by Frank Hughes
“Nick Craig,” I said.
“Do you recognize my voice?” said Epstein. “Don’t use my name.”
It sounded like he was in a factory. I could hear machinery clattering in the background.
“Hi, baby,” I said. “I was hoping you’d call.”
He laughed. “I assume the FBI is with you. I heard you had visitors.” Quite the little network Epstein had in quaint, rural Bedford.
“I miss you, too,” I said as tenderly as I could.
I gave both agents a series of hand and facial gestures that universally proclaimed ‘you know I have to take this call.’ They looked at each other in exasperation.
“Let's talk more,” said Epstein.
“I’d like that,” I said lasciviously. I gave the FBI guys thumbs up and a regular guy grin of triumph. I just got disgusted looks in return.
“Ten minutes. The woods behind your hotel. Leave your phone in your room and don't be followed.” He hung up.
“Okay, baby. I’ll see you then.” I broke the connection. “Sorry, boys. You know how it is,” I put a thoughtful expression on my face. “I forget. Are we through here?”
Briggs heaved himself up off the desk.
“Remember what I said.”
“Absolutely.” I got up and walked with them to the door. “Really, do you have to go so soon?” They ignored me and walked out without looking back. “Oh, well. We must do this again sometime soon. I'll have tea and those little cucumber sandwiches you like so much.”
I slammed the door and flipped the latch. I put on my shoes and grabbed my coat from the closet. There certainly wasn’t an army of FBI agents in Bedford. They probably did not have the manpower to stake me out on such short notice, but it wasn’t worth taking the chance. I was out the rear door while they were still in the lobby discussing things.
12.
I had only street shoes, so it was a cold sprint across the rear yard of the hotel. I skirted the tightly covered pool and headed towards a path into the forest that was wider than the average hiking trail. From the churned snow and chunks of dark earth, it was also well-travelled. I ventured into the woods about twenty feet, far enough to hide me from view, and waited by a wooden bridge over a small brook. Beyond it the trail split off in opposite directions.
The snow in the surrounding woods was virgin and untouched. Blue shadows cast by the afternoon sun gave it that Whitman Sampler look that delights the tourists. It was also deathly quiet. When, after five minutes of waiting, a chunk of snow fell off a branch, the plop seemed as loud as a pistol shot.
Then the distant buzzing of a powerful motor broke the silence. It grew steadily closer until a Polaris snowmobile skidded to a halt just the other side of the bridge. The rider got off, leaving the motor idling. He wore a black snowsuit and a helmet whose visor obscured his face.
He motioned me forward and indicated I should raise my hands. Once I reached him, he quickly and professionally searched me, going through every pocket and patting down every inch. When he was satisfied I hadn't hidden a cell phone or pistol up my ass, he pulled a helmet off the gear rack and handed it to me. While I put it on, he remounted the sled and gunned the engine. I climbed on board behind him.
My butt had barely touched leather when he accelerated, spraying snow and mud behind us. The sudden lurch tossed me against the rear pad. I grabbed the holy shit handles and hung on for dear life.
The Polaris was a powerful touring model and he was an accomplished driver. I'd driven snowmobiles, but his skill, coupled with intimate knowledge of the trail, was uncanny. We whipped through turns and roared up inclines with barely any reduction in speed. At a straightaway, I stole a look over his shoulder. It was hard to tell with the vibration, but I thought the digital speedometer displayed eighty. I chose to not look again. Instead, I concentrated on the very civilized heated handgrips.
Our route was part of a larger network of trails. At one point we exited the forest and rode on the shoulder of a public road. A quarter mile later the trail veered back into the hills, skirting a farmhouse and barn before crossing an earthen bridge just wide enough for the sled. Below us an ice choked creek spilled out of a metal pipe. Then we were across and into a clearing so quickly we frightened a herd of deer.
Despite the uncertainty of my situation, and the fact that I was freezing to death, I was quickly caught up in the exhilaration of the ride. The bounding deer were a thrilling sight, and, in the angled light of a winter afternoon, every vista was worthy of its own Christmas card.
A short while later civilization reared its ugly head. We flew out of the woods into a power line right of way. The trail became a tortured track of muddy snow snaking around the metal towers. A half mile below a single set of train tracks gleamed in the sunlight. Just beyond the tracks was a metal warehouse, its steeply pitched roof covered with snow. Forty feet away from its open door was a trailer of the sort used as a job site office by construction companies. The remains of a few trucks and cars, in varying states of decay sat nearby. On the far side of the warehouse was a cyclone fence topped with razor wire. From the closed gate, a single lane road stretched past empty fields and bits of forest.
We flew down the remainder of the trail and bumped across the train tracks with no change in speed. The driver navigated past an old trackside loading ramp that looked as if it hadn't been used in a century. When we reached the warehouse, he parked next to five other sleds of various makes and models and switched off the motor.
I got off and removed the helmet. “Thank you, Jeeves,” I said, “I shan't need you the rest of the evening.”
He dismounted without a word or a backward glance, and strode into the warehouse. I placed the helmet on the seat of the sled. With the motor off, the thump and clatter of a printing press was clearly audible. I heard a sound behind me and turned towards the trailer. Epstein was coming out the door marked “Office”.
“I trust you found the journey interesting,” he said, coming towards me, hands thrust in the pockets of a sheepskin jacket.
“Yes. That was quite a ride.”
“I wanted to make sure you weren't followed.” He walked up and stood close to me. “I dare say Mensa isn't beating down their door, but Briggs and Stanton are competent in their own plodding way.”
“It doesn't seem to bother you much,” I said.
“I've been branded a radical for over thirty years, Mr. Craig. Having the FBI in my hair is part of the routine.”
“For a radical you have quite a capitalist streak. You rent snowmobiles on the side?” I pointed at the parked machines.
“What? Oh, no. Those belong to my employees. Snowmobiles are a way of life up here in the winter months.”
“They come to work on them?”
“Good Lord, yes.” As if to emphasize his words, the distant sound of another sled carried to us from the hill above. “I don't like to talk outside,” he said, and we walked towards the warehouse. “It's a whole social scene up here.” We were back to talking about the snowmobiles, I realized. “Miles of trails. You can ride all the way to Canada and beyond.”
“Handy for a getaway.”
He stopped and smiled at me. “If a person needed that sort of option.”
“Yeah, if. Better hope you have a full tank, though.”
“Oh, there are fueling stations, even bars and restaurants. A world of its own.”
“Doesn't it bother you?” I said.
“Doesn't what?”
“Snowmobiles. Trails. Gas stations, bars, abuse of the virgin forest.”
He smiled. “A little. But, I'm a practical man.”
“Or a hypocrite.”
“Call it what you like. What I publish is one thing, but I live in the real world.”
“Unlike your followers.”
He kept smiling. “I have no followers, Mr. Craig. Only readers.”
“I'm looking for a couple of your readers.”
“I know.”
“What can you tell m
e?”
“Let's go inside,” he said.
I followed him in through the warehouse door and received quite a shock. From the noise, I had expected machinery that filled the building. Instead, the wide concrete floor was mostly empty. In the center of the room a low series of eight interconnected machines on a raised metal platform. At one end was a computer workstation, controlled by a middle-aged woman. On the far side of the room, at two rows of steel roller conveyors, a handful of workers packed finished books into cardboard boxes and slid the boxes to others for stacking on shipping pallets.
I looked at Epstein for an explanation.
“Digital recording,” he said. “On a loop.”
“You're a careful man, Mr. Epstein.”
“Yes I am.” He pointed behind me.
I turned. There were some small rooms off the main floor. My driver stood in the doorway of one of them, cradling a Winchester lever action rifle. He was a young man, with brown hair cut short. I turned back to Epstein.
“So why am I here?”
“You may be of some use to me. If what you say is the truth.”
“I’m just looking for some missing kids.”
He thought for a moment, toeing the concrete with a sheepskin boot that looked homemade. Finally he said, “I'm concerned about some of my readers. They were on a trip together out west. I haven't heard from them in a while, and I fear their subscriptions may have expired.”
“Boyd and Nesbitt?”
“I don't recall using any names. And it’s more than two.”
“A trip? The fire in Colorado.”
“That's a connection you are making on your own. However, let's imagine for a moment that your supposition is correct.”
“Something went wrong.”
“Yes.”
“They wanted to send a message. Back off on the expansion, stop the growth. Like Vail.”
“That seems logical.” He lowered his voice more and I strained to hear him. “Something happened, no one knows what. None of these subscribers has been heard from since.”
“So how many are we talking about.”
He spread the fingers of his right hand.
“Five?” I said. He nodded. “Ken and Julie?”
He shrugged.
“Was this Roger one of them?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“But he is missing, right?”
“By choice.”
“So you’ve been in touch.”
“I did not say that. Let’s just say I have reason to believe he is alive and well.”
“Who exactly is this guy?”
“A firm believer in what you referred to earlier today as direct action. His real name is unimportant. He is very good at recruiting, particularly young ladies. Court records, I fear, are strewn with the convictions of those he seduces to the cause.”
“What's his background?”
“He hooked up with Bill Rodgers in the late nineties. Hence his nom de guerre.”
“Rodgers was behind the Vail fire in ninety-eight. I thought they caught everyone working with him.”
“Almost everyone. As I said, Roger is very good at not getting caught.”
“Yeah, a real hero.” I pointed at the man with the rifle. “You’re scared. Why?”
Epstein stole a glance over his shoulder. “I've been losing contact with more subscribers.”
“What does that mean?”
“A surprising number of individuals devoted to the cause have recently met with accidents. A number that seems statistically impossible. I suspect someone may be attempting to terminate the opposition.”
“Opposition?”
“The green movement.”
“You mean the radical green movement.”
“Characterize it how you will.”
“That's why you took down the articles about The Retreat. Hoping to distance yourself.”
“Yes. As you pointed out, it was careless of me not to think about web archives.” He shrugged. “So now you know as much as I do.”
I thought about what Briggs had said, that eventually, everyone makes a mistake. In this case, Epstein may have made it with the wrong people. The man holding the rifle turned his head and looked towards the door. I looked down at Epstein and smiled.
“You do like to play games, don't you?”
“How so?” he said.
I nodded towards the man with the rifle. “The man who brought me here has a scar on his neck.”
“So?”
“That's Roger.”
13.
Epstein smiled at me. “I may have to kill you yet.”
“Let's cut the shit, shall we? You've never killed anyone.”
He nodded. “You're right. I've fought for peace all my life, Mr. Craig. Killing isn't in my nature.”
“You'd be surprised at what you can do if you're pushed hard enough.”
He looked at me closely and said, “I believe you speak with authority on that.” Without looking back, he called over his shoulder. “Please join us.”
Roger sauntered over with an arrogant swagger, the Winchester cradled in his arms. Good looking in a roguish sort of way, with a lean build like a swimmer. He could easily pass for mid twenties, although from his history he had to be much older than that.
“It seems that your purple badge of courage has given you away,” said Epstein.
Roger reached up and rubbed the scar.
“Mr. Craig is trying to find some people that may be friends of yours. I believe he has some questions, for you.”
Roger looked around at the employees nearby. “Let's go in the office” he said. His voice was deep, almost soothing.
He turned and walked abruptly towards the door. Epstein made no move to follow, just raised his eyebrows. I got the message and followed Roger out. He led me across the yard to the trailer. We mounted the steps, and went inside.
The interior was not designed to impress. A couple of cheap metal desks and some mismatched filing cabinets were the only decor. There were older model PCs on both desks and pretty basic telephones. The only decoration was a large erasable calendar hung on the back wall, with what appeared to be shipping and delivery dates.
Roger went to one of the desks and rummaged in the top drawer. His hand came out holding a large massaging vibrator with a fist sized head.
“I may have given you the wrong idea,” I said.
He didn't even acknowledge the remark, much less smile. He plugged the vibrator in and turned it on, placing it on top of the filing cabinet so that the vibrating head touched the window. The glass began to shimmy and rattle.
“Lasers?” I said.
He nodded. “We sweep for bugs twice a day, but we can't do anything about the lasers. Except this.”
They thought highly of themselves. I doubted the FBI budget for little old Jack Epstein included Briggs and Stanton camped out in snow camo armed with expensive listening devices.
“Tell me about Ken Boyd.”
Roger sat down behind the desk in a metal folding chair that had seen better days. I took the similar one in front.
“Boyd, eh? He was the perfect patsy.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Little Julie worked her wiles on him, seducing him to the cause.”
“It didn't take much. The kid has daddy issues.”
“Has? You know he's alive?”
“I don't know that he's dead.”
He was a cocky, insufferable bastard. I wanted to kick his teeth in on general principle. Instead, I said, “Did you know who he was when you went after him?”
He shook his head. “Not at first. We just pegged him as a rich kid with the right major, plus that van was pretty sweet. And he looked like he had difficulty with the ladies.” He favored me with a toothy smile. “He was one of many possibilities.”
“Did you pick The Retreat because of him? Or was that just luck?”
“It was already on the list, but he clinched it. When we found
out he actually knew the layout and the people, well, it was kismet.” He snorted. “And, boy was he anxious to stick it to his dad.”
“And little Julie learned all this by sleeping with him.”
He shrugged. “All for the cause, man. You'd be surprised the stuff some guys will tell a chick willing to bang 'em.”
“You didn't mind?”
“Mind?” He looked at me as if I had three heads. “She's just a chick and I get all I want. Besides, I didn't have to worry. No way he gave her what she got from me.”
All she got from you was used, I thought. “So how did it work? Ken drew out a great deal of cash just before he disappeared.”
“Gas, food, expenses. I don't leave a paper trail, man. Everything is paid in cash.”
“So you all drove to Colorado in his van.”
“Right.”
“Why this target, besides Ken’s knowledge?”
He leaned forward and spread his hands. “This fucking place. Expanding. Right there on top of the mountain.” He sorted. “Thought they could slide by because of the mine clean up and their hydroponic garden.”
“The what and their what?”
“There were mines there. Lead, zinc, gold. And a little town for the workers. Place only closed completely in the eighties, after they raped the earth almost beyond repair. It's a Superfund site, now.”
“They're building a resort on a contaminated site?”
“Nah, that's only one part of it. Where their fucking golf course is gonna go.” He waved a hand. “It's all part of the con. That they're going to finish cleaning it up.”
“And the hydroponic garden?”
“They’re trying to kill local dissent with some green bullshit about how they’re growing their own vegetables and fruits right there on the mountain. Reduce their carbon footprint. Load of crap! It’s all cover for a major expansion.”
“Why do you say that?”
He sat back in the chair, tilting it against the rear wall, and put his feet up on the desk. The big boots thudded wetly on the scarred metal. Little bits of muddy snow fell to the desktop.
“There was way too much stuff up there. Big construction shed, tons of framing material, some sort of bulldozer thing they'd helicoptered in. Then there’s that fucking cable car they built, defacing Diablo Canyon. And they’re planning a whole new gondola lift.”