Strong Light of Day (27 page)

“As rain, cowboy. There were agriculture articles from American science journals, translated into Arabic. There were USDA documents. There was a comprehensive list of the most devastating livestock pathogens, like foot-and-mouth disease, hog cholera, and rinderpest. There was a separate rundown of crop diseases, like soybean rust and rice blight. And, most alarmingly, there were training documents detailing how to deploy these pathogens on farms.”

“What about pesticides?” Cort Wesley asked, thinking about the suspicions Caitlin had shared with him the night before.

“You a mind reader now, cowboy?”

“Just answer the question, Jones.”

“Yeah, there was plenty about pesticides. Leftover Cold War documents printed in Russian. By all indications, the Soviets had a plot to wipe out the bulk of our nation's food supply.”

“Agroterrorism,” Cort Wesley said, fitting the pieces together.

“Anton Kasputin was sent over here to fuck with America's farmland, when your father's original fence, Stanko, must've shown himself to be not up to the task. You wanna know why somebody wasted Gribanov, formerly Kasputin, and his gang, cowboy? Because one of them was talking. Turns out somebody in Moscow must've caught wind of whatever was going down in those locales he circled on that wall map you told me about, and ordered him to monitor the situation.”

“While somebody inside was reporting back to you,” Cort Wesley said, working it all out for himself. “Moscow figures out somebody's talking and sends a hitter to wipe Gribanov's entire organization out, just to be safe. Your informant anybody I know?”

“The big guy who swallowed his cigarette in the parking lot when you busted him up? That was my man.”

 

61

S
AN
A
NTONIO,
T
EXAS

Caitlin could see the shapes of men holding on to their hats, growing larger as the Ranger chopper settled into a hover over the Department of Public Safety heliport located near the intersection of Route 37 and the 410. Congressman Asa Fraley sharpened into view first, clear enough to make Caitlin want to remain on board.

Caitlin held firmly to her hat and crimped her knees beneath the still-slowing rotor as she climbed out, feeling the wash push wind and debris against her. She headed out across the small tarmac toward the field's single building, where Fraley was standing with his hands on his hips, flanked by a flunky on either side. One held an open notepad and the other a tablet, like it was glued to his hands.

“I'd hoped to have a subpoena ready for you by now,” he greeted, expression trapped somewhere between a frown and snarl.

“You always serve them yourself, sir?” Caitlin asked him, as the rotor slowed to a stop and the debris it blew into the air stopped with it.

“I'm here putting out a brush fire you started, Ranger. Texas is littered with them. I swear, you're more dangerous than all the matches in the state combined.”

“I'm guessing you received a call from Calum Dane, Congressman.”

“I did indeed. You mind explaining your rationale for pissing him off no end? He just threatened to move a whole bunch of business out of the state, including the spaceport.”

“Well, I imagine that would piss off plenty willing to pay a hundred grand in the hopes of meeting a Martian up there.”

As she spoke, Caitlin noted assistant number one, the woman, jotting down notes feverishly, while assistant number two, the man, extended his tablet forward on an angle.

“Are you recording this, Congressman?” Caitlin wondered.

Fraley ignored her. “You mind explaining the purpose of your visit to Calum Dane to me?”

“I do, sir, on account of it's part of an ongoing investigation.”

“Into Dane?” Fraley asked her, disbelief lacing his voice.

“He's a person of interest. That's all I can say on the matter.”

“Dane said considerably more.”

“I'm not surprised. Did he include the reason for my visit?”

“You mean, beyond harassment and intimidation?”

“I believed his life may be in danger.”

“As part of this ongoing investigation?”

“That's right, sir.”

Fraley mopped his brow with a balled-up handkerchief. He was wearing a darker suit today, which rode his plump lines like a shower curtain. His tie was the same orange-red color as the combed-over hair, which had been sprayed in all directions by the rotor wash.

“Mr. Dane reported that you came up just short of accusing him of complicity,” Fraley told her, his final words partially lost to a sudden gust of wind that blew his comb-over backwards instead of forward.

“In what?”

“He wasn't specific.”

“He couldn't be, because I never did, not directly anyway.”

“What's that mean?”

“It's called police work, Congressman. I have reason to believe that Dane caused the fire at his own petrochemical plant to eliminate evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Being party to his pesticides making a whole lot of people across this state sick. Got any constituents who are recent cancer victims, Congressman, maybe part of a cluster of them?”

“So you accused one of the richest and most important men in Texas, in the whole goddamn United States, of giving people cancer. Have I got that right, Ranger?”

“Like I said, it's part of an ongoing investigation.”

“You've got Calum Dane all wrong.”

“Really? Maybe you should talk to the New York City police about that. Turns out a young man named Brandon McCabe, who lost a leg to cancer, was a part of a class action suit against Dane Corp for the same pesticides that were destroyed in that manufacturing plant fire in West Texas. McCabe shot his mouth off at the annual shareholders meeting at the Waldorf and hasn't been seen since.”

Fraley pretended to be bored. “I imagine there's a point to that somewhere.”

“There is, sir. I left out the part about security camera footage capturing McCabe entering his hotel. He disappeared that night. Just fell off the face of the earth.”

“And does the NYPD share your concern?”

“There's a record of him checking out the next morning, so their interest is lukewarm, even though no clerk can verify the record. A detective I spoke with described his room as ‘sanitized.'”

Fraley ran his tongue over his lips, then wet his fingers and tried to smooth his hair back into place. “Maybe they should talk to housekeeping.”

“They did, Congressman. The maid insists she found the room in that condition, and McCabe hasn't been seen since. The ruckus he caused is up on YouTube.”

Fraley's jaws moved as if he were chewing gum, uneasy with being informed of something he wasn't aware of. “Ruckus,” he repeated. “Is that a law enforcement term?”

“Based on the current performance of Congress, I'd say it was a political one.”

“Why don't you run for office, Ranger? With your popularity, you'd be a shoo-in. And if you grew unhappy with any of your colleagues, you could just shoot them.”

“Maybe I should start now,” Caitlin said, unable to help herself.

Fraley's eyes widened as his expression spread out into a grin. “You get all that?” he said to the aide taping their conversation on his iPad.

Before that aide could respond, a third one Caitlin hadn't noticed before rushed up to Asa Fraley, red faced and out of breath. He got close to the congressman's ear and said something too softly for Caitlin to hear. Whatever it was, though, must have pissed off Fraley mightily, because he shook his head, sneering.

“God
dammit!
” he hissed, swinging back toward Caitlin. “Someone sliced all four tires of my SUV. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Ranger?”

“I didn't even know you were going to be here when I landed, Congressman. Maybe it was one of your constituents who's sick with cancer.”

Fraley scowled and ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth as if trying to excise something bitter. “You're so far over the line there's no going back, Ranger. I'm going to have you served with a subpoena to testify before my committee in Washington about your methods and practices, so I can reveal the truth about Caitlin Strong to the country, even if that doesn't include shredding tires.”

Caitlin fought back a smile, the truth dawning on her. “I thought you said they'd been slashed.”

“They were. Before somebody tore the goddamn rubber off the rims.”

 

P
ART
S
EVEN

One of my favorite quotes of all time is, “One riot, one Ranger,” summing up that Texas Rangers don't come in big numbers, but when they show up, trouble is usually settled. I got to witness the Texas Rangers up close and personal this summer when I attended the annual Ranger Reunion, sponsored by the Texas Ranger Foundation. You talk about feeling secure. Being around both retired and active Rangers makes you feel no one in his or her right mind would offer a challenge. These guys are hard-bodied, steel-willed guys who are soft-spoken and courteous, but you know could blow up in someone's face if the predicament got dangerous.

—Bill Hartman,
The Madisonville Meteor,
October 9, 2007

 

62

W
ACO,
T
EXAS

Calum Dane walked the now-barren grounds of his former petrochemical plant. He'd arrived early for his planned meeting with representatives of the insurance company that was still refusing to pay out his claim, due to the fact that the fire remained the subject of an ongoing investigation. Dane had made himself remain patient throughout the process, doing the right thing by paying all the medical bills of the injured out of Dane Corp's coffers, figuring he'd be compensated in due time.

But now due time had extended beyond two years, almost three.

Not far away, maybe twenty miles, the Branch Davidian compound, under the fanatical leadership of David Koresh, had burned to the ground too, in a fire sparked literally by the FBI. So Dane couldn't help but wonder if there was some curse or anomaly associated with the land. Kind of like a miniature version of the Bermuda Triangle.

If you asked him, Dane would've said the FBI had been too patient and waited too long to move on the Branch Davidian compound. He hadn't made the same mistake here, when the toxic effects of Dane Corp's latest pesticide began to show up in people like the late Brandon McCabe, assigning to Pulsipher a job that should have come with relatively few complications. The fire should've been the end of it. The ammonium nitrate that had triggered the ensuing explosion wasn't even supposed to be on-site. Then, in the flash of an instant, five workers were dead, followed soon after by seven volunteer firefighters who were caught in a series of secondary explosions that pockmarked the sprawling plant. All because he needed to wipe out all trace of the pesticide's existence.

Walking the grounds of his former plant felt like traipsing through a graveyard, only with lots of places where an enemy could conceal himself. That made him glad he'd let Pulsipher bring along a full security team—four well-armed men, in addition to Pulsipher himself, posted about the grounds, all within Dane's sight, which meant, of course, that he was within theirs.

People like Brandon McCabe made him feel like an itinerant kid again. Worthless, smelling like shit, and no more than a face you pass by when driving on the road.

He could have sworn that a corrosive, chemical stench clung to the air around the former plant even now. It would've been easy to pass it off as rising out of the ground, or from the refuse of the fire, or from the wood, roofing, and clapboard of the remaining, now-abandoned buildings. But, truth be told, Dane actually believed the air itself was stained with scent no wind, rain, season, or time lapse could weaken. As if the explosion and fire had left something embedded there forever.

Dane shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, checking his men just to make sure they were still there. He walked through the ash clumps and piles, skirting the most dangerous husks of debris. The site's status as a crime scene prevented him from ordering a full-scale cleanup to give the land back to nature, but he didn't understand why the ash hadn't blown away or dissipated. Instead, there seemed to be more of it every time he came here, as if it were feeding off itself, a constant reminder of the site's squandered potential and profits that should have been expanded across a vast acreage instead of burned to the ground.

What had been produced here, after all, could've been far more valuable than oil or even gold. Food was the future—a commodity, soon to be a resource, to be valued like any other. It used to be that he who controlled the oil controlled the world. Just ask OPEC. But soon, he who controlled the food would control the world. And that should have been him, thanks to a concoction originally conceived, in principle, by his father and developed by Dane Corp's scientists. Fifty million dollars later and thanks to the latest in DNA and RNA technology, along with a whole bunch of other stuff Dane couldn't comprehend in the least.

He took a deep breath and spun his eyes around, suddenly realizing that his men were nowhere in sight. Even Pulsipher was gone from his post riding Dane's shadow, never more than fifty feet back. They were all gone, swept away in the brush of dust, dirt, and ash whipping along on the wind. He wanted to call for Pulsipher, wished he'd taken the walkie-talkie the head of his security detail had tried to give him. Dane hated the constant squawk and chatter, found it disrespectful to carry in a place he considered hallowed ground, no matter how soured by greed and death.

Then he spotted a huge shape walking toward him from the position Pulsipher should have been occupying. Walking with the sun at his back, forcing Dane to shield his eyes with a hand cupped to his brow to follow his approach. His height and width of his shoulders made him the biggest man Dane had ever seen up close, and that included a bevy of professional athletes from football and basketball. They were big, sure, but something about this man made them seem, well, small by comparison.