Directing Evangeline to wait he pushed on alone to reconnoiter the area. Twenty yards away in the open was a deposit of large rocks too big for a quarry crusher, discarded in a heap. He ran towards the pile and took cover behind it. Edging his way around it at a crouch he could see the lay of the land. Between the quarry and the main road ran a thin strip of intermittent forest, a partial screen from the road. The quarry was shallow. Well-used heavy-vehicle tracks led across the dusty, rocky-looking surface. Piles of various grades of gravel were stacked high, like upside-down ice-cream cones. Not far from these stacks he could see the main crusher, a relatively small piece of plant, most likely operated by one or two men. Off to the left of the crusher an old wooden shack showed its age with a rusting iron roof. Outside an old yellow front-end loader and two dirty white pick-ups were parked, their panels having been beaten back into shape on more than one occasion. Access to the quarry was by way of a gravel track, which Lilburn assumed linked to a further minor road.
Lilburn waved Evangeline across to him.
“You see that small building? I’m guessing we’ll find some help there. Are you ready to follow?”
“Yes.”
The two siblings, known locally as The Rock Chuckers, had stopped work for a lunch break. Fuz Cooney sat playing Solitaire, sitting down next to an upturned wooden box which doubled as the lunch table. He played with a ragged grimy pack of playing cards handed down from when his father used to work the family business. The denominations had almost worn off — and had been crudely drawn over with a biro. His brother Chugga, just shy of two years his senior, was the first of the two to work the quarry, as a sixteen year old. That was twenty years ago. Chugga was leaning over an old wooden door, which in turn lay on two empty 44-gallon drums; the innovative office desk added a touch of character.
“Hey, Fuz. We up to Miz June yet?”
“Dunno, but I like Miz June a whole lot bett’r’n Miz July. Jes keep Miz June. She got betta tits.”
Chugga flipped over the page of the calendar and gave the picture a thorough examination with an expert eye. After what he thought was the right amount of time for a true connoisseur to appreciate the art form, he acknowledged his brother was correct. “Yep.”
“Tarnation!” Fuz threw down the cards in his hand in disgust.
“Lose agin?”
Fuz grabbed a twirl in his long unruly red beard he saved just for these occasions and twiddled it between his thumb and forefinger. His brother was working out the months left in the year on his fingers as a stranger appeared outside the open door. “July, August, September, Oct… Holy shit, mister, ya scared the livin’ daylights outta me!”
“Sorry, boys.” Lilburn reached into his rear pocket and pulled out a Homeland Security ID. “Would you mind if I made a phone call?” He stepped up into the shack. Fuz pushed back the chair he was sitting in, the sound rattling over the undulating floor boards, then moved across next to his brother. Lilburn couldn’t help but notice the immense size of the two men. At six foot two he felt dwarfed by what could only be described as a pair of mountain men, dressed in tatty dungarees without shirts. They looked like a pair of professional tag-wrestlers.
“You a tax man?” asked Fuz suspiciously. His huge hands formed into fists as he spoke.
“Hell no! My name’s Matt Lilburn, I’m an agent with Homeland Security.” The brothers’ faces remained suspicious. Lilburn thought this might be a good time to introduce Evangeline. “Doctor, would you mind coming to the doorway?”
Lilburn took a step sideways, making sure he didn’t move too fast. Evangeline appeared by his side. The brothers visibly mellowed when they saw her obvious distress.
“Darn, Chugga, it’s Miz October!”
Chugga gave his brother a swift clout to the stomach. “Excuse my brother, ma’am, we don’t often sees a lady here.” Chugga moved to the doorway and held out a hand to Lilburn in greeting. Lilburn gripped hard in self-defense, to avoid having his own hand crushed, and was half-pulled into the shack by the huge man. Chugga brushed past him and extended a hand, palm up, to Evangeline to help her up the step. Fuz, taking the lead from his brother, also greeted Lilburn with a bone-rattling handshake and a quick “Hi there, ma’am” to Evangeline.
“My name’s Chugga, this is Fuz, he two years younger’n me. I guess you ain’t here to buy rock.”
“That’s right, Chugga, but I wouldn’t mind using your phone.”
The younger brother rubbed the three-day stubble on his chin. “We don’t rightly have no phone… well, we does but we don’t, if ya get ma drift.”
“Hell, Chugga, you talkin’ riddles agin. These strangers dun know what yer on about. What ma brother means, mister, is the phone ain’t workin’ but the fax is. See yonder.” He pointed over to the office desk.
On top of it were two blue plastic milk crates, cut in half; scotch-taped to each was a rectangular piece of paper with the words In Trey and Out Trey. A dust-covered array of invoices, paper and a once white-colored fax machine completed the picture.
“I would really appreciate it if I could sent an urgent fax.”
“No problem. Paper an’ a pen right there,” said Fuz. “Ma’am, would you like somethin’ to drink?”
“That would be marvelous,” replied Evangeline.
The puzzlement on Fuz’s face was obvious. He fiddled with the twirl in his bead. His mind could almost be heard ticking over. “Say, what? You not from around here, are ya?”
“No.” In most other circumstances, Evangeline would have been delighted to have entered into a relaxed conversation with this polite giant of a man, but now wasn’t the time. Besides, she was exhausted.
Fuz went to a sink and poured a glass of water from the tap and offered it to his guest. Evangeline gulped down the water, despite the dubious-looking glass.
Lilburn started writing a note addressing it attention to Director Allan Hall but stopped partway through. “Do you boys have a phone book?” The brothers shook their heads. “Don’t suppose you have a computer?” Unsurprisingly the answer was the same. Lilburn didn’t have a fax number. Placing both his hands on the desk he lowered his head and closed his eyes deep in concentration. Then he remembered.
In his wallet was a business card he had been given by Inspector Lance Gibbons, not long after landing at One Police Plaza in New York. Pulling his wallet out, he found the card with the man’s contact numbers. Taking a fresh piece of paper, he wrote a new note, addressed to Gibbons, explaining the situation, including agent down, and asked him to urgently pass the information to Hall directly. Getting the address of the quarry from the brothers, he added it in the note and asked for immediate pick up. The completed note was then placed in the fax and the Send button pressed.
“You got your sel’s lost?” Fuz handed Lilburn a glass of water.