"Our mother is alive and well and living not too far from here, Garth, and you're not her. This is more of a vacation than an assignment, for Christ's sake, and there's nothing dangerous involved."
"You should have checked in with me, Mongo," Garth said coldly. "You should have checked in within twenty-four hours. That's the procedure. We've agreed that we've made enough enemies over the years so that keeping tabs on each other, vacation or no, is a good idea."
"I've been distracted."
"Distracted, huh? You say you're in no danger? Well, I've got good news, and I've got bad news."
"Come on, Garth, get on with it. It's late."
"Oh-oh. Did I catch you in a bad mood?"
"Listen, brother, I'm the recipient of what's probably the most expensive three-word message in the history of communications, and I have to help pay for it. But am I in a bad mood? Not really. What I am is disappointed in recent events, and the previously mentioned distraction is waiting to give me comfort. So give me the good news first. Just thinking about what all that skywriting is going to cost us may be all the bad news I can take."
"I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think it was important, Mongo," Garth said evenly. "You don't think you're in any danger, and I think you could be. Have you been to that bank in Chicago yet?"
"No."
"Well, don't bother. I'd be very surprised if they tell you anything."
"That's your good news?"
"The good news is that I found out who bought that circus. The bad news is the owner. World Circus is a show you should steer clear of. There's no way you're going to be able to buy it, because they won't sell."
He'd gotten my attention. "Let's take it from the top, Garth. How did you find all this out?"
"The wonders of technology, brother. I thought I might be of some help, so while you've been traipsing all over America's heartland trying to find a circus to buy, I've been sitting in our air-conditioned offices punching up a few things on the computer and talking to some of our contacts. First, it seems that United States Savings and Loan got itself involved in the same financial difficulties and scandals that brought down a lot of other savings-and-loans operations a while back; there were lots of bad loans and a flirtation with bankruptcy. When it looked like they were going to have to accept federal receivership, all of their debts and assets went on the public record. I was able to access that information. It turns out that Statler Brothers Circus was picked up at auction by the Battle Eagle Corporation, an outfit operating out of Bern."
"Switzerland?"
"Yeah, that Bern."
"Who the hell are they?"
"Not 'they'; 'he.' And Frederickson and Frederickson had to cash in a few IOUs in order to get the rest of this information. Battle Eagle is wholly owned by one Arlen Zelezian, a German Swiss."
"And a drug dealer."
"No," Garth said after a pause, sounding slightly puzzled. "At least, not that anyone I talked to knows of. What the hell made you say that?"
"Just a wrong guess. Go ahead."
"Whatever reason Zelezian had for wanting a circus, it wasn't to flutter the hearts of ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages. He's not in the business of making people happy. Whatever's going on with that operation, I think it's a very good idea for you to steer clear of it. Your days of anonymity are long past, brother, and if Mongo Frederickson shows up on Arlen Zelezian's doorstep, out in the middle of nowhere, he's just likely to think you're checking up on him. That's why I was in such a hurry to get in touch with you; you're likely to put yourself in harm's way if you show up at World Circus. I'll fill you in on all the details when you get home."
"It's a little late for playing it safe now, Garth. Just go ahead and give me the gory details."
"Shit. You've been to the circus and talked to somebody?"
"I talked to one man. He told me World Circus is a kind of floating refugee camp for illegal aliens who've fled from the old communist bloc countries."
Garth snorted. "What bullshit. Arlen Zelezian is rumored to get some very large payoffs from the Russians, Mongo-and from the Western countries, including the United States, as well. In fact, letting him run whatever it is he's really running in this country may be a payoff-or a down payment-from one of our illustrious government agencies. Zelezian doesn't care who he does business with, and his customers obviously don't care either. Arlen Zelezian is definitely not in the humanitarian business."
"You've already belabored that point. Now tell me what business he is in."
"Bioweapons."
"Come again?"
"He's a combination super arms dealer and free-lance researcher whose specialty is biological weapons. I told you that there are rumors about his getting financing from both Western countries and the Soviets, primarily because they don't want to be shut out of the market if and when he comes up with more efficient methods of killing people. For the past decade, he's supposedly been holed up in Switzerland working on something really heavy, so it's a real surprise to find him-or one of his operations-here."
"Bioweapons. You mean like bugs? Diseases?"
"Yeah, but Zelezian works with bigger critters. I was told that the U.S. Navy stole-or bought-their idea of using dolphins to plant mines and attack enemy divers from Zelezian. Think of Hannibal using elephants to cross the Alps, attack dogs, that sort of thing. Bioweapons."
"Got it. Just what is this heavy thing that he's been working on for ten years?"
"Nobody that I talked to knows. Zelezian happens to be one of the world's foremost authorities on dog breeding, and he's a specialist in a particularly vicious breed of dog called a kuvasz. His son works with him. Besides being a top-notch animal trainer a lot of people say is good enough to work in any circus, the son is a noted conservationist. He spends a lot of time in Africa."
I grunted. "Some conservationist. World Circus gives fifteen percent off the price of admission to NRA members."
"Well, what can I tell you? I haven't got the slightest idea what he had in mind when he bought Phil Statler's circus, or what he's doing in the United States, but it doesn't sound like anything you want to get close to."
I thought about it, and suddenly felt I knew precisely why Arlen Zelezian was in the United States. "He's field testing," I said distantly, almost to myself. My mouth had gone very dry. "Jesus Christ. Forget the Navy's killer dolphins. He's got himself a bigger and better bioweapon, and he's here to field-test it on a lot of innocent people."
"Huh? What did you say?"
"You said he's a specialist in a breed of dog called a kuvasz?"
"Yeah, that's right. What's the matter, Mongo? What were you saying about-?"
"Nothing. Garth, listen: fax me everything you have, will you? There must be a terminal around here somewhere that I can rent for a couple of hours. I'll call you in the morning, tell you where to send it."
"I'll fax you shit,Mongo," Garth said tersely. "There's no need.
That circus isn't for sale, so there's no need for you to stick your nose into Arlen Zelezian's business. Some of the people I talked to think that his presence in this country may even have been approved by some Pentagon agency, or even the CIA, so we're talking heavy-duty business that you want no part of." He paused for a few moments, and when he spoke again, his tone had softened. "I know you're interested, brother, so as a reward for good behavior I'll have all the information I've gathered waiting for you on your desk. I even managed to come up with a photo of Arlen Zelezian, and you'll love it. That death merchant son-of-a-bitch looks just like Abraham Lincoln."
Chapter Seven
My conversation with Garth had given me more food for thought than I could digest, and the information he'd given me rested like a sharp, hard lump in my mind. Something evil had been loosed on America's Great Plains, and I suspected there was more than a fifty-fifty chance that Arlen Zelezian was responsible. But without proof, my suspicions were virtually worthless-especially if it was true that he was operating under the auspices of some government agency with a vested interest in whatever he was up to. Without proof, my suspicions would be dismissed as being even loonier than the notion that there was a "werewolf" wandering over the vast prairie stretches, slaughtering people. If I was right, it was not something I could turn my back on. I needed to check out the situation. If I was wrong, the only thing I risked was making a fool of myself, and I'd certainly done that before and survived. But if I was right, the lives of any number of innocent people could depend on how quickly I could gather the necessary evidence and then get the right people to take me seriously.