Randy White - Dead of Night

“Nguyen’s been importing contaminated water from East Africa, too. The CIA’s people thought it was the same deal. Mosquito larvae. Someone was buying. But, this afternoon, we got a report through the Centers for Disease Control saying that a certain bigshot Florida biologist had identified a weird sort of parasite near Disney World. Something called ‘guinea worms.’ Maybe they’ve spread through the water system.”

He continued, “Nationwide, we have some other indicators, too. California, Arizona, some other places. Small-time bio-attacks aimed at screwing up local economies. But Disney? This one’s big enough to put our little team on the job.”

Yes. He had me.

I said, “I found the parasites in a corpse, a friend’s brother, not in the water system. You don’t want to hear about it.” I was thinking about the guinea worm samples I had in my backpack. If Jones had broken the jars when he jumped me, I might have done more than dump him over the railing. Or… maybe putting him in the water with the parasites was the worst thing I could’ve done.

Salt water, but he wouldn’t have understood the difference.

“Any idea who’s buying the stuff?”

“No. We prioritize here. Have to, there’s so much going on. The bioterror operation moved up to about twentieth on the list this afternoon.”

“Then let me give you some places to start.”

I told him about Jobe Applebee. Told him to have his people check out the man’s business connections, any groups he was associated with. “The Albedo Society may be one,” I told him. “There may be room for fringe activism there. Tropicane Sugar’s another. Big money can rationalize just about anything. Also, do a search for the conspiracy theory types. People who hate the sugar industry. Or Disney.”

“There are people who hate Disney?”

Harrington was being facetious. On this nation’s paranoiac periphery, there are groups who believe Disney is at the core of global conspiracies that range from controlling the World Bank to building radio towers that communicate with sex-starved aliens.

Studies have been done on people who believe in conspiracies. Clinical paranoia, plus nonspecific rage, are two common components. Crazy and angry: a dangerous combination.

I said, “Someone else who might’ve been connected with Applebee is Desmond Stokes, founder of EPOC, an environmental group that contracted Applebee. Stokes is the phobic type, got rich making vitamins, but also lost his medical license, and had to move to the Bahamas. So maybe he still has a grudge.

“I’m thinking out loud here, putting together names and subjects that seem to intersect in an unlikely way: Applebee, an employer, germs, disease, an exotic parasite, water.”

“The ever-logical Dr. Ford.”

“I try, Hal.”

“Stokes. I’ve heard the name. I’ll have someone ship the data to you as we collect it. Doc? Let’s get something clear first ”

I waited.

“You’re accepting the assignments?”

“This one. Yes.”

“What about Abu Sayyaf, the bomber-”

“Depends on the timing. Someone needs to take care of him. We agree about that.”

He seemed satisfied. “Then you’re our lead tracker on this one. Work it from your end, too. When you do find Nguyen-or anyone else upper level who’s involved in this kind of tradecraft-”

I said, “I know, I know. Etemalize. Your euphemism.”

“Or assassinate. We can use the word. Privately. We now have four ways to officially get around Executive Order 12333. So it’s legal again. I’ll have the papers made out.”

Harrington said that I’d be referred to as an unspecified contractor, name classified.

“Just so you know.”

LOG

14 Dec. Tuesday

Wind NW 18 knots.

Sunset 17:38.

Manatee w/calves under dock. Wood smoke strong, curing fish at marina.

Orders received: 30 Chordates-sea horses, file fish; live barnacle clusters; 24 horseshoe crabs; 24 brittle stars amp; anemones mix.

Low tide-0.9 @ noon.

Run, collect, windsurf late. Collect copepods. Mix w/Dracunculus.

– MDF

Early the next morning, I called Dewey. She was sleepy but civil. Sounded more like her old acerbic self.

“You keep forgetting the time difference, bonehead,” she yawned. “When it’s this damn cold, the roosters wait until they smell coffee before they crow. And it’s gonna be another hour before I start coffee.”

She had an appointment with her obstetrician that afternoon, she told me. So she was going to make the best of it while in town, and have some fun. “We’re going shopping.”

I nearly asked who her shopping partner was but decided not to risk this new civility.

For half an hour or so, I messed with my telescope, then walked to the marina, where I chatted with Mack as he loaded racks of fish into the smoker. When it was nearly 8 A.M., I clumped up the steps to Jeth’s apartment, where I awoke my sleepy-eyed son with a smothering grizzly bear hug.

Time for our morning workout. Five days a week, we jogged Tarpon Bay Road to the beach, swam to the NO WAKE ZONE buoys a quarter mile out and back, then jogged home to the pull-up bar that I’d rigged between braces beneath the house.

Let go of the bar, you get dropped into the water. It’s motivating.

We did descending sets. Ladders, they’re sometimes called: fifteen pull-ups, then fourteen, then thirteen, twelve, and on down to one. A little over a hundred in all for him. I did more because I’ve been working at it hard the last six months, beating the body into shape. Watching the food intake. Alcohol, too, especially alcohol. Running, swimming, and I’d bought a cross-trainer bike. During our pull-up marathons, I started at twenty, finished the descending repetitions, then did as many as I could on the ascending ladder.

It was brutal, but it was paying off. I much prefer administering my pain incrementally to the sad, sustained pain of a sedentary, undisciplined life.

On our runs, the kid had had trouble keeping up during the first week or so, but that didn’t last. Now I was the one who couldn’t keep pace. Not when he stretched those legs of his, and pushed it. He was going to be an athlete.

Sometimes we felt like talking, so we did. Other times we concentrated on the run, comfortable in silence.

On this Tuesday morning, Lake and I ran easy eight-minute miles. I wasn’t breathing too hard as we made small talk, traded marina gossip. Turning northwest along the beach, though, I risked a more serious topic. It’d been on my mind awhile.

“Last week, I was going through the garbage looking for a check I’d misplaced. No luck; still haven’t found it. But I did find a receipt, U.S. Mail, for something sent overnight to a DNA lab in Texas. A paternity test place. Your name was on it.”

The boy didn’t turn to look at me. “Were you searching or snooping?”

I said, “I’d just dumped that turtle embryo procedure I screwed up, all those bad eggs. If the missing check had been for less than five hundred dollars, I wouldn’t’ve bothered.”

That got a slight smile. “I told you the other night I’m aware there’s a chance you might not be my biological father. Mom and her chemical mood swings-I’m not holding it against her. You and I were talking about genetics. I’m curious, that’s all.”

“You sent in hair samples from all of us: you, me, and…?”

“You, me, and Tomlinson. Um-huh. And Mom, too-I want to be thorough. You’re the only one who knows about it, though.”

We ran another quarter mile in silence before I added, “Back in those days, before… before you were born, Tomlinson and I barely knew each other. We weren’t friends. And neither one of us is really sure that he… that he might have played a role. He has big blocks of amnesia from that time period.”