by Frank Hughes
“Whatever you do, this operation still won’t be profitable.”
“It’s a proof of concept, Nick. You really have no head for business. Besides, profit is the difference between production costs and price, and the price of cocaine is about to skyrocket.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“We’re making sure.”
“Of course. That’s why you’re murdering the producers in South America and their partners in Mexico. Why Canfield is leading the charge on closing the border. You’re shutting out the competition and closing them down at the same time.”
He nodded. “Supply dries up, the price rises, and we step in at astronomical prices, the sole source of Bolivian marching powder for the whole damn country.”
“Through a chain of beer distributorships?”
“My, my, you have been busy. That’s just one idea. Not to mention we have a private airfield and guests with diplomatic immunity to help move the cash around. Best of all, Nick, the piece de resistance, the icing on the cake, is a license from the federal government to dispose of all the toxic waste we produce making the stuff.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“Don’t be a sore loser.”
I motioned with my head. “You know this can’t last. This has been tried before, in the nineties, those processing plants in Brooklyn.”
“Yes, but that was a large city. This is isolated and very secure.”
“These things have a way of coming out. Too many people involved.”
“Maybe, maybe not. We use a small, select group of mercenaries and everyone understands the consequences of failure. If you’re ruthless enough, you can keep just about anything secret.”
“Is that why you killed those kids?”
“That was just bad timing all around. I found out someone at EPA had grown a spine and there was going to be a surprise inspection at the ghost town. We had just taken delivery of building material for the processing plant, along with a shipment of chemicals and some drums of jet fuel. So we moved it out of the warehouse and up to that meadow.”
“The same night the kids came calling.”
“Like I said, bad timing. They thought they’d hit the jackpot. And got more than they bargained for. We weren’t sure what they’d seen or what they knew. So we started following the trail and killing the key players. We figured a few surgical strikes and the environmental activist community” - he made air quotes around community - “will understand that Diablo Canyon is off limits. They can go fuck with those assholes at Battle Mountain.”
“So Kenneth Boyd is dead?”
“Honestly, Nick, we didn’t kill the little bastard. So far, he’s gotten away clean. Maybe his old man’s disappearance will flush him out.”
“You can’t kill everyone. Someone will find out and shut you down.”
“Roma, perhaps?” He laughed at my expression. “Of course I know about him and his little operation. He’s getting way too nosy. His time is coming. I’ll try to cut him off politically first, put a bug in some congressional chairman’s ear. But, if that doesn’t work.”
“He gets what Raviv got.”
“That would be a last resort. A fat Jew is one thing, but killing a fed, especially Roma, is a big deal. Raviv was an important part of John’s operation. He’s going to find it hard to operate his little off the reservation project without Raviv’s resources. Anyway, if this does blow up, I’m covered. I’ll be sitting on a mountain of cash on a beach somewhere sipping Mai Tais.”
“You’re not the boss, then?”
“Too much pressure at the top. I’m just a consultant. A fixer.”
“Who is the boss? Canfield?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but the phone buzzed.
The guard answered and listened for a moment. He held the phone out. “For you, sir.”
“Excuse me, Nick.” Imperatrice set his flashlight down on the fuel drum and walked back to take the phone.
I looked at the flashlight. I was familiar with it, a high intensity discharge model that used Xenon gas to create an intense, dazzling light. Very handy during a power failure in a mine, but they also generate extreme heat if left on for more than a few minutes. Some models were known to ignite paper. It occurred to me this might be one of them.
I turned to watch Imperatrice, stepping to my right to block his view of the drum. Just then, Fisher appeared, from the back of the cavern. He avoided looking at the men in the pozo and made his way past where I was standing, making notations in his computer.
“Hydroponic cocaine. Quite an achievement, Doctor.”
He stopped. “Some good may still come of it.”
“You’re quite the optimist.”
“You’ve no idea what this could mean to world hunger,” he said. “To a population that will exceed eight billion in less than ten years.”
“Are they all going to get high and forget about their troubles?”
“If these techniques are applied to staples - corn, wheat, rice - hunger will be abolished in our lifetimes.”
“Not my lifetime,” I said.
He looked away, over towards the pozo. “I’m sorry for you.”
“Which plant are you using?”
He seemed relieved to change the subject. “I settled on a high altitude variety, from the Chapare region of Bolivia.”
“Higher alkaloid content.”
“Precisely. As much as 1.2 percent. I created a prototype, and when that was stable, I experimented with adding the characteristics of different fast growing plants to speed up growth.” He turned to face me. “And, after nearly two years, when I found one that was compatible, the result was a species that grows four times as fast as the native version.”
“How soon can you cultivate the leaves?”
“The mature plants allow cultivation in less than a month.”
“Jesus.”
Behind my back, I was moving my hands slowly along the top of the fuel tank, searching with my fingers for the flashlight.
“How did it come to this, Doctor?”
Fisher took off his glasses and began polishing them on his lab coat. “The same way it always does. Money and ego. You have no idea of the restrictions involved with this type of research, how many thousands die of hunger each day as bureaucrats without imagination string their red tape.”
“Someone offered you a pair of scissors.”
“What? Oh, yes. They approached me when I was working at the University of Florida, offering to fund my research if I concentrated on the coca plant.”
“And that didn’t ring any warning bells?”
“I was willfully blind, I admit it.”
“Who was the ‘they’ who approached you?”
“The End Hunger Trust, part of some organization with a French sounding name.”
“Lutte La Faim?”
“Yes, that’s it. Things went well until I made my breakthrough. Then they told me what they really wanted. And what would happen to my family if I did not help them with this.” He put his glasses back on and stole a quick glance at Imperatrice, who was deep in conversation on the phone. “Are you with the authorities?”
“I’m just looking for a missing boy. Part of a group that attempted some sabotage here.”
His eyes widened. “The environmental people?”
“That’s right. You know about them?”
He shuddered. “They made me watch while they killed them. An object lesson, he said.”
“Who said?”
“Kohl.” He spat the name out.
“What happened?”
“Kohl’s men forced funnels into their mouths and Günter poured sulfuric acid down their throats.” His face went white. “It was horrible. Horrible.”
“Doctor,” I said, but he was back in the past, seeing the deaths again. “Doctor!” He looked at me, startled. “Doctor, this is important. How many did they kill?”
He seemed puzzled by the question. “Um, two. A man and a
girl. She was a beautiful young thing.”
“The man, doctor. What did he look like?”
“Tall, dark hair.”
“You didn’t see a boy? Thin, blonde?”
“No.”
Imperatrice finished his call and noticed me talking to Fisher. He handed the phone to the guard and came over.
“Sorry for the interruption, Nick. Couldn’t be helped.” He looked at Fisher. “Doctor, don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Yes, yes,” said Fisher. Clutching the tablet to his chest, he scurried away.
Imperatrice turned to me. “I don’t think Herr Kohl likes you. I’m afraid he’s convinced the boss to speed up our timetable, which is not good news for you. I must turn you over to Isabella’s tender care, after which you and your friend Jeffrey will spend eternity with a smashing view of our new golf course. Rather poetic, don’t you think, given your recent profession.”
“You really are a dick, Dick. You swore an oath to fight these bastards and now you’re one of them.”
“Oh, good Lord, Nick. I’ve always been one of those bastards. Even back when I was your boss.”
He stepped closer to me, eyes bright and smile wide. Our faces were only inches apart and his eyes had that same manic gleam I’d seen when he held the knife at Catherine’s throat.
“Why do you think I killed your wife?”
53.
I was too stunned to react. Imperatrice stepped back, his smile broadening to Cheshire Cat proportions.
“Still processing, eh?” He nodded. “I can imagine. What’s flashing across that Neanderthal brain of yours? All those years trotting around the globe wreaking vengeance on the people you thought responsible, only to find out Moby Dick was sitting right across the hall? Must be a lot to take in.”
He was right. Images, thoughts, and conclusions flashed through my mind. One was that this could be complete bullshit, but in my heart I knew it wasn’t. He was far too pleased and had waited far too long to play this card.
“I see from your expression you believe me. Good, because it’s true. As your former manager, I know you have two weaknesses, which I tell you far too late for it to make a difference. One is that you think no one else is as smart as you. The second is you aren’t as smart as you think you are.”
He took a few steps, as if to circle me. I pivoted with him to hide my hands, which had resumed feeling for the flashlight.
“You really believed I screwed things up back then out of bureaucratic incompetence? I was protecting the operation, Nick.”
“I almost upset your plans.”
My fingertips brushed the flashlight. I traced along it to find the lens end.
“But you fucked that up, too.” He feigned a stern look. “You really should add the two sisters to your tally, Nick. If it wasn’t for you they’d be alive and well today.”
“I’ll make a note. Why did you kill Mary?”
“Surprisingly calm, I must say. Well, maybe you’re in shock.”
I lifted the flashlight with my fingertips, holding it just above the top of the drum.
“She was a lot smarter than you, Nick.” He shook his head, sadly. “She really married down, poor girl, and that sealed her doom, as they say.”
“She began to suspect you.”
“I’m afraid so.”
The underside of the flashlight was slick with leaking fuel. It slipped off my fingertips, but I caught it again before it clanged against the metal.
“You look a little strained,” said Imperatrice. “Do you really want to talk about this now?” He made an elaborate show of looking at his watch. “Oh, that’s right. Now is all you have.”
“So you killed her just because she suspected you?”
“Oh, good Lord, no, Nick. As I said, you just can’t go around killing federal agents, especially from the IG’s office. I arranged for her to be taken off the case.”
“By framing me.”
He grinned. “That’s right. I used some of your own reports to create a pattern. My working theory, which I shared with my superiors, was that you spent an awful lot of time nailing nickel and dimers. I suggested you were using your high arrest numbers as a smokescreen.”
“Which is actually what you were doing.”
“Exactly. Face it, Nick, everyone uses you. The government, me, Roma, your new compadres south of the border. You’re the ultimate patsy.”
I moved the flashlight sideways, towards the guard’s discarded magazine.
“So they took Mary off the case,” I said. “Why kill her?”
“She was a gamer,” he said, sighing. “And she loved her Nick.”
“She stuck with it.”
“She did indeed. I don’t know how, but she found out I was going to put the final nail in your coffin.”
“How?”
“I made a deal with one of the drones working the evidence locker at the WTC. He tended to spend a little too much time in Atlantic City, if you know what I mean. For a certain sum of cash, a quantity of drugs from one of your busts was going to disappear and turn up in your home.”
“Let me guess, the deal went down the morning of September 11th.”
“Right you are. Only when I arrived, there was little Mary putting her hooks in him.” He shook his head. “I could see her put two and two together as soon as she saw me.”
“You killed her? Right there?”
“It was instinct.” The knife was suddenly in his hand. He held it in front of my face, the blade mirror bright. “Before I knew it, my fist was against her chest. I assure you, it was instantaneous. Directly into the heart. I doubt she felt a thing.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You, on the other hand, are in for quite a time at the hands of Isabella.”
“What about the evidence room guy?”
“Oh, I had him help me hide the body. Promises of more money and such. Then I killed him, too. I destroyed the surveillance videos, it was still tapes back then, and got out.”
“Someone had to have seen you. There was a sign in log, other surveillance cameras, someone that knew you. You’d never have gotten away with it.”
“Of course not. I was already mentally putting my escape plan into motion. Then, boom!” He mimed an explosion with his hands. “Fate stepped in. All evidence of my crimes pulverized by tons of rock and glass and eventually hauled away to a landfill. Not to mention,” he said, pointing at me, “a large pain removed from my ass. Ya gotta love Al Qaeda.”
The field telephone buzzed again. Imperatrice turned and went to it before the guard could answer.
“Yes? This is he.”
I felt the flashlight touch the magazine. I set it down and slowly pulled the magazine over it like a tent.
“What? Jesus, how incompetent are your people? Find her! Now! If she gets out, someone’s head is going to roll. Literally.”
He slammed the phone down and looked up at me. The smile was gone from his face.
I switched the flashlight on.
“It appears our chief of police somehow got out of her handcuffs. You know anything about that, Nick?”
“Not a thing.”
He nodded slowly and began walking towards me.
“Still, I think I’d like to have a look at your cuffs.”
I couldn’t take the chance he’d see the flashlight. I leaped towards him, ramming my head into his chest. He went down on the floor. I kicked the guard back into the chair and ran into the tunnel.
The door at the other end was closed. I turned my back to it and found the knob. The guard in the cage seemed unsure what to do. I got the door open and was through it before he could react, but I only took one or two steps before the barrel of an MP5 slammed into my stomach.
I fell to my knees and something metal slammed against the back of my head, driving me to the ground. Without my hands to protect me, my face hit the concrete. I tasted blood.
“Get him on his feet,” said Imperatrice, his tone uncharacteristicall
y agitated.
Hands reached under my arms and hauled me to a standing position. Imperatrice glared at me, his hair askew. Next to him was Ms. Ricasso, stoic and unreadable as always. Günter was holding the submachine gun he’d used to deck me.
“I have to get back up top,” said Imperatrice to Ms. Ricasso. “Find out everything you can. What he knows, who he’s told. Take your time, Isabella. Make sure Mr. Craig’s exit is worthy of the trouble he’s caused us.”
I watched him walk away across the floor, but my thoughts were on the flashlight. Hoping the hot bulb would ignite the paper was a hundred to one shot. And if that did happen, would it set off the little puddle of fuel? And even then, would it spread to the fuel in the drum or just burn itself out? Then there was the possibility the guard or one of the workers would see the flames and put them out in time.
Ms. Ricasso walked past me without a glance. Günter gestured with his weapon for me to go with her. I followed her over to the elevator. Ms. Ricasso pressed a button. Machinery whirred and the counterweight rose. A tiny point of light descended from above. The car that arrived was just a skeleton supporting a heavy duty platform wide enough to hold two pallets. It was open on all four sides, with only waist high yellow rope to mark the sides that weren’t doors. A single bare light bulb hung from the crosshead.
I stepped onto the platform, and Ms. Ricasso motioned for me to move back and diagonally across from her. Günter stepped on board and stood towards the front on my side, with a clear field of fire. Ms. Ricasso swiped her card and punched in the code. The platform began to rise.
We’d gone less than ten feet when the door of the building burst open and the four men from the pozo ran out. One of the guards appeared at the door, putting a shotgun to his shoulder. Before he could fire, there was a whooshing sound and the walls of the prefab building blew outwards, propelled by liquid looking orange flame that blossomed and sprayed over the forklifts and drums of jet fuel. One of the drums tumbled off the pallet and was punctured by the bare forks of the other truck. The spraying fuel immediately ignited and the barrel exploded.