The Blackbird Papers (25 page)

Empty words from a politician-in-waiting, and Sterling knew it. “Can't do it, Senator. It's not business anymore. It's personal.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way,” Murph said. “You leave me no choice but to consider you armed and dangerous. From here on out, Bledsoe, all bets are off.”

“Your support is overwhelming.” Sterling hung up as he came off the Brooklyn Bridge and steered the car along the water's edge. The phone rang again. Murph having second thoughts? Sterling ignored the phone this time, as he should have the first. He weaved in and out of a maze of one-way streets and back alleys until he found what he was looking for—a small, cobblestone, dead-end road hidden underneath the long shadows of a row of boarded-up warehouses and burned-out buildings. He pulled up alongside a chain-link fence, feet away from the heavy steel columns of the Manhattan Bridge. He fell asleep with his hand on his gun and the twinkling lights of Manhattan blinking in the distance.

37

T
he constant tapping was part of his dream. He had locked himself in an office and a team of agents were hunting for him. They were going door to door, busting into offices that had been locked for the night. He reached by his hip for his gun, but realized he had left it in the car. A sense of doom squeezed his heart. He covered his ears, but the knock was still there. Slow. Constant. He wanted to scream. Why didn't they just break down the door already? He turned left, then right, but it was still there. Then the knocks grew more forceful.

Sterling opened his eyes slowly and shielded his face from the blazing sun. He looked left. A police officer was standing at the window, one hand on his stick, the other on his gun. He was a short, barrel-chested white man with biceps straining his sleeves. He sported one of those hard-ass buzz cuts, close on the sides, sticking straight up on top. There was a tap on the right window. His partner. A tall black man with a shiny bald head. He gave Sterling the roll-your-window-down motion. Sterling squeezed his right hand. The gun wasn't there. It must've fallen between the seats, which right now was a good thing.

“How's it going, Officer?” Sterling said, as he rolled down his window. “I guess I lost track of the time.” The easy approach.

“License and registration,” the cop drilled away, skipping the whole pleasantry exchange. “And proof of insurance.” Another robotic local. No personality, all attitude.

“Is there a problem?” Sterling asked. He almost reached for his FBI shield, but thought better of it. He was on the run.

“There's no standing after eight,” the officer maintained in flat tones. His left hand was free, but he still used the stick to point at the parking sign. Thinly veiled intimidation. “Not only are you parked, but you're sleeping. What are you doing down here?”

“Waiting for a buddy,” Sterling said. “We're supposed to meet here and carpool over to the city. That lame two-person commuter requirement to get in over the bridge.” Sterling handed his license through the window.

“You have New Hampshire tags,” the officer said. “You live around here?”

Sterling chuckled, giving himself more time and trying to defuse the mounting tension. “The tags. Not mine. My car's in the shop. Busted transmission. This here is a rental. Wish it were mine, though. I'd have a lot less problems than with my piece of shit.”

The officer looked at Sterling's license, turning it over in his hands a couple of times. “You live here or in Virginia?”

“Just moved up from Virginia, about thirty miles out of D.C. I've been here for a month, staying with a friend over in Fort Greene.”

“Can I see the rental papers?”

Sterling reached into the glove compartment, pulling out the sleeve of papers. He shuffled through them as if he were trying to get them organized, but he was quickly checking to make sure there were no references to the FBI. He put the origination paper in the back, hoping the officer wouldn't notice the car had been rented in New Hampshire.

“Everything's here,” Sterling said, handing the papers to the officer.

The officer looked at the rental agreement, then matched the name to Sterling's license. Satisfied, he glanced across the car at his partner who hiked his shoulders, signaling he believed the story. Sterling considered what to do if they still went back to run his info through the computer. A simple check and they'd be ready to call in the National Guard for backup.

“When's your partner coming?” the buzz cut asked.

Sterling looked at his watch. “Typical. He's already ten minutes late. Punctuality isn't his strong point, but luckily, he's the boss.”

“Open the trunk, please,” the black officer said.

Sterling popped the trunk and waited while they inspected. There wasn't anything back there except for the box of documents and diskettes. Nothing suspicious. They returned to the windows, taking their respective sides.

“What kind of work do you do?” It was the short officer again. Now he was leaning his outstretched arm against the window frame. The bottom portion of a tattoo appeared just underneath his sleeve. It looked like the rear wheel of a Harley. Sterling read his nameplate—Bronchetti. It should've read “Tough Guy.”

He continued to play along. “I'm a computer programmer, Officer Bronchetti. Small company in the Flatiron District.”

Bronchetti looked at the license again. “This is a no-standing zone, Mr. Bledsoe, even if you're waiting for someone. And if you've moved to the city, you should be carrying a New York license. The next time you get stopped, the officer might not be so lenient and issue you a summons.” He handed the license back to Sterling.

“Thanks, Officers,” Sterling said. “I'll get that done right away.”

They gave him one last look-over. “And maybe you need to get some more sleep at home,” the tall officer said before turning to leave. “You look horrible, buddy.”

Sterling thought of a few choice words, but resisted answering. He watched as the officers returned to their car then slowly pulled off. He let out a deep sigh, waited a few minutes, then started the Mustang. The sweat running down his back made his shirt stick to the seat like glue. The car had definitely become a liability and it was time to dump it, but not before he made a drop-off.

He drove over the Manhattan Bridge into the city. At Houston Street, which separates SoHo from Greenwich Village, he turned west, then raced to the Avenue of the Americas and headed north. He passed the famous West Fourth Street basketball courts, and even at this hour some of the hoopsters were dazzling the morning work crowd, acrobatically flying through the air and dunking the ball in positions that he had only seen in the circus. Continuing north, then west, he reached Eighth Avenue. Rush hour was in full swing, but he raced the Mustang in and out of traffic, finally bringing it to rest in front of the enormous federal post office across from Madison Square Garden. He pulled the car into an illegal spot, the only one he could find, then removed the box of papers and diskettes from the trunk. A cab almost wiped him out as he dodged the traffic to cross the street.

Pennsylvania Station, New York's greatest interstate railroad hub, occupied the entire basement of the Garden. Millions of travelers crisscrossed the durable linoleum, making their way to trains and subways or upstairs to join the long line of suits waiting for yellow cabs. Sterling knew that he had to move quickly and quietly. Since 9/11 and the Iraq war, the Office of Homeland Security had tightened controls around large public venues like Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. Several National Guardsmen walked through the fast-moving crowds, green berets sloping across their heads, their hands cautiously massaging machine guns. Small packs of NYPD officers also patrolled, moving the homeless along and chasing panhandlers.

Sterling walked past the big Amtrak board and entered the eastern hall, which housed the New Jersey Railroad and the city subway lines. He walked past Zabar's and Starbucks, then turned the corner and stopped. The threat of terrorist bombs and anthrax had led to the removal of most of the lockers, and this was the last cluster that remained. There were sixteen lockers in all, but as Sterling surveyed the door locks he noticed all of the keys were missing. They were already being used.

He leaned against the wall and considered his options. Going to his apartment was out of the question. With Murph's go-ahead, teams were surely already posted up and down his street and his phone lines would be tapped. But he could drop the box off at the hotel until he found a more permanent location. As he turned to leave, he almost plowed into an old woman who had stopped at the bottom row of lockers. She rummaged through her pocketbook for a few moments before finally taking out a key. Opening a locker, she removed a small suitcase and shopping bag, whispered something to herself, then joined the hordes of commuters scuffling to the trains.

Sterling waited for the woman to disappear, then turned his back to a group of National Guardsmen walking toward Zabar's. Once they had passed, he slid around the corner and squeezed the box into the locker. He dropped a handful of quarters into the door slot and grabbed the key before quickly turning to exit. Safely outside, Sterling swiped the parking ticket off the Mustang, started the engine, and headed west on 34th Street. He stopped by a small grocery store on Ninth Avenue and purchased a can of charcoal lighter fuel and two of the morning papers. He moved the Mustang into the long line of cars heading through the Lincoln Tunnel to New Jersey. As he sat in traffic, he asked himself if perhaps he had missed something. This time he focused on the blackbirds. First, who knew about their deaths? Heidi, Mandryka, Kanti, and Bigfoot all were aware of the birds, but no one knew about all of the others except Heidi, which struck Sterling as more than peculiar. Wilson hadn't even told Kay about the birds, so why had he confided in Heidi? Did he tell her of his own volition or did she find out about his discoveries and confront him?

Kanti had said that Heidi had brought Wilson to him. Wilson and Heidi had shown him a video of the blackbird carcasses that Wilson had taped on one of his nature scouts. That led Sterling back to the initial question—why was someone intentionally killing the birds? He had gotten no closer to answering that question than when Mandryka first showed him the dead birds in the basement lab.

Sterling finally made it out of the tunnel and turned onto the New Jersey Turnpike. He headed south and exited at the town of Elizabeth. He had only been there once before and that was after making a wrong turn when he tried to find the discount Swedish furniture store IKEA. He had gotten off one exit too soon and found himself lost in a rundown neighborhood of small streets and dilapidated homes. Though it was the middle of the day, there were few people out and those who were walked quickly with their heads down and their hands jammed in their pockets. He remembered thinking at the time about the countless murders that had been committed on those desolate streets and never even reported. It wasn't like New York's ghettos, with their tall brick complexes and glass-strewn courtyards scarred by graffiti. But it still had the electric feel of imminent danger. Most people lived in one- and two-family dwellings plastered with brightly colored aluminum siding. The small one-window bars and gated-window corner delis served as a warning to unlikely visitors that this was not the most friendly of places to stop for a can of soda and bag of chips. Few police cars patrolled the area and that wasn't by mistake.

Sterling took a series of turns, working his way to the pier. He passed a group of teenagers throwing gang signs at each other, then puffing their chests as he drove by. He found a road that ran along the pier, passing a series of junkyards, tow yards, and shipping docks. Then he found the street he had been looking for. A row of abandoned houses was on one side and a string of deserted lots on the other. Several cars had been left to rust away on cinder blocks, their bodies stripped down to the frame, their windows either smashed or missing. Sterling pulled into the back of the lot and killed the engine. He took out the can of lighter fuel and doused the car's interior first, then the exterior. When he had emptied most of the can, he threw it on the backseat, then lit a ball of newspaper. Standing as far back as he could, he tossed the newspaper at the car and ran for cover as the car erupted into flames.

As a small burst of explosions sounded, Sterling ran across the street and waited on the other side, only willing to leave once the car had been incinerated beyond recognition. The license plates turned black first, then melted under the intense heat. The windows popped out sequentially and the flames shot hungrily into the sky. Sterling looked up and down the street to make sure no one else had been watching. When the seats had been torched down to the floor and the nauseating smell of burning rubber reached him a hundred yards away, he flipped off the safety lock on his gun and headed into the edgy town, searching for the nearest train that would take him to the city.

38

S
terling walked out of Jerry's Den on 125th Street in Harlem feeling like a new man. He had shaved off all his hair and his bald dome glistened in the hot afternoon sun. He stopped at a Korean sporting goods shop and purchased a black skullcap that he rolled down to his eyebrows. At a Salvation Army thrift store he picked up a lightweight-canvas green military coat that made him look ready for the fiercest of battles. He kept his jeans, but completed the hip new look with a pair of trendy black Timberland boots that he had seen many of his students wear.

Sterling headed east on 125th Street and, forgetting the jam he now found himself in, took his time to absorb the rhythmic sounds and bright colors unique to the Harlem streets. It had been several years since he last visited this neighborhood, and he felt pangs of guilt that he rarely took the easy ten-minute drive north to enjoy the spirit of his people and the zest of their rich culture. Africans hovering at the corner of Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard wore their traditional multicolored garb, hawking dashikis, masks, and colorful lamps. The Jamaicans owned the corner at Malcolm X Boulevard, sitting behind small tables of burning incense and bootleg reggae CDs, their roping dreadlocks falling to the middle of their backs.

Young mothers pushed crying babies and old men exchanged war stories as they leaned against the buildings sharing laughs. Sterling bought a bean pie from one of the young Muslim men dressed in a freshly ironed black suit and wide bow tie, then caught the downtown express train on the east end of 125th Street. A couple of high-school girls in his subway car giggled and flirted with him, the confirmation he needed that his new youthful disguise might actually work. He crossed over to a local train at 86th Street, then exited when it reached 68th Street—Hunter College. He needed to find out as much as possible about blackbirds and if they held any type of significance that would cause someone to intentionally poison them by the hundreds. If anyone would have the answers, it would be Xao Zhang, an ornithologist from Guangdong Province in China and one of his oldest friends at the school.

Sterling blended into the crowd of students, listening to a few of them argue about the hottest rap song as he kept an eye out for uniforms or agents from the Bureau. He waited for the Lexington car traffic to stop before crossing. That's when he spotted the first car. It was parked on the northeast corner of 68th and Lexington, facing east. He could see the wires hanging from their earpieces and snaking behind their collars. They were wearing identical blue blazers. Sterling crossed to the south side of the street and joined a group of students rushing to a class in the Hunter East building. He caught a side profile of the agent seated in the passenger seat and his jaw tightened. Skip Dumars. He and Sterling had hated each other ever since a tense confrontation many years earlier.

Skip had just been assigned to the New York City field office and had landed the East River murders, his first high-profile case and a chance to make a name for himself. He had spent weeks on the tedious investigation, questioning witnesses and sorting through the evidence. Then a decision had come down from high up the Bureau's food chain, and Sterling had taken over the case. Skip reluctantly handed over the files to Sterling, but not without a major fight that had left them enemies for life.

Sterling thought about the venom in Skip's eyes the last time they had seen each other. He knew that Skip must have tasted blood when he took this assignment.

Sterling remained camouflaged by the group of students as they made their way along 68th Street. Twenty yards more and he'd be clear to duck into the Hunter East building where he could backtrack his way to the zoology department. Sirens rang out in the background, cabbies honked at a stalled car, and city buses lumbered down the crowded street. Keeping his eyes focused ahead, Sterling spotted the second car. They were parked farther east on 68th Street, facing west toward Sterling. A male and a female agent, both sporting dark glasses that wrapped around their faces.

“Bledsoe,” a man's voice called from behind. Sterling didn't turn, but he recognized the raspy bark of Skip Dumars. “Stop right there, Bledsoe.”

The group of students suddenly stopped and turned toward the commotion. Sterling busted out into a full sprint. The agents at the other end of the street jumped out of their car, guns drawn. Sterling slipped into the lobby of Hunter East, running past the security guard, knocking over a couple of students as they waited in line to present their IDs.

Sterling ran up the back escalators to the third floor and heard Skip's barking before he entered Wexler Library. He quickly moved down the carpeted aisles, trying not to draw any unnecessary attention. Minutes later, he exited the library and ran to the glass walkway bridge that connected Hunter East with Hunter West. Several students sat against the far wall typing away at the bank of computer terminals, while another group waited in line at the portable ATM. Sterling slowed to a walk on the bridge and looked down at the street beneath him. An army of police cars had strangled traffic north of 68th Street and angry drivers were getting out of their cars looking for the source of the holdup. Several government sedans had lunged up on the sidewalks, their lights flashing. Sterling ran across another bridge and entered the Hunter North building. He turned back and was relieved not to see any signs of Skip or the other agents.

Sterling raced to a back stairwell and hurtled down four flights, then crossed through the basement bookstore into a service elevator. A tunnel, which few people other than the janitors knew about, connected Hunter North to a small townhouse on 69th Street that was used for a bunch of administrative offices, including the zoology department. Sterling plowed through the swinging doors, then sprinted through the dark tunnel. Once he reached the other end, he removed his cap, wiped the sweat pouring from his shaved head, and took a moment to catch his breath.

He walked down a maze of narrow hallways to the corridors of the zoology department. Large posters of zebras and fish and felines adorned the walls, leading to a back stairwell that most ignored for the more convenient bank of elevators. Sterling hopped the three flights of stairs and walked the length of the fourth floor to Zhang's lab, nestled in the corner of the building. The door was open when Sterling approached.

“Zhang, you here?” Sterling called out, stepping into the dimly lit lab. Large skeletal remains hung from the ceiling and stuffed animals had been mounted on the wall. A wide, scaly snakeskin had been cut open, stretched, and pinned across the back wall. Footsteps echoed on the linoleum.

“Bledsoe,” Zhang said. He was in his usual attire, a long, white coat stuffed with pencils and markers and utensils only a professional ornithologist would carry. He wiped the corner of his mouth as if he had just finished lunch. “What brings you to my small corner of the world?”

“I need your help, Zhang.”

“You sound so serious. Why the military fatigues? They shipping you off to a war I don't know about?” Zhang let out a small chuckle, his plump cheeks rising high enough to cover his eyes. He stopped when Sterling didn't join in.

“I'm in a bit of a tight situation,” Sterling said, leaning against one of the workbenches. “I need to pick your brain about something.”

“Not much to pick, but you can work with what's there.” Zhang's self-deprecation was more out of habit than necessity.

“I need to know about blackbirds.”

Zhang's face tightened. “Blackbirds? Which ones? There are at least six species in North America alone.”

“The red-wingeds.”

“Ahh, my favorite, and in my opinion the most interesting. What do you want to know about the red-wingeds?”

“Why might someone want to kill them?”

Zhang repeated the question to himself, something he often did. “To my knowledge, the red-winged is not a bird that hunters care about.”

“I'm not talking about hunting, Zhang. I mean kill. Poison. Can you think of any reason why anyone would want to poison blackbirds?”

“Depends on what part of the country you live in and your occupation.”

“What does that mean?”

Zhang waved Sterling to a lab table and pulled out a tall stool. When they both had settled into their seats, he explained. “The red-winged blackbirds are arguably the most abundant blackbird in North America. Great for ornithologists like me, because that makes them easy to study and their movements well documented. But if you're a farmer in the northern Midwest, then that doesn't make you happy at all.”

“The same for the Northeast?” Sterling asked, trying to focus on the blackbirds in Vermont.

“Different situation,” Zhang said. “See, at least 70 percent of the country's sunflower crop is cultivated in western Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. This sunflower crop provides most of the country's sunflower oil and birdseed. So it follows that many farmers' livelihoods are based directly on the success of their sunflower crop. The blackbirds, however, have only made it difficult for them. The red-wingeds in particular love the succulent sunflower seed and sweep down on those fields, ravaging millions of dollars' worth of crops.”

“How big of a deal is it?” Sterling asked. He was already scribbling notes.

“Some estimates of the yearly damage can reach as high as $10 million when you include the cost of trying to keep the birds away from the crops. What you have to understand is that in just the upper Midwest alone, sunflowers can be a $300 million-plus business. We're not talking about chump change. To many of these farmers, it's a matter of financial life and death. This is why the National Sunflower Association in Bismarck, North Dakota, has made such a big deal of this down in Washington. They've spent a tremendous amount of time and money lobbying the Washington bigwigs to fund a program that would kill many of the blackbirds and save their crops.”

Sterling digested the new information. Wilson had discovered hundreds of dead blackbirds, but there were probably thousands more hidden back up in the mountains. Everything would fit together nicely if he could somehow link the regions.

“What's the likelihood that farmers in Vermont and New Hampshire are also growing sunflowers?”

Zhang shook his head. “Agriculture isn't my thing, but I think it's highly unlikely to find sunflower crops in those areas. Topography and weather are critical for certain crops, but any more information about the sunflower crop is pressing beyond my knowledge.”

“Did Congress ever decide to fund that killing program?” Sterling asked.

“Yes and no,” Zhang said. “The last time I read something on it, controversy, dirty politics, and in-fighting had bogged everything down. The alliances keep changing. Early on, farmers picked up a lot of sympathy in Washington. Then the animal rights advocates heard about the planned killing and cried foul. No pun intended.” Zhang laughed at his own joke. “The animal rights people have their Washington support, too.”

“How were they suggesting the blackbirds be killed?”

“Poison. I think they've used DRC-1339 in the past, but I'm not sure if they were going to stick with that. Hold on for a minute.” Zhang went back to another office, where Sterling could hear him opening and closing desk doors and rummaging through papers. He returned a few minutes later carrying a folded sheet of paper. “This is an old friend of mine,” Zhang said, handing Sterling the paper. “His family sponsored me when I immigrated here from China. He was an important man in the Audubon Society. Call him and tell him that I referred you. He's a little grumpy, but stick with him. He knows more about the politics of wildlife than anyone in the country.”

Sterling took the paper and slid it inside his coat. He closed his book and extended his hand to Zhang. “You've been a big help, Zhang.”

“I like the new look,” Zhang replied, pointing to Sterling's head. “Makes you look fifteen years younger.”

The two men shared a brief smile. “I need one more favor,” Sterling said. “The conversation we just had never happened. You haven't seen me in weeks.”

Zhang's eyes narrowed as he frowned. “Is everything all right, Bledsoe?”

“I don't know right now. But until I figure things out, it would really help if you kept this little talk between you and me.”

Zhang nodded. “When you find Mack, tell him you want to know about the project.”

“Does the project have a name?”

“You bet it does. The Blackbird Project. He'll know all about it.”