Helius Legacy

by S Alexander O'keefe

  “The variation that is relevant here can be illustrated by the following example. If I deed the City of Austin a property for use as a park, I can provide in the deed that if the land is ever used for any other purpose, then it reverts to me. What is important to remember for our purposes here today, is that this right of reentry, or power of termination, can potentially be triggered and exercised many years in the future.”

  Andrea paused for a moment and then continued.

  “Now, deeds that include these kinds of restrictions can create major land use problems, as a result many states restrict their use or have statutes of limitation that cut off these rights if they are not exercised within a certain time frame. In Texas, the statute of limitations is ninety years after the triggering event. However, when that statute was enacted, it only applied to deeds executed after 1900. This still left open the problem of termination rights included in deeds recorded before the turn of the century. To deal with this problem, Texas passed a “Sunset Law” law ten years ago. This law states that all powers of termination included in deeds recorded prior to 1900 must be exercised by December 31 of this year to be valid. Now, with that background, I would like to hand you a copy of a grant deed relating to a very large property in West Texas.”

  Andrea reached into the manila folder, pulled out a stack of papers, and passed them around the table, retaining one copy for herself and Caine.

  “What you have in front of you is a deed. The deed reflects an ownership transfer that occurred in 1885. The grantor in the deed is Thomas O’Neill, and the grantee is a Jackson Mason. Please put your finger on the first WHEREAS clause. Now count down ten lines from that and read the clause that states: ‘Provided, however, that if Grantee, or any party taking from him ever extracts any mineral substance of any kind from the Property for profit or gain, then title to the Property shall, as of the date of the first extraction, revert to Grantor or to his surviving heirs and descendants, free and clear of all rights, including any liens or encumbrances that did not exist as of the date of this deed.”’

  Andrea looked up from deed and looked around the table. She had everyone’s interest.

  “What does this have to do with you and Mr. Caine?” Russo said.

  Andrea turned her attention to Russo.

  “Everything. I did some research on this property while you were patiently waiting for me after lunch. In the past ninety years, millions of barrels of oil have been extracted from this property. In the late seventies, the owner thought the field’s reserves were finally played out, but a smart petro-engineer convinced the owner to drill another hole—a very deep hole. This strategy worked. The deeper well struck another reservoir of oil—a massive reservoir. The property described in this deed is called BlackJack. It is the fifth most productive oil field in the United States today.”

  Andrea hesitated for a moment and then leaned across the table. She stared directly at Russo.

  “Pursuant to the reversion clause in this deed, which is still valid and enforceable in the State of Texas for another three weeks, title to BlackJack reverted to Thomas O’Neill’s heirs the day the first oil well started pumping oil in 1910. That means every dollar taken out of that land was properly payable to his heirs, not to the oil company working the fields on that property. We are talking about billions of dollars when interest is considered.”

  Spencer sat straighter in his seat and Franklin leaned forward in his chair, waiting for Andrea to continue.

  “The man who bought the property in this deed was Jackson Mason. His son William started a company called Mason Oil. In 1981, Mason Oil was renamed Helius Energy,” Andrea said.

  “What are you saying?” Russo demanded. “Do you claim to be an heiress of this Thomas O’Neill?”

  “No, Ms. Russo. Not me. Mr. Caine is an heir.”

  “What! But why … why did they go after you? Why were you being hunted by these … so-called killers?”

  Franklin responded before Andrea.

  “I think I can answer that question.”

  Franklin hesitated as he gathered his thoughts.

  “One of the Statesman’s reporters, Richard Steinman, was preparing a story on Helius. He was doing it on his own time, without our help and without our knowledge. Apparently he discovered the deed that you have in front of you and confirmed that the original Thomas O’Neill in fact had a living heir. Unfortunately, it appears that Helius, or someone behind Helius, found out about Richard’s discovery before he could bring it to light. About five days ago, he was killed in what we all thought was a tragic automobile accident. But now, I have confidence that it was a murder.”

  Franklin stopped for a minute. Everyone in the room was silent. Then he continued.

  “Richard Steinman and Ms. Marenna were close friends. He tried to tell Andrea about his discovery the night of his death, but only partially succeeded. This communication made Andrea a target.”

  Andrea nodded and picked up where Franklin left off.

  “The communication from Richard is the voicemail transcription you have. He also tried to send me a package, but it was intercepted by the Helius people. Fortunately, he did one more thing. He told the genealogist who researched John’s background to copy me on the e-mail when the research project was complete. I only just received that message today. That’s why I was late from lunch, Ms. Russo.”

  Andrea looked over at Caine. He was shaking his head.

  “Andrea, how do you know that I’m an heir? I told you I was an orphan.”

  Andrea sat down and placed her hand on Caine’s arm.

  “Richie hired Amelia Teatro, a genealogist. She pieced together the lineage from the original Thomas O’Neill, record by record. The chain is clear, John. I have it right here.”

  Andrea looked into John Caine’s eyes and smiled for the first time that day.

  “It’s an amazing story. Thomas O’Neill’s daughter, Mary, married and had a son—Michael. Michael married Rosalie Viera in the summer of 1918. The marriage was recorded in a bona fide church record on July 31, 1918. Michael died, along with his mother and father, two days later, but Rosalie was already pregnant with Michael’s child. Rosalie died in childbirth nine months later. The genealogist found a letter that Rosalie wrote to her unborn child. Michael’s family had been against the relationship, so the couple married secretly. Michael died the day before the couple was going to announce the marriage.”

  “And the child?” Franklin said.

  “Rosalie’s parents raised the child. He was named John Viera. John married Emilia Rios, and the couple had a son, who they named John. John Jr. married Ann Peters and they had a child, who was also named John. Four years later, John Jr. and Ann died in a car crash. Apparently there were no relatives to the take John III, so he was brought to the Saint Michael’s Orphanage. When John III left the orphanage at the age of eighteen, he changed his last name to Caine.”

  Andrea stopped for a moment and looked at Caine.

  “Why did you …?”

  “Change my name to Caine?” Caine answered, a bemused look on this face. “The orphanage had a policy. They wouldn’t answer questions from the kids about their parents, at least not before the age of eighteen. In retrospect, I can understand why. Some of the kids were true orphans, but some had been abandoned. Disclosing the information would have caused … problems. They told us … we could be whoever we wanted to be when we left, so I became John Caine.”

  “Why Caine? Was there …” Andrea asked quietly.

  “It … it doesn’t matter,” Caine said, a distant look in his eyes.

  The room was quiet for a moment, and then Caine turned to Andrea.

  “By the way, who are the other heirs? There must be others?”

  “John, the genealogist searched for other heirs. It’s in her memo. She couldn’t find any. Every one she could track down died before you were born. The odd thing is, all the obituaries she collected described homicides or accidents. Her search covered four separate fa
milies over a period of almost twenty years.”

  Agent Morgan spoke for the first time.

  “If everything that Ms. Marenna has said is accurate, there may be a very simple but terrible explanation.”

  Spencer turned and looked at the young agent, his face grim.

  “Mr. Caine’s ancestor was outside the chain of … ”

  Russo, irritated at the cryptic exchange, interrupted Spencer’s thought.

  “Exactly what are you talking about, Agent Morgan?”

  Agent Morgan leaned forward so she could look down the table at Russo directly.

  “Killing some of the heirs would accomplish nothing. Killing all of them would bury the problem forever.”

  Caine slowly eased back into his chair, his face a mask of stone.

  Russo stood up very slowly. Her face was difficult to read, but it was clear she had reached a decision. She looked over at Caine and Andrea. Caine was lost in contemplation. Andrea was holding his right hand, her face ashen. Russo cleared her throat, gaining their attention.

  “When confronted with a … confusing factual chronology like this, the Justice Department must maintain a careful neutrality until its investigation is complete. That is particularly true in a case like this, where the allegations are somewhat … out of the ordinary. This may take some time. While the investigation is ongoing, we would want both of you to relinquish your passports, and my inclination is to place you in protective custody for a short time, until we get our arms around this. That will give us convenient access for interviews and questions, and provide you a safe refuge. I will work with Agent Spencer to arrange that.”

  Andrea turned to Caine and spoke to him quietly. He listened and then nodded. Then she turned to Russo.

  “Ms. Russo, are we in agreement that this arrangement is both temporary and voluntary?”

  Russo’s face tightened, but she nodded her head. “Yes, that is our expectation at this time. However, we would like you both to come to the Federal Building immediately, so we can make arrangements. Again, for your protection.”

  Andrea looked over at Caine, who gave her a quiet nod.

  Franklin stood up and looked at Russo when he spoke.

  “Given what we have heard today and the evidence that we have seen, I cannot imagine it would be for anything else.”

  CHAPTER

  SIXTY-NINE

  Austin, Texas

  December 10, 1999 / Friday / 3:00 p.m.

  Onwuallu parked the Lincoln on the second floor of the parking structure. Caine’s pickup truck was parked on the same floor. He could see the entrance to the building where the Statesman was located through a gap in the concrete wall in front of him. Onwuallu smiled to himself. The federal prosecutor had unknowingly disclosed Caine’s location when she filed a detailed application for an arrest warrant with the federal court two hours earlier. One of the intake clerks at the court was married to a detective in the Austin PD, who was working on the case. When the clerk saw the application for the warrant, she called her husband, and this information was picked up by Helius’s source within the department.

  The hit that Onwuallu planned was simple. Caine and the woman would be killed as soon as they walked into the garage. After the kill, Onwuallu and Porter would walk out the back of the garage and drive away in a car that was parked on the street. The Lincoln would be picked up two days later, after all of the noise had died down.

  Onwuallu turned to Porter when John Caine and Andrea Marenna walked out of the building.

  “It’s time for us to finish Mr. Paquin’s work.”

  “Exceptional, sir.”

  Austin, Texas

  December 10, 1999 / Friday / 4:30 p.m.

  Andrea and Caine followed Spencer and Russo through the lobby of the building onto the street. Agent Morgan had stopped off at the restroom upstairs. Russo turned to Caine just outside the front entrance.

  “Since you’re not familiar with the city, Mr. Caine, I want you to follow Agent Spencer’s car back to the Federal Building.”

  The statement wasn’t a question, and it ignored the fact that Andrea was very familiar with the city. Caine nodded. The two of them had made their deal. They could only hope that the Justice Department’s investigation uncovered whatever else was necessary to make Russo a believer.

  The concrete parking structure across the street from the Statesman building spanned the entire block. The pedestrian entrance that was closest to where Caine parked his truck was at the far end of the block. When the signal changed, Russo and Spencer stepped into the crosswalk. Caine and Andrea followed a short distance after them.

  Caine scanned the sidewalk in front of the parking structure, as he walked across the street. It was empty. Two African American men were just starting down the stairs at the end of the parking garage where his truck was parked. They disappeared behind the wall as they started down the next flight of stairs. One of the men looked like an NFL lineman. The second man was shorter and leaner. Both men were wearing long, dark raincoats and business suits.

  Caine would have considered the men unremarkable, but then they did something that drew his attention. They stopped at the next landing and waited there. When Caine and the rest of the group were about sixty yards away, the two men started down the last flight of stairs. They disappeared from sight at the bottom of the stairs. Caine turned his attention to the archway at the bottom of the stairs that led out onto the sidewalk. He had come down that same flight of stairs earlier in the day. They had to come out that way. There was no other exit.

  Caine slowed his pace, expecting the men to come out of the entrance any second, but they didn’t. He could feel the adrenaline pouring into his system. Where were they?

  When they were within forty yards of the entrance, Caine made a decision. He grabbed Andrea’s arm and guided her over to the rear of a van parked by the curb.

  “Something’s not right. Stay behind the van. If you hear gunfire, crawl along the outside of the cars back the way we came. I’ll be right back,” Caine said. The urgency in his voice stayed any argument.

  Caine then jogged ahead and closed with Spencer, who was a yard behind Russo.

  “Agent Spencer.” Caine’s clipped tone brought Spencer to a full stop. When he turned, Caine held up two fingers and pointed at the entrance to the parking structure ahead of them with hard emphasis. Russo turned and only caught the last of Caine’s hand movements. A look of irritation crossed her face, but it disappeared when Spencer pulled a Glock 22 out of the holster on his hip.

  Caine was in motion the moment the larger of the two men stepped onto the sidewalk. The man was carrying a pistol equipped with a long suppressor. Caine grabbed Russo and dove onto the trunk of a white sedan parked in the street. He caught a glimpse of the second African American man coming around the corner of the entryway as he rolled off the car onto the street, bringing the struggling Russo with him. The second man was carrying an AR-15, also equipped with a suppressor.

  Caine heard the distinctive rhythm of automatic weapons fire as he hit the ground. The windows of the car above his head exploded, throwing glass all over the street. Russo suddenly stopped struggling against his grip. Caine heard Spencer yell, “Freeze, FBI!” Caine looked over the trunk of the car at the sidewalk. Spencer had taken cover behind a stanchion on the side of the parking structure. The two men on the sidewalk were unimpressed. The man with the AR-15 raked the outside of the stanchion with fire, forcing the agent back into the corner.

  Caine turned to Russo, who was squatting on the street beside the car clutching her briefcase to her chest. She opened her mouth to scream when the man with the AR-15 fired another burst, but Caine cut her off.

  “Quiet. Go that way. Stay down and move fast. Get across the street as soon as you can. Use the traffic as cover. Clear?”

  Russo nodded.

  “Go.”

  Russo dropped the briefcase and started crawling back down the street.

  Caine heard two shots from Sp
encer’s Glock and a responsive burst from the AR-15. Caine suspected that the shooter had a thirty-round magazine, which meant that he still had plenty of ammunition to keep Spencer pinned down while the other shooter came after him. Caine turned and started to move rapidly down the street after Russo. Damn! She was only one car ahead of him. Caine glanced back up the street and saw a massive figure come around the front of the car and point the muzzle of a long black suppressor at him. The giant man smiled as he pulled the trigger. Time seemed to slow down.

  Caine heard two gunshots, but didn’t feel the burning pain of the bullets slamming into his body. A stunned look appeared on the shooter’s face and he slowly dropped to his knees, staring at Caine as he went down. For a moment he held himself there, wavering. Then he fell forward. Caine looked across the street in confusion. Agent Morgan was standing in between two cars in a classic shooter’s stance, her weapon pointed at the man on the ground.

  Caine suddenly realized the other shooter had stopped firing. He glanced through the shattered window of the car and saw the other shooter in a crouch, sighting in on Agent Morgan. Caine turned his head and yelled.

  “Get—”

  There were two explosions. Caine looked at Agent Morgan expecting her to fall, but then he realized that the shots came from Spencer’s Glock. He turned back to the sidewalk. The other shooter was down, and he wasn’t moving. Spencer was down on one knee beside the stanchion, his pistol pointed at the man on the ground.

  Caine let out the breath that he had been holding and looked down the street. He could see Andrea coming out from behind a car near the crosswalk. Russo was kneeling beside a minivan, crying. Caine suspected that her assessment of the merits of their case might well have changed for the better.