Old Poison

by Joan Francis

  The sky came down to meet the forest canopy, and the rain began to fall in a heavy, steady downpour. The unending green forest now glistened in the rain. The only sight that broke the monotony was at a fork in the road. As we took the southeast branch, a small wooden sign pointed toward the southwest branch, and to my great surprise it read “Enviro-Medic Research Facility.” Well, Well! I had planned on looking up Ken and Judith Hoffman and Guillermo Jesus Montegro Y Monteblan but hadn’t realized they would be lurking just off the flank of the new Blue Morpho site. How interesting.

  I pulled out the computer again and checked the map. There on the southwest branch tributary was the a listing for a Medical Research Station and just a short distance away on the southeast tributary was a large compound with the innocent name of Misty Forest Resort. I would have bet a dollar to a donut that Misty Forest was where Blue Morpho had relocated. Perhaps I would find an opportunity to visit the good doctor and ask why they folded their tent and disappeared from that environmental expo so fast. Then again, maybe not. I had no idea whose side they were on.

  Another twenty minutes of slow travel on bad road brought us to a quiet fenced compound that seemed to stretch for miles on both sides of the small river. The trip had taken hours. If I ever needed to get out of here in a hurry, I would be up the creek, literally and figuratively.

  James woke up as the van bumped to a stop at a high security gate, his timing so perfect I wondered if he had feigned sleep to avoid questions. I had explained to him that before I could begin to build his records retention program, I would need to interview him and each of his department heads and learn what sort of business the plant did and what sort of records were necessary to each department. Other than telling me that the plant did research to produce better engines and better fuel, he had successfully avoided discussion of business, preferring to dance and drink.

  He looked out at the rain and the blur of green that surrounded us and shook his head. “I come to a country with some of the best surfing beaches in the world, and the only water I see comes in the form of rain. God, I hate this place already.”

  A young guard with a buzzed hair cut, camouflage fatigues, and a hooded camouflage rain parka approached the van and signaled the driver to open the door. Though he looked too young to shave, he boarded the van with a sidearm strapped to his hip and a rifle slung over his shoulder. Trying vainly to clamp down a hardened scowl on his baby face, he looked around with the intensity of a Special Forces veteran searching for terrorists. “Your security passes,” he demanded.

  His gloomy thoughts interrupted, James’ mouth dropped open, and he stared at the brash young man. “Son, I’m James Nolan. I’m plant manager here.”

  “Sir, yes sir. Company regulations require that all persons entering the compound display security badges.”

  James stared at him a moment longer, then shrugged. “Well, I guess rules is rules, huh.” He dug out his wallet and displayed his photo ID. “OK now?”

  “Thank you, sir.” He turned to me. “Ma’am?”

  “She doesn’t have one. I just hired her. She’ll get hers when she checks in this morning.”

  The guard stepped back two paces, planted his feet, dropped the rifle from its shoulder sling into his hands and held it at the ready across his chest. “Sir, no sir. Company regulations state that no individual shall be allowed entrance to the compound until their security clearance has been completed stateside or ordered by Mr. Woods personally.”

  James was on his feet and over to the young man in a bound. He clutched the rifle with both hands and wrenched it from the surprised guard. “Now you listen to me you wind up GI Joe, I’m the man. I run this fuckin’ plant. I sign your paycheck.” Still holding the rifle across the young man’s chest, James punctuated each sentence by shoving the guard back toward the van door. “Now you have seen my ID: you have been told that this lady is here on my authority. Now get the fuck off this bus and get that Goddamned gate open or I won’t be signing any more paychecks for you.” As he stood there, his voice, stature, and posture were completely changed. Suddenly my aging Kahuna looked more like a kick-ass warrior.

  Defiance played momentarily in the young guard’s eyes, and I believe that if he’d still had the rifle, he would have refused.

  “I will have to write this up as a violation of security regulations, sir.”

  James poked pointedly at the name badge that read Sheppard. “Be sure to write your name legibly so I’ll know who the hell you are.”

  As the kid turned to go out the door, he hesitated. “Sir, my rifle?”

  “You show up at my office later, buckaroo, and we’ll have a little discussion about your regulations and your toy soldier attitude, and then maybe you’ll get your play toy back.”

  James returned to his seat and, within sixty seconds, to his harmless surfer persona.

  “Silly damn kid should know better than to mess with an old man with a hangover.”

  One of the members of my internal board of directors whispered, “Be very careful, Diana.”

  * * * * *

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The afternoon was excruciating. James walked me to a two-woman personnel office, manned by Margaret and Polly: introduced me as a consultant who was going to straighten out the company files, and instructed the women to get me a security pass and guest room. For the next four hours I sat on a hard-backed wooden chair and waited for Blither and Dither to figure out what the hell to do with a consultant who had no prior security clearance. I wasn’t even allowed to go to the restroom without an escort.

  In my less lucid moments, I imagined James had made me right off, and this whole business of hiring me was a charade to lure me to the middle of the Selva, where I could be killed without anyone knowing. In my more analytical frame of mind, I decided he must be as ignorant of what he was into here as he appeared to be. It seemed to me that only complete naivete could account for the sack of wet brown stuff his actions exploded in this office. That would prove to be my naivete.

  Margaret and Polly began with blank looks and hesitant questions regarding my credentials, progressed to whispered consultations in the back office, then to phone calls, faxes, and emails, and finally to one-at-a-time exits from the office for outside consultation. When Harriman Woods burst through the door, I knew all the brown chunks of indecision had found their way to the top. He spoke to no one, went straight to the phone, dialed, and barked into the receiver, “Nolan, get your ass down here to personnel. You obviously need some orientation regarding security protocol.” He slammed down the phone, and we all waited in an unnatural and uncomfortable silence.

  I continued the activity I had been employed at all afternoon, playing cards on my laptop. Woods had seen me once, briefly, when I was disguised as Clara Shimmerhorn and once from a distance as Tia Tillie. As I played solitaire and tried to look bored, I could feel his eyes on me and hoped his powers of observation didn’t penetrate my current disguise.

  In about ten minutes, we all heard footsteps in the hall, lots of footsteps, marching in cadence. Once again the door opened forcefully and in trooped four young guards, all armed. Among them was my young friend from the front gate. I noticed he had his rifle back. The unit came to a halt in front of Harriman Woods and the guard from the front gate spoke for the group.

  “Sir, we have been directed to escort you, the personnel staff, and the new records management consultant to Mr. Nolan’s office.”

  Woods’s neck and face turned red. In a low, menacing growl he asked, “Just whose orders do you follow, Sheppard?”

  “Sir, plant manager Nolan, sir.” Then, in what was almost a whisper, he leaned in close and said, “Mr. Nolan spoke with me this morning and made corporate chain of command quite clear.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Woods marched out of the office as he had entered, in long, determined strides. I bagged the laptop, picked up my suitcase, and with the rest of them, followed Woods at a more leisurely pace.

 
By the time we reached Nolan’s outer office, the shouting match could be heard thundering from his inner office. Few distinct words escaped the insulated inner sanctum, but the volume of combat rumbled through the walls like the echo of rams’ horns from a mountain top.

  Nolan’s secretary acted busy and deaf while the rest of us once again waited in an uneasy silence. In the corner of the office I noticed Muscles from the airport, still wearing the same clothes and looking tired, unshaven, and rumpled. I wondered what he had been doing since I saw him last.

  The inner office door opened and Woods strode out, barking an order at Muscles. Muscles rose tiredly. Woods paused at the door and gave me a long poisonous look. “Ms. Gomez, we will speak soon. I’ll be handling your security background personally.”

  As Woods and Muscles left, Nolan stepped quietly to his office door. “Ms. Gomez, I am very sorry you have been put through such an unpleasant afternoon. Personnel staff, in my office.”

  They were not gone long, but by the time Nolan walked them back out, the short interview had left Polly flushed and Margaret teary-eyed. When Nolan excused the troops and told them to return to other duties, young Sheppard started to answer with a crisp military salute but saw the critical look on Nolan’s face. He checked himself and switched from military to civilian protocol.

  “Yes, si– ah, OK, Mr. Nolan.”

  Nolan turned to me and the women from personnel. Once again his personality had undergone radical change. He had straightened the shoulder slump and stood tall with a no-nonsense attitude and an unquestionable air of authority. His face and eyes had lost the bored stare, and his voice had taken on a new timbre. I wouldn’t have looked twice at the guy I had gone dancing with last night, but this version radiated a potent, self-assured allure. Under the circumstances, however, any attraction I might have felt was arrested by the clear comprehension of how effectively he had used me.

  Ass-kicking time over, he turned on all the charm. “Now, ladies, this was an unfortunate misunderstanding, but now that we are all playing on the same team, things will be much clearer and go much more smoothly. Please take Ms. Gomez directly to the best accommodations you can find, help her get settled in, then accompany her to dinner in the company diningroom.”

  They mumbled obedient, unquestioning responses and started toward the door, but I stood evaluating this third incarnation of James Nolan. With a new understanding of the true purpose of my employment, I had to both admire and dislike his methods. Nolan had said that I was just what he needed, but he hadn’t been talking about records management. I was his pawn in a game of hardball with the big boys. He had arrived to find that though he was the titular head of the plant, Woods was covertly in charge. The son of a gun knew when he dropped me at personnel that I would just flatten my backside on a hard wooden chair until Woods took the bait. The verbal trouncing taken by the guards and the women from personnel was all part of his little game to wrest power from Woods and establish his command of this plant.

  He turned his charm my direction, took both my hands, and said, “I am so sorry things got off to such a bad start, but I promise I’ll make it up to you. By the time you have had breakfast in the morning, personnel will have everything straightened out and the heads of all the departments will have orders to cooperate with your survey. I want you to report to me each day and provide me with a complete outline of what you discover.” Then, reverting to his boyish innocence, he added, “I guess if I’m going to run this plant, I better study up on what all my departments do. Have a good evening and a good night’s rest.”

  I knew it was a mistake, but I couldn’t help myself. He was so smug. Some childish part of me had to let him know I wasn’t taken in by his performance. I pulled my hands from his, drew myself into heel-clicking attention, and said, “Sir, a good evening and a good night’s rest.” Then with a snappy salute I added, “Yes sir.”

  At first he gave me the same stern visual reprimand the gate guard had gotten, then a slight smile played on his lips. His eyes, however, remained hard and critical. In a voice so low only I could hear him, he said, “I can put him in his place, Ms. Gomez, but his place is Security and he’s very good at it.”

  The deadly serious warning in his voice wiped the smart-ass smile from my face as I silently considered what he was saying. His intended use of me was not over. He wanted to know everything I learned about this plant, and he didn’t want Woods to nail me. Why? Who was this guy and what was his agenda? What was the corporate agenda? Why would management employ two such combative men at this, their most secret plant? Was there a schism in Blue Morpho command?

  To James I said, “OK, thanks for the warning.”

  * * * * *

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Rested, showered, and dressed, I stepped onto the balcony of my cabana and took in the sounds and smells of the forest that surrounded me. The morning had brought clear sky and sunshine, and this place was so beautiful it looked like a Hollywood set for a jungle paradise rather than a research facility. Monkeys gathered their breakfast in the trees not a hundred yards from me. There were some bird sounds, though muted, as if they didn’t wish to call attention to themselves. Flowers grew in greater profusion than I had seen in the forests on the way here, confirming my suspicion that this place must have been carefully cultivated as a resort before Blue Morpho moved in. The luxurious cabanas were definitely not company housing. They were well-appointed apartment duplexes set on stilts above the damp forest floor and connected to the main buildings by a network of elevated walkways.

  I looked longingly at the hand-woven hammock that hung on my balcony, then reluctantly went back through the apartment, picked up my laptop and headed out the door. I was quickly jarred back to reality. Waiting just outside my door was my old friend Muscles, now clean-shaven, dressed in fresh camouflage fatigues, and looking much more rested than when I last saw him.

  I forced a smile and eyed his name patch. “Good morning Mr., ah, Folger.”

  “Good morning, ma’am.” Without another word, he simply fell into step behind me like Pan’s attached shadow.

  “Well, I must rate an honor guard. How nice.”

  When we entered the large diningroom, the buzz of conversation and the comforting clink of dishes and silverware came to a complete halt. As Folger took up a position just inside the door, I walked toward the cafeteria line. The only sound in the room was that of my heels hitting the beautiful hardwood floor.

  Ah, yes. I understood that silence. Having lived in many small mining camps with my dad, I knew that no high tech communication system in the world could beat the speed of camp gossip. There was no doubt in my mind that news of the showdown between Nolan and Woods had been the main topic of discussion when I entered the room, and no doubt that everyone knew who I was.

  I smiled at the young woman serving scrambled eggs and noticed that instead of a military-type name patch with her last name, she wore a pretty butterfly pin on her blouse that read “Bernice.”

  “Good morning, Bernice. Could I have a couple scoops of those eggs and a little fruit and yogurt, please?”

  “Yes, Ms. Gomez.”

  Suspicions confirmed. I was the only one in the room who wasn’t wearing a name tag.

  As I sat down and started my breakfast, conversation slowly resumed, undoubtedly on a more innocuous subject. An older woman with short brown hair, a round pug-nosed face, and coke-bottle glasses stood up. Ignoring the sidelong glances she received from other employees, and the glare of hostility she got from Folger, she picked up her coffee cup and walked to my table.

  “Ms. Gomez, I’m Lucille Owens. I was the company librarian for forty years, and Jim Nolan asked me to give you a little introduction to our company history. After you finish your breakfast, I’ll to show you what I laughingly call the library.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Owens. Won’t you join me?”

  She looked around the room and with a wry grin said, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’m already retired anyhow.
”

  I laughed. “If you’re retired, why aren’t you on the beach?”

  “My plane leaves this afternoon.”

  As she sat across from me, I glanced around the room and chuckled. “Reminds me of that old stock-broker’s commercial where everything in the room comes to a halt and all ears are tuned in one direction.”

  She smiled and sipped her coffee. “Yes, your arrival has certainly broken the monotony around here.” By unspoken agreement we kept our conversation to small talk until I finished my breakfast. Then we bussed our dishes and got two coffees to go. I couldn’t resist. Raising my voice to be heard across the room, I asked, “Hey, Folger, you want a coffee to go?”

  A few giggles tittered around the room. He reddened with anger and answered, “No thank you, ma’am.”

  Lucille led me outside and down a winding path lined with flowers. In the distance we could see the monkeys climbing and swinging from limb to limb. I stopped to watch them. Folger came to a halt thirty paces behind us. Lucille followed my gaze toward the monkeys, then looked over her shoulder toward Folger. “They are cute little critters, but it really doesn’t pay to tease them. They have ways of getting even.”

  I switched my gaze from the monkeys to Lucille’s face. “Sometimes, Lucille, you have to rattle the cage to find out what’s in there.”

  She smiled and started down the path. “I guess that works, unless it turns out you’re the one in that cage.”

  We followed the path to a wide gravel road, and the road to a complex of three enormous Quonset huts. Each of the three buildings had both a large door for vehicular traffic and a small one for people. Lucille punched a number into the security box beside the people door. When she got a green light, she put a key in the lock and opened it.

  “Once you get clearance, you will get your own security code. For now, you’ll have to get someone to let you in. You will be able to work in buildings one and two, but three is for high-clearance science staff only.”