One

The charred remains of the cabin were black and smelled like the dying embers from campfires of her youth. A two-by-four tore away from the remnants of the ceiling and fell, hitting the soft ash floor like a branch landing in new-fallen snow, causing the cinders to dance and spark, and spawning a small flame.

US Customs and Border Protection Agent Peyton Cote stood outside the cabin and pocketed her radio. The volunteer firemen could take their time; there was nothing left to do but douse the ashes.

She moved around the perimeter, not risking entry because the walls were gone. Three scorched two-by-fours supported the entire roof. She recognized a metal bed frame, twisted and blackened. Above the cabin, past the lingering smoke clouds, lay a stark juxtaposition to what she viewed: a rolling canary-yellow canola field, the warm summer breeze swaying it back and forth in the distance.

It was nearly 2 p.m. on a fine Tuesday in June in tiny Garrett, Maine, along the Canadian border. At 8:20 a.m., Marie St. Pierre had called the station saying she’d seen two men, in the light of the full moon, cross her husband’s potato field around midnight the previous night. The field spanned 450 acres and ran east to Canada.

Behind Peyton, glass and wood lay near the tree line, forty-three paces away, by her count. She’d seen gasoline explosions. The flames here were long gone, but the lingering heat—even standing thirty feet away—told her this fire had burned extraordinarily hot.

What had exploded and when? Marie never mentioned hearing a loud sound.

The broken beaker on the ground stopped her.

Peyton inhaled slowly, her mind turning cartwheels and transporting her back to the West Texas desert, to a shotgun shack she’d once stumbled upon. The long-held memory triggered a realization—and a fit of terror.

She turned and sprinted back to the line of blue spruce trees, stopping finally to exhale like a swimmer bursting through the water’s surface.

For a split second, her mind ran only to ten-year-old Tommy. At that moment, she wasn’t an agent, only a single mother. She breathed in the fresh air, gathering herself, hand shaking as she unclipped her cell phone from her service belt.

“Jesus Christ,” she said aloud, then: “Bring DEA, and tell them they’re going to need HAZMAT suits. We might have a crystal meth lab in Aroostook County.”

“The land is owned by Fred St. Pierre,” Peyton said an hour later, glancing warily through the pine forest at the four men in HAZMAT suits.

She’d been joined by State Trooper Leo Miller and Garrett Station Patrol Agent in Charge, or PAIC, Mike Hewitt. The three stood, sipping coffee a safe distance away, watching the fire marshal and three DEA agents sift through the remnants of the charred cabin.

“Fred owns all of this land?” Miller asked. Peyton nodded. “Hell of a tax bill,” he said.

“This morning,” Peyton said, “around eight, Marie St. Pierre, who was my second-grade teacher about a hundred years ago, called the station to report two men had crossed her husband’s potato field last night around midnight.”

“That’s Canada to the east,” Hewitt said.

She knew what he was insinuating: a potential unmanned border crossing.

The day hadn’t begun with fires and long-distance hikes. Peyton arrived at the station after using a half-day of vacation time for a field trip with Tommy’s fifth-grade class to a classmate’s lakefront home for an end-of-the-school-year swimming party.

In northern Maine, Border Patrol served as backup for local and state law-enforcement agencies, so her shift began with a call to a domestic dispute. Next was the trip to Marie St. Pierre’s farm. Peyton had grown up in Garrett and had requested the transfer home nearly four years earlier. She knew the people and culture well. In this region, where farming was a way of life, the federal government was viewed with hostility. And she knew why, had seen it firsthand: many local farmers struggled to compete when the Canadian government subsidized its potato farmers. So she’d brought Mr. and Mrs. St. Pierre cookies, a thank-you for the tip, and started what she hoped would be a routine follow-up hike across Marie St. Pierre’s property.

“You don’t think this was a fertilizer explosion?” Hewitt asked her.

“Not on a potato farm,” she said. “And no one should go near the place until we know what was in there. The fumes could be toxic.”

“Fred isn’t going to like having fire trucks cross his fields,” Miller said.

“I’m sure they’ll try to avoid the crops,” Hewitt said.

The annual potato harvest dominated the region. Schools commenced in August and closed for three weeks so teens could help bring in the crop. Peyton, the daughter of a potato farmer, had grown up before machinery ruled the labor force. She’d worked the fields each fall, side by side with laborers, lifting rocks from the potato rows to spare the mechanical picker from ingesting the stones.

Now, for the most part, Aroostook County schools closed to honor tradition, though some farms still used teens. When stopping to check migrant workers’ documents, she loved talking to the kids. They might listen to Shakira on their iPhones as they work now, but they still wore jeans and flannel shirts, still felt the same cold hard potatoes in their palms that she’d felt nearly twenty years earlier.

“Last time I was at one of these fires,” she said, “I was with six other agents.”

Hewitt, wearing a nylon field jacket, poured Peyton and Miller coffee from his thermos.

“In El Paso?” Miller asked.

“Just west of El Paso, along the Rio Grande. There were seven of us there, but as luck would have it—”

“The place still burned to the ground?” Miller interrupted.

Afternoon sun slanted through the dense pine canopy.

“No. I was the one to find the body—or part of it.”

“Lucky you,” Hewitt said.

“Part of it?” Miller asked.

“Explosion,” Peyton explained. “I found a hand that looked like a slab of blackened tuna. At least this time I only found shards of glass. I spotted the first ones near the tree line.”

Miller had been scribbling on his pad and looked up. “So we’re talking an initial explosion? Not a fire that led to an explosion?”

“That’s my guess,” Peyton said. “Happens all the time at these places. That’s why the cooks are in such high demand. They find a body in there, chances are it won’t be a local.”

“You sure this is Fred St. Pierre’s cabin?” Hewitt said.

“He owns all this land,” she said. “About five hundred acres back here. When I was a little girl, I used to play in these woods with his daughter, Sherry. In high school, after my father lost our farm, I worked the harvest for Fred, picking rocks one year.”

“You stay in touch with the daughter?” Miller asked.

“I hear she’s downstate,” Peyton said, “a professor at the University of Southern Maine.”

A quarter mile away, in the potato field, a deer moved quietly over the dirt. It was something Peyton loved about her job, about this region. Maine’s northernmost county, Aroostook, was a land mass the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined, but home to fewer than seventy-two thousand residents. She loved conducting a border sweep on foot and seeing deer, moose, and bald eagles. Even stumbling across a black bear, which always led her to draw her service weapon, was a treat she knew few people outside this remote region experienced.

But this rustic environment also meant 137 miles of international border for agents to prevent contraband from entering the US. It was easy to see why 9/11 terrorists had crossed the border here—a relentless cause of shame for agents assigned to this post. Up here, the memorial catch phrase Never Forget was replaced with Never Again.

“After we hear what Mitch says”—Hewitt pointed toward the fire marshal—“I’d like you to go talk with Mr. St. Pierre.”

She nodded and drank more coffee.

Miller said, “I’ve got to call in my location.” He walked away, cell phone held out, searching for reception.

They watched Miller talk on the phone for several seconds.

When he returned, he said, “My boss wants confirmation of what we think it is.”

“We haven’t verified anything yet,” Hewitt said, “so I’d appreciate you not spreading this all over.”

“I’ve seen these before,” Peyton said.

“So you’re sure?” Miller asked.

“It’s not verified, Leo,” Hewitt said.

Peyton turned to him. “There are a few ways to find out.”

Hewitt nodded. “Yes, there are.”

Then they heard the shouts and turned to see one of the young DEA agents vomit in his mask.