Darkness Falls (3 page)

"Mark, I just got your message -- I was at the hospital late. What are you doing in Arizona?"

"Vacationing on your tax dollar. Actually, we have someone we needed to talk to here and it's pretty important, so I had to come myself." He grimaced at his inelegant delivery of the obvious lie.

"Pretty important, huh?"

"As far as you know."

"Are you coming back tonight?"

"Not sure, yet. That's the plan, though." "You know we're supposed to look at tuxedos."

In fact, he was aware of that. His secretary had not only put it on his calendar, she'd drawn a heart around it in pink highlighter. There was only so much he could take, though. As near as he could tell, wedding planning was a circle of hell Dante considered too terrifying to write about.

"I'm sorry, Carrie. It just couldn't be avoided."

"I'm ordering the baby-blue one with ruffles."

He snorted. "Let me save you the trouble. I've still got one in the attic from my prom. Just get the tailor to let it out."

Beamon wasn't sure what he was expecting, but this was pretty close. The white adobe house looked as if it had been inspired by teepees and seashells in roughly equal parts, and there was no yard -- just reddish dirt, looming saguaros, and various pieces of what looked like industrial junk. The gigantic solar panel was identifiable, as was the high-tech windmill, but the Honda hybrid parked next to a slightly crooked barn was so covered in unfathomable gadgets that Beamon recognized it only because one of his neighbors drove one. Most dominant, though, was a large above-ground pool surrounded by scaffolding. And standing on top of that scaffolding was a man dressed only in a pair of camouflage shorts, holding something that looked like a giant wooden spoon.

Beamon pulled the car up to a boulder and got out, shading his eyes and squinting at the man staring down at him through mirrored goggles. His shaggy hair was even blonder than in his photos, and his bare torso had a tan muscularity that suggested professional landscaper more than scientist.

"Are you Dr. Neal?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"My name's Mark Beamon. I work with Homeland Security."

An irritated smirk crossed Erin's face before he turned and went back to stirring his pool.

"I don't suppose you'd want to come down and talk?"

Erin just kept stirring, forcing Beamon to grab hold of the rickety two-by-four ladder that climbed the side of the scaffold.

By the time he got to the top, he had sweated through his thin golf shirt, but the rate of his breathing had hardly increased at all. As annoying as Carrie's vegetarianism and after-dinner power walks were, he had to admit that a few years ago, walking from his car to the Taco Bell had left him huffing. He was getting so used to feeling good, it was hard to remember his life before her.

Erin pretended to ignore him, continuing to swirl the green sludge that had taken over his pool.

"I'm no expert, but I'll bet a little chlorine would fix that right up."

Erin pulled his goggles up onto his head to appraise Beamon for a moment, obviously unimpressed. "It's an experiment." "Bacteria, right? That's your business." "Hobby," he corrected.

"Hobby. So what do these bacteria clean up?"

"Am I under arrest?"

"No."

"Then I don't have to answer your questions."

Beamon glanced up at the sky, futilely hoping the sun was about to dip behind a cloud. "You know . . ." he started, but didn't finish.

"What?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

"No," Erin said. "What were you going to say?"

"Just that if I was as rich and good-looking as you, I'd be less pissed off."

Erin spun in his direction and jabbed a finger violently in the air with his free hand. "Who the fuck do you think you are? You drive in here and start asking questions and judging me. You don't know the first thing about me. So why don't you just go tap someone's phone or something?"

Beamon nodded slowly but didn't move; instead, he examined the elaborate grid laid over the pool and tried to discern whether the goop varied from one compartment to another.

Erin moved around the scaffold with his spoon, but as the silence between them stretched out, he became visibly uncomfortable. "I'm experimenting with bio-solar. These bacteria generate electricity from the sun and other nutrients. It's sort of a cross between algae and an electric eel."

Beamon crouched and examined the contents of the pool more closely, but it still just looked like sludge to him. "So I'll be able to throw some of this in a puddle outside my house and run my TV on it someday?"

"Nah. I don't think it'll ever work. Interesting, though."

"If you say so. You know, I'm burning up out here. Any chance we could go inside and talk for a few minutes?"

Erin eyed him suspiciously, but finally just shrugged, jumped off the scaffold, and stomped through the dust to his porch. Beamon considered the drop for a moment and then took the ladder.

Inside, the un-air-conditioned house was more seashell than teepee. Messy enough to be just on the border of saying something unflattering about Erin's psyche, with furniture that was half homemade and half mail order. Much more interesting was the artwork. As near as Beamon could tell, it consisted completely of photographs of the same woman. He walked up to one of her standing at the base of a cliff with a climbing harness on. Early thirties, pretty, with one of those smiles that made you sure you'd like her if you met her.

"Who's this?" Beamon asked. According to the information Terry Hirst had provided, Erin had never been married and didn't have a sister.

"You can't search my house without a warrant. I know my rights."

"For Christ's sake, Erin. I'm not searching your goddamn house. I was just hot."

Erin frowned. The suspicion on his face was now marred by a hint of guilt at being the obvious bad guy so far in this relationship.

"Girlfriend," he said finally.

"Does she live around here?"

"She's dead."

Beamon kept his expression impassive, but he was imagining drowning Terry in a toilet bowl for missing that. "I'm sorry."

"She was an environmentalist. You know, one of those groups you people have been bugging and spying on because you think they're terrorists."

Here we go, Beamon thought.

"Her boat sunk with all hands a while back. I figure the government was probably behind it."

"You know, they don't give us torpedoes," Beamon said, and immediately regretted it. He'd tried to leverage the fact that his fiancee was a psychiatrist into some kind of improvement in his own bedside manner, but so far he'd accomplished zip.

"What do you want, Mark?"

"Actually, I want you to look at a sample of some sludge."

"What's in it for me?"

"You seem to like sludge."

"No."

"How about the warm fuzzy feeling of helping your fellow man?"

"You're getting colder."

Beamon sighed quietly. "Look, we've gotten wind of a problem at a Saudi oil field, and with all the turmoil over there, we're already kind of living on the edge where supply's concerned. Shit, the people I rented my car from said they're charging six bucks a gallon if I don't bring it back full. So we'd like you to take a look and see what you think. Tell us if it's something we need to worry about."

"Wait a minute," Erin said. "Did Rick Castelli put you up to this?"

Of course he had, but, because of Erin's tone, Beamon decided to remain silent on the subject.

"You government guys are so fucking melodramatic. Everything's a disaster to you unless it really is, and then you just ignore it. Well, I'll tell you what. I'm gonna ignore this."

Beamon looked around the house at the dirty dishes on the coffee table, the broken glass on the floor, the dead woman staring at him from all sides.

"So you can hang around here?"

"Fuck you. It's a free country. You can't make me go."

Beamon smiled. "Can't I?"

Chapter
3.

The helicopter finally began to descend, but that didn't bring the landscape into clearer focus. The sand seemed endless -- a monochromatic blanket so devoid of features that it was almost disorienting.

Some people might have called it beautiful, and Erin Neal supposed it would have been if there weren't so many memories buried in those dunes. It wasn't far from here that the current chapter of his life had started. And now it just wouldn't end.

He glanced over at Mark Beamon dozing in the seat next to him, headphones propped crookedly across his ears. After a brief burst of energy on the jet from Tucson, during which he had plowed through an enormous tray of sandwiches and a few smuggled mini-bottles of bourbon, practically the only time he'd opened his eyes all day had been to transfer to the Saudi Aramco chopper they were now on. As near as Erin could tell, the guy was either some kind of Zen master, a great actor, or else completely disinterested in wherever it was they were going. Probably the last one.

As they got closer to the hot sand, the air got bumpy enough to cause Beamon to open his slightly puffy eyes and squint out the window. "Where are we?"

"How the hell should I know? You haven't told me anything."

Beamon stretched wildly and smoothed his thinning hair beneath the headphones. "I was supposed to be home trying on tuxedos, but you had to be a pain in the ass, so now I'm stuck babysitting. What the hell do I know about the Middle East? It's hot and sandy without the benefit of so much as a single burrito stand. So why don't you tell me where we are. You're the expert, right?"

There was a certain odd sincerity to Beamon's groggy protest, and Erin stuck his nose to the glass as they passed over a massive structure that seemed to be made up entirely of silver pipe. Beyond, the distant outlines of oil derricks were swaying in the heat distortion. "Northern Ghawar."

"That's an oil field, right?"

"It's not a field, it's the field. Most people think the world's oil supply comes more or less evenly out of thousands of individual fields, but it's not true. A few giants produce most of it, and of those Ghawar is by far the largest. It's responsible for ninety percent of Saudi Arabia's oil and almost seven percent of the world's."

When the skids touched down, Erin unfastened his harness and, before jumping out, waited for the tornado of sand the blades had kicked up to subside. They'd landed about two hundred meters from a small, lonely derrick that would have seemed almost laughably unimportant if it weren't for the gleaming trailers surrounding it and the soldiers moving toward them.

Although they were all running and had guns in their hands, Beamon strode forward confidently, holding his ID above his head. Erin hung back.

The royal family was in complete control the last time he'd visited Saudi Arabia, and he had been a highly valued employee of Saudi Aramco. It had been all smiles and bags of cash back then. Now, though, the atmosphere had changed.

"Hello! I'm Mark Beamon from U. S. Homeland Security. I think we're expected.

One of the ten or so approaching guards aimed his rifle in their direction, prompting his companions to do the same. Someone started shouting in Arabic -- too fast and complicated for Erin to follow, though the tone and the wall of gun barrels they were facing made things pretty clear.

To his credit, Beamon didn't seem bothered by the deteriorating situation, and he continued to make himself the center of attention; meanwhile, Erin slowly backed toward the helicopter. The whine of the motor gained pitch and he turned to run toward it, but he saw that the skids were already off the ground. He turned back to find that Beamon was now facedown on the ground, a rifle barrel pressed to the back of his head.

There were too many soldiers to search one person, though, and the ones who felt left out inevitably turned their attention Erin's way. A moment later, he was lying next to Beamon and being groped by men who smelled as though they hadn't showered in a month.

"Look, we're here to --" Erin started through the sand in his mouth, but then fell silent when he felt the jab of a gun barrel against his spine.

By the time they were through with him, Beamon had been rolled onto his back and was lying there squinting into the empty sky, his sunglasses already pocketed by one of the men patting him down.

"We had to twist a few arms to convince the Saudis to let us come here -- they're kind of a secretive bunch and with all their political problems, I guess they're a little edgy."

"A little edgy?" Erin said as the guards retreated a few feet, guns still poised. He pushed himself to his feet and dusted off the sand as Beamon did the same. "As far as the royals are concerned, the U. S. isn't doing shit to help them keep their grip on the country, and letting a couple of Americans get killed would probably be a good illustration of their irritation."

"I've never been here," Beamon said, ignoring him. "Kind of stark, isn't it?" He actually used a finger to push aside one of the rifle barrels aimed at him and then strode off toward a white trailer, obviously attracted by the air conditioner humming on top of it. Erin slipped in behind him, careful not to make eye contact with the guards as he squeezed past.