Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)(13)

Parking my newly acquired white pick-up truck with the EPA logo embossed on the side across the street so they can see it, I stride with an urgent gait up to the guard booth outside of the steel fenced gate. Dressed in black cargo pants and a casual button up with a clipboard in hand and a backpack of equipment, I appear official.

“How can I help you?” The guard steps out to block my path.

“I’m from the Environmental Protection Agency and it’s of the utmost urgency that I speak with the owner of this home.” I throw in a deep homeboy Texas drawl to accentuate the persona.

He looks from me, to the truck, then back again.

“Did I stutter?” I wax impatient. “Make the call.”

He makes the call.

Two minutes later a couple of rough looking characters come to greet me, showing off their muscular fighting physiques in a-size-too-small short sleeved polos with pistols holstered over the top.

“You don’t have an appointment,” the larger of the two demands in a tone that’s only purpose is to piss me off.

I point to his feet with my clipboard and roughly declare, “Do you know that where you’re standing right now has a ninety-eight percent probability of being a toxic environmental waste site?” I lift the clipboard and direct it towards the house. “Do you know the basement and lower levels in this home are leaking noxious, cancer causing, poisonous chemicals and gasses right now that you’d never detect and will cause your flesh and organs to grow black with tumors?”

His tough guy act morphs into serious distress, and his buddy rubs his stomach for a

moment before saying, “You know, I haven’t been feeling so good lately.”

“I’m sure you haven’t—but I have twenty other houses up this stretch of bayou to stop at after this one and don’t have time to explain every detail to middlemen. I must see the owner, now!”

The larger guard nods to the smaller one, who turns and jogs back to the house.

“Check him,” the big one orders the gatekeeper with a growl to reestablish his own authority over his peers.

The younger gatekeeper does. I’m searched and scanned for unauthorized weapons, wires, taps or anything else they’d find suspicious.

When the feel-up is over the larger guy instructs, “Open the gate.”

He walks me to the house and into a front foyer. “Wait here.”

Standing in an at-ease position, I take account of my surroundings. The décor is lavish—no-holds-barred, dripping with money. The ceilings are high, the rooms massive, and the windows are large double-paned glass. I wonder if they’re bulletproof.

Some stiff comes at me with a relaxed saunter and three hundred dollar suit. “Mr. . . .?”

“Cooper. Mr. Cooper.”

“Mr. Cooper, you’ve made a mistake. This home has already been tested for radon and other noxious gasses.”

“That’s what you think this is? This is not a routine checkup, Mr. . . .?”

“Greer. I am Mr. Mason’s liaison.”

“Mr. Greer. Companies, including Mason Enterprises, are fracking throughout our beautiful state and so close to your backyard it’s pushing up gases at an unrelenting toxicity level. A home not two miles from this one had a recent level of over 20 pCi/L. That’s more than four times the EPA action level. The family had to be evacuated while teams came in to install equipment to make the home and land safe again.”

“I can assure you—” he interrupts, undaunted.

“I can assure you,” I insist, taking control of the conversation, “Mr. Mason’s property is adjacent to eight thousand acres of protected wetland habitat that is managed and controlled by the United States Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Department, and I have been sent here by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to get readings from within this home and the acreage around it leading up to the bayou. Now, you either produce Mr. Mason or you yourself give me a tour of his fine residence. Otherwise, I produce a US Marshall and a warrant.”

I’m in.





Chapter Four



Rachel





Something new—a couple hours ago they duct taped my mouth. This’ll be the second time. The first time was when I woke up one time, disoriented, and started screaming my head off. After my rage, I cried . . . hard. My nose got plugged with mucus and I could hardly breathe. I thought for sure I’d suffocate. I tried clearing my nose by blowing it and wiping the goo on the side of the mattress. Pretty disgusting, since I’m sure it’s still there. But it became a life and death situation. Even after I expelled the mucus, my sinuses hurt, and getting air through the swelling was nearly impossible. I won’t cry again.

Why’d they use the tape this time? I wasn’t screaming. A chill, cold like a corpse, goosebumps over my skin. They’re either going to move me again or murder me, and they don’t want to hear from me when they do.

I have to shove the fear from my mind fast.

I mull over the five stages of grief—as categorically and chronologically ordered in my psychology textbook—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Five. That’s it. That’s all the American Board of Psychologists, or whoever made up that shit, can give me?