The Killdeer Connection

by Tom Swyers

  “It’ll mean anything they want it to mean so long as it gets you a seat at the table. We don’t have much time, so listen up. The Killdeer Society doesn’t count killdeers. They’re counting oil-tank cars on the rails to calculate a value on the price of oil. They give this information to investors who trade on this information. Walk with me.”

  David walked with the jailhouse swagger of a man who had nothing to lose.

  “Who’s trading on this information?” Moore asked from behind.

  David looked over his shoulder. “Some traders. It’s not important now. It’s not illegal, right?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  David stopped and faced Moore outside the entrance. “By the way, I’m going to record our conversation during the deposition with my cell phone, unless you want to have your people turn on my ankle bracelet so they can hear.” David looked down at his ankle. The bulging bracelet under his sock had caught on the hem of his pants. He shimmied his leg so the hem would fall over it, and then pulled his slacks down so it wouldn’t happen again.

  “I can’t turn that on without some advance notice.”

  “Okay,” David said as he opened the full-glass entry doors. Moore followed close behind.

  The lobby had been transformed for the upcoming December holidays. There was an artificial Christmas tree in the waiting area buried in ornaments and garland of gold and red, the unofficial colors of Baxter & Chadwick: gold was for the fees they earned, and red was for the blood they extracted to earn those fees.

  The same blonde and brunette receptionists were on duty, buried in makeup and looking as fake as the tree. David checked in with the brunette. She asked Julius Moore for his coat and hung it in the closet and then told them to take the elevator to the eleventh floor.

  David could have guessed that was their destination. They were going to the top floor, the partner floor, and the fishbowl conference room—the same place where Amber had put herself on display to the partners during his last visit.

  David’s infatuation with Amber and any sympathy he’d felt for her had died since his last visit. She already had tried to leverage his likely arrest for Harold’s death as a means of settling Ben Prior’s case. Even though she was wrong on that count, David knew she’d try and leverage his federal arrest for lying to the government any way she could. He even thought she might have had something to do with it.

  As they rode up in the elevator alone, Moore adjusted his handgun in his hip holster so it wouldn’t show behind his black suit jacket. “How did you figure out that they were counting tank cars instead of birds?”

  “A guy who represents the traders paid me a visit looking for the counts. He provided a missing piece to the puzzle. I’d thought they were counting tank cars, but I couldn’t figure out why. Now it makes sense. They were trading on this information.”

  “What does Helmsley Oil have to do with counting oil-tank cars?”

  “I’m not sure. I hope some pieces fall into place today. Watch Kincaid closely.”

  Moore nodded as the elevator chimed, and the door opened. They stepped off and walked side by side down the hallway. David looked toward the conference room. Through the glass window, he spotted Amber, a court reporter, and Kincaid. He saw Dick Pot in the corner office next to the conference room. David figured that Pottenger had either bumped a partner out of that office since David had last visited, or he had temporarily borrowed it to keep a close eye on the action through the glass wall. The drapes were open.

  Moore’s eyes wandered as he walked. He appeared to be taking in the extravagance of the place. The partners eyed them both as they walked by their offices. Two of them did double takes. David wondered if this was the first time an African-American had been on the floor. It didn’t cross his mind that they might have been gawking at him—a lawyer turned jailbird arrested in connection with a national terrorism plot.

  Amber was seated at the table with her back to the river, her hair grazing her shoulders in plain view of every partner on the floor. She eyed David as he stepped into the room, but she went bug-eyed and stood up when she saw Moore enter. David liked the idea that the agent’s presence might throw her off her game.

  Kincaid was seated at the end of the conference table with his back toward Pottenger as David entered. He looked over his shoulder when Amber stood. The male court reporter was in a chair next to him, between Amber and Kincaid, getting his equipment ready.

  The railroad defendants hadn’t bothered to show, which didn’t surprise David. At that point, they weren’t particularly interested in pursuing a defense that involved a cross-claim against Helmsley Oil. That would mean that they would have to say that Helmsley was to blame for Ben Prior’s injuries. If they did that, they would be biting the hand that fed them by suing a customer.

  David figured the railroad would try and get rid of Ben Prior’s case soon enough by making a motion to dismiss it before trial. State laws of negligence and liability didn’t apply to rail cases like this one. Under legislation, they were supplanted by federal law and regulations regarding railroads, which sounded good on paper until you discovered that such laws and regulations were virtually nonexistent as they pertained to claims such as the one in which Ben Prior was involved. The end result was that the Ben Priors of the world had no recourse against the railroads, which got to walk away without paying a dime. But David had persisted in filing a lawsuit, anyway, in case the law somehow changed in his favor either through new court decisions or new legislation.

  “Good morning, Amber,” David said upon entering the room.

  “Thompson,” she said, glancing at him before looking at Moore.

  “Amber,” David said, stepping off to the side, “I’d like you to meet Julius Moore, an associate of mine. He’ll be observing us today.”

  Moore offered her his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  Amber stepped over to shake it. She was dressed all in black with a white blouse. She slowly took Moore’s hand, squeezed it for a second, and released it. “Hello,” she said before trying to grab a peek of Pottenger in his office over Moore’s shoulder. Dick Pot had pulled up to his desk and was staring at a black box on it. He didn’t seem at all interested in what was going on in the conference room.

  Donovan Kincaid now stood up. He was well over six feet tall, lean but strongly built, very fit. His curly black hair had touches of gray on the sides. He had ditched his Stetson and wasn’t adhering to the Texas dress-up code. He wore a textured gray-wool suit with a narrow, dark-red, paisley-silk tie and an American flag lapel pin.

  David stepped to an empty seat next to Kincaid. It was the same seat he’d had before when he’d met with Amber. His back was to the partners in the office, directly across from Amber.

  “Hi, I’m David Thompson,” David said to Kincaid as he walked by him.

  “Donovan Kincaid,” he said in his deep voice, extending his hand.

  David offered him a firm hand, but Kincaid crushed it. David heard a crack in his hand, like he had cracked his knuckles. It didn’t hurt, just caught him by surprise.

  Moore had seen what had happened to David’s hand and was ready for it when he introduced himself to Kincaid. “I’m Julius Moore,” he said, shaking Kincaid’s hand before sitting next to David.

  David looked over his shoulder. Amber was now talking to a young male lawyer in the corridor, just outside the conference room. She had left the door partially open. Amber was doing most of the talking with the young lawyer nodding here and there.

  David turned his attention back to Kincaid. “I like your lapel pin,” David said, trying to fill the awkward silence of the room with small talk.

  “Thank you. I’ve worn it ever since Nine-Eleven,” he said, referring to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as his eyes lit up. “You see, Mr. Thompson, I believe domestic terrorism has been the number-one threat to undermining the resolve of this country.”

  David nodded thinking that Kincaid was quick to respond,
almost like he had given the exact same response to people who had complimented him on his lapel pin over the years. Amber was still preoccupied outside the room. He decided to make a move.

  “I understand, Mr. Kincaid. If you don’t mind my asking, do you think terrorists were behind the train explosions?”

  Kincaid sat up and put his hands on the table and clasped them in the shape of a steeple. David prayed that he would take the bait and give one of his know-it-all lectures that were all over YouTube. “Yes, I do. It’s not just me, though. It’s most everyone else, too: law enforcement, experts interviewed by the media, newspaper editorials, politicians, and government officials. You name it.”

  “But you say not everyone—”

  “Of course, there’ll always be the conspiracy theorists. You’ll always have those.”

  Moore nodded. He was all ears.

  “I’m curious,” David said. “What do you think the goal of the terrorists was in blowing up all these trains?”

  “It’s obvious. They wanted to disrupt our energy supply and to kill people.”

  “Really?” David said, shaking his head ever so slightly.

  “You disagree, then?”

  “I’m just not so sure,” David said meekly. Of course, David strongly disagreed, but he didn’t want to show it. He didn’t want to risk shutting the conversation down by getting into an argument.

  Kincaid tilted his head. His eyes bore through David like he was drilling for oil. “I don’t understand how you can have any doubts,” Kincaid said.

  David got the message. He knew Kincaid was referring to his arrest. He wanted to punch Kincaid in the face, but he did his best to blow him off. He needed to stay focused.

  The court reporter got up and excused himself, saying he had to use the men’s room. He passed Amber, who had just finished up her conversation and was heading back to her chair. Both left the door open.

  David pressed on. “Okay, well, can I ask you, Mr. Kincaid, what was the goal of the Nine-Eleven attacks?”

  “It’s obvious: to kill Americans.”

  “Right, they piloted a couple of planes filled with people into two buildings filled with people. On that day, they weren’t trying to disrupt our energy supply. If anything, they were trying to use it—in the form of jet fuel—as a weapon. But these bomb-train explosions weren’t designed to kill people.”

  “I think there are at least twenty-seven people who might disagree with you, if they were still with us.”

  “Exactly my point. There were only twenty-seven people killed.”

  “Only? Only twenty-seven? Don’t you think their lives matter? How about their families? Like I said, they blew up the trains to disrupt our energy supply and to kill Americans.”

  “Well, if what you say is true, then they are pretty stupid terrorists.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kincaid said incredulously.

  Amber had sat down and had heard enough. “Mr. Kincaid, don’t forget we’re here for a deposition today,” she said. David could only imagine what she was thinking. Her client was off script talking about stuff they hadn’t rehearsed. He was out of control. If Dick Pot were here, he’d be in full cardiac arrest.

  “That can wait,” Kincaid said to Amber. “I gotta hear this. Go ahead, Mr. Thompson. I’m all ears.”

  It wasn’t like Amber had much choice. They couldn’t have a deposition without a court reporter.

  “If one of their goals in blowing up the trains was to kill us,” David said, “then these terrorists didn’t do their homework. In Philadelphia, the bomb trains travel within about two hundred yards of Limerick Generating Station’s twin reactors and fuel pools. Imagine the number of people who could have been killed if they’d lit up those two reactors? The bomb trains come within twenty yards of CenturyLink Field, where the Seahawks play, and Safeco Field, where the Mariners play. They could have killed about fifty thousand by blowing up a train there during a sporting event. And that’s just for openers. In Minneapolis, the bomb trains go under Target Field, where the Twins play. There’s another fifty thousand they could take out. In Chicago, the trains go through the Bridgeport neighborhood with about thirty-two thousand residents and come within five hundred feet of Guaranteed Rate Field, home of the Chicago White Sox. In fact, you could take out a good chunk of Chicago because that’s where they get the most train traffic in the country—at least forty trains per week—loaded with Bakken oil. But this situation spans the entire nation. The US Department of Transportation estimates that twenty-five million people live within the evacuation zone of a bomb-train blast. At any one of these locations and hundreds of others, they could have disrupted the energy supply and killed many more people than what they did with these train explosions. The dead and injured were incidental to what they were trying to accomplish with the bomb trains.”

  The room was silent. David could see the young male attorney Amber had been talking to in Dick Pot’s office. He was holding a cell phone in front of him toward the conference room. It looked like he wanted to snap a picture of Moore. David leaned forward to block him. The young attorney pulled the camera away from his face, turned to Dick Pot, and shrugged. Dick Pot didn’t like surprises, and Moore was just that. David imagined he was trying to find out anything he could on the man.

  David had a brief flashback and saw himself in place of the young male attorney in the office with Dick Pot thirty years earlier.

  Kincaid said, “All right, then, maybe their goal was simply to disrupt our energy supply.”

  “Yeah, I thought about that, and it’s confusing to me,” David said. “You see, that would be a first. I can’t think of one domestic-terror incident in the United States that was designed to do anything other than to kill and injure people. So, why did they decide to go after something different this time? And if their goal was to disrupt our energy supply, why didn’t they do a better job of it?”

  “What do you mean? The train explosions caused supply problems. These investigations take time and are still ongoing. The tracks have still not been repaired.”

  “But if they really wanted to disrupt the energy supply, why didn’t they blow up the refineries instead? The rail network is vast, but the refineries are concentrated in certain areas. Tracks are easier to repair than refineries. You take out some of those big refineries around Houston, and the nation would come to a standstill for a long time.”

  Kincaid shook his head. “There’s security at the refineries. They’ve got guards, fencing, watchtowers, concrete barricades, cameras, and detectors. There’s about one hundred fifty thousand miles of railroad track in the United States. You can’t secure such a vast network of track.”

  “I don’t know,” David said. “Seems to me all a terrorist would have to do is to load a container ship with a dirty bomb set to explode with a GPS detonator in the Port of Huston, and the refineries would be history. All those security measures you mentioned wouldn’t stop such an attack.”

  Kincaid looked at Amber, then Moore, then back to David. “You seem to have given that scenario a considerable amount of thought. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “What do you mean by that, Mr. Kincaid?”

  “It’s no secret that some people think you were involved,” Kincaid said quickly. Very quickly.

  David was fuming inside. Some people—including you. But he contained himself and pressed on. “Well, we’re not here to discuss my problems.”

  “Certainly not,” Kincaid said.

  Amber looked up to the doorway, her eyebrows raised. David looked over his shoulder. Dick Pot stood at the threshold, appearing to wonder for a second if he should enter before he did. Amber stood up, her face a bit twisted. For perhaps the first time in her life, she seemed at a loss for words.

  Amber’s reaction to Dick Pot’s presence seemed odd to David. He sat there unaware of what was going on beneath the surface. He was totally unprepared for the change in strategy that was coming his way.

&nb
sp; THIRTY-SEVEN

  While ambling over to a seat next to Amber, he announced, “Hello, my name is Richard Pottenger. Don’t bother to get up. I understand Mr. Moore is here to observe. I’m a senior partner here at Baxter & Chadwick, and I’m going to observe, too.” He sat down across from David and Moore.

  The court reporter came back into the room and closed the door behind him. Pottenger looked over at Amber and winked.

  “It looks like we’re all ready to begin,” Dick Pot said, looking at Kincaid. “Are you ready, Donovan?”

  “Yes, Richard.”

  Kincaid was sworn in by the court reporter while David eyed Pottenger. The son of a bitch won’t even acknowledge he knows me.

  When the court reporter was finished getting everyone’s names, David went over the usual ground rules with Kincaid: (1) tell the truth; (2) if you don’t know the answer, say you don’t know; (3) everyone should talk one at a time so the court reporter can get it all down; (4) gestures can’t be recorded by the court reporter, so always answer questions with a verbal response; (5) any question can be repeated or rephrased if you don’t understand it.

  David started the deposition by asking Kincaid to describe his background. Donovan Xavier Kincaid was sixty years old. Born in Scarsdale, New York, he’d graduated from high school there before earning his undergraduate degree in finance at Penn State. When David heard that, he knew that Kincaid’s cowboy persona was an act.

  Kincaid later earned an MBA from Arizona State University with an emphasis on supply-chain management. His first job was with Union Pacific, a railroad company. He’d worked his way up to become senior vice president of supply chain and continuous improvement. Twenty years later, he’d left Union Pacific and got a job at Helmsley Oil, where he’d risen through the ranks to become its current CEO and president in 2008.

  After getting the background on the record, David pressed Kincaid about the incident involving Ben Prior. That took a half hour. Then David decided to open up the scope of the deposition. It was time to go on a fishing expedition.