Alexa Book 2 (Mystery, Thriller, Suspense starring Alexa Guerra): Peak Oil (Alexa - The Series)

by Arno Joubert

  She looked out of the window as the doors slammed closed and the ambulance sped off, its sirens wailing. She plopped into the chair as her phone rang. She dug it out wearily. “Hello?”

  “Captain, I thought you should know; Mister Andy Fitch has been arrested.” It was Forrester, sounding excited.

  “When?” she asked, forcing herself up and down the stairwell.

  “Right now,” he said and hesitated. “Sergeant Allen brought him in.”

  Alexa stopped in mid-stride, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “Neil?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely, here, speak to him,” he said, his voice a mixture of excitement and relief.

  There was a brief silence, then Neil’s deep voice said, “Hi, Alexa.”

  She sobbed and sank to her knees, her arms hanging limply to her sides, unable to say a word. It was the most beautiful sound that she had ever heard in her life.

  “Ally?”

  She blinked, then raised the phone back to her ear. “Neil?”

  “I left you a note,” Neil said, sounding apologetic. “At the clearing—“

  “Note? Didn’t get a note,” she stammered. “Where were you?”

  “I was with you all the time.”

  Alexa breathed deeply, trying to control her voice. She stumbled to her feet, a wave of euphoria making her heart beat faster. It felt like she was floating on air, as if someone had flipped a switch and everything suddenly seemed brighter. “Wait there, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.” She jogged to the Hummer, pinning the phone to her ear with her shoulder.

  “Don’t disconnect the call, I need to hear your voice,” she sobbed, unable to control her emotions.

  She sped out of the ranch and bounced onto the highway’s blacktop, then floored the accelerator all the way into town. She held the phone to her ear, savoring every word as Neil told her about what happened, how he had been so close to her the entire time. Tears flowed freely and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand as she sobbed, realizing that she wouldn’t have been alive had it not been for him.

  He was with me all the time.

  Twenty minutes later, she skidded to a halt in front of the police station, then disconnected the call. Neil ambled out of the station and stood on the sidewalk, his arms folded in front of him and a smile on his face. He opened her door and pulled her from the car, picking her up in a bear hug. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder. He gently rocked her from side-to-side as he spoke to her in a soothing tone.

  They stood like this for a couple of minutes, Alexa pouring out all her pent up emotions, babbling incoherently, slowly regaining her composure as Neil hugged her tight, clutching her to him like a child.

  Finally Alexa stopped sobbing. She took a deep breath and looked up at Neil, who gave her a wide grin. His front tooth was missing. She frowned, then laughed.

  Neil watched her with the gapped smile, looking embarrassed. He leaned back, studying her face, his thumb brushing her cheek and chin. “Who did this?”

  Alexa pursed her lips and slowly shook her head. “Fitch.”

  Neil frowned, then his face became stern, the look she recognized whenever he was preparing to go into a hostile environment. “Let’s go talk to him,” he said firmly and gently lowered her to the ground.

  They marched through the sliding glass doors of the police station. “Open,” Alexa commanded the female officer standing guard in front of the cells. The woman raised her eyebrows slightly, hesitated, then turned around and unlocked the door. They must have looked like parodies from a Mary Shelley novel, Alexa with her stitched-up face and Neil banged up and missing a front tooth.

  Andy Fitch stood standing in his cell, his hands behind his back, a sickening grin on his face. “Good day, Capitano, I’m glad to see you recovering so well.” He had a laceration across his brow, probably acquired during Neil’s rough-handed arrest.

  “Fitch,” she acknowledged with a curt nod of her head. Neil glanced her way, his lips pursed and a vein throbbing in his temple, but he kept quiet.

  Alexa moved close to the bars, then folded her arms. “I need the shutdown codes, Fitch.”

  Neil looked at her questioningly, and she mouthed a silent ,“I’ll explain later.”

  Fitch threw his head back and cackled his burbly laugh, slapping his leg. It took a while before the laughter, and then a wheezing fit of coughing stopped. He chuckled a final time, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at Alexa. “Someone stole them, you’re straight out of luck, Capitano.”

  Alexa slammed the bars with her palm. “You’re lying, Fitch.”“If I were you, I’d fold and cash in the chips, Capitano. You’ve got nothing to gain,” he shrugged and winked. “And so much to lose.”

  Alexa pushed her face close to the bars, then growled, “You’re going down, Fitch.”

  “How?” he asked, leaning even closer. “All that’s keeping me in here is the damn mound of paperwork my lawyers are completing as we speak.”

  She prodded his chest with a finger. “You can’t deny the evidence. First of all, you’ll stand trial for the murder of Patricia McBride.”

  Fitch shook his head and tsk-tsked sympathetically. “No, I won’t. My boy did it, remember? Harvey said you found his Bolo tie at the scene. DNA evidence will back it up.”

  “What about the shale that you were refining illegally?”

  Fitch threw a hand in the air. “Please, you’re acting as thick in the skull as that hellion that Pauline calls her granddaughter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All my paperwork is in order,” he said, examining his nails, then stuck his thumbs in his belt loops and winked. “I can prove that we refined what we said we did, nothing more, nothing less. All the incriminating stuff has been reduced to ashes by now.”

  The man wasn’t giving an inch. “You killed Pauline’s daughter and tried to kill Mary-Lou.”

  Fitch shrugged, his eyes narrowing shrewdly. “Chris told you that, didn’t he?” The side of his lips turned up into a half-smile. “Again, my bastard son did it. He was convicted of the crime, but he ran away, he wasn’t man enough to face the music.”

  Alexa slammed the bar with the palm of her hand. “You won’t get away with this, Fitch.”

  He smiled, his lip pulled up over yellowing teeth. “Oh, but I already have, Capitano.” He leaned closer, his face almost touching Alexa’s. “I already have.”

  Alexa growled and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, then pulled him backs and slammed his face into the bars.

  Fitch resisted, holding onto the bars, trying to push himself away. “Guards, this crazy bitch is trying to kill me,” he yelled, pushing himself away.

  Alexa slammed the bottom of her palm down on his fingers and Fitch lost his grip momentarily, allowing Alex to jerk him forward again. His nose slammed into the bar, gushing blood, obviously broken.

  The door flew open and the female officer stormed inside. Her eyes were panicked as she took in the scene, and she went for her gun in her holster. Neil grabbed her arm and pinned her against the wall, unholstering the weapon and slipping it into his belt. “We just need a couple more minutes with the accused, officer.”

  Alexa opened and closed her hand. “Keys please.”

  The officer flinched, licking sweat off her upper lip as she patted her belt, then tossed the keys to Alexa. Alexa unlocked the cell door and slid it open, hovering menacingly over Fitch who was sliding backward on his bum.

  “What are you going to—” he cried as Alexa pulled him to his feet by his collar, turned him around and shoved him towards the side of the cell.

  Andy Fitch screamed in pain as Alexa rammed his face into the bars again, this time dislodging a tooth. He tried to claw at Alexa’s face behind his neck, but she swayed to the side and slammed his face into the bars again. After a minute of smashing, the older man grew meek, his face a bloody mes
s, and he couldn’t stand on his own feet anymore. Alexa dropped him, and he fell to the ground, blood gushing from between his fingers as he clutched his hands to his face. She finished him off with a boot to the side of his head. She nodded, satisfied, as he slumped to the ground.

  Alexa wiped the blood spatters from her face and chin with her arm, then walked out of the cell and tossed the keys to the female officer. “Thank you officer, we’ve finished interrogating the suspect,” she said with a sweet smile.

  The officer nodded her head sheepishly as Alexa and Neil strode out of the holding area.

  Mess Tent, Camp Prairie

  “What happens once Fitch shuts down a refinery?” Alexa asked Missy.

  She shook her head, a worried frown on his face. “Captain, a lot of processes are involved in doing a controlled shutdown of an oil refinery.” She slumped forward on the table rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands. “Fitch will most likely do a dirty shutdown, causing the refineries to fail.”

  “Fail?” Neil asked, scratching his jaw.

  “Blow up,” Missy said, staring at the back of her hands as if they held all the answers.

  “You still think that’s his plan?” Alexa asked, gripping a fistful of her hair and releasing it.

  Missy nodded slowly, then shrugged. “Wouldn’t put it past the bastard.”

  “So let’s get on the phones and tell them to do the manual shutdowns, immediately,” Lucy Beck said exasperated.

  Frydman’s face appeared on the white screen in front of the mess tent. “Captain, I think you need to see this,” he said. A video appeared on the screen. They could see a burning refinery, then the picture shook as two explosions followed in quick succession. “This is live footage from ENN. Apparently the GASOX refinery in Manhattan has exploded.”

  “Oh shit,” Pauline whispered. “Is everyone okay?”

  “More than thirty reported deaths,” came Frydman’s clipped reply.

  Alexa bounced up out of her chair. “We have to do something.” She pointed at the screen. “This isn’t going to stop.”

  Ryan pulled his phone from his pocket and punched in a number. “I’m getting hold of the GASOX plant manager in New Jersey, we can find out if they’re being shut down as well,” he said and switched the phone to speakerphone, then placed it down on the table.

  It rang twice and an excited voice answered. “Ryan, thank God,” he shouted. “Did you initiate shut down?” They heard excited voices yell in the background.

  Ryan leaned toward the phone. “No, Malone, we think Fitch did.”

  “Well, you have to stop it. Pressure is building in the silos and we’re gonna blow if you don’t.”

  Ryan closed his eyes and massaged his temples. “We can’t, we don’t have the cancellation codes.”

  “What?”

  “Get out of there, Malone.”

  “There’s no time—” Malone shouted and then they heard screams and an explosion. Ryan looked up with a frown as the phone beeped and switched to an engaged signal. “We need those codes,” he said helplessly.

  Alexa paced the room. “Who else had copies?”

  “The call center at Refatex,” Pauline whispered, her lower lip trembling.

  Ryan shook his head. “I looked. Everything had been removed by Fitch and his gang.” His face lit up. “Patsy had a copy.”

  “We went through her house, swept it three times. There was nothing,” Harvey reported.

  Alexa nodded slowly. “That’s why she was murdered. Fitch wanted to remove everyone who had links to those codes.”

  Missy shifted in her chair. “We met in Mo’s a couple of days ago.”

  Alexa frowned questioningly.

  “She wanted to come clean,” Missy said, shaking her head sadly. “She wanted me to take the codes, said she didn’t feel safe with them anymore.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Alexa asked.

  “I was scared,” Pauline sobbed. She dabbed the corners of her eyes with a tissue. “I think there’s something we could try.”

  Everyone turned to face her in unison.

  Alexa’s head jerked up. “Was Mary-Lou with you? Did she get to look at the codes?”

  Pauline nodded slowly. “Yes, Patricia was afraid that she was going to draw pictures on them, the way she always does.”

  Alexa bolted up from her chair. “Forrester, please fetch Mary-Lou, we need to talk to her urgently. Missy, go with him, hurry.”

  Voelkner fidgeted with his hands, his forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know about this, Captain. It’s a long shot.”

  Alexa looked up at her troop. “I know, but it’s the only shot we have.”

  Mary-Lou’s hand glided across the page. She drew feint lines to represent the rows and columns of a spreadsheet, then started scribbling characters and numbers, as if she were filling out a crossword puzzle that she knew off by heart. Her tongue flicked over her lips as she worked, the page filling haphazardly with what seemed to be illegible doodles, and after a minute she pushed the page towards Alexa and looked up. “Done.”

  Alexa flitted over the page, then handed it to Ryan. He nodded slowly and looked up with a shrug. “It looks right.”

  Pauline grabbed it from his hand. “Well, try it then,” she said, exasperated.

  He seemed unsure, shaking his head slowly. “What if it doesn’t work?”

  Pauline scanned a finger down the page, then started punching in numbers into her phone. “What have we got to lose?” she said, lifting her eyes from the page as she dialed. “Let’s do Chicago first.” She punched a number and listened, then punched another one that she read off from the sheet of paper. She glanced up and smiled uncertainly, then nodded her head. “I think it’s working,” she shrieked and clapped her hands gleefully, then patted Mary-Lou’s head. “You’re a genius, my baby.”

  “There’s been another explosion, this time at Refaco in Milwaukee,” Frydman’s voice announced over the microphone.

  Alexa crouched next to the young girl, then cupped her chin. “We need more numbers, my baby,” Alexa said urgently.

  The young girl nodded, then started scribbling furiously. She pushed a sheet toward them every minute or so, not looking up as she worked.

  “Where do I start?” Pauline asked glancing around uncertainly. “The biggest ones first?”

  Neil shrugged. “Just work down the lists, alphabetically.”

  “You think?” Pauline asked, pursing her lips, then nodded. “Okay, grab your phones.”

  Pauline briefly explained the sequence and how the numbers worked, then more than a dozen people started dialing and punching in the cancellation codes, grabbing Mary-Lou’s completed sheets as she pushed then forward. An hour later, Mary-Lou pushed another sheet of paper across the table and flexed her hand. “That’s the last one I can remember.”

  “Sure there weren’t any more?” Neil asked, worried.

  The girl shook her head. “Nope, last one.”

  Alexa grabbed the final page and started punching in the numbers into her phone. “Any more explosions, Colonel?” she asked, glancing up at the big screen.

  There was a brief silence, then Frydman’s metallic voice answered, “negative, Captain.”

  Alexa continued punching in the numbers, and one-by-one the men and women gathered around the table put their sheets back down as they finalized the cancelation sequences.

  Finally Alexa tossed her sheet onto the table and disconnected the call, then leaned back and smiled at Mary-Lou. “Somebody get that girl all the candy she can eat.”

  Neil walked up to Mary-Lou, picked her up and hugged her to his chest. “You’ll never know what you did today, Mary-Lou.” He placed her back on the ground and crouched in front of her. “You saved the lives of many, many people.”

  Mary-Lou nodded her head, then asked, “can I go play now?”

  Nel chuckled. “Off course.”

  She bolted out of the tent. A brief silence followed, then everyone burst out into spontaneous a
pplause.

  Andy Fitch lifted his hat gingerly from his face. He had tried to catch some Z’s, but the excitement ate at his stomach like a pair of jostling calves. And his damn nose hurt. His lawyer had phoned and told him that the sale had been successful. A cool three-hundred-and-fifty million had been transferred to his account, and he would receive a ten percent royalty on all future profits. He was set for life.

  He had managed to destroy all the evidence. The heater pumps had been disassembled, there would be no proof that he was stockpiling the shale. His cash had been transferred to a bank account in Venezuela. His retirement was eminent and he couldn’t wait.

  He lit a cigarillo, lay back in his bunker and blew a smoke ring. It drifted lazily through the windless cell, then disintegrated as a key jangled in the doors, and Sergeant Evelyn Thompson appeared holding a large tray. His lunch.

  “About time,” he said, sitting up straight, being careful not too move too quickly. The damn migraines were the pits, and he had to move carefully as his entire body throbbed from the beating he had received.

  The officer smiled apologetically. “Mo had a tough time sourcing Kobe beef, sir.” She unlocked the cell door and stacked the plates on a table. “It arrived an hour ago.”

  Fitch flicked the cigar on the floor and ground it out with the heel of his boot. Evelyn pulled back a chair for him, and he sat, cautiously lowering himself into the seat. She opened the napkin, flicked it and put it on his lap.

  He glanced up at her, then grabbed her arm. “I want to see my lawyer.”

  Sergeant Thompson nodded as she poured a malt beer into a glass and placed it next to the plate. “You’ll see him soon enough Mister Fitch, don’t fret.”

  Fitch squeezed her arm and pointed a finger at her. “I pay your salary, Evelyn. You better get me my damn lawyer.” He squinted as a jolt of pain surged through his neck. He would get that bitch back, if it was the last thing he did.