Southern Poison (33 page)

“Hey, is this something top secret?” she said, walking to Ashton but reading the paper instead of handing it back.

Ashton threw his hands up. Security had already been compromised so what difference did it make if a sixteen-year-old quizzed him? “That is a list of real estate owned by Charles Holloman.”

“Man,” she said. “He owns a lot of stuff. He must be pretty rich.”

Ashton waited a beat, letting the girl read. “Take your time,” he said. “No need to follow protocol. In fact, when you’ve finished with that, perhaps you can look at all the other documents in this folder while you run and play on the decks of a safe house. Maybe you can even fold some of them into paper planes and fly them off the deck.”

“Who knew?” I muttered to Ox. “He has a sense of humor.”

Lindsey sat down in place, legs crossed Indian style, to read. “Hey, wait a minute! The ranch in Texas? It’s called Sisitna Ranch and Stables?”

Ashton squatted beside her. “What about it?”

“Peggy Lee said that Doc named the whole thing Project Antisis.”

“So?”

Lindsey flashed her star-quality smile.
“Sisitna
is
Antisis
spelled backward.”

Chuck had prepared
to leave for the day when his secretary called him on the intercom to announce that the visitors, the federal agents, were back.

“What can they possibly want now?” he mumbled to himself, irritated that they’d be taking up more of his time. The total cost of the recall would be into the millions, not including the public-service announcement spots he’d agreed to run on the music video networks. He’d given them everything he had on the Cooke woman. He even assigned the Derma-Zing public relations lady to the recall campaign. He’d done more than enough, Chuck decided, and pushed the intercom button to tell the secretary he wasn’t available. Before he got a chance, the agents barged through his office door.

“Edward Charles Holloman, you are under arrest for endangering the safety of the public …” The voice kept going, but Chuck didn’t hear the words. In disbelief, he racked his brain, trying to determine what they could possibly have on him. He’d been so careful. It had
to be a mistake. “You have the right to …” the voice continued.
It
must be a mistake
, Chuck thought.

The founder and president of ECH Chemical Engineering&Consulting remained speechless as the agents led him out in handcuffs, right past the management offices and the receptionist, whom he had planned to have dinner with that night.

“This must be a mistake,” Chuck said from the backseat of an unmarked police car. “Why am I being arrested? This is ridiculous!”

A woman in the front passenger’s seat turned to give him a smile. “You should have been more careful when choosing the name for your Texas ranch, Mr. Holloman.”

Still smiling, she faced forward and adjusted her seat belt. A search of the ranch had proven quite fruitful, including a fully documented account of Project Antisis: conception date, mission statement, funding sources, and ideas for future consumer products. Figuring himself to be a genius, the authoritarian had created a running documentary of his work, complete with self-taped video segments, souvenirs including the prototype Derma-Zing packaging, and pages and pages of notes. He couldn’t openly brag or submit his work to the worldwide scientific community, but Charles Holloman’s arrogance dictated that he take credit for Project Antisis. Now he would have all the credit he could handle, the agent thought.

As he watched a blur of buildings and cars and people speed by, Chuck understood that life as he knew it would never be the same. Due to one ridiculous oversight, they’d searched his ranch. They’d found mission control. He wondered who might head up ECH while he lived in prison and decided that it probably didn’t matter. He knew he’d have to sell the company anyway. At least they couldn’t take away his money and when he got free, Project Antisis would live again.

With the data
from her original lab computer, Peggy Lee and the other chemists were able to produce enough of the South American plant by-product, and quickly isolate the individual chemical that cured her infertility. A hormone-like substance found solely in the stem bark of the South American wild leafy shiff bush, it was in the process of being synthetically reproduced by a team of scientists. Since Holloman was no longer a threat and Peggy Lee was cooperating, their effort was moved from the SS
Cape Pelican
to a brick-and-mortar laboratory facility in Pennsylvania to allow for more production capability.

No longer needed, the floating safe house was being dismantled—a good thing since Ashton informed me that the ship had been called into service and needed to be ready to sail in ten days. It would only take one day, though, to remove all evidence that anyone had been on the ship. The assigned captain would probably never notice that a woman had occupied his quarters for two weeks.

Ox and I—with Paul in tow—went to the ship to figure out
what to do with Spud’s sculptures. Spud and Fran had come to collect her pie plate. Since the sky kept spitting mist, she couldn’t tote my father on the back of her Vespa scooter, so they recruited Bobby’s van. And Bobby had tagged along as their official chauffeur.

Ashton, however, didn’t need to be on the ship and I wondered why he remained aboard. Watching the man give orders, I wondered if he’d come to say good-bye. I sensed that it was time for him to head back to his regular office and move on to the next terrorist threat, leaving Sunny Point and his hand-selected recruit-gone-bad and the entire Derma-Zing horror behind. The coverage on me would continue until John Mason was stopped, or at least until a reasonable amount of time had passed. But Ashton could easily monitor that effort from anywhere in the world. At any given time, in fact, there were numerous people under constant threat during his watch.

We stood staring at
Road Rage
and
Nature’s Wrath
when Ashton pulled me, Ox, and Paul aside.

“We believe that John Mason has been using an unauthorized password and an old digital security key to access our database. If that’s the case, there is a possibility he knows about the ship, just by following the trail of supplies that were delivered to this location. Agent Barnes, I want you to take your father and his entourage and get off this vessel immediately. Paul, you will continue your coverage as assigned. A limited detail remains on the ship right now and they have been alerted to the potential threat. Reinforcements are on the way and will remain until the
Cape Pelican
sails. Crew members will begin arriving tomorrow to prep the ship for duty, but I don’t want to see any of you back here, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Got it,” Paul said.

Ox nodded out of courtesy. He didn’t report to Ashton and never would. But he understood the system.

“Forget about the scrap your father dumped,” Ashton continued. “I’ll have it towed to a recycling salvage yard.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

Ashton proffered his hand. It was an action of apology and acceptance and recognition of an unspoken friendship. I gripped his palm and we shook.

“Been a pleasure working with you again, Barnes. Happy trails,” he said, referring to the old song by Roy Rogers. Ashton’s way of telling me to stay safe until we met again, it is his trademark sign-off.

“Happy trails,” I replied.

Ashton waited to see us vacate the ship as workers moved past hauling computers and other miscellaneous equipment. Two men carrying a folding metal table suddenly froze at the same instant Ox and Paul stepped in front of me and aimed their weapons. I turned to see John Mason, decked out in full body armor, including a helmet with a face shield. A rocket-propelled grenade launcher, resting on his shoulder, was pointed straight at us. A light antitank weapon that looks like a large tube, it could take out the entire cargo hold and everyone standing around me. I reflexively drew my own weapon but, glimpsing the target through Paul and Ox’s crouched bodies, quickly realized why they’d held their fire. Mason’s Kevlar gear would offer enough protection to give the maniac an opportunity to fire at us, even as he went down. Either one of the three men next to me could take Mason out with a head shot, which might give us a chance, but in all probability, he would manage to fire before he died. There was no other movement on deck. Mason had killed two or three men as he’d infiltrated the ship.

Across the wide deck—out of the corner of my eye—I watched Spud, Bobby, and Fran move behind the Chrysler. Their heads disappeared as they shimmied down a ladder.

Empty palms up and outward, Ashton took a step forward. “Just
tell me what you want, John. I can help you. It doesn’t need to come to this.”

Mason shouted a string of observations that included something about greedy politicians and backward United States policy. Standing perfectly still, feet planted wide, he appeared as though neither the weight of the weapon nor the heat from the full body gear had affected him. He sounded like a mental patient in the midst of a full-fledged breakdown. But at least he was talking instead of activating his weapon.

“Stand down,” Ashton said quietly and the three of us pointed our weapons at the deck instead of toward Mason. Ashton inched closer to the madman. “Violence is not the way out of this, John. Put down your weapon and we’ll talk. We can fix this.”

“No more talking,” John Mason screamed. “And no more Jersey Barnes!”

By the slight shift in his stance and contracting of muscles, we all knew he’d decided to fire. In the instant everyone reacted by bringing up their weapons for a Hail Mary shot, Spud’s alligator let out a screeching groan, its tail scraping across the concrete deck. Mason spun toward the sound behind him. The grenade blasted from his shoulder-mounted launcher in the same instant that Ashton drew a gun and shot the former SWEET agent in the exposed space at the back of his neck, just below the helmet. The four of us hit the ground as a ball of heat, fire, and exhaust shot out the back end of the launch tube.

The rocket impacted the Chrysler with an ear-splitting boom and both sculptures exploded into hundreds of flying parts. A variety of weapons were sighted on the man holding the launcher. But there was no need to fire. John Mason’s knees buckled and his lifeless Kevlar-gray form folded to the ground, brilliantly backlit by a ball of darting flames.

Ashton stayed behind, staring at the man he’d just killed, while
the rest of us went to locate my father. Once on the lower deck, we found Spud sputtering in the water, trying to float his way to the shore. Fran stood on the ship’s giant ramp, calling to him. Getting a shuffling start, Bobby threw himself off the ramp into the river, to rescue Spud. Shaking his head, Ox grabbed a couple of life preservers and jumped into the water. He managed to get the flotation devices beneath each man’s flailing arms before hauling them to the muddy shore. Fran ran to hug Spud, losing her balance in the silt, and the pair of them fell back into the water. Ox helped them to their feet.

Watching the show, Paul cocked his head and almost cut loose with a real smile.

“Welcome to my world,” I said.

He made a phone call and hung up with a terse “Roger that.”

“It’s been fun, Jersey Barnes,” Paul said. “But since the threat has been eliminated, I’m gone.” It was the most words he’d used in one sentence since I’d met him.

“Don’t you want to stay for dinner? You have to get your things out of the Block anyway.”

“Already taken care of.” The corners of his mouth twitched. “Tell the Spudster good-bye for me.”

“That was another smile, right?”

“Yes,” he said and vanished.

Ox and I got my dripping, muddy father and his friends loaded into Bobby’s van. I drove them to the Block and Ox followed in his truck. A chorus of sirens grew loud as fire engines, police, harbor patrol boats, and seemingly anyone else with a set of strobe lights bolted to their vehicle passed us in the opposite direction, headed toward the SS
Cape Pelican.

Nearly a month
had passed since John Mason died while trying to kill me and I hadn’t heard anything further from my former SWEET handler. I took it as a sign that my callback to duty was over and declared an official retirement celebration at the Block.

Lindsey and her new best friend, Cindy, played pool on the brand-new coin-operated table that they’d convinced Ox to install, and with fully functioning and healthy reproductive systems, the girls played eight ball. They were two of the first to be injected with the Antisis antidote. Dr. Pam Warner had called earlier in the morning to report Lindsey’s current test results as perfectly normal. It was as though she’d never had any problems to begin with, Pam said, and if she hadn’t overseen the testing herself, she wouldn’t have believed it.

Ox’s arm around my shoulders, we watched a national news report on a wall-mounted television while we waited for everyone to arrive. An evening news reporter smiled at us. “In other news,
Edward Charles Holloman, inventor of the wildly successful product Derma-Zing, was indicted today on federal tax-evasion and money-laundering charges. He faces up to thirty years in prison.”

“That’s right, Susan,” the co-anchor said. “Viewers may remember that just last month, there was a worldwide recall of Derma-Zing, due to side effects including possible skin irritation.”

One half of a two-shot, the woman on television nodded to her viewing audience. “Ironically, David, Derma-Zing has since been independently tested and proven to be perfectly safe. It’s back on the market and Gail Sanders, marketing director for Derma-Zing, reports that sales of the tattoo-like, nonpermanent body art kits are stronger than ever. Sanders said that starter kits with three tubes of color are being offered absolutely free for the next thirty days, in an unprecedented promotion. Anyone wanting a free kit should visit the product’s Web site or go to a store where the product is sold. The free gift is a way to compensate fans of Derma-Zing who were affected by the recall, according to Sanders.”