The Covert Element (18 page)

"Will do, Carl. Have a nice day."

Marsden made notes about the services contracted for by Carl
Ryan. Then he proceeded to call the other nine anhydrous
customers with similar questions. Some were in the fields and had
called him back around lunch time. By the end of the day, he had
spoken with all the anhydrous customers.

Now he put pen to paper, calculating the amount of anhydrous
ammonia required to spray the acreage covered in the service
contracts. He came up with a number much smaller than his Farm
Services Manager had been ordering. In fact, three times smaller.
Marsden suspected that one or more of the employees in the Farm
Services Division were selling the anhydrous on the side, or maybe
doing custom applications "off the books." The manager should stay
on top of this situation.

Marsden called the Farm Services Manager into his office the
following morning, confronting him with the apparent discrepancy
in ammonia purchased versus ammonia sold.

The Manager blamed his assistant for not keeping better track
of such things and promised a thorough investigation.

This approach seemed reasonable to Marsden, provided that
the discrepancy could be resolved. Marsden directed that if any
employee was caught stealing company materials, the manager
should notify Marsden immediately. He would not tolerate
dishonesty in Bellechester Organic. The guilty party would be
turned over to the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department for
thorough investigation and prosecution.

The Manager expressed his agreement and left Marsden’s
office vowing to find the responsible party.

Checking out the excess anhydrous purchases had been the
easy part. The small number of customers had been crucial to his
one-man investigation. The elevated iodine expense and the
excessive corporate income would be much harder issues for him to
tackle. Perhaps there was only a single bad egg in his operation.
Once he or she had been identified, he hoped they would confess to
responsibility for all discrepancies.

In any case, for now, he would await his Manager’s
investigation.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The morning after Walter Marsden had requested his manager
to investigate the excess anhydrous issue, the gold Mercedes paid
another visit to Bellechester Organic. Seeing Dosdall and Ashcroft
exiting the vehicle and approaching his office flustered Marsden
beyond measure. His brow began to perspire and his stomach
churned. Gathering his courage, such as it was, he met the two men
at the door.

"Mr. Dosdall. Mr. Ashcroft. I’m surprised to see you. Please
come in."

He extended his sweaty hand to each of them, directing them
inside his air conditioned office.

The men accepted his greeting but said nothing until they were
inside and the door was closed.

"Walter. Let’s have a seat at your table again, shall we?"
Dosdall’s voice implied a command and carried none of its usual
pleasant, albeit patronizing, tone.

He and Ashcroft brushed past Marsden, taking the same seats
they had occupied a few months earlier. Marsden remained
standing by the door.

"Is there something wrong?"

"Walter. Take a seat. We need to talk."

Marsden obeyed, now wringing his hands under the table.

"I don’t see what the problem could possibly be," he tried.
"Profits are great. Bills are all getting paid on time."

"You had a problem, Walter, and you didn’t bring it directly to
me." Dosdall’s eyes were cold . . . empty . . . foreboding.

"Instead, you took it upon yourself to contact our customers
and start your own investigation."

"That’s true, Mr. Dosdall. But I assure you . . . ."

"We don’t require your assurances, Walter – only your
compliance."

Marsden knew he was in trouble. He didn’t yet understand
why. But between Dosdall’s cold stare and the imposing presence of
Ashcroft at his left, Walter was downright frightened. This was a
business. No businessman had ever confronted him with such a
degree of . . . intimidation was the best word to describe it. Marsden
remained silent, waiting for whatever might come next.

"Our clients at Bellechester Investors are most distressed at
your failure to follow my instructions." Dosdall leaned back in his
chair and sighed in frustration.

"For God’s sake, Walter. You were going to call the Sheriff?
How stupid are you?"

Marsden began to speak, but decided it was better to wait. He
clearly was missing something here.

"Walter. Bellechester Organic belongs to
Los Cinco
."

Marsden looked back and forth between the two men, hoping
for some further explanation. The words
Los Cinco
meant nothing
to him.

"Don’t you ever watch the news, Walter? Read the newspapers?
Los Cinco
is the largest drug cartel in Mexico, probably the
wealthiest criminal syndicate in the world.

"Who did you think would invest in your pitiful organic crops
project when the banks wouldn’t touch it? Did you think we were
some do-gooder organization that wanted to make our food
‘greener’?

"Good God, Walter. How could you be so naive?"

Marsden’s heart throbbed in his throat. His breaths came
shallow and rapid. Sweat streamed down from his temples.

"So you think the books look a little bit funny. Like maybe
somebody’s stealing our ammonia. It’s us, Walter. We’re stealing
our own ammonia. And iodine as well. And a few other chemicals
that were never on the books.

"Bellechester Organic is in the
meth
business, Walter. And very
profitably so. My clients want very much for this to continue. Your
insatiable meddling in our books and threats of police involvement
do not comport with my client’s plans.

"Do you now understand our problem, Walter?"

Marsden nodded repeatedly, his shoulders shrinking forward
to near table height.

"Are you here to kill me?" His voice was barely more than a
whisper.

"Oh for God’s sake, Walter. Don’t be melodramatic. My clients
don’t kill people unless there are no other options. Killings are
messy. Law enforcement starts nosing around. It’s not good for
business.

"No, Walter, we’re not here to kill you . . . only to impress upon
you the gravity of your situation. You should be thanking us. What
if the Manager had not reported your inquiries to Mr. Ashcroft
here? You night have called the Sheriff. They may have found our
little enterprise and shut us down. Then there would have been no
reason for you to live, Walter.

"Do you see how lucky you are?"

Marsden nodded mechanically.
Oh God, oh God, oh God!

"If not for our visit today, you might have done something that
would have cost you your life. And not only yours, Walter . . ."
Dosdall reached into his breast pocket and withdrew an envelope
which he slid across the table to Marsden, ". . . but the lives of these
people as well."

Marsden looked at Dosdall to see if he should open the
envelope. Dosdall nodded.

Marsden slid the contents into his hand. The envelope held
photographs of his wife, his children, and his grandchildren. And
not only pictures, but names, addresses, social security numbers,
vehicle licenses, and descriptions, and much more.

Marsden choked at the thought that his stupidity might have
prompted the murder of his entire family. He felt ashamed for not
seeing this criminal involvement sooner. He should have
investigated his partners before allowing them to join the business.
But he had been afraid to lose his investments, his retirement plan,
and possibly his home.

And pride . . . yes, pride factored into that equation as well. He
didn’t want his baby to fail. The community looked up to him. His
wife admired him for his success in this risky venture. She had told
him so more than once. His pride could not let it fail.

And now where was he? In league with the mob. His family in
peril for their lives. Tied so tightly into a criminal enterprise that
there seemed no way out . . . no way, that is, but utter compliance.
He could hope that his cooperation might yet save them all. He had
to cling to that hope. There was no other.

"What must I do?" The photos shook in Marsden’s hands.

Dosdall reached across the table and snatched the photos, the
envelope, and the other information it contained.

"You see who holds your family in his hands, Walter."

Dosdall let that statement sink in.

"All we require of you is to do your job as you have been.
Collect your generous pay. Keep the missus happy. Take pride in
the organic foods your business truly does produce. Stay the course,
Walter, and all will be well. Trust me."

A duplicitous smile crossed Dosdall’s face.

"I see." Marsden truly did see. He fully understood his life
situation for the first time. He had become a criminal in the first
degree and would need to remain so as long as possible, for his
family’s sake. For his own sake as well.

Dosdall and Ashcroft stood. Marsden remained slumped over
the table.

"I hope we can we count on your cooperation, Walter."

Marsden stared blankly at the table top.

"Yes, Mr. Dosdall. You can count on it." He paused, then
turned to look up at the bringer of this pestilence into his life. "You
can count on
me
."

"Very good, Walter." Dosdall’s cheery tone was back. He leaned
to whisper in Marsden’s ear.

"Good decision, Walter. Very good decision."

Dosdall slapped Marsden on the back. Then he and Ashcroft let
themselves out.

As the door swung closed, Marsden’s head fell onto his folded
arms . . . and he wept.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Arising early the morning after the BCA hacking adventure, I
kissed a sleeping Beth gently on the back of her blonde head as I
slipped out of the bedroom.

I wanted to do some thinking before I approached Gunner with
the new information Beth had so nimbly, and quite illegally,
acquired. I turned the coffee maker on and opened my computer on
the kitchen table. The black granite felt cool. I appreciated anything
that was cool during these hot summer weeks.

When the coffee was ready I poured some into a glass of ice
and returned to my laptop.

As I skimmed the reports I hadn’t read yesterday, it became
apparent to me that the BCA had not yet resolved the puzzle of the
single gun and the twenty-three cooperative corpses. The "Final
ME’s Report" was not part of the document portfolio in my
possession. The ME may yet discover some toxicological evidence
that would flesh out my thoughts about poison or drugging.

I noted that the BCA had requested federal assistance with the
limited task of identifying the victims. Since none of the dead
seemed to be carrying identification of any sort, fingerprints would
be the first line of attack, followed by dental records, and then,
facial recognition software.

I returned to the ME’s preliminary report. It appeared as
though none of the dead had benefitted from fillings, bridges or
other dental fixtures. There were missing teeth, to be sure. But it
seemed likely that these men had not experienced the pleasures of a
modern dentist’s office. In my mind, that could mean either that
they were recent immigrants from a third world environment, or
that they were here illegally and hadn’t chosen to seek dental care
for that reason. On further thought, I had to allow that plain old
poverty might result in the same dental situation. So the teeth
didn’t really tell anyone much at all.