“This damn thing drives like a truck.” Kirsten grumbled, as she wrestled with the Jeep CJ7’s controls.
“At least, we found one.” Rex pointed out. He studied the points he had plotted on the map with the list of longitude and latitude coordinates. The analysts that scoured the aerial photos found four suspect images within the boundaries of the mountain regions and ranked them in order of probability, from one to four.
Meanwhile, Kirsten was also able to receive a secure fax of a high-resolution image from a field office on which Rex was able to transpose the locations. “Number one just doesn’t look right to me.” Rex said. “I just don’t see any roads; a winery needs truck access. We’ll start at number two and work backwards if we don’t get anywhere.”
“Let me see that road map,” Kirsten said.
“Tell you what. Why don’t you stop, let me drive, and you can do the navigating.”
Reluctantly, she pulled in to a parking lot, put on the parking brake, and got out. “Fine. Have it your way.”
“You really have a hard time bringing yourself to say that, don’t you?”
“I need to focus on the mission. Get in and drive.”
Rex expertly shifted through the range of gears, and took the freeway entrance to Interstate 8. “I think the easiest way to get there is to take the eight to the one-eleven and then cross the border at Mexicali. We can take the Mexican two all the way to the mountains. From there, we will have to figure out how we’re going to get by on the dirt roads. Unless, of course, you have a better idea.”
She gave him a dirty look. The dirty look meant that she did not have a better idea. Although the Jeep was enclosed with a hard top, the wind noise made conversation difficult at highway speeds.
Finally the speed slowed down as they approached Mexicali. “Getting to these places is going to be a real bitch. If you take a look on the map, there is a river about seventy miles south of the town of Sonoyta. There seems to be a dirt road going up the valley. But listen, I don’t think this is going to be a day trip. I think we should plan on grabbing a couple sleeping bags, some food, and a lot of water.” Rex said.
“You really think that’s necessary?”
“Yeah, look at the time already. We have over a hundred miles of highway travel, and then probably a good fifty miles of dirt road travel over terrain, and that’s just to get to the place. Then we need to start looking. No, we’re going to be here a good solid two days, I assure you.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. I used to camp with my parents as a little girl. We can get a tent!”
“We don’t need a tent. It isn’t that cold.”
“We need a tent.”
“I don’t need a tent.”
“Fine. I need a tent.”
An hour later at a local sporting goods store, they had two sleeping bags and a tent in the back of the Jeep. The next stop was a supermarket. “Are we going shopping, together? The two of us?” She asked.
“Well, unless you want me to do it all myself.” Rex replied.
“I need to make a list. We’ll need hot dogs, hamburgers, a grill, charcoal...”
“Whoa! Stop! Just stop! We don’t have time for all that! We need canned stuff! Peanut butter! Some bread, and water!”
Shopping with this woman was like pulling teeth. Rex would grab two cans of tuna. Kirsten would grab a can of gourmet pink salmon. Then, there was the tin of smoked oysters. Rex grabbed one when her back was turned. She grabbed one herself when his back was turned. At least she agreed that milk, mayo, and eggs were out of the question. Some peanut butter and a single big, massive baguette of French bread should do it. In reality, Rex on his own could probably survive for a week on all this food. It was a little bit overdone, but at least she was happy. It was a classic case of ‘go big or go home.’ How can you not respect that?
Sure enough, as they reached the dirt road that runs parallel to the river, the sun started to set low. The valley between the El Humo mountains and the mostly unpopulated farming region of El Humo was easy enough to navigate, but by nightfall, travel through unmarked trails in to the hills west of the valley, where the target areas were located, would be to treacherous. One thing that the remoteness of the area had going for it was that it least it was secure. Camping on the side of the highway would be stupid and dangerous. Camping out in the middle of the desert mountains fifty miles from the nearest living person was no big deal.
Rex surveyed the sandy area for scorpions, and set up the tent. It wasn’t particularly needed for privacy, although certainly the protection from insects was welcome.
“Hey!” Kirsten exclaimed; it was pitch black inside the tent.
“Yeah?” Rex replied.
“I didn’t bring any sleepwear.”
“You’ve never camped in the wild before, have you?”
“It’s always been at RV parks.”
“In cold weather, you sleep naked, with your clothes inside the bag to keep them warm. In warm weather, you sleep naked, with your clothes outside the bag so they will dry.”
“But we’re in here, together.”
“It’s completely dark. I can’t see a thing.”
He could hear the sound of jeans and a flannel top being pulled off her body. “What about my underwear?”
“The longer it stays on your body, the less fresh it will be tomorrow. Your call.”
“I can’t move around in this bag. It’s really uncomfortable. I feel claustrophobic.”
Rex examined the bags with his hands. “Turn your bag upside down.”
“Will it work upside down?”
“It will work either way. They don’t have a top and a bottom.”
She struggled to roll the bag over and set it back in to place. “Okay.”
“Now unzip it, all the way down.”
“Okay.”
Rex joined the two zippers at the top and bottom, and zipped the two bags together. “There, now it’s one big bag. You can move around all you want.”
“What’s that noise?” Kirsten asked.
“What noise?”
“Quiet. Listen.”
“Just some coyotes in the distance.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“Nah.”
She slipped into his arms. He could feel her warm skin against his. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“I’m pretty sure it isn’t.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Obviously you don’t know that I’m living off the grid.”
“Yeah, I know that. I know who you are.”
“You do?”
“Don’t worry. Nobody else knows, other than obviously Simon.”
“The closest I ever got to having one is, for one brief night, I slept in a motel with a Korean girl who was on the run for an expired visa. Nothing happened in that motel room. She drove me to Los Angeles to meet Simon, and she was supposed to wait for me. But she didn’t. She left the country, and is now back in South Korea. She was supposed to marry some guy in an arranged marriage. I’m going to be honest with you, I think of her when I’m holding you, and it’s messing with me a little bit.”
“Let me get this straight – you met a girl for one day, nothing happens, she splits on you, and you’re feeling guilty about being naked with me in a sleeping bag?” She sounded angry.
“No! No, I don’t mean it like that. You have no idea how much I want to be with you right now.” She recoiled. He put his arms over hers. She turned over towards him, and their lips met.
The wind picked up as some high clouds blocked the direct rays of the morning sun, causing a dark, diffuse blue shadow effect inside the tent. It was cooler that morning, even slightly chilly outside. Kirsten was sound asleep in his arms. He was thoroughly exhausted from the acrobatics of the night. She stirred.
“My boyfriend from college wanted to marry me,” Kirsten said. “But I couldn’t. I was too focused on a career. Then the job with the Agency came up. I’ve maybe dated for or five times since then, but I could never think of being serious.”
Rex just listened, and held her. It is strange how nature works. From a man’s perspective, you spend ungodly amounts of energy to get them in the sack, and when you are finally successful, it’s like buyer’s remorse. What have I gotten in to? It is so complicating. And then that passes, and the urge returns. Then you get addicted. It’s like a drug.
“Come on. We better get dressed and going.” Rex said.
“I don’t know how I should feel right now.”
“Neither do I.”
“I have to control everything. You know that.”
“I can tell. And by the way, I wasn’t complaining about it last night.”
“But I lost control.”
“You lost control?”
“I can’t have children. The doctors said it will never happen. But even if that weren’t so, I wouldn’t have stopped.”
Rex had no comeback. Probably best to leave it as such. He did breathe a silent sigh of relief.
The Jeep climbed up a steep, rutted grade to a ridgeline where there was a large wooded barn like structure. “This is site number two. The one that looks most promising.” Rex said. “But, I seriously doubt this is it. This road looks untraveled in months, if not years.” He parked the Jeep in front of the wooden structure and took a look. It was abandoned, and empty. The purpose defied explanation, other than maybe years ago there was some sort of agricultural activity nearby.
As the Jeep headed down the trail, there was a crossing. He didn’t see it for what it was at first, but coming back he could see the switchbacks. He stopped the Jeep and looked at the map. “Look at that road we crossed. It’s been traveled on, by heavy stuff, and recently. But, there is nothing on the map. How old do you think the satellite imagery is?” Rex asked.
“I’m sure it’s not real time. It could be anywhere from a couple days to a couple years old.”
“Let’s check it out. This smacks of what we may be looking for.” The Jeep climbed the switchbacks. Rex noticed the spilled fruit on the sharp turns. “Grapes.” Ten minutes later, there it was. A large, tan colored metal building. It looked fairly new. And it blended in with the desert. There were a couple flatbed trailers loaded with empty fruit transport tubs. “Bingo.”
“Why the hell would anyone put a winery out here?” Kirsten asked, staring at the stark metal building in amazement.
“I don’t know, but it looks abandoned. At least, nobody seems to be here.”
They apparently didn’t expect company, because they didn’t bother to put locks on the doors. Inside the main bay were two rows of circular metal fermentation tanks. In back of the building was a water tank, probably stocked by tanker trucks. And a couple portable latrines under a shade stand.
“This doesn’t make sense.” Rex said. “It’s like they make a batch, then left.” Usually you see stuff posted on the wall, paperwork, desks, there is a lab room with some equipment. There were some cots in an empty side room.
“No it doesn’t.” Kirsten agreed.
Rex opened another side room. “Oh shit.”
“What?”
“Take a look at that. See those barrels? That’s military grade super-tropical bleach. They use that stuff for decontaminating chemical and biological toxins. And look at those suits.”
“Full containment hazmat suits.” Kirsten replied.
“Let’s get the hell out of this building. You need to get a team out here to check this place out. I have a real bad feeling.”
“This is now officially a credible threat. We need to get to a phone.”
“I’ll mark the map, so you can relay the coordinates.”
The Mexican Federales placed a perimeter tape around the grounds surrounding the tan metal building and staging lot, and guarded it as two UH 60 Blackhawk Helicopters landed in the far end of the cleared zone, stirring a violent dust storm. A team of analysts dressed in full containment gear approached the building and went to work collecting samples and taking photographs.
Back at her hotel in San Diego, Kirsten spent hours on the secure phone connection briefing the deputy director on what they found so far. She hung up the phone and lay down on the bed. “I don’t know what to do next. I feel like I should be doing something, I just don’t know what.”
“You can’t really do anything until we know what we’re looking at.” Rex rubbed her shoulders in a reassuring manner.
You can’t do anything until we know what we’re looking at. Operative word ‘we.’ “I’ve never been a team player.” Kirsten admitted.
“But you want a team, don’t you?” Rex said.
“I’m not saying I don’t like the idea. But I wish the team would call back. Like right now.”
“There’s one way to get them to do that...” Rex trailed off suggestively.
“What’s that?”
Rex engaged her in a passionate kiss.
“You’re bad. You’re really bad.”
The call finally did come through. Rex was fast asleep. Kirsten slipped on a bathrobe and answered the buzz of the Navajo 1 secure telephone set.
“Agent Maples?”
“Yes?”
“Ma’am, I’ve got some news.”
“Good, I need some.”
“It’s not good news, Ma’am. It turns out that the facility in question in the remote mountains of Sonora, Mexico is a production facility for biological weapons. Specifically, anthrax.”
“Anthrax?”
“Yes, those fermentation tanks you saw?”
“Uh huh.”
“Those aren’t fermentation tanks. Those are incubators. They appear to have engaged in the production of anthrax spores in a liquid substrate.”
“Oh my god. You said engaged, you mean they already finished. Left. Split.”
“How much?”
“Our estimate is tens of thousands of pounds. A few thousand gallons.”
“Oh Jesus, what could someone do with that?”
“Ma’am, you don’t want to know.”
“Inform the deputy director please, and let him know that I am taking the first flight back to McLean in the morning.”
“Will do ma’am.”
She crawled back under the covers. This may be the last opportunity to sleep in Rex’s strong, reassuring embrace.
“What was that?” Rex asked, as she settled in.
“I need to go back to Virginia in the morning. We have a real problem. It’s now an official Agency highest level priority.”
“What are we talking about?”
“Anthrax. In a liquid base. Thousands of gallons were produced, and now it’s gone.”
“Oh my god. The plane.”
“What about it?”
“If it isn’t already equipped to be an aerial sprayer, it could easily be configured as such.”
Kirsten sat bolt upright. “Remember that girl we picked up?”
“Yeah.” Rex replied.
“If you had thousand gallons of anthrax spores to spray, where would you do it?”
Now Rex sat bolt upright. “Oh my god! The pilots. That song. ‘No sleep ‘til Brooklyn’! New York. And that aircraft has the range.”
“Rex?”
“Yes?”
“I’m bad about complimenting people, but that was a first rate detective job you did.”
“Thanks. I guess I’m not needed anymore?”
“We’re putting all available resources on this. I suspect the director will brief the president when I get back, if he hasn’t already done so.”
“Okay. Good luck.”
“What about...”
“Us?”
“Never mind. It was never supposed to have been.”
“There is no part of me that doesn’t want to explore a life with you, but forget about your personal issues with relationships, I’m a marked man. A persona non-grata. If the wrong people find out who and where I am, I’m going straight to a firing squad and they’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Why don’t you work on clearing yourself?”
“Trust me, I want that more than anything, but it’s a little more difficult than that. They have me railroaded pretty thoroughly.”
“Simon can’t help? He seems pretty smart and well connected.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I like the man and I trust him, but he has the most to lose by clearing my name. Right now, he’s got me right where he wants. No, I have to do that on my own, and on my own time, which there is little of left.”
Rex finished a grueling workout in the seedy Torrance gym. The owner of the gym gave him a discount membership. They were training fighters. Rex started to make a name for himself from the first day. He was winning sparring kick box matches. He was coaching when he wasn’t hitting the weights or pounding the speedballs.
He sat in the hot sauna and poured water over the heated rocks and sat in a sweat. He had to clear his mind. He couldn’t get close to a woman. He couldn’t go soft. He had to remain tough. He was enjoying her comforts too much. Way too much. It was starting to get emotional. He could not allow himself to go emotional. He had made that mistake before, and paid for it.
Simon would surely assign him to another case. He had made the promise that he would see So-Young, and return her stuff. Actually, the only promise he made was to return her stuff to her. He looked through the box again. The horses. The essays. Her clothes. The black, silky underwear that still held her scent. Then he remembered the passion. The desire. The craving.
Simon gave him one week. There were a few things he could do with that one week. He could talk to Captain Tyrell Lewis’ mother in Georgia. What good would that do? She believes he’s his killer, just like everyone else. He could go and look for the real killers. He had an idea of who they might, be but no idea on how to go about going after them. Killing them would be easy but killing them wouldn’t be good enough. He needed solid, irrefutable proof. Then there was So-Young. But now he was conflicted. A week ago, a trip to visit So-Young would have been a given. She represented the same unachievable destination for his future that Kirsten represented. And then came along Kirsten. Life sucks. It isn’t fair. But it isn’t about fairness. It’s about survival.
There are meth addicts. They get a hit of meth, they are hooked. Alcoholics? They get a taste of booze, and a taste isn’t good enough. Chain smokers? Smoke one then you need another. The scent on a pair of black silky underwear?
“Mr. Muse?” The woman asked as she typed on a computer terminal.
“Yes?”
“How many will be traveling in your party?”
“Just myself.”
“How many days will you be staying?”
“Five.”
“Okay... Yes, I can book you a round trip. Economy is okay?”
Do I look like a first class traveler? Rex thought in irritation. “That would be fine, thank you.”
“How many checked bags will you have?”
“Just one, a cardboard box.”
“Enjoy your stay in Seoul.”
“Thanks.”