by Kirk Russell
I texted Mara, No luck. She’s on her way down. I checked the time, and Mara called.
“Get some sleep, Grale.”
“I can’t.”
“That’s an order. Stay where you are, get the government rate, and I’ll sign off on it. Get four hours. You can’t sleep at your house anyway, though it is looking better. Your carpenter friend got the Sheetrock finished, and they’re ready to go on the floors. There’s no warrant out for Julia. She’s going to be okay. Get some rest.”
“Give me your word.”
He didn’t. He couldn’t, and the call ended.
I did check into a room at the Mandarin and called Jo, then showered and fell backward in my head to a quiet space. Later I woke to a soft knock. When I opened the door, it was Jo, straight from the hospital. She started stripping her clothes as the door shut.
“I need to hold you,” she said.
In the darkness, she slid through the cool sheets to me, her skin pressed against mine, our foreheads touching. I kissed her. I traced the curved lines of her. Her hips moved, her nipples tightened, and she said, “No. Sleep, Paul.”
I fell backward again. When I woke it was 4:30 and Jo was touching me. We made love slowly, then lay looking out across Las Vegas. She rested a hand on my chest, then slid it down to my belly and pushed her face against me. Skin on skin.
We’re here and then we’re gone. It’s inescapable. But things matter beyond us.
Laura Balco knew what she was going to do. Her mind was made up, yet she told me, “Find Sam, and say this to her.” We care about things beyond us.
Jo and I eased away the sheet and blanket and lay in the cool air next to each other, just being together a few more moments as the sky lightened.
“Do what you have to,” Jo said. “I’m with you. If they fire you, we’ll just go from there.”
“I have to go find Julia.”
“I know.”
49
JULIA
The Farm, May 8th
The same week she died, her mom had told Julia that her uncle Grale was once on a multistate FBI team that solved a string of kidnappings of teenage girls. They found three girls alive, four dead. Two of the girls had been held from age fifteen to eighteen. Julia remembered trying to get her head around something so horrible. Her mom meant it as a warning, the way moms do.
UG talked about some cases but never that one until she asked last fall because Nick was curious. All he would say is that the girls were chained up and held alone in remote places. The ones who had survived never gave up. She remembered Nick smirking at that and the way UG had looked at him. It was a hard look, one she’d never seen from him before.
Now she was chained to a steel ring in a concrete floor. Dan—Danny John, that was his full name—wasn’t just the reserved, weird, “leave him alone let him work all night in the tractor barn” guy they made him out to be. He was seriously bright and seriously messed up.
Danny brought his laptop and a folding steel chair over but didn’t sit in the chair; rather he sat down close to her on the cot, his thigh pressed against hers. He pulled up the website where he had bought the nine-meter stainless chain with the ankle hoop and the locking ring on the other end. He showed her where he’d drilled into the concrete and epoxied an eyebolt to attach the ring on the chain.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“I’ve seen you trying to get loose. I have cameras in here. I’ve watched you. You won’t be able to get loose. You should quit fighting it.”
She nodded.
“They should never have brought you here,” he said.
“So take the chain off and let me go.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll show you, I’ll explain everything,” he said.
She sat on the cot in the weak light and watched him work, building what he said later was a detonator. The ammonia stink in here had made her throat raw and her nose burn. It stung her eyes. It came from the fertilizer in huge stainless bins.
“This was a larger farm once,” he told her. “The olive groves down below were part of it. They stored the fertilizer up here. The same order of fertilizer comes every three months. I use it to build the bombs. You’re going to help me. I’ll teach you.”
“Nick promised I would go free after the money transferred.”
Dan looked like he knew that was true and was having trouble with it. He walked over to her. He was at least five inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than she was.
“You’ll work in here and live in the house. I’ll order a longer chain for working here and one for the house. Some of the chains are very light but strong. I’ll get ones that are light so you don’t really notice.”
“Why do you have to chain me?”
“I don’t want you to leave. You would leave.”
He said that matter-of-factly, and she’d learned even in just a few days that he simply said what he believed. But it still took her several moments to realize he was serious. When she did, she couldn’t talk.
“With the bomb I’m working on now, you’ll pack the ammonium nitrate. I’ll show you how, and over time I’m going to teach you how to make the detonators. It could be a long time. Wars of revolution often last a long time. It would be better for you not to think ahead so much. I know you like to talk, but I don’t like to argue. I’d like you to tell me you’ll do what I say.”
“Just say I’ll obey you?”
“Yes.”
“Danny, you can’t do that to people.”
“Otherwise, I’ll train you.”
“You’ll train me?”
“Yes,” he said, “I know I can train you.”
Train me?
“Stop this, Danny, stop it now.”
She shook from the cold or nervousness as she looked at him. They said he was on the spectrum and very bright.
“The work has to be done,” he said. “I can’t do it alone. I can’t do everything fast enough.”
“I can’t help build a bomb. I can’t do it.” She paused. “What do you know about me?”
“Not much. Your dad is an FBI agent. He’s an SABT. You’re from Las Vegas. You know two of the girls living in the house in Long Beach.”
“My dad? No, he’s not my dad. Do you remember the bombing at the bar in Las Vegas that killed drone pilots and other people?”
“I know about it,” he said.
“Do you know there was one survivor?”
“There was a girl.”
“I’m the girl that survived the Alagara bombing. My family died, and I moved in with my uncle, who’s an FBI agent. I can’t build bombs.”
Somehow that got through. She pushed on. “Even if I could, and I can’t, there are huge rats out here. They came for the food last night and weren’t afraid. Move me inside. Even if the chain isn’t bolted you can secure it. Nail something down. Wrap it around that post in the kitchen. It’s not that hard. Don’t leave me out here. Don’t leave me near materials to make a bomb.”
He was quiet, then said, “The one who survived had injuries near the spine. Show me.”
Julia stood and pulled her shirt off. That startled him. He stepped back. She turned around so he could see her back. The bra strap couldn’t hide the scars, and she felt his fingers probing a scar.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try to make it work in the house if you promise you’ll stay.”
“Screw something in. There’s a way. You know there’s a way.”
He didn’t answer and went back to the bench. When he finished his work, he carried it over and showed her. Then as if they’d never had the earlier conversation, he turned the lights off and left. She heard the lock click shut and his footsteps on the gravel, then bowed her head and wept.
50
JULIA
Hours later, the door creaked open. She heard footsteps and waited for the lights.
Maybe Dan was coming for her to move her inside. The light above the
workbench came on. He stood in front of it only for moments and picked up something. A tool, she thought. He started her way and was quickly to her. A flashlight swept her face, blinded her.
“Sit on the cot. If you move at all, this stops.”
Julia asked, “Are you—”
“Don’t talk.”
As he used two tools to work the ring on the chain where it tied to the eyebolt, her fear turned to anger. Where did he get the right to hold me captive and control me? She touched the pipe where she had hidden it, between her breasts under her bra and running under the loose T-shirt down along her abdomen, and under the first inches of her pants. Slide it up, slide it out, she thought as the ring clicked and came free. He stood and turned toward her.
“Do exactly what I say. We’re going to walk out of here and across to the house. You’re going to walk in front of me. I want to feel pull on the chain. Understand?”
“Like you’re walking a dog,” Julia said and knew she shouldn’t have.
“Before we go, turn around.”
“No, no, please don’t touch me. Please don’t do that.”
She moved away from the bed toward the light and the door, keeping her voice fearful and anxious.
“I need to know you’re not carrying anything,” he said.
“I’m not! Check me inside the house, not here.”
He didn’t say anything but seemed to like her words. She pulled the chain taut, doing as he said, leading the way out the door. Her plan couldn’t work if he was behind her. He was too careful. She didn’t expect that. He was so much bigger and stronger than her.
“Walk right down the middle of the road,” he said. Her shoes crunched on the gravel, and the idea gelled. She walked fast on the road and pulled the chain tighter. That held her leg with the ring back just enough so that it didn’t seem faked when she started to trip. She went to one knee and got up fast, stinging from the gravel.
“Sorry,” she said.
He said nothing. They were close to the stairs and the open door of the house, with the door open and yellow light falling in a line on the deck. She speeded up again nearing the stairs as if the house drew her, as if it was safety. She slid her right hand under her T-shirt, tightened the chain and tripped, stumbled, and then fell hard on her side at the base of the stairs. So hard it hurt. So hard it was believable. So hard he wasn’t worried and just walked right up as she moaned and said, “I’m hurt.”
She held out her left hand for him to help her up. He planted his right foot and held out his hand, still keeping some distance, but with ease pulled her up. With her right foot pushing off the stairs, she added momentum and force to her swing. The iron pipe hit his temple with a loud thump.
He let go. He staggered back. She swung again, and he went down to his knees and raised his left arm to block the next hit. But he was stunned and slow, and she was around the back of him and bringing the swing from higher up, like in volleyball when she was off her feet and the ball was there and the spike was clean. The pipe hit the back of his head and he slumped over.
She pulled and dragged and got the thin chain loose and out from under him. She bundled and wrapped it around her right wrist, picked his phone off the gravel with that hand, and ran down the road to the gate and climbed over it. She was all the way down to the olive orchards when she heard the engine and saw his headlights coming.
She was well into the orchard when his pickup roared past. He went a long way, a lot farther than she could have gotten. You should have hit him more, she thought. He’s going to search and search for you. But she didn’t feel so afraid anymore. She was fast. She was strong and cut across the orchard, and with each row of trees was farther from the road.
From beneath a tree she saw his headlights turn around, then go out, but still heard the pickup’s engine. It came slowly back along the orchard, then stopped. She listened and waited, and the moon rose over the hills. Moonlight fell between rows of trees and the grasses there, gray in the light, and the tracks left by harvesting equipment.
If she’d hit him harder, he’d be dead, but she’d hit him hard. She’d heard the sound. She saw the blood. He was hurt. How long could he look for her? What would he do if he found her? Kill her? Take her back there and wait for Nick and the money transfer, then get Nick to leave her with him?
When she saw him in the moonlight in an open space between trees she almost cried out. He went row to row in a pattern, zigzagging and turning to look, all the time turning to look. With the moon nearly full, if she moved he’d see her, and the chain, even though thin, jingled. If she ran, he would hear her.
She thought of UG saying, “The ones who made it watched and waited. They kept their heads.” He said he didn’t know how but they did. As a species we’d learned to survive. You cannot let him catch you. If you do, you’ll die here.
“Think,” she whispered. He’s using the moonlight, but he’ll have a really strong flashlight because he’s that way. He won’t use it until he’s sure. If she went back to the farm, he wouldn’t look there, but she couldn’t go there. What about the trees on the other side of the road? Big, but were there enough of them?
She moved slowly up a row, over three rows, and stopped near a larger tree. In the early morning she needed to be able to run out in the main road and flag down a car.
You have the darkness. You’re faster than him. You’re quick. You were always a great runner. Find a really good place to hide and wait all night. He’ll get worried about the bomb. It’s almost built. He’s supposed to be finished with it, but he’s not. There’s some deadline. He’ll go back there and work on it.
No, he won’t. Not until he finds me. His phone vibrated in her pocket. Omigod. She hid the light from the phone screen and read the text. All going down faster. Lose her. Get on the road this morning.
51
Tulare County, California, May 9th
At the Vegas FBI office in the predawn, agents gathered around a TV to watch a jury-rigged line of pumps circulating water in the cooling towers at Palo Verde. A cheer went up as if we were watching a playoff game. The engineers had gotten it done just in time. Water started circulating at 78 percent of standard, enough of a margin to prevent a meltdown.
If there’s a characteristically American attitude, it’s “We’ll figure it out. We may make mistakes first, but we’ll get it done.”
At dawn, I drove into California. Across the freeway, the traffic was thick with vehicles leaving LA. Loaded SUVs, pickups piled high with belongings, mattresses tied onto car roofs, trailers, campers, boats hitched to cars, all at a crawl. Going where, who knows? And yet I could understand. Power in the LA Basin might be down for months.
When I turned north toward Tulare County, there was little traffic in the quiet early morning. I was headed for the highway that tracked east along the shoreline of Lake Kaweah and then rose toward Three Rivers. This wasn’t a blind exploratory expedition, worry expressed as action. I was guilty of that as a younger agent, driving city streets in the small hours as if it would lead me to a killer.
But not here, here I had a sense of where to look. I had the snapshot descriptions of landscape Julia had given Jo. Homeland came up with a list of properties in Tulare County that might fit, and I had Julia’s description. I bought gas and coffee at a Chevron in Three Rivers, then continued all the way up to the Sequoia National Park gate before turning around and going slowly back over the river bridge down through country that was rocky and steep with brown grass drying toward summer.
She wasn’t up here. The farms were all lower in the valley. I passed the Chevron again, reacting to gut instinct and the clues Julia had given me. I pulled over several times to let cars pass. I turned around again and in Three Rivers looked for the places where locals might eat. I wanted the right mix of cars out front. Inside would be someone who kept tabs on real estate sales. There was always someone. I found a café that looked likely, took a seat, and though it was noon ordered two eggs scrambled, toast
burned at the edges, and coffee. After enough back-and-forth and another refill, I asked the waitress, “Who here could tell me about real estate?”
“What are you looking for?”
“A fifty-acre farm that traded hands three to five years ago that might not be doing very well now.”
A middle-aged fellow came over and introduced himself as Larry Crane. He slid onto the seat across from me. Sometimes good fortune comes unexpectedly in the door, so he was interested, though I made it clear I wasn’t looking to buy. I amended that to “I’m looking for people not farmland” and showed my FBI creds.
“Can I buy you breakfast?” I asked.
“Ate already but more coffee, sure. I can think of a couple that fit the description, but there are records for all that, so I’m confused.”
“We’ve been looking at records and no luck.”
“How urgent is this?”
“Very.”
He said, “You caught me on the right day. If you drive, I’ll take you to the ones I know of that have changed hands.”
“Cost may not have mattered.”
“It always matters.”
We drove down below the reservoir, then north five miles and looked at one, then came back to the west and looked at another that was a citrus orchard but no pond or outbuildings. The third was closer in fit but no gravel road running to it and no fence or gate.
“There’s one I didn’t think about,” Larry said. “I didn’t because it was part of a large sale, and for reasons no one understood, they broke off a parcel of it later. There was a little buzz for a few months as bigger growers tried to figure if there was a loophole they were missing. Turned out no, and I think it’s an organic vegetable farm now. The name will come to me. I’ve seen their stand at a farmers’ market. What I hear is it’s young people who don’t know much about making a living.”
He gave me directions, then added, “They’re not like the hippies. It’s not a back-to-the-earth thing in the same way. Their generation just wants something different.”
I nodded, and he talked as we followed a creek in the canyon, crossed a small bridge and more meadowland. Then on our left we passed a gravel road with a “No Trespassing” sign on a metal gate. On the right side of the road were trees and brush and then a short open stretch with a view over hills falling to orchards in the valley below.
