Darkness Falls (8 page)

Beamon crossed his legs and bounced his foot in the air. He wished he could say yes. But he hadn't evolved quite that much.

"Not exactly."

"Well why don't you tell me what happened exactly."

"Don't you find any of this at all strange?" Beamon said. "That at roughly the same time some incredibly destructive bacteria has hit both the largest oil reserves in the world and one of the most controversial?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, like you said, environmentalists --who tend to be biologists -- weren't fans of the drilling in ANWR. And suddenly we're heading toward a total shut-down."

"You're saying someone purposely engineered these bacteria?"

"Why not?"

"Jesus Christ, Mark. You've read the background. These kinds of bacteria exist all over nature and we've seen similar problems a hundred times in the past."

"Not on anywhere near this scale."

"Erin Neal didn't seem to think it was all that far-fetched, and everyone says he's the go-to guy on this."

Beamon's foot stopped bouncing. "What?" Reynolds said.

"Is it possible that we have the fox watching the hen house, here? I mean, if anyone in the world has both the ability and motivation to pull something like this, it would be Erin Neal."

Reynolds sat back down again with an exasperated shake of his head. "If you ask an accountant what's wrong with a company, he'll say it's something financial. Ask a marketing guy, he'll tell you it's marketing."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're a criminal investigator, Mark. I send you out to look at a natural phenomenon and what do you see? An elaborate environmentalist conspiracy."

"What I see is an environmentalist with the expertise in biology to develop these bacteria and the expertise in oil drilling to deliver it."

"Have you ever read his book, Mark?"

"No."

Reynolds walked over to his bookshelf and pulled one of the volumes from it. "I have. It's probably the best thing ever written on the environment and the future of energy. There's no denying he's passionate and sometimes misguided, but he's not a nut. More of a realist, really. If it was politically feasible, I'd probably do three-quarters of what he recommends in here."

"If he's the realist you say he is, maybe he realizes what you just said -- that none of his ideas are politically feasible. Maybe he decided to take things into his own hands."

"Oh, for God's sake, Mark --"

"Okay, it's probably not him. But it could be somebody. I want, to look into it."

"No," Reynolds said forcefully. "No way. If the markets were to get wind that we're investigating this as a terrorist act --"

"I know, I know. But what if it's just me? What if I just do a little background myself with no one else involved?"

"Oh, well, that puts my mind at ease," Reynolds said sarcastically. "You've done such a great job keeping things quiet so far. Listen to me very carefully, Mark. You will not do any digging into this. Am I understood?"

Beamon shrugged.

"That requires an answer. Am I understood?" he repeated.

"Yes. Fine. I won't dig."

Reynolds circled around his desk and sat again, staring down at Beamon for a few seconds before speaking. "How many people know that Erin Neal thinks the whole field is going down?"

"You, me, and Steve Andropolous. That's it."

"We need time, Mark. The Saudis say that their bacteria problem is isolated to one area and that they still have plenty of excess capacity. The president's working out a deal with them to increase production. The full extent of the Alaska problem can't come out until there's ink on that agreement."

Chapter
9.

Jenna Kalin's Subaru scraped bottom for the fifth time as she wound cautiously up the steep dirt track thirty miles north of her house. Teague's directions hadn't mentioned the condition of the road, and she drifted to a stop in front of yet another rock ledge. Her battered car had been over worse, but the more distance she covered, the more difficult it seemed to be to propel it forward. Why the hell had she agreed to this? Everything they had to say to each other had been said at her house. Probably more.

She rolled down her window and let the cool air flow across her as she watched the gentle sway of the trees in her headlights. The sense that her life wasn't her own --that everything was beyond her control was something she'd been struggling with since all this had begun. And just when she'd started to achieve some hint of balance, Michael Teague appeared. Why? His explanation of a celebration was so obviously ridiculous, it was hard to keep a straight face just thinking about it.

She coaxed her car over the ledge and kept going, finally coming around a corner that revealed an imposing log mansion. She drifted to a stop again, staring disapprovingly at the garish reminder that if you tried hard enough you could cut down an entire forest of trees just to house a couple of rich white people.

Lights burned through the large windows, casting a glow over the circular gravel driveway that Michael Teague was striding across. She found herself wondering if he owned the house -- if he'd built it just for this rendezvous, spending a tiny fraction of the personal fortune that he constantly insisted had been completely drained by his quest to "bring his organizational and business acumen to the wallowing environmental movement."

How many times had she heard him utter some version of that phrase -- to play the martyr from the soft leather seats of a new sports car or from the grand entry of a custom-built home. When he talked about people -- "people have to understand" or "humanity can't survive their own selfishness and shortsightedness" it was always strangely clear that he wasn't including himself. And honestly, she didn't think it was even a conscious thing. It was as though it had never occurred to him that he was just another person.

Teague waved from the driveway as she sat there asking herself once again what this could possibly accomplish. She wanted to be gone. She wanted to put a backpack on and head out into the wilderness -- as far from televisions and newspapers and people as she could get. To sit out what was coming in the lonely silence she'd become accustomed to.

Teague froze when she bounced the car over the edge of the road in a wide U-turn and started back down the way she'd come. By the time she turned the corner, he was running toward a Ford Expedition parked in front of the garage.

The temptation to just stomp on the accelerator and speed down the dark road ahead of him was as powerful as it was pointless and cowardly. The time had come to face Teague and get everything out on the table. She just wanted to be left alone. The part of her life that included him was over.

His headlights reflected in her rearview mirror as she eased onto a relatively flat pullout by the side of the road and stepped out into pine-scented air.

"What the hell are you doing?" he said, throwing his door open and jumping down into the dirt.

"Michael --"

"I thought we agreed that we were going to talk," he said as he approached. "To make sure we're on the same page with everything that's happening."

"I think we both understand what we did and where we stand, Michael."

"I used to think so. But now you seem confused."

He stopped less than a foot away, close enough to make her have to fight the urge to step back, but he wasn't completely focused on her. Part of his mind seemed to be somewhere else.

"Do I? I don't feel confused. In fact, everything seems very clear to me right now."

"Then why --"

This time it was her turn to interrupt. He wasn't going to control this conversation the way he did everything else. "You want to make sure that I'm not going to do anything that might expose you. That I'm not going to get hit by a sudden wave of guilt when gas prices go up a few cents and turn myself in. I'm not ashamed of what we did, Michael. I'm not sure we had the right, but that's not the same thing. So, don't worry. I would never dream of doing anything that would destroy the lifestyle you've become so accustomed to."

She expected a counterattack, but instead he just stood there, looking right through her. Was he having an honest-to-God moment of introspection? Had he actually listened to another human being?

"I just want to disappear," she continued, her voice losing some of its force as Teague shot a glance toward the dark forest at the edge of the road. "All I --"

There was a quiet rustle to her left and a moment later Jonas burst into the circle of illumination created by Teague's headlights. Jenna didn't move, her mind temporally unable to interpret what was happening. In the end, it wasn't the speed at which the German was coming toward her that broke her from her stupor, it was Teague's hand clamping over her wrist.

She jerked back, but he held fast.

"Let go!"

Instead, he used his free hand to reach out for her hair, and it was at that moment she realized that if he succeeded, she'd never leave that place.

Erin had taught her a few of his exhaustively tested self-defense techniques years ago, and she reacted with the most straightforward of them: she brought Teague's hand to her mouth and bit down hard on one of his knuckles.

He jerked away and then lunged for her, missing by a few feet as she took off in an unexpected direction. Her vehicle was turned off, but Teague's was still idling. She had just passed the SUV's front fender when Jonas dove onto the hood, sliding across it with hands outstretched.

His fingers grazed her back as she pivoted around the open door and threw herself into the driver's seat. The SUV's bulk was enough to keep it going forward when she rammed her Subaru's rear quarter panel, but the impact diminished her momentum just enough to allow Jonas time to roll to his feet and get hold of the still-open door.

The force of her acceleration and the swinging of the door forced him to focus entirely on not being pulled beneath the wheels, but it only took him a few seconds to get his feet planted on the running board and grab the steering wheel.

Since it required all of Jenna's strength and concentration to keep the car on the road, she didn't notice the gun until it was coming even with her temple.

Without thinking, she threw herself sideways across the seats, shielding her head with her arms. The sudden release of the steering wheel caused it to spin left and the shot shattered the glove box instead of her skull as the car swerved off the road.

A tree branch hit Jonas in the side, knocking his feet from the running board and leaving him dangling from the steering wheel while his legs dragged the ground.

Jenna pulled herself upright again, grabbing one of the fingers Jonas had wrapped around the wheel and bending it back violently. The satisfying snap that Erin had promised didn't materialize but the German released the wheel and landed hard in the dirt, rolling uncontrollably until he was stopped by the trunk of a tree.

The vehicle still had enough momentum to jump back onto the road, and Jenna twisted around to look behind her as she slammed the door shut. The headlights of her car were still on, but it wasn't moving. She patted her jeans and discovered the keys safely in her pocket.

Another shot rang out, creating a spider web pattern in the rear window before exploding into the back of the passenger seat. She ducked down as far as she could, watching the tree tops to keep herself in the middle of the road and listening to bullets slamming into the Expedition's hatch. Then, silence.

She didn't sit fully upright again until she'd gone around a sharp corner, but when she did there was nothing but darkness behind her.

"You had a gun three inches from her head and you missed!" Teague shouted, the throbbing of his injured hand amplifying his rage and frustration. Blood in the pattern of Jenna Kalin's teeth was beginning to seep through the handkerchief wrapped around his finger.

"My brother was holding onto the side of a moving car," Udo said, using a kitchen knife to pull a sizeable chunk of wood from Jonas's shoulder. "Be reasonable, Michael."

"Be reasonable? Exactly what skills does your brother bring to this organization? I financed it, I planned every detail, provided everything you asked for. I'm the one keeping us from being exposed." He indicated with his bleeding hand around the opulent living room. "I arranged it so Jenna would come here. All he had to do was deal with one unarmed woman."

Jonas showed no interest in defending himself, or even that he'd heard; instead, he just sat there staring blankly as his brother continued to dig into his shoulder.

"She was to come into the house, Michael. Jonas wasn't prepared to run through a dark forest chasing a car."

"A car that I stopped!"

"This should have been finished years ago," Jonas said, finally. "She should have never left the boat. I told you this."

"Except that Udo couldn't guarantee he would be able to finish this thing without her help. So we had to keep her around, didn't we? And I was stupid enough not to worry about it because it never occurred to me that you couldn't be counted on to take care of --"

"Michael!" Udo said, jerking around and pointing with the bloody knife. "What can be gained from this? We need to find her before she discovers what we've done. You know her best. What will she do? Will she go to the police?"