"So you’re saying that this Mongolian arms trader may be trying to kidnap Sara?" Tears welled in Beth’s eyes, but once again, she fought them back.
"I m afraid that’s possible. Yes."
I knew that I, too, wore a look of concern.
"I need to pay Sara a visit to check things out. I’ll book the earliest flight I can. In the meantime, see if you can raise her on video conferencing. Otherwise, texting will have to do.
"Our main message to her is not to worry, but to remain calm, cautious, and vigilant. Obviously, if she sees the man again, she should avoid contact. She should also surround herself with as many fellow students as possible until the man is gone. She must never be alone. In addition, please ask her to sleep in a friend’s room tonight.
"Oh yeah… tell her I’ll meet her at the caf at 8:00 tomorrow morning. I bet she’ll be thrilled with that."
She likes to sleep in.
CHAPTER 13
Farris had kept busy arranging the existing lab supplies and testing out equipment, gas lines and power circuits. Everything was checking out so far. Apparently, someone other than Urland and Brenda had built this setup. Probably John. The infidel had some uses after all.
About 4:00 in the afternoon, Farris heard a car coming up the drive. He looked out the door. It was John’s Chevy. The car made a ‘Y’ turn on the gravel and backed toward the lab. John parked just outside the lab doorway, turned off the car, and popped the trunk.
As John unloaded additional lab supplies and brought them inside, Farris placed each item in its appropriate location in the lab. They repeated the routine with items stowed in the back seat. John was still missing a few of the more esoteric components and the argon. But for the most part, he had fulfilled Farris’s order from this morning.
"I was wondering about this folding army cot and pillow," John said as he passed them along to Farris. "They don’t look very scientific to the untrained observer."
"Well, ah, I will probably be keeping long, odd hours out here. Once the chemical reactions start, it is not as though I can just put them on hold and go take a nap in the house."
"Couldn’t stand any more face time with Frick and Frack?" John said. It was half question, half statement.
"If you say so," Farris said, continuing to unpack the boxes. He had no desire for small talk.
At that moment, they heard the sound of a powerful diesel motor down on the public road. Both men stepped outside the lab and looked in the direction of the sound. The grinding of down-shifting gears and the intermittent revving of the diesel got louder, then changed direction — moving straight toward them.
Presently, a yellow semi-truck appeared, slowly making its way up the dirt drive. Blue smoke blasted from its vertical exhaust pipes. As the truck lumbered closer, they saw that, attached behind the truck, was an equally yellow trailer. The trailer looked like a coal tender — heavily reinforced metal sides with unloading shoots angling to the left along the bottom. Soon, they could make out Urland’s tobacco-stained grin behind the wheel.
Pulling the semi alongside the Chevy, Urland gave the truck’s horn one long blast.
John and Farris both cringed at the sound.
The driver’s window was down. Urland’s elbow rested proudly in the opening.
"How’d it go?" John yelled, over the diesel’s rumble.
Urland shut off the truck.
"Slicker than owl shit, if you’ll pardon my French. When that trucker saw Brenda with the hood up on the Buick, looking all helpless, he pulled right over to assist. Ha! A damsel in distress. She’s real good at that. All I had to do was ring his bell and we had ‘er."
"I hope you didn’t kill him," John said, a look of concern on his face.
"Nope. No need. I just gave him a rifle butt to the back of the head. Then I drug him off into the weeds. He’s gonna have a bad headache when he wakes up. But he’ll survive."
"Sounds good," John said. "Let’s take a look at your cargo."
Urland was already out of the truck, strutting around like a peacock. Brenda was just coming up the drive in their blue Buick sedan.
John walked around to the back of the trailer.
He suspected there was a problem as soon as he smelled the ammonia. Farris smelled it, too. They looked at each other. Maybe the smell was left over from a prior load?
John procured the heavy metal crank from its clips on the side of the truck box and climbed the ladder until he could see over the trailer’s top. The ammonia smell was stronger here. Using the crank, he rolled the canvas trailer cover open.
"What the fuck!"
Urland stopped strutting and looked blankly at John. "What’s the matter?"
The Umbers had heisted a load of fertilizer all right. But it wasn’t potash. It was nitrogen. God knows what it was mixed with.
"Uh, Urland?" John said, as calmly as he could manage. "This isn’t the right stuff."
"Whatta ya mean?" Urland asked. "It’s gotta be."
"The bulk potash we get around here comes from Canada and it’s either orange or pink," John said. "This stuff is white. And potash is the consistency of sand. This load is more like water softener crystals."
Urland was totally deflated — like a boy who had just wrecked his bicycle.
"But this is the same stuff we used out west to make diesel fuel bombs. It worked real good for us." Urland was whining and it made John want to spit. Instead, he took a deep breath before speaking.
"Urland, we’re looking for something a little different here. Farris is going to cook the fertilizer up in the lab and we’ll get a real fancy explosion. This stuff you got today just won’t work for what we have in mind. We’re going to need to try for another truck tomorrow."
Urland seemed to be getting over his disappointment. He was probably used to screwing up.
"Okay. You want pink, we’ll getcha pink."
"And Urland…," John said. "Please. Next time… just get the potash. Don’t improvise."
"Absolutely. Yessir!" Urland saluted.
John turned away from Urland and rolled his eyes. If the Bobsy Twins don’t get it right this time, John thought, I’m going to have to do this myself, too. We can’t just steal a whole convoy of fertilizer trucks.
Shit!
CHAPTER 14
The earliest flight I could catch out of Minneapolis/St. Paul International was at 10:15 that evening. I had booked a seat in first class. From ticketing to baggage claim (I had to check my gun and ammo), the flight took about four hours.
After collecting my luggage, I took the VIP lane to pick up the rental car. I had selected a red Ferrari F430 Spider convertible. Although I knew the Ferrari wasn’t a great choice if I planned to inconspicuously tail another vehicle, I expected to acquire my target on campus. The college community was far too small for Gansükh to have an operations center there. So I wouldn’t need to surreptitiously follow the mark to home base.
I tossed my overnight bag on the passenger seat, removed the gun and shoulder holster, slapped in a full clip, and strapped the .40 caliber Beretta under my light jacket. Once you get used to carrying a gun, you sort of feel naked without it. I felt better now that I had it on.