Black Wind (7 page)

“Excellent dining choice.”

“We eat here all the time,” Sarah said as she reached over and outgrabbed Dirk for the bill.

“I insist on returning the favor,” Dirk said, looking at Sarah with a serious smile.

“Sandy and I have to travel to the CDC research lab in Spokane for a few days, but I'd love to take you up when we return,” she replied, intentionally leaving Sandy out of the equation.

Dirk smiled in acknowledgment. “I can't wait.”

6

T
HE LANDING WHEELS OF
the Gulfstream V jet dropped slowly from the fuselage as the sleek aircraft aligned its nose at the runway. Its wings cut through the moist, hazy air like a scalpel, as the nineteen-passenger luxury business jet dropped gracefully out of the sky until its rubber tires touched the tarmac with a screech and a wisp of blue smoke. The pilot guided the plane to the corporate jet terminal of Tokyo's modern Narita International Airport before shutting down the high-pitched turbines. As a ground crew chocked the wheels of the jet, a gleaming black Lincoln limousine glided up, stopping precisely at the base of the plane's passenger stairwell.

Chris Gavin squinted in the bright sun as he stepped down from the jet and climbed into the waiting limo, followed by a legion of assistants and assorted vice presidents. As chief executive officer of SemCon Industries, Gavin commanded the largest semiconductor manufacturing company in the world. The flamboyant and free-spending corporate chief, who inherited the company from a visionary father, had alienated many of his countrymen in the United States by closing profitable factories and brusquely laying off thousands of workers at home in order to move production to newer and cheaper facilities offshore. Profits would be higher, he promised his shareholders, while taking personal delight in broadening his elaborate lifestyle to a worldwide setting.

Exiting the airport grounds located some sixty-six kilometers northeast of Tokyo, the limo driver entered the Higashi Kanto Expressway and headed toward Japan's capital city with his cargo of high-salaried executives. Twenty minutes later, the driver turned south, exiting the highway some twenty kilometers short of Tokyo. The limo soon entered the industrial section of Chiba, a large port city on the eastern edge of Tokyo Bay. The driver wound past a number of large drab manufacturing buildings before pulling up in front of a sleek glass building overlooking the bay. The modern structure looked more like an executive office building than the industrial fabrication plant it contained, with its shimmering face of gold reflective windows rising four stories high. Mounted on the roof in huge block letters was a blue
SEMCON
neon sign, which could be seen for miles away. A large crowd of factory workers, all clad in pale blue lab coats, waited anxiously on the grounds for the arrival of their CEO to officially open the new facility.

The crowd cheered and cameras flashed as Gavin exited the limo and waved to the assembled employees and media, baring a wide, capped-tooth grin. After a pair of long-winded welcome speeches by the mayor of Chiba and the new plant manager, Gavin offered a few polished words of thanks and inspiration to the employees, then hoisted a comically oversized pair of scissors and cut a thick ribbon stretched tight across the entrance to the new building. As the crowd applauded politely, a muffled boom echoed from somewhere in the depths of the building, which some mistook for a firing of celebratory fireworks. But then a succession of louder explosions rocked the building and the assembly of employees suddenly gasped in confusion.

In the heart of the building's silicon chip fabrication center, a small timed charge had detonated on a tank of silane gas, a highly flammable substance used in the growth of silicon crystals. Exploding like a torpedo, the tank had flung metallic fragments at high velocity into a half-dozen additional silane and oxygen tanks stored nearby, causing them to burst in a series of concussions that culminated in a massive fireball inside the building. Soaring temperatures soon caused the exterior windows to blast out in a burst of hot air, showering the stunned crowd with a hail of glass and debris.

As the building shook and flames roared from the roof, the panicked employees began to scramble in all directions. Gavin stood holding the pair of giant scissors, a look of stunned confusion on his face. A sharp pain suddenly pierced his neck, jolting his senses. Instinctively rubbing the ache with his fingers, he was shocked to feel a small barbed steel ball the size of a BB lodged in his skin. As he extracted the tiny pellet with a trickle of blood, a nearby woman screamed and ran by him, a large sliver of fallen window glass protruding from her shoulder. A couple of terrified assistants quickly grabbed Gavin and led him toward the limo, shielding him from a nosy photographer eager to snap an embarrassing shot of the corporate mogul in front of his burning building.

As he was whisked to the limo, Gavin's legs suddenly turned to rubber. He turned toward one of his assistants to speak but no words came from his lips. As the car door was opened, he sprawled forward into the car, falling chest first onto the carpeted floor. A confused aide rolled him over and was horrified to find that the CEO was not breathing. A panicked attempt at CPR was performed as the limo screeched off to a nearby hospital, but it was to no avail. The mercurial self-centered leader of the global company was dead.

Few people had paid any attention to the bald man with dark eyes and droopy mustache who had crowded up close to the speaker's platform. Wearing a blue lab coat and plastic identification badge, he looked like any other SemCon employee. Fewer still noticed that he carried a plastic drinking cup with an odd bamboo straw sticking out the top. And in the confusion of the explosions, not a single person had noticed as he pulled out the straw, placed it to his lips, and fired a poisoned bead at the head of the giant corporation.

Casually losing himself in the crowd, the bald assassin made his way to the edge of the property's grounds, where he tossed his cup and lab coat into a streetside trash can. Hopping onto a bicycle, he paused briefly as a clanging fire truck roared down the street toward the engulfed building. Then, without looking back, he casually pedaled away.

*  *  *

A
DINGING BELL
echoed in Dahlgren's mind like some distant train at a railroad crossing. The feverish hope that the sound was part of a dream fell away as his consciousness took hold and told him it was a ringing telephone. Groping for the receiver on his nightstand, he yawned a weary “Hullo.”

“Jack, you still sawing logs?” Dirk's voice laughed over the line.

“Yeah, thanks for the wake-up call,” he replied groggily.

“I thought bankers didn't like to stay up late.”

“This one does. And likes to drink vodka, too. I think a dinosaur crapped in my mouth during the night,” Dahlgren said with a belch.

“Sorry to hear. Say, I'm thinking of taking a drive to Portland to stretch out my sea legs and take in a car show. Care to ride shotgun?”

“No thanks. I'm supposed to take the teller kayaking today. That is, if I can still stand up.”

“Okay. I'll send over a Bombay martini to get you started.”

“Roger that,” Dahlgren replied with a grimace.

*  *  *

D
IRK HEADED
south from Seattle on Interstate 5 in the NUMA jeep, enjoying the sights of the lush forested region of western Washington. He found cross-country drives relaxing, as they allowed his mind to roam freely with the open countryside. Finding himself making good time, he decided to detour west along the coast, taking a side road to Willapa Bay before continuing south along the Pacific waters of the large bay. Soon he reached the wide blue mouth of the Columbia River, and cruised the same shores upon which Lewis and Clark had triumphantly set foot back in 1805.

Crossing the mighty river over the four-mile-long Astoria-Megler Bridge, Dirk exited at the historic fishing port of Astoria. As he stopped at a red light on the bridge off ramp, a road sign caught his eye. In white letters on a green field,
WARRENTON 8 MI.
was preceded by an arrow pointing west. Prodded by curiosity, he followed the sign right, away from Portland, and quickly traversed the few miles to Warrenton.

The small town at Oregon's northwest tip, originally built on a tidal marsh as a fishing and sport boat passage to the Pacific, supported some four thousand residents. It took Dirk only a few minutes of driving about the town before he found what he was looking for on Main Street. Parking his jeep next to a white Clatsop County official vehicle, he strolled up a concrete walkway to the front door of the Warrenton Community Library.

It was a small library but looked like it had been in existence for six or seven decades. A musty smell of old books and older dust wafted lightly in the air. Dirk walked straight to a large metal desk, from which a fiftyish woman with contemporary eyeglasses and short blond hair looked up suspiciously. A plastic green badge pinned to her blouse revealed her name:
MARGARET.

“Good morning, Margaret. My name is Dirk,” he said with a smile. “I wonder if you might have copies of the local newspaper from the nineteen forties?”

The librarian warmed slightly. “The Warrenton News, which went out of print in 1964. We do have original copies from the nineteen thirties through the sixties. Right this way,” she said.

Margaret walked to a cramped corner of the library, where she pulled out several drawers of a filing cabinet before discovering the location of the 1940s editions.

“What exactly is it that you are looking for?” she asked, more out of nosiness than of a desire to help.

“I'm interested in the story of a local family that died suddenly from poisoning back in 1942.”

“Oh, that would be Leigh Hunt,” Margaret exclaimed with a knowing smugness. “He was a friend of my father. Apparently, that was quite a shock around here. Let's see, I think that happened during the summer,” she said while flipping through the cabinet. “Did you know the family?” she asked Dirk without looking up.

“No, just a history buff interested in the mystery of their deaths.”

“Here we go,” the librarian said, pulling out an edition of the daily newspaper dated Sunday, June 21, 1942. It was a small journal, mostly containing weather, tide, and salmon-fishing statistics combined with a few local stories and advertisements. Margaret flattened out the paper on top of the filing cabinet so Dirk could read the headline story.

FOUR DEAD ON DELAURA BEACH

Local resident Leigh Hunt, his two sons Tad (age 13) and Tom (age 11), and a nephew known only as Skip, were found dead Saturday, June 20th, on DeLaura Beach. The four went out clamming in the afternoon, according to Hunt's wife Marie, and failed to return home for dinner. County Sheriff Kit Edwards discovered the bodies, which showed no signs of a struggle or physical injury. “Not finding any physical marks, we immediately suspected smoke inhalation or poisoning. Leigh had a large supply of a cyanide treatment in his workshop that he used for tanning leather,” Edwards remarked. “He and the boys must have been exposed to a strong dose before they went to the beach, and the poison caught up with them there,” he stated. Funeral arrangements are pending examination of the bodies by the county coroner.

“Is there a follow-up news report on the coroner's findings?” he asked.

Margaret rifled through another dozen editions of the
News
before finding a small article related to the deaths. Reading out loud, she cited that the coroner's office confirmed accidental cyanide inhalation as the suspected cause of death.

“My father never did believe it was an accident,” Margaret added, to Dirk's surprise.

“It doesn't make sense that they would have died later at the beach after inhaling the fumes in Hunt's work shed,” Dirk mused.

“Papa said the same thing,” Margaret replied, letting down her guard slightly. “And he said the authorities never did consider the birds.”

“Birds?”

“Yes. About a hundred seagulls were found dead on the beach around the area that Hunt and the boys were found. Fort Stevens, the Army base, was right near that beach. Papa always suspected it was some sort of Army experiment that accidentally killed them. Guess nobody will ever know for sure.”

“Wartime secrets can be difficult to unlock sometimes,” Dirk replied. “Thank you for your help, Margaret.”

Dirk returned to the jeep and drove through the town to the coastal highway and turned south. A short stretch of pavement later, he approached a small side road marked
DELAURA BEACH ROAD.
The road led though an open pair of gates marked
FORT STEVENS STATE PARK
before narrowing through thick underbrush. Dirk jammed the jeep into low gear and surged over a jagged ridge before descending to a large abandoned gun emplacement overlooking the ocean. Battery Russell had been one of several coastal defense sites guarding the entrance to the Columbia River which sprang up during the Civil War, then were later updated with huge long-range guns during World War II. From the emplacement, Dirk had a clear view of the shimmering blue waters at the mouth of the Columbia River, as well as the DeLaura Beach below, which was dotted with afternoon picnickers. Dirk soaked in a few deep breaths of the fresh sea air, then drove back out the small road, pulling off nearly into the brush at one point to let an oncoming black Cadillac pass by. Driving a quarter mile farther, he stopped the car at a large historical marker along the roadside that caught his eye. Carved on a massive gray slab of granite was a highly detailed engraving of a submarine, beneath which was inscribed:

On June 21, 1942, a 5.5” shell exploded here. One of 17 fired at Columbia River Harbor Defense Installations by the Japanese Submarine 25. The only hostile shelling of a military base on the U.S. mainland during World War II and the first since the War of 1812.

As he read the inscription, he instinctively moved away from the road as the Cadillac returned and passed by slowly, to avoid kicking up dust. Dirk studied the submarine carving for a long moment and started to walk away. But something caught his eye and he looked again. It was the date. June 21, just a day after Hunt and the boys were found dead on the beach.

Dirk reached into the jeep's glove compartment and pulled out a cellular phone, leaning against the car's hood as he dialed the number. After four rings, a deep and jolly voice boomed through the handset.