Steven James - The Queen

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then tried to quiet my frayed nerves.

You made it. You’re good. It’s all good.

Opening my eyes again, I pushed myself to my feet, then borrowed Ellory’s jacket sleeve to dry my face and tried to shake some of the water from my clothes.

Softly, but not so softly that I couldn’t pick up the words, one of the officers muttered to his partner, “I don’t know how long he would’ve…” He must have noticed me glance his way because he let his voice trail off into silence. Looked away.

Jake stared at me. “You better get changed.”

He was right. In these clothes, in this weather, hypothermia could set in within minutes. I’d gotten what I came here for-a spatial understanding of the scene, and a clue I hadn’t expected. At the moment there wasn’t anything more for me to do here at the lake. However, before I swung by the motel to get into some dry clothes, I wanted to have a look at that helmet.

At the moment, Ellory was inspecting it. “It’s got Donnie’s name on it,” he said quietly.

“Let me see it.”

He handed it to me. “He’s down there.” Ellory was staring at the water.

Curious.

Would a person about to crash, at any speed, take off his helmet?

Black, with a gray cushioned interior, the helmet had a slight crack in the faceplate. On the rear of the interior was Donnie’s name, printed in black permanent marker.

“We’ll compare the handwriting”-a wave of uncontrolled shivering chopped up my sentence-“to Ardis’s and Donnie’s to confirm that one of them wrote the name.”

No one said anything, and I had the feeling the discovery of the helmet had closed the case for them.

“You don’t think it’s his?” Ellory remarked.

I pointed to the strap. “Whether it’s his or not, how could a helmet strap that’s designed to sustain a snowmobile crash pop off someone’s head in the water-and then rebuckle itself together?”

That seemed to get their attention.

It certainly had mine.

Man, I was cold.

On the way to the car I called Amber to cancel lunch, refraining from mentioning my near-miss with the open water. “It’s just that this case is taking a few turns I hadn’t expected,” I explained, doing my best to keep the shiver out of my voice.

“I see.”

“Anyway, maybe we could connect later on sometime.”

“Have you eaten yet?”

The lack of a substantial supper last night and my missed breakfast this morning wasn’t helping anything, and discussing lunch only reminded me of how hungry I really was. “Not yet.”

“Well, you need to.” It wasn’t a mothering tone, but that of a friend. “You don’t know how long you’ll be in the area, so let’s get together while we can. Besides, you sound tense. Are you okay?”

“I’m not used to the cold.”

We got into the car, Jake started the engine, I cranked up the heat.

Honestly, stepping away from the case for a few minutes would give me a good chance to decompress and mentally shift gears before my trip to the sawmill. And Amber was right, I did need to eat.

She pressed me once again and I finally agreed to meet her and Sean at the Northwoods Supper Club at noon, giving me enough time to drive to the motel, change, and get to the restaurant. I decided I could take one hour for lunch, then head to the sawmill.

Jake directed the car toward the road. After hanging up, I told him my plans and he said he was glad I could see my brother. “I’ll grab something to eat on my own. That way you and your family can reconnect.” Then he mentioned offhandedly, “I spoke with Director Wellington a bit ago. It’s just a local affiliate, but there’s going to be a press conference at 12:30.”

“Here?” I shed my coat so the car’s heat would actually reach me. “In Woodborough?”

“The station is in Ashland. They sent a correspondent down yesterday to cover the Pickron homicides.”

Even though Margaret had put me in charge of the case, I like dealing with the media about as much as I like the idea of falling through the ice. “All right, well, make it brief. No specula-”

“Pat.” His voice was sour. “I’ve done press conferences before.”

“Yes. I know.”

I thought he might respond sharply to my comment, but instead he just said, “Besides, I need to follow up on a few things at the sheriff’s office in Woodborough.”

“What about the sawmill?”

“Maybe I could meet you there? You could catch a ride with your brother?”

Jake didn’t know about the state of affairs between me and Sean, and it wasn’t something I felt the need to address.

“Sure,” I said. “Meet me at 2:00.”

“I should be able to make it by then.”

As we pulled onto the county road I called Tessa to tell her I really wasn’t comfortable with her driving over. “In this case I think we’re better off safe than sorry,” I told her. “Stay at the college or a hotel if-”

“Are you shivering?”

“I’m not used to the cold,” I said, repeating what I’d told Amber. “Use the credit card I left with you to reserve the room. If they hassle you, just have ’em call me.”

It took her a long time to reply. “Okay.”

“Talk to you soon.”

“Bye.”

After we hung up, I told Jake to keep an eye out for a store or gas station.

“For?”

“I’m gonna need to pick up a dry coat.”

Alexei fast-forwarded through the footage that his cameras had taken of the entrance to the Schoenberg Inn last night after he’d gone to bed, but found that no one else from Eco-Tech had arrived.

He verified that the tracking threads in the seams of the duffel bag containing the $1,000,0000 were working properly. The transmissions were untraceable, undetectable-unless you knew specifically what to look for. This tracking system was not part of his arrangement with Valkyrie, though. This was for himself, and he’d kept it quiet.

Valkyrie had given him limited intel about the project, so Alexei still wasn’t exactly sure what the significance of this target was.

But he planned to find out.

He took some time to research Eco-Tech. On their website they described themselves as “an international coalition of like-minded environmentalists with a progressive agenda to defend Mother Earth from anthropocentric shortsightedness.” Bloggers on the other end of the political spectrum called them eco-terrorists.

Which was probably a more accurate description.

After all, with millions of dollars in cash and some hard-to-obtain access codes, they were obviously not here in the northwoods to simply stage a protest or have a sit-in.

Interestingly, there were eight pending lawsuits against them for alleged hacking activities into government and corporate computer systems. Some right-wingers were labeling them “hacktivists” (hacker activists), and it seemed like there was enough evidence to make the charge stick.

With roots in the radical Deep Ecology movement popularized by Edward Abbey’s novel The Monkey Wrench Gang in the seventies, and then sharpened by the radical ecological writings of Derrick Jensen, Eco-Tech pulled no punches in making their agenda clear: global population control, income redistribution, drastic carbon emission reduction, and most importantly, nuclear disarmament. Their motto said it all: “A New Breed of Green-Dialogue When Possible, Action When Necessary.”

A new breed of green.

Hacktivism.

As their website put it:

Human greed and selfishness have caused irreparable damage to the biosphere. The only chance for the long-term stability of the planet is a radical change of attitude and action, and despite the currently fashionable “Green Movement,” that change is not going to come simply from people replacing their lightbulbs or carpooling to work.