Die-Off (4 page)

‘No.’

‘His brother is here.’

She pointed out a big man who looked like he was in his early thirties, so an older brother and maybe one with a different mother or father – or, on closer look, maybe a man who wasn’t Enrique Jordan’s brother at all. The man was quietly on his cell phone and Marquez moved out of the waiting lounge to the corridor and then to an empty corridor where he still had a good view of the carpeted opening to the Family Resource Center.

He called Captain Waller as he stood near a window in sunlight in the corridor.

‘If I’m right about the guy in the waiting area, I’ll need help following him when he leaves here. Right now he’s waiting to hear surgery results.’

‘Maybe he really is his brother.’

‘He may be.’

‘But you’re sure he’s not.’

‘That’s my gut feeling.’

‘All right, let’s talk again when you actually know something. In the meantime I’ll find out who can back you up. How many pike spilled this morning?’

‘I’m guessing a thousand.’

‘That’s an awful lot but it may just be some sport fishing nutcase.’

‘And maybe the guy in the waiting room is his brother. Get me two SOU wardens if you can. I’ll call you when I know.’

A
bloodstained surgeon and a woman that Marquez guessed was a hospital administrator came through the stainless clad doors of the surgery area. The surgeon looked tired and trailed a step behind. The administrator’s face was grim but she walked with a take-charge step and continued to the reception desk in the Family Resource Center. The surgeon stopped in the hallway and checked his phone. He looked like he was ready for a smoke or a drink or both.

Marquez focused on the administrator. She leaned over the counter in front of the woman at the desk, who then turned and pointed toward the guy sitting in a corner, the brother. When he realized they were talking about him he sat up and appeared attentive and concerned. The administrator made her way to him and he rose, stood towering over her in a baggy white T-shirt and loose-fitting jeans.

Whatever she said caused his face to twist in pain and she put a hand on his back and guided him across the carpet and out toward the surgeon. The big man moving with the small well-dressed administrator made Marquez think of a tug pulling a cargo ship across San Francisco Bay, but he had that thought without any real humor and drifted back as they approached.

The surgeon crossed his arms and shifted as if preparing himself. They moved closer to the wall and the brother’s back was to Marquez. Still, his deep voice was easy to hear.

‘How can he be dead? Where is he? I need to see him.’

The administrator started on hospital rules and how that wasn’t going to happen and the man ramped it up and got loud. Neither the surgeon nor the administrator liked that much and it drew attention from people waiting for the elevator, and everybody got a little agitated.

‘I’m sorry,’ the surgeon said, his voice more in command now. ‘We did our best but he went into cardiac arrest. We did everything we could to try to save him.’

‘Take me to him.’

The administrator stepped away and made a call and the surgeon shook his head. No doubt he knew something of how Enrique Jordan was injured and the sanctimoniousness of the big man was probably wearing thin. Either way, there was no enthusiasm for showing the brother the body, but they did finally relent and led him into the surgery area.

When that happened, Marquez rode the elevator down and walked out through the lobby and into cold air. He was in his car in the wide lot watching the doors along the white stucco face of the hospital building when the big man came out. He was light-footed, a boxer rolling on the balls of his feet, ready for the fight, talking on his phone, gesturing with his right hand. He had passed quickly through the stages of grief and smiled and laughed at something which the person on the end of the phone had said.

Then he was off the phone and scanning the lot before getting in his car. He backed out slowly and sat idling as he made another call and was on the phone as he pulled out of the lot on to the street, accelerating hard but after less than a quarter mile pulled over to the curb and killed his lights. Nothing very subtle to that. It said he expected to be followed and he wasn’t too clear about how to spot them.

Marquez talked with Waller and waited for the black Honda Civic to move again. He called the local police and gave his location and model of the Honda. He asked for help and then the big man made it easier. He came off the side of the road and back into the rightmost of three lanes on the boulevard as if coming out of a pit stop in a NASCAR race. As he approached the next green light he let it go to yellow before gunning his engine and shooting through the intersection as the light went from yellow to red.

The Honda was registered to an Emile Soliatano. It was lowered and ran on expensive chrome wheels and run-flat tires and the Fairfield Police didn’t have any problem picking up on him. He went through two more lights with the same trick and just before the road reached the interstate he got pulled over and ticketed. The name matched the car registration. What Marquez drew from this was that Soliatano was inexperienced. He showed some chutzpah at the hospital, but he had no real cover and his efforts to avoid being followed were clumsy. He was probably scared.

When the two SOU wardens checked in, Marquez asked, ‘Where are you guys?’

‘Coming down the freeway and almost to you.’

‘Go slow. He just got a ticket and turned law abiding, but he’s getting on I-80 westbound right now and wherever he’s going, we’re going with him.’

S
oliatano drove toward San Francisco. When he reached the bay he tracked down the east shore and broke left at the maze, hurtling through the bend onto 580 with his car drifting hard right. That move read as adrenalin-fueled paranoia to Marquez, but might also be a burst of action before getting off the freeway. When Soliatano dropped down the off ramp at Oakland Avenue and made the left back under the freeway, Marquez said, ‘Fuck, it can’t be.’ He went to speaker on his cell and conferenced in both of the SOU wardens.

‘For three weeks I’ve been talking to a climatologist named Matt Hauser who works for a firm called ENTR. He’s the one who called me with the northern pike tip. Soliatano is bee-lining toward Hauser’s house in Piedmont.’

‘Who is this Hauser, again?’

That was O’Brien, the warden passing Marquez now on his left.

‘ENTR is the business I’m looking at with this illegal hatchery scheme. Hauser claims an internal group at ENTR has a secret project going and has built three hatcheries in California, two in Oregon, and two more in Washington to grow northern pike. Until this truck flipped today there was no proof and Hauser is flaky. He’s avoided meeting. It’s all phone conversations on his terms and each one ends with something he immediately has to get to or another call coming in. You’d think the guy was a Hollywood producer.

‘He does five-, ten-, and fifteen-year microclimate projections for ENTR and told me a biologist also working for ENTR tipped him to the pike scheme. He got my cell number from a retired FBI agent I worked with in Argentina. That agent won’t vouch for him and I’ve been digging into who he is. That’s how I know where he lives.’

‘What’s he want?’ O’Brien asked. ‘Is he looking for money?’

‘Probably, but he says no, it’s his reputation as a scientist he’s worried about and also some forty-page non-disclosure agreement he signed that leaves him vulnerable whether or not the company is engaged in something illegal. Like I said, he hasn’t come across and he can never talk too long. They have an internal security group in the company and he goes on about how he’s afraid of them, but if Soliatano goes to his house now then all bets are off.’

Marquez broke away three blocks later and was now into tree-lined streets where he could park and kill the lights as O’Brien and Liu reported Soliatano driving random blocks but looking like he was circling Hauser’s house. The house was white-painted and big, with trees in front that had to be a hundred years old, and Marquez remembered an offhand and bitter comment Hauser made about his wife and the house and living in Piedmont. Marquez’s phone buzzed. O’Brien.

‘Heads up, he’s coming your way.’

Soliatano passed Hauser’s house and two blocks down turned around and came back, his headlights sweeping over Marquez’s car. He pulled over but didn’t get out of his car. Marquez could see him holding his phone to his ear.

‘He’s calling Hauser,’ and Liu answered quietly, ‘Yeah, I see him. He’s on the phone and there’s a tall guy coming out from the back.’

‘Should be tall and thin, but I’m getting that from Internet photos.’

‘Yeah, tall and thin, that’s what I’m looking at.’

Marquez agreed as he watched the man cross the street and get in Soliatano’s car. Soliatano pulled away from the curb though he didn’t turn his headlights on until he was half a block away. Then they did a slow tour of Piedmont streets and, following, they gave them a lot of room. Marquez’s best guess was that Hauser was calming Soliatano down and making some sort of plan to deal with the death of the driver.

Fifteen minutes later Soliatano and Hauser returned to the house and Marquez got a better look at Hauser as he passed under a street light. He disappeared behind the same garden gate and Marquez and the SOU stayed with Soliatano who returned to the freeway and got on eastbound, probably headed to the Vacaville address on his driver’s license.

But that’s not where he went. When he got out of the Bay Area and into the Central Valley he took the 505 north cut-off, exited at Winters, and parked in front of a house on a suburban street that looked a lot like home from the way he got out and unlocked the front door.

‘What do you want to do, Lieutenant Marquez?’

‘Go home.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah, we’re done here tonight.’

On the drive home Marquez’s cell rang and it was Hauser.

‘It’s late, Matt, what’s up?’

‘I was just watching late local news and they’re saying a pickup rolled over near the Sacramento River and the driver who was killed was carrying an invasive fish. They’re quoting Fish and Game but the type of fish is unidentified. Was it pike, Lieutenant, and am I credible now?’

‘We’ve been talking for three weeks, Matt. What have you given me?’

‘Were they northern pike?’

‘I don’t know. You’re the first person to call me about it. I’m driving back from up north. Where did this happen?’

‘I didn’t get that. I came into the room too late. I heard the last half of the report and I’m surprised you don’t know. How come you don’t? Doesn’t your department communicate? They’re saying this happened this morning.’

‘Was it ENTR?’

‘If it’s northern pike it’s them.’

‘Let’s meet tomorrow.’

‘I’m not sure I can do that. I’ve got to check.’

‘Go ahead and check, I’ll stay on the phone. Who else have you talked with about this pike project?’

‘My wife.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘No, the risks are considerable to my career. I’m looking at my schedule now. Tomorrow isn’t going to work and I need some assurances first. I need protection and I don’t mean from physical harm. I saw what happened to Nora Beloit who used to work at ENTR. She quit and took ENTR contacts to her new job. They sued her. They got her fired from the new job and then attacked her credibility as a scientist for two years as she tried to go back into academia. You can Google her name and see where they left it. She can’t get hired anywhere now. I saw her about six months ago and she looks ten years older. I don’t want to end up like that.’

‘If you deliver, we’ll back you up.’

‘Get the head of your department to call me and put it in writing and I’ll deliver enough information to find the hatcheries. Get him to call me.’

‘He’s going to want to know what you’ve done for us.’

‘It’s what I
will
do for you that matters.’

‘You’ve told me there are two secret hatcheries in Washington, two in Oregon, and three here, and that the ultimate goal is water reallocation. You say they’re looking ten years down the road and trying to eliminate a slew of future lawsuits by introducing a fish species that’ll wipe out the salmon, trout, smelt, and all the natives. Maybe if it were in a theater I might watch it for a while, but no one I work with is going to believe that without a lot more information.’

Hauser’s voice hardened.

‘You’re not going to believe it because you can’t picture it. Get your chief to call me.’

‘I need a face-to-face with you first, Matt. I need proof. Let’s meet tomorrow.’

‘Less than five minutes ago I told you I can’t.’

‘Then Saturday.’

‘I can’t do that either.’

‘Monday.’

‘I’m booked all next week. Get your chief to call me.’

‘All right, I’ll see what I can do and thanks for all your help.’

Marquez killed the connection and switched the phone to vibrate. It was a gamble, but Hauser was a high-strung guy and manipulative and had to be nervous after today. But Hauser didn’t call back during the rest of the drive home. He did call later in the night when Marquez was in bed with his wife Katherine and his phone was on a nightstand.

The phone vibrated as the call came and it was enough to wake Marquez. He looked at the screen but didn’t answer it. Hauser called again a few minutes later and again after half an hour and Katherine asked sleepily, ‘Who keeps doing that?’

‘A source that is trying to play it two ways.’

‘Why are they doing that?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to figure out.’

‘Can it wait until morning?’

Not really
, he thought and picked up the phone.

‘Now what are you doing?’

‘Texting him.’

‘Seriously?’

She rolled away from him and Marquez typed, ‘You’re in or you’re out.’

‘I’m in.’

‘Then help us.’

‘I’m trying to.’

‘Take the chance.’

‘I want to but I could lose everything and I’m scared.’