Archer Mayor - The Dark Root

Judy Avery immediately seized on the idea. “How would he develop them?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “The safest approach would be to find someone who lives on the border, but who’s never been involved in Asian smuggling before-or maybe any smuggling at all-and who could be bought.”

Carter, ever gregarious, laughed. “Hell-sounds like me.”

Marcotti, of Customs, whose presence here was obviously a polite formality, let out a gentle sigh. “Let’s look at the ‘when’ for a minute.”

Steve Moore spoke up immediately. “The Grateful Dead concert.”

Heads nodded all around the table. Carter agreed. “It’s already giving us fits. We don’t know if there’ll be sixty thousand attending that thing, or a hundred and sixty. As it is, we’ve canceled all leaves, stolen people from other substations, and coordinated with every law-enforcement agency north of Burlington, including you folks.” He nodded at VSP Lieutenant Steve Moore.

With everything else I’d had to focus on, a Grateful Dead concert rang only a vague bell. “When is this, and where?”

Surprisingly, I thought, it was Jacques Lucas who answered. “In two days. We and the QPP have also gathered as many men as we can. It will take place in Swanton.”

“At the fairgrounds, east of town,” Carter added. “Right next to our substation there. In fact, we’re telling the whole Swanton crew to bunk in for a couple of days, ’cause getting back and forth by car’s going to be a joke.”

There was a moment’s silence as we all considered the obvious-the concert was a custom-made opportunity for Truong to make his move.

“Yeah,” Spinney asked, “but does he melt into the crowd, or cross over as far away from the action as he can, where we got one cruiser covering twenty miles?”

Almost simultaneously, several voices answered for one choice or the other. Avery straightened from studying the map and looked around. “Guess we’ve got a problem.”

I leaned toward Spinney and whispered in his ear, “Hold the fort-I want to give Dan a call.”

He nodded, and I slipped out to find a phone. Dan Flynn answered, as usual, halfway through the first ring, “VCIN-Flynn.”

“It’s Joe. Can you put Digger on the other line?”

“Shirtsleeve.” Digger’s voice had all the enthusiasm of a bored morgue attendant.

“I think Truong’s going to bypass everything Nguyen gave us. He knows damn well we’ll make an offer, and he knows what Nguyen’s got to trade. Who do you have in your system up here who’s really wired to the locals-goes to church with ’em, maybe busts their kids when they get drunk, remembers birthdays? Somebody who’s as local as they are.”

I could hear Flynn start to type in the background, but Digger merely growled, “Richard Boucher-Border Patrol. Works out of Derby.”

“He’s tied into the locals, including the ones living on the border?”

Digger sounded disgusted. “That’s what you wanted, right?” The line clicked as he hung up his extension.

Dan laughed a little nervously, no longer typing. “Well, I guess there you have it.”

It being near the end of his shift, Richard Boucher was still at the Derby substation. I explained who I was, what I was up to, and why I was calling. He’d already heard the first two pieces of information-no surprise considering that we’d used his substation to store the contents of Truong’s fire-blackened safe.

His voice was low, slow, and oddly comforting. He picked up immediately on the kind of person I was after. “Someone we’ve never thought twice about-maybe the average honest citizen who’s suddenly in a financial jam and has something Truong could buy.”

There was a thoughtful pause. “There’s Eugene Blood. He lives alone with his sister, and she’s dying of Alzheimer’s. He’s had to mortgage his farm to pay the doctor bills. He’s got a hundred acres east of Derby Line, and the boundary cuts right through the middle of ’em.”

“What made you think of him?”

“I don’t know how much you know about me, but I was born up here and I’ve lived here all my life, except for the first few years as a patrolman on the southern border. So I’ve known the Bloods since I was little, and I’d never seen Gene so low as these last months. It got so I dropped by their place almost every time I went on patrol, just to give a little support. About three days back, Gene seemed a whole lot happier. But when I asked him why, all he said was that he’d sold some equipment and come into a little money. He wouldn’t go into details and tried to get away from the subject as quick as he could. I hate to say it about an old friend like that, but what you just asked me fits him pretty well.”

“He have the personality for it?”

Boucher laughed softly. “He did in the old Prohibition days-at least according to the stories he tells. Plus, he wouldn’t have to do much-just tell whoever it is where our sensors are planted and keep quiet. That alone could be worth a lot.”

I made a mental note to ask Maggie Lanier for a search warrant of Blood’s bank records, to see how much that sudden windfall amounted to. “I take it you don’t swallow the equipment-sales angle.”

“He could get maybe ten cents on the dollar for the junk he calls equipment. He sold all the good stuff a long time ago-this thing’s been draggin’ on forever. He doesn’t have anything else.”

“I’m assuming your knowledge of the locals only covers the area around Derby. Are there others like you in other substations that keep close tabs?”

“I’m the only native Vermonter, if that’s what you mean, but there’re other guys who spend a lot of time drinking coffee on these people’s porches. You want me to call around?”

“I’d appreciate it. I want to see if there’re any other Gene Bloods out there.” I gave him my pager number. He said he’d get back to me in a couple of hours.

I returned to the conference to find everyone standing around the maps, talking fervently and taking notes. Lester stepped away from them and spoke to me quietly by the door. “This is about to break up. Nobody’s too happy with just letting us take fifty men and staking ’em wherever we want, so a few compromises’ve been made. The largest concentration is going to be around the concert site-Lucas and his boys on one side, Carter and his on the other. A smaller staging area will be Derby, near Newport, just in case something pops up to the east, and then there’ll be a third unit here, monitoring things in the communications center, with a helicopter on standby for quick transport. A few patrol cars-VSP, sheriff ’s men, Border Patrol, you name it-will be positioned along the boundary in between on regular shifts, advised on what it is we’re looking for. All this’ll happen ASAP. I told them I’d stay with the mobile unit here, since this is the eyes and ears, but I didn’t commit you one way or the other. What did you get out of Flynn?”

“A line on a farmer named Eugene Blood. He’s been clean as a whistle up to now, but he’s got a barrel full of medical bills, and I just talked to a Border Patrol agent named Boucher who thinks he may’ve come into a lot of money in the last few days. He’s got a hundred acres on both sides of the boundary. Boucher’s calling around to the other substations to find out if there might be more people that fit the bill. He’s supposed to get back to me today.”

Spinney raised his eyebrows. “But you’re putting your money on Blood?”

“So far I am. I was impressed his was the one name Boucher came up with right off the bat, but I’ll know better in a couple of hours. I’d like to put some mobile sensors on his property in any case-ones he won’t know about. I wouldn’t mind getting a peek at his bank records, either, assuming Lanier thinks there’s enough for a warrant.”