Transparency: Bio-Tech Cavern Secrets Untold

by Matthews, D. K.

  “Jimmy, put some grass in there for Gennie One-Seven. Then you men load up the rest of the cattle. Let’s get the hell out of here. You never know when those nosy fucking farm boys will show up.”

  Halliday decided not to confront the government agent. He crawled backward, like an iguana pinned in the sights of a boa constrictor.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The optometrist had shaken his head and said, “There’s nothing wrong with your eyes, detective.” The eye doctor said he could recommend an ophthalmologist, a specialist, but considered it a waste of time.

  Halliday didn’t argue. What would he say? “Doc, I’m seeing strange translucent green cows.”

  As he walked back to the PD Halliday called Bob Rogers. The rancher’s immediate response was, “Where the hell were you, detective?”

  He told Rogers that he had made a wrong turn and had gotten lost.

  The angry rancher lamented, “We crossed paths with a convoy led by a black van with SIERRA CONTRACTORS stenciled on the door.”

  “What happened?”

  “Those bastards tried to run us off the road.”

  Good thing he made them give up their weapons. If Halliday told the rancher what he had seen, he could imagine the headline in the Tribune.

  Halliday walked up the steps, unable to get Roger’s last comment out of his mind. The irate rancher had said, “We all know that SIERRA CONTRACTORS is a front for the DOD. If Santa Reina PD doesn’t do something about their cattle rustling we’re going to enlist an attorney.” When Halliday iterated that Rogers and his men still didn’t have any proof the rancher hung up on him.

  This powder keg could explode at any time.

  He stopped at the top of the steps. Rich Gladstone was getting out of his pickup across the street.

  “Hey, Halliday.”

  “Follow me.”

  He led Gladstone on a short walk to the central plaza. Besides the PD, the plaza remained one of the last remnants of old town Santa Reina. County workers were preparing to replace the ancient fountain in the middle with a modern version that would light up the night.

  Halliday found an aged wooden bench.

  Gladstone sat next to him and said, “What’s this all about?”

  With DS, Halliday had always felt free to vent his frustrations with fellow agents. He felt awkward that Gladstone was the only man he could confide in. Leo Bergman had gone to L.A. with the chief for the day. “I went to Redwood Bluff last night. I saw something very unusual.”

  Gladstone sat up straight. A jackhammer’s staccato bam-bam-bam delayed Halliday’s response.

  He had to be careful. “I went out with ranchers last night led by Bob Rogers. He had received a lead regarding animal poachers. We became separated and I stumbled across a team of DOD agents supported by Genevive security men. They were in a corn field rounding up steers.”

  “You’re shitting me. Department of Defense? G-men rustling cattle?”

  The jackhammers sounded: Bam-bam-bam.

  Halliday continued, “DOD uses a front—SIERRA CONTRACTORS—for their clandestine operations.” Halliday remembered the whiney voice of the security man who referred to the man-in-black as Special Agent Asshole.

  Gladstone looked genuinely shocked.

  He couldn’t mention the green translucent cow, Gennie. “If they were rounding up the animals to experiment on, is it possible they may be doing the same with transients?”

  Gladstone’s incredulous expression gave him his answer.

  “No way, Halliday. DOD agents rustling animals is one thing. Abducting transients? Wow, I can’t accept that. You’re talking felony offenses.”

  Watch, listen, and learn.

  “A thorough investigation means sorting through all the details to get to the facts. It could be we’re dealing with a renegade band of Genevive security men lead by a rogue DOD agent. Maybe they were thirsty for more than just cattle rustling. I don’t know. I’ve learned that many of Genevive’s security men are experienced at policing chain gangs in Alabama. No telling what character they possess.”

  Gladstone raised his brows, continually shaking his head. “I don’t know, Halliday. The DOD didn’t need to rustle cattle. Wouldn’t they just truck them in?”

  Not if they had grazed on plants that had been affected by the chemical that made them translucent green. “I saw what I saw.”

  Halliday didn’t like it that the young man didn’t respond. Was he saving it for the chief? “Gladstone, this is just between us until we get to the bottom of it. If word gets out it could open a whole new can of worms. I think the chief, pressured by and Genevive, would come down hard on us.”

  “I never thought that the chief was that beholding to Genevive.”

  “Start believing. Let’s go.”

  Back at his office Halliday Googled, “swamp gas.”

  He found two gases that emitted a phosphorescent green color. Will-o’-the-wisp and Jack-o’-lantern. Further reading led to UFOs, a dead end. Swamp gas offered the best explanation for what he had witnessed in the cornfield this morning. It didn’t explain the sighting the other day on the ridge with no water nearby. Or that he had seen right through that cow last night.

  If real, then why hadn’t the black suit reacted to the strange green phenomenon? Why did they go to all the trouble of bringing a cow out to the meadow to artificially inseminate her? What was the pond scum grass for? Nothing added up.

  A manila envelope Betsy had handed him sat on the desk. She didn’t know who had delivered it. The words “PRIVATE—FOR DETECTIVE JOHN HALLIDAY ONLY” were written across both sides with a black Sharpie. The sender had sealed the flap with fiber tape. He used a pair of scissors to open it.

  The clarity of the photograph of Palmier with his personal secretary would have impressed a CIA agent. They were in bed, she was on top. The location of the camera surprised him. The action had been shot from behind and to the side. Laurel must have somehow installed a spy camera. The angle required a skill that few at Santa Reina PD possessed.

  Halliday slid the photo back into the envelope. Laurel’s handwritten note explained she had transferred some files into the private account he had set up for her. She wrote, “Your life is in immediate danger if these files fall into the wrong hands.”

  Laurel’s artistic signature flowed easily.

  Her stern warning along with the next revelation caused him to sit up straight. Laurel alleged that she had correspondence naming an unidentified member of the Santa Reina Police Department who was abetting Genevive Labs in illegal activities.

  Who?

  She didn’t know yet. The thought that one of his cohorts had been bought and paid for by Genevive disgusted him. With what he had learned, it didn’t surprise him, though.

  Laurel signed off by writing that she looked forward to meeting him soon.

  Halliday opened the electronic folder on his laptop. There were three files in the folder that he had set up for her. He copied the files onto a new flash drive then deleted them from the folder.

  Two officers in blue trudged past the open door. Halliday nodded. He let them pass before he placed the evidence in his valise.

  The closer Halliday came to her, the more mysterious Laurel appeared. He needed to have to figure out what to do, soon.

  The laptop screen alerted him of an e-mail, this one from the chief in L.A.

  Brayden said he had received a courtesy call from Robert Gartner, the CEO of Genevive Labs. Gartner and Palmier expressed concern that Halliday’s investigation of Palmier’s ex-wife might stir up media interest.

  The chief asked him if their concerns were justified. The chief’s exact words were: “If word gets out that a ghost is haunting a Genevive executive the press will eat it up.”

  Halliday scoffed. What press? Genevive had the Tribune by the balls. The chief went on to say that Gartner mentioned that Laurel McKittrick may be part of a computer hoax. He ended the e-mail with, “Watch yourself Halliday.”

 
The chief’s warning rang in his ears. A heavy weight settled on his shoulders. It reminded of a gone-bad incident over three years ago on the Fourth of July in a land where Independence Day was not a cause for celebration.

  # # #

  During the Middle East detail an argument ensued over a procedural issue. The disagreement had Agents Halliday and Solvano at each other’s throat. However, an unreported event changed their lives. It occurred on the Fourth of July in Cairo, Egypt.

  Madam Secretary’s arrival in Cairo, the last leg of the trip, had occurred as orchestrated. The DS team geared up for the final detail with a sense of professionalism that overcame the weariness of constant vigilance. Looking back at the last two weeks Halliday saw it as one long progression of jumping in and out of black armored Lincoln Continentals in Damascus, Beirut, Amman, and Tel Aviv.

  At Cairo’s Garden City Hilton Hotel control room DS Special Agent in Charge Blankenship had earlier handed out Madam Secretary’s itinerary. Blankenship had commented that as always it was subject to change without notice.

  Halliday considered the Madam Secretary to be more accessible than her male counterparts. A gregarious woman, the Madam Secretary loved her job. She lacked a healthy concern for the danger that exists in foreign lands. Her effervescent personality put Halliday and his fellow DS special agents on constant alert. Egypt, primarily a Muslim society where women were often treated as second class citizens, made them doubly watchful.

  The Madam Secretary’s ETD was forty-five minutes away. Her first stop would be the U.S. Embassy. Halliday and Solvano checked their weapons along with the special DS two-way radios that ran on scrambled frequencies impossible to decipher. He strapped the radio to his belt. The surveillance kit, a hidden microphone and earpiece, snaked under his collar.

  The door swooped open. Special Agent in Charge Carl Blankenship returned wearing a grim expression on his tired face.

  Something was fouled up. Blankenship’s slumped shoulders took Halliday aback. He heard a foreign sounding voice in his earpiece. The other agents reacted with puzzled looks.

  Solvano listened intently to the strange voice coming from their two-ways.

  The grim Blankenship hunkered over the podium. A thin radio technician wearing a T-shirt over jeans stood next to him.

  Blankenship clapped his hands. “Gentlemen… and ladies, I need your undivided attention.”

  The room quieted.

  “Listen up. We’ve got a potential crisis going on here.”

  He nodded at the radio tech. “Brian here has reason to believe that our radio frequencies have been compromised. Al Qaeda, Chinese hackers, Egyptian militants? We don’t know at this point.” Blankenship nodded to one of the agents who put the audio output of the two-way on a speaker phone.

  From the back row Halliday watched his partner slowly rise. Solvano spoke German, French, some Arabic and some Hebrew. She might be able to translate the gibberish that came out of the speaker.

  Blankenship gave her a disturbed nod. “Do you have a question, Agent Solvano? We’re in the middle of a crisis here.”

  If someone had comprised the DS frequency spectrum then they were in trouble. At the same time Halliday remembered what one of the techs had told him, that the two-ways utilized a code-skipping algorithm that made it virtually impossible to get hacked. The fact that Brian stood at the podium with Blankenship might discount that theory.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I wanted to point out that the woman utilizing our frequency band speaks Arabic.”

  The Agent in Charge looked around, his smirk evident to the dozen agents. “Yes, that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it Solvano?” He ran his hand around his neck collar. “We have an interpreter on the way.”

  Solvano didn’t react, although Halliday noted her cheeks redden a shade at the put down. Maybe this was the kick in the butt she needed.

  “Sir, it has to do with the position of the woman’s voice I hear on my phone,” Solvano said.

  Blankenship’s frown silenced the room. “You mean to say she’s a political plant? Al Qaeda? How would you have access to such information?”

  Solvano looked around the room. “I mean to say she is in the horizontal position.”

  Halliday’s smile spread like a virus to the other agents.

  Blankenship didn’t get it. He kept blinking. His head jerked this way and that until he saw the relief in the agents’ faces. Then the light bulb went on.

  Solvano, cool and collected, nodded. “One of our agents is fraternizing with an Egyptian female. We have been listening via a stuck microphone.”

  Blankenship couldn’t help himself. “What did she say?”

  Solvano cocked her head and said, “Loosely translated, the woman was commenting about ‘Benjie’s… overzealousness.”

  “It’s Agent Benjamin Moore," a voice from near the door rang out.

  The red-faced Blankenship barked, “Well, someone go roust Moore out of bed. Get his sorry ass over here. I won’t accept lying down on the job on my watch.”

  Agent Moore had worked the second shift. He deserved to sleep in. The incident spurred a room full of grins.

  The awkward Blankenship proclaimed an end to the meeting. Before he departed he said in a weak voice, “Good observation, Agent Solvano.”

  Solvano nodded.

  After Blankenship stormed out Solvano offered Halliday a coy look that on future details he would learn to cherish. Then she said, “Watch yourself, Halliday, it’s going to be a hot one today.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Santa Reina Hot Springs Resort touched the rear border of Genevive Labs. Beyond that they had no connection as far as Halliday knew. Across the street a public spa attracted students from Santa Reina Community College. A sign on the locked gate read “SPA CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE,” in big red letters.

  Since the Santa Reina PD had held a retreat here last summer Halliday knew his way around. The ten acre wooded property sat above a natural hot springs. Single story cabanas with spas in the master bedrooms, fed from the hot springs, surrounded a huge climate controlled glass atrium. A group of talkative parrots hopped around amid exotic plants in the oasis.

  People flocked to the atrium restaurant, “Tropical Pines,” during the winter to watch the snow fall outside while sipping on mai tais beneath palm fronds.

  Halliday stood in the knotty pined lobby. A large oil mural of one of the California missions hung above the huge rock fireplace. Two smiling receptionists wearing red blouses over white skirts adorned the front desk like cherries atop cheese cake. One of them directed Halliday, pointing out the office where Laurel McKittrick had worked during her employment.

  He found the spa manager, a cordial auburn-haired woman in her late twenties seated at her desk in a private office at the end of the hallway.

  Jillian Andrews didn’t have Laurel’s drop-dead beauty. Halliday found her complete calm to be very settling. The blond haired woman appeared mature beyond her years. She wore glasses set in a round face with freckled cheeks and large blue eyes. When he mentioned Laurel’s name her eyes lit up.

  “Laurel was such a vibrant soul,” Jillian said.

  “Yes, I understand she was an energetic young lady,” he said. “Someone broke into her home in Paso Robles before the estate sale. They stole among other things, her canoe.”

  Jillian’s brows lifted either from surprise or that she knew Laurel’s canoe hadn’t been stolen.

  “It was worth more to her than a Mercedes,” she said, as if describing the importance of Moses’ staff.

  “Did she own a Mercedes?”

  “Laurel? I don’t think I ever saw her drive a car. She bicycled everywhere. That girl was so into nature.”

  Halliday was getting a picture of Laurel McKittrick as a gregarious and active girl. A free spirit. So why did she marry the always-in-control Brad Palmier? “What was her address before she married?”

  “Laurel stayed here. We have some studio apartments out back. Occasionally, I rent t
hem out to workers. There’s no public transportation out this way except to Genevive Labs, of course.”

  So far, Jillian was the strongest link to Laurel. “When’s the last time you saw Laurel?”

  “I saw her once after the divorce. She dropped by to ask directions to a hot spring up in Sonoma County. We had discussed it before. I gave her the address.”

  Halliday waited as Jillian appeared to have another thought.

  “Curious, now that I think of it. She wanted to know if I knew of any natural caves here in the area around our hot springs.”

  “Are there?”

  “I told her as far as I knew there were none. Even if there were any caves in this area they would be on Genevive Labs’ property, off limits to normal people.”

  Jillian’s expression conveyed a mild annoyance.

  “At the time I didn’t know about Laurel’s interest in caving. She valued her privacy. The tragedy in the New Mexico cave, well...”

  She swallowed hard.

  Halliday said, “Yes, it was a terrible tragedy.”

  Jillian swiveled the monitor so he could see Laurel’s blog photo. She said, “I wasn’t aware of Laurel’s caving blog until before her disappearance.”

  “Is this a good likeness of her?”

  “Oh yes, it’s perfect,” she said, as if viewing the Mona Lisa.

  “Jillian, do you still have the address of the Sonoma hot spring?”

  “Yes, but I don’t believe she ever made it there. She visited us right before her New Mexico trip.”

  She pulled a card out of an old Rolodex file. “Let me make a copy of the address for you.”

  “Did Laurel leave a forwarding address when she left here?”

  Jillian reached behind to the copy machine. “She moved into Palmier’s Sierra Chalet apartment after they married.”

  She turned back. Regarded him with skepticism, she said, “Detective Halliday, your visit has to do with more than a stolen canoe, doesn’t it?”