Rising Phoenix (15 page)

About fifteen feet from the back of the warehouse, a wall of furniture that rose almost halfway to the ceiling stood in front of them.

“How much did all this shit cost?” Hobart asked, jabbing a tattered armchair with his finger. His voice sounded artificial through the respirator.

“About ten thousand. It’s all junk—I just needed volume. I’d say we look like antique dealers now, though.”

“I’d say,” Hobart agreed.

Swenson pushed aside an Oriental rug and ducked under a large dining room table. Hobart followed him, noting that some of the pieces in the furniture wall had actually been nailed together.

As they emerged from under the table, a fifteen-by-forty-foot space opened up in front of them. It was dominated by five large wooden crates stacked against the wall and a long folding table that would have looked at home in a grade school cafeteria. Three empty crates sat in the far corner next to their splintered tops.

A thin figure in a white coat, thick rubber gloves, and an apron was stooped over an iron bathtub throwing in handfuls of mushrooms. The smell of alcohol was strong, even through the respirators.

“Peter! Look who’s here,” Swenson called.

Peter Manion glanced back and, seeing Hobart, snapped upright. He was wearing the same goggles and respirator.

“Quite a setup you’ve put together here, Peter,” Hobart said, walking the length of the table. It was piled with glass beakers and a mystifying array of other equipment. Hobart wondered how much of it was really necessary and how much was for Manion’s personal enjoyment. No point in dwelling on it, he barely knew a test tube from a Bunsen burner.

“So, what are you up to?”

“Uh, I’m converting the active agent in the mushrooms to a concentrated powder form. You see …”

Hobart cut him off. Despite his nap on the plane, his eyes were burning from lack of sleep. The last thing he needed was a two-hour blow-by-blow on the chemical processes involved in distilling poison. “How much have you gotten done?”

“Oh, I’d say about a fifth of it. I’ve got another week or so to finish.”

Hobart walked over to a large metal drum much like the ones that he’d seen full of kerosene in Colombia. Out of the top grew a transparent rubber tube capped by a cork stopper. “So you’re putting it in here?”

“Yeah. As soon as it’s dried into a powder I pour it in there. It’s a slow process—you don’t want to get any powder in the air. It’s real concentrated.”

“So how much of this stuff am I gonna need?” Hobart sat down on a rickety chair next to Swenson.

“Depends. Are the drums the same size as this one?” He pointed a shaky finger at the barrel with the tube in the top.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll have to do some calculations, but probably a half a pound per drum—something like that.”

As Manion turned, the reflection fell away from his goggles and Hobart got a good look at his eyes. He was flying. No doubt this was the reason for his enthusiastic cooperation. Hobart wondered if he even remembered why he was working with the mushrooms, or if he’d just pushed it to an unused part of his brain. In any event, he seemed happy, and Hobart wanted to make sure he stayed that way until the job was done.

“How you fixed for money, Pete?”

Manion looked at the ground. “Well, you know, okay, I guess.”

“Bob, see that Peter gets a thousand bucks before he goes home tonight.” He stood and turned toward the exit, letting Swenson go ahead of him. He wasn’t sure if he could make it back through the maze.

“Keep up the good work, Peter.”

Back in the office Swenson popped the top off another beer. “So when are we leaving?”

“We’ll let Peter finish what he’s doing—get that all tied up. Then we’ll go. How’re our guys in the field doing?”

“Things are getting set up pretty quickly. They all seem to have their covers set. Most of them have made at least one clean transaction.”

Gaining a reputation for dealing good drugs at a fair price would deflect blame to other parts of the distribution chain when they began introducing the orellanin into the mix. At least that was the theory.

Out of the top drawer of his desk Swenson took a few sheets of paper held together by a paper clip, and handed them to Hobart. “Here’s a full report. It’s pretty
current, I did it a couple of days ago. You were a little later getting back than I thought.”

“Yeah, me too.” Hobart rose slowly from his chair. “Hopefully Peter won’t go too fast. I need the week off.”

A well-rested John Hobart sat behind his desk punching numbers into a LOTUS spreadsheet. CNN was providing background noise.

The figures represented a one-year financial projection for Clipper City Antiques and Oddities. Things looked like they’d get a little tight in about twelve months, but it wasn’t worth worrying about. Who knew what the next year would bring?

He had been in Baltimore for a little over a week—plenty of time to slow down and focus on the details. He was completely up to speed on his four undercover teams and had spent some time thinking about the future of the project. So far he was happy with the plan that he’d originally devised. A few holes had appeared, but they were easily filled.

Swenson peeked his head around the corner of the office door. “He’s done.”

Hobart saved the file he was working on and walked slowly back to the warehouse. Swenson was standing next to the entrance, waiting for him, when he walked up and pulled a respirator off the wall.

“You won’t be needing that, actually. The lab’s clean. I’m getting rid of all the waste this afternoon.”

Hobart hung the respirator back on the nail and followed his partner into the warehouse, weaving his
way through the furniture with practiced ease. They found Manion tying up a large Hefty bag. All of the lab equipment was gone, and the floor and walls looked as though they’d been freshly scrubbed. There was still a puddle of water near a drain in the floor that Hobart had never noticed before. Near the loading dock door, a pile of garbage bags sat next to the remnants of the wooden crates that had protected the deadly mushrooms on their voyage from Eastern Europe. In the corner opposite the refuse, a stack of Tupperware containers sat, each sealed in its own Ziploc bag.

Swenson pointed to the containers. “I had Peter break the orellanin into smaller containers. The ones marked with red tape are for you. He figured out the exact amount you need.”

“That’s it,” Manion said, tossing the last bag onto the stack. “It’s ready to haul away.” He was breathing hard, unaccustomed to the physical demands of cleaning.

Swenson put his arm around Manion’s narrow shoulders. “We really appreciate your help, Peter.”

He really knew how to play the addict. Hobart noticed that Manion actually seemed to Have taken a liking to his partner, who was pulling a wad of bills from his pocket. Swenson pressed them into Manion’s trembling hand and began walking back out to the office with him, leaving Hobart alone. He walked over and ran his hand across the innocent-looking Tupperware, remembering that his mother had used similar containers to store leftovers.

It was almost time to find his place in the history books.

Hobart settled into the ragged easy chair for the last time and surveyed the dark room around him. Very little had changed. The same dishes sat on the coffee table, the food on them perhaps slightly more petrified than it had been a month before. The same books were stacked on the floor, though they seemed to have collected quite a bit of dust in his absence. The same closed-up smell assaulted his nostrils. He found all these things comforting in a way. He hated surprises.

Most of the money that he had given Manion he found stuffed in an envelope between his mattress and the filthy carpet. For all his brains, Manion just wasn’t very sneaky—something Hobart appreciated in a flunky. His usefulness was waning, though. Swenson had stayed close to him throughout the distillation process, asking questions constantly. Manion, who loved to talk endlessly about physics and chemical reactions, would have made a great college professor in another life. The reward for teaching Swenson everything there was to know about the distilling process wasn’t tenure, though.

Hobart had almost dozed off when he heard a key hit the lock. Looking at his watch, he registered that he’d been there for almost three hours. He watched Manion’s unmistakable figure come through the door, leaving it open behind him. A moment later a young girl walked through and pulled the door shut behind her.

She was just a waif, really. All skin and bones
beneath a billowing, full-length chiffon dress. She shared Manion’s pale complexion and red-rimmed eyes, though she was much younger. Eighteen at the most.

“Who’s your friend, Peter?”

They both spun around, startled. The waif almost fell over.

“John! What are you doing here? I’m finished!” He backed himself against the wall. The waif was over her initial fright but wasn’t sure what to do. She stood in the middle of the room nervously shifting her weight from one foot to another.

“Just one more thing, actually.” Hobart rose from his chair, stuffing his hands in his pockets. They were covered with surgical gloves and he didn’t want Manion to panic. He walked up to the young girl and looked her over carefully. His first impression had been correct, she was definitely no older than eighteen. A closer inspection revealed that she was really quite pretty, in a sort of fragile way. Also, she didn’t seem to share Manion’s shoddy personal hygiene habits.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Hobart said, not taking his eyes off the girl.

“Tracy. Her name is Tracy.”

“She looks a little young for you.”

Tracy was squirming beneath his gaze but hadn’t mustered the will to move yet.

Hobart bent and picked up a black satchel lying on the floor. He continued to focus on the girl’s face. There were no lights on, and it seemed to glow in the semidarkness of the room.

“Come here a sec, Peter.”

Manion did as he was told and took a place next to Tracy.

“Who is he, Peter?” She seemed even younger when she spoke. Her voice came out a high-pitched whisper.

“Its okay, Tracy. He’ll leave soon, I promise.”

“He’s right Tracy, with any luck at all, I’ll be out of here in five minutes, tops.”

With that, he drew his .45 and pointed it in their general direction. Tracy let out a squeal and Manion put his arms straight up in the air, like a train robbery victim in a bad western. Hobart put his index finger to his lips, silencing them both. Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a couple of handkerchiefs and handed one to each of them.

“If you would be so kind as to stuff these in your mouths?”

They stared blankly at him.

“C’mon, start stuffing,” he prompted, leveling the gun at Tracy’s nose. That seemed to be enough incentive for her, and she began pushing the cloth into her mouth. Manion followed suit.

“Get all of it … good. Now please turn around. Hobart pulled two bandannas out of the satchel and blindfolded both of them.

“Now, why don’t you both lie down on the floor and relax.” They both sank awkwardly to the floor.

Digging around in the satchel, he pulled a full syringe and a two-foot length of rubber tubing. He reached in again, fishing around the bottom of the bag until he found another syringe, brought along for just such a situation.

He wrapped the tube tightly around Manion’s upper right arm and unbuttoned his sleeve. The vein was adorned with an endless trail of holes and bruises—the result of fifteen years of daily injections.

Manion began grunting and wiggling until Hobart pressed the .45 up under his chin. The cold metal froze him. When he’d calmed down, Hobart plunged the syringe into a vein and depressed the plunger. Manion jerked with the initial prick and then relaxed deeply as the heroin flooded him.

Hobart turned his attention to Tracy, who seemed to be straining to hear what was going on. He unbuttoned her sleeve, but found no tracks. The other arm was also clean. He sat confused for a moment. She had the look of an addict and was hanging around with Manion …

He grabbed the hem of her skirt and began pulling it up. Her hands came to life, grabbing her thighs to stop the progression. The barrel of the gun under her chin was just as effective on her as it had been on Manion. She went limp and began sobbing quietly through the handkerchief in her mouth.

He pulled her dress the rest of the way up, exposing her pale thighs and a pair of faded pink panties. Pulling her legs apart, he found what he was looking for—track marks scrawled across her inner right thigh.

He drew his glove-covered finger up the soft, cotton covered cleft between her legs and then back down the edge of her panties, where wispy blond pubic hairs peeked out from behind the fabric. Her sobbing grew louder, and she began choking on the handkerchief in her mouth.

He moved quickly, repeating the procedure performed on Manion. He felt his fingers dig deeply into her thigh as the heroin relaxed her muscles, and he let go abruptly. A hand-shaped bruise on the girl’s thigh would probably go unnoticed by the overworked Baltimore coroner, but it didn’t pay to be careless.