“I found an access port in one of the tanks, Inspector. The oil could’ve been loaded and unloaded from there.” Portunes perked up as he speculated. “A simple system of hand-pumps or small electric pumps and hoses could have connected the car to the boat.”
“That’s not shown in the video images,” Kilel said.
“Of course, Inspector. It’s the key piece of evidence the smugglers would need to hide.”
“You’re sure no images exist.”
“Yes. A very sophisticated malware worm was let into the system. It knew what to erase.”
Kilel turned to walk back to the mobile lab. She stopped, eyeing the burned-out hulk of the smuggler’s car. The pieces fit. “What about the oil itself? What have you learned?”
Portunes cleared his throat. “The smugglers took some pains to mask the oil’s chemical signature, but we’ve narrowed it down to northeast Pennsylvania, near the shore of Lake Erie.”
“Those wells were closed by the Carbon Acts,” Kilel said dismissively. “They were all capped and all the pipelines and infrastructure torn out. Even the towns were evacuated.”
Portunes put a finger to his lips. “Perhaps one or two of the wells is still producing in secret.”
Could it be possible? The Carbon Acts included severe penalties for producing oil without a license, and military units guarded the old wells day and night. Banning oil had, ironically, made it even more valuable than before. Smuggling and illegal production happened, but never at the scale Kilel had discovered. If the government were somehow involved...
The lab technician and the inspector stood next to her BES vehicle, which gleamed, even in the dull light of the overcast sky. “Good work, Mr. Portunes. I’ll make a note of it in my report.” Kilel detected a hint of a smile in Portune’s otherwise dour face.
Kilel ordered the car to return to the BES offices in Eugene. She touched a button, and the passenger side seat redeployed into a flat, plain divan without arm or backrests. She removed her shoes and suit jacket, thankful for the stretchy fabric of her trousers. She assumed the Padmasana Yoga pose, her back straight, her visage serene, her heart rate slow and steady. She embraced the intrusion of her surroundings into her consciousness, and let it go, as if dropping a handful of rose petals.
Images, thoughts, emotions, sensations drifted in and out of her mind. Unbidden, the shadow of Anne’s angry countenance at the ranch passed over Kilel’s motionless body. For an instant I was afraid of her. The inspector wasn’t accustomed to defiance; Everyone she encountered outside BES was deferential at least, if not groveling or submissive. Anne was intimidated at first, but she lost her fear at some point. How? Kilel remembered the interrogation when Anne spilled the fruit on her tunic and she almost struck the girl. I lost my temper. She found my weakness. She found my fear.
“Colonel Penn is dying.”
The voice in Kilel’s imagination was Anne’s, though she had no idea about the state of her uncle’s health. For that matter, neither did Kilel. Is this an insight or a mirage?
The sun peeked through the overcast, and a shaft of light penetrated the car. Kilel’s heart filled with regret. Raleigh Penn was as close to a mentor as she had experienced in her career. A psychologist might call him a father figure, but the analysis was cheap. He was a hero. He had built the institution she served, and he created the values she internalized. If he was dying, the loss was lamentable. Anne would lose an uncle, a good man she never knew.
Kilel set aside her emotions as she brought herself out of her meditation. She decided her next moves on the smuggling investigation and the search for William Penn.
CHAPTER 26
♦ ♦ ♦
MARTIN WATCHED THE GUARDS STRIP Bill Penn and the woman Micah Panang, looking for weapons or valuables. Kapitan Gore ordered Extinction to get under way, and the wreckage of Aganippe was still burning when the sub submerged. Gore called his officers together to discuss his next move. Gore opened and closed his paws/hands like vises.
“Captain McMadden gave me intelligence that I think we will all find useful.” Gore bared his teeth, a sign he was not satiated with the petroleum pilfered from Aganippe. “A cruise liner, Aurora Borealis, is carrying a cargo of crude oil.”
“A passenger liner? That’s ridiculous.” The skeptic was Reason. “Who would take such a risk?”
“Who would suspect that a new passenger liner, one built with government green subsidies, would smuggle oil?” Gore grunted. “It’s a perfect cover.”
“It’s a perfect trap,” Reason said.
“McMadden had no reason to tell us what he knew, other than to save his own skin.”
The incident with the chunky woman replayed in Martin’s mind.
“Perhaps he was lying to save himself and his crew.”
“The insanity of his claim lends truth to the tale,” Gore said. “It fits with the other intelligence we’ve gathered over the past few weeks.”
“Rumors, you mean.”
“Someone is conducting a major oil-smuggling operation. I believe Aganippe was part of that operation, and McMadden knew enough about the other players to make a credible claim about a seemingly innocent cruise ship.”
“We’re walking into something that smells like shit.” Reason readied a lip-ful of spittle for the deck, but he held back.
Gore had a feral look in his eye, though, that showed he would not be denied. “I abhor competition. I intend to intercept the liner, take her cargo, and deliver it myself to Bežat. Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Reason?”
Martin had trouble wrapping his mind around the concept of thieves stealing from smugglers, but he was focused on Colonel Penn, who might be the key to his social salvation.
“I never have a problem with making a profit,” Reason said, “but I’d like to stay alive to enjoy my profits.” Seeing Gore would not be budged, he threw up his hands. “What choice do I have?”
Gore put his furry hand on Reason’s shoulder. The man gaped at the paw. “This is why I like you, Mr. Reason. You’re a born skeptic, but you know when to give in to a persuasive argument.”
Reason grinned sourly.
Gore announced: “Our next problem, ladies and gentlemen, is finding this glorified yacht.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Bill sat the mess table stirring his soup with a crust of bread. Each meal on Extinction brought back the grisly image of the cook lying on the deck of Aganippe. Each meal reminded him that he had survived her death and the deaths of McMadden, Stubbs, and the others only because he was on the run from BES and needed an excuse to get off Aganippe. McMadden didn’t want him there in the first place, but Bill cursed himself for not knowing her cargo. He cursed himself twice for volunteering to join the crew of a renegade submarine tanker designed to carry an immoral substance. He was in the uncomfortable company of two monsters; one the master of Extinction, and the other a disindentified monk who had unleashed forces that killed tens of millions. The hypocrisy of his behavior embarrassed him. How will I explain this to Anne?
One of the murderers sat across from him. Martin Scribb’s face was recognizable, even a decade after the Spike and the trials. He was leaner and shabbier; the photos of Scribb that Bill remembered always showed him in the styles favored by New York West financiers. Bill ignored Scribb at first, but he soon understood the ridiculousness of obeying the law forbidding anyone from communicating or interacting with the dissed. Everyone on the ship wore a brand. Bill might soon have his own. Like it or not, he and Scribb were now shipmates.
“I’ve done some research on you, Bill.” Scribb’s voice still had that smooth, salesman-like quality he remembered from the trials. It made Bill sick to his stomach. “We have something in common.”
Micah laughed at Scribb’s assertion as she pushed a half-eaten bowl of yellowish gruel away. “That isn’t possible, unless you mean your connections to the bessies.”
“That is true, Ms. Panang, but that’s not what I had in mind.”
&nbs
p; “He means Molly,” Bill said. “She worked for Scribb at Algid.”
“Small world.”
“Indeed,” Scribb said. “We have more in common than that.”
“If you’ve done your research,” Bill informed him, “you know that I’ve been accused of an environmental crime. But I’m not responsible for the destruction of that bird species, whatever the law might say. You, on the other hand, are a genocidal maniac.” Bill regretted his statement when Scribb grimaced. Was that guilt? Could he have a conscience?
“I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I said the Spike was not my fault.”
Micah laughed. “That’s what every criminal says. ‘I was framed!’”
Bill was curious, though, to see what the man had to say. “If the Spike wasn’t your fault, then whose fault was it?”
“Molly Bain’s.”
Enraged by this accusation, Bill grabbed Scribb’s stained shirt and pulled him close. “You’re a liar. You killed millions through negligence and stupidity. Molly was just a programmer.”
“That’s what Raleigh Penn wanted you to believe.”
“Raleigh?” Bill was taken aback by the nearly-forgotten name. He had trouble recalling what his older brother looked like. “What’s my brother got to do with this?”
“Who’s Raleigh Penn?” Micah said.
“The man who prosecuted me,” Scribb said. “The public wanted blood, but a lowly coder wasn’t enough. Molly supplied Raleigh all the evidence, maybe even doctored some of it, and they crucified the big, bad CEO.”
Micah’s mouthed dropped. “The prosecutor was your brother, Bill?”
“You’re raving, Scribb. Molly was my wife. I knew her. She’s not a backstabber.”
Scribb was doubtful. “You’re sure about that? She abandoned you and your daughter—unexpectedly, I imagine. Don’t forget, I was on the other side of that divide.”
Bill had no answer. He once thought he knew Molly, but the revelation of her new career—high class whore—astonished him. They were married, for Heaven’s sake. What other secrets did she keep from me? What else have I refused to see?
“It doesn’t matter, Scribb.” Micah pointed a finger at the man. “You were the head of the operation. You made the decisions. Eighty million, ninety million people died within months of the incident, and another billion had their lives changed forever for the worse. They—we—are still suffering.”
Scribb plead his case. “I suffered a social execution. I paid the ultimate price. I don’t exist, officially, and no one acknowledges my physical existence, unless pushed.” Scribb’s distress increased. “Listen, Bill. Would saving one human being from an unnecessary death redeem a mass murderer? Resurrection is possible, don’t you think?”
Bill wasn’t giving him any succor. “I thought the government wiped everything about you out of everything, databases, public records, all that stuff.”
“What is done can be undone.”
“Tell that to the dead millions,” Micah said.
Scribb was not going to let up, though. “You believe in redemption, don’t you, Bill?”
“I’m not a philosopher, Scribb,” Bill sighed. “I just want to go home to be with my daughter.”
“Maybe I can help you to achieve that goal.”
Again, Scribb insisted on barging into his personal life. “I don’t want your help.”
“Molly can help us. I need to find her. Do you know where she is?”
“No.” It wasn’t a lie, strictly speaking. Bill did not know the position of Aurora Borealis.
“She has a particular skill set that I’m looking for.”
Bill recalled her at Pole Station. Molly is a madam, the owner of a bordello, remade into something more acceptable with corporate terminology that makes it sound like she’s peddling family entertainment. His bitterness surprised Bill. He’d get depressed sometimes, and frustrated, but despair was unfamiliar. “You’re a pervert, Scribb, aren’t you?”
“Come again?”
“Don’t give me that. I did some of my own research. She’s a whore in everything but name.” On the other hand, she’s doing what was always her thing, being on her own, making her own rules, taking chances in places no one else dared.
Scribb was puzzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m interested in her programming skills. She’s one of the world’s foremost experts on artificial intelligence software, and I have a... friend who is in need of her expertise.”
“A friend?” Micah’s question was more than inquisitive.
Bill flicked a roach off the table. “AI. That’s why you hired her in the first place, back before the Spike. She’s still doing that work?”
Micah smirked. “You want her for more than her programming skills, Scribb.”
The monk’s face flushed in embarrassment. “I thought I made clear I’m uninterested in her talents as a personal entertainer.”
Bill was still trying to figure out Scribb’s angle. “You want revenge, don’t you, Scribb? Revenge against my wife?”
“Justice is a better word,” Scribb fired back, “and she’s your ex-wife, divorced fifteen years ago. Still carrying a torch, Bill?”
Bill lunged for Scribb, grabbed him by the neck, and smashed his face into the table. Scribb turned his face in time to avoid a broken nose.
“I think you are, Bill,” Scribb mumbled as Bill banged him into the table top a second time. “She’s the genocidal maniac, not me.”
Bill released Scribb at last, and the dissed man rubbed a new contusion on his cheek. “You’re not only sick, Scribb, you’re delusional.”
Scribb stuck to his earlier point. “She knows more about artificial intelligence than anyone.”
“I’m not interested in helping you, dissed man.”
“It’s your brother that needs the help. I was sent by him to find Molly.”
“Really small world,” Micah said, intrigued.
Bill couldn’t care less about that connection. “I haven’t spoken to Raleigh in twenty years. He and I are strangers.” Bill knew that Raleigh was high up in the BES hierarchy, which disqualified him from any kind of relationship. “I don’t care what happens to him.”
Martin begged to differ. “If you help me help Raleigh, he might help you.”
“A tangled web,” Micah said.
Bill was more interested by this prospect. Raleigh did have the power to call off that BES dog Kilel. “I’ve seen Molly once since the trials, and that was by accident.”
“When was this?”
Bill told Scribb about the encounter at Pole Station.
“Do you think she’s still there?”
“Doubtful. She’s probably on the ship that brought her there.”
“Which is?”
“Aurora Borealis. It’s a new passenger liner.”
Martin’s face lit up. “That’s amazing. That means she’s near. Are you sure?”
“That’s the kind of boat she would travel on, given the people I saw her associating with. It was the only ship in the area besides ours.”
“Do you know where she might be headed?” Scribb’s voice pitched up. He was excited.
Scribb’s eagerness puzzled Bill. “There are several ports where Aurora might be headed.”
“Ah.” Scribb narrowed his eyes. “I believe I can get you what you want, to go home and be with your daughter, if you share your information—or rather, informed speculation—with Kapitan Gore.”
Bill studied Scribb’s face. During the Spike trials, Martin Scribb’s defense team had lauded him as a model citizen, who had never had trouble with the law, apart from the occasional carbon overusage fine. The man before him didn’t seem like he was capable of having a hidden agenda. “I will tell Gore myself.”
“Agreed.” Martin smiled and rose from the bench. “I can take you to him now, if you like.”
Bill was uncertain about the turn of events, but he followed Scribb to the control room, where they found Gore and h
is officers poring over a map. Micah asked to come along. Bill shrank back from the spectacle of a man who had tattooed his DNA with millions of base pairs of an animal, but then again, he had seen many strange things over his lifetime. After Scribb’s introduced him, Bill weighed whether to show his cards or dicker with Gore, but he was not the best card player. He decided to play out the skein.
“My guess is that Aurora Borealis is heading for Dudinka, because that’s the site of a new port facility owned by the same man who owned the ship.”
Gore estimated aloud the distance Aurora might have sailed since Pole Station. “By my reckoning, the liner may have already arrived at Dudinka. That means our opportunity has been lost. Still, Gore ordered Extinction to put on best speed. “Let’s just see what progress she has made.”
CHAPTER 27
♦ ♦ ♦
THE ORDINARY FRAGRANCE OF BOXWOOD consoled Anne as she re-potted bedding plants in the Thomasburg Nursery. With Bill gone, she needed the routine of her part-time job to anchor her days, even if it meant more time away from the hatched magpie chicks than she wanted. A dozen times she replayed the recorded call from her father—Yes, it was him, not a BES trick—to reassure herself that he had not abandoned her, though his absence nagged her like a stubborn insect pest. Mike, on the other hand, was becoming a bulwark against a new randomness of life that upset her. She hoped the instability wasn’t a new normal, though she didn’t want Mike to go back to the status of mere acquaintance.
Anne was ten minutes into her watering routine when a shadow near the fruit tree saplings caught her eye. Her uneasy mind connected the human umbra to a sleek black sedan she had noticed in the parking lot among the normal collection of pickup trucks and autonomous delivery vans. The visitor was camouflaged by shelves of paving stones. “Can I help you find something?” she said.
The gaunt figure of Raleigh Penn emerged. “Hello, Anne.”
Her hand went to the crucifix hanging on her neck, as if touching it warded off evil. Anne’s encounter with her uncle at the detention center came back to her from time to time, as if it had happened in a distant country a hundred years ago. Here he was again, but dressed like an ordinary businessman, instead of a paramilitary officer. He reminded her of an underfed lion, weak but still capable of killing.
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