Darkness Falls (18 page)

"What the hell do they want me to do?" the president asked. "I don't control the goddamn press, and I've got my own problems. What about Iran? They're benefiting a hell of a lot more than the Canadians. Can we plant some stories to deflect attention?"

"We're trying, sir, but it's not as good a story. We don't import from them, and their standard of living is still a lot lower than ours. We're finalizing the deal to jointly ramp-up production in the Canadian tar sands. When it's signed, it'll be the largest deal of its kind in history. Hopefully, we can spin that in a way that'll quiet things down, but it's hard to predict. You could also look at it as pumping a huge amount of tax dollars into an increasingly wealthy country for something that won't have any immediate effect."

"I'm holding you personally responsible to make sure it goddamn well doesn't get spun that way," the president said.

"Yes, sir. We're already planting stories about Canada's tar sands being as large a reserve as Saudi Arabia's. The pictures have a lot of impact -- overhead shots of thousands of miles of oil-impregnated sand right there for the taking. Obviously, it's more complicated than that. The retrieval of that oil is technologically and environmentally much more difficult than drilling, but we're downplaying the negatives as well as the time it will take to scale-up production to a point where it can compensate for the Saudi decline."

The president had obviously had enough of that subject, and he turned to Beamon. "Where does the investigation stand? Do you have any substantial leads?"

Beamon nodded. "Yes, sir. We found an old email from Erin Neal to a colleague describing the steps for manufacturing a bacteria almost identical to this one."

"Erin Neal? I don't understand. Isn't he the consultant we're using?"

"Yes, sir."

"How doe-s he explain the email?"

Beamon fidgeted in his chair, for a moment lost in a fantasy that he'd done the smart thing and run hard and fast from this investigation. "We're not sure, sir. We haven't actually been able to find him."

When the president's expression went from confused to enraged, Reynolds's instinct for self-preservation kicked in. "Jesus Christ, Mark. We knew he was a potential problem -- we talked about this. You told me you were watching him."

"He was low priority and we were having problems coordinating manpower," Beamon said. "So we only had one guy on him. It seemed reasonable since there's only one way in and out of his house."

"Then why the hell don't we have him?" He really wasn't looking forward to saying this.

"Mark?" Reynolds prompted.

"Because the guy who was watching him ran out of gas."

"What?"

"Apparently he forgot his government ID and he didn't have time to wait in line at the gas station before he started his shift. Neal drove out around three in the morning and our guy . . . well, he ran out of gas following him."

"So you're telling me that we now have a solid suspect," the president said. "The guy you were relying on as the expert on these bacteria -- and you have no idea where he is5 5

When he put it like that it sounded really bad.

"We have a nationwide APB on him and we're going through his phone records to see if we can figure out where he went. Hopefully --"

"Hopefully? Are you goddamn joking with me? Hopefully?"

Beamon could feel the sweat starting to fill his shoes. Normally, the thought of being screamed at by the president of the United States would illicit nothing more than mild annoyance in him. But in this case it was well deserved. He'd fucked up and fucked up in a big way. There was so much to keep track of, he'd never considered that an inexperienced first-year agent might be assigned to watch Erin Neal and that he'd neglect to fill his tank. How could he have forgotten his most cherished principle? What can go wrong, will go wrong.

Chapter
22.

Not surprisingly, the Tucson traffic was light, with an unusual number of bicycles weaving in and out of the cars -- some a bit unsteadily. At first, Beamon thought their erratic trajectories were caused by the heat, but more likely some of these people hadn't ridden since they were children. According to National Public Radio, virtually every bike shop in America was sold out, and used bicycles were going for more than they had new.

He slumped down in the back seat of the car and looked out the window at a hitchhiker standing on the edge of the highway. He was a clean-cut kid holding an artistically rendered sign offering five dollars for a ride to the university.

Beamon had watched the president's latest address the night before and found that the message had evolved a bit since the planning session he'd attended. The contamination data coming in continued to agree with Erin Neal's now somewhat suspicious projections, forcing the government to take a tougher stance than had at first been considered.

The basic thrust was that the world would be facing a substantial and most likely permanent drop in oil availability. The president kept the tone upbeat, talking about the adaptability of the American people, technologies that were right around the corner, and the spirit of working together. But the tone was clear -- things were going to change and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

A fuel-rationing program was being instituted, though no one was sure how it was going to work. The government was also introducing a fairly radical incentive program for conservation, along with a significant loosening of environmental regulations regarding the generation of energy. So far, there wasn't much reaction from the environmentalists on that last one. Some were still being held, despite Beamon's efforts to get them released, and the general public was in no mood to do without heat and transportation because it might get the wildlife sooty.

Of course, the president hadn't been completely honest. He'd suggested a fifteen percent drop instead of the thirty-five percent that was more likely. Even with that questionable bit of soft-pedaling, the market was down more than seven hundred points. Ultra-conservatives in the government were beginning to wonder aloud why the military wasn't being sent to secure supply from countries that had been proven "unreliable."

Beamon tipped sideways, lying down on his side in the spacious back seat and closing his eyes. He remembered the good old days when he could go for weeks on little more than excitement and caffeine. God, he hated getting old.

"Mr. Beamon? Sir?"

Beamon stirred and finally pushed himself upright in the seat. His driver, whose name he'd already forgotten, was leaning in through the open back door. "We're here."

Erin Neal's house was pretty much as he remembered it, except for the conservatively dressed and profusely sweating men and women swarming all over it.

"It's cooler inside," his driver said. "The house is generating enough power to run the air conditioner for a few minutes every hour."

Beamon frowned deeply, looking around him at the greenhouse, the solar array, the windmill. If there had been a little stream to run a hydroelectric dam, Neal would have had the power to actually put up a neon sign announcing "I did it!"

A self-sustaining environmentalist with a PhD in biology who'd become a hermit after the death of the woman he loved. Yeah, no one would ever have called that one.

He held the door open for a woman carrying a fingerprint kit and then slipped in behind her, finding Terry Hirst spread out on the sofa, mopping his forehead with a dishrag.

"Terry!"

His eyes shot open and he bolted upright. "Jesus, Mark. Don't do that. You scared the shit out of me."

"How long have you been here?"

"Longer than you'd think. The way I heard it, no one's getting assigned private planes right now, but I called up and had one in ten minutes. I like to think somewhere a senator's mistress is standing on the tarmac wondering who stole her ride."

Beamon moved to make way for a man collecting fibers with a tiny vacuum. "And in all that time, have you found anything?"

"Found anything? Are you kidding? We found the proverbial jackpot. Haven't you heard? We've got the notes on Neal's initial development of the concept for the bacteria."

"Come on, it's never that easy."

"It is today. We sent copies to Steve Andropolous to see if he can use it to stop the spread. Doesn't look promising, though."

"So we've got notes but no author."

"Unfortunately, yes. But that's where it gets even more interesting," Hirst said, pushing himself from the couch and motioning for Beamon to follow him to the kitchen. "We know Neal left in a hurry -- a couple of electrical appliances were left running and people who live off the grid just don't do that." He stopped and pointed at a large bloodstain on the kitchen floor. "There's more in the hallway. A whole trail of it, actually."

"Do we know whose it is?"

"Two different people. That's all we know at this point."

"So I was right."

"About what?"

"It's never that easy."

Hirst snorted and led Beamon out onto the porch, where there was a table containing a legal pad and a laptop computer. "It gets weirder. He bought a bunch of mailing lists from companies that make artificial rock-climbing holds and has been calling people from them to see if they were satisfied with the stuff they bought."

Beamon stared down at the list of names. "So, he sets the scene for a massive depression and then decides to go into the climbing hold business?"

"Seems far fetched, doesn't it?"

"He's already rich, right?"

Hirst nodded. "We have his net worth at about nine million, which until a few days ago was primarily invested in a mix of stocks."

"And now?"

"Mostly treasuries, precious metals, and companies specializing in renewable energies."

Beamon frowned. Once again, Erin Neal had proved that he wasn't a stupid man. Still, it was interesting that he hadn't moved those assets before.

"How many people has he called?"

"About a hundred according to his phone records."

Beamon tapped the pad on the table. "All the people on this list are women."

Hirst's mouth tightened. "Goddamnit!" "What?"

"I missed that."

Beamon sat down and stared at the dark screen of the laptop. "Okay, so he's not interested in the companies, he's looking for someone -- a woman who climbs." "Aren't we all?"

"But he doesn't know her name or where she lives."

"We've talked to basically everyone he knows and there were several climbers mostly friends of his former girlfriend, who I guess was into things like that. Some were even environmentalists, but we've cleared them all. Right now we're running down everyone he called."

"What about the laptop? Anything interesting there?"

"Password protected. We're going to send it to the eggheads at the NSA and see if they can get in. But I wouldn't hold your breath."

Beamon nodded.

"What are you thinking, Mark?"

"The climber angle. He's obviously gone to a lot of trouble to find this woman. But she's not a friend of his, because he doesn't know her name. And she's not a biologist because he'd be able to find her through that. She's not even an acquaintance because you have connections to acquaintances. Common friends and such."

"So why's he want to find her so bad, Mark?"

"Maybe he met her briefly in a bar or something and never could get her out of his head. He knows the shit's about to hit the fan and wants another shot . . . no, that's stupid."

They sat in silence for a few moments before Beamon spoke again. "What if she doesn't want him to find her?"

"You mean she's actively hiding from him?"

A thin smile spread slowly across Beamon's face.

"What? You've got something," Hirst said. "I can tell."

"I want you to get the mailing lists for every climbing hold manufacturer in the country and get basic background on every woman on them. I want it by the end of the day."

"That's not possible, Mark. You're talking about --"

"If you have to, shut down every other investigation the FBI's doing and put the people on it. No excuses, Terry."

Chapter
23.

The plane's wheels hit the ground hard enough to throw Jenna into the back of the seat Jonas was duct-taped to. The German's flight plan had led them to a small Texas airfield and she peered through the windscreen as they taxied across it. There wasn't much activity, which wasn't surprising now that the government was starting to divert fuel supplies from noncritical uses such as private planes.

Jonas's phone began to ring for what she counted as the twenty-second time during the flight, but he didn't react. He just sat there, completely motionless, staring straight ahead in a way that made Jenna want to check the tape securing him.

"Teague again," she said, glancing down at the phone. "We should have called the police. They could have gotten here faster."

Erin shut down the plane's engine and twisted around to look at her. "But we didn't, Jen. The government's focusing on exactly what they need to -- securing the water injectors and figuring out how to handle the effects of the fields that Teague's already hit. Splitting their attention and giving them something to grandstand about on TV isn't going to help anyone."