Deadout (38 page)

He read her the numbers, holding his phone in one hand and the paper in the other. I resisted the urge to grab the wheel, knowing I did much worse on a regular basis. We pulled up to the house, and he killed the engine but didn't move to get out.

“Wilks isn't just an asshole,” he said, eyes front, like he was thinking it through. “He's sleazy and stupid, a political animal whose every instinct is geared toward ladder-climbing instead of crime-solving. I wouldn't expect anything better from him, but there was something else going on back there.” He paused and looked at me. “He was scared.”

 

71

When we walked in, Annalisa was staring intently at the computer. She didn't even look up at first, but when she did, she hurried over to us. “Are you okay?”

I was about to answer when I realized she was talking to Jimmy. He gave her a smile and nodded. “My boss is a first-class asshole is all.”

Nola came down the steps and gave me a wry smile, like maybe she had heard that line somewhere else before.

Annalisa put her hand on Jimmy's arm. Her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second, then locked on his. “Did you learn anything new?”

“Just that the political pressure around this thing is intense. How about you?”

She looked around the room and nodded.

“What did you find?” I asked.

She took a deep breath. “I'm still digging through the data, but the fragment analysis is done. The mites from last summer are typical varroa destructor, but the samples from March have the same anomaly, the same marker, as the new ones, two months before the Bee-Plus bees were supposedly introduced.”

“So does that mean they brought in the Bee-Plus bees before they said?” I asked.

“Actually, I don't think so,” Annalisa said. “I may have been looking at this wrong. Those matching gene sequences may have been incidental, the vector or bridge material they used to get the splice to stick. The sequence between them doesn't match anything, as far as I can tell.”

“So what does that mean?” Nola asked.

Annalisa took a deep breath. “I think it means the mites have a totally different splice, just using the same technique. They have been genetically engineered as well.”

“For what?” Nola asked.

I had already been wondering, and it came to me just as she asked. I laughed. I couldn't help it. “How do you create demand if you've got a supply of bees that are immune to mites?”

Nola got there before I finished, her face twisting into the same combination of loathing and admiration that I was feeling. “Bastards,” she whispered.

“What?” Annalisa asked.

“What's the best way to sell bees that are juiced up to resist the mites that may or may not be wiping out all the regular bees?” I asked. “Juice up the mites as well, so you
know
they're wiping out the regular bees.”

Annalisa was quiet for a second, stunned. “They did this on purpose.”

Nola looked scared and angry. “There's bees dying all around the planet, and these bastards see it as a niche, a new market.” I moved closer and put my arm around her. “They didn't do all this so they could corner the bee market on the tiny island of Martha's Vineyard. They're going to try to take it global.”

“But what about the aggression?” Moose asked. “They can't just put these bees out there knowing they're killing people.”

“I wouldn't put it past Sumner,” Annalisa said. “It sounds insane, but he's working on a newer iteration of the Bee-Plus bees, a ‘two-point-oh' or whatever. He's probably trying to fix the aggression and the swarming. It doesn't seem to be ready yet, and it doesn't seem like he's shared it with Stoma. But with the kind of pressure he's under from Pearce, I wouldn't put it past him to release them even when he knows they're not ready. And the Bee-Plus licensing agreements are even more ironclad than the GMO seed licenses. Maybe he thinks that since only the Bee-Plus workers will be handling the bees, they'll be able to keep them under control.”

“That's ridiculous,” Moose said. “They're already getting out, and this is just a few hives on the island.”

“I know,” Annalisa said. “You're absolutely right.”

Nola looked up at me. “What are we going to do?”

“If Stoma doesn't know,” Annalisa said quietly. “Maybe we could tell them.”

Moose made a strange snorting, hiccupping sound. “Tell Stoma? Really? Sumner might not have told them everything, but a company like Stoma, they've got to know.”

Annalisa looked at the server and bit her lip. “There's something else,” she said. “I've been poking around on that server. There are mentions of an advance team working on the special exemption on the mainland, but there's something else, too. It's heavily encrypted, but there is something big going down, and it is happening tomorrow. I could get through the encryption, but it will take a while.”

“I've got to remind you,” Jimmy said, pointing at the computer. “That computer is stolen, so anything you get off of there is going to be inadmissible in a court of law. That could be the difference between whoever is responsible spending a long time in jail and getting off scot-free.”

“A court of law?” Nola laughed, rolling her eyes. “Are you kidding me? I'm sorry, people as rich as Archie Pearce don't go to jail.”

“Sumner's not rich,” Annalisa said. “He acts like it, and he used to be, but he's not. He's in hock up to his eyeballs so he could retain a share of the company. If he gets away with this, maybe he'll be rich again.” She shook her head. “Anyway, something big is happening tomorrow. It's like, their end date.” She looked around at us. “I think they're planning on taking the bees off island tomorrow.”

“They can't,” Jimmy said, shaking his head. “They're not allowed to. The provisional approval that let them bring Bee-Plus bees onto the island isn't even up for review for another month.”

“People!” Nola clapped her hands loudly, like a school teacher trying to get a class's attention. “They. Don't. Care. About any of that stuff. None of it. They're not going to jail. They don't care about ‘provisional approvals.' They are going to do exactly what they want to do, and then later, when their genetically modified Frankenbees have killed off all the regular bees—and a whole bunch of people—they'll say, ‘Oops, sorry. My bad.' And not a goddamned thing is going to happen to them. Maybe they'll pay a big fine and see a two-percent dip on their quarterly profits, but you know what? It won't even be that.”

I turned to Jimmy Frank. “She's got a point. So what do we do?”

“I still think we need to go through proper channels.”

Just as he said it, his phone buzzed. He looked at it, then looked at us, then he answered it.

“Hey … What's that? Pretty sure, yeah. Hold on.” He pulled out the paper with the GPS coordinates. “Yep. That's them. So what do you mean, are you guys sure? I'm not saying they're idiots, I'm asking if they're sure.… No, I wasn't talking about a dead deer.” He looked at me.

“The body was in a gully ten feet from the deer,” I whispered.

“Let me talk to Chuck,” he said. “Hey, Chuck, Jimmy Frank here. I'm told the body was in a gully ten feet away from that deer.… You saw the gully, huh?… No, I'm not saying you don't know how to do your job, I'm just making sure is all. Did you see any bees?… It's a simple goddamned question, Chuck, did you see any bees? Yeah, well you, too.” He thumbed off the phone. “Asshole.” He shook his head. “There was no sign of a body when they got there. Except for the deer.”

“We need to tell the authorities,” Annalisa said. “And I don't mean animal control or the local medical examiner.”

Nola snorted. “The authorities know, and they immediately tipped off Stoma, and that's why Benjy's body is gone. And don't think for a moment you're ever going to see it again.” Her bottom lip was trembling. “Benjy's gone. He's wherever they put Claudia Osterman and your friend Lynne.”

“She's right,” Jimmy said. “Wilks wasn't talking about pressure from the town board of selectmen. He's talking serious, heavy-duty pressure from way up high, the feds, you name it.”

The room was silent, then Benjy's computer chimed loudly. Moose went over to it. “I ran an analysis of data from some of the other monitoring stations,” he said, tapping a few keys. The screen showed a jumble of bee lines, including the familiar spokes indicating a colony laid over a satellite image of the island. He put his finger over the spot where the lines converged, then he looked around the room. “Johnny Blue's berry farm.”

 

72

The sign at the front of Blue's farm was a mess, parts of it splintered, parts burned, half of it covered with eggs. The gate was propped closed but it was easy to see that at some point someone had busted it in.

Jimmy and I shared a look. Then he gently pushed the gate open. It creaked loudly, the hinges a couple of swings away from falling off completely.

There was a long driveway ahead of us, stretching to a house a hundred yards away. The driveway was lined by a dense wall of tall conifers. Beyond them, around the house and behind it, were fields of blueberries. The GPS coordinates put the feral hive in the woods to the left, about halfway to the house.

We were going to knock on the door, warn Johnny Blue, and have a look in the woods. But before we could get there, Blue emerged from the trees near where the bees were supposed to be. He was carrying a shotgun.

Tyrique and Dawson stepped out after him.

“Oh shit,” said Tyrique with a grin, pointing me out to Dawson. “It's this motherfucker.”

“You're trespassing,” said Johnny. He sounded drunk.

Jimmy held up his badge. “Police.”

“You got a warrant?” As he said it I noticed a bee flying around his head. He waved at it lazily.

Jimmy sighed. “Looks like someone's been messing with your gate. I got probable cause. But really, I'm only here to give you some information.”

Johnny smirked. “And what's that?”

I saw a couple of more bees flying around.

“There's something gone wrong with Stoma's bees.”

Johnny laughed and shook his head. “What is it with you hippies and all this bullshit about the bees?”

I laughed out loud, because calling us hippies was ridiculous. Then I wondered if he could smell the patchouli.

“First you're all worried about the bees,” he said. “Then you're all worried about the new bees. Then you're worried that there aren't any more old bees. I still don't know what the big deal is about any of them, but there seems to be plenty of them around here, doing a great job. Busy little fucking bees.” He brought up the shotgun. “So I think maybe you'd better just get the fuck off my property.” He swatted at another bee, but missed.

“Johnny,” I said. “Those aren't regular bees. Those are the Stoma bees.”

He laughed. “No, they aren't. Stoma keeps their bees locked up tight and under control. These are regular local bees like the ones you assholes said were all wiped out. But even if they were, so what? Bees is bees. They're pollinating the shit out of my crops, doing whatever they're supposed to be doing. Soon, they'll be doing it on the mainland, and those farmers will be as happy as I am. The rest of it's bullshit. Now get the fuck off my property.”

“Johnny—” I said.

“Bullshit!” he thundered, firing the shotgun into the air. Tyrique and Dawson jumped, then shared a look that said, “We got to find a new gig.”

As the echo of the shot faded, I heard another sound, one that made my hair stand up, a low buzz in the background. Not far from where Johnny and his guys were standing, I could see bees flying around, emerging from the trees, then zipping back in. They weren't meandering; they were moving with great purpose.

“Bees to the left,” I muttered to Jimmy.

“I see them,” he replied.

“Johnny, don't do that,” I said. I kept my voice soft and held out my hands, palms out. “Those bees aren't normal bees. Loud noises set them off, and if you keep shooting that gun, they're going to—”

He pointed the gun in the air and squeezed off another blast. More bees started darting out through the trees.

“You don't tell me what to do with my mother—ouch!”

He slapped his neck, his face turning dark red with anger before his eyes went round with the pain.

Tyrique looked down, suppressing laughter, until Dawson yelped and slapped one hand with the other, fast and hard. He looked triumphant, holding up the bee and crushing it between his fingers. But the tide had already turned. I turned to Jimmy, but he was already backing up slowly.

The trees seemed to be shooting bees at them, little brown darts flying past Blue and his men, then curving around and snapping back, circling and darting in. Blue yelped, a high-pitch squeal against the grunts and muttered obscenities of his men.

“Blue!” I yelled, back-stepping toward the car. “Run for it! The house or the car, either one, but you can't stay out here.” One of the bees arced past me, and I pulled back but didn't swat at it.

Blue was still swatting and dancing. He'd probably been stung a half-dozen times. Tyrique and Dawson must have been listening because they turned and started running. Then Blue let out a ragged yell and raised the shotgun again. For a moment I thought he was going to take out his bodyguards for running away, or turn the gun on Jimmy and me, but instead he fired into the trees, blasting a hole two feet wide in the dense conifers.

For an instant, there was a quiet stillness. Dawson stopped and looked back, absent-mindedly waving his hand at a bee that had followed him. Even the bees seemed taken aback by the shotgun blast.