Swope's Ridge

by Ace Collins

  Brisco took a deep breath and reread his words. This was the truth. He was again the reporter he had once been. But at what price?

  He again read the lead. It was strong, honest, and clean. It told the real story. But…

  He highlighted all but the first sentence. His finger hovered over Delete.

  69

  SENSELESS. THAT WAS THE FIRST WORD THAT CAME to Lije Evans’ mind as he viewed his friend’s lifeless body in the closed-off emergency room. Kent McGee hadn’t even made it to the hospital. He’d died on the platform. Mob mentality had ruled. A modern lynching. A man using bullets for his kind of “ justice.” All over the country were those drinking a toast to the man who had brought down the lawyer defending “the other 9/11 terrorist.” Without hearing the facts. Without knowing that McGee was right and they were wrong.

  Lije shuffled through memories, the bitter and sweet thoughts of yesterdays. And a slogan from college days: “My country, right or wrong.” McGee and Lije had been taught that the slogan didn’t end with the word wrong, but rather with the word right. If only those who lived by the motto knew the rest of what Senator Carl Schurz had spoken in 1872: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”

  McGee had been trying to set it right, and, like so many other great patriots, had been cut down. Senseless! Were they any more civilized than the mob that stoned a man named Stephen almost two thousand years ago? Stephen had been right too.

  “You can’t do him any good by staying here,” a doctor told Lije.

  Resting his hand on his friend’s arm, Lije whispered, “Say hi to Kaitlyn for me.” Then, before tears could find their way into his eyes, he walked out and stood just outside the door. The doctor, he decided, was spot on. He couldn’t do any good. He could only harm. And now his friend was dead. Kaitlyn was dead.

  Lije couldn’t seem to do any good…anywhere. He had done nothing when Arif drove by with the toxin. He’d been missing when Janie was hurt. He hadn’t saved Kaitlyn. And now McGee. He was impotent. A spectator. He needed to finally admit it and learn to live with it.

  He walked out into the main corridor and was quickly surrounded by the media and curious gawkers. Now McGee would be remembered only for defending Omar Jones, the other 9/11 terrorist. All the good he had done would be swept away, tossed in the trash. He and the innocent man he was defending would never get a hearing and would be forever judged guilty.

  Lije pushed through the crowd, got into his car, and headed north. He drove in silence, ignoring the chirping coming from his cell, barely seeing the towns he passed through. He was numb, resigned to his own powerlessness, empty.

  He pulled into Salem a little after nine, made a right onto Main Street, a left onto Locust. As if on autopilot, he pulled the Prius into a space in front of his office. He barely noticed the three other vehicles already parked there.

  Pushing through the unlocked front door, Lije looked at the faces gathered in the reception area. Heather, Janie, Diana, and Ivy Beals. All there. All knowing the awful truth.

  Lije moved numbly down the hall into his office. He sat at his desk, and his eyes were drawn to the framed image of Kaitlyn. A sense of panic, of helplessness took over. Violence was destroying his world, and it had all started on Farraday Road.

  “Evans.”

  The voice yanked him out of the fog. Lije looked up. “Beals. Surprised you’re here. Figured you’d been in Little Rock.”

  The big man shrugged. “I can’t do any good there. Besides, there is work to do. With Kent dead, the game belongs to you now. You have to save Jones. You have to find Arif. And you have to do it before Arif uses the toxin.”

  “I’m not the man for the job,” Lije said. “I don’t have the experience, don’t have the knowledge. And I don’t have the guts. You need to find yourself another hero.”

  “We already have one,” Janie said as she walked into his office, followed by Heather and Diana. The four stood in a line facing him. He took a long, calculated look at each of them and realized they felt the same pain he felt. They’d obviously been crying, but they also didn’t appear to be ready to give up. In each face he saw a single-minded determination.

  “Moses didn’t think he was the man for the job either,” Janie pointed out, “but with the right people around him, he managed. We’re here. Maybe all of us together don’t make up one Kent McGee, but together we can try. I know that life’s not about what you can see, but what you can do.”

  Lije shook his head. “This is so much more than just Jones. Arif has something lethal only Beals and I know about. For the moment, Arif is the most powerful person on earth.”

  “For the moment,” Beals said. “Now tell the rest.”

  Lije felt panicked. They could all be killed going after Arif. Yet if he did nothing, Arif would kill so many more. He looked again at each face. “The Ark of Death was a Nazi ship carrying a powder that, when mixed with water, is so powerful it can kill millions, even in small doses. The powder had been stored since World War II on a farm in Kansas, where five brothers from Germany had been awaiting orders. I got to Kansas too late to stop Arif. In fact we got to the farm and he drove right past us with the powder in a milk truck. If he mixes that poison into a large city’s water supply, it will lead to the most horrific calamity this nation has ever seen. Bleicher died trying to stop that disaster.”

  “Then why,” Heather said, “did so many people want Swope’s Ridge if the powder was in Kansas?”

  “The powder was in Kansas,” Lije said, “but the formula was hidden on Swope’s Ridge. It’s the formula someone wants and is willing to kill to get.”

  The room was immersed in tomblike silence as they considered the magnitude of what they’d been unwittingly and unknowingly chasing.

  “How would he deploy it?” Curtis asked.

  “The Germans were going to use planes, bombers,” Beals said. “They were going to drop bombs containing the stuff, probably into lakes that supply city water systems. The poison works slowly, so by the time anyone discovered it, it’d be too late to use an antidote. It takes at least a week for real symptoms to set in. I’ve been told the toxin slowly consumes the body from the inside out in weeks of horrible torture.”

  “That’s why the verses in Genesis were underlined,” Janie said. “Remember, it said that ‘all living things on earth perished.’ Except it didn’t mean a flood; it meant the water we drink. Consider that power in the hands of terrorists.”

  “Imagine the panic,” Jameson added. “Water’s the building block for everything. You can’t give it up. And if people were afraid poison was in the water, they would be too scared to drink anything. They’d die either way.”

  “Why can’t we call in the government?” Janie asked. “Let them put out the net for Arif. They’ve got resources we don’t have.”

  Lije looked over to Beals. “I tried,” Beals replied. “But even with my CIA background, they didn’t believe me. This story sounds far too fantastic to be the truth. My former CIA boss laughed when I mentioned the Ark of Death. The reaction of the FBI and even Mossad was pretty much the same.”

  “But if they had proof?” Janie said. “Wouldn’t having the formula, mixing up a dose, and seeing its power wake them up?”

  Beals smiled. “If we had the formula. We don’t know what the stuff is made of.”

  “Actually, “Lije said, “we do. Janie found the formula in one of the page markers in Bleicher’s Bible. I had it tested at OBU.”

  “So you told me,” Beals said. “You also told me the chemist destroyed it and all his notes on your orders. He couldn’t put it back together if you gave him ten years. We need it now.”

  “He didn’t have the original,” Lije said. “It’s right here.”

  Beals grinned. “With that, I can convince the feds. Then we can turn this over to the people with the power to find Arif. And if this can come together in the next three weeks, we can save Omar Jones.”

&nbs
p; Lije picked up Kaitlyn’s photograph. He had checked on the formula that morning and had planned to move it to his safety-deposit box. But when he got the news that McGee had been shot, he’d rushed out. He turned the frame over, spun the clasps, and pulled the back off.

  Lije stared at the white back of Kaitlyn’s photo.

  Someone had been in his office.

  The formula was gone!

  70

  LIJE HAD BEEN READY TO QUIT, TO ADMIT FAILURE. He was now ready to fight. Somewhere out there, on a small piece of yellowed paper, was the most horrible secret on the planet.

  “So if we don’t have it, who does?” Janie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lije said. “But first we have to find Arif. He has the powder. Ivy, do you think Arif will try to use the stuff?”

  “Probably not,” Beals replied. “He’s not a fanatic, he’s a businessman. His business is just a lot different from ours. Joshua Klasser, who worked with him in the Mossad, said Arif’s not going to place himself in danger. He’ll play for any team as long as the money’s right.”

  “So he’s not much different than a hired gun, a mercenary,” Curtis noted.

  “His stakes are a lot higher,” the detective said. “If he was a fanatic, he would have been on one of the planes on 9/11. He likes living too much to get that involved in any cause. My guess is that he has worked for several different organizations and is smooth enough to have them all fooled.”

  “Ivy,” Lije said, “what did you find out about the truck? Any chance it’s shown up somewhere?”

  “The truck came from Texas. I traced it to High Top Dairy Products in Fort Worth. The truck you saw is probably one that had been stored in a facility on the outskirts of Weatherford. With the high cost of fuel, the company’s experimenting with rail services for large city-to-city deliveries. A few rigs were taken off the road and stored. When I called High Top two days ago, they discovered one of their rigs was not in the warehouse. I got the license number.”

  “Is there a way to trace its movements?” Lije asked.

  “I know he hasn’t gotten any tickets,” Beals replied.

  “What about weigh stations?” Curtis asked. “Aren’t trucks required to weigh in when they cross state lines?”

  “Yeah,” Beals replied, “big rigs are. Adam Horne will work with us off the record. He’s the FBI investigator who led the arrest of Jones. I’ll see if he can get into the system and at least give us the direction the truck is traveling.” He walked across to the conference room.

  Lije steepled his fingers. What else could they do? They had to have a location. They all sat quietly, trying to catch words coming from the other room.

  “Bingo,” Beals said as he walked back into Lije’s office. “The truck was weighed in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The last report was yesterday. Klasser was right, Arif’s going to D.C. Or at least the truck is. I’m sure of it.”

  “How’d you get the report so quickly?” Curtis asked.

  “Horne ran the tag through the weigh station computerized logs,” Beals explained. “The truck’s moving steadily east, but Arif’s in no hurry. If you look at the dates and times, it appears he’s stalling.”

  “What does that tell you?” Lije asked.

  “It tells me he has a meeting scheduled,” Curtis said, “and doesn’t want to arrive until the appointed time.”

  “Probably right,” Beals agreed. “Hang on, I’m getting a call. Beals here.” He waited. “Interesting. That’s a whole lot of cash. All in Euros?…Thanks.”

  Slipping his phone back into his coat, Beals sank down in one of the chairs. “There’s a relief group in Dallas that the Mossad believes is a front for supporting radical Islamic groups. This group has offices in all the major American cities. They transferred ten million dollars today to their D.C. office bank account. The full ten million was drawn out today not in dollars, but in Euros. It’s now in the hands of an import-export dealer named Hakem. He’s supposedly a legitimate businessman who deals mainly in fine rugs.”

  “Doesn’t this all seem too easy?” Lije asked.

  “Not at all,” Curtis said. “Why should Arif suspect anyone’s trailing him or even looking for him?”

  She was right, Lije thought. Arif would not know his cover had been blown. The truck he was driving came from long-term storage. The barn he’d looted had been destroyed by a tornado. When Arif passed them on the road, he had no reason to believe he could be identified. Why worry? As long as he didn’t get stopped for speeding, he’d be under the radar. A simple plan was always the best, and this one would’ve worked without a hitch if he, Cathcart, and Lehning hadn’t gotten to Schneider’s when they did.

  “What happens now?” Heather asked.

  “Lije and I are going to D.C.,” Beals said.

  “The office needs a new rug,” Lije cracked.

  “What about us?” Heather asked.

  “Yeah! “ Curtis demanded.

  Lije looked again at each one gathered in his office. It was time to stop thinking like a hick-town lawyer and start thinking like Kent McGee. He needed a plan. They needed to stop Arif and save Omar Jones. “Heather, go to Waco and find Martin de la Cruz. Ivy can give you the address.” Beals pulled out his Blackberry to retrieve the information. “And Heather, I don’t care how much cash you have to lay out, get him cleaned up and on a plane with you to D.C. If we catch Arif, we’ll need de la Cruz to clear this thing up.”

  “Lije is right,” Beals said. “Arif’s slick. He has good contacts in the CIA and other international organizations. Either we tie him up fast in the court system or we lose him. And I know enough about de la Cruz’s financial situation to assure you he can be bought.”

  “Diana,” Lije said to the former ABI agent, “someone other than Arif lifted the formula from the picture frame. His truck’s route shows he couldn’t have done it. Find some leads. Even if we stop the truck and destroy its cargo, the formula is still out there. Getting it back is as important as anything we do. Even if we get the powder, all we’ve done is postponed death, not stopped it.”

  Curtis nodded.

  “Janie, I want you to go with Heather. I might need your skills in D.C. if we get to see a judge. And locate the prosecutor in the Jones case. We might need him.”

  “I’ve already done that,” Janie replied. “His name is William Ruth and he’s in Washington. He was recently elected to his first term in the House.”

  “You’re a lifesaver. Is everyone set? Realize this, we all need to succeed. There can’t be any holes here.”

  “You got it,” Jameson said. “Janie and I’ll get de la Cruz if we have to tie him up and drag him in.”

  “I’ll turn this place upside down,” Curtis assured the others.

  They all appeared ready, but was he? Lije knew he wasn’t a risk taker. Yet here he was about to plunge into a fight with a man who thought nothing of committing cold-blooded murder. In spite of that Lije suddenly was itching to get started. Maybe he did have a hint of hero stock after all. “Ivy, I need to grab a few things at the house, then I’ll be ready.”

  “I’ll get a private jet. I’ll use McGee’s connections. The plane will be waiting in Batesville when we get there. We’ll be in D.C. before dawn.”

  71

  FBI AGENT ADAM HORNE WAS WAITING FOR LIJE AND Beals at a private airstrip just outside of the nation’s capital. “Good to finally meet you face to face,” Horne said, extending his hand toward Beals. “Heard a lot of good things about you. Sorry about Mr. McGee’s death. What happened was…”

  “There are no words,” the private detective replied.

  Horne pointed to a black Chevy Tahoe parked along the runway. “There’s our ride.”

  Lije nodded and picked up a small bag. The trio walked quickly to the SUV and tossed their gear in the back. While Horne drove off the landing strip and onto a quiet rural road, Beals pulled out his cell and made a call. As he waited for an answer he said, “Adam, t
he man in the back seat was Kent McGee’s best friend, Lije Evans. He’ll be taking over for Kent now.”

  The agent waved. “Nice to meet you.”

  Lije just nodded.

  “Klasser, what’s happening?” Beals asked as he spoke into his cell. “Any movement?”

  Lije watched the detective’s reflection in the rearview mirror, but he couldn’t read anything in the face. The detective never revealed his emotions.

  “Thanks,” Beals said. He looked at the driver. “You know the rug warehouse I told you about?”

  “Know the area well. I can have you there in thirty minutes. Faster if something’s going down.”

  “Nothing yet,” Beals said, “but Hakem just left his shop and seems to be heading toward that area. It’s the first time he’s gone in that direction since Klasser placed him under surveillance. It seems he took a large duffle bag with him.”

  “The Euros?” Lije asked.

  “That’s my guess,” Beals said.

  They drove in silence. The open country became the city and the rural road turned into a congested highway.

  “We’ll be heading to a spot over by the Potomac,” Horne said. “The district’s old and almost forgotten. A lot of the buildings are vacant. It’s an area where gangs meet. Not someplace you’d want to be after dark.”

  At the top of Lije’s list of places to be tonight was a bed. He was so tired, he could hardly keep his eyes open. Finally, he gave in. Letting his chin sink to his chest, tuning out the murmured conversation in the front seat, he closed his eyes and didn’t wake up until he felt the Chevy’s motor cut off.

  The century-old riverfront warehouses were huge, each surrounded by parking areas lined with chain-link fences. The windows of the old buildings had either been bricked over or were covered by plywood. Broken bottles were strewn over the sidewalks and trash blew across the streets like leaves in the Ozarks on a windy fall day. A sign warned that litterers would be arrested and fined.