Season of the Harvest Read online

  “That would track,” Richards told him. “Dawson, Crane started working undercover three weeks ago. He was filing updates until last week, when he just dropped off the face of the planet. We’ve been trying to track him down since then.”

  Jack sat back, stunned. What could have caused Sheldon to break contact with the Bureau? Had he gone rogue? “What did he find before he...bugged out?” Jack asked.

  “It’s all classified, dammit!” Richards cursed. “But I’ve read the reporting he sent in, and most of it was pretty limp. If there’s a tie-in to what he was doing after he dropped out of sight, I don’t see it.” There was a sudden increase in the volume of the voices in the background, and Richards said, “Listen, Dawson, I’ve got special agents interrogating half the population of Lincoln. If you’ve got something for me, spill it. Otherwise, stop wasting my time.”

  “All right,” Jack said, fortifying himself for Richards’ reaction to what Jack was about to tell him. “Here’s what I think went down...” He briefly described what he thought had happened, based on the information from the file he’d taken from Clement and the subsequent reporting on FIDS from the field teams in Lincoln.

  When Jack finished, there was a long pause on the far end of the line, and all he could hear was the hubbub in the background. He thought for a moment that Richards had given up on his tale and had just forgotten to hit the end call button on his phone.

  Finally, Richards spoke. “Shit.”

  “And here I thought you were going to either hang up on me, or tell me that was the most ridiculous thing you’d ever heard,” Jack said drily.

  “The only thing I wish right now, Dawson,” Richards told him, “was that Clement hadn’t been such a sentimental idiot and had sent you out here instead of sending you home to cry over Crane buying the farm. We’d figured out some of what you’ve come up with, but your story makes sense, just like it did on the Bronsky case. You’re sharp, Dawson.”

  Jack nearly fell out of his chair. Richards never complimented anybody on anything. But he wasn’t a fool: Jack had helped him solve the Bronsky case, a multiple murder spree that had spanned four states and had completely stumped the investigators. Richards hadn’t bought in to how Jack had done his part in putting the pieces of the puzzle together, but to him it didn’t matter: all Richards wanted was to sort out what happened and nail bad guys. For him, the only thing that mattered was results. With Jack’s help, Joseph Bronsky and his brother Cain were finally stopped, killed in a shootout after refusing to surrender. “Can I make a suggestion or two?” Jack asked him, deciding to try and press his advantage.

  “I’m listening.”

  “First, pull any hard drives or other data storage devices for any of the computers in the lab and get them to forensics to see if they can recover anything from them. I’ll bet at least one of them was a standalone machine, not connected to any networks.”

  “That’s going to be a bit difficult,” Richards said slowly.

  “Why?” Jack asked.

  “Somebody already beat us to it. You must have seen in the photos that those machines were smashed to bits. The hard drives were literally ripped out of every single one of them. Didn’t bother with screwdrivers. You sure your buddy Crane didn’t yank them out?”

  “No,” Jack told him, silently cursing that bit of bad luck. “That wasn’t his style. If he had tampered with hardware, it would’ve been subtle, precise. Most of what he did was with software. Unless his assailant took it, you should find a USB flash drive...somewhere.”

  “We’ll look again, but so far we didn’t find one, either in the lab or on his body or clothing.”

  “The next thing is an accomplice,” Jack said. “He had help getting into the lab, and I’ll bet it was the same person who erased the security camera recordings and data logs.”

  “We had that figured out,” Richards said, his voice tinged with annoyance as if to say, We’re not complete idiots, you know. “And we actually have a likely suspect: Ellen Bienkowski. We’ve found all of the university’s security people who had the necessary access, except her. She wasn’t scheduled to go on leave, but she hasn’t returned any calls and her house is empty. We’re trying to track her down.”

  Frowning, Jack told him, “The other thing to find is the samples Sheldon must have taken. I’m convinced that was really what he’d come for. Hacking into the computers was just a means to an end.”

  “But why the hell would he want to steal some stupid corn or whatever?” Richards asked, exasperated. “Industrial espionage?”

  “Could be,” Jack admitted. “New Horizons is pulling in nearly six billion dollars a year in profits, and I’m sure whatever they were working on in that lab would probably be worth a fortune to a competitor. But I can’t see Sheldon as a player in something like that. And the MO of his murder seems a tad extreme if he was double-dealing.”

  “Don’t be naïve, Dawson,” Richards said flatly. “People have sold out their country for peanuts, and almost everybody has a price, if someone makes the right offer. You know that nobody joins the Bureau to get rich on our government salaries. As for the MO, I’ll grant that it’s definitely out of the ordinary, more like a ritual killing than something that even a pissed off mafia hit man would come up with.”

  Jack suppressed his anger at Richards’ remark about almost everyone having a price. Sheldon would never have sold out, he told himself. No way. “It doesn’t matter,” he told Richards. “I don’t know why he wanted the corn samples, only that he did. They have to be there somewhere.”

  “Yeah, right,” Richards said sourly, and Jack could picture him standing in the lab, looking around at the sea of sample containers spread across the floor, each and every one of which could potentially be evidence. “Well, there are plenty here, that’s for sure.” He paused. “We’ll look. But the forensics guys went over every inch of the service tunnel where we found Crane and there was nothing. We’re still going over the lab, but–”

  “No,” Jack interrupted. “He wouldn’t have had time to hide it in the lab. If I’m right, he would’ve hidden them in the service tunnel, or maybe somewhere along the way from the lab. But I’m betting on them being near where his body was found.”

  “Okay, we’ll look again, but I’m not holding out much hope.”

  “Is there anything else you’ve found that hasn’t been reported yet?” Jack asked him, hoping for some additional clues.

  “We found his cell phone, smashed in the lab. That’s being written up now. What was left of it was under one of the pieces of lab equipment that was knocked over during the fight that went on in here. We also found a stun baton with Crane’s fingerprints on it. Is that something he normally carried?”

  Jack shook his head as he answered. “No. He only carried his regular service weapon and a Glock 27 in a leg holster for backup. He never carried a stun gun or a Taser that I know of.”

  Richards was silent, and Jack got the feeling there was something else. “What is it?” he asked. “What else did you find?”

  “The coroner found it a little while ago before they took Crane’s body away for the autopsy,” Richards said quietly, and Jack knew they were both thinking the same thing: the coroner’s work had already been done for him. “There was a piece of paper, rolled up and shoved down Crane’s throat.”

  “What did it say?” Jack asked, wondering at this last insult that his friend had suffered.

  “It’s a banner for something called the ‘Earth Defense Society.’ Ever heard of it?”

  “No,” Jack told him, shaking his head, “but it sounds like some sort of eco-preservation group or something. Any idea who they are?”

  “Not yet,” Richards said grimly. “But I intend to find out, because I don’t need your fancy intuition to tell me that they’re probably the ones who killed your buddy Crane.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  After Jack hung up with Richards, he did a search for “Earth Defense Society” on the web and came up
with over eight hundred hits. The first one, amazingly enough, appeared to be a very professionally maintained web site for an organization that bore the name. Jack felt a chill run down his spine when he saw the logo on the site’s header: it was the same as on the paper found in Sheldon’s throat. Richards had just emailed him a photo of it. The other hits appeared to be links from other sites back to this one, and he got a sinking feeling as he took a quick scan through. Almost all of them were about UFOs or alien abductions and the like.

  As he began to read the EDS “about” page, he felt his face flush with anger. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he cursed, shaking his head in disbelief.

  The Earth Defense Society is dedicated to defending the Earth and all its life forms from a long-term program undertaken by a non-human intelligence to transform the planet’s biosphere into one capable of supporting their form of life. This enemy has secretly occupied key positions in the government, military, and industries, such as pharmacology and genetics research. We – all of us, humans and every other creature on our planet – are in danger of becoming nothing more than a food source for these invaders...

  Jack turned away from the words on the screen in disgust. Either someone had played an incredibly bad joke with the paper that had been stuffed down Sheldon’s throat, or the Earth Defense Society, the EDS, had at least one homicidal lunatic with the balls or stupidity to murder an FBI special agent.

  What made him angry was that he wanted Sheldon to have suffered and died for something important. The thought that some lunatic who believed in garbage like Area 51 might have killed him for nothing more than some bizarre delusion turned Jack’s stomach.

  Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to read the rest of what the site had to say, mostly elaborating on the ridiculous “aliens are here to eat us” theme. Over the next three hours, he read every page on the site, taking notes as he went. He didn’t write down anything having to do with the alien invasion trash, only the tidbits he thought might be important to obtain a warrant to go after this “society.” He knew that Richards would have a dozen people doing the same thing right now, but that didn’t matter: this was something Jack had to do, and it was always possible he’d find a tidbit that they might have missed.

  The big prize was Naomi D. Perrault, Ph.D., M.D., who seemed to be the leading contributor to the site. There weren’t any pictures of her, but there was plenty of impressive-sounding biographic information, presumably to help legitimize her ridiculous claims. What really caught his eye was that she was a former senior researcher at New Horizons, who claimed to have jumped ship after she discovered that little green men were guiding the development of genetically engineered crops at New Horizons for their own nefarious purposes.

  Yeah, right, he thought coldly. Men from Mars are the last thing you should be worrying about now, lady.

  Since there weren’t any photos of her on the EDS site, he went digging around on the New Horizons site, hoping there would still be something left from when she’d been working for the company. He found a small bio that said nothing that was different from the EDS site, and a slew of papers she had written that were so technical he had no idea what they said. But there were no photos.

  Moving on to FIDS and several state and federal databases, he found something truly disturbing: every document that matched her name had a photo of an obese African American male. Whoever she was, someone had gone to extraordinary lengths to mask her electronic past.

  His cell phone rang.

  “Dawson,” he said.

  “I hope you’ve been spending your crying time wisely, Dawson,” he heard Richards say.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jack said, shocked that Richards had bothered to call him.

  “The EDS site,” Richards answered. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been pawing through every ridiculous word of it.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Sorry. I’m not trying to muck around in your turf, but I couldn’t help looking. Now, I’m almost sorry I did.”

  “Don’t be. The whole EDS thing smells like one big murdering rat,” Richards said, barely restrained anger evident in his voice. “And since you did me a good turn, I figured I’d return the favor, although if you ever breathe a word of any of this to Clement, I’ll kick your ass.”

  “Thanks, Richards,” Jack said, meaning it. “I appreciate it.”

  “Forget the mushy sentiments,” Richards told him brusquely, returning to the matter at hand. “I’ve had an entire team turning that web site upside down and inside out, and tracing down every individual and other site that’s associated with it. The individuals they list on the contributor page appear to be real people, but all of their critical records have either been tampered with or deleted. Social security, military documents, driver’s licenses, bank records, credit cards. Everything. The guys from the Cyber Division that I’ve talked to about this weren’t happy at all: whoever did this was good. Really good. And I’m getting really tired of seeing the same fat black guy that they used to replace every goddamn photo of these people.” Jack grunted his agreement, wondering why they’d chosen that particular photo. “He actually turned out to be a lead,” Richards went on. “We ran an image match and found him. The only problem is that he died three months ago of a heart attack, right after he was tossed into Joliet prison. Go figure.”

  “What was he in for?”

  “Arson,” Richards told him. “Our late friend Gary S. Woolsey got caught torching a lab called Outland Genetics in Chicago nine months ago. He managed to burn the facility to the ground, killing the CEO and four employees.”

  “Jesus,” Jack said, stunned. “And let me guess: Outland Genetics was somehow involved in genetically engineered crops.”

  “Bingo,” Richards said. “And get this. According to the trial records, his attorney was loony enough to put Woolsey on the stand, and under cross examination by the prosecution he broke down. He confessed to the whole damn thing, apologizing for killing the employees, who were, as he put it, ‘at least fellow humans.’ He claimed the CEO was a goddamn alien. After that, his counsel tried to plead an insanity defense.”

  “The jury didn’t swallow that trash, I take it.”

  “No,” Richards said. “Neither did the judge. It was a quick trial, and Woolsey got five consecutive life sentences, with no parole. Not that he got to enjoy much of Joliet’s hospitality before he kicked off.” He paused. “The weird thing was that he had no priors, not even a parking ticket. He just came out of the blue and murdered five people.”

  “What was his background?”

  “Would you believe that he used to work for New Horizons?” Richards told him.

  “No shit?” Jack said, furiously scribbling notes. “Was he a geneticist?”

  “No,” Richards said. “We got his bio from the legal people at New Horizons, who are happily bending over backwards for us on this. It turns out that Woolsey was an IT guy, a network engineer type. He was the head honcho of their wide area network infrastructure linking up the company’s labs across the country. And – get this – he was also the guy who led the IT installation at Lincoln Research University.”

  Jack sat there, watching as the pencil in his right hand, as if it were moving of its own accord, made a dotted line on his notepad from Woolsey’s name to Sheldon’s, then made a big question mark in the middle. “Can we get a list of the facilities that he may have worked on?” What are the odds that they’re the same facilities that had been hacked, and that Sheldon had been investigating? he asked himself.

  “I don’t know,” Richards said, “but we’ll ask.”

  “So what happened to him?” Jack asked.

  “They fired his ass a year ago,” Richards replied. “Get this: when he wasn’t installing networks for the company, he was robbing them blind. If he needed five routers, he’d bill the company for ten and sell the rest on the side.”

  “That seems a little obvious for somebody who was smart enough to be a
network engineer,” Jack told him.

  “Even bright people do stupid things,” Richards replied. “In any case, he got caught in a routine internal audit and was terminated for cause.”

  “A year ago,” Jack mused. “Right about the same time that our good friend Dr. Perrault left the company.”

  “It wasn’t ‘right about the same time,’” Richards told him. “It was the very same week. New Horizons said that Perrault walked out after being accused of trying to steal proprietary technology by her boss.”

  “And who was that?” Jack asked.

  “Dr. Rachel Kempf,” Richards told him. “She’s–”

  “–the scary-looking dean at LRU,” Jack finished for him. “So, Perrault joined the staff at LRU when it opened its doors?”

  “Right. She was one of their star attractions.” Jack heard him rustling some paper notes in the background. “Let’s see: she got her doctorate from Harvard’s Biological and Biomedical Sciences program at the ridiculously young age of eighteen, won just about every prize you can win in the field of genetics, then went on to get her M.D. before being picked up by New Horizons as a senior researcher. She spent the next nine years playing a key role in developing the company’s genetically engineered commercial crops, and was hand-picked by Kempf over a ton of other well-known researchers for a first-string position on the new LRU faculty lineup.

  “Then a year ago, just when Woolsey pulls his little arson stunt, good Dr. Perrault is caught stealing company secrets and they kick her out on the curb,” Richards finished.

  Jack frowned. “I don’t get it,” Jack told him. “She was one of the stars of the show, and then she suddenly decides to risk it all by trying to steal from the company? Something’s not adding up here. How much was she making?”

  “According to New Horizons, at the tender age of twenty-eight, just before she walked out, Dr. Perrault was pulling down an annual salary of one and a half million, plus bonuses and options. So figure a gross income of nearly three mil a year.” He chuckled, but there was no humor in the sound. “Sort of makes you wish that you’d been born a genius, doesn’t it?”