Judas Horse_ An FBI Special Agent Ana Grey Mystery - April Smith [33]
We are back to the signature device that killed Steve Crawford, which is tied to the firebomb that blew up Ernie’s Meats on the docks of Portland, and possibly other unsolved attacks over the past years credited to FAN: a fire at a genetic-engineering company that resulted in fifty thousand dollars’ worth of damage; two explosive devices using Tovex that went off at 3:00 a.m. at the construction site of a new pharmaceutical facility, destroying three concrete trucks and causing the abandonment of a twenty-million-dollar project.
Megan Tewksbury had to have known about the blood bomb and the mysterious young man, which is, finally, the best argument for infiltrating her. At last, the Operation Wildcat team agrees with what I’ve been saying all along—until we can ID the person using the alias Julius Emerson Phelps, Megan is our best way in.
A black van pulls up and double-parks in the street below, taillights blinking. Angling sideways at the window to get a better view, I see two figures emerge and open the rear doors. This is the unit I have been waiting for. I am at the door to the apartment even before there is knocking, urgent and sharp, like the Gestapo in the night.
“Darcy? Are you in there? Darcy DeGuzman! Open the door.”
I unlock the door. “People are sleeping!”
Two shaggy hipsters stand in the hall. One is a white male with silver earrings and baggy India-print pants. The other is a gregarious African-American female whose long cornrows are woven with beads. Both wear heavy rubber boots. Their faces are sweaty and streaked with mud. The stench of hay and dead things is a sharp hit to the nose.
“Are you Darcy DeGuzman?”
“Who are you?”
They show their creds. FBI, Portland field office.
“We have your ducks.”
The male agent drags a plastic bin over the threshold. It contains four confused white ducks.
“I didn’t think it would be ducks.”
“Those were the orders.”
“Get them out of here. I can’t deal with this.”
“We just stole ’em,” says the female. “No way we’re taking ’em back. I’m not crawling through bird poop again in this lifetime.”
“Wait a minute. What’s wrong with him?”
One of the ducks is lying down in the bin.
“It’s sick.”
“Why’d you take a sick one?”
“What’s the difference? They’re all gonna die.” He points to green circles drawn around their necks. “That means they’re marked for slaughter.”
Okay, this is absurd.
“What am I supposed to do with a sick duck?”
The female yawns. “Call your supervisor.”
“That is incredibly unhelpful, ma’am.”
“Sorry we woke you up,” she snaps. “We enjoy doing the shit work for Los Angeles.”
And they’re sure to slam the door.
Three ducks are wandering around the apartment. The worst part is, it was my dumb idea to use rescue animals in order to get closer to Megan. I was thinking more along the line of puppies, but I know why Angelo authorized the poultry heist—to make it look like the work of dedicated radicals.
To get foie gras, a gourmet pâté, you force-feed the birds until their livers swell. French farmwives have been stuffing ducks and geese for hundreds of years, but it’s not so quaint when they’re kept in electrified metal cages with tubes down their throats. Activists have long been onto it as a rallying point. Foie gras is gruesome. It’s elitist. It’s what keeps people like Megan Tewksbury up at night.
I call her at Willamette Hazelnut Farm, using the number on the card. It is five o’clock in the morning. The apartment already smells like the monkey house at the zoo.
“Friends of mine broke into a poultry farm last night—”
“What friends?” Megan is on it. She must get these wake-up calls often.
“Freedom fighters, let’s just say. They had no place to take them, so they left them with me. What do I do with a bunch of ducks?”
“This is not an easy time,” Megan says warily. “Are you on a cell phone?”
“Yes.”
“We have to hang up.”
“Okay, but listen—here