Cross Hairs (16 page)

“Aaahhhhh!” Walker let out a scream. His plan was disintegrating. At this point, he didn’t care who heard him, though from the looks of the now-cavernous warehouse it didn’t appear that anyone was there.

“Tonight was the night!”

Mercer and Walker both slumped onto the floor. Years of work had vanished. If there was no FBI raid, there was no way to get all the evidence necessary to shut down Cloverdale. It was over. The upper brass would likely yank their field status. Back to being analysts and pushing paper after this failed operation. But at least they wouldn’t have to live in Statenville—not everything was bad about this.

Mercer was undeterred.

“Look, let’s split up. You look around here and see if you can find any places that could easily house such a transformation and I’ll check out the other end of the plant. Let’s meet back here in 15.”

“OK.”

Mercer walked stealthily against the wall for about 200 yards and disappeared into an unlit portion of the warehouse.

Meanwhile, Walker began making a sweep of the staging area, fretting that it was all in vain.

Suddenly the back door swung open and the sounds of feet running thundered from across the warehouse. Walker scrambled to face the noise. More than a dozen high-powered rifles were pointed at them from a handful of directions.

Walker surrendered immediately.

“Hey, don’t shoot. I’ll do whatever you want us to do,” he pleaded.

Not a single person moved, frozen with the pair in their sights.

“Seriously, guys. I’m sure we can work something out.”

Mayor Gold, who had been standing off to the side against the wall, stepped forward.

“I’m sure we can,” Gold said.

“Mayor Gold? What are you doing here?”

“Maybe I should ask you the very same question since you obviously don’t know anything about basketball or cleaning a facility.”

“And you don’t know anything about keeping a secret.”

“Oh, I beg to differ special agent Walker. I can call you ‘special agent,’ can’t I?”

“I’ve got plenty of footage and pictures of what really goes on here.”

“Really? So, special agent Walker, tell me what really goes on here.”

“I think we all know.”

“What? That this facility produces faulty healthcare and vitamin products for mass consumption? Everyone already knows that.”

“No, I mean that this company uses its vast distribution network and resources to transport drugs.”

“Well, I wouldn’t call them drugs. They’re more like vitamins.”

Gold smiled at his wry comeback.

“No, I mean illegal drugs,” Walker said, trying to remain serious.

“Drugs? Here?” Gold gestured with his hand toward the barren warehouse.

“You know you’re never going to get out of this without the FBI taking this town apart. They will find something.”

“Perhaps they’ll find your dead body ... right next to agent Cooper’s.”

The comment by normally affable Gold chilled Walker. He had hoped up until now it was merely bravado talk. It wasn’t. Nobody knew about agent Cooper. Even within the FBI he was a ghost—not to mention a well-respected legend. But Walker didn’t have time for respect when Cooper came into town unannounced. Cooper wanted to glean enough information to make an assessment as to whether the undercover operation was going as planned—or if it was even necessary. Plus there were rumors within the bureau that Walker was breaking protocol. Cooper was there on assignment—and the assignment was Walker. But apparently Gold’s goons had ended that assignment.

With a slight motion toward Walker, the armed men surrounding him moved in. They snatched Walker’s hands behind his back and secured his wrists with plastic zip ties.

***

Operation Fuego
had been jettisoned for
Operation Cleanup
. Gold gambled that the FBI agents wouldn’t have sent any hard evidence back to their superiors—or even if they had it would be inadmissible as evidence in court.

Gold hoped this day would never come, but knew exactly what to do in case it did. Agent Cooper’s presence had been a surprise, as was Mercer’s. Gold thought there was only one man on the case—and that was Walker. But Gold had a contingency plan or five. When you’ve got a secret as deep as the one Statenville held, there was no need to take any chances.

And Gold wouldn’t take a single chance with Walker and Mercer. After securing the FBI pair, Gold’s men forced the two to take a hit of meth. It had all been well thought out by Gold; planting evidence on the two men would completely undermine any federal case against Cloverdale Industries. A drugged out janitor? A coach who others would testify gave drugs to students, including the ones who died? Who would find him credible, even if he was believed to be an FBI agent?

Gold returned to the confines of his home and had been there 30 minutes when his cell phone rang.

“Gold, here.”

“Mr. Gold, the threat has been eliminated,” came the voice on the other end, emotionless.

“Excellent. Keep me posted on how that other loose end is coming along.”

Gold hung up the phone and smiled. It had been a while since he had smiled. A long time ago, Gold learned that suppressing grief was never good—not even for a few days. But it had served him well during this process.

It was almost safe to cry.

***

The man climbed into his F-250 truck and roared away, leaving carnage in his wake.

Walker’s body now laid slumped over the steering wheel, still clutching his firearm. Dead. Two close-range bullet holes to the head. No law enforcement personnel would report that his body had been moved and his body repositioned.

Outside Mercer’s car was old man Willie Nelson, lying face down in the gravel next to the road. He had been groomed for such a moment as this: the perfect junkie on which to pin a murder. He held the murder weapon in his hand. One bullet to the head. One to the chest. A small plastic baggie of meth in his pocket.

Gold’s men had successfully recreated the scene that Gold had envisioned when he drew up this plan. One dead junkie. One dead basketball coach. A drug deal gone bad. Walker? An FBI agent? Nobody would believe that, except maybe the players on his basketball team who knew he had no idea how to coach the sport. He worked two jobs just to support his illicit lifestyle, not his mother who had actually died five years ago. Gold had enough details of Walker’s life that he could paint him however he wanted and no one would question him. Perception is always more powerful than reality when you control the information. A drug dealer was more like it—a dealer trying to sell meth to a known crazy person in Willie Nelson. The whole town knew he was nuts.

Framing people was an art form—and the people of Statenville had been painting Louvre-worthy canvases for snooping parties for 20 years. If anyone managed to make it out alive, the person’s reputation was sullied beyond repair, and their word was rendered meaningless.

Cal and Kelly were next.

CHAPTER 51

LIKE THE WHEELS ON
the Vmax, Cal’s mind couldn’t stop spinning. He was creating scenarios in his head of what was really happening at Cloverdale Industries—some good, some bad. But he couldn’t logically believe he saw something he shouldn’t have. People were dead. Drugs were visible. His life was in danger. What other physical evidence could trump the empirical evidence he already had? What Cal had might not stand up in a court of law, but it already won a gavel-banging judgment in the court of his own opinion. The one thing that ate at him was Walker’s connection to the situation. What was he doing there? And why did he tie them up?

Cal allowed Kelly’s embrace from the rear seat on the motorcycle to interrupt his furious theory building. In the midst of running for their lives, Cal’s fondness for Kelly was pushed to the edge of his consciousness. This wasn’t some action movie. The two stars of this adventure didn’t have time to share a passionate kiss before he ran at the bad guys with guns blazing while she admired her man’s bravery. No, this wasn’t Hollywood. There was no dramatic music, no feeling that everything would eventually be fine. But, oh how Cal wished it was. Having Kelly nestled up to him was heaven enough considering the circumstances.

Buzzzzzz. Buzzzzz.

Cal’s phone jolted him back to reality. He slowed down the bike and pulled over. There were only two people he was interested in talking to: Guy and somebody from the FBI field office in Salt Lake City. The “restricted” name listed on his iPhone’s caller ID let him know it was the latter.

Cal walked away from the bike with Kelly. They took a few steps toward an open range with scattered cattle roaming about for an evening snack. He answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Cal?”

“Yes.”

“This is Eric from the FBI’s Salt Lake City field office.”

“Hi, Eric. Did you find out anything?”

“Well, this isn’t normal protocol, but this isn’t a normal situation. You need to do everything in your power to keep this substance from getting into the public’s hands.”

Cal said nothing.

“It appears that the chemical agent being manufactured is CPZ—and in high doses.”

“How dangerous is CPZ? What does it do?”

“In small quantities, not much. It’s used to treat psychosis patients. But in large quantities, it can do a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“Like shut your liver down for one thing—and shut it down in a hurry, especially when it’s combined with other accelerants.”

“What accelerants?”

“Methamphetamine would cause it to start working quickly.”

Cal’s heart was pounding. All those questions that nagged him since he started investigating were now beginning to have plausible answers.

“And what kind of symptoms would manifest as a result of the liver shutting down?”

“There are plenty of things that happen. For one, the person would look jaundiced. But the most painful that would present, physically, is all the bile seeping into the blood stream.”

“What would that do?”

“It would create an intense itching sensation all throughout a person’s body, much like suffering from the autoimmune disease, Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. Due to liver malfunction, PSC causes itching beneath the surface of the skin and renders scratching that area useless. You can scratch all you want, but the itching sensation never goes away. That bile is still there, underneath the skin, irritating you.”

“So, if you put this high dosage of CPZ with an accelerant, how would it impact someone?”

“Well, it’s not deadly in and of itself, but the itching would be intense.”

“Intense enough that you could scratch yourself to death?”

“I suppose that’s possible, but I’ve never heard of such a thing. I don’t know how any lab would sign off on the testing of this chemical on animals for the express purpose of shutting down the liver—so I doubt that’s a question we could ever answer.”

Cal had sufficient information at this point to draw some obvious conclusions, but he never ceased to marvel at how last-second questions seemed to produce the juiciest pieces of information.

“Any other information I should be aware of?”

“Well, in doing some cursory research, I found that the FBI once had a team of people working on a way to use CPZ as markers in drugs, much like what you mentioned with methamphetamines. They wanted to figure out a way to mark drug users and substantial dealers’ distribution networks. The strange nature of the cases would send out an alert to the CDC from which the FBI could obtain basic information on the spread of a dealer’s network.”

“So what happened to the program?”

“In 2008, they tried it in field tests by undercover operatives in three cities—Seattle, L.A., and Phoenix—by tainting an individual dosage—and each time the drug user died, though the report I read didn’t say from what. So, they disbanded the program. That’s not the kind of publicity the FBI wants, even if it helps accomplish its end game.”

“End game of what? Eliminating drug pushers?”

Eric answered with nervous laughter then continued.

“Well, interestingly enough, both Walker and Mercer were part of those teams that did the testing.”

Cal knew he wasn’t getting another answer out of him.

“Thanks for your help, Eric.”

“No problem, Cal. I’ll let my superiors know and hopefully we’ll have someone in Statenville tomorrow to investigate what’s going on. I’m sure we’ll find you.”

Cal hung up the phone. The last thing he wanted was anybody finding him, especially the FBI. His list of theories was growing—and Kelly looked anxious to hear what he had learned.

Five minutes into rehashing his phone conversation and introducing a new theory, Cal’s iPhone buzzed again—this time, it was Guy.

“Where are you guys, Cal?”

“We’re about 30 minutes outside of Statenville. Why?”

“Don’t come back. Head back to Salt Lake or somewhere nearby. Things are getting ugly here, and I know you’re next. If they find out I helped you, they’ll kill me.”

“Whoa. Slow down, Guy.”

“No, I’m serious—especially if they see you on my bike. That’s bad news for both of us. There’ll be no doubt then who helped you.”

“So, what am I supposed to do? Stay in Salt Lake City? And for how long? I’m almost broke. I work at
The Register
, remember?”

“OK, call the paper and ask for Dave Youngman. Tell him that you’re a friend of mine and that I asked him to take you in as a favor.”

“Then what?”

“Then, you write your story. Does Kelly have her camera?”

“Yep, she’s got it.”

“OK, put together her best photos with your story and send it to
The Tribune
in Salt Lake and
The Times
in Seattle. I’ll let those editors know your story is coming.”

“And they’ll print it, Guy?”

“If I tell them you’re trustworthy, they will. They’ll know what to do with it.”

“OK. Thanks, Guy. Take care.”

“You, too.”

It had always been Cal’s dream to write for
The Times
. He never believed he would be writing about a mind-bending conspiracy with the hard evidence in hand to prove its truth. Nor did he think he would get a 1A byline story before his friend, Josh.