Wounded Earth (11 page)

She came home from Vietnam, wounded in body and mind, and found that the year had been even harder on her father. His heart had given him one more summer. After she buried him, she'd bought herself another Mustang to drive back and forth to college. She had lost her mother, her childhood, her baby, and her father. She could, by God, have the car.

Larabeth gripped the wheel and forced herself to think only of the task at hand. Even the anonymous vehicle she was driving couldn't stifle her self-satisfaction. Her briefcase held photocopies of the N-Deck files on the herbicide incident, and the fifty people who were singled out by the criminal the press had already begun calling the Bambi Slasher.

Better yet, in her briefcase was the address of a secured web page being compiled on the fifty victims by the EPA. It held names, addresses, employment histories, hobbies—anything that the agency considered useful.

Not a solitary soul took her Babykiller theory seriously. The EPA and the FBI had their own prime suspect. They were leaning toward the leader of one of the property-rights groups fighting the Endangered Species Act in Congress.

If she'd been an average Jane nobody'd ever heard of, they would have ignored her completely, but she had persisted until they added military service history to the database. She knew Babykiller had served in Vietnam (she knew precious little else about him) and she wanted access to military data on all the victims and suspects.

All in all, not a bad morning's work. She wished J.D. had fared as well in his interview with the “Happy Farmer.” He'd sounded discouraged when she called him, as promised, just before noon, so she'd suggested a change in plan. She would pick him up at the Happy Farmer and let him drop her back at N-Deck and keep the car. That way, he'd have the mobility to work anywhere a lead took him.

It was a good plan, but it left no time for lunch. Larabeth berated herself for not renting a second car, but she had fortunately remembered the old saying, “A good consultant always eats a big breakfast.” Because one never knew when one might have time to eat again.

Merging the car with some difficulty into rush hour traffic, Larabeth was startled when her purse beeped politely. Since the modern world had forced her to get a cell phone, she'd been accessible to anyone who wanted a piece of her time. It was no small wonder that her cell phone number was a more closely held secret than her bra size.

Larabeth told herself she would ignore the call even as she fumbled with the catch on her purse. She was lying to herself and she knew it. It could be an important client with a lucrative contract in hand. Or it could be Babykiller, calling to mess with her mind. She answered the phone and it gave a contented beep.

“Hi, Doc. I'll wager you're not surprised to hear from me today.”

Larabeth's hand trembled on the steering wheel, an undesirable condition given that she was traveling above the speed limit in the center lane of an unfamiliar highway. She couldn't remember how to activate the speaker function, so she tried to free her right hand to drive by tucking the phone between her shoulder and chin. No dice. Its sleek, expensive design guaranteed an immediate slide down her chest. She had to either control the car with her left hand or hang up on Babykiller. She gritted her teeth and got the car under control.

“Larabeth, dear, are you all right? You're usually so chatty,” cooed the voice in her ear.

“Get to the point, Babykiller. You didn't call me to ask about my health. You called to gloat over the deaths of fifty innocent creatures who never did anything to you.”

“Oh, but if their suffering had meaning, if their rotting carcasses sent a valuable message, wouldn't you think they died for a purpose?”

“What a pretty speech,” she said. “Why didn't you leave a note with all those murdered animals? As it is, the whole country knows that somebody's upset, but they don't know who and they don't know why.” She looked desperately for a chance to get off the freeway and devote her full attention to this conversation. Predictably, she approached a construction zone and traffic slowed to a crawl.

“Now come, Larabeth, how can you accuse me of a crime that took place simultaneously in five time zones? I am not, after all, Santa Claus.” His laugh was humorless. “I've had my eye on CNN this morning. I must say that the culprits have a sense of humor. The eagle's nest on your friend Langlois' front stoop—why, the only thing more perfect would have been a spotted owl carcass at the Audubon Society's Oregon headquarters.”

“Say what you like. I think you're behind this. If I'm right, you have a fairly large organization. What is it, Babykiller? The Mafia? Some kind of drug cartel?” She spotted an opening in the right lane and steered into it. “I've never heard of organizations like those doing this kind of grandstanding. They usually concentrate on making money. So maybe you have your own organization.”

“You're a logical woman, too logical to jump to such unsupported conclusions.”

“Humor me. So, if I assume that you're part of a nationwide organization, maybe bigger, and it's not the Mafia and it's not one of the better-known drug cartels, I also have to assume that you hold a pretty influential position. Maybe the top one. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to put your twisted ideals into action this morning. I can follow that line of reasoning.”

“I'm glad you can follow it, Doc, because you've lost me completely.”

Larabeth at last reached an exit. Praying that it wouldn't dump her into a boarded-up, grafittied, high-crime area, she guided the car down the exit ramp. She pulled into the first parking lot.

“I've got some ideas about you, Babykiller, and about your motives. I'm beginning to understand how you pulled off the animal-slashings this morning.”

Larabeth paused, suddenly tired. She leaned her head on the steering wheel and continued. “I don't understand one thing, though. Why are you calling me? You gave forty-nine other people an unpleasant surprise this morning. Do they get to have these cozy chats with you like I do?”

“Of course not, Doc. I told you last week that you were special. I'm surprised you forgot, but you've been under a lot of stress. I picked you because I admire you. I've got big plans, plans that will dwarf this little animal-slashing stunt—whoever is behind it. If you review our conversations—mentally, because I'm sure you're too honorable to record them—you will note that I haven't admitted responsibility for anything illegal. Yet. Nevertheless, you're smart enough to appreciate the planning that goes into these things and you're perceptive enough to understand my motives. You're almost smart enough to catch me.”

“Thanks a bunch,” she mumbled.

“No problem,” he said. ”With that bit of self-revelation, Doc, I really must go. You're a charming woman. That's another reason I like to talk to you. And if I let you, I'm afraid you'd charm me into saying too much. Stay close to the phone, dear.”

Larabeth distractedly clicked her phone off, after a futile glance to confirm that Babykiller's phone number was blocked from her phone's Caller ID function. She looked at the tiny microphone attached by suction cup to the mouthpiece. A fine cord snaked from the microphone to the recorder in her purse. She didn't have to listen to the tape to know that she had nothing—no unequivocal confession, no clue to Babykiller's identity, no information on his whereabouts.

She had no guarantee that a car wouldn't pull up beside her, in the next second, and put a bullet in her brain. She had no protection from a man who could have her dead body delivered tomorrow to the doorstep of anyone in America. Her only connection with the lunatic slowly seizing control of her life was the phone clenched in her trembling hands, but every atom of her knew that there was not a chance that she would let him steal her power.

She hurled the defenseless phone to the floorboard of the passenger side, risking the destruction of J.D.’s fancy recording device. She would have stomped on it in frustration, but that would have required climbing over the console into the other bucket seat, no small task in a compact car while wearing a skirt.

Instead, she cranked the car. J.D. was waiting for her.

* * *

Babykiller regarded the phone in his hand. It was a cheap, clunky model and he would be glad to be rid of it. He needed to finish his preflight routine, and he needed a nap before tonight's flight. Cancer did have a tendency to slow one down, but before he allowed himself the luxury of sleep, he had some business to wrap up. He owed Gerald a bonus for orchestrating the events ofthe morning. And he wanted to remind Gerald of the importance of rewarding good work.

CNN had reported that some of the slaughtered creatures had been traced to Sea World. What a stroke of brilliance—they might as well have kidnapped Mickey Mouse from the Magic Kingdom and crucified him. Gerald owed a hefty bonus to the person who orchestrated the Sea World heist.

“If you don't acknowledge genius, it will turn on you,” Babykiller muttered to himself.

Gerald was a capable kid. Babykiller dialed an access code and deposited a tidy sum in his account, enough to fund a couple of bonuses for Gerald's best people and one for himself. After that, he would give Gerald a personal call to offer congratulations and advice.

As he dialed, he wondered whether Gerald had followed the first advice he'd given him: Make sure your workers never learn your name and never see your face. Unless you're prepared to kill them.

He kept the conversation short and to the point, then resumed his pre-flight prep. Careful precautions were critical when you were flying Babykiller's way: alone, at night, and without filing a flight plan.

* * *

J.D. exited the freeway while Larabeth downed a greasy burger. She checked her watch.

“Across town and back in just over an hour. I'd say we made good time, considering I had to stop and chat with a raving maniac,” Larabeth said, trying to joke away her lingering jitters.

“Maybe we'll get some leads this afternoon that will help us track that maniac down,” J.D. said, as he turned the rental car into the N-Deck parking lot.

“He could be anywhere in the world. Do we really have a chance at finding him?”

“I've got some ideas. When we get back to New Orleans, I'm going to pay a visit to The Spy Place.”

“The what place?”

“The Spy Stop. They sell, you know, James Bond stuff—the latest call tracing and wiretapping products. We can hire their resident expert to come out and sniff your house and office for bugs. If anybody can find this Babykiller guy, Kydd can." He stopped the car in front of a squat, square, 1970s-era office building.

“The Spy Stop. You're kidding.”

“No, I'm not. Check the Yellow Pages. They have franchises in all the major cities. Ex-CIA agents have to make a living, too. Hackers and techno-dweebs have to support their habits. Don't worry about a thing. If it can be tapped, traced, or tweaked, the ladies and gentlemen at The Spy Stop can do it for us.” She was still gaping at him.

“I'll pick you up here at five,” he said.

Larabeth opened the passenger door and swung one long leg out, still gathering her things. She leaned forward to retrieve her purse and her hair blocked her peripheral vision, or she would have seen the woman coming.

As it was, J.D. saw her first. He was surprised to see her and particularly surprised by the BioHeal nametag she was wearing. He didn't gather his wits in time to speak, so Larabeth's first inkling of the situation came when an unfamiliar voice said, “Dr. McLeod, I was so honored to receive this assignment to work with you.”

Or perhaps the voice wasn't wholly unfamiliar. Later, Larabeth fancied that she had recognized the woman's voice in the way you recognize a recording of your own voice. The sound is strange, but it isn't. In the moment it took for Larabeth to look up, she knew.

Larabeth McLeod raised her head and, for the first time, looked her daughter full in the face.

It
was a blessing that Cynthia had a lot to say, because it spared Larabeth from making small talk as she listened to J.D. speed away. Not that Cynthia was nattering away about inconsequential things. On the contrary, she was competent and she was ambitious and she was hell-bent on impressing the boss. She had read the press reports on the Agent Blue spills and on the Bambi Slasher. She, like Larabeth, had spent some time chatting up the bureaucrats. Cynthia had information to share and she had ideas. She was on a roll.

Under other circumstances, she might have lost a few brownie points by talking too much, but in this case it didn't matter. Larabeth was busy collecting her wits. She had no objections to having her ears talked off.

How had this happened? It was poor form to send the boss help she hadn't requested. Neglecting to tell the boss that help was on the way was even poorer form. Maybe BioHeal had grown too big for the casual management style she preferred.

“So I think we should look into the GAIA people.” Cynthia was still going strong. “They've pulled weird publicity stunts before. Maybe that Langlois man engineered this. He could have set himself up as a victim, just as a smokescreen. GAIA is headquartered in New Orleans. Do you know much about them?”

“Hmmm?” Larabeth said intelligently. “Oh, GAIA. I know something about them and I know plenty about Guillaume Langlois. He could no more kill a defenseless creature than he could pass up a photo opportunity.”