by Arno Joubert
One of the company regulars, Bubba Meltz, had gone AWOL. They found his truck parked, out of gas, next to the road. Bubba was supposed to have relieved him for the shift back to Houston. But Bubba had disappeared, and they had a strict schedule to maintain. No check-in, no bonus.
So he sucked it up, caffeinated himself with a pot of coffee and offered to fetch Bubba’s truck and bring it back to the refinery. A replacement driver had already been appointed, waiting to drive the tanker containing the refined Diesoline back to Houston.
He yawned. Thirty-five miles, no biggie.
So the maintenance crew had dropped him with a 14-gallon gas can, and he had filled Bubba’s baby up. She started after a couple of cranks and Toby gunned it through town, back to the refinery. He was making good time, the five cups of coffee helping him resist the numbing lull of the tires on the blacktop.
Toby flicked his cigarette out the window, but a backdraft caught it and blew it back in.
“Shit!” he said and lifted himself off the seat. He saw the smoldering butt between his legs and picked it up. He looked up, then blinked.
Running down Jefferson street as fast as her little legs could carry her, was a young girl. She was being chased by a guy who was gaining fast.
She ran across the road, straight in front of him. Then she looked up and her eyes widened; she froze and covered her head with her arms, like a damn deer in headlights.
“Christ!” He slammed on the breaks and twisted the wheel to the right. It took a second before the wheels started to shudder and screech defiantly against the momentum of the speeding truck. He yanked a red lever on the dashboard, and the park brakes kicked in as well.
He glanced in the side mirror as the back of the trailer drifted to his left. He would miss the girl by five yards, but the trailer was drifting her way. Shit. He jerked the wheel back toward the girl, fighting against the stubborn trailer behind him, overcompensating to force it back into line. Smoke billowed from screeching tires as he missed her by two feet. He glanced in his mirror and saw the trailer correcting itself, but too slowly. “Please Jesus, please Jesus…”
The man who had been chasing the girl grabbed her by the arm and yanked her out of the way, then grabbed her in his arms and backed up. Toby Griff let out his breath, but he knew the emergency wasn’t over. Far from it.
The wheels shuddered and screamed, bouncing and smoking along the blacktop. The momentum carried the truck toward the green embankment on the shoulder of the road. Years of experience instinctively kicked in and he corrected slightly, keeping the chassis on the road. The moment the trailer careened onto the grass on the embankment, the truck’s ABS kicked in, and it slowly drifted wide onto the grassy section. He glanced at the mirror as the trailer slewed onto the embankment behind him.
“Aw fuck, no!”
The truck jackknifed and the front wheels of the chassis lifted off the tarmac. The truck flipped and smashed onto its side and Toby braced himself at the horrendous screech of metal on asphalt overpowered his senses.
He felt the seatbelt pulling him tightly into his seat. It seemed to last for an eternity. Three hundred yards later the upended vehicle came to a grinding halt beside the Prairie Lookout, and Toby shakily hoisted himself out of the cabin. He hobbled around the wrecked tanker on unsteady legs, making sure all the auxiliary pumps were closed. He couldn’t see any leaks.
By the time he had finished, a nurse from Saint Josephine’s had already rushed up to him to treat his bleeding head. His legs felt like jelly, he was going into shock. She pushed him down onto the ground, forcing him to sit.
He held his head in his hands, trying to recall the exact sequence of events that had led to the accident.
“I had it under control. I had it under control…” he muttered, staring up at the nurse. “This has never happened before.”
He fumbled for a cigarette in his jacket, lit it with a trembling hand and brought it shakily to his lips. Then he smelt it. A heartbeat later, the gas caught alight and exploded, obliterating everything in its scorching path.
“Ah, here we are, Browns Stadium,” Ryan said as they approached dozens of immense metal reservoirs, three stories high and roughly three-hundred feet in diameter. More than a dozen tanker trucks were lined up in front of one of them. Overalled workers were attaching pipes with nozzles to the back of the tanker trucks, and guys with neon jackets were talking on two-way radios, waving their arms and signaling the vehicles like aircraft marshals.
Neil craned his neck. “What are the big drums for?” he asked.
“Reservoirs,” Doctor Ryan corrected and glanced at his watch. “Storage. From here, the crude oil is pumped to the silos and goes through the refining process.” He waved his hand with a flourish. “We stock 500,000 barrels of Brent crude. After extracting the various compounds from the oil into their simpler forms, we pump them back to the latter storage units to be shipped to depots across the country.”
They rumbled past the colossal containers. Two miles later they turned left toward Cowboys Stadium.
The facility had a double ribbon-mesh wire fence around it, twelve feet high, with razor wire at the top. Guards with dogs patrolled the perimeters, one stationed every tow hundred yards.
Guard towers on tall metallic stilts stood every mile along the perimeter of the facility. Uniformed men with binoculars studied the group as they drove past below them.
Doctor Ryan continued his exposition. “This is the refinery, the heart of the facility. It encompasses roughly four acres.” He waved his arm dramatically. “It’s a large chemistry set. Crude goes in, gasoline and the by-products come out.”
“It looks like a penitentiary,” Lucy said. “What’s up with all the guards and spotlights and stuff?”
Ryan took off his glasses and started cleaning them with his jacket. He lifted a bushy eyebrow at Lucy. “Oil is a precious resource, Doctor. You should know that. We process roughly 200,000 barrels per day.” He put his glasses on and looked at them with unnaturally large, magnified eyes. “Production runs upwards of twenty million dollars per day. Profit. Thats more than $800,000 per hour.”
Alexa noticed David Beck stiffen as he glanced at his wife with a frown. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged at him.
“You’re afraid of being sabotaged?” Neil asked.
Ryan nodded. “We’ve had a few attempts.”
“Who?” David Beck asked with a slow smile.
Ryan shrugged. “Tree huggers. Competitors.” He scratched his chin. “That’s why Mister Fitch doesn’t mind spending a couple of dollars on security, I guess.”
They drove along the massive facility. Tall Douglas Pines planted next to the golf course afforded some aesthetic relief from the rigid lines of the dirty buildings, towers and chimneys. The driver veered left to ‘THE LINC’.
“Up ahead are the labs and our call center.” Ryan looked at the Becks with an amused grin. “This will be your daytime prison for the next couple of years.”
The Becks smiled, craning their necks. The ranks of buildings were unassuming, square two-stories built from red bricks. People with white lab jackets stood outside the entrance, drinking coffee and smoking. They drove behind a building and pulled up in front of the canteen doors where they had been picked up.
Doctor Ryan stood up and straightened his ruffled lab coat “That’s it. End of tour.”
They piled out of the bus and greeted Ryan. Alexa walked up to Ryan and touched his elbow. “One last question.”
Ryan turned around and nodded. “Yes?” he asked gruffly.
“Why does a refinery need a call center?”
Ryan smiled. “Good question. We supply third party services to other refineries.” He nodded and smiled. “State-of-the-art stuff.” He turned around and walked away.
Alexa noticed the Becks glance at each other with a frown. “What’s wrong?”
David Beck shrugged. “Didn’t know about the third party stuff. I guess we’ll find out more soon enough.
We have our induction briefing in a couple of hours.”
They shook hands and greeted. Neil and Alexa climbed into their car and languidly followed the twisting route out of the refinery. They were quiet, there was a lot of information to mull over.
“What the—?” Neil exclaimed and jerked the car onto the side of the road as two red fire trucks with flashing orange lights overtook them and sped toward the exit.
Alexa removed her vibrating cell phone from her pocket as Neil powered the rental onto the main drag heading into town. She glanced at Neil with a frown. “He wants us to meet him at the lodge, says it’s urgent.”
She looked up as the traffic up ahead was being diverted through a back road by one of the red trucks. Thick black smoke billowed into the air from somewhere down the road. Alexa gagged as the acrid smell of burning rubber seeped past the car’s air filtration system.
“What the hell is that?” she asked, squinting her eyes.
Neil coughed and turned up Jefferson avenue toward the Inn. The sharp odor dissipated, swept away by a warm afternoon breeze. Voelkner was waiting in the parking lot, his hands on his hips. Neil pulled up next to him.
“What happened to your eye?” Neil asked as he got out.
Voelkner’s right eye was swollen shut and blood was trickling from his nose. Strain colored his features, but he said nothing.
“Does it have anything to do with what happened down there?” Neil asked, pointing his chin to where the smoke was coming from.
“Kind of,” he said grimly.
Alexa raised her eyebrows. “Kind of?”
Voelkner dismissed her with an impatient wave of his hand. “Don’t worry about that now, Captain.” He held his hands together seriously, like a preacher. “The little girl has Jackson’s passport. When I tried to ask her where she got it, she ran away.”
Alexa looked at Neil and they exchanged a knowing glance. “And you ran after her, right?” Alexa said.
Voelkner’s shoulders slumped. “Well, before I knew it, the little runt ran into the road.”
Alexa eyes widened as she put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God, was she…?”
Voelkner shook his head. “No, but the truck driver had an accident. He swerved out of the way and went over on the grass embankment.”
“And what happened to your eye?” Neil asked skeptically.
Voelkner scratched his head and grimaced. “Well, I grabbed the little runt and gave her a good talking to. Dragged her up to the inn. And then Missy decked me.”
Alexa chuckled, stunned. “Missy?”
“Yes, she packs a punch. But that’s all besides the point,” he said impatiently. “She has Jackson’s passport. Where could she have found it?”
Neil grinned and turned toward the walkway. “Let’s go find out, shall we?”
They marched to the reception area. Missy stood crouched, kneeling next to Mary-Lou, wiping tears from the girl’s face with a tissue. When she saw them approach, she stood up and waved a finger at them.
“You keep that French bastard out of my sight, I’m telling you, I’ll break his skinny neck.” Missy moved her shoulders and head from side to side as she spoke.
Neil ignored her and walked straight toward Mary-Lou. He knelt down next to her and lifted her chin. “Are you okay, Mary-Lou?”
She blinked, sniffed loudly, then nodded her head up and down. Neil picked her up and carried her into the reception area. He dragged a chair closer with his foot and sat down, cradling her in his arms.
He rocked back and forth and spoke quietly to her as she held him around his neck, sucking her thumb and sniffing.
“What happened?” Alexa asked.
Missy glared at Voelkner. “This pig got it into his noggin’ to go chasing my little Mary down the road and nearly damn well got her killed, that’s what happened.”
Voelkner took a couple of paces back, an uncertain look on his face.
Alexa touched Missy’s arm. “Voelkner says that Mary-Lou had a passport. A passport of someone who’s gone missing.” She glanced at Voelkner who nodded hesitantly. “That’s why he was chasing her.”
Missy slapped her hand on her leg, a scowl on her face. “I don’t mind if she had the queen’s crown jewels wrapped in the damn Shroud of Turin. There’s a proper way to address a child.”
“I…, I’m sorry Missy.” Voelkner stammered. “I’m not that good with little ones.”
Missy pursed her lips. “You bet your damned skinny behind, mister. You could have gotten her killed.” Her features softened. She seemed to be calming down.
Voelkner nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. Scared me too.”
Missy nodded, then turned to Neil, a meaty hand planted on her broad hip. Mary-Lou was fast asleep in Neil’s arms. He looked up. “Where is her room?” he whispered.
Missy motioned for him to follow her upstairs.
“What about the passport?” Voelkner hissed at Alexa.
Alexa turned toward him. “We’ll ask her about it later. Let her sleep now. She had a huge fright.”
“But Captain, there could be some clues—”
“Thank You, Lieutenant. Stand down, that’s an order,” she said, glaring at Voelkner.
He dropped his head. “Aye, Captain.”
After making sure that Mary-Lou was fine, Alexa asked Voelkner to accompany them to town. Missy still seemed worked up and she didn’t want to risk the poor man being beaten up again. They drove down the hill toward the main road. The bus depot was busy, hundreds of banner-waving men and woman cascading from dozens of buses.
Neil took a sharp left into the bustling main road. People waving lone star flags lined the main strip. A brass band in red and blue uniform was practicing a song, and short-skirted pom-pom girls waved at them as they rolled by. Most of the 687 citizens were in town.
They drove past Prairie Lookout Park. The two red trucks had pulled in next to a large, yellow crane. It was slowly hoisting what was left of the burnt-out wreckage back onto its wheels. Men in white coveralls were sweeping the debris from the road. Another guy shoveled some sand from a wheelbarrow onto a dark slick by the side of the road.
They drove past the Fitch Academy. A police officer directed them to take a detour on a back road to the diner. They crunched down a narrow road and nosed into a space behind the eatery.
Patsy greeted them with a friendly smile by the door, her bangles clinking as she closed it behind them. She led them to a booth next to the window and they ordered coffee and apple pie.
A cavalcade of twelve motorcycles boomed into town. Their backs bore the logo of the Dabbort Creek Harley Davidson Club, a snarling tiger with blood dripping from its top incisors. They revved their bikes, polluting the town with fumes and noise. The two men at the rear of the procession had slightly more skewed noses than the rest of the bikers.
“Here he comes, ladies and gentlemen,” Patsy announced, twirling her index finger next to her head.
Next followed eight squad cars crawling past the crowds with sirens blaring and strobe lights flashing.
Patsy shook her head. “They’re putting up a quite a show for the prick,” she said and disappeared into the kitchen, grumbling.
Fitch arrived a couple of minutes later in a black stretch limousine, small Texan Lone star and USA flags on the sides of the hood fluttering in the wind. Fitch stood up and leaned out of the sunroof, waving his Stetson and smiling. As they crept past the diner, Fitch nodded and greeted the people with an elaborate wave.
People waved and cheered, holding up banners congratulating him. Someone threw confetti and streamers from a roof. A leathery middle-aged woman hollered at Fitch and exposed her breasts. Fitch smiled and covered his face with his hat, pretending not to look.
“Marry me Andy,” she shouted.
Fitch shaped a phone out of his thumb and pinkie finger and winked at her. “Phone me,” he mouthed silently.
They proceeded down the road and disappeared out of sight. Patsy brought them their coffe
es as the marching band paraded past. She plonked it down with a derisive snort.
“Where are they heading?” Neil asked her.
“The school. Fitch will probably give a speech and sign some autographs, as he does every year.”
“What is he, a rock star?” Voelkner asked.
Patsy stared out of the window. She had a faraway look in her eyes. Gyrating pom-pom girls marched past, doing high kicks and waving to the crowd. “Something like that.” She gave a bitter smile and waved her hand, the bangles jingling softly. “Besides being a bastard.”
Alexa put her hand on the woman’s arm. “What happened?”
Patsy shook her head, her lips pursed tightly. A man with a cowboy hat ambled past on the sidewalk below. He touched the rim of his hat in greeting.
Patsy sighed. “Best you ask Fitch about that,” she said, turned around and disappeared into the kitchen.
Neil got up. “Well, let’s go meet him then,” he said, looking at Alexa. “Don’t you think?”
She nodded and shifted out of the booth. Neil dropped some money on the counter on his way out.
The Asian man picked it up and called Neil back. “No pay, everything free when Mister Fitch visit town.”
Neil shrugged and pocketed the cash. “Unbelievable.”
Neil and Alexa followed the steady flow of people to the Fitch Academy grounds. People laughed and joked as they walked through the large wrought iron gates and ambled past the rose-red brick main building toward the sports grounds at the back.
A raised platform had been set up in the middle of the football field, and Andy Fitch was walking around on the stage with a microphone in his hand, bending over and shaking the hands of people on the field.
“How ya’ll doin’, Dabbort Creek?” he shouted over the microphone, waving his black Stetson hat. A man in a black suit and dark glasses threw T-shirts wrapped in plastic into the swarming mass of people.
People cheered and clapped and scrambled to get their hands on the T-shirts. The crowd started a slow clap, shouting “Tiger Finn, Tiger Finn,” in unison.
