Oath of Office

CHAPTER 42

While waiting for Joey to emerge from the staff entrance to Millie’s, Lou checked over the large piece of equipment Oliver Humphries had lent him. The ground-penetrating radar system looked like a jogger’s stroller, minus the canvas seat where the infant would go. It had a twenty-inch front wheel and two twenty-four-inch rear wheels, making the contraption reasonably easy to transport. The 270 megahertz antenna was encased inside a bread box-sized container and secured to the underside of the carriage. The antenna was capable of broadcasting subsurface images to an eight-inch display screen mounted between the handlebars.

Perfect for locating termite tunnels.

Humphries felt confident that a single termite tower did not preclude the possibility of there being others nearby. In fact, the tattooed entomologist thought it strange that only a single tower existed in a given area. If these termites had escaped from a lab where they’d been radiated, as Humphries believed to be the case, then there should be a ventilation shaft connecting the isolated mound to the rest of the colony.

The Macrotermes bellicosus species were strange, almost mystical creatures. Their huge towers, Humphries had explained, did not provide habitation for the colony. Instead, scientists believed the elaborate Tolkeinesque structures were built for the thermoregulation vital for growing the fungus essential to their diet. The ground-penetrating radar might not provide answers to any perplexing questions, but it would help to find other mounds by detecting the subsurface ventilation shafts joining one colony to another.

Lou was leaning against the machine, rereading the manual, when Joey slammed open the screen door and, blinking against the glare, bounded into the bright early afternoon sun. He looked dressed for a safari-tan khaki shorts, knee-high socks, and a wide-brimmed sun hat. Lou was pleased to see that he had been taking good care of his surgically repaired hand.

“Hey, big guy,” Lou said, “that wound dressing looks great.”

Joey’s freckled face crinkled in a broad grin. “Millie and Tommy, the head chef, drove me back yesterday to have the thumb checked again. It looks really scary, all black and blue and greenish, but Dr. Kurdi says it’s doing terrific and that it’s going to work as good as my other one. So, what’s that thing?”

“It’s a device to help me locate other termite mounds,” Lou said, pausing before adding, “if there are any others.”

“Well, I hope you pumped up the tires real good, because it’s a few miles’ walk from here to the mound-maybe four.”

Lou sighed, pulled off his Nationals cap to wipe sweat from his brow, and looked out at the shimmering heat rising up off the road.

“Four miles, eh? Can’t we just drive there?”

“I only know how to get there by walking,” Joey said.

“Do we need a map?”

“Wouldn’t know where to look on it. The directions are all up here.” He tapped his forehead with his good hand. “One of the things I really enjoy doing is exploring the cornfields.”

“And you think you can find the mound by walking?” Lou grunted as he pushed the cart hard enough to build up some momentum.

Joey marched ahead as they passed the Dorm and then left the vinyl-sided apartments behind.

“I spent two years walking every bit of the cornfields,” Joey said, loud enough not to have to turn his head. “Acres and acres and acres. That’s how I found my special termites. I know these fields like the back of my hand.” He held up his heavily bandaged arm and laughed.

Lou imagined how difficult it was going to be pushing the contraption through the deeply furrowed fields.

So much for AA’s golden admonition not to project.

He recalled Joey’s obsession with knot tying and Millie’s acknowledgment that he got fixated on certain things. As Lou trudged along, grateful for all the hours he spent training in the ring and on the bags, he hoped Joey’s navigation obsession also included the shortest and easiest route to get to where they wanted to be.

Forty-five minutes later, Lou’s sweat-drenched T-shirt was plastered to his chest like a second skin. Of all the cornfields Joey took him through, this one was proving especially difficult to negotiate. Loose soil and tall stocks from Chester Enterprises’ genetically modified corn crop made for extremely slow going. Joey offered to help push, but there was no way Lou would risk anything happening to the thumb he had helped to save.

If there was a positive aspect to the difficult and dusty passage, it was that his attention was largely fixated on moving ahead. Still, thoughts of Darlene were never far from the surface. Between reestablishing himself in the ER, demonstrating his work ethic at Physician Wellness, spending time with Emily, getting to meetings, and working out with Cap, he had precious little opportunity to meet women. AA was famous among its members for having a saying to fit every situation or occasion. The one he liked to fall back on when it came to having a social life, was Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.

Unfortunately, there was no saying that applied to what was happening between him and the president’s wife.

As much as Darlene dared, she had decided to confront her husband when he returned from his campaign trip later in the day regarding Double M, Russell Evans, William Chester, the bellicosus termites, and the elusive trainload of corn. Her goal was to set up a meeting between the president and Lou to review the bizarre and sometimes deadly pattern of behavior that Lou had observed among the citizens of Kings Ridge.

Lou felt embarrassed about his near obsession with the woman, but decided that so long as he could keep his fantasies and projections from getting the best of him, he could only do what he could do.

Another useful saying.

Eventually, he and Joey emerged onto a narrow dirt road. Lou paused and scanned the track and the surrounding fields. “I know this place,” he said.

“Well, the mound I found is in the woods off the end of this road. Not far now.”

“This is near where I was attacked.”

“Attacked?”

“Never mind,” Lou said quickly.

He remained on high alert the rest of the way. If Chester’s corn was the source of all the troubles in Kings Ridge, it was likely that the mogul’s henchmen would be stationed someplace close by. The afternoon was virtually windless, and he kept a cautious lookout for any movement of the stalks, while at the same time scanning the dense rows in a futile attempt to spot Anthony Brite’s body.

At the end of the dirt road, Joey veered into the woods to their left, and Lou followed several paces behind. The cart’s bicycle-like tires were designed to traverse difficult terrain, making it fairly easy for him to maneuver over the ground’s exposed roots and rocks. The two of them bushwhacked their way another quarter mile or so. Although Joey seemed confident, Lou, now grimy and soaked in sweat, was beginning to have doubts. Gratefully, his ankle was not aching badly.

“Bingo!” the young chef cried out from some distance ahead.

Lou took a moment to settle down the burning in his chest, then headed toward Joey’s voice. The packed-mud bellicosus castle rose from the forest floor like a rocket on its launching pad. There were hundreds of large termites scattered along its length, and dozens more of them flying around like an air force fighter squadron.

“Whoa!” he whispered, marveling at the staggering height and geometry of the thing. “It’s awesome.”

“Don’t I know it!” Joey said. “Awesome is the word.”

The jagged, conical tower, two or three feet taller than Lou, was peppered with impressively large termites. It looked like a decaying tree trunk, sculpted with spires and crevices.

From about two feet away, Lou cautiously circumvented the spectacular construction. “Amazing,” was all he could say. “Absolutely amazing.”

“Well, I’ve got to go,” Joey said with singsong nonchalance.

“Go? What are you talking about? Where are you going?” Concern crept into Lou’s voice.

“Why, back to work, of course,” Joey said. “I did tell you I had to work a double, didn’t I?”

“Actually, no, you didn’t,” Lou replied, laughing nervously. “Joey, what if I can’t find my way out of here?”

“Oh, the trail behind us is pretty well marked now. You can follow the dirt road back there, and skip the cornfields entirely. It’ll only add two or three miles to your return trip.”

“Two or three miles? Joey, I don’t even know where this gizmo is going to take me, let alone how to get back from there.” The notion of being back in these fields in the dark of night was not the least bit appealing.

One look at Joey, and Lou’s distress quickly began to ebb. The kid had done his best.

Lou had read two historical accounts of the Louis and Clark expedition. If they could accomplish their remarkable, uncharted journey, he could find his way back to the restaurant. Still somewhat apprehensive, he thanked his young guide.

“If you find a queen, let me know,” Joey said. “Even though they can make a new one, the colony is struggling without a leader. They need a purpose.”

“Will do,” Lou said, holding up one of the specimen jars he had brought. “And thanks for sacrificing your lady to the greater good.”

“I was just kidding, Doc. Don’t try to find one. She’d be deep within the colony. Before you got to her, you’d be hamburger.”

Joey tipped his hat, waved good-bye with his heavily bandaged hand, and was gone. Lou listened until Joey’s footfalls had disappeared into the dense woods. Finally, when the only sound in the still afternoon was the continuous scraping and scratching from the bellicosus termites, he powered up the radar machine.

Despite the bug repellent he had swathed on himself, he wondered at what distance the insects would sense the presence of live flesh, and organize themselves for an attack.

The ground radar system whirred softly as it came to life. The cart’s handlebars vibrated, causing Lou’s forearms to tingle. The display screen went from deep gray to varying lighter shades. The background colors were of no interest to him. They represented natural soils, not the organized, hyperbolic reflections of air tunnels within the ground, which were black.

Lou maneuvered the radar closer to the tower, fearing that the ground beneath him might cave in. The first subsurface ventilation shaft came into clear focus a foot from the conical structure. The markings on the radar’s display screen looked like flickering, serpentine shapes-black, projected onto a gray background. As Lou moved the antenna away from the ventilation shaft, the change in reception altered the subsurface reflection, causing the curved shape to disappear from the screen. By trial and error, he learned that so long as he had the black patterns on his radar display, he was standing over one of the ventilation shafts.

Using a pad and pencil, Lou mapped a number of the largest shafts, keeping a careful log of the orientation and length of each on graph paper Humphries had provided. Each of the tunnels led to a small hole in the surface topography along with a baseball-sized depression in the soil that contributed ventilation to the remarkably constructed tower.

Sweaty and aching, Lou mapped the entire area until one quadrant, which he had labeled SE-southeast-caught his attention. It contained a thicker, curved black shadow than the others-a dark snake that went to the edge of the screen and did not seem to have an end. Lou wheeled his apparatus ahead and followed the winding shape on his display as it led him away from the huge structure and deeper into the forest.

One hundred yards … two hundred … three …

The shaft was still beneath his feet, running parallel to the surface, about two feet deep.

Eventually, Lou emerged into a broad clearing about the size of a football field, with a single-story, windowless brick structure at the far west end. There was a narrow unpaved access road just opposite from where he stood, which opened into a small dirt parking area. There was a single empty car standing in the lot-a large black Mercedes four-door with Virginia plates.

The ventilation shaft remained at the center of the screen, although the depth seemed to have increased-perhaps three feet now, maybe even a bit more. Lou followed the shadow until it came to an abrupt end at the south-facing side of the building. At that point, the depth of the serpentine ventilation tunnel increased sharply, and moments later, the radar display screen turned totally gray.

Lou checked his machine, which seemed to be functioning all right. The shaft appeared to have disappeared into something much larger-a subterranean chamber of some sort.

Lou sensed there might be something underneath him. He flipped through the instruction manual, but it was quite technical, and there was no explanation for something like the phenomenon he was observing. The one thing he felt fairly certain of was that the fearsome bellicosus termites in the forest and subsequently in Joey’s Lucite terrarium were originating here.

Scanning the surroundings for cameras, he walked the radar around the building. There was a slight crack in the foundation, and he wondered if farther down, the bugs had escaped that way. There was a green metal door by the east corner. Lou carefully tried to open it, but it was locked. He backed away and wheeled the radar machine into the woods.

Given his experience with the gunmen, the deserted Mercedes was unnerving.

Still, Lou felt desperate to get inside the blockhouselike building. A possible solution, he decided, was among the contacts in his cell phone-Chief Gilbert Stone.

Three rings and Stone answered. “Stone here.”

“Chief Stone, it’s Lou Welcome.”

“Welcome. Everything okay? What can I do for you?”

“Do you know anything about a windowless brick building in a clearing not too far from where we got attacked?”

“Allegedly got attacked,” Stone corrected. “Sounds like the old power and water transfer station. Why? What’s up?”

“I’m in the woods outside of it right now. Do you think you could get over here? I may have found the source of the Kings Ridge problem.”

“You stay put, Welcome, and keep out of sight,” Stone said. “I’ll be right there.”

“The door’s locked.”

“No problem,” Stone replied. “I have a key.”

Soon, Lou thought excitedly. Soon it’s going to be over.

Starting to chill from the evaporation of his own sweat, he slid down to the base of a white ash, clasped his arms around his knees, and waited.

Soon …