Old Poison (29 page)

Conversation en route was minimal for we had
said most of it the night before at Gill’s house. As we’d shared
information, we’d learned how the three of us happened to arrive at
the same point in time and space. For each of us the catalyst had
been, directly or indirectly, a frail, determined activist named
Evelyn Lilac. She was the single pebble plopped into still waters,
and we were swept along with the ripples.

As we bumped along the road to the city, I
had just one last thing I needed to know from James.

“James, why can’t your boss at Blue Morpho
just tell the world the truth about Hyacinth Red?”

“What truth, Diana? That’s what I was sent
here to discover. We had the rumored existence of an old study that
Duffy did, God knows when. I didn’t get it. You heard Woods. They
purged the entire file.”

“But haven’t you learned enough to justify a
moratorium on Hyacinth until it can be fully researched?”

He looked grim. “I hope so. I’m just not
sure what I will find when I get back. As he was trying to kill me,
Woods said that Blue Morpho’s civilian board had lost control of
the Hyacinth fuel project. We don’t have any idea what sort of
environmental problem Hyacinth might have or what sort of tests
Duffy did. Without the scientific report . . .”

Gill spoke up. “Evelyn had a copy. I saw
it.”

“You don’t happen to know what she did with
it, do you?”

“No, I assumed that whoever killed her took
it.”

James shook his head. “No, that’s my one
hope. If they had it, they wouldn’t still be searching so
hard.”

I reached into my pack and pulled out two
thick folders and handed them to James. “They might have purged the
Hyacinth Red test file, but not the personnel file. I read these
after you went to sleep last night. There was a young chemical
engineer at the Blue Morpho facility in Paso Nuevo by the name of
Todd Summers. Todd discovered Duffy’s material and ran his own
tests. He confirmed Duffy’s conclusions, told his superiors, and
tried to stop the development of Hyacinth Red. When they wouldn’t
listen to him, he slipped his girlfriend a copy of the test
results. The girlfriend was Evelyn Lilac. After her protest at the
Blue Morpho gate, the in-house security accused Todd of industrial
espionage. The next week he died, supposedly of exposure while
hiking alone in the Sierras.”

The pen James took out of his pocket had a
blue streak along the side that appeared to be a window to see how
much ink was left. When he touched his thumb to the top of the pen,
the blue streak lit up. He laid the pen on the top of the first
page and pulled it to the bottom.

“I saw a scanner like that once, and only
once. Where did you get that?”

He looked sideways at me and smiled with
genuine good humor. “Probably in the same place you saw it. Sam’s
house.”

“You know Sam?”

“Do you really think you would have foxed
your way into Blue Morpho if Sam hadn’t vouched for you?”

For a moment I sat there stunned, then I
laughed. “And I thought it was my expertise with pejibaye soup. You
guys and your dumb little games. It would have been so much easier
to trust you if you had just told me.”

He continued to scan the data in the file.
“Would it? Sam should have taught you better than that.”

“I’m a private investigator, not one of
Sam’s agents.”

“That explains it, I guess.”

I decided to ignore the taunting comment and
change the subject. “What are you going to do with this
information? Will it help?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. At least
it gives us one more murder we can probably add to Woods’s case.
The paperwork is done and the warrants ready on four other murders,
Evelyn’s and the three in the house in San Jose. With this lead,
the law enforcement teams may be able to find evidence for the
murders of Todd, that Costa Rican reporter, and his
girlfriend.”

Gill turned his eyes from the road
momentarily to look at James. “So there is more than one man
working on this?”

James smiled and nodded. “Teams are ready in
three countries. We will be picking up Woods and four of his men
shortly. But, Diana, this file doesn’t change the fact that we
don’t have the scientific tests and have no idea how they were done
or what they found.”

“What if we did?”

He looked up, an almost hopeless expression
on his face. “Best-case scenario, we would stop the production of
Hyacinth Red and it would be forever banned from use in a peaceful
and unified world. Worst-case scenario, they’ll kill us. Hell,
they’ll probably kill us anyway.”

“What if every country leader and every
scientist knew the truth. Couldn’t that prevent them from using
Hyacinth? And wouldn’t that give us a little life insurance?”

“Did Lucille tell you about old man Duffy’s
three Ps: Profit, Power, and Perpetuation. Lead was one of the
oldest know poisons, but it took health activists seventy five
years before they finally got the word out on leaded gas. Hell,
lobbyist are still trying to put lead back in gas. It’s still sold
in any Third World country too small and poor to argue. How many
years did it take to get to the truth about tobacco and asbestos?
How many more years will it take before people quit buying into
petroleum propaganda and accept the truth about global warming? The
world must have petroleum. If Hyacinth Red can replace petroleum,
it is nothing short of world domination. How do you get around that
to tell all these people your truth?”

Silently I wondered how much I could trust
these two. Finally I said, “I believe I know where Evelyn hid the
Hyacinth test report, and I believe I know what she intended to do
with it. I would like to finish her work. Would you two like to
help me?”

* * * * *

Back in San Jose, our first task was to
reclaim my belongings, which I had left in the Hotel Aurora Holiday
Inn. It was doubtful that Woods’s people would be watching here,
but we took no chances. With James and Gill hanging out in the
lobby like bodyguards, I went to the desk, presented my Dolores
Gomez identification, and requested my belongings. I collected my
original laptop, my Walther, and the virus-like program disk that
Patricia had given me the night before she was killed.

We had agreed that I would leave the hotel
by myself, take a cab to the San Pedro Mall, switch cabs, and take
the second cab back to the Gran Hotel. James and Gill would each
follow me in separate cabs and make sure my appearance at the
Aurora Hotel didn’t pick up any tail.

The exercise went almost without incident.
That is, no one tried to tail me from the Aurora. However, when I
jumped into the cab that was at the head of the line at the mall, I
got a small shock. When the driver turned around to ask where I
wanted to go, I saw it was Roberto. Surprise registered on my face
before I could control it. Roberto noticed that something was wrong
but didn’t recognize me, and I decided it was best to keep it that
way.

“The Gran Hotel, please, driver.”

Now he looked surprised, and he studied me
closer.

“I know that voice, but, Tia Tillie?”

I couldn’t help a slight smile but didn’t
say anything.

“I knew you were too spry to be so old.”

“Sorry, Roberto. I promised never to bother
you again and if I had known it was you I would have gotten into
another taxi.”

He shoved the car in gear and laughed. “Oh,
I am glad you did. It is nice to know you are all right. Have you
found the killer yet?”

“Sorry. Can’t talk about that. What happened
to the Green Machine sign on your taxi?”

“My wife. She was afraid and made me paint
it. She say it made me stand out too much.”

“Sounds like a smart woman, but I am sorry
that something I got you into made you change it. You were so proud
of it.”

He gave me his characteristic shrug, and we
made small talk the rest of the way to the Gran. As he dropped me
at the hotel he said, “Tia Tillie, please, I know you can’t talk
about the investigation, but you can tell me if my family will need
to worry about danger for much longer.”

“I have a flight back to the States tomorrow
afternoon. Pick me up at the Gran at 2:30. I may be able to tell
you more then. OK?”

“Sure, thanks.”

Three hours later, when I emerged from my
room at the Gran, I was blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, with full
makeup, and attired in “Hollywood Safari” like an overdressed
tourist. My passport now said Jillian Morgan.

I joined my two companions on the hotel
patio and was gratified to receive a double-take from Gill and a
long admiring smile from James. All those years of watching Richard
do my makeup had taught me something. A waiter set a latte in front
of me almost immediately. James explained.

“We ordered your latte to be served at 11:00
a.m. sharp and have been betting on whether you would be on time to
drink it hot.”

“Ah. Who won?”

Gill shrugged. “James did, but he had an
unfair advantage. He had worked with you. I had only my vast
experience with women to go on. How was I to know you would be an
exception?”

“Serves you right for harboring sexist
stereotypes. Now, how about you? Did you get the equipment we
need?”

“Yes. GPS was no problem. The satellite
phone cost a bit more than anticipated, but it works in all
atmospheric conditions and the dish zeros in on the satellite all
by itself, so we won’t have to fool around with compasses and
levels and so forth.”

“Good. James, were you able to send all the
evidence you have collected on the murders?”

“Yeah. Used the secure link at the consulate
to download all my information to Shanley at Blue Morpho, and he
will be coordinating efforts by a number of agencies. They’ll begin
making arrests here in Costa Rica and elsewhere this afternoon. One
of the agencies involved will, of course, be the FBI, and so I
called your friend Agent Camas personally. Told him what a fine job
he and the Bureau had done on the case and how much we appreciated
his efforts.”

“Somehow, I doubt that flattery will deter
him from nailing my ass as soon as I get home.”

“Well, he might have somehow gotten the
impression that you were working undercover with Interpol at the
time he interviewed you and had not been at liberty to speak
freely.”

“Did he buy that?”

“I am not sure, but I know he got the point
when I said we were drafting a letter to his superior, commending
him for his cooperation with you.”

“I owe you one, James.”

“No, that just makes us even for that home
run you hit on Woods’s skull.”

“Speaking of Woods, do you know if I– if
he’s alive?”

Surprisingly, the answer came from Gill.
“Oh, he’s alive all right, very angry, and marshaling forces to
have you both killed on sight.”

A slight suspicion creeping into his voice,
James asked, “How do you know that?”

Gill smiled. “I have a friend who works at
Blue Morpho.”

The two men stared at each other as James
calculated the significance of Gill having a spy at Morpho. I
didn’t want my little partnership to blow up just yet, so I called
James back to the present project with a question.

“Did you get the dissertation?

From a plastic bag, James pulled an
inch-thick set of papers bound in cardboard covers with brads.
“Yeah, I dug it out of the library at the University of Costa Rica
this morning and made you this copy, but I really don’t see
anything in it about fuel. Are you sure this is the right paper?
And what are the GPS and the phone for?”

I hadn’t told either of them what my hunches
were or exactly what I intended to do. I wanted to check my theory
first. They watched with curiosity while I opened the dissertation
written by archeologist, Paul Hamerstat, the late husband of Sophia
Hamerstat. I searched through the index and then turned to one of
the maps showing locations in Costa Rica dotted with tiny circles.
Each circle or group of circles was labeled with the name of a
planet, star, or constellation followed by numerical coordinates
for a position of latitude and longitude. First I verified that
there was no sphere for Earth, and then I found the circle I was
looking for and turned the paper for Gill to see.

“Here, Gill, do you know where this location
is? Is it far from here?”

“This is in the Diquis Delta, a few hours
from here by car.” He looked more closely at the writing and I saw
his eyes widen. “What is this?”

“An acquaintance in the States told me that
her husband had written a doctorate on the great spheres of Costa
Rica. These granite balls were carved with such precision that they
are perfect spheres, having the same diameter and circumference
when measured from any point, a trick modern technicians would have
difficulty duplicating. They range in size from a few centimeters
to over nine feet in diameter and weigh as much as twenty tons.
Thousands of them have been found in Costa Rica, miles from
quarries, not only on the flat but up in the coastal mountains, and
out on an island as well. None are found anywhere else in the
world. Since none of the civilizations known to have lived in Costa
Rica had ever displayed the technology to build them, much less
transport them up mountains and across water, most archeologists
have simply ignored them as an unsolvable enigma.

“Hamerstat believed the spheres were the
archeological remains of an unknown and ancient navigational
society that had created a three-dimensional map of the heavens. He
believed that this great map served as a university of astronomy,
mathematics, and navigation. He made calculations verifying that
certain spheres were mathematically in perfect distance and ratio
from other spheres to represent specific stars, planets, and
constellations. Though many of the smaller spheres had been moved,
Hamerstat mapped enough of the larger ones in original position to
support his theory.”