Spectre Black

by J. Carson Black

  Like a layer of plane-shaped gauze, overlapping the scenery. Now you see it, now you don’t.

  The small plane whisked by and out of frame. Virtually invisible.

  The handheld camera juddered up and down. “Did you get that?” the male voice whispered. “Jesus.”

  The video went black.

  “Play it again,” Landry said.

  Eric played it again. And again. And again. They heard the sound of the small plane’s engine, the squeak as the wheels touched tarmac. They saw little sprays of water on the hard surface as the wheels came down and then bumped up again: one, two, three.

  But no plane.

  Just the neutral gray of dusk in black and white. Just the feeling that the landscape beyond the landing strip seemed to scroll by, misshapen as a fun-house mirror.

  What they could see. Which wasn’t very much.

  Dusk.

  The video went black.

  “You recognize the area?” Landry asked.

  “Airport?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Private airstrip.”

  “The buildings behind were low. Am I right about that?”

  They watched the video again.

  “Low,” Eric said. “One long, single-story building.”

  “Were those trees on the right side of the frame? Just as the plane was coming in?”

  They played it again.

  “Trees,” Eric said.

  “Poplars,” Landry said. “There are three agricultural farms in the valley outside of town.”

  He recalled the three farms he’d driven past on the way to Branch. The buildings on one of the farms were beige with gray roofs. The second one he’d passed had been similar in layout; only the buildings had rust-red roofs. He remembered the white sign with the blue legend, the drawing of a bird—Heron Lake. Heron Lake Agricultural Farm.

  The third farm was mostly manufactured steel buildings. Poplar trees lined the roads. Valleyview Experimental Agricultural Station. The farm also had an airstrip.

  And the third farm had bean fields.

  Milepost 120. That was the general starting place for the three big experimental farms. They ended by 122 at the most. There would be no trouble finding them.

  “Any doubt Rick Connor was undercover?” Eric said.

  “Nope.”

  “Connor sure got an eyeful, that’s for sure. You’d think the DEA would have agents all over this place by now. But not a sign of them.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t able to make contact with them.”

  “That can happen when somebody drives up and blows you to kingdom come. I bet someone would give his firstborn son to get his hands on this video . . . such as it is.”

  “If they know it exists.” Landry thought about it. “I wonder who will turn up in town next.”

  “Probably, they’re already here.”

  The next day and the day after that Landry and Eric manned their respective checkpoints. It was an easy job. Stand around, look intimidating, stop motorists, more often than not just telling them to be careful and look out for illegal aliens. Every once in a while, give some hard-ass a tough time. Show me your ID, that kind of thing. The same deal Landry had gotten when he’d gone through.

  The good thing about being in the militia, all you had to do was throw your weight around, and nobody would dare stop you. Most people Landry stopped made a conscious effort not to engage. Big men in military gear who were clearly not with any government agency made the average Joe nervous, or at least contemplative. Landry would be willing to bet that anyone coming through the checkpoint wouldn’t be able to remember his face. They would remember his body armor, they would remember the assault rifle slung across his back, but they would likely not remember his face. His father and mother had done him a huge favor by giving him a generic face. As an operator, he had done his level best to use that competitive advantage wisely.

  One person who did remember him was Jace Denboer. The second time Landry encountered him at the checkpoint, Jace wanted to set up a meeting. Landry told him no, they had nothing to discuss. Then Jace dangled the carrot. He thought Landry would be the ideal man to work security for him.

  Landry said he’d have to think about it.

  Always good to play hard to get.

  Chapter 23

  The third time Jace asked the man he knew as Sean Marcus Terry if he would take the job as a security officer at his father’s farm, Landry had already quit the militia and prepared for his next place of employment. He called the number Jace Denboer had given him and got him on the first ring. He said he’d thought it over and was interested in interviewing for the job.

  They met at the entrance to the farm. Jace drove a green golf cart out to greet him, followed by a second golf cart carrying two men—part of his security detail. The golf carts were green with beige letters sporting the legend, “Valleyview Experimental Agricultural Station.” He wore a matching VEAS cap, as did the two men with him.

  Jace told Landry to pull his truck off to the side of the entrance and ride in with him. Landry nodded to the two muscle-bound men who accompanied him.

  “Dad told me to take you on the grand tour,” Jace said. “While we’re cruising, we can talk.”

  Landry got in.

  As they pulled away, Jace said, “I’m glad you decided to come aboard. We need people like you.”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “You’ll come around when you hear the salary.”

  Jolie’d mentioned the kid was bipolar. He must be on his meds today. He was sound as a dollar. Behind the wheel of the golf cart, the son of the man who had built all this, he seemed perfectly normal.

  They drove up the lane and hung a right, following the one-lane asphalt road past the row of poplars. Landry heard cawing.

  “Fucking crows,” Jace said. “One of these days I’m going to grab my shotgun and blast ’em all out of here.”

  “Ravens,” said Landry.

  “What?”

  “They’re ravens. Historically, this area isn’t a habitat for crows.”

  Jace glanced at him. “You’re funny! Over here, in this field, we’re growing beets.”

  He talked about the farm, the state-of-the-art practices and layout, how the work being done here would revolutionize agricultural practices. They drove past several outbuildings, which Jace pointed out. One was a warehouse. Another was a greenhouse for hydroponic tomatoes and other vegetables that Landry forgot as soon as he mentioned them. It was all filler. Jace wanted to impress him with the breadth and depth of the operation. They drove the neat blacktop lanes from one field to another, and all the while Jace kept up the chatter like a tour guide. It was a canned speech and he had it memorized. Landry wondered if this kid really thought he could fill his father’s shoes. But Landry was impressed, too. Jace had managed to swallow down his paranoid schizophrenia, at least for now. He even seemed friendly.

  They stopped on a little knoll at the edge of the farm and took in the view.

  Two security people drove up behind his golf cart and parked. Jace waved them away. “You guys take off,” he yelled. “We’ll meet you back at the main building.”

  They sat there for a moment. Jace staring out at the fields. Finally he said, “Did you hear about the guy who used to run the militia?”

  Used to run the militia.

  Landry said he hadn’t. He hadn’t looked at a newspaper, he hadn’t turned on the news, he hadn’t logged onto the Internet. But he could guess.

  Jace said, “He disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “He left town.”

  “When did this happen?”

  Jace shrugged. “The last day or so.” Right now, Jace Denboer was operating on all cylinders. Perfectly normal. Crafty, even. He said, “How would you like to b
e second in command, right under the chief of security?”

  “How about you give me the details.”

  “Of course it’s contingent on your background check.”

  “Of course,” Landry said.

  “You seen the big guy, Raife?”

  “Did I see whom?”

  “Raife. One of the two guys who was with us.”

  “Which one?”

  “The bald one. He’s the one you’ll be replacing.”

  Landry pictured the man. Compact, former military, a head like a bullet and a manner to go along with it.

  The one who gave him the dirty look. Now Landry knew why.

  From there, Jace drove to the security center, which was a lot like the other security centers Landry had seen and worked in. Desks, video monitors, comms. A charging station for sat phones. The video monitors’ reach was extensive. They covered every building and every field.

  “The perimeter is all fields. If someone makes it into the interior—they’re picked up on these cameras. There are sensors that detect anything bigger than a small animal. It’s very secure.”

  “Secure.”

  “What?”

  “‘Secure’ is sufficient. ‘Very secure’ is superfluous.”

  “Jesus, you’re a stickler for shit like that.”

  Very calm. As if nothing troubled him, his expression passive, his face smooth. It was hard to imagine the kid he was talking to driving up to a checkpoint and shooting a man point-blank.

  “What do you think?” Jace said.

  “Good layout. Very secure.”

  “And we have a great employment package. You’ll like it. If you’re right for the job.”

  “Can we drive around some more? I’d like to see it all.”

  “Sure thing.”

  This time they drove by the hangar where Miko Denboer kept his Beechcraft King Air. A big hangar for an agricultural farm. It went with the extra long runway. And the control tower.

  “This could be a small city airport,” Landry said.

  “We deal with people from all over the world. Growers, the United States government, small countries. Hydroponics is the wave of the future.”

  He sounded as if he had memorized the spiel and practiced it in front of a mirror. He stopped at a greenhouse and nodded for Landry to get out. “Check this out!”

  Landry followed him in. He saw banana trees. Jack fruit. A host of tropical plants. But most of the greenhouse was taken up by row upon row of smaller plants, all growing out of what looked like balls of clay. Landry had read about hydroponics, but let Jace tell him about it, anyway.

  “To feed the world’s hungry, we’ll have to go to a different system. The real goal is to create the conditions to be able to grow enough food to feed everyone on the planet. Our plants here have all the nutrients they’d have normally.” He nodded to the rows and rows of green. “People think you need earth for plants to survive. But that’s not true. You need the nutrients in the earth for the plant to grow and thrive.”

  Landry wondered if Jace had learned this lecture by rote.

  “So we use a gravel or a clay ball, and grow the plants that way. Liquid food is circulated around the roots with a pump—it can be simple or it can be high-tech, like ours. But really, all you need is a pump and a timer.

  “Plant roots have to search for the earth to tap into them. Hydroponics delivers the nutrition right to the roots.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Hey, you haven’t lived till you’ve eaten a hydroponic tomato. Larger, better tasting—sweet. That’s our mission.”

  He ran out of gas. End commercial.

  “Impressive,” Landry said.

  “Yeah, I know. Not only that, but we’re currently bidding on a contract with NASA for experimental lunar plant growth.”

  “You mean, on the moon?”

  “Eventually, yes. We’re working with a graduate student at the University of New Mexico. She got a grant from NASA Engineering Design Challenge to build a lunar plant growth chamber.” He added, “Of course the moon is pie in the sky but we have a lot to do right here. There’s so much being done to feed the nation. Even feed the world. This farm is state of the art when it comes to produce.” He glanced at his watch. “Time to go back. Dad wants to give you the time and space to think about it, and then we’ll set up a meeting. I can give you our website and some other sites that feature us and what we do.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Jace took Landry back a different way, past a good-size parking lot. Closest to the main building’s doors was the black Camaro.

  “Sweet,” Landry said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Your wheels?”

  “Oh, yeah. Hey. One of these days I’ll take you for a spin and show you what that baby can do.”

  “Looking forward to it,” Landry said.

  He really was.

  On the way back to the Travelodge, Landry stopped at a convenience store to buy a newspaper. There was a stack of them on the counter, so it would have been hard to miss the headline: “MILITIA LEADER FOUND DEAD.” The subheading read, “Militias Under Fire Across the Nation.”

  Beneath the second headline was an inset photo of Jedediah Kilbride, and a larger photo of an SUV, door open.

  “Jedediah Kilbride, the founder of The Right Hand of God Freemen’s Militia, was discovered late Monday afternoon outside a cabin on National Forest land.” It went on to say that the cabin had been rented to a company named Kilbride Enterprises.

  There were no suspects.

  Landry recognized the cabin as the one he’d visited. Kilbride was only steps away from his vehicle when he was shot point-blank. He’d been identified both by the contents of his wallet and the registration on his truck.

  Another militia member bites the dust.

  It was open season for anyone who crossed the Denboer family. Which meant he’d have to be extra careful.

  He purchased the paper and walked outside to read the rest. Most of the article was background and filler. A ranger driving past saw the body of a man beside his vehicle and went to investigate.

  There were no suspects.

  But of course there was a suspect, and Landry was sure that every person in law enforcement and every person who knew someone in law enforcement knew who that suspect was. The question they had to answer: could they prove it? And if they could prove it, what might happen to them if they did?

  He could see Jace Denboer going straight to the cabin and shooting Kilbride. By warning Jace of Kilbride’s intentions, Landry had put that scenario into play.

  He’d expected one of two things to happen. Either Jace would have Kilbride killed, or he would keep his powder dry and wait for another time. The odds were with the former. Jace had proved to be that rare bird who was both paranoid and entitled. He lived in a fiefdom where he was the prince who could do no wrong, and he’d gotten away with murder once already. Since Jace had driven up to a checkpoint and shot a man in front of witnesses—and then gone the extra mile to have those witnesses killed—Landry had been pretty sure what Jace would do.

  He’d warned Kilbride to watch his back. Kilbride could have taken steps to protect himself, but apparently he hadn’t taken Landry’s warning seriously.

  He’d pretty much told Landry that at the time.

  Or maybe he did take precautions, but his people weren’t smart enough.

  Landry thought of it as putting two scorpions in a bottle and betting a very small amount on the outcome. He wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

  Back at the Travelodge, Landry knocked on Eric’s door.

  “Just got out of the shower, bro!” Eric called out. “I’ll be by in a few minutes.”

  Landry went on up the walkway to his room. Inside, he removed the stainless steel watch, a Night-Visi
on Spy Camera Watch he’d bought from “Gadgets and Gear” online, and set it on the bed. According to the website, the Night-Vision Spy Camera Watch had “Incredible HD 1080 Video,” a built-in SGB flash memory, and a recording life of two to three hours. It boasted night vision and “Crystal Clear Audio.” The Night-Vision Spy Camera Watch could also be used as a webcam, and was waterproof up to three meters deep.

  $99.95 with free shipping.

  He connected the watch’s mini-USB to the USB port on his laptop.

  A hard rap on the door and Eric came in, toweling his hair. “What you got, bro?”

  Landry pointed to his magic watch, and Eric grinned. Sat down on the queen-size bed next to Landry to watch the show. There was approximately two hours and twenty-five minutes of video.

  They went through the footage. The second time through Landry stopped and froze the frame at certain spots. Eric used a sketchpad to sketch the layout of the farm and would match that with the aerial view on Google Earth. “Kid sounds all business,” he said. “I thought you said he was a paranoid schizophrenic.”

  “He must have tightened up for the interview.”

  “I guess so. What’s the plan?”

  “I’m going to take the job.”

  “Hoorah!”

  “You’re awful cheery.”

  “That’s because I ran into one hot-looking lady at the Laundromat.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Hey, I takes ’em where’s I finds ’em.”

  “Watch your back, brother. You can find trouble anywhere.”

  “Yeah, ain’t that the truth.”

  Chapter 24

  Jolie Burke dreamt about the bean field where Dan Atwood was buried.

  She awoke thinking about the kid, just twenty-four years old, and about his home in Sitka. She’d reached out to his parents but there had been no reply. First she’d tried calling them from the number Dan Atwood had given for next of kin, but the number belonged to someone else who had never heard of Dan Atwood. She’d gone through the phone numbers for “Atwood” in Sitka, Alaska—there weren’t many—and had contacted the sheriff there to deliver the news, but she’d never heard back from him. The idea that Dan Atwood might not have parents in Sitka, Alaska, had been stuck in her head as she swam up out of sleep.