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.”
19
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 alclass="underline" “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.
To love your children you must leave them more than the legacy of your self-indulgence, the devastation of a world raped of its dignity to make your life more comfortable, more convenient, more consumer-friendly. We are committed to leaving the next generation a planet well cared for, a garden well tended. That is what we strive for. That is why we act.
Despite their muddied philosophical roots and alleged hacktivism, Eco-Tech’s goal was certainly noble-fighting for more sustainable lifestyles and more conscientious, environmentally friendly corporate and political policies.
At first Alexei wondered if maybe they were here to combat logging of old growth forests in the area, but he found confirmation online that virgin forests in Wisconsin were now pretty much all part of national forest land and weren’t logged at all.
Still, something had to be here in this area or else Valkyrie would not have hired him to get access codes from Rear Admiral Colberg, would not have assigned him to come here to the middle of nowhere to deliver two million dollars.
In preparation for his meeting, Alexei slipped the one weapon he carried, his specially modified spring-loaded bone injection gun, into his pocket.
For close-quarters combat the device was one of the most useful weapons he’d found.
Not much larger than a Mini Maglite flashlight, the bone gun was typically used by paramedics to quickly start IVs, especially in patients in cardiac arrest or with difficult-to-locate veins. Because of the amount of force generated at the tip, it easily perforates bone and is used to implant a needle into the marrow, usually below the kneecap. After removing the needle, a catheter is left behind and then used to administer the appropriate drug.
However, Alexei didn’t typically use his bone gun to implant a catheter to administer medication. These days, when circumstances dictated it, he used it on adversaries to break bones, and in some cases, shatter them entirely.
His bone gun had been modified so that if used properly it could cripple, or even kill-although he had never gone that far with it. But he had used it twice on the C7 vertebral prominence, once while on an assignment in Amman, another time in New Delhi.
That vertebra was low enough to allow the subject to continue to breathe on his own, but that was about all he would ever be able to do on his own again. After six months both men on whom he had used the bone gun in this manner were still alive. Thinking of them in that condition had been unpleasant for Alexei, and he had anonymously paid for both men’s medical bills.
Now, on his laptop, he pulled up satellite images of the region surrounding the Schoenberg Inn and got started connecting the uplink from the transmitter in the bag to the GPS tracking device.
Unfortunately, fifteen minutes ago when Patrick called her, Tessa was already on her way to Wisconsin.
She’d decided not to bring that up.
The Walker Art Center had been closed for some sort of renovation, and the more she thought about it, the more she realized she wanted to see Sean, whom she almost never spent time with, and at least get a chance to finally meet her stepaunt. It’d be nice, after all, to connect a little more with Patrick’s family, the only one she had left.