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"Mark Beamon slammed on the brakes too late, causing the subcompact he'd unwisely rented to fishtail along the dirt road before the front wheels dropped into a deep rut. He frowned deeply as the dust caught up with him and billowed through the open windows, wondering if this time he was irretrievably stuck.
The idea of spending government money to replace the rain inundating Washington, D.C., with the blue skies of Tucson had been appealing in theory. A little sun, some Mexican food, maybe a quick round of golf. But this wasn't Tucson. It was a godforsaken desert in the middle of nowhere.
It was impossible not to wonder what would prompt a sane person to live in this cactus-strewn dust bowl. No pools, no manicured fairways. Hell, no shade.
He stuck his head out the window to make sure there were no buzzards circling before gunning the car out of the rut and continuing up the narrow scar that passed for a road.
When his phone rang five minutes later, he'd barely made it another mile. The nine holes he had planned for that afternoon were starting to look shaky.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Mark."
"It's about time."
"You said 4:00 p.m. It's exactly 4:00 p.m. Arizona time. In fact, the second hand is hitting the twelve. Now."
Beamon couldn't help smiling. Of all the people who worked for him, Terry Hirst was his favorite. Not only was he incredibly competent and annoyingly punctual, but he simply couldn't be intimidated. A rare trait in the skittish, PC world of today's government.
"Fine, you win, Terry. What have you found out?"
"You received the email on his basics, right? Work history, education, and all that?"
"Yeah. Moving along…"
"Okay, first of all, the one thing everyone agrees on is that Erin Neal is a genius in the true sense of the word. He's the guy in the field of bioremediation."
"What the hell's bioremediation?"
"I asked the same thing. It's essentially the business of using bacteria to clean up toxic spills. So basically he breeds bacteria that eat all kinds of stuff. Mostly we're talking about oil, but he's also come up with bacteria that eat radioactive waste and ones that can work in really harsh environments, like in coal processing."
Beamon crested a hill, but still couldn't see any sign of human habitation. Did the guy live in a cave?
"Neal started a bioremediation firm that did work all over the world and made him a lot of money," Hirst continued. "Most of which he plowed back into research or used for environmental causes…"
"Christ," Beamon moaned.
"What?"
"He's a hippie, isn't he?"
"Not so much," Hirst said. "In fact, I think it would be fair to say that the hard-core environmentalists can't stand him. He wrote a pretty influential book called Energy and Nature. I ordered you a copy."
"Why don't you just give me the Reader's Digest version?"
"Essentially, it's about the future of energy and the environment, taking into account politics and human nature. He takes a dim view of people–that if it costs us absolutely nothing, we might do something to protect the environment, but if it comes down to saving a tree or running our A/C, it's going to be no-contest. So he felt like the eco-movement needed to refocus itself on creating technologies and realistic strategies that would get people excited, regardless of any benefit to the earth. So, for instance, he'd say that building an electric car is pointless unless it's really sexy, four wheel drive, and goes from zero to sixty in under six seconds."
"Let me guess," Beamon said. "He managed to piss off both sides."
"More or less. The environmentalists saw him as a sell-out and the business community wasn't really persuaded to cough up any money. Anyway, about a year after his book came out, he folded his company."
"His company folded?"
"No, he just shut it down. The guy was printing money as near as I can tell."
"You mean he sold it."
"I'm telling you, Mark, he handed his people big severance checks and closed the doors. Then he went to work consulting for the oil companies–Exxon, BP, and Saudi Aramco primarily. Then he dropped off the face of the earth."
"So he just walked away from that, too? I gotta think the Saudis pay pretty well."
"No doubt. But other than his address and bank records, we've got nothing current on him. He doesn't have a job, he doesn't do research, and doesn't write anything that gets published."
"So he's some kind of hermit?" Beamon said.
"Seems like."
"You know what a hermit is?"
"No."
"A lonely hippie. Anything else?"
"I checked his criminal record–"
"Wait, let me guess. He chained himself to a tree in a logging camp."
"No–"
"They found marijuana plants growing in his VW bus?"
"Are you going let me finish? He has two arrests for disturbing the peace and one assault. The charges were dropped in all cases. So maybe he's an angry, lonely hippie."
"I wouldn't–" A call beeped in and he checked the number. "Shit, Terry. I've got to take this. I'll talk to you later."
He picked up and hung his arm out the window, tapping a rhythm on the hot steel of the door. "Carrie? You there?"
"Mark, I just got your message–I was at the hospital late. What are you doing in Arizona?"
"Vacationing on your tax dollar. Actually, we have someone we needed to talk to here and it's pretty important, so I had to come myself." He grimaced at his inelegant delivery of the obvious lie.
"Pretty important, huh?"
"As far as you know."
"Are you coming back tonight?"
"Not sure, yet. That's the plan, though."
"You know we're supposed to look at tuxedos."
In fact, he was aware of that. His secretary had not only put it on his calendar, she'd drawn a heart around it in pink highlighter. There was only so much he could take, though. As near as he could tell, wedding planning was a circle of hell Dante considered too terrifying to write about.
"I'm sorry, Carrie. It just couldn't be avoided."
"I'm ordering the baby-blue one with ruffles." He snorted. "Let me save you the trouble. I've still got one in the attic from my prom. Just get the tailor to let it out."
XXXXXX
Beamon wasn't sure what he was expecting, but this was pretty close. The white adobe house looked as if it had been inspired by teepees and seashells in roughly equal parts, and there was no yard, just reddish dirt, looming saguaros, and various pieces of what looked like industrial junk. The gigantic solar panel was identifiable, as was the high-tech windmill, but the Honda hybrid parked next to a slightly crooked barn was so covered in unfathomable gadgets that Beamon recognized it only because one of his neighbors drove one. Most dominant, though, was a large above-ground pool surrounded by scaffolding. And standing on top of that scaffolding was a man dressed only in a pair of camouflage shorts holding something that looked like a giant wooden spoon.
Beamon pulled the car up to a boulder and got out, shading his eyes and squinting at the man staring down at him through mirrored goggles. His shaggy hair was even blonder than in his photos, and his bare torso had a tan muscularity that suggested professional landscaper more than scientist.
"Are you Dr. Neal?"
"Who the hell are you?"
"My name's Mark Beamon. I work with Homeland Security."
An irritated smirk crossed Erin's face before he turned and went back to stirring his pool.
"I don't suppose you'd want to come down and talk?"
Erin just kept stirring, forcing Beamon to grab hold of the rickety two-by-four ladder that climbed the side of the scaffold.
By the time he got to the top, he had sweated through his thin golf shirt, but the rate of his breathing had hardly increased at all. As annoying as Carrie's vegetarianism and after-dinner power walks were, he had to admit that a few years ago, walking from his car to the Taco Bell had left him huffing. He was getting so used to feeling good, it was hard to remember his life before her.
Erin pretended to ignore him, continuing to swirl the green sludge that had taken over his pool.
"I'm no expert, but I'll bet a little chlorine would fix that right up."
Erin pulled his goggles up onto his head to appraise Beamon for a moment, obviously unimpressed. "It's an experiment."
"Bacteria, right? That's your business."
"Hobby," he corrected.
"Hobby. So what do these bacteria clean up?"
"Am I under arrest?"
"No."
"Then I don't have to answer your questions."
Beamon glanced up at the sky, futilely hoping the sun was about to dip behind a cloud. "You know…" he started, but didn't finish.
"What?"
"Nothing. Never mind."
"No," Erin said. "What were you going to say?"
"Just that if I was as rich and good-looking as you, I'd be less pissed off."
Erin spun in his direction and jabbed a finger violently in the air with his free hand. "Who the fuck do you think you are? You drive in here and start asking questions and judging me. You don't know the first thing about me. So why don't you just go tap someone's phone or something?"
Beamon nodded slowly but didn't move; instead, he examined the elaborate grid laid over the pool and tried to discern whether the goop varied from one compartment to another.
Erin moved around the scaffold with this spoon, but as the silence between them stretched out, he became visibly uncomfortable. "I'm experimenting with bio-solar. These bacteria generate electricity from the sun and other nutrients. It's sort of a cross between algae and an electric eel."
Beamon crouched and examined the contents of the pool more closely, but it still just looked like sludge to him. "So I'll be able to throw some of this in a puddle outside my house and run my TV on it someday?"
"Nah. I don't think it'll ever work. Interesting, though."
"If you say so. You know, I'm burning up out here. Any chance we could go inside and talk for a few minutes?"
Erin eyed him suspiciously, but finally just shrugged, jumped off the scaffold, and stomped through the dust to his porch. Beamon considered the drop for a moment and then took the ladder.
Inside, the un-air-conditioned house was more seashell than teepee. Messy enough to be just on the border of saying something unflattering about Erin's psyche, with furniture that was half homemade and half mail order. Much more interesting was the artwork. As near as Beamon could tell, it consisted completely of photographs of the same woman. He walked up to one of her standing at the base of a cliff with a climbing harness on. Early thirties, pretty, with one of those smiles that made you sure you'd like her if you met her.
"Who's this?" Beamon asked. According to the information Terry Hirst had provided, Erin had never been married and didn't have a sister.
"You can't search my house without a warrant. I know my rights."
"For Christ's sake, Erin. I'm not searching your goddamn house. I was just hot."
Erin frowned. The suspicion on his face was now marred by a hint of guilt at being the obvious bad guy so far in this relationship.
"Girlfriend," he said finally.
"Does she live around here?"
"She's dead."
Beamon kept his expression impassive, but he was imagining drowning Terry in a toilet bowl for missing that. "I'm sorry."
"She was an environmentalist. You know, one of those groups you people have been bugging and spying on because you think they're terrorists."
Here we go, Beamon thought.
"Her boat sunk with all hands a while back. I figure the government was probably behind it."
"You know, they don't give us torpedoes," Beamon said, and immediately regretted it. He'd tried to leverage the fact that his fiancée was a psychiatrist into some kind of improvement in his own bedside manner, but so far he'd accomplished zip.
"What do you want, Mark?"
"Actually, I want you to look at a sample of some sludge."
"What's in it for me?"
"You seem to like sludge."
"No."
"How about the warm fuzzy feeling of helping your fellow man?"
"You're getting colder."
Beamon sighed quietly. "Look, we've gotten wind of a problem at a Saudi oil field, and with all the turmoil over there, we're already kind of living on the edge where supply's concerned. Shit, the people I rented my car from said they're charging six bucks a gallon if I don't bring it back full. So we'd like you to take a look and see what you think. Tell us if it's something we need to worry about."
"Wait a minute," Erin said. "Did Rick Castelli put you up to this?" Of course he had, but because of Erin's tone, Beamon decided to remain silent on the subject.
"You government guys are so fucking melodramatic. Everything's a disaster to you unless it really is, and then you just ignore it. Well, I'll tell you what. I'm gonna ignore this."
Beamon looked around the house–at the dirty dishes on the coffee table, the broken glass on the floor, the dead woman staring at him from all sides.
"So you can hang around here?"
"Fuck you. It's a free country. You can't make me go."
Beamon smiled. "Can't I?"
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