"It’s just another mile." her driver said.
Their conversation had been limited. Apparently, the driver had been instructed to stay focused on making it a quick trip. When Emily first got into the car, she asked what this was about. The driver said, "I'm not sure. Agent Erikson will fill you in when we get there."
After passing the construction buildings, the road was one lane of gravel, with trees on the left, and the Louisville and Portland Canal on the right. Emily saw a railroad bridge above the road ahead, but before going that far, the car slowed and turned into a muddy gap in the trees. About fifty feet in, the path opened into a clearing, strewn with weeds, and three cars. Emily saw Loren walking toward them as they parked.
"I thought you would want to see this for yourself," Loren said.
Emily saw that two of the cars were agent's cars. The third was a small sedan; looked like a Toyota, probably just a year or two old and in pristine shape. The plates were local, the windows and doors were closed except for the front passenger door. As she walked closer, she noticed that the inside of the car was as clean and neat as the outside, and there was a body stretched across the front seat. It appeared to be male, probably in its twenties, and hadn't been here more than a few hours."
"Let me guess," Emily said.
"Emily, meet Alex," Loren replied.
Eight dozen questions went through Emily's mind at one time, about half related to Alex and how he got here, and the other half about this guy named Steve, and how he knew.
"It looks like a suicide," Loren said. There's no sign of a wound or a weapon, so I assume it was some type of poison or something. The coroner will tell us."
"We're sure it happened here?" Emily asked, "or could he have been dumped here?"
"There's no sign of any tracks or anything, so it looks like he drove himself and did the deed. But there is a camera at that front gate, and we'll look at the video from that."
"That gate is always open?"
"Usually, at least during the day."
"And we know this is our Alex?"
"He has ID on him. I stopped everything and called you as soon as we found that. We've not done anything else yet; I thought you might want to get a fresh look."
"Yeah, thanks. Go ahead and start again; I'll watch along."
The crime scene team went back into action, carefully examining every inch of the car, and of Alex. As they finished their initial search, one of the investigators walked over.
"Not much more than fingerprints. It’s like a new car. Nothing in the glove box, nothing under the seats. The trunk looks like it’s never been opened. The car was registered to him two years ago, but he sure couldn't have used it much."
"Ok, Phil. Let's see what we find after you take it in."
Loren turned to Emily. "Anything else you want to see here?"
"Not now. Is the coroner here yet?"
"Yeah, she's waiting over by your car."
Emily walked over to the young woman in the jacket with 'Coroner' on the back.
"Hi, I'm Agent Graham with the FBI, are you our coroner?"
"Yes, ma'am. Jolene Morgan, Chief Medical Examiner for Jefferson County. We were told you had something that needed special attention."
"Yes, excellent. Agent Erikson will fill you in with the details, but yeah, we need to know as much about this guy as you can learn."
"Cause of death, existing or past trauma or health issues, things like that?" Chief Examiner Morgan asked.
"Exactly. Now that we have his ID, we'll do a full background, but anything you can add to that will be extremely important. How soon will you do this?"
"When you say it’s time to start, we'll take him in and get right on it. I can get you preliminary findings later tonight, and we'll push the rest as hard as we can."
"Thanks. He's all yours."
Emily and Loren walked back to Emily's car.
"One more thing for now," Emily said, handing Loren a plastic bag. "Here's the note card from our new friend Steve. See if you can pull any prints off it; other than mine."
"I'll let you know," Loren said as she took the bag. "You going back to the hotel?"
"I think so. It looks like tomorrow's going to be a long one. By the way, did you notice the marks on Alex's hand?"
"You mean the bruising? Yeah, what do you make of that?"
"Let's see what the examiner says, but they look a lot like bruises on my dad's hand from his IV's."
"So, you think he had an IV recently?"
"They're the kind of marks you get from having a lot of IV's; like for some type of ongoing treatment for something. But let's see what they find. Call me if you find anything else, uh, interesting."
Emily got back into the car and had a quiet ride back to her hotel. The beach was waiting for her; and tonight Jimmy Buffett was back, sitting on the hood of a car singing a new tune about IV tubes, cheap red wine, and somebody named Steve.
Chapter 55
For the first time in two days, Charlie found himself smiling as he passed under a bridge; this one just below Greenville, Mississippi. The idea had come to him after the incident with Smitty, and the conversation in the galley when the leader said that he knew the authorities would find them, but it wouldn't make any difference. What bothered Charlie the most was how confident he was that nothing could be done. That was the moment Charlie decided that he had to come up with a plan; no one ever tells a riverboat guy that he can't do something, especially on his own boat. He had spent his watch-time thinking about it, and when he was off-watch, he studied the navigation maps, hunting for the place. It all came together this afternoon, and it was time to get his crew ready for action. They would strike in three hours.
"You want to see me?" Frank asked as he stepped into the pilothouse.
"It’s time to put an end to this. Listen, I've got it worked out. I need you to get the crew up here, quietly, so the crazies down there don't know what's going on. Smitty tells me the assholes are all down in the galley talking right now, so if we're quick, I think we can pull it off. You need to kind of spread 'em out a bit, don't have them all come up at one time...but see if we can get everybody here in about ten minutes. Ok?"
"I'll do my best Cap." Frank smiled as he stepped back out in the darkness.
Over the next several minutes, the pilothouse filled with the crew; one at a time.
"Is everybody here?" Charlie looked around the group, "Good. Now listen up. I have a plan for stopping these sons a bitches, but it will only work if we're all together; all doing our part."
Lots of nods around the room, along with "It’s about time!" and "Fuckin A Cap!".
"Hang on. Before we get any farther, this ain't the movies here, and things could go bad real quick. These guys have got real guns down there."
"Captain," Clovis Landry's deep Mississippi drawl broke the silence, "ya'll know we just gotta do something here man. I mean, shit, we can't just let them keep droppin' these things in the river like this; not from our boat."
"That's right," fellow Mississippian and future-pilot Virgil Amadee said, "we gotta do something, and if you got a plan then I think it’s what we do."
After a minute or two, every voice was heard, and while the accents varied, the sentiment was the same.
"Ok then, listen up, and listen close; we don't have much time here. I've been looking at the maps, and I think I found a place that's far enough away from things; a place that if anything does go wrong, it’s not gonna be a problem for a lot of people."
Every eye was focused on Charlie.
"You all know the sandbar just below Monterey Bend; there below Beulah?"
Nods all around.
"We're gonna park this boat right on top of that bar, and park it deep enough that it ain't coming back off on its own."
More nodes and side conversations.
"But captain," Frank said, "what about the bridges?"
"Hang on Frank. But you're right. This will keep them from getting to any mor
e bridges but doesn't do anything about the one's they've already hit. There's two parts to this plan, and the first is to hit that sandbar. Smitty, you ready to do something here?"
Smitty poked his head out from the back of the group, "Sure Charlie. What do you need?"
"When it’s time to do this, I want those engines running full tilt to push us clear up on top of that bar. And as soon as we hit it, its the time for you to shut them down; and I mean really shut 'em down. Do you know what I mean?"
"You bet Cap'n."
"Ok then; now for the tricky part. We've got to get to that computer in the storeroom by the galley; that's how they control the other devices. We've got to make sure they can't use it to set those things off."
"How you want us to do that Cap'n?" Virgil Amadee asked.
"There's usually just that one guy in there, so if a couple of you big Mississippi boys could take care of him, the rest of us can deal with the others. They've got guns, so..."
"I swing a pretty mean ratchet when I need to." one of the deckhands said.
"There ya go. These guys are mean, but they've never tangled with a bunch of pissed off river rats before, so let's show them what that means."
"When do we get there Cap'n? How much time we got to get ready?"
"We'll be at the sandbar in about three hours. Now get the hell out of here before somebody sees us. Frank will get with everybody to work out the details."
They started to leave, one-by-one.
"Frank, think you can handle this?" Charlie asked.
"Hell yeah skipper, I'll take care of things." Frank smiled as he stepped out the door.
Chapter 56
"Hullo," Emily grunted into the phone. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, but she thought it showed eleven-thirty.
"Hey, you need to come and pick me up," her father said, "I'm getting the hell off this goddamn boat. Come and get me."
Her focus returned.
"Dad, what's going on?"
"I told you what's going on; you need to come and pick me up."
Emily wondered if she should try reality, or join the battle.
"Dad..."
"I've had it with these people. They don't know how to run a boat, and they won't let me do my job, so I'm outta here."
"Dad..."
"Look, I'm getting off at the LaGrange Lock, so you need to come and get me."
"Dad, I can't come right now, I'm in Louisville."
"Louisville? What the hell you doing down there?"
"I'm working dad."
"So you won't come and get me?"
"Dad, I can't leave right now. I'm stuck here for another day or two, at least."
It was quiet for a few moments.
"Dad, do you think you can put up with them for another couple of days? Then I can come and pick you up." It was a gamble, but Emily was betting that he wouldn’t remember any of this by morning.
"Well shit, yeah, ok. I guess. But I'm not putting up with any more of their crap."
"Ok, thanks, dad, I understand."
"I'm off watch now,” he said, “so I'm going back to bed. Thanks for calling." And the line went dead.
Emily lay back down in bed and thought about the times she had been truly excited to get a call for her and her mother to come and pick him up somewhere. Those surprise visits were always fun. And they always took them to some interesting places; a lock, or a coal or grain dock in the middle of nowhere. And it was always in the middle of the night for some reason. He would hop off the boat as it approached their hometown, then they'd drive down to let him get back on after the boat had gone passed. Short, but nice.
The phone interrupted her memories.
"Yes?" she said a bit more forcefully than she intended.
"Agent Graham? This is Jolene Morgan, from the Medical Examiner's office. I'm sorry if I've called too late, but I thought you might want an update."
"Of course, Jolene," Emily sat up. "I'm sorry; I do appreciate you calling."
"I have some preliminary results. The full report won't be back for a day or two, but I think I have some information you'll find interesting."
"Yes?"
"Direct cause of death was poisoning. It looks like a cyanide base, but it appears to be something quite unique."
"Unique? What do you mean?"
"Well, cyanide has a wide range of formulations, and there are different ways it’s used to design this type of kill-pill, as its sometimes called. How familiar are you with this type of thing?"
"Fair, I guess. But please educate me."
"Sure. Cyanide is used because it is quick, it’s easy to conceal, and not difficult to get."
"It’s a quick and painless way to go, huh?"
"Oh no, that's the myth about it. It can be relatively quick, sure, but it’s not painless. Most every fast-acting poison still has other effects before the individual dies. There can be severe pain, muscle spasms, gastro problems like vomiting and diarrhea, breathing difficulties; it’s not as clean as the movies make it look."
"But it didn't look like Alex..."
"That's the thing. What he ingested was a combination of things; the cyanide was just one part. There were other drugs that would have knocked him out almost immediately, so he wouldn't have experienced the usual discomforts of the cyanide; not consciously anyway. And there were still other drugs to minimize the gastro issues, which is probably why we didn't see the results of that at the scene. That's why I say this is unique. Your friend Alex took a pill created by someone who really knew what they were doing."
"Have you seen these before?"
"Not personally, no, but I've read about them in the research. This type of thing is usually found in the really out-there cases."
"Like spies and things like that?"
"Well, we usually don't even see it there. Those folks usually don't care if the victim suffers a bit before he goes. But, there's more that you ought to know. Even without the pill, this Alex guy would have been gone within a month. He was already a dead man walking."
"What do you mean?"
"He was full of cancer. It looks like it was stage four pancreatic, but it had metastasized and was throughout his abdomen. There were signs of several surgeries, and indications he had undergone a range of chemo treatments."
"The IV scars on his arm."
"Exactly. But not for a few months. He must have decided to just stop and let things happen."
"So, just let me make sure I understand what I'm hearing. This guy was going to die within a month anyway. Oh, do you think he knew that?"
"There's no way he didn't know. And normally, that would lead me to think that he had just decided to take control of things and kill himself. But that doesn't explain where he got this really strange pill."
"Yeah, for sure. Anything else right now?"
"Nothing important. I'll give you a call when the next results come in."
"Yeah, thanks, Jolene."
Emily closed her eyes and watched the surf roll against the beach. Under a palm tree next to her was a table where a woman was performing an autopsy, and just behind her, a guy in a lab coat was mixing up the contents of a giant poison pill. Jimmy Buffett was standing in the surf, wearing his flip-flops, and shaking his head.
Chapter 57
Charlie watched the radar as the boat passed the large Choctaw Bar Island, and pictured in his mind what was going to happen in two hours at the smaller sandbar upstream. The door opened and the leader stepped inside.
"Evening Captain; about ready to call it a night?"
"Yeah, another thirty minutes and Frank can have it." Charlie decided to be graceful to the poor guy who was about to become fish food. "What brings you up here at this hour?"
"Well, I'll tell you. I was laying there and couldn't sleep. I realized that I hadn't really explained everything to you after that night with your guy Smitty, and I thought I ought to do that."
"I think I understand things..."
"Well, I want to make sure. You s
ee, you and your crew are an important part of our mission here, and I'd hate to have anything, you know, create a problem just because of a misunderstanding."
He had Charlie's attention.
"You see Captain, I told you that we had things under control, and there was nothing to worry about even after the authorities found out what we were doing. But I didn't explain just why you shouldn't worry."
Charlie felt something stir in his gut; it felt like worry.
"I think I left you with the impression that what makes us secure is that little computer downstairs; the one I said was monitoring the devices? Well, that is not quite accurate. The computer only monitors the devices, and has no real control over them."
"So..." Charlie's gut churned.
"No, wait, let me explain. As we planned the mission, it occurred to us that if the computer was the key to the devices, then all anyone had to do was to somehow get that computer away from us. That would never do. That’s why we came up with a much better way to control the devices; a bigger and safer way."
"What could..."
"The boat is the key, Charlie, your boat controls the devices now."
"But how..."
"I thought you might find that interesting. Actually, it’s pretty simple. First, you're familiar with GPS of course; you use it all the time. Well, we have a computer out there, somewhere; that's the beauty of the cloud today isn't it Charlie; you can be anywhere and still be connected. Well, this computer is following the movement of our boat using its GPS signal. If, for any reason, we stop and do not move for more than one hour, the signal is sent to start timers on every device out there."
Charlie's gut-worry turned to nausea.
"Timers?"
"They're set for twelve hours, like I said before, to give people time to get away from them. So, if this boat stops for more than one hour, every device blows twelve hours later, and nobody can stop them."
Moments of silence as Charlie worked to lower the acid in his stomach and work out his next move.
"Well, I feel so much better," the leader smiled. "I think I can sleep now; now that you understand how things work. It would have been horrible if something might have happened to you or your crew, or our boat, simply because you did not understand things properly. Good night Captain."
Disruption: A River Of Secrets And Betrayal Page 18
