Peak Oil (23 page)

Bruce shook his head. “Not good, Lieutenant.” He tossed the bloody towel in the trash can. “But she’ll make it,” he said, checking Alexa's blood pressure.

Voelkner nodded, flicking his eyes between the injured soldier and Bruce. “We’ve located the sergeant’s body,” he said, almost apologetically.

Bruce looked up from the monitor. “Where?”

Voelkner lowered his eyes to the ground and dug his hands into his pockets. “A couple of miles from the refinery.” He lifted his eyes and looked at Bruce with a frown. “We received his GLD position, but I was waiting for you to finish up. I’m sorry, Major, but I won’t be able to do it on my own.” The man looked embarrassed.

Bruce studied Voelkner for a while and finally nodded. “I understand. Let’s go.”

Bruce slowed the Hummer down and made a sharp left onto the side road that Voelkner had pointed out. After bouncing over the rocky road for a minute, Voelkner pointed to the clearing. “Their rental is parked up ahead.”

Bruce nodded and drove into the opening between the trees. “And the body?”
 

Voelkner sighed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed. He opened the door. “It’s in the ravine below.” He slipped out of the seat and sauntered to the edge of the cliff. “There’s another car down there as well.”
 

Bruce followed him to the edge and glanced down. A muddy river flowed lazily far below. The fence next to the edge of the precipice had been ripped out of the ground and was dangling off the side of the cliff. He could see a body sprawled on the ground far below and the remains of a burned-out car.

He turned around to face Voelkner. “Get me the climbing gear.”

Voelkner nodded and trotted to the Hummer.

Bruce squinted; he could barely discern the shape of the body. He noticed something move close to the body.
 

Voelkner returned with the harness. He attached it to a climbing rope and peered down. “How far do you think, Major?”

Bruce shrugged. “Three hundred feet, give or take twenty.”
 

Voelkner nodded and coiled the rope on the ground. He counted to thirty, tied an alpine butterfly into it, and attached a clip to the knot. Next, he attached the clip to a winch on the Hummer.
 

Bruce climbed into the harness and dragged the winch cable close to the edge. “Okay, let’s go.”
 

Voelkner pressed a button on the remote, and Bruce lowered himself over the edge. He rappelled down the edge of the rock face and a minute later landed lightly on the riverbed below.
 

He slipped out of the harness while examining the screen on his GLD. The signal came from somewhere upriver. He squished through dark mud on the banks of the river. The water was warm, and the dark sand on the river’s edge had an oily sheen to it. A sweet, paint-thinner smell permeated the air.
 

Bruce trudged upriver for a hundred and fifty yards then stopped and listened carefully. He heard the crows before he saw them. He scooted up a boulder and saw the scavengers sitting on Neil’s body about thirty yards away, some feathers scattered on the ground. Bruce wondered if they had started attacking each other.

He jogged to the body and shooed them away. Neil was lying on his back, his arms and legs spread out like he was trying to make a snow angel. Bruce examined the fresh drag trail. He guessed that Neil had still been alive for a couple of minutes after the fall. His face was bashed in, the skin on the damaged skull gouged clean by the crows, and a small crab crawled from his oral cavity.

Bruce knelt next to the body, put his hand on the dead man’s chest, and made the sign of the cross. He took a deep breath and prepared himself for the grizzly task of extracting the body.
 

He unhooked his backpack, digging through it and hauling out a large tarpaulin. He unfolded the sheet of plastic on the river bed, hoisted Neil’s body over his shoulder, and gently lowered it onto the sheet. He carefully folded the plastic around the body and secured the edges with cable ties.

He carried the homemade body bag back to the rope, unclipped the harness, and wrapped the rope around the bag, tying a Prusik knot every ten inches to secure the body in place.
 

He gave the rope a yank. “Okay, bring him up,” Bruce called into his two-way radio. The body jerked and then slowly made its way to the top.

Bruce backtracked to the area where he had found Neil, searching for clues or anything unusual. From the corner of his eye, he saw a feline head poke out behind a large rock. The cat jumped onto the boulder and sat there, licking its paws and stroking its head.
 

Bruce sauntered closer. It seemed tame enough. It sniffed the air as he stretched out his hand to touch it.

He sat down next to the animal. It reminded him of an African wildcat, only slightly bigger. The animal jumped onto his lap and curled itself up into a ball. Bruce scratched it under its chin as it purred contentedly. Another cat came closer.

Bruce glanced at the feathers scattered on the ground. Crows made an excellent meal for the cats. “Come here, big boy,” he whispered to the cat and called it closer. It walked up to him and rubbed its head against his leg; then it brushed by, trotted to the river, and lapped up some water. A chunk of its ear had been bitten off, and its fur was ruffled from a skirmish, probably from another cat intruding into its territory.

Bruce admired the animal for a while and then scanned the riverbank. He found the oily sheen strange, probably a byproduct from the refinery. His eye caught the reflection from something shiny halfway buried in the sand. He stood up, and the cat jumped off his lap, looking up at him ruefully.
 

At first he thought it a piece of flotsam, but as he strode closer, he noticed a soft blue glow radiating from the side. It was Neil’s GLD.

He picked it up and slipped it into his top pocket and then strode back to the rope that had been lowered back to the ground by Voelkner. He buckled himself in and pulled his way to the top. The cats looked up at him as he ascended.

Harvey stared out of his office window, his hands folded behind his back. A squirrel bound up the side of a shady oak, and a young couple was walking hand in hand on the sidewalk, whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears. The blonde guy was wearing a T-Shirt with a large tiger on the back, the words “Fitch Academy” embroidered above the face. It was a peaceful community, and Andy was screwing it all up.
 

Things had been difficult for an outsider, such as he was; the rituals and beliefs of the Traveler community was way beyond him. But everyone in town displayed an irrational loyalty toward Fitch, which made it even more difficult for him to stay neutral. Of course, the extra money convinced him to cast a blind eye to Fitch’s more mundane practices. But Andy was getting out of control.

There had been an incident a couple of years back that had threatened to topple their budding little empire like a house of cards. Chris got a black girl pregnant, and Andy wasn’t happy. So Andy murdered the girl, tried to pin the murder on his boy, Chris, but the authorities came down on him like a sack of bricks. So Andy had changed his name from Pete Jurin to Andy Fitch. Cost him a crap-load of cash, but Andy had friends in high places. Friends who could give him a whole new identity.

He chuckled. Andy had handled it well, and he had paid Harvey enough to cast a blind eye, enough to put his kid through college. But Fitch had gone too far this time, screwing with Interpol agents the way he did.

Harvey sighed and punched a number into his phone. The call was answered after a couple of rings.

“You found her?” Fitch asked eagerly.

Harvey blinked. “What did your people do to her, Andy?”

Fitch went quiet for a second. “Nothing. She fell.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Andy. The situation is getting out of hand.” He paced through his office, mopping his brow with a handkerchief as the heat rose to his face. “It looks like a damn steam train drove over her. And now there’s an army in my backyard.”

“Listen, Harvey,” Fitch whispered gently, “if I go down, you go down with me. And all the money disappears.”

“Yes, but—”
 

“No damn buts, Dwight. The college fund for the kids, holidays in Hawaii, all gone. Think about it, Dwight. Is that what you want?”

Harvey’s phone beeped in his ear. He looked at the screen. “Andy, I have another call. We need to talk, soon,” he said and disconnected the call. Then he answered the waiting number.

“Deputy Harvey?” the voice asked in a strong French accent.

Harvey rested his head against his arm on the wall. “Yes, that’s me.”

“I believe you have information on one of my agents, Alexa Guerra. Her father messaged me that he had found her, but she is in a serious condition. He’s busy but said I should get hold of you.”

“Who am I talking to?” Dwight asked irritably.

“This is General Alain Laiveaux, Head of Investigations, Interpol.”

Harvey snapped to attention. “Ah, yes, General. They were stopped in a roadblock, but we let him through.”
 

He was her father?
Harvey straightened up. “I was on my way to the hospital right now to see how she is doing.”

“What was her condition like when you last saw her?” Laiveaux asked.

Harvey slid into his chair. “Serious, General. Broken nose, I saw lots of blood.”

“What happened?”
 

“They say she fell down a flight of stairs.”

Laiveaux snorted. “Now you listen to me, Deputy. I’m on my way to you now, and I’m about to unleash the wrath of God on you. After I’m done with you, you’ll wish your little backwater town would disappear off the face of the planet.”

Harvey rested his head on his hand, closed his eyes, and nodded.
 

Laiveaux paused for effect and then continued. “You rednecks have screwed with the wrong people, Deputy. Get your shit sorted and your house in order. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The phone disconnected, leaving Harvey staring at the screen. He swallowed hard. “Oh, shit.” He got up as his phone rang again. He sighed as he answered. “Harvey.”

A husky female voice spoke. “Deputy, this is Martha Williamson. What the hell is going on down there?”

“Um, what do you mean, Judge?” he asked and slapped his forehead.

“What the hell do you mean, ‘What do I mean’? You know exactly what the hell I mean, you prick.”

“Well, some Interpol agents are investigating one of our residents. Two of them were murdered, and the third is in a serious condition in the hospital.”

“Name them.”

Harvey flipped open his notepad and licked his finger. He flipped through the pages. “One was Bis Latorre, and the other was a man named Reg Voelkner.”

The woman grunted. “Voelkner is alive. What about Neil Allen?”

Harvey shrugged. “He’s okay, I guess.”

She cursed. “He’s dead, you imbecile. I know more about the goings-on in your backwater little town than you do. Phone me if you find out anything new.”
 

The phone disconnected. A couple of seconds later, his phone beeped. He read the message. It was Martha Williamson’s mobile number.

He laid his head back against the chair and closed his eyes.
Could things get any more complicated?

The black Jag sped down the blacktop at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Laiveaux was impatient. “How far?” he asked the driver.

The man looked up at Laiveaux through the rearview mirror. “Another thirty miles—fifteen minutes.”

Laiveaux nodded. He dialed a number. “Deploy the troops. ETA fifteen minutes,” he barked into the phone.

He patted his pockets for a cigarette. The driver frowned in the rearview, took a pack from his breast pocket, and offered it to Laiveaux over his shoulder.

“No,” he barked. “I’m trying to quit.”

The man nodded and then looked straight ahead.
 

He was being an asshole and he knew it, but he was worried about Alexa. Extremely worried. “Go to the hospital first. I want to check in on the captain.”

Harvey’s door flew open and he looked up. “What the hell? Haven’t you heard of knocking?” he shouted at an agitated-looking Tony.

“Deputy, you have to come see this,” Tony said, bouncing from one foot to the next. The man’s ashen face made it look like he had seen an alien spaceship.
 

Harvey stood up impatiently and followed Tony outside. A crowd had gathered, all staring up at the sky. He squinted up to where Tony was pointing, and he couldn’t believe his eyes.
 

A Transall C-160 flew low over their heads, emitting a deep droning noise. It made a wide arc in the sky, soared back, and climbed into the air, leaving dozens of tiny speckles in its wake.
 

Harvey gaped at the show. The speckles became larger and morphed into men, pulling and yanking the cables on their parachutes, drifting toward town.