Watching through a pair of binoculars, he studied the Hughes 500 as it took off and headed northeast. After reading the tail number, he made a call on his satellite phone. But it wasn’t being placed to FEMA.
“This is Reynolds,” he said, identifying himself. “I have the information you requested.”
There was a brief pause before the party on the far end of the line responded. “Please continue,” an electronically filtered voice said.
“Two new arrivals,” he said. “Both named Trout. A biologist and a geologist, based on their listed profiles. From what I’ve learned, they’re here to look at the eco impact.”
His contact didn’t seem too concerned. “Anything else?”
“Two of the other NUMA personnel left on the helicopter. They were carrying some oddly shaped equipment. I couldn’t get close enough to see what it was, but the rumor is, they brought something up from the failed blowout preventer.”
“Interesting,” the voice said. “Where are they going?”
“The helicopter took on a lot of fuel. One of them said something about New Orleans.”
“Give me the tail number.”
“N541NM,” he said. “It was a NUMA helicopter.”
A brief delay followed. “They lied about the destination. That helicopter is traveling to Pensacola, not New Orleans. They’re already beginning to manipulate the truth. Be careful. Contact us if you see anything else out of the ordinary.”
As he broke the link, Reynolds considered the lies. It meant NUMA was part of the cover-up. That was too bad—he’d heard good things about the organization, indications that they’d done their fair share to care for the environment. Apparently, that was only window dressing and they were just part of the big-government machine like everyone else.
16
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA
KURT AND JOE borrowed a car from the Navy motor pool after landing at the Pensacola Naval Air Station. Driving west, they cruised along the coast for a while, before cutting inland over marshes and wetland areas.
“So, who is this mysterious Misty Moon Littlefeather?” Kurt asked. “Old fiancée? Love of your life?”
“She’s a friend,” Joe said. “Her dad wouldn’t have her dating a Navy man.”
“Ah-ha,” Kurt said, grinning. “The one that got away.”
“Trust me,” Joe said. “I did more of the getting away. And you’re having too much fun with this.”
Kurt laughed. “I can’t wait to meet her.”
The drive from Pensacola took them back along the beaches and across a portion of the wetlands. They didn’t notice anyone following them because there wasn’t anyone following them, but neither of them noticed a drone tracking them from high above.
Thirty minutes later, they pulled onto a dirt road and then onto a private stretch of land complete with a pristine beach. At the end of the road lay a group of trailers, one of which was attached to a wooden barn. Nearby were several pens with animals grazing and, beyond that, piles of electronic junk stacked up in mounds ten feet high.
A dock made from weathered gray planks stuck out into the water. An old man, tanned as a baseball glove, stood on the dock, fishing. He didn’t react as they pulled up.
Joe got out of the car. “Better let me do the talking.”
Kurt opened the trunk. “I’ll get your effects.”
Joe walked on ahead, making his way past a pen with baby goats and a second that corralled a small pack of stray-looking dogs. Finally, he made it onto the dock. The old man was reeling in his line when Joe approached.
“This is Seminole land,” the man said. “You government people have no right to be here.”
“What makes you think we’re government people?” Joe replied.
“Your license plates are government issue,” the man said, before casting his line again. “And I know you, Joe Zavala.”
Joe was amazed. Misty’s father hadn’t seen him in ten years and had only glanced at him for a few seconds as he walked from the car. “Redfish, you have a mind like a steel trap.”
The man looked at him and turned his attention back to the water. “I do. And I haven’t forgotten how I caught you messing around with Misty all those years ago.”
Joe offered his hand and then retracted it when it became obvious Redfish wasn’t going to shake it. “I tried to explain,” Joe said, “but you were chasing me with a baseball bat at the time. Hard to talk sense when you’re running for your life.”
Redfish smiled. “You could have made the Olympic team that day.”
Joe laughed at that. “I probably could have.”
“Okay, Joe,” Redfish said, “I forgive you. Misty’s inside, if you want to see her.”
“I want to show her something.” Joe paused when he realized that sounded a little like how the incident began years ago. “Electronics,” he clarified. “I need her to look at some electronics for me.”
Redfish shook his head and laughed and then cast the line out with an easy flick of the wrist. It made a peaceful sound as the reel unspooled. “I still have that bat,” he said as Joe walked away. “And you’re probably a lot slower these days.”
Joe made his way up a wooden ramp to the trailer that was connected to the barn. He knocked on the door and then opened it, ringing the old-fashioned bell that was attached to it with a string.
The sound of wheels on the floor came next and a figure in overalls slid backward into the room on a rolling mechanic’s seat.
Joe smiled. “Hello, Misty.”
Misty had an oval face, long, dark hair that was woven together in a French braid and several piercings through her right eyebrow that made it look like she was permanently squinting.
Spying Joe, she shook her head. “Just look what the tide brought in,” she said in a boisterous voice.
Laughing, she rolled back to her workbench, put down the tools she was holding and came over to greet Joe properly, wrapping her arms around him in a bear hug and kissing him on the lips.
With Redfish’s warning still fresh in his mind, Joe did nothing to reciprocate.
Pulling back, she fixed her gaze on him suspiciously. “You owe me money,” she said as if suddenly remembering. “Eight dollars. I loaned it to you for lunch the last time I saw you.”
Kurt walked in just then. “Never borrow money from someone with a photographic memory,” he told Joe and then turned to Misty. “Kurt Austin,” he said, extending a hand. “I suggest you make him pay penalties and interest, compounded daily.”
Joe raised a hand as if he was about to mount a defense and then thought better of it. “What is all this?” he asked, looking around.
“My repair shop, salvage facility and gold mining operation,” Misty said.
“Gold mine?”
“Did you see all the computers and phones outside?” she asked.
Both of them nodded.
“That’s where the gold is,” she said. “And platinum and other valuable items that can be extracted. People throw everything out nowadays. Computers and TVs and phones. They get tossed because the cost of parts to repair the old one is more expensive than getting a brand-new one. I help people recycle, repair and repurpose instead of replacing. But most people just want a way to get rid of their junk. I take it off their hands, extract the precious metals and recycle what’s left.”
She spoke with giddy enthusiasm, explaining the rest of her operation, stopping only to take sips from an extra-large soft drink, twirl her braid or wrap her arms around Joe’s shoulder. She squeezed him tight in the middle of one explanation and punched him in the arm when he seemed a little slow on the uptake.
When she left for a moment, Kurt leaned in and whispered, “I’m getting the bigger picture now. I think her father may have used the bat on the wrong party.”
“I tried to tell him,” Joe said, “b
ut that just made it worse.”
Kurt laughed, and Misty soon reappeared with another soft drink in her hand.
“So, what have you brought me?”
Kurt placed the package on the bench and removed the conduit and power pack from the box.
Misty looked at it, then put on a pair of magnifying glasses, like surgeons sometimes wore. “Weird stuff, Joe. Most guys just bring roses.”
“I know you’d prefer electronics to flowers.”
“You got me there,” she said. “This is unique. We’re going to need a closer look. May I?”
With a nod from Joe, she picked up the conduit and power pack and took them to another bench. There, she pulled the cover off an expensive piece of lab equipment. “Scanning microscope, very expensive. The university sold it to me for a song . . . Not a literal song,” she corrected. “I had to pay, but only a fraction of what it was worth. They were getting a new one anyway.”
Placing the strangely dense power pack underneath the scanning beam, Misty changed the magnification. At a power of 100, the battery pack looked like a collection of silica dust. At a power of 1,000, they began to see a structure to the arrangement. At a power of 2,500, they could see individual cells in a honeycomb formation and a thin barrier in the center of each tube.
“It’s a combo unit,” Misty said. “Part battery, part fuel cell.”
“Fuel cell?”
“Takes hydrogen, mixes it with oxygen and creates electricity and freshwater. Although this may use other chemicals as well.”
“I know what a fuel cell is,” Joe said. “But there is a stored electrical charge in there.”
“That’s unusual for sure,” Misty said.
She ran a couple of additional tests, checking the load-generating and electrical charge capacity of the unit. “Based on how tightly this design is packed and depending on the fuel source, I’d say this small unit would produce a lot more power than your average cell. In fact, the battery portion alone would be enough to power a car for several hundred miles.”
“Car battery packs weigh hundreds of pounds,” Joe pointed out.
“This one wouldn’t,” she said. “Then again, it might cost more than a Rolls-Royce to build this thing. I’ve never seen anything like it, even on the NASA probes.”
Kurt asked the important question. “Any idea who might be working on something like this?”
“My first thought would be government, NASA or DoD,” she replied. “But if that was the case, you guys would know about it, wouldn’t you?” She turned to Joe. “Did you liberate this from somewhere overseas?”
“Under the sea,” Joe corrected. “We tore it off a submersible that attacked us.”
“That’s the Joe I know,” she said. “Always in one scrape or another. Apparently, not much has changed.”
Joe couldn’t deny that. “We want to find out who built this power pack and, if possible, who built the sub that attacked us. And, we’re hoping you can point us in the right direction.”
“It’ll cost you dinner and a movie,” she said. “Plus, flowers—I’m still a girl.”
“He’ll pick you up in a limo,” Kurt said, accepting on Joe’s behalf.
She grinned and looked at the design again, studying different parts of the fuel cell itself and then the connectors and even the type of wiring. “These connectors are pure gold, the type used in high-end electric cars. This type of wiring is often used in high-performance aircraft. The fuel cell itself would probably be a prototype. I can’t tell you who built it, but I can tell you where you might look next.”
“All ears,” Joe said.
“And Redfish thinks you’re all hands.”
“That was you,” Joe said. “And you should have told him the truth before he attacked me.”
“And ruin the fun of watching him chase you?”
Kurt coughed loudly. “Hate to break up this love connection, but you were going to suggest a place we might look for answers.”
Misty grinned. “Sorry. There’s a big conference going on in Bermuda. It starts tomorrow. It’s called the R3 Conference, Renewables, Redesign and Reward. It’s an engineering conference where cutting-edge designers take their ideas, prototypes and finished products to get venture capital. You’ll find hundreds of brilliant nerds there, most of them looking for handouts from millionaires and billionaires looking to put their excess cash to work. Someone there will recognize this design, I can almost guarantee it.”
“R3,” Joe said.
“Sounds like the place to start,” Kurt said.
Before another word was spoken, the dogs started barking outside. All of them at once. Several gunshots followed and the barking turned to the sound of yelping dogs running from danger.
Misty got up and sprinted for the front of the building, Joe chased her down, tackling her to the ground just as a shotgun blast exploded through the thin front door.
17
JOE AND MISTY hit the ground as the front door swung in from the impact of the buckshot. It slammed against the wall and rebounded to a closed position. The barking and yelping continued outside, accompanied by the sound of heavy boots charging up the wooden ramp to the front door.
“Let me go,” Misty shouted. “I have to get to Dad.”
“Redfish can take care of himself,” Joe said, pulling her to her feet. “We need to get out of here.”
As Joe dragged a reluctant Misty back toward the workroom, the door was kicked open. A large-framed man pushed into the doorway with a pump-action shotgun in his hand. He spotted Joe and Misty and turned toward them, but before he could level the shotgun, the wheeled mechanic’s stool came flying down the concrete floor and slammed into his shins, courtesy of a mighty shove from Kurt.
The impact buckled his legs and he stumbled forward, discharging the shotgun into the floor at point-blank range. The barrel of the shotgun blew apart, spraying shrapnel everywhere.
Bleeding, stunned and grasping his numb right arm, the intruder crawled backward and out through the door.
Joe gave Misty a gentle shove in Kurt’s direction and then sprinted forward to grab the damaged shotgun.
With the shotgun in hand, he ran back to join Kurt and Misty. “This thing is useless,” he said, examining the barrel. “Might be good for a warning shot or last line of defense.”
Kurt turned to Misty. “Do you have any weapons out here?”
“In the main house,” she said. “My dad has a thirty-aught-six and I have two revolvers.”
“Can we get there from here?” Joe asked.
“It’s about a hundred yards,” Misty said. “Back through the brush. But I’m worried about Dad. We can’t just leave him out there.”
“If they had him, they’d be using him as leverage by now,” Kurt said. “Telling us to come out or else. He’s probably hightailing it to your house, too. Either that or he’s hiding.”
“Probably looking for his bat,” Joe added.
Misty smiled nervously.
“Let’s go,” Kurt said.
They doused the lights, went to the back door and paused. Peering through the screen door at the back of the trailer, they saw a problem.
“We’ve been surrounded,” Joe said.
There were three men out back. One taking cover behind a tree, a second hiding by a corrugated steel shed, a third crouching and inching forward through the brush. As the men waited to ambush them, a drone buzzed over the top of them.
“I have an ATV,” Misty said, pointing up. “We could speed past them on it.”
Joe looked up. On a metal ramp above them sat a small four-wheeler. He gave Kurt a knowing look. “Beats running.”
* * *
• • •
THE GROUP OF MEN who’d attacked the house had been getting information from the drone flying overhead. The unofficial leader of the grou
p, a man named Bricks, did most of the talking and listening. He held his hand against an earpiece and listened for more information.
He’d been told by the drone operator that an old man was on the dock, fishing, and the others were in the main trailer, blissfully unaware that they were being watched.
But when Bricks and his men arrived, the old man was gone. All they found was a lonely fishing rod resting on the planks of the dock, the line jumping just a bit, his having gotten a bite.
As they looked around for him, a pack of dogs appeared out of nowhere, charging and swarming around them like wolves. A few shots scattered the dogs, but the element of surprise was gone.
Bricks had sent his largest man into the building only to see him come stumbling back out, bleeding and without his weapon. “Careful,” he shouted to his men. “We got bad intel on this. These targets are more dangerous than we’ve been told.”
As the men took cover, Bricks argued with the drone operator. “I’m telling you they’re armed,” he said into the radio. “One of my men is already down.”
“You’re not living up to my expectations,” the voice on the radio told him. “You have six men against four and one of those four is an elderly man. Eliminate them quickly and get yourselves out of there.”
Bricks gripped his 9mm pistol and looked at the damaged front door. He had three men out back. His injured point man and another shooter, plus himself, out front. “What’s the view from the drone?” he asked. “Where’s the old man?”
“Forget about the old man,” the voice told him. “Get in there and do what I’m paying you for.”
Bricks knew the truth—fail this job and the next hitman would be looking for him. He charged forward, firing into the door as he went. Reaching the flimsy door, he kicked it open, ducked to the side and then dove through the gap, firing blindly in all directions as he hit the floor.
Sea of Greed Page 9
