The Recruiter

by Roger Weston

  According to a reference librarian, the Boise Payette Lumber Company had built tracks into the wilds of Idaho for decades, and they fanned out across the map like grape vines. Chuck realized that it could take decades to find Jin’s old mine without more specific information.

  Unfortunately, Chuck didn’t have that kind of time. He called his student researchers on the cell phone number that they’d left him.

  Only two of the students came back from lunch. Chuck put them on the trail of railroad expansion in the early 1900s. Within half an hour, they found information on the Weyerhaeuser Company and their logging expansion into Idaho, but nothing at all indicating where an abandoned section of rails with a steam engine on it might be. Weyerhaeuser was still in business and headquartered in Washington State. Chuck called them, but nobody there knew anything about it. They recommended several books that Chuck had already skimmed. He called the Idaho Historical Society. They had plenty of information, but the historian knew nothing about the location of the train and its tracks. Chuck was sure that if he could find the location of the locomotive it would lead him to the place RUMAN called Jin Mountain.

  “What about a deserted section of railroad track with a steam engine on it?” Chuck asked.

  “Wouldn’t that be something,” the historian said in a hoarse voice. “I hear about old legends once in a while, but never this one before. There used to be a Chinatown here in Boise, but the mayor ordered it closed in 1917 due to Mafia-style assassinations by a rival tong. There were some Chinese miners named Jin—maybe a handful of them. I don’t know how that story got by me. There’s old railroad beds all over Idaho, but they’ve pulled up most of the old tracks. Sorry I can’t help you out, but if you find out anything, let me know.”

  “I will,” Chuck said. He’d reached another dead end.

  Then another reference librarian with pretty eyes walked up to him and said that she had heard that Chuck was looking for information on Chinese immigrants. She told him that the Hang Sun bookstore in Chinatown had a big collection of out-of-print historical books on Chinese immigrants dating from the 20th century.

  Chuck left the library by the service door which he found down a hall marked for employees only.

  For several blocks, he took sudden turns, cutting through alleys, and backtracking more than once. He took a bus, sat in the back, and studied anyone who boarded on subsequent stops. He walked to Nordstrom’s, where he took the escalator up and the elevator down, leaving by a different door than the one he’d entered.

  Finally, he found himself in a small coffee shop drinking a cup of aromatic black brew pondering his next move. His cup was half full when his cell chimed the National Anthem. He answered the phone. It was his fishing pal Aaron Hansen.

  “Hey, kid, this is good stuff. I’m finally enjoying my motor home. Driving all over the place on the slightest pretext. It’s hog heaven.”

  “I’m glad you’re having a good time,” Chuck said. “I hope you’re being careful.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m getting a lot of mixed information, though. I tracked down the president of the Solar Satellite Association in Washington D.C. He was in a hurry but spent a few minutes talking with me.”

  “What’d you find out?”

  “Basically it goes like this: space-based solar power collected by satellites would be a massive improvement over land-based solar collection devices. There are several reasons for this. Satellite-based solar collection devices operate at a much higher efficiency rate due to the fact that they run twenty-four hours a day. There is no night time in space.”

  “How does this relate to what Foley was up to?”

  “Relax, I’m getting to that. Get this: uninterrupted solar collection would change the whole energy game. Traditional power monopolies could be wiped out or at least downgraded to power distributors rather than producers. Dams could be torn down. Right now they’re damaging the environment, but only providing less than six percent of the power. Nuclear power would be made obsolete. Those places are accidents waiting to happen, yet the demand for uranium is skyrocketing. That means more and more hazardous nuclear materials are being created along with an unmanageable load of problems including waste disposal and nuclear proliferation. The result is a huge threat not only to the environment, but to humans—especially those who live downwind of nuclear facilities.”

  “Let’s just stick to what Foley was up to.”

  “Sorry. I’ve been on the phone constantly. I’ve been pounding on doors and a lot of people are quite irritated about it. It seems as though they are the ones who will benefit from this and they don’t want anybody stirring things up.”

  “About Foley.”

  “Right. I’m getting to that, but first you need to understand that space-based solar power offers the possibility of bipartisan support in Congress and the Senate. The demand for electricity is rising, which means if scientists could come up with a viable solar delivery system, the power brokers in Washington would make it happen. Conservatives who want to end dependence on foreign energy sources would be happy; liberals who are looking for environmentally friendly alternatives would support it as long as they could regulate every aspect of it. According to my sources, a nod from Washington means funding for research. Funding for research, however, is not happening yet. So far, that’s because of economics and priorities. Lately, the space program hasn’t exactly been full-speed ahead.”

  “So how do they plan on getting the power collected in space back to earth?”

  “It looks like this, kid. Since there’s no air in space, the satellites receive more intense sunlight. On the ground you can only collect sunlight twelve hours a day. Weather systems further degrade collection efforts. You also have to consider the atmosphere and the fact that the sun is often low in the sky. Ground collectors operate at a much lower efficiency.”

  “I got you. Up in space, a satellite is free of all that, which means high-efficiency collection.”

  “Exactly. But land systems are also fixed, which means limited delivery areas. Space-based systems can deliver power to any place on the globe.”

  “I’m still not clear on what this all has to do with Bruce Foley and what would cause him to be so concerned.”

  “Watch this. Space power would create a solar revolution. Land-based collectors are subject to wear and tear due to the weather and are more vulnerable to sabotage. This is another major concern that can be minimized.”

  “Because the collectors are out of reach of terrorists.”

  “They’re safer,” Aaron said. “Whoever is on the forefront of this space solar power revolution has a chance to hijack a huge share of the market for electricity. I don’t even want think how much money they could make.”

  “I get you.”

  “Right. Out in space, there’s never any planet in front of a solar collector, so it always collects solar energy in the form of photons.”

  “How exactly are photons converted into electricity?”

  “There are two ways of converting photons to electricity: Photovoltaic and Solar dynamic. Photovoltaic uses semiconductors like Silicon or Gallium Arsenide to directly convert sunlight photons into electricity. These are already standard equipment in many land-based solar collectors, but they are expensive, which is one of the reasons why solar power has been slow to take off. It’s a money pit.”

  “What about the other way?”

  Solar dynamic, on the other hand, uses a heat engine to drive a piston or a turbine which connects to a generator. These systems use a large reflector to focus sunlight into a high concentration to reach a high temperature so the heat cycle will operate at the highest possible efficiency.”

  “You say drive a piston?”

  “Right.”

  Chuck recalled the strange glowing rock that he’d read about in the historical account of Lok Jin. Lok had somehow used this rock to power an abandoned steam locomotive. Maybe there was a connection here.

  “Okay,
so you collect all this uninterrupted power in space—then what?”

  “Relax. I’m getting to that. The way it works is the satellites collect all the power in space and then use microwave power transmission to beam it down to Earth.”

  “Microwave? I wouldn’t want to get caught under one of those beams. Sounds extremely unhealthy. And this is what Foley was working on?”

  “Yes, and he had concerns about the safety of this stuff, too. His son thinks that’s part of the reason why he retired at fifty-eight.”

  “That bad?”

  “Right. We’re talking about a space antenna that might be a square kilometer in size.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “They transmit that to earth using microwaves to a much larger antenna on the ground—something like twelve square miles. One of my sources talked about growing crops under these things.”

  “Sounds worse than irradiated food.”

  “Fortunately, there are problems with the concept, like the cost of delivering the physical materials into orbit. It’s a huge undertaking, and presently nobody has any experience working with projects of such a large scale.”

  “Is this a real possibility or not?”

  “The idea’s been around for a long time. During the seventies and eighties, congress authorized NASA and the Department of Energy to do an extensive study on the idea. Several reports were published. From what I understand, their findings were top secret. I don’t know anything about them.”

  “Alright, I think I have the picture here. Foley was on the edge of a potential revolution in power delivery.”

  “Right. Fortunes could be made for a few big players. I’ll tell you what, kid. I’ve got half a tank of gas in my motor home and a few ideas. Let’s get back together in a day or two.”

  Chuck got a refill of coffee and hit the street. What would all this have to do with himself or Lydia? And why would RUMAN take her to Jin Mountain?

  CHAPTER 31

  Seattle Chinatown

  Robert held an umbrella as he walked down the alley in Chinatown. His free hand was under his rain coat on the handle of an MP5. A car door opened and Danny, a Triad, stepped out of a Mercedes. His cheek and lip were badly scarred, having been gashed and then healed in a way that gave him a permanent smirk on the left side.

  Another Triad got out on the driver’s side. This one looked like a kid, no more than sixteen years old, but his cold eyes and the bulge under his jacket left Robert with no doubt that he was a killer. Two more Asians got out of the back door. Both were young men and they didn’t look happy.

  Robert stopped walking. “I don’t like to feel threatened,” he said. “You don’t want to upset me.”

  “Get your hand out of your jacket,” Danny said. “This is our turf.”

  Robert dropped his hand to his side.

  “Where is it?” Danny said.

  “Under my jacket. You’re not gonna get nervous, are you?”

  “I might, but you better do what you came here to do.”

  Robert couldn’t read Danny’s facial expression due to the unnatural smirk at the corner of his mouth, but he unbuttoned part of his rain coat.

  “Slowly,” Danny said.

  Robert slipped out a manila envelope. “Just what we discussed, that’s all.”

  Danny nodded at the kid with the cold eyes. This one took the envelope and got back in the car.

  “Your instructions are in there,” Robert said. “So is the money.”

  Danny was already grinning in his sinister way, so it was hard for Robert to tell how pleased he was at this good news.

  The kid finished counting and waved to Danny.

  “Whoever you people are, you have strange tactics,” Danny said. “But we’ll play your game. How dangerous is your man?”

  “If you’re not careful, he will kill you all. Legend has it he once took out five men by knife to get at a cartel leader. He finished the job.”

  “Perhaps he’ll make a good corpse,” Danny said.

  All three of the Triads laughed, and Danny was already grinning.

  “You will follow the plan,” Robert said. “As we discussed.”

  “Of course,” Danny said. “I’ll enjoy it.”

  “I’m sure you will. Now, I don’t like to turn my back to anyone I meet in an alley, so why don’t you drive out of here?”

  Despite his grin, a threatening look seized Danny’s eyes. “I can do that. But remember what part of town you’re in and who owns it.”

  Robert put his back against the brick wall of the old building.

  Danny and his associates got back in the Mercedes and drove off.

  CHAPTER 32

  Kalorama House, Washington D.C.

  Earl Brown drove his scooter across the expansive dining room and parallel parked by the twenty-foot walnut table. The fax rang and spat out a message. He checked the fax, but it was not urgent, so he threw it on the floor. His cell rang, but caller I.D. verified that the caller was not only deadwood, but already in bed with the other side. Earl nibbled on a piece of salami, then drove to the window, where he had a view of the formal gardens. He checked his watch, then whirred over to the desk.

  “Walter!”

  His assistant rushed out of the library.

  “What’s taking him so long?”

  “I don’t know, I—”

  “I pay you to know everything about everybody. Now get him on the phone and—”

  Earl was cut off by the entrance of Bernard—his private steward. The little man with a narrow face said, “Senator Willis is in the foyer.”

  Earl was quiet for a moment. “Alright, then,” Earl said. “Walter, you bring him in then get on back there. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  Walter nodded and jerked into a rigid posture. He left to collect Senator Willis and returned a few minutes later with a stupid grin.

  “That’ll be fine,” Earl said. “Now beat it.”

  Walter hurried down the hall.

  Senator Willis stepped onto the Persian rug. He wore an Armani suit and lizard skin shoes. His hair was a blond wave. Any surfer would have admired the pipeline above his forehead. He’d probably been to the beach lately, too, judging from his caramel-colored skin—or at least to a tanning salon. Earl noticed that he sneered at Walter as the errand boy departed.

  “That kid needs to cut back on the coffee,” Senator Willis said.

  Earl nodded. “As of this moment, I’m putting him on decaf. Senator, thank you for meeting me. I was starting to wonder if you’d been killed in a car wreck on the way over here. I’m glad to see that you’re still alive.”

  Senator Willis patted his hair very gently as if the gallons of hair spray he’d used on the wave might suddenly crumble.

  “Problems with the wife,” he said. “She’s filing for divorce.” He shook his head.

  “I’m sorry to hear it, Senator. It must be hard on you.”

  “I could lose half of my money.”

  “Have a seat.” Earl gestured toward the table where a new meal was hidden under thirty pounds of silver.

  The senator strode across the suite like a peacock and eased into the chair.

  Earl circled him with the scooter and came to a stop, facing him directly. They both served themselves up and spent fifteen minutes eating.

  Earl had already eaten lunch twice before this, so he didn’t drag it out. He dropped his silverware on his empty plate and shoved the platter away.

  “It’s like this, Senator. I need your vote, and I’m prepared to send a lot of business to your law office.”

  Willis had barely nibbled at his lunch, but now his jaw suddenly kicked up a gear as his teeth worked on a large bite of his previously-neglected roast beef sandwich. With a piece of meat hanging out of the corner of his mouth, he said, “How much business you talking about?”

  “I can guarantee you ten thousand dollars worth of business over the next month, and it’s the sort of work that won’t demand any of your time.”
Earl fished a lobster tail off the silver plate and sucked the butter off of it.

  Willis thought about it for a moment, and his expression seemed genuine. “We can always use the business, but I can’t let that influence my decision in any way.”

  Earl nodded as if he’d expected this. “My cousin needs the same sort of legal work done. He’d bring you another ten grand in fees. Just send him a postcard from Hawaii or something like that.” Earl dug his teeth into the lobster, and his saliva glands went crazy.

  “Like I said, can’t be any strings attached.”

  “Ah, shit.” Earl threw his lobster at the table. It bounced off and hit the wall, butter spraying the senator’s suit. “Listen here, you son-of-a-bitch. Don’t you try to milk the cow.”

  Willis backed away from the table. “You may not like it, sir. But I am a man of sterling reputation and integrity. I cannot be bought.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Earl said. “Don’t you suggest something like that. What did you say? All we’re doing here is standard business, talking over the merits of a bill. The fees are a separate issue.”

  Willis stood up. “I have other appointments.”

  “Sit down. Let me tell you about your divorce.”

  “What?”

  “Sit down.”

  The senator did so.

  “I’ll leave your wife out of this. She and her boyfriend have my blessings. You’ve got quite a family, Willis. That daughter of yours—I’d be worried about her if I were you. My boy over at the Secret Service tells me you’ve had threats against her.”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  “I’d be very worried about her well-being. But the dirt-bags can be neutralized.”

  Willis stared at him for a moment. “And what would it take to deal with the threats?”

  “They could be dealt with. I’m sure I could convince him to make it a priority. I guarantee the threats would evaporate. But I’m too damn busy trying to get another vote for my bill.”