Cobra Strike (10 page)

“Good afternoon,” he said, stepping close. “Mr. Whitley, I've heard a lot about your son and his leadership on the football team. I'm pleased to finally meet him.”

He shook Waymen's hand. “And you, of course, are Roy Linden,” he said, taking my hand. His skin was soft, his grip light. “Star receiver.”

After shaking Mr. Whitley's hand, he asked us to sit down. Then he asked us why we had requested this meeting.

Mr. Whitley and Waymen both looked at me.

Just like my conversation with Eldon Mawther at the newspaper, I had written and practiced a script of what I wanted to say.

I began, feeling this was as unreal as the movie I was trying to pretend it was.

“We are here, sir,” I said, repeating my memorized script, “because we want you to know that someone in your organization is dumping chemicals down an old mine shaft.”

Mr. Whitley had helped Waymen and me figure out how to approach Mr. Johns. If he didn't know about the chemicals—if he was innocent—he would want to know. And then he would help stop the dumping a nd clean up the leaking chemicals himself.

On the other hand, if he knew about it... Mr. Johns gave me a puzzled frown. He was either surprised, or—if he was guilty of something—curious about how much we knew.

I continued. I told him the story from the beginning, just as I had memorized it: the dead birds, the health inspector, the newspaper reporter, my tests in the school science lab. I got through all of the first part without stuttering.

Not once did he try to stop me. He just watched me as if I were an interesting insect he'd trapped in a glass jar.

I took a breath and waited to see if he had any questions. He did.

“Very interesting,” he said. “This is a serious charge. Do you have any proof?”

Was he an innocent man worried that someone in his company had dumped chemicals illegally? Or a guilty man worried that he had been caught?

I nodded at Waymen. He stood.

“If you don't mind, sir.” Waymen walked to the television and popped a videotape into the VCR.

He turned on the television. It hissed loudly until Waymen adjusted the volume. Gray and white specks danced across the screen. Then images appeared. Images of barrels lit by a flashlight beam.

The images jerked around the screen as Gram's cousin Clem walked closer to the barrels with the video camera.

We heard his voice. “The boy was telling the truth, Stewart. Wonder what this stuff is?”

Stewart stepped in front of the camera and did a little dance.

“Stewart!” Clem said. “Quit that fooling around!”

“Shucks,” Stewart said, “don't I look purty?”

The video camera showed a different angle as Clem shot it at Stewart's feet. It was easy to see where stuff had leaked from the barrels and seeped into the ground. There were also tire tracks, probably from a forklift.

Finally, the camera zoomed in on the letters stenciled across the barrels.

POLYCHLORINATED BIPHENYL. Otherwise known as
PCB
. I'd done some

research after Gram's cousins made this tape.
PCB
was used in the making of electrical appliances. I'd discovered that years ago they were dumped into the upper Hudson River in New York. Commercial fishing is still restricted in some areas. Once this stuff gets into the environmental chain, the toxic chemical builds up in all kinds of species.

There was one more shot of Stewart dancing. Then the camera shut off.

“Amusing as the dancing hillbilly was, I'm not sure this is much proof,” Albert Wayne Johns III said. “That footage could have been shot anywhere.”

“The men who made that tape are willing to testify that those barrels are in an abandoned mine shaft that belongs to the Johns Corporation,” Waymen said. “We also have a sample taken from one of the barrels. Isn't that proof enough?”

“Not proof that anyone from the Johns Corporation put those barrels there,” Mr. Johns said. “We'll dispose of them immediately. But without ta king any blame.”

“No, sir,” Mr. Whitley said. Mr. Whitley set his hands down on the table. I could see his knuckles, scarred from years of working honestly with his hands. “That will not do at all. From what I understand, it costs a lot of money to dispose of these chemicals properly. I'm willing to bet that someone has made a small fortune by agreeing to dispose of them and instead hiding them in the mine shaft. Not only should the chemicals be cleaned up, but the person responsible should also be found and punished.”

Albert Wayne Johns III arched an eyebrow. Although he kept his voice quiet,
I could tell he was really mad. Maybe that's how it was with people with money. They thought others should listen to their whispers as if they were shouting. “I do not expect to be spoken to in that tone of voice. Not from a mere employee. And especially not from one who is here through my generosity.”

“Your generosity?” Mr. Whitley asked. His fingers flexed into fists on the table.

Mr. Johns did not notice. He continued, “Why would I bring you into my company at the salary you now receive? I simply wanted your son to play on our high school's football team. I knew if I made it worth your while, you'd move—immediately.”

Mr. Johns smiled a nasty smile. “You now receive triple what you're worth. Can you really afford to lose this job?”

Mr. Johns turned to me. “And do you want to lose your chance at a scholarship?”

I said nothing.

“As I thought,” Mr. Johns said. “Well, just leave me the videotape and let me handle this problem.”

He stood up. “Now, please. I'm a busy man. We'll say good-bye and pretend none of this happened.”

“N-not so f-fast,” I said. “Y-you w-won't get away th-this easily.”

Mr. Johns didn't know it, but this had been a fishing trip. And we had just landed the big one.

“N-not s-so f-ast?” Mr. Johns said, mocking my stutter. “Are you stupid?”

“Dumb move, Mr. Fancy Suit,” Waymen said. “People who make fun of Roy usually regret it.”

“This is great,” Mr. Johns said. “I'm looking at a mechanic and his football jock of a son and a kid who stutters like a baby. Why should I be afraid of any of you?”

I had run out of memorized script to work with. But I didn't care.

“Th-this,” I said. I pulled my mini-recorder from my inside suit pocket. It was the secret weapon that had given me the idea of facing Mr. Johns.

“Hah,” Mr. Johns said. “I haven't said a single word that could get me in trouble in court. How childish, taping this conversation.”

“N-not th-this conversation,” I said. “An earlier one—w-with someone who works for y-you.”

I pushed the play button. The words came out clearly. Words said in the front seat of my truck a few nights earlier.

“See, the people you're buckin' against, they ain't dumb. Soon's the health inspector recognized what was in the water and called them, they went out and hired Waymen's old man...”

Mr. Johns's smile faded fast.

“You ain't listening to me, boy. They offered Waymen's old man so much money he was willing to move his family immediately. And they did it for one simple reason: You...”

The man in the black cap continued,
“To make you happy, boy. Folks in this town know how good you are. For two years now, they been saying what a shame it is there weren't no quarterback good enough to make you shine. Now you got your quarterback. That is, if you behave...”

When Waymen had come up to the truck to invite me for a milkshake, it had given me a chance to hit the record button on the tape recorder.

“Here's the other side of the coin, boy. If you don't behave, your gramma gets hurt and Waymen's old man gets fired. You lose your quarterback and your shot at getting scouted, not to mention the pros. In other words, drop what you're doing, and life will be just fine. Got it?...”

By itself the conversation on tape might not have been enough to get Mr. Johns in trouble. But Mr. Johns had just made the same threat. That tied them together.

The voice on the tape continued,
“Boy, right this moment you are doing precisely what I'm saying you should stop doing.
Looking for answers. All I'm going to tell you is that you're a fool to go up against them. This is a backwoods county lost in the mountains. Nobody outside cares what happens here. The Johns Corporation owns this county and has for the last seventy years. Sheriff, newspaper, everybody. Don't mess with them. Got it?”

“Give me that!” Mr. Johns snarled. He swept his arm toward me. So quickly I hardly saw it happen, Mr. Whitley stood and grabbed the man's fist.

“I was hoping you weren't behind this,” Mr. Whitley said. He held Mr. Johns's fist and squeezed with a powerful hand. “But with everything else and with what you've said over the last ten minutes, I think there's enough for the authorities to begin an investigation. They'll trace your bank accounts to see if you've deposited money that you can't explain. They'll check your spending habits to see if you've been spending more than you make legitimately. You know they'll find that money, and they'll trace it backward to find out who has been paying you to dump the
toxic chemicals. Yes, sir, they'll put together whatever extra proof they need to get you a nice long jail sentence.”

“Nice try,” Mr. Johns said. He tried to pull his hand away. Mr. Whitley just kept holding it. “But I own this town. No one will lift a finger against me.”

“Maybe. But you don't own the
FBI
,” Mr. Whitley said.

“The
FBI
?” Mr. Johns said. “Don't be ridiculous.”

“I'm not being ridiculous. How do you think I know so much about what they'll do?”

“You're bluffing,” Mr. Johns said. But he didn't sound certain.

“Waymen?” Mr. Whitley said.

Waymen pulled off his suit coat. He unbuttoned the front of his shirt. His bare chest showed what the
FBI
had taped in place earlier: a transmitter. Waymen was wired, just like an undercover cop.

“You see,” Mr. Whitley said, “the
FBI
is already involved in this. They came down from Lexington when I called them this morning and told them what we had—the
video, the chemical samples, the recording. And even an offer on Mrs. Linden's land and cabin from the Johns Corporation. They found it all very interesting. They were kind enough to rig Waymen with this fancy recording gear. They're outside in a van and have heard every word you said.”

Mr. Whitley finally dropped Mr. Johns's fist.

“The
FBI
,” Mr. Johns repeated. He rubbed his hand. His voice was that of a man suddenly very afraid.

“The
FBI
,” Mr. Whitley answered. “They want to know all about the chemicals and how you manipulate this town. If my guess is right, they should be knocking on the door in a couple of minutes.”

Mr. Whitley was wrong. It only took thirty seconds.

This is what is exciting, sad, fun, mysterious and scary about life: The end of something is always the beginning of something else.

As with Albert Wayne Johns III. After the
FBI
investigated, he was charged and found guilty of breaking the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. They also got him for fraud, bribery and—worst of all—tax evasion charges for not reporting his illegal income.
My name made the papers. So did Whalin' Waymen Whitley's.

That should have been the end of it.

But there is something else wonderful and frightening about life: It will push you to grow as much as you let it.

What do I mean? It's easy to sit at home and watch television—you don't have to take any chances that way. But if you are willing to make mistakes and try new things, you'll discover you can do a lot more than you ever dreamed.

The end of Albert Wayne Johns III brought a new beginning for me because my investigation and my friendship with Waymen nudged me out of my little box—as if God, like a mother bird, had gently pushed me out of the nest. Baby birds don't know when they're ready to fly, but their mothers do. For those baby birds in the first few moments as they learn to use their wings, life must feel exciting and sad and fun and mysterious and scary.

And so—on a Saturday night three months after football season ended—I stood behind a curtain on a stage in front of five hundred
people, wearing pajamas, with my heart revved up like a race car engine as I waited for a girl to scream.

“Aaaaaaaaah!” Elizabeth Whitley shouted at the top of her lungs. Only she wasn't Elizabeth Whitley. She was the maid in a murder mystery who had just discovered a dead body.

“Aaaaaaaaah!”

I strolled onto the stage, glad that I could keep my legs moving. I was afraid if I stood still while I spoke, my legs would shake so much I would fall over. That wouldn't be good. Not during my first moment ever as an actor.

“Miss Marie,” I said. I walked carefully along the lines on the stage floor that our drama coach had practiced with us again and again. “How many times have I told you not to disturb my sleep.”

“But Mr. Rich,” she said, “look! It's your brother! He's dead!”

She pointed at a bed on the stage. A pair of feet stuck out from beneath the bed.

“Hmm...interesting,” I said. I paused. The silence was heavy. I knew five hundred pairs
of eyes were on me. But in that moment, I felt great. I had practiced for weeks for this moment, and I wasn't stuttering. “Miss Marie, have you looked beneath the bed to see the man's face?”

“No,” she answered. “I just this moment found the body.”

“Interesting,” I repeated. “Then how do you know it is my brother? Or that he is even dead? From here only the feet are visible.”