Heartland (11 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Heartland
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First there had been the trouble with the damned Vance-Ehrhardts, who had somehow managed to sign the France-Océanique shipping agreement. Next had come the Cargill coup, which gave the Minneapolis-based firm a solid foothold with the Canadian Wheat Board for the next five years. And finally, the cable: Newman, the filthy Marauder, was on the move again.
From what Blenault and others on the staff had pieced together, Newman had begun to set up a complex arrangement of subsidiaries within the world shipping community. Left to his own devices, he would, within a month, tie up damned near every scrap of tonnage currently available. And there was little or nothing they
could do to block him.
The most damning aspect, the one that the New York cable had spelled out, or failed to spell out, depending upon the point of view, was that no one—simply no one —had an inkling of what the Marauder was up to. And that worried the staff, which in turn disturbed Blenault, which finally upset Gerard.
“Heads will roll.
Mon dieu
, heads will surely roll,” Blenault muttered as he came to the reception area.
The young woman at the desk looked up, startled. “Monsieur Blenault?”
“His car, have you called it up yet?”
The woman looked up at the wall clock, which showed it was a couple of minutes before six, and without a word grabbed the telephone and dialed while the comptroller waited impatiently.
“Bring his car around now, please,” the woman said. “
Merci
.” And she hung up the telephone.
“If it's late … oh, heavens, if it's late. He simply does not need that kind of aggravation at this moment, don't you understand, you dolt?”
“
Oui
, monsieur,” the poor woman said.
Blenault stared pointedly at her for another long moment as she fidgeted nervously, then turned as Gérard Louis Dreyfus approached.
He was a short man, with a thick, rich voice, and he was dressed, as usual, in a pin-striped suit. He smiled as he saw Blenault.
“Ah, André, are we ready for the weekend?”
“
Oui
, monsieur, I have the files you requested right here.”
“Then let us be on our way.”
As they rode down in the elevator, Gérard studied his
comptroller's face for a long moment. “Any further word from New York?”
“None as of the late-afternoon telexes.”
“Then we will call them on the way home. I have told no one as yet, but I will be flying to New York tomorrow, and if need be to Moscow on Monday.”
“Moscow?” Blenault asked, bewildered.
“
Oui
, André,” Gérard said. “I have a feeling that our friends at Exportkhleb may be up to something.”
They called it the “trader's nose,” Blenault thought. It was absolutely amazing, but a good grainman, such as Gerard Louis Dreyfus, could smell out a large deal in the making, often even before the principals making the deal knew that they would make one.
“I have not heard of anything …” Blenault trailed off.
Louis Dreyfus smiled. “Marie Longchamps telephoned this afternoon, said she was certain she had seen Dybrovik in Geneva last week. Perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps it wasn't even him. But …” He shrugged.
“Where that man moves, there is trouble.”
“And profit, my dear André.”
They reached the ground floor and the doors slid open. The building's security guard jumped up from his position by the door, and Louis Dreyfus greeted him as he and Blenault stepped outside.
The company Rolls-Royce had just come around the corner, a plain van right behind it. The car pulled up to the curb as Louis Dreyfus and Blenault stepped across the sidewalk.
Later, from his hospital bed, Blenault would be unable to say clearly what had happened next, but he
did remember the plain blue van with a French-looking driver pulling up beside the Rolls.
The driver's window was open, and as Louis Dreyfus turned to say something to Blenault, a dark, slender object was thrust out. There was suddenly a series of loud pops, as if a truck or some other vehicle were backfiring.
Louis Dreyfus was flung backward into the glass doors, a dozen holes erupting in his chest and face, blood splattering everywhere.
Someone screamed something. At the same moment a hard, very hot, compelling force slammed into Blenault's side and right buttock, driving him sideways, down on Gérard's already lifeless body.
“
Mon dieu! Mon dieu
!” some foolish woman kept screaming over and over, as Blenault tried to catch his breath.
The dusty white station wagon came up the deeply rutted road from the farmhouse in the hollow by the creek. As it topped the rise it stopped, and William Bormett got out.
He was a huge bear of a man. He was six foot four, and, last week on his fifty-first birthday, had tipped the scales at 275 pounds. In his younger days he had been the kid who could lift a young bull up on his shoulders; or lift the back end of a pickup truck; or toss seventy-five-pound bales of hay to the top of the hayrack all day long, then go out that night dancing and drinking.
Over the past years, however, Bormett had begun to slow down. His weight had redistributed itself, more going to his expanding paunch and less to his shoulders. But, like many succesful men, he had automatically compensated for his waning physical abilities by increasing his acumen.
He shaded his eyes now against the morning sun as he stared across his fields to the east, and he smiled with satisfaction.
Fifteen thousand acres of the finest land to corn anywhere in the world. It was an achievement rivaled by very few, and certainly equaled by no one.
It had begun with his grandfather, who had come to Iowa as a young man, where he planted two hundred acres to corn to feed his small dairy herd. Within a few years, however, the Bormett herd had died off from cow fever just at harvest time, and the corn had been sold as feed.
By the time William's father had taken over the farm, they were planting nearly a thousand acres to corn, which they sold to area dairy farmers. And the business prospered.
To the first crude drying bins that Grandfather Bormett had put up, William's father had added an extensive number of Butler corrugated-metal storage units, so that in time the farm began to take on the appearance of a major grain depot. As area farms came on the market, William's father bought them, tore down the fences, and planted more and more acres to corn, ever increasing his drying and storage capabilities.
Grandfather Bormett had died at the ripe age of 93, but his son died at the age of 56, leaving William in charge of eight thousand acres at the age of 24.
That was twenty-seven years ago. Since then, William had nearly doubled the farm's acres to corn, had purchased and maintained a fleet of twenty five semitractor trailers, and established what the
Des Moines Register
called the most modern corn-drying and -storage facility anywhere in the world, with a total
investment in equipment, machinery, and land approaching the twenty-million-dollar mark.
The Bormett farm was definitely big business. A big business that William was justifiably proud of.
He was dressed, this morning, in a three-piece suit, with a subdued blue tie and an offwhite shirt. Looking at him, no one would have suspected he was a farmer, except that his large hands were roughly calloused.
Unlike many successful farmers who delegated all but the book work to hired hands, Bormett continued to put in his time on a tractor, on and in the silos, and in the machine sheds. He actively worked his fifteen thousand acres; he did not merely manage them, although he did have more than one hundred paid farmhands.
Pretty soon they'd be leaving for the airport, fifteen miles away in Des Moines, but before they left he had wanted to come out here and look at his fields. They were the reason he had been called to Moscow.
The invitation had come from the University of Moscow's Department of Agriculture, through the U.S. State Department, over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and then one week ago out here in the person of Stuart Finney, a tight-assed assistant of Curtis Lundgren, the Secretary of Agriculture.
Bormett had to chuckle now, thinking back on it. Finney had come to the farm with not so much as a phone call or a howdy-do, just marched up on the porch and banged on the door.
“Hello, I'm Stuart Finney, from the United States Department of Agriculture. I've come to tell you that you are going to Russia to speak to the Agriculture Department at Moscow University.”
At first Catherine had just laughed at the man.
Laughed right in his face. But then he had looked so forlorn, she had invited him in for some coffee and sweet rolls.
Slowly, that afternoon, it came out that he was for real, that it wasn't some kind of a joke. Several telegrams and telephone calls to Washington, including a long conversation with Secretary Lundgren himself, finally convinced the Bormetts. The Russians did want him to come to Moscow to speak with their farm experts.
In the distance to the southeast, Bormett could see the little grain elevators at Adel. Nearly everything between where he stood now and those elevators was his land. All of it under cultivation. All of it corn, his cash crop. Except of course for the household vegetable garden.
Within a couple of years, if all went well (and everything had gone extremely well for the Bormetts for the last half-century), their holdings would be increased to more than twenty thousand acres.
If all that land were to be placed in one huge square, it would have been over five and a half miles on a side. Over thirty-one square miles of land to corn. An amazing amount of corn. A staggering pile of grain at harvest time.
As it was, his fleet of trucks had to run twenty-four hours a day during the harvest, back and forth to the railhead at Des Moines where there were large enough facilities to handle the shipment of their grain. With another five thousand acres, he'd have to think seriously about building his own rail spur to the farm. It'd be a hell of a lot more efficient and certainly a lot more profitable that way.
At his car door, he looked once again across the fields
he had worked since he was a boy. Already the corn was coming up in perfect green rows. A hybrid dent, the most common corn in the country, it would by harvest time have grown to twenty feet in height, with yields per acre that would have dazzled his father and totally stunned his grandfather.
The old saw “Knee high by the Fourth of July” was hopelessly out of date. July 4 was four days away, and it was already more than waist high.
He laughed again, and shook his head for the joy of it all, got in his car, swung it around, and headed back down the hill to collect his wife. She was going with him for the ten-day visit to Moscow.
Catherine was waiting for him out on the porch with their luggage when he pulled up in the driveway. She was a small woman, somewhat rotund, but with a pleasant, smiling face, rosy, dimpled cheeks, and beautiful, prematurely silver hair. Whereas William ran the farm operation, Catherine ruled the house with an iron will and a very firm hand. And although they were traveling to Russia (the first time anyone in the family had been outside the United States) so that William could tell the Russkies how to grow corn, Catherine felt it was her God-given duty to oversee the trip, since technically it did not involve the actual operation of the farm.
“William Owen Bormett,” she scolded. “I've been waiting here on this porch for the past half-hour, wondering if somebody hadn't kidnapped you or something.”
“Had to take a last look out at the east fields to see how they were coming along after the rain,” he said, getting out of the car. He went around back and opened
the tailgate, his wife right behind him.
“We've got barely an hour to catch our flight, and they wanted us there an hour early,” she argued.
He smiled. “It's all right, Katy, we'll get there in plenty of time. They won't leave without us.” He went up on the porch, got the luggage, and brought it back to the car. “Where are the kids? Are they ready to say goodbye yet?”
“They said their goodbyes last night at supper. Justin is in town, and Albert is out with Harold at the airstrip. Harold is giving him another flying lesson.”
Bormett nodded, slightly disappointed that his sons would not be here to see them off. Yet at sixteen and nineteen, he himself had been much more interested in his own life than in that of his father or grandfather. They would come back into the fold in due time. It would be fifteen or twenty years yet, before they would have to take over the farm. There was plenty of time.
“You've got the tickets? Our travelers checks? The passports?” he asked his wife as he helped her into the car.
“Everything,” she said.
Before he closed the door, he looked in at her. “Excited to be going?”
She grinned. “Plenty excited.” She fingered her dress. “Do you suppose I'll be dressed okay for Washington?”
“You look fine, Katy, just fine.”
They would be staying in Washington for two days, during which time they would be meeting with the Secretary of Agriculture and his people, as well as someone from the State Department who'd tell them what to say and how to act while they were in the Soviet Union.
It was a lot of nonsense, as far as he was concerned. Hell, he was just going over to talk farming with the Russkies. He wasn't going to give them any secrets, leastwise nothing they couldn't get themselves by studying American farm magazines.
“You are going over there representing the United States of America, Mr. Bormett,” Finney had told him.
“I know that. I won't embarrass you.”
Finney had smiled his tight-assed little smile and shook his head. “I'm sure you won't, sir,” he said. “We—that is, Secretary Lundgren—mostly just wanted to meet with you in person and get to know you a little better before you leave.”
“Wants to pump me full of propaganda. Shit, I fought the Commies in Korea. I know what the hell the score is. You don't have to tell me that.”
“No, sir,” Finney had said. “But before you leave, you will have to meet with Secretary Lundgren and someone from the State Department. It's required of all Americans before they go to the Soviet Union.”
“Bullshit,” Bormett had said. “But I won't fight you on it. Not at all. We'll meet with your boss and whoever else wants to meet with us. It's just fine with me.”
“Oh, that's very good, Mr. Bormett,” Finney had said, obviously relieved.
 
Their flight left at 8:30 A.M. They switched planes in Chicago, and arrived at Washington's National Airport a little after lunch, where Finney met them with a limousine and chattered incessantly all the way to their hotel.
“Secretary Lundgren is tied up today for lunch, but he wants to meet with you for breakfast about eight
tomorrow morning,” Finney said.
“I'm used to having my breakfast around five-thirty or six,” Bormett said, poking fun at him.
“Oh, dear,” Finney said. “I don't think Secretary Lundgren would be able to …”
“It's all right there, now,” Bormett said. “I suppose I could hold until eight A.M. just this once.”
In actuality Bormett had stopped eating big breakfasts years ago, preferring instead to work through until around 9:30 or 10:00, when he would stop for coffee and a doughnut. But he was a farmer, and in front of easterners, he wanted to behave like one.
It was like the old bib-overall joke. The city folks thought the bibs made a man look like an ignorant, sod-busting hick, down on his luck. The country folk knew the farmer wore the bibs cause they had large pockets to hold all his money.
“I'll drop you off at your hotel, where you can rest for an hour or so. You have a meeting at three with Leonard Ruskin, an Undersecretary with the Foreign Trade Mission Desk at State.”
“An impressive title,” Bormett said.
Finney smiled. “Then at five, the Vice-President and his wife would like to have cocktails with you and Mrs. Bormett at their home.”
Catherine gasped, her eyes wide, and she began to blush.
“Now
that
is an impressive title, even though I didn't vote for the rascal,” Bormett said.
“I didn't either,” Finney said. “But don't tell anyone.”
They all laughed at the little joke. Within ten minutes they were at their hotel, being shown their suite of
rooms. Everything had been paid for by the Department of Agriculture, including, Finney informed them, their airfare to and from Moscow, their accommodations in the Soviet capital, and their meals and drinks.
“We have our own money,” Bormett had protested, but Finney had shaken his head.
“Use it to buy souvenirs, if you'd like. Everything else has already been taken care of.”
When Finney was gone, Bormett took a shower, and afterward, while his wife was in the bathroom, he ordered himself a bourbon and water from room service. He was sitting looking out the window at the capitol a few blocks away when she came out.
She was glowing. “Nothing like this has ever happened to us, Will,” she said.
He looked up at her and smiled. She was a good woman, and although at times she was a bit shrill, he loved her.
“Are you glad you tagged along?”
“I wouldn't have missed it for the world,” she said, but then her brows knitted. “It's just that I don't know what to wear to see a vice-president and his wife.”

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