The Einstein Papers

CHAPTER 28

To someone who was driving past on the highway, the nondescript two-story office building in the free-trade zone near McAllen, Texas, looked like many others. The building might have housed an import-export firm, a small factory, even a warehouse. Instead, the building was the headquarters for a company named Enviorco. The company's business was genetically engineered microbes.

The Rio Grande Valley in Texas had long been a waste dumping ground. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement had only accelerated the environmental damage that was commonplace along the Texas border with Mexico. Since incorporation four years before, Enviorco had seen a growth rate that exceeded a thousand percent a year. Enviorco now owned more patents on biological microbes than any other company in the world. The microbes grown in the laboratory in McAllen were designed to be spread on oil slicks, toxic waste spills, or areas of chemical contamination. After they were sprayed in a liquid mist on the area to be decontaminated, the microbes began to eat the poisons. After digesting the toxins and reprocessing them into nontoxic waste products, the microbes would die soon afterward. The area of contamination would now be clean, the decomposing bodies of the microbes becoming a safe soil mulch. The process had proven to be environmentally sound and the bugs from McAllen were now shipped worldwide.

In the hot Texas sun outside Enviorco's building, the temperature just before noon was already over ninety degrees. A hot, dry wind was blowing south from upstate as Gilbert Moscap walked the short distance to the parking lot and his company car. The wind that blew by him smelled of fertilizer, metal, and citrus. Unlocking the door of the car, Moscap was hit by a blast of superheated air from inside. He sat down gingerly on the sun-baked seat, then turned the key and started the car. Setting the air conditioner to maximum, he pushed the button to lower the windows until the car could cool. He slid the shifter into drive and set out for a restaurant just across the border in Reynosa, Mexico, for lunch. As Moscap drove onto the highway, Enviorco's parking lot began to empty as the rest of the company's scientists and office workers filed out for the noon meal.

Eight minutes later, the parking lot was almost empty. Turning off the highway leading into Enviorco, three men in a Dodge pickup waved to the guard sitting in the checkpoint, then entered the empty lot. Backing the truck up to the loading dock the three men entered the laboratory through a side door. Though the men were wearing Enviorco uniforms, their hats were pulled low to obscure their features. One of the men removed a slip of paper from his wallet and checked the vat numbers on the tanks of microbes, then directed the others to the north side of the building. Finding the control number they were seeking, the men wheeled the vat toward the loading dock. Through the raised garage door they rolled the vat into the bed of the Dodge, then lashed it down with nylon straps. After driving to the checkpoint, they stopped and handed the guard on duty a set of forged paperwork. Once cleared, they drove back onto the highway. Forty-seven minutes later, Moscap was passing through Mexican customs to return to the United States when his executive assistant, Connie Lauder, called him on his cellular phone.

"Yeah, Connie," Moscap said as he finished passing through customs, then accelerated onto the highway leading to Enviorco.

"Mr. Moscap, I have Hal King in the office. He just returned from lunch. He claims we're missing a vat of Modified 25."

Moscap thought for a moment before speaking. "Are those the rapid reproducing oileaters?"

"They're the zero-oxygen, highly modified bugs that were developed from formula 12," Lauder said, reading from her computer.

Moscap instandy knew what Lauder was talking about. "We were ordered by the EPA to destroy those bugs. What happened?"

Over the speakerphone in Lauder's office, Moscap heard shuffling. "Mr. Moscap, this is Hal King. I ordered some Modified 25 retained so I could experiment with it," King said and paused. "I thought that if I could breed in a time-line we would have something valuable."

Moscap pushed down on the accelerator of the car. He was mad and edging toward livid. He fought a constant struggle with the scientists employed by Enviorco. Most had lived a life ignored by society and craved recognition and respect. They all wanted to be published in the scientific journals, their brilliance then recognized by their peers.

"Have your experiments worked, Mr. King?" Moscap asked, struggling to remain calm.

"No, not really," King answered slowly.

"That's why the EPA ordered those microbes destroyed," Moscap said loudly. "Did you happen to read the data on their one and only introduction?"

"Yes sir," said King sheepishly.

"Then you remember that after the microbes cleaned up the spill they migrated down the pipe string and into the oil reservoir. We nearly lost the entire oil field. When we sampled the formerly rich oil-bearing sands they looked like they had been run through a giant washing machine."

"But we halted the migration—" King began to say.

"We halted it by flooding the well with natural gas and burning it out. Had there been any oil left in the sands we would have had a catastrophe on our hands." Moscap turned onto the road leading to Enviorco. "I'm about two miles away, King. I want you to wait for me in Connie's office," he said as he pushed the button and disconnected the phone. Near Weslaco, Texas, the Dodge truck carrying enough microbes to wipe out the entire Texas oil industry was rolling east. Billy Tolbert spit out the window, scratched the scab on a new tattoo on his arm, then reached into his pocket for his pack of non-filtered Camels. Tapping one out of the pack, he flicked a safety match across the dashboard and lit the end.

"It's another hour to Port Isabel," Tolbert said as he rose up off the seat and passed a foul wind. "We should hit a drive-through liquor store and buy a twelve-pack." His two partners, only weeks out of the Texas state prison at Huntsville, nodded in agreement. Pulling the Dodge off the highway, Tolbert purchased a twelve-pack of Shiner, then set out driving east again.

Moscap slid the transmission of his company car into park while it was still rolling forward. Switching off the key, he raced inside Enviorco to Lauder's office.

"First get me security, then pull up a list of our current job sites," he said to Lauder. Moscap lit a cigarette, his first of the day.

"Security's on the way," Lauder said a few minutes later. "Here's the list of job sites." Moscap scanned the list. Six job sites were oil spills. The rest were toxic waste. Twenty-four sites total. If there was an order mix-up, the Modified 25 could be headed to any one of the sites. He tore the list in half.

"Take this half," he said to Lauder. "Call them and ask for the foreman. If they have ordered any microbes to be delivered today, ask them not to use them until they can be tested."

Two security guards entered the office and stood standing, awaiting instructions. Moscap pointed at King, who was sitting silently in a chair.

"You," he said, pointing at one of the guards. "Walk Dr. King to his office, take his entrance pass, and secure his computer. Then walk him to his car and see him off the property. He is no longer employed here."

King stared at Moscap silently.

"Don't bother to put Enviorco down as a reference in your job hunt," Moscap said.

"And if you ever come on the grounds again, for any reason, I will have you arrested." The guard led King away by the arm.

Moscap pointed to the other guard. "I want you to go to the checkpoint and find out who it was that left with the microbes. As soon as that's done pull the videotapes for the last two hours from the security cameras both inside the plant and outside." The guard nodded and raced away.

Moscap ran to a phone and began to call the foremen.

Twenty minutes later Lauder walked over. "I've finished my list. Every foreman I've spoken to claims they always order microbes on Monday. That way they are not at the site over the weekend. Since it's Friday, not one was expecting a shipment today."

"Number seven on my list is not answering. Then I have two more to call," Moscap said.

Five minutes later Moscap had reached all but number seven on his list. The smell of salt air, fish, and diesel fuel lay like gauze over the deteriorating dock that was located on a deadend road near Port Isabel, Texas. Pulling the truck up to a rusty cargo ship, Tolbert and his partners climbed from the cab.

The man that had hired them to steal the microbes motioned from the deck of the ship.

"Bring the container inside," he said quietly.

A flock of seagulls nearby screeched loudly, fighting over the spoils being tossed from the rear of a passing shrimp boat. Tolbert waited until the din grew quiet to answer.

"Show us the rest of our money," he shouted up to the man. Opening a briefcase, the man angled it so Tolbert could see inside. The cash that filled the inside was neatly stacked with the bank wrappers listing denomination clearly visible.

"Let's go, men," Tolbert said, smiling, as he lowered the rear gate of the pickup. Tolbert and his partners unloaded the stainless-steel vat, then rolled it up the ramp to the deck of the cargo ship. The man on deck walked into the main cabin with the briefcase and motioned for Tolbert to follow. Setting the briefcase on a table, he pointed to the vat. "Put the container over there first," he said, "then you can count your money." The least senior of Tolbert's partners began to secure the vat against a bulkhead. Tolbert and the other thief raced to the briefcase and began to rifle through it. The young burglar was just finishing placing blocks of wood under the vat of microbes. He rose and turned at the sound of two soft splats. Tolbert and the second of the trio of thieves dropped to the floor, a cloud of misty blood visible in the beam of sunlight coming through the open door. Without a second thought, the only remaining thief leapt through the hatchway leading to the deck as a flurry of bullets struck the wall beside him. Racing down the ramp, he twisted to the right as a bullet fired from the deck pierced his shoulder.

Moscap pushed the speed-dialer again and waited as the phone rang.

The seventh foreman on the list, Bob Bilcher, smiled at the buxom bartender and rose from his stool. "I'm going to get some cigarettes from my truck, Belle. I'll be right back." Walking through the dirt parking lot, Bilcher could hear the phone in the truck incessantly ringing. He unlocked the truck and picked up the headset.

"Yeah," Bilcher said.

This is Gilbert Moscap."

Bilcher was stabbed first by a pang of guilt, then by anger. Someone on his crew must have alerted Moscap to his habit of taking off early on Friday. "Yes, sir," Bilcher said.

"Did you order any microbe deliveries today?" Moscap asked. Bilcher smiled, his brief anger subsiding. "No sir. I almost always order 'robes to be delivered on Monday."

The cellular phone fell silent for a moment. "Thanks. That's all I need," Moscap said after the pause.

Bilcher hung up the phone and exhaled. Reaching in the glove box he removed a pack of cigarettes. Then he returned to the bar to get good and drunk.

At Enviorco, in McAllen, Moscap rubbed his face with his hands.

"The people on the tapes have their hats pulled low. It'll be tough to get any sort of positive identification," the security guard said when Moscap walked from Lauder's office.

Looking at Lauder, Moscap rubbed his hands across his cheeks again. "We've got a hell of a problem here," he said finally.