14bis Plum Spooky (16 page)

“HTPB stands for hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene. It’s a clear, thick liquid used for rocket fuel. APCP is ammonium perchlorate composite propellant, an oxidizing agent that helps burn the fuel. BlueBec rockets are sounding rockets. They’re about eigh teen feet in length, and they carry instruments designed to take mea sure ments and perform experiments in the suborbital area of the Earth’s atmosphere. They’re Canadian made, and they’ve been around a long time. It would be fairly easy for Wulf to get his hands on some.”

“Do you think this is what made the rocket tails we saw when we were in the Barrens?”

“No. I think we saw something smaller.”

Diesel punched a number into his cell phone.

“I need a favor,” he said to whoever was on the other end. “Eugene Scanlon was project manager at a research lab in Trenton, Brytlin Technologies. I need the names and addresses of everyone on his team.”

Diesel shut down the computer and went to the kitchen for fresh coffee. “Your rat is awake,” he said.

“He’s a hamster.”

“Whatever.”

I gave Rex fresh water and dropped half a walnut and a baby carrot into his bowl.

“How will your contact get the names and addresses?”

“I don’t know. He has ways. I imagine he’ll hack into the company computer.”

“That’s illegal.”

“You have a problem with that?”

“Just saying. Where will Wulf go to get the rocket fuel?”

“I’d guess whoever had the barium also had the ability to get the fuel components.”

“Yeah, but Wulf blew one of those guys to smithereens.”

Diesel answered his phone and wrote three names and addresses on the back of Munch’s shopping list. He hung up and shoved the list into his pocket.

“I want to talk to these people.”

“It would go faster if we divided them up. It’s Sunday, and Gail has been missing since Thursday. We have no idea what Wulf intended to do with her, but it can’t be good. Maybe we should bring the police in.”

“Give me one more day. If Wulf learns the police are combing the Barrens, he’ll pack up and leave. And he’ll take Munch and Gail Scanlon with him … or worse. There were two other people working under Scanlon. Lu Kim Rule and Vladimir Strunchek. The third name I have is his supervisor. Barry Berman. Berman lives in north Trenton, Rule lives not far from here on Becker, and Strunchek was Eugene Scanlon’s neighbor. You take Rule, I’ll talk to Berman, and we’ll meet back here and do Strunchek together.”

The Subaru was in the parking lot, but the Jeep that Ranger had loaned me was with Hal in the Barrens.

“Drive me to my parents’ house,” I said to Diesel. “I can borrow my Great-Uncle Sandor’s car.”

When Sandor went into assisted living, he gave my Grandma Mazur his car. Since Grandma has had her license revoked, the behemoth ’53 powder blue and white Buick Roadmaster is mine to use in emergency situations. It’s not my favorite car, but it’s free.

Diesel dropped me off, and I ran inside to get the keys from my mother.

“What happened to
your
car?” my mother wanted to know.

I didn’t know where to begin. Was she talking about the car that was destroyed by raccoons or the car that was filled with monkeys?

“It’s getting ser viced,” I said. “Oil change, spark plugs, the works.”

I grabbed a couple chocolate chip cookies from the cookie jar and ran to the garage. I backed the Buick out and hoped no one was green in the neighborhood. The V-8 engine could be heard a block away, and the trip down the driveway alone sucked up a quarter tank of gas.

Lu Kim Rule lived less than a half mile away. It was a solid working-class neighborhood with mom-and-pop businesses mixed with two-story, residential row houses. A kid answered the door and yelled
“Mom”
when I asked for Lu Kim.

Lu Kim was slim and of mixed cultures, with almond eyes and straight black hair. I introduced myself and asked if I could talk to her about Eugene Scanlon. Lu Kim stepped onto her porch and closed the door behind her.

“What do you want to know?”

“I’m looking for Martin Munch,” I told her. “I think he might be with Eugene’s sister, and I think they might be in the Pine Barrens. Did either Eugene or Martin ever mention property in the Barrens?”

“No. They never mentioned property anywhere.”

“Tell me about Martin Munch.”

Lu Kim rolled her eyes. “Martin Munch. A brilliant guy but creepy weird. I never had a conversation with him that his eyes ever went above my breasts. And in the two years we worked together, he never said anything that wasn’t work related. It was as if he’d gotten dropped from another planet.”

“And Scanlon?”

“My job for the group was more clerical than scientific. Eugene gave me professional papers to file, expense reports, equipment requisitions, that sort of thing, but he never talked to me. I worked for him for a year before I found out he wasn’t married. Mostly, Eugene talked to Martin. He thought Martin was the reincarnation of Einstein. He had his eye on everything Martin did.”

“Do you know why Munch stole the magnetometer?”

“I figured he just grabbed something and ran out of the building. He wasn’t exactly with the program all the time. I’d find his coffee mug in the file cabinet. And once he lost his car keys, and a week later I found them in the freezer.”

“What about the research the group was doing?”

“I wasn’t involved in that end of things, but it seemed like it was routine. We were subcontractors for a much larger project. It always looked to me like we were working with minutia, but I guess that’s the way it is in the scientific community.”

I left my card with Lu Kim and chugged home in the Buick. I pulled into my lot and looked for the Subaru. I wasn’t surprised to find it missing. Even with Diesel rigging the traffic lights, he had a longer drive than I did. I parked and debated waiting in the lot for him. I checked my watch and thought about Carl. We’d left him alone in the apartment. It wasn’t a big deal. We’d left him alone before. Still, I felt uneasy. I took the elevator to my floor. I plugged my key in, opened the door, and stepped inside.

I looked left and saw Carl on the kitchen counter, his back pressed against the hamster cage. Carl’s eyes were huge, and his monkey fur was standing on end. I looked right and saw Wulf.

“It looks like my cousin has found a playmate,” Wulf said. “Too bad I’m going to have to ruin his fun.”

I turned and put my hand on the doorknob, but the door was locked and wouldn’t open.

“Martin is very depressed,” Wulf said. “He was looking forward to spending time with you, but you managed to escape, and he’s been moping ever since. As it turns out, when Martin is depressed, he’s not productive. And I need Martin to be productive. So you’re going to have to come with me.”

“I’m sure there are lots of women who would be overjoyed to spend time with Martin.”

“Unfortunately, he wants you. And since I can’t count on your cooperation, I’m going to have to scramble a few neurons.”

“Is that the touchy, painful thing? I hate that.”

Wulf reached out for me, and I jumped off into the kitchen, grabbed the still-unwashed fry pan off the stove, and threw it at him. He batted it away, and I whacked him with the spatula. Still no expression on his face. He ripped the spatula out of my hand, grabbed my wrist, and it was good night. The last thing I heard was Carl.

“Eep!”

EIGHTEEN

I
CAME AWAKE
tired. Flat-out exhausted to the point of being barely able to breathe. Too tired to open my eyes. Someone was talking to me, but it sounded like they were underwater.

“Just let me sleep,” I said.

“Steph!”

I opened my eyes and looked at Diesel.

“Are you okay?” he asked me.

“No. I feel like death. Where am I?”

“In your apartment.”

“Oh yeah. I knew that.”

I was stretched out on my bed, Carl was watching from the dresser, and Diesel had his hand wrapped around my wrist.

“What are you doing?” I asked him. “My wrist burns.”

“I’ve got a cold pack on it,” Diesel said.

He took his hand away, and I saw he’d been holding a face cloth filled with crushed ice on my wrist. Under the face cloth was a red welt in the shape of a hand. Wulf’s hand.

“He burned me!”

Diesel put the ice pack back on my wrist. “It’s not a bad burn. It’ll fade in a couple weeks. Leave the ice on for a little while longer, and then rub some Bactine on the burn.”

“I think I missed a chunk of action. The last thing I remember, I was in my kitchen, and Wulf zapped me. I’m getting fed up with the zapping thing. That was the third time. How does he do it?”

“It’s not difficult. It’s a parlor trick. Like bending spoons.”

“Can you do it?”

“Yes. And you can, too, with a stun gun.”

“How long was I out?”

“Probably ten to fifteen minutes. He had you over his shoulder like a sack of flour when I pulled into the parking lot. He dropped you when he saw me, and he vanished behind a flash of light. I have to admit, I don’t know how he does the vanishing thing. It’s new. I think it’s a little over the top with the light and the smoke, but that’s Wulf. He’s always loved the dramatic.”

“He said Munch was moping around, thinking about me, and wasn’t productive, so he came to get me for Munch.”

“That makes my skin crawl. I don’t want you out of my sight until we resolve this.”

“Oh great.”

“You’re supposed to be relieved because big bad Diesel is going to protect you.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I like to think I can protect myself.”

Diesel pulled me to my feet. “Don’t get carried away with the strong female thing. Wulf isn’t normal. And I don’t know how to break this to you, but you have no self-defense skills beyond kicking a guy in the nuts.”

I was standing, but I wasn’t feeling especially stable. “I can’t feel my legs,” I said to Diesel.

“You’ll come back faster if you walk around.”

I took a step forward and went down to my knees. Diesel scooped me up and carried me to the foyer, with Carl scuttling behind him. Diesel shifted me to his shoulder, grabbed my bag, and opened the front door.

He looked down at Carl. “Stay here and keep away from the pay-per-view stations.”

“If you’d give me a moment, I could walk on my own,” I said.

“We don’t have a moment. By the time we get to Strunchek, you’ll be fine.”

He carried me to the elevator, across the lot, and loaded me into the Subaru. I had feeling in my hands and feet, but my ass was pins and needles.

“What did you find out from Eugene’s supervisor?” I asked Diesel.

He took the wheel and drove out of the lot. “Not much. He wouldn’t talk about the project. Said Eugene never talked about property in the Barrens. He knew Eugene had a sister in Philadelphia and a sister somewhere else, but that was all. He knew even less about Munch. He said Munch was brilliant but hard to keep focused. It sounded like Munch might have been on his way out. What about Lu Kim?”

“I got even less from her.”

All traffic lights were green, so we made Strunchek’s condo complex in record time. I swung my legs out of the Subaru and walked a few steps. My ass had stopped tingling, and everything seemed to be in working order.

Strunchek answered the door with a can of beer in his hand. He was in his midthirties, had badly cut brown hair, a body gone soft, and bloodshot blue eyes. I was guessing that before starting on the beer he’d done some preliminary weed.

“Getting ready for the ball game,” he said. “What can I do you for?”

Diesel gave him a business card that just said
DIESEL
. Nothing else. Not even a phone number. Strunchek took the card and looked confused. Probably wondering what the heck
DIESEL
meant.

“We’d like to talk to you about Eugene Scanlon and Martin Munch,” Diesel said.

“Martin Munch. It’s always about Martin Munch. I hate him. The only good thing he ever did was break Scanlon’s nose with his coffee mug.”

Diesel and I exchanged glances and stepped inside.

“You want a beer?” Strunchek asked.

“Sure,” Diesel said. “What’s the deal with Munch?”

“Lousy prima donna. Boy genius. Big whoopitydo. We’re supposed to be working on a sensor for the gizmo.”

“Magnetometer?” Diesel asked.

“Yeah. I do all the grunt work, and Munch is all the hell all over the place. He’s designing grids and he’s researching wavestrengths. Has nothing to do with our end of the project. Our end of the project is too boring, too small for the boy genius.”

Diesel took his beer and chugged it. “What about Scan-lon? Didn’t he keep Munch’s feet to the fire?”

“Scanlon’s loving it. Scanlon’s encouraging Munch. And then, like this isn’t insulting enough, all of a sudden only Scanlon can see Munch’s research.”

“Do you know what that research involved?” Diesel asked.

Strunchek gave Diesel another beer. “Not entirely. We were part of HAARP, and Munch was pulling in data from them. In the beginning, he was just looking at it, saying it was interesting, and then he got into it. He was generating computer models of the power grid, and half the time I didn’t know what the heck he was talking about. I’m an engineer. Munch is Fred MacMurray inventing flubber.”

“Do you know what the fight was about between Scanlon and Munch?”

“I know this sounds crazy, but it was like they were arguing over a wolf. I only caught the end of it. It was after work hours, and I came back for my wallet. I’d got to the gas station and realized I left my wallet on my desk. I walked in and heard them yelling. I don’t think they knew I was there. Scanlon said the land was his, and there was no place for the wolf. He said the wolf was overstepping his bounds and would ruin everything. He told Munch the wolf was out, and if Munch didn’t like it, his runty little ass would be out of a job.” Strunchek drained his beer can and got another. “That was when Munch clocked Scan-lon with the coffee mug and left. Munch was sensitive about his runty little ass. You could call Munch an asshole and a whoremonger, but you didn’t make cracks about his size.”

“Do you know where Scanlon’s land was located?” I asked Strunchek.

“No. That was the first I’d heard of it. I didn’t talk to Scanlon any more than I had to. And he didn’t show a lot of interest in talking to me.”

“Munch was caught leaving with the magnetometer,” Diesel said.

“Yeah, that was a lot of nerve. It was a prototype. It had the sensor in it that I redesigned.”

“What about his computer?” Diesel asked. “Did he clean out his desk?”

“No. He never came back. Scanlon went through the desk and had the computer wiped clean.”

“Thanks,” Diesel said. “We appreciate your help.”

“You sure you don’t want to stay for the game? I got a lot more beer.”

“Some other time,” Diesel said.

We buckled ourselves into the Subaru, and Diesel made a phone call.

“I want to talk to someone about HAARP,” he said. “I’ll be back at the apartment in ten to fifteen minutes.”

He disconnected and looked over at me. “I could get the information off the computer, but I’m Googled out and this will be faster.”

Fifteen minutes later, we stepped out of the elevator and I saw a young guy standing in front of my door. He was cute, with brown hair that needed a cut, ratty sneakers, and baggy jeans. I put his age at twenty-five. No wedding band. Five inches shorter than Diesel.

He stared up at Diesel, smiled, and extended his hand. “Ivan. And you must be Diesel. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“This won’t take long,” Diesel said, opening my door, ushering Ivan into my apartment.

“No problem. I was in the area.”

“Tell me about HAARP.”

“HAARP stands for High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. The HAARP facility in Alaska has a high-frequency transmitter system that stimulates and controls ionospheric pro cesses that alter the per for mance of communications systems. In other words, it transmits radio waves into the Earth’s atmosphere to heat and temporarily modify the ionosphere. At least, in theory.”

“Walk me through it,” Diesel said.

“A signal is generated by a transmitter. The signal is delivered to an antenna array. In the case of the Alaskan station, there are one hundred and eighty antennae requiring thirty-six hundred kilowatts of transmitter power. The antenna array directs the signal into the atmosphere, where it’s absorbed at an altitude between twenty to sixty miles. The ionosphere is heated, causing changes that can be mea sured with a magnetometer.”

“What’s the purpose?”

“It allows the scientific community to study atmospheric phenomena.”

“Why would Wulf be interested?”

“The Chinese have been experimenting with generating Very Low Frequency Waves in the ionosphere, hoping to control weather. So far as I know, they haven’t been very successful. If you could actually
create
weather, it would be worth something.”

“What role would barium play in this?”

“I suppose if you seeded the ionosphere with barium, you could increase the cold plasma density and accelerate the pro cess of manipulating atmospheric conditions.”

“Like weather,” Diesel said.

“Yeah. Like weather.”

“Jeez,” I said. “Do you think Wulf is making an Evil Weather Machine?”

Ivan looked over at me and smiled. “Civilians,” he said. “You gotta love ’em.”

Diesel grinned and tugged at my hair. “She makes a mean grilled cheese.”

“Hey,” Ivan said. “You don’t want to underestimate a good grilled cheese.”

Diesel opened the door for him. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I appreciate it. This was helpful.”

“Anytime,” Ivan said.

Diesel closed the door, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “Grilled cheese?”

“Now what?”

“You could have said I was smart or brave or trustworthy.”

“I was going to tell him you were hot, but I was afraid you’d think it was sexist and kick me in the nuts.”

“Grilled cheese is sexist!”

“I don’t suppose you want to make me some lunch. All this talk about grilled cheese is making me hungry.”

“I’ll only make you lunch because you’re so pathetic.”

I slapped together three peanut butter and olive sandwiches. I kept one and I gave one to Diesel and one to Carl.

“So is this a pity peanut butter sandwich?” Diesel asked.

“You have a problem with that?”

“Nope.” He looked at his sandwich. “It’s lumpy.”

“It’s the olives.”

“No shit.” He took a bite and sent me the smile with the dimples. “I like it. It’s a sandwich with a sense of humor.”

“Do you think Wulf is trying to control weather? Munch said Wulf was going to take over the world.”

“Sounds ambitious.” Diesel pulled the shopping list out of his pocket. “Ranger monitors the police bands. Ask him if WINK radio has had any transmitters stolen. I want to know how much of this list has been fulfilled. I’m going to the mall to see if I can find Solomon Cuddles. I’d like you to stay here and do some research on the list. See if you can identify local sources for the rockets and rocket fuel. Do
not
go out of the apartment. Do
not
let anyone in. If Wulf shows up, call me immediately, and keep your door locked.”

“What if he
pops
in?”

“He can’t
pop
in, but he’s good with locks, so stay alert.”

I called Ranger and asked him to check on the transmitter, and I looked in the Yellow Pages for rocket fuel. None listed. I called Ranger back and asked him where I’d find rocket fuel.

“Solomon Cuddles would be the underground source for anything out of the box, rocket fuel included. There are a couple chemical plants in the Bayonne area that might also produce the components. I can check for you. I have the answer to your transmitter question. WINK hasn’t reported anything stolen. We called to double-check, and they said nothing had been stolen, but one of their transmitters was damaged by freak lightning last night, and it’s being repaired.”

“Thanks.”

I couldn’t remember hearing rain last night. And everything seemed dry when I went out this morning. I wouldn’t have questioned the lightning strike, but the weather-control seed had been planted in my head.

I dialed Lula. “I want to check something out at WINK, and I don’t want to go alone.”

“You called the right person. I’m bored to death.”