The Cyclops Conspiracy (10 page)

Drawing a sleeve across his sweaty forehead, Jason left the dark back room and walked into the brightly lit pharmacy. Sam Fairing was
on the phone taking a prescription, and Kevin Mitchell, the young black technician, was counting pills. Jason headed for the drink refrigerator in the front left corner. He took three steps and froze.

The man standing at the front of the store looked familiar, but Jason couldn’t place him.

Visible only in profile, the stranger appeared to be perusing greeting cards. Where had Jason seen him before? As a pharmacist, he came into contact with hundreds of people daily, mostly patients. In the pharmacy, he could recall a name with amazing speed. But outside work, Jason had to rack his brain to remember who people were or where he’d met them. He studied the man. A sickly and skinny figure with rough-hewn, leathery features. A long, graying ponytail hung down his back. Jason retrieved a Coke from the refrigerator, paid for it, and moved toward him.

As Jason approached, it came to him. Pettigrew’s house after the funeral, standing in the corner, watching the mourners. The stranger glanced sideways and saw Jason approach. Their eyes met. A flash of recognition lit the man’s face. He turned, heading quickly for the exit.

“Excuse me.”

Ponytail picked up speed.

Jason quickened his pace, catching him at the door. “Sir?”

Unable to ignore him any longer, Ponytail faced the pharmacist. His eyes were a dull blue, and held a touch of melancholy. Pockmarked skin hung from his cheeks. He wore a plaid button-up shirt and faded blue jeans. The stench of tobacco and cheap women’s perfume seeped from him, stopping Jason like a force field. He held a plastic Colonial bag in one hand. Through the thin plastic, Jason could see a box of condoms.

“My name’s Jason Rodgers,” he said, extending his hand. It hung there. Realizing no handshake would be forthcoming, he withdrew it. “I saw you the other day after the funeral, at Thomas Pettigrew’s house. How did you know him?”

The stranger looked Jason up and down. Then he spoke in hushed tones. “I don’t know you.” His voice was deep and gravelly, like a country singer’s. He glanced around the store to see who might be watching.

“What’s your name?”

Ponytail glared, considering the question. Another quick glance around the store. Without another word, he pushed through the door and into the parking lot, where he climbed into his red Chevy Blazer and drove off without looking back.

“Any particular reason you didn’t return my calls?” Jason asked into the mouthpiece of the phone. He was sitting at Zanns’s desk in the back room of the pharmacy.

“I’ve been swamped at work,” Christine replied. “We had to do an unexpected audit for a local restaurant. What are you doing?” Her voice was tentative.

“I’m getting ready to interview some pharmacists this morning for, uh, your…”

“You can say it—Daddy’s job.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jason. He changed subjects quickly. “I tried to leave you a message. Your mailbox was full.”

“I have a bad habit of not erasing my messages. How’s your head?”

“Better. I’m only seeing double now. What’s up?”

“Not a whole lot. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Did you hear anything from the police about the intruder?”

“Not really. A detective called me a couple of days later. Asked a lot of the same questions. I don’t think they’re going to find him.”

“Any other break-ins?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been back to Daddy’s.”

“I can’t say I blame you.” Jason sucked in a breath. “I’m glad you called. I wanted to ask you something.”

“What’s that?”

“So, it’s like this,” he began hesitantly. “Lily’s having a little soiree tonight. I know it’s short notice and all, but I thought you might like to go. That is, if you’re not seeing any of your boyfriends tonight.”

Silence.

“Are you there, Chrissie?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Can I get an answer before Christmas?”

“Oh, am I supposed to answer you now?”

“Since the party is tonight, that would be a good idea.”

“Why are you asking me?”

Jason had no clue what the correct response should be. “You didn’t tell me they were honoring your father.”

“Oh, it’s
that
party. I told Lily I wasn’t interested.”

“Why not?”

“It’s inappropriate for me to be there, considering how he and I had been getting along—or not getting along, if you know what I mean.”

“He was your father, Chrissie. The community is honoring him. Don’t let the past few years taint everything he did over his career and lifetime. And he was a good father early on, wasn’t he?”

More silence.

“I’m not taking no for an answer, you know.”

“Oh, really?”

“Hasn’t my irresistible charm convinced you to change your mind yet? Usually I have a yes in half this time.”

Christine snorted. “So I’m just a check mark in your little black book?”

“I didn’t mean it that way. You were never just any woman, Chrissie.” Jason paused. “Christine, I’ll have your back.”

“Oh, no! This coming from the man that disappeared faster than a case of Twinkies at a fat farm. Tell me you just didn’t say that!”

“Yeah, I did. That took some balls, didn’t it?” Jason could smile at his mistake.

“Big, overinflated ones.”

Rachel, the gum-snapping cashier, appeared at his door. “Your first interview is here.”

Jason turned back to the phone. “I’ve got to go. I’ll pick you up around five-thirty?” He hung up before she could refuse.

* * *

Lily Zanns leaned over the oversized map laid out on her desk. It showed Newport News and the surrounding area.

“Here, here, and here,” she said, tapping the grid, then circling each spot with a grease pen. “These are the locations I want you to evaluate.”

Jason shook his head, still incredulous she would even consider such a combat zone. He remained silent, unwilling to create another stir. His counsel had been given. She was the boss and could do what she pleased.

He changed the subject. “I’ve conducted the interviews. The first two candidates weren’t qualified. I want to hire Parks. He’s got lots of supervising experience and can handle the prescription volume. If we make him a good offer, I think he’ll accept.”

“Excellent,” Zanns replied. “Offer him twenty thousand dollars over what he’s making now, along with a sizable sign-on bonus, say twenty thousand dollars. But he needs to start in three days.”

“Consider it done,” said Jason. He admired the way Lily did not hesitate to pull the trigger on decisions, even if her stubbornness clouded her good judgment.

“This is for you to use when you view your locations. I want pictures from every angle of each location and also of the surrounding area.” She removed a digital camera with a 100 mm lens from her
desk and handed it to him. Lily pulled out a second, longer lens from under the desk. “And this is a 300 mm F2 telephoto.”

“I’m not sure I can use that to photograph the locations. I’d have to stand too far away,” said Jason.

“This is not for the locations. While you are in the area, I want you to get some shots of the shipyard, specifically the ship in dry dock. I want pictorial documentation of the entire area for negotiating purposes. The more evidence I have to show the current owners, the more I can lowball the price. And besides, I’m a fan of the military. When you come over tonight, I will show you my collection of aerial shots of ships. Today, I want you to get some pictures of the dry dock and the aircraft carrier.”

* * *

The gleam of midtown gave way to older edifices as Jason drove south along Warwick past Mercury. It was an urban purgatory, where well-dressed white men were eyed with suspicion and targets for a quick, knife-brandishing roll. The only seedling of optimism was a rescue mission, feeding and housing the homeless in exchange for exposure to the word of the Lord.

The first site was an abandoned, dilapidated store on a corner lot, which leaned precariously. Intersections of joints and miters formed parallelograms and trapezoids instead of right angles—a geometry teacher’s delight. New graffiti was being painted over the old. A drunk crumpled near one corner was sipping an unknown spirit from an equally crumpled brown bag. Jason walked the site, snapping photographs.

The final two spots weren’t much better.

When he’d finished at the sites, Jason parked the Mustang on Riverdale Road on an escarpment overlooking the dry dock.

It would be his final stop of the day. As he climbed out of the Mustang, he’d come to a decision. He would call a commercial real estate agent to search for some realistic sites, and he would push Lily
to abandon this part of town. His job was to tell her when she was on the wrong road and get her back on course.

Jason scanned the sight before him. Penrose Gatling Shipbuilders was the only shipbuilder in the nation capable of building aircraft carriers. It had grown steadily over more than a century on the James River, gorging itself on fat government contracts. Locals simply called it the Yard. It had begun as the Jamestown Dry Dock Company in 1902. The first warship had slid into the James River six years later. And in the hundred-plus years since, the Yard had constructed thirty-eight aircraft carriers (including the one Jason looked at now), eighteen battleships, seventy-five submarines, and a host of destroyers, cruisers, and landing ships.

Visible for miles, the words
Penrose Gatling
were scrawled across the beam of the crimson gantry crane, towering two hundred feet over the dry dock. Beneath the crane, in the flooded space, sat the aircraft carrier
Jacob R. Hope
, surrounded by smaller, but still enormous, boom cranes. Workers scurried like ants about on her decks. The number painted on the island superstructure, eighty-one, stretched ten stories. Painted and spiffy, the massive vessel dwarfed surrounding homes and shipyard workshops. Local newspapers and news programs were carrying reports in preparation for its christening, Saturday, October 7. Ten days away.

Jason twisted the two-foot-long, 300 mm telephoto lens and clicked it onto the body. He lifted the camera, rotated the focusing ring, and the fuzzy view came into sharp focus. He clicked off several frames from different angles. Ten minutes later, he put on the smaller 80 mm. As he finished up, a blue pickup truck with a swirling, yellow light pulled to a stop a few feet away.

“Hey, what are you doing, bud?” A rotund, squirrel-cheeked man sat behind the wheel. A lump of chewing tobacco was rammed into one cheek. His face was red and mottled, no doubt from nightly visits to local pubs. He spit a long, brown trail of tobacco juice on the ground near Jason’s feet.

“Just taking a few photographs,” he declared weakly. The word
Security
was stenciled above the Penrose Gatling logo on the door of the cab.

“You wouldn’t be taking pictures of the Yard, now, would ya, pal?”

“Maybe.”

“Stay right there,” he commanded, lifting a radio handset. He barked instructions. The radio crackled in response. In less than a minute, two unmarked, official-looking sedans skidded to a stop near them. Four grim-looking men in dark suits jumped out, and encircled Jason.

Plastic visitor badges hung from breast pockets and signaled that these men were not shipyard regulars. Jason spotted a gold, star-shaped badge clipped to one man’s belt, portending official—and more ominous—trouble. The leader approached Jason. He was tall and wide-shouldered with a blond crew cut. Dark sunglasses obscured his undoubtedly penetrating eyes.

“What’s your name?”

“Jason.”

“Jason what?”

“Jason Rodgers.”

“What were you taking pictures of?”

Deciding it was time to come clean, he said, “Just getting some shots of the crane and the ship.”

“I see,” he said. “Put him in the car.” With a nod, the man motioned to his colleagues to move in. Two men grabbed Jason’s arm, while the third confiscated the camera. Within minutes, he was escorted into a nameless, faceless building among the maze of
Penrose Gatling buildings. Three floors up, Jason sat at a table in a small interrogation room.

The leader and two new men entered. Acid began to churn in Jason’s stomach. The blond leader now deferred to a new, equally fish-faced man. His demeanor did not instill Jason with new confidence. The agent removed his dark blazer and hung it on the back of a chair. Next the dark glasses were laid on the table, revealing crystal-green eyes. One of those coiled cords dripped from his left ear and disappeared down his shirt collar. Jason swallowed a mouthful of bile.

“Jason Rodgers?” the man said.

He nodded. “Yes. I guess I’m in some kind of trouble?”

The man snorted and glanced at his colleagues. “You could say that. Why are you taking pictures of the shipyard and the aircraft carrier?”

Not wanting to throw Lily under the bus, he lied, “For…for the hell of it.” A child caught with his hand in his mother’s change purse would have sounded more convincing.

“For the hell of it?” He rubbed his chin. “You sure stepped in it just for shits and giggles, Mr. Rodgers. I need to see ID.” Jason fished out his driver’s license. The new leader left. Several minutes later, he returned holding two sheets of paper. “Jason,” the man said, pulling out a chair and sitting. “Do you know it’s illegal to photograph the shipyard?”

“I do now.”

“Where do you work? And what do you do there?”

“I work for the Colonial Pharmacy. I’m a pharmacist.” Jason squirreled up some courage and asked, “Who are you?”

The man locked eyes with Jason. He pulled out a leather badge case and flipped it open. “I’m Special Agent Clay Broadhurst of the United States Secret Service.”

The camera was brought into the room like an incriminating weapon, the 80 mm lens still attached. “It’s clean, except for the photos,” the agent announced.

Broadhurst examined the camera and switched it on. He scrolled the through the photos. “Why are you taking pictures of empty lots and old buildings, Jason?”