Die-Off (12 page)

‘He wants to keep some portion of embezzled money?’

‘I know it sounds crazy, but yes, and the company will pay to keep this quiet.’

‘He must have known it would be quickly discovered missing. What has he said?’

‘He hasn’t said because we haven’t confronted him. He knows that’s imminent so we’re playing a kind of game here and I’m bringing you into the circle.’

‘When was this money embezzled?’

‘About a month ago and he contacted you with the pike story about a week later. I know the day and the time he called you.’

‘He didn’t make up the pike project.’

‘So where did the pike come from that were in the pickup?’

‘I don’t know. All I can tell you is he embezzled eight point two million and that I can prove it. Is there a secret hatchery project inside ENTR? Ask yourself why would there be? Look at all we have to lose. It would destroy the credibility of a company worth two billion dollars and employing one hundred fifty people, and with the potential to get a lot bigger. He’s trying to blackmail or to negotiate with us, call it whichever you want.’

‘So prove it to me.’

Jones looked a little rueful and tugged her hair back behind her right ear.

‘They aren’t going to let me do that yet. We’re trying to keep it very quiet. You have to understand that investors put money into the projects and it’ll get reported in the next week. That’s the law and right now we’re in a stage of confirming the evidence. When it gets reported, he’ll get charged. At which point his lawyer will call a press conference to say his client is working with Fish and Game to save all of the western rivers from the evil company ENTR. I know what you’re up against and it’s scary, but that’s what
I’m
up against. I want to work with you.’

‘I’m listening but I need to learn a lot more first.’

‘Wow, and after what I just shared with you.’

‘That’s where we’re at this morning.’

She shook her head and Marquez got her cell number and gave her his. Then he took in her face again, strong and confident. She was certain she would convince him.

‘He stole money and we’re going to get it back.’

‘Call me when you’ve got proof you can show me.’

‘I will.’

They walked around the rest of the hatchery and then she walked him to his pickup and Reid poked his head out again and said, ‘Be careful as you drive out. We’ve got turkeys; they’re everywhere now and make a mess if you hit one.’

When Marquez looked in his rear-view mirror Jones held her left hand up to her ear in a gesture to say,
we’ll be talking
, and Reid was right about the turkeys. A flock crossed the road at a curve on his way out. He believed her about the money. It was too much of a wild card to just throw out there. He believed her but Hauser of course would have a completely different explanation.

T
hat afternoon Marquez flew north out of Sacramento with a Fish and Game pilot named Barry Wheeler. Wheeler was like the pro baseball player whose father had started pitching fastballs at him at age two. Wheeler flew with his dad as soon as he could walk and piloted a crop duster before he was sixteen. He skimmed the earth dusting endless acres of vegetables and cotton in the Imperial Valley, his plane rising only to loop high enough to avoid the telephone and power lines along the roads at the edge of the fields before turning back for another pass.

Wheeler was comfortable close to the ground and as long as he was, so was Marquez, who liked Wheeler’s tight focus, But Wheeler wasn’t arguing for flying low. He liked ten thousand feet and pulling his props back and cutting to nineteen hundred rpm to stay stealthy. The MX-15 mounted on the nose could comfortably read the terrain from there. If they dropped to five thousand feet, it could read a license plate.

The quadrant of terrain northeast of Sacramento that Soliatano identified was just ahead. Off to the right was the northern crest of the Sierras, off to the left, the Sacramento River. Wheeler turned to him now.

‘For the camera to get everything between the two roads we’ll need to make three passes.’

He argued for staying high but at some point Marquez wanted to get low. They flew the roads in a rectangle large enough to cover what Soliatano and Hauser told him, and that took them past the ENTR hatchery he saw this morning. Looking down, he got a good look at the connecting roads you could use from that hatchery.

The plane bumped around as they flew back toward the Sierras and then returned lower for a last pass, crossing over straw-colored hills dotted with oak with folds dark green with trees and the glimmer of creeks running again after the early rain. They swept over cabins and houses and ranch buildings and over road again and then just above a crest of hills and down to no more than three thousand feet over the brown fields. Wheeler circled and Marquez’s seat creaked and the belt pulled tight as the plane banked hard.

‘Another pass?’

‘No, I’m good.’

‘I want to fuel up in Chico. If you’re hungry they’ve got food.’

They landed and Marquez bought two sandwiches, a Coke for Wheeler, and a black coffee for himself as Wheeler casually oversaw the fueling of the plane. Wheeler left as little as he could to chance. He was a competent aircraft mechanic and held a commercial and multi-engine certificate. His path to doing what he was doing now took him out across the country and through a half dozen flying jobs before making his way back home and here. Marquez watched Wheeler look over the plane and then checked his messages. He listened to one from Matt Hauser.

‘This is my new phone number. It’s one of those phones you don’t keep. I bought a half dozen of those today. Things are getting very serious and I need to talk with you immediately. I’m on my way to the Department of Fish and Game in Sacramento. Call me as soon as you get this.’

Hauser had left the message less than twenty minutes ago. Marquez returned his call and as he waited for it to connect he realized Hauser didn’t really know what he did. Hauser must think he worked from nine to five each day at headquarters on the Thirteenth Floor of the Water Resource Building. The call connected and Hauser answered, saying, ‘I’m here and I need to meet with the head of your department. Things are escalating way above your level, Lieutenant.’

‘I’m an hour and a half away.’

‘Why? Where are you?’

‘If you’re worried go up to DFG headquarters and tell them you’re there to wait for me. Or go be a tourist. Go to the capital building. There are police and cameras and no one is going to bother you there. I’ll call you when I’m ten minutes away. That’s all it will take you to walk back over.’

Wheeler carried his sandwich and Coke to the plane and ate his sandwich after they were in the air and lined up on the Sacramento River.

‘How do you want to do this?’

‘I’d like to get a good look at both banks of the river. I’m looking at access, at where you could drop pike in the river if you were coming out of this illegal hatchery we’re looking for.’

Wheeler brought the plane down and on the river sunlight sparkled and the trees along the banks flashed by.

‘I couldn’t do your job,’ Wheeler said, ‘but I sure love mine.’

Which is why I like to fly with you
, Marquez thought, and they followed the river south and Wheeler didn’t ask or say anything until he picked the spot where he left the river.

‘Are you going to meet the guy you were talking to?’

‘Yeah, at the office right now.’

‘And he’s helping us?’

‘I’m not sure about that yet but I am sure he knows more than he’s saying.’

‘So you’re staying on the dance floor.’

‘That’s about right, I’m staying on the dance floor and I’m going to learn more about him this afternoon.’

H
auser was standing in a corner of the lobby of the Water Resources Building with his back to a wall and scanning faces until he picked up on Marquez coming toward him. Marquez led him to the elevator and up to the thirteenth floor. Now they were in a small conference room sitting across from each other, an agitated Hauser demanding to meet with the head of Fish and Game.

‘What’s changed, Matt?’

‘They’re following me and they’ll destroy my reputation and career if I’m not protected. I made the decision to approach you and I’m going to frustrate you today. After three weeks of trying to get me to come across, I’m ready to talk, but I have too much on the line to negotiate my future with anyone other than your chief.’

‘You’ve said.’

‘I’m sure it’s not the first time someone has gone over your head.’

Hauser reached in his pocket and pulled out a red and black plastic SanDisk memory stick. He put it down on the table in front of him and picked up again, holding it tight between his thumb and forefinger.

‘What’s in here ties ENTR to the pike project. Get your chief in here and I’ll call my lawyer and we’ll reach an agreement.’

‘Show me what you’ve got and then I’ll find out when the chief is available. I know at the moment he’s out of state at a conference in Virginia, but even if he were three doors down the hall I wouldn’t get him involved without proof. You want protection, then take me through what’s on the memory stick.’

Hauser frowned and stared down at the table for a long twenty seconds.

‘Good God, Lieutenant, we’re talking about the destruction of the keystone native species and great harm to the fishing industry, tourism, and the quality of life in the state. This is a seminal event. This is eco-sabotage. Get the Governor involved! Do what it takes to make me believe you’ll protect me! If your chief is out of town, then call him! Aren’t you able to do that? I want to explain this to him.’

Marquez left the room for ten minutes. He talked with Waller and then returned to the conference room with his laptop, turned it on, took a chair next to Hauser with the screen facing them and said, ‘Show me what you’ve got.’

Hauser picked up the memory stick and felt for the slot along the right side of the computer, but rather than slide the memory stick in he pulled his hand back and started talking.

‘ENTR has called a meeting with me tomorrow. They haven’t said what it’s about other than to say it relates to the management of the projects I’m in charge of and there are four of them. Emergency meetings happen but usually there’s a detailed explanation. There was nothing. It’s a summons and that says to me they know I’ve been in conversation with Fish and Game. I need to go into that meeting with your department behind me. It’s critical that I know today I’m not alone standing up to them. Otherwise, you’re going to lose me.’

‘Show me.’

‘I have pieces. You have to put them together. It’s a lot easier to move water around if you’re not hamstrung by lawsuits and regulations favoring fish species. But if the fish in question are already effectively extinct due to an invasive species that can’t be controlled then the reach of the lawsuits is diminished. We’re talking about forced natural selection and millions of years of evolution erased in a seven-to-nine-year period. After the native species are no longer viable, then hard truths have to be faced. The salmon and trout are gone and water is needed elsewhere.’

‘Give me the name of the biologist who is your source.’

‘I made a promise not to reveal his name but I’ll give it to you if we have a signed agreement. It has to have the Governor’s signature and your chief’s.’

They stared at each other and Marquez asked, ‘What’s changed since I last saw you? What made you drive here, Matt?’

‘They’re framing me.’

‘Who is?’

‘ENTR. They moved money around and made it look like I embezzled over eight million dollars from project accounts I manage. My lawyer says we’ll have to hire forensic accountants but it’s going to be a multi-year fight. I don’t know how they moved the money or where it is, but they’re threatening to bring in the FBI and turn me into a criminal and they’re asking for the same things you are. They want my source.’

‘Do you know Barbara Jones?’

‘A woman by that name from internal security has left me several messages in the past two days, but no, I don’t know her.’ Hauser closed his eyes. ‘Who is this captain of the Special Operations Unit you report to?’

‘Captain Waller.’

‘Do you think I could get a few minutes with him?’

‘I can ask him.’

‘I’d like to talk with him alone if I can.’

‘I’ll get him. Before I go, do you want to show me what’s on the memory stick?’

‘Not yet.’

Marquez folded his laptop shut and took it with him. He left Hauser sitting at the table doing a very good job of looking betrayed and miserable. In terms of being tracked and having his phones tapped and spyware inserted into his computers, Hauser was probably right. Eight million dollars was enough for the internal security to hire private investigators who wouldn’t shy from bending the law if necessary.

He found Captain Waller and as they walked back Waller asked, ‘What’s the bottom line? What do you want me to tell him?’

‘Tell him no deal until he delivers. Tell him he hasn’t given us anything yet and that he lied about Emile Soliatano. Ask him where Soliatano is.’

‘What about the embezzled money charges?’

‘Tell him it’s not our problem, but we’ll protect him in every way we can if he delivers the illegal hatcheries. If he does that we’ve got his back. If he stalls on that, we’ve got a problem and I need to find another source.’

‘Is that what’s going to happen?’

‘I really don’t know yet, but it’s not working out how he planned.’

‘Is he scared?’

‘He is. I don’t know what he really knows or what he’s done, but something got to him. He is afraid of what’s coming and I don’t think he’s faking any of that. It’s coming and he knows he’s out of time.’

H
auser was a bright guy but vain and superior and even if the embezzlement scheme was about to come down around his head he would stall. He would stall and the risk was more pike would get dumped in the rivers while Hauser schemed to protect himself. Marquez thought about it and then scrolled through the address book in his phone and called a number he hadn’t in a long time.