Cracks in Reality (Seams in Reality Book 2) (24 page)

"The federal government will shut this place down!" Dan roared.

"No!" Harris yelled.

"You allowed two hundred pounds of explosive material to walk out of this factory."

"It was just aluminum powder."

The workers stopped what they were doing to watch. Andrew scanned the faces for a guilty reaction.

"Aluminum burns," Dan said. "When mixed with a strong oxidizer, it explodes. You should know that. What kind of sloppy operation are you running here?"

"We're just a paint factory," Harris said.

"A factory full of hazardous materials which you are obviously unqualified to manage."

"That's not fair. We comply with all the industry standards."

"Comply with standards somewhere else," Dan said. "You're done. Everybody is fired. I hope the guy who stole the powder is satisfied."

"There," Charley whispered and pointed.

Andrew looked in the indicated direction. A pudgy man with sparse hair was cowering behind a stainless steel tank. His face was beet red. Andrew had never seen a more obviously guilty expression.

"You're plan worked after all," Andrew whispered.

"Don't they always?" Charley said.

The apprentices climbed down from the platform. They casually walked around to a position behind the pudgy man.

Andrew waved his hand to get Dan's attention and pointed at the pudgy man. Dan nodded slightly.

"Let's continue this conversation in your office," Dan said to Harris. "I'll let you plead your case one more time."

The two of them returned to the manager's office.

The workers gradually went back to their duties, but they had anxious expressions. Some spoke to each other in hushed voices.

Andrew and Charley walked up to the pudgy man.

"Hi!" Andrew said in a cheerful tone.

The man spun around to face him. "Oh! Are you with that other guy?"

"He's a real FBI agent. We're just interns who came to observe."

"FBI?" the man said nervously.

"That's right," Andrew said. "What's your name?"

"Scott. Scott Kuperman. Why? I didn't do anything wrong."

"We're talking to all the employees. What's your job here?"

"Maintenance technician," Kuperman said. "I fix the machines."

He pointed to an open panel in a control console. Andrew saw wires, relays, and circuit boards inside.

He wished he could just read Kuperman's mind. It would be so much quicker and better than teasing a confession out of him.

"Let's go back to the manager's office," Charley said. "We should let this man get back to work."

Andrew raised his eyebrows. "Sure, I guess."

They returned to Harris' office. Dan had his phone to his ear and was listening intently while Harris stood back and watched.

Dan ended the call by saying, "Got it. Thanks." He hung up.

"His name is Scott Kuperman," Andrew said.

"I know. Harris told me. I just called HQ for more information about the suspect. They said Kuperman is financially bankrupt and in foreclosure. He was also busted six months ago for heroin. He would be easy to bribe."

"What?" Harris said. "I didn't know about that!"

"Keep closer tabs on your employees in the future," Dan said. "Come on. Let's deal with this maggot."

He left the office and marched straight across the factory to Kuperman. Andrew, Charley, and Harris followed.

Kuperman saw Dan coming and ran for the nearest door as fast as his short, flabby legs would carry him. Dan pursued Kuperman at full speed while Andrew and Charley sprinted a few paces back.

Kuperman managed to get outside, but he didn't go much farther. When Andrew caught up, he saw Tungsten had tackled Kuperman and was sitting on him. The rest of the BPI agents were converging on the same spot.

Kuperman was lying face-down on the dirt. Tungsten was holding Kuperman's arms behind his back in a painful arm lock. The pudgy man was grimacing and his nose was bloody.

Dan straightened his jacket. "Tell us about the aluminum powder," he said. "Who did you give it to?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Kuperman cried.

He squealed in pain as Tungsten bent his arms in ways they weren't supposed to bend.

"What was that?" Dan said. "I didn't hear an answer."

Andrew shook his head. He didn't see how this form of interrogation was more ethical than simple mind reading.

Dan continued, "You can talk to us here, or you can talk to us in jail. One thing is certain. You will talk. We're federal agents, and we don't screw around."

"I have rights."

Tungsten gave Kuperman's arms another firm twist.

Kuperman gasped. "I never got his name!" he said. "He paid me seven thousand, but I never cashed the check. It's still in my pocket."

Dan dug into Kuperman's clothes until he found the check.

Dan held it up to the sunlight. "A cashier's check. The bank can tell us where the money came from."

"Right," Kuperman said. "You don't need me anymore."

"We're not done. Tell me more about the buyer."

"He called me on the phone out of the blue. I have no idea how he got my name. I only saw him once when I delivered the powder. We met at the old lumber mill down the road. Actually, there were four guys there: the buyer, an older man, and two who looked pretty tough. The old one gave me the check. I saw a little boy, too."

Andrew and Charley looked at each other in surprise. Blake wasn't working alone.

"When did he call you?" Dan said.

"Yesterday morning," Kuperman said. "Very early."

"What number did he call?"

"My home phone."

Dan nodded. "We can trace that call."

"That's everything I know!" Kuperman said.

Dan contemplated for a long moment. "OK," he finally said. "Let him up."

Tungsten got off of Kuperman's back. Kuperman stood up and rubbed his sore shoulders.

Harris had watched the interrogation from a polite distance.

He stepped forward and said, "By the way, you're fired."

"But I need this job!" Kuperman said. "I have a wife and kids."

"Who would be better off without a loser like you around."

Kuperman's face fell. He looked at the check in Dan's hand. "Can I have that back?"

"Proceeds from stolen goods?" Dan smirked. "I don't think so. It's criminal evidence."

"But..."

"Get out of here. Don't cause any more trouble, or you will go to jail."

Kuperman stumbled over to a white SUV, climbed in, and drove off.

"Thank you for your help," Dan told Harris. "You can go back inside now."

Harris paused as if he wanted to say something, but then he thought better of it. He went into the factory.

Dan called headquarters and reported what had happened. He read all the numbers off of the cashier's check. When he was done, he hung up.

"They'll call back in a few minutes when they have information for me," he said. "Let's get in the cars. It's cold out here."

Dan, Tungsten, Andrew, and Charley sat in their blue sedan with the apprentices in the back seat. Dan turned on the ignition and put the heater on high.

The other three BPI agents went to the other car.

"That was pretty mean," Andrew said.

"What was?" Dan said.

"The way you tortured that guy for information."

"It wasn't torture. It was vigorous interrogation."

"Looked like torture to me," Andrew said.

Charley nodded in agreement.

"I could've done much worse," Tungsten said. "In war, you sometimes have to get rough with prisoners."

"He wasn't a prisoner, we're not at war, and I'm pretty sure BPI regulations don't allow for such 'vigorous' interrogations. You claim mind-reading is unethical, but at least it wouldn't hurt anybody. And I don't want to hear it's an invasion of privacy. The BPI has no problem with ignoring people's privacy. The real reason you don't like mind-reading is obvious."

"Which is what?" Dan said.

"It scares the crap out of you," Andrew said. "You don't know how to deal with it, so you made it illegal."

Nobody spoke for a long moment.

"That might be true," Dan said eventually, "but the regulations are what they are. I didn't write them. I just enforce them. Mind-reading can only be used on a criminal in a life-threatening emergency when no other option is available."

Andrew grunted. "How do we change the regulations?"

"It would probably take an act of congress. Good luck."

Dan's phone rang. After listening for a few seconds, he put the phone into speaker mode so everybody in the car could hear.

"Repeat that," Dan said.

"According to the bank," a woman said in an officious tone, "the cashier's check was funded by Gary Dean. He's a businessman in Charleston with a net worth of four million dollars. He's spoken out against sorcery on many occasions. He leads a group called the White Guerrillas dedicated to stopping sorcery by any means including violence."

"The bomb is making more sense," Dan said. "Is Dean under surveillance?"

"No, but the BPI monitors his activities in other ways. His current whereabouts are unknown."

"Why would Blake work with a guy like that?" Andrew said.

"We don't know," the woman on the phone responded. "We also traced the call to Kuperman. It came from a cell phone which was registered under a fake name and only used once."

"Unfortunate." Dan frowned.

"But the good news is the phone is turned on, and the GPS is active. The wireless carrier gave us its exact position."

Andrew's eyes widened. Blake had finally made the dumb mistake they had been waiting for. The master of sorcery had stumbled on technology.

"What's at that position?" Dan said.

"According to satellite photos," the woman said, "an old barn in the woods. The nearest residence is half a mile away."

"That's suspicious. Obviously, the barn is our next destination."

"We could run into the White Guerrillas," Tungsten said. "We'd better load up for a fight."

Dan nodded. "Good idea."

The woman provided the coordinates. He entered them into the car's navigation system and drove off.

Chapter Eleven

Blake sighed with nervous boredom. He checked his watch.
Where are they?
he thought.
The BPI should be here by now.

He looked over at four fifty-gallon drums full of explosive. Streaks of white and silver revealed a mediocre job of mixing the ammonium nitrate and aluminum, but he was still confident it would explode with the right prodding.

Gary Dean would provide the prodding. The leader of the White Guerrillas was standing near the drums with an assault rifle in his hands. His expensive leather coat made Blake feel underdressed.

Other members of his gang were still working on the green and yellow dairy truck. They had managed to assemble the remote control system, but it wasn't working. Nobody understood what was wrong, but they were happy to yell their opinions.

Blake looked at the door of the barn wistfully. It was a beautiful, sunny day outside, and a quiet stroll in the woods was exactly what he needed. Unfortunately, he would probably get his head shot off if he did that. He had to stay indoors for now and listen to Dean's idiots argue.

* * *

It's a nice day,
Andrew thought.
I hope it's not my last.

He, Charley, Dan, Tungsten, and the other three BPI agents were marching through the backwoods of West Virginia. Everybody wore blue body armor, helmets, and radio headsets. Blue sweat suits under the armor provided needed padding. The agents carried assault rifles, but the apprentices just had regular handguns.

The air was cold enough to turn Andrew's breath into fog, but he was glad for it. The vigorous exercise was heating up his body, and he was perspiring despite the cold. He really wanted to take off his bulky, stiff armor which was chaffing his armpits.

Dense forest covered the hilly landscape. Fortunately, the ground was relatively free of rocks and brush. The group merely had to find a path between the closely spaced trees.

Tungsten led the column, and Dan was right behind him. Andrew and Charley were safely in the middle.

"When I first heard about sorcery," Charley muttered, "I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I wanted magical powers."

"You have that," Andrew said. "There aren't many people in the world who can make a steel bar as soft as butter."

"But the price is so high. I'll be lucky if I make it to thirty with my mind and body in one piece. Tonya won't even talk about how many fights she has survived. And here we are, on a mission to kill a renegade. It's crazy."

"Something so powerful will always have strings attached."

"Some days, I wish I could walk away," Charley said. "My life was fine before I heard about sorcery. I had friends and activities. I wasn't stressed all the time. Did you know I wanted to be a mechanical engineer?"

"Really? I can definitely see you as an engineer."

"I suppose it's still an option. I can take all the classes. What do you want to be other than a sorcerer?"

Andrew considered the question. His long-term career plans had always been vague.

"I love movies," he said, "especially fantasies. Maybe a screenwriter or a director."

"That's a crowded business. Lots of people want to make movies. I'm sure you'd be good at it though."

"Might as well try. How do you feel about moving to Hollywood?"

"We're not married," Charley said.

"But I thought... you told me you loved me."

She kissed him on the cheek. "I do. It's just... hold on. Can you feel that?"

Andrew focused his attention on his inner sight and detected a distant source of energy. It was at the extreme limit of his sensitivity, but he still recognized it. He would never forget that energy signature.

"Blake is here," he said. "Directly ahead."

The sound of an automatic weapon startled him. Bullets kicked up dirt and struck trees all around them. Everybody dived for cover.

* * *

Everybody in the barn heard the gunfire, and Blake saw fear in their eyes.