can clean up Billy all you want, but I don’t need you acting as my moral compass. I know where things stand with Matt, and I’ll raise my son the way I see fit.”

  “He clearly feels that he can’t come to you with things, or he would never have run—”

  “Look, you teach him computers. I’ll handle his personal life.”

  “I thought you didn’t approve of my teaching methods.”

  “All I said was that you influenced him.”

  “And teachers aren’t supposed to influence their students? Maybe if his father influenced him more by paying a little attention to him—”

  “I pay attention to him. If he ever talks to me, I listen to everything he has to say.”

  “Do you ever talk to him?”

  “I have tried, Miss Pruitt. But I’m not exactly up on the latest findings in genome sequencing and nuclear engineering. Are you?”

  “Well…no.”

  “I don’t know a bit from a byte or a RAM from a hertz. And I’ve learned that if I don’t talk his language, he’s not interested in communicating with me. Tell me you have deep discussions with the people on your mission trips. Do you speak Pakistani?”