Rising Spirit

  “What do we do for the rest of the day?” Sheena asked.

  “We wait,” I replied. “Your partner should be here with the van around noon, and I need to check in with my team down in Florida. None of us got much sleep last night, so getting a nap might be a good idea.”

  “That’s what I was just going to suggest,” Ollie said. “I’ve unpacked and that bed looks pretty inviting.”

  Without waiting for a reply, the judge turned and closed the adjoining door behind him. He’d left his coffee on the table.

  Turning away from the window, I found Sheena watching me. “So, is this your room or mine?” I asked, hoping she hadn’t been reminiscing about our last encounter.

  “You’ve changed, Jesse.”

  I rubbed the stubble on my chin. “Yeah, I guess I’ve let a few habits fall by the wayside.”

  “I like the hair,” she said, reaching up and pushing it off my forehead. “I see enough crew cuts. Scruffy looks good on you. But I wasn’t talking about a physical change.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Twin pale blue orbs looked me deep in the eyes, searching from one to the other. “You’re off the market, aren’t you?”

  “I…uh, have a girlfriend, if that’s what you mean,” I replied, eyeing my pack. “That’s a ridiculous word at our age, isn’t it?”

  “Boyfriend and girlfriend?” she said, smiling sweetly. “Yeah, but what other term fits? Woman friend? Man friend?” She paused. “Lover?” She picked up one of the coffees. “You never remarried?”

  “No,” I replied. “I decided some time ago that I just wasn’t husband material.”

  “What’s the lucky woman’s name?”

  “Sara,” I replied. “Sara Patrick. We started out working together, and when her dad was injured in a submersible accident, I took his place and she helped train me.”

  “Submersible? Long hours under the sea, huh?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “You never married?”

  “Most agents are married to the job,” she said, turning toward the other adjoining door. She opened it and turned to face me again. “This is your room, Jesse. I’m through here.”

  When she closed the door, I stood looking after her for a moment. We’d only been together a couple of nights—at a friend’s house in Beaufort, South Carolina. I remembered the immediacy of Sheena’s lovemaking.

  I pulled my laptop out of my pack and plugged it in to recharge. Then I called Deuce to check on our Florida visitor’s status.

  “Hey, Jesse,” Deuce said, when he picked up on the second ring. “How are things going up there?”

  “I met with the judge this morning, and Sheena was there.”

  “I know. Chyrel intercepted a text message to Pritchard containing a picture of her. They had someone watching you, just as you predicted.”

  “They followed us back to the hotel,” I said. “Once we came inside, they drove away.”

  “Chyrel also intercepted a message from Pritchard to the sheriff, telling him to ‘meet me at the diner’ at 0600.”

  I remembered telling Pritchard to give me a number before 0600 and he’d been a few minutes late with it.

  “So, they were together when Pritchard sent me the text about the price.” I ran my fingers through my hair and glanced over at the door to Sheena’s room again. “Wish I could have been a fly on the wall when he read my counteroffer. How’s Lane enjoying his stay?”

  “He’s not,” Deuce replied. “I hope you don’t mind, but I had Andrew take him out to your place on his boat late last night. It wouldn’t be good to keep him here at the office.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “Nobody’ll know he’s out there but Jimmy and Finn.”

  “What’s your next step?”

  “Tomorrow morning, I’ll be with Sheena and two of her people when we meet at Pritchard’s old barn for the first pickup.”

  “Will Pritchard and Taliaferro be there?”

  “Pritchard will be,” I said. “I doubt the sheriff will. As soon as money changes hands, Pritchard and anyone else there will be taken into custody. Judge Whitaker will have the state police arrest Taliaferro at about the same time.”

  “Did it ever snow?” Deuce asked, satisfied that it was about over.

  “A dusting last night,” I said, walking toward the window.

  When I opened the drapes, I realized that last night was just Mother Nature’s opening act. Big dry flakes fell straight to the ground, not a breath of wind to guide them. The blades of grass that had been left poking up through last night’s snow were now covered and parts of the parking lot between cars were beginning to turn white.

  “Call me in the morning for an update when you’re on your way there,” Deuce said as we ended the call.

  I continued to stare out the window at the falling snow. I remembered seeing snow for the first time when I was just a kid, about five or so. Dad couldn’t come home for Christmas that year, so we went up to Camp Lejeune. It’d started snowing two nights before Christmas. Mom had awakened me and the three of us had watched it fall outside the window for hours. Then, the next morning, Dad had surprised me with a sled, saying that the snow hadn’t been forecast to come until after Christmas. Mom and Dad took me to the only hill on base, near the entrance to French Creek, so I could ride on it.

  The snow outside was beautiful, but I also knew its dark side. Slippery, muddy, frozen ground and slick hidden rocks.

  “How can we be sure what’s in the containers is LSD?” I asked Craig Allen, who was sitting in the passenger seat of my rental truck.

  We’d left the hotel well before daylight. Doctor Brown’s van was still there. Sheena’s partner rode with me and would act as the leader of my team. Sheena would be the driver of the van and the other agent who came with Craig was the tech guy, rounding out the judge’s little team of criminals. Sheena had only introduced the new agent as Nigel before we split up into my truck and their heavy duty 4x4 conversion van. Where they got it, they didn’t say, but it looked capable of handling any terrain with a heavy load.

  The road was covered by more than an inch of fresh snow. Fortunately, the temperature was well below freezing, so even though it was covered, the road’s surface was at least dry and ice free. Sheena followed us in the van.

  “It’s a simple test,” Craig replied, not looking up from his phone. “A drop of the LSD on a dish will appear clear. Adding a drop of a special reagent will make it pink to purple in color.”

  “What color’s the reagent?”

  Craig chuckled, put his phone away, and looked over at me. “The bad guys would have caught on by now if the reagent was pink or purple. It’s also clear.”

  I concentrated on the road ahead. With no lines for visual reference as to where the lanes were, I just stayed on the highest part of the road’s contour and kept my speed down to just 20 miles per hour. I was probably driving right down the middle of the road, but it didn’t matter; no other vehicles were using it. Sheena followed right behind us. Ours were the only tracks on the road at this early hour, but I wanted to allow plenty of time.

  The GPS told me to make a sharp right just ahead. I remembered the intersection from the day before. It had once been a Y in the road, but engineers had changed it, making a curve at the end of the intersecting road so that it formed a T.

  “We’re going to be early,” Craig said.

  I passed the intersection and turned left into the closed convenience store. When I’d made a complete circle, Sheena pulled up next to my side, rolling her window down.

  “We’re early,” she echoed. “It won’t even start to get light for another thirty minutes.”

  “Brown will come this way,” I said. “And if Taliaferro decides to make it easier for us, he’ll likely come this way, too.”

  “He won’t,” Ollie announced from the back
seat of my truck. “The state police have his house under surveillance. There aren’t even any lights on.”

  “So, we wait,” Sheena said.

  And wait we did. For nearly an hour. “Hurry up and wait” had been a sort of mantra when I was in the Corps. The structured lifestyle agreed with me. Hurrying wasn’t in my nature.

  Finally, just as the sky was starting to lighten to a soft gray, Brown’s white van made the turn onto the road where most of the suspects lived. The sound of the tires crunching on the new-fallen snow seemed unusually loud against the stark black and white background. He accelerated too early and the rear tires spun for a moment.

  “Let’s give him a few minutes,” I said, checking my watch. “It’s twenty till eight.”

  After five minutes, I put the truck in gear and crossed the highway onto the intersecting state road, Sheena following right behind me. The going became a lot easier—all I had to do was follow the tracks of Brown’s van. After a few miles, it turned onto the road going up to Buffalo Gap. When we reached the turnoff on the west side of Pritchard’s property, the gate was open, and Brown’s tracks turned through it.

  “I guess Brown saw us waiting,” Craig commented.

  “We’ll leave it open,” I said. “In case we need to make a hasty retreat. Let Nigel know.”

  On either side of the twin rut road were deep ditches to channel rain runoff. The snow followed the contour easily, but with everything white, the road looked unusually narrow, even with the tracks of the van as a guide. I stopped and shifted the truck into four-wheel drive.

  “For a Florida man,” Craig said, “you drive in this stuff pretty good. Me? I hate snow.”

  “Never make assumptions,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ever since last week, when I decided to come up here, everyone’s been telling me I’m out of my element.” I looked over at him and grinned. “I was a Marine during the height of the Cold War. We all assumed the next big land battle would be in Siberia or China. So that’s what we trained for. I went to the Keys to get away from ice and snow.”

  As we came around a bend in the road, the barn came into view. A concrete area in front of it had been swept clear of snow and a forklift stood ready to load three blue barrels. They were lying on their sides, stacked in a pyramid, and strapped to a wooden pallet.

  Brown stood off to the side with Pritchard. Frank Millhouse was nowhere in sight.

  “Brown’s assistant isn’t here,” I said. “Young guy, dark hair. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  He repeated my warning to Sheena and Nigel. I backed in next to Brown’s van and Pritchard’s Dodge, allowing Sheena a wide spot to turn the cargo van around.

  “The signal will be when one of them picks up the briefcase,” Craig said. “Not before then.”

  I looked over my shoulder at the judge, sitting in the backseat. He had his phone to his ear. “Stay here, Ollie. Is that the state police?”

  “I have no intention of getting out,” he said, with a smile. “I like taking part, but I know my limitations. Yes, I have the trooper in charge at the sheriff’s house, waiting for me to give the go ahead.”

  Ollie had already issued bench warrants, sending them to the Virginia State Police and the Attorney General. He’d personally called both offices, bringing them up to speed on the corruption in his county.

  Craig and I got out and strode toward Pritchard. My eyes scanned the area. I saw no tracks outside of the immediate area, so Millhouse wasn’t off in the distance, hiding behind a tree with a rifle. I looked up at the barn and saw no movement or indication of a hidden shooter. The door opened and Brown’s assistant stepped out carrying a box.

  “Did a cocaine truck turn over in your yard, Aiden?” I asked, striding confidently toward him. “I almost wrecked three times driving up here in this white crap.”

  Sheena backed the van into place and got out. Moving to the back, she opened the doors, swinging them out to the far sides. Nigel was inside, sitting on a small stool, a folding table in front of him.

  “Can we do this quick?” the young man in the van asked. “It’s friggin’ cold out there.”

  “Bring that over here,” I said to Millhouse.

  He looked to Pritchard, who nodded. Then he carried the box over and placed it on the floor of the van. It looked large enough to hold four gallons.

  “I’ll get the other ones,” Millhouse said.

  “What other ones?” I asked.

  He stopped and looked back and forth between me and Craig.

  “Those are the empty jugs,” Pritchard said, pointing to the ends of the barrels. “Reuse the ones you pick up at each stop.”

  The barrels were slightly raised at the opposite end and each one had a tap with a valve in it at the lower end. “Not too shabby,” I said with a grin. “But reusing the empty bottles is hardly sanitary.”

  Doctor Brown laughed. “Trust me, nothing can live in what we make. That’s eighty percent alcohol.”

  “One hundred and sixty proof?” I asked. “Whoa!”

  Pritchard placed a hand on the top barrel. “Our customers blend it with non-alcoholic mixes or even water.”

  I took a small metal cup from my pocket and held it under the tap, cracking the valve slightly. The amber liquid in the shot glass had a powerful, almost clinical smell, but there was a trace of the oak and cherry. Though it was only half a shot, it burned my throat going down, and landed hard in the middle of my belly, spreading a warmth more than capable of battling the cold air.

  “Dammit, man!” I said, holding my chest. “They’d better cut it, that’s for damned sure.”

  Craig went with Millhouse to the door of the barn, where another box sat on a hand truck. Craig stood aside as the young man carefully tipped the hand truck and rolled the second box toward where Sheena and I stood.

  I opened the box already in the truck and pulled out one of the empty glass jugs. Then I opened the box on the hand truck and lifted out an identical one, except it was full.

  “That’s pretty smart,” I said. “If your guys got busted, the cops might think this is just hooch.”

  “Not if they taste a sample like you did,” Brown said. “That same twenty milliliters would kill two people.”

  I turned and carried the jug toward Pritchard. “It’s not hooch in here, is it?” I extended the jug toward him. “Or water, maybe?”

  “You’re a suspicious man, Stretch,” he said, grinning. “I like that in a business partner. I see you brought a little extra muscle.”

  “And I see you didn’t,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “I think we understand each other.”

  His smile wasn’t one of mirth. “Yes, I think we can do business together. But we’re going to have to make different financial arrangements. You get your terms this time. But after this, we’re partners, not suppliers. Me and you. And we cut everyone else out.”

  So, he wants to get rid of the sheriff and the others, I thought. This was a man with a single goal: money. He had no aspirations of gaining power in this deal—he got that from his day job. Greedy people were easy to figure and easier to manipulate.

  “Can you bring that over here?” Nigel asked. “I’d still like to test it.”

  Brown took the container and carried it over to the cargo van. “You’re using Ehrlich’s reagent?”

  Nigel placed an empty jug on a scale beside him on the floor of the van, read the weight, and punched at his phone’s screen. “Yes, as a presumptive test.”

  He put the empty back in its box and took the full jug from Brown, placing it on the scale. He then punched at his screen again and said, “The weight is accurate for a 3785-milliliter sample.”

  Sheena looked over at me and smiled. “That’s a gallon, Stretch.”

  Nigel put on a pair of latex gloves and opened the jug. Using an eye dr
opper, he extracted a small amount, placed one drop on a dish on the table, and then put the rest back in the jug, tapping and squeezing the dropper several times. From his pocket, he took a small jar and unscrewed the lid. It had a dropper attached to it. He added one drop of the contents to the dish and the clear liquid immediately turned pink, then slowly darkened to a light purple.

  “It checks,” Nigel said.

  “Go get the money,” I told Craig.

  Craig walked over to my pickup and opened the back door. When he returned, he had a briefcase in his hand, which he placed on top of the barrels of moonshine.

  “Four gallons of acid and a hundred and fifty of liquor,” he said, grinning at me. “Enough to light up South Beach for a couple of days.”

  Craig opened the case and turned it toward Pritchard. “That’s a hundred grand for four gallons and a thousand and fifty for the three barrels. Total is $101,050.00. The judge said to round it off to an even $102,000.00.”

  Pritchard looked at the stacks of money, picked two up and set them aside, then lifted one at random from the bottom of the case and fanned it. He put it back, rearranged the stacks and counted them. Then he looked up at me.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “This bullshit strongarm stuff doesn’t mean a thing. Next week, the price is fifty grand per gallon. And you have to take out the sheriff. Otherwise, I just shut down and walk away.”

  His hand moved to the briefcase’s lid and stopped, waiting for me to reply.

  I slowly let a grin spread across my face. “I like you, Aiden. You know a good business opportunity when you see it. Eliminate the share that goes to the good sheriff and give it to me, huh?”

  He nodded.

  I pretended to mull it over. “No deal,” I said. “I want the others’ shares, too. Here’s what I’ll do: after this good-faith gesture, I’ll pay you forty thousand a gallon, not a penny more. And you can keep the moonshine. But to kill Sheriff Taliaferro, well, that’ll be a hundred thousand in cash, half up front.”

  Pritchard eyed me for a moment, then took five bundles from the briefcase and placed them on the barrel next to it. He closed and latched the case, then picked it up with his left hand, extending his right to me. “You have a deal, Stretch.”