Heartland (30 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Heartland
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“Kenneth!” Janice called from the road again.
Newman started back, but stopped again as he looked down the cornrow. Why target a few fields around Des Moines, Iowa? If Turalin had planned this entire thing,
why stop at just a few fields?
“Christ,” Newman swore. He pulled an ear from a stalk, then bolted down the cornrow and out to the road.
A county sheriff's car was parked just behind Newman's. A uniformed officer stood with Janice.
“Here he comes,” the deputy said, smiling. “Why don't you come on up here, Mr … . Newman?”
Newman came up onto the road, and crossed over to them. “Where's the nearest telephone I can use?”
The cop was taken aback. “In Adel, I suppose …” he started. “Just what the hell were you doing out in that field?”
Janice was looking at him, wide-eyed, her gaze flickering from his eyes to the ear of corn he was holding and back.
“And what the hell are you doing with that?” the deputy asked, pointing at the corn.
Without a word, Newman yanked back the husk to expose the rotted mess.
“Jesus H. Christ,” the deputy swore.
“The entire field is like this,” Newman said. “So is the Bormett field.”
“Bormett?” the deputy snapped. “What do you know about the Bormetts?”
“This—whatever it is—originated on the Bormett fields, and unless I'm way off, it's airborne and spreading all over the place.”
“Jesus H … .” the deputy said, and he let it trail off. “Just who the hell are you?”
“I'm a grain dealer. I came out to talk with Mr. Bormett, but we heard on the radio he was dead. Committed suicide. Now, will you get me to a telephone?”
“Who're you going to call, your lawyer?” the deputy asked. He couldn't keep his eyes away from the infected ear of corn.
“The Secretary of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. And I suggest that you get hold of your state Department of Agriculture and the governor. These fields are going to have to be burned off. Right now, before this spreads across the entire state.”
The deputy's lips were working, but no sound came out. He glanced from the ear of corn to Newman and then out to the fields on both sides of the road. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said again. Then he turned back. “You'd better follow me. We'll go back to the office in Adel.”
“Right,” Newman said. He laid the infected ear on the floor, in the back seat of his car, and as soon as Janice had gotten in, he made a U-turn after the deputy and took off after the flashing red lights.
“What is it, Kenneth?” Janice said in a weak voice.
“I don't know,” he said. “Some kind of disease. And unless they sprayed this field as well as Bormett's, it's airborne.”
“Bormett's field was infected?”
“That's right.”
She turned in her seat to look at him. “Bormett went to the Soviet Union a few weeks ago.”
Newman glanced at her. “That's also right.”
“Colonel Turalin,” she said, and she looked out at the cornfields. “But why would he do something like this? He wanted to buy the corn. Why kill it?”
“I don't know, Janice. I just don't know.”
 
Curtis Lundgren was just leaving his office when his
secretary called him back. LeMear from the FBI had telephoned ten minutes earlier with some wild story about a dead Russian in Duluth. McCandless was coming over from Langley, and they were all supposed to meet at LeMear's office. It obviously had something to do with Newman, but LeMear had not been very clear. He had sounded very upset.
“What is it?” he asked his secretary, stopping in the doorway.
“It's an urgent telephone call, sir,” the woman said.
“Tell whoever it is that I'll get back to them. I'm out now.”
“It's Mr. Newman, sir.”
“Newman?” Lundgren sputtered. “I'll take it in my office.”
“Yes, sir,” the secretary said.
Lundgren hurried back into his office, slamming the door behind him.
“This is Lundgren, now what the hell is going on and where the hell are you, Newman?”
“Listen to me, and listen to me closely, Lundgren, we've got a disaster on our hands out here, unless you move damned quickly.”
“What the hell is going on?” Lundgren shouted.
“I'm calling from Adel, Iowa … just outside Des Moines. Does the name Bormett mean anything to you?”
“Bormett,” Lundgren said. “Why of course. We sent him to the Soviet Union just …” He stopped. “My God. The Russians.”
“That's right,” Newman said. “Bormett's cornfields are infected with some kind of a disease. We're calling the university to send someone over here to try and
identify it. Meanwhile the infection has spread to at least one field five miles away.”
“I'll call the governor. You may need the National Guard to help burn off the fields. Where are you?”
“The sheriff's office in Adel,” Newman said. “And listen, Lundgren. Last night in Duluth, a Russian tried to kill me. You'd better call the authorities. His body is in my garage.”
“Right,” Lundgren mumbled. “Meanwhile, sit tight. I'm coming out there.”
Lydia Vance-Ehrhardt-Newman stood at the twentieth-floor window of the company building in downtown Buenos Aires, watching the
villas miserias
burn. The flames leaped high into the night sky, and the dense black smoke blotted out the stars toward the east. In other parts of the city she could see the flash of sporadic firing as Federal District troops continued to battle the Montonero freedom fighters.
“Libertad!”
was their battle cry. Lydia shook her head. The
libertad
banners had suddenly appeared yesterday from rooftops, out windows, in the parks, along the beaches. It had been the signal for the revolution to begin.
She had been caught at work, and although the fighting hadn't gotten this far yet, it was coming close. Before too long, unless the federal troops got help, she and
the others would be cut off here in the Vance-Ehrhardt Building.
Most of her chief executives had already left the city. Many of them had even left the country, taking boats across the Río de la Plata to Uruguay, and airplanes to Brazil and Boliva.
Even now there was a steady stream of aircraft leaving the airport southwest of the city. As long as the federal troops held that district, the planes would continue to leave. But the troops could not hold too much longer; the Montoneros were too well organized, and too well equipped, and had at least the tacit support of the army, whose lower ranks remained in their barracks.
When this was over, Lydia thought, lighting a cigarette as she watched the fighting, the new government would probably nationalize all the businesses, including Vance-Ehrhardt. But even if they didn't do that, they'd surely meddle with the pampas farm system, which was, of course, the lifeblood of the Vance-Ehrhardt conglomerate.
There would be little or nothing remaining in Argentina for the Vance-Ehrhardts, or at least there'd be nothing until the government stabilized and its leaders realized that a company is not merely a collection of buildings and a few employees. It needed leadership, expertise, and international connections. They would call back the executives, offering them certain advantages, and business would get back to normal.
Such a thing had happened before in Argentina, and it would happen again. Lydia was not overly worried. She was confident she could get to the airport before it was too late, and equally confident that she would
return one day to resurrect Vance-Erhardt. But before she left Buenos Aires she wanted the answer to one question. She would not leave without it.
Grainex, their New York subsidiary, had first alerted her to the probability that not only was her husband dealing with the Russians, but that there was also a connection between Captain Perés and the Soviets. Perés had been seen on at least one occasion meeting with a known Russian sympathizer.
Also, Lydia had heard that Perés had meant to kill Kenneth, but that the operation had been botched and Paul Saratt had died instead.
She had heard about the plot from one of Perés' own people who was on the Vance-Ehrhardt payroll. But her informant did not know exactly who had ordered the assassination. Had it been Perés himself, or someone else? She was determined to find that out as well.
Someone knocked at her office door, and Lydia turned away from the window. “Come,” she called out.
Francisco Belgrano, her father's personal secretary, came in. He was an older, distinguished-looking man who walked with a limp. Her father had trusted him implicitly, and so did she. “If I were to lose my mental capacities, Belgrano could step in and take over the entire business tomorrow,” her father had once said.
During the past weeks she had relied heavily on his abilities and judgment.
He seemed distraught now. “You are simply going to have to leave this instant, my dear,” he clucked, beginning to gather up papers from her desk.
“Has the messenger returned from police headquarters yet?” she asked. The telephone system was out; the revolutionaries had blown up the main exchange
as one of their first acts. She had sent a messenger to ask Perés for a meeting.
“No,” Belgrano said without looking up.
“Then we will wait.”
“But his driver is back.”
“His driver?” Lydia asked.
Belgrano looked up from what he was doing. “Your messenger was killed.”
“The fighting has come that far?”
Belgrano shook his head. “No, madam. The driver informs me that Capitán Perés himself shot and killed poor Hernández.”
Lydia's nostrils flared. She could feel the color coming to her cheeks. “Was there a message?”
“No, madam. None that I was told of.”
“Where is the driver now?” Lydia asked, coming over to the desk.
“In the garage, waiting to take you to the airport.”
Lydia opened a desk drawer and pulled out a .380 Beretta automatic. She checked the clip to make sure it was loaded, then levered a round into the chamber. “How about you, Francisco? Will you be coming with me?”
“No,” the man said, straightening up. “I will remain. When the fighting dies down, they will need a maintenance staff here. Just until you return.”
And if I never return, Lydia thought, you would do quite nicely as the head of Vance-Ehrhardt. But she didn't give voice to the thought.
She stuffed the gun in her purse, came around the desk, and gave Belgrano a kiss on the cheek. “I'm sorry it ended this way, Francisco,” she said softly.
His eyes were suddenly moist. “I can understand the
revolution, but I cannot fathom the murders of Sir and Madam.”
“Take care,” she said, stepping back.
He handed her the thin briefcase into which he had stuffed the papers. “You may need this,” he said.
She took it, turned on her heel, and left the office. She went down to the brightly lit subbasement parking garage. The electricity was off in much of the city, but this building had its own emergency generating system, as did many buildings. Her father had had it installed years ago.
The young driver who had been leaning against the hood of her Citroen sedan straightened up as she approached.
“Are you sure it was Capitan Perés, and no one else, who shot Hernández?”
“Si, señora,” the frightened young man said.
“But then he let you go. Why?”
“He told me to come back and tell you … and you alone … what happened. He said you would understand his answer to your question.”
The answer was loud and clear. Perés had killed Saratt, after all. But what else? How deep did his involvement with the Russians go? And would he try again to kill Kenneth? “Let's go,” she said, climbing in the back seat. The driver jumped in behind the wheel, started the car, and headed out.
“The main highway out to the airport is still clear, señora,” he said.
“First we will stop at Police headquarters,” Lydia said.
The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror.
“I'll only be a minute or two. Then we will go straight
out to the airport.”
“But señora, Capitán Perés … he is still there.”
“I hope so,” Lydia said, smiling. “I hope so.”
It took less than five minutes to reach the police building, but already the fighting was closer. As the driver parked at the side of the building, Lydia could hear gunfire less than two blocks away. The driver was obviously frightened half out of his mind.
“If they come too close, take the car and drive like hell,” she said, getting out. “I'll find a ride out to the airport with one of the policemen.”
“But, señora.”
“Wait only as long as you can, then get out of here,” Lydia shouted, and she strode across the sidewalk and entered the building.
Just inside were three wide, marble steps that led up to the lobby. Sandbags had been placed across the steps, and she stood at the bottom looking up into the muzzles of a dozen rifles.
“Do not fire!” someone shouted.
“I want to see Capitán Perés,” Lydia called up.
A police lieutenant with greasy hair stood and waved her up the stairs. She picked her way through the sandbags; at the top he helped her over.
“I am Lieutenant Martinez. I will escort you up to the capitan.”
“I can find my own way, thank you,” Lydia said.
“I will escort you,” the lieutenant said firmly. He took her arm and led her across the lobby to the bank of elevators. Only one, apparently, was working. There were sandbags everywhere. They were waiting for the siege to begin.
They entered the elevator, and when the lieutenant
turned his back to Lydia to press the floor button, she quickly opened her purse and pulled out the Beretta.
He turned around and his eyes went wide. He started to reach for the pistol at his side.
“I will shoot you without hesitation, lieutenant,” Lydia said. The elevator doors closed and they started up.
“What do you want?”
“How many people does Perés have up there with him?” she asked.
Something flashed in the lieutenant's eyes. “A dozen soldiers. Maybe more. Give me your gun.”
“If you are lying to me, I will kill you the moment the doors open.”
He stepped back. “There is no one there with him. He is alone.”
“No one is watching the elevator?” Lydia asked. Something was wrong. The lieutenant was hiding something. She raised the gun so that it pointed at his head. “Quickly,” she said.
“Whoever comes up must call on the elevator telephone. Otherwise the doors will never open. He has the master switch up there.”
“Call him!”
He picked up the telephone.
“Make a mistake and I will kill you,” Lydia said. “You have a message for him that must be delivered in person.”
“Capitán, it is me … I, we must talk, sir,” the lieutenant said. He was sweating. “Yes, sir, I am alone.” He looked at Lydia, then shouted, “It is Lydia Vance-Ehrhardt …”
Lydia fired, the shot hitting him just above the right
eye. His head snapped back, and he dropped the phone and crumpled to the floor.
Perés' office was on the fifteenth floor, and they were already coming to the twelfth when Lydia hit the button. The elevator lurched to a halt, and slowly the emergency doors came open onto a corridor with office doors on either side.
She jumped off the elevator; a split second later an explosion shattered the silence. The car rattled in the shaft, and then suddenly dropped out of sight, crashing to the bottom. Perés had evidently placed an explosive charge on the elevator cables.
She raced down the corridor to the stairwell, and then up three flights of stairs to the fifteenth floor, where she opened the door a crack and looked out into the wide corridor. No one was in sight. She stepped out and hurried toward Perés' office, which was off a side corridor to the left. She came around the corner as the large man was turning away from the open elevator doors, where he had been looking down the shaft. She raised her pistol as he started to bring his submachine gun up.
“Don't!” she shouted.
He stopped, the gun halfway up. “Your husband is not dead,” he said. He was very nervous. She could see that he was sweating.
“But you ordered him killed, didn't you?” she snapped.
“A lot of people will die for Argentina before it is right.”
“Why do the Russians want my husband dead, Perés? He has been working with them.”
“The Russians? How would I know that …”
“You've been seen with them, goddamn it! Don't lie to me or I will kill you this instant.” She raised her gun a little higher.
Perés backed up a step. “It is a lie.”
“It's not a lie,” Lydia said, advancing.
“You have to believe me. I'm not working with them. Please,” he pleaded.
Lydia said nothing.
“Look … the Russians ordered the kidnapping of your parents so that your husband's deal with them would go through unhindered.”
“What?” Lydia cried.
“Yes, it's true. We caught one of them who had been left for dead at your parents' mansion. One of the terrorists. We gave him drugs. He told us everything.”
“Then you were involved with my parents' kidnapping too!”
“No,” Perés shouted, backing up another step. He was very close to the open elevator shaft.
“Why, you dirty bastard? Why kidnap my parents, and then try to kill my husband? Why both? What are you trying to do?”

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