Deadout
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For the bees
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I first had the idea for Deadout, I knew I had a lot to learn about bees. Fortunately, I didn’t know how much, otherwise I might have chosen to write about something else. More fortunate is the fact that so many of the people who are tireless in their efforts to understand honeybees and threats like colony collapse disorder are also generous with their knowledge, expertise, and time. I’d like to thank Dave Roubik, Mark Winston, Paul Goldstein, Deborah A. Delaney, and Amro Zayed for their eloquence and their patience in answering my many questions—my often slightly rephrased and occasionally repeated questions. I’d also like to thank Jerry Bromenshenk for his help in understanding LIDAR systems, and beekeepers like Don Schump and Susan Matlock, who were invaluable in helping me understand the life of honeybees. Very special thanks go to Annalise Paaby, who not only shared so much of her time and expertise, but who also shared my excitement about many of the ideas in this book. Thanks also to everyone else out there who is working to understand what is happening to the planet’s bees, and to save them.
The issue of genetically engineered food is of great concern to me and of great relevance to this book, and I’d like to thank Katey Parker of Just Label It, Sam Bernahardt of Food and Water Watch, Zofia Hausman of Citizens for GMO Labeling, Karen Schumann-Stark of GMO Free PA, and Barbara Thomas of GMO Free NJ for all their support, and for the great work they do. And again, thanks to all the individuals and organizations who are fighting for our right to know what we are eating, and groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Center for Food Safety, and the Union of Concerned Scientists who are fighting to preserve the essence of the scientific method from those who seek to profit from its subversion.
My fondness and familiarity with the island of Martha’s Vineyard goes back decades, but I would never have been able to write this book without the help of many of its residents. Special thanks go to Tisbury Police Chief Dan Hanavan and fellow author Cynthia Riggs, as well as Chrissy Kinsmen and Sue Murphy. (And my apologies to staff at various island businesses for the strange phone calls and bizarre questions.) Major thanks go to Terry and Tim Lowe and Josie Iadicicco, for more reasons than I can mention here, but most of all for their friendship, which I treasure.
Thanks to my editor, Kristin Sevick, and everyone else at Tor/Forge, for their enthusiasm and support and for being so good at what they do. As with everything I write, I owe a debt of gratitude to the amazing community of writers of which I am proud to be a part, especially the Philadelphia Liars Club and my friends in Team Decker. And as with everything I publish, I am eternally grateful for my amazing agent, Stacia Decker, and everyone at Donald Maass Literary Agency.
And as with everything else, more than anything else, I am grateful for the love and support of my wife, Elizabeth, and my son, Will, without which I would never have been able to write this book. Or do much of anything else.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Forge Books by Jon McGoran
About the Author
Copyright
1
Danny and I paused at the bottom of the steps, holding our breath and listening as we looked up and down the dank, dark corridor. The only sound was the squeak of a not-too-distant rat. Danny shrugged and took off, running to the left. I watched him for half a second, listening to his shoes scraping against the gritty wet floor. Then I took off in the opposite direction, breathing through my mouth against the mildew that tickled my nose.
Simeon Jarrett had come down the same steps we had, no more than half a minute earlier. I wasn’t entirely sure about coming down here after him, or about the idea of splitting up, but Danny was the cautious one, not me.
As I rounded a ninety-degree turn to the left, the sound of Danny’s footsteps disappeared behind my own. The basement got darker the farther I ran, the spaces growing longer between the dim pools of light from grimy block windows set near the ceiling. The walls seemed to close in on me, and I wondered for a moment if I was having some sort of anxiety attack. Then I realized it wasn’t the walls closing in on me, it was two very large men, and while neither of them was Simeon Jarrett, I was pretty sure they were on the same side of the good guy/bad guy divide.
A situation like that can make you want to start shooting, but that makes a lot of assumptions about your fellow man. And while it might make life simpler in the short run, it can make it a lot more complicated in the long run.
I didn’t have the time or distance to slow down, so instead I slid feet-first between them.
The guy on my left apparently didn’t share my reluctance to make assumptions because he opened fire on the area where I had just been running. It’s possible he was gunning down a giant rat that had been poised to attack, but more likely he was shooting at me.
The sound of the gun was deafening, bouncing around in the corridor. In the muzzle flash, I recognized the two faces above me as Blink Taylor and Derrell Sims, two of Jarrett’s close associates.
&nbs
p; Sliding on the floor between them, I brought the butt of my Glock down as hard as I could, mashing the shooter’s foot with a reassuring crunch. He howled and twisted as he fell, squeezing off another shot. This one passed over my head and apparently struck his partner in the hip, because suddenly the howling was in stereo. By the time I was back on my feet and turned around, they were both on the floor behind me. Twenty feet beyond them a cascade of sparks fell from the remnants of an old fluorescent light fixture, apparently struck by an errant bullet. I was shocked the dump had electricity, but grateful for the illumination, just enough to see the two of them grabbing their injuries and rolling around in the same muck that now soaked the left side of my body.
They had both dropped their weapons to grab their wounds, and I kicked the guns out of the way. I cuffed them both, hands and feet, advised them of their rights, and wished them luck with the rats. Then I took off after Simeon Jarrett.
The light from the sparks helped me see where I was going, but the strobe effect was unsettling. Ahead of me, the corridor ended in a perpendicular hallway.
As I approached it, I could see my silhouette against the far wall. The sight of it stopped me cold.
The last time I’d seen that image, it had been in the middle of an afternoon of carnage that left five people dead—nearly six, including me—and was followed a millisecond later by an explosion that threw me against the wall like overcooked pasta. I knew that wasn’t happening now, but I felt trapped in that moment, waiting for that impact. Standing there, frozen, I heard footsteps approaching down the hallway to my left, but still I couldn’t move. Then there he was, Simeon Jarrett, right in front of me.
It happened in an instant: him running up from the side, skidding to a stop, alarm and surprise on his face, followed by an evil smile as he raised his gun.
I think I was snapping out of it, but before I could move, I heard a thunderous, “Freeze!” coming from down the hallway to my left.
Jarrett pivoted and squeezed off two shots in the direction of the voice, and received several shots back in response.
Then he was gone, pounding down the hallway to my right. Danny Tennison ran up, staring at me with a mixture of confusion and concern. “You okay?” he said.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
He stared at me for a moment longer. Then he turned and resumed his chase. I fell in behind him, then passed him. The hallway ended at a metal door outlined in silver light, and I burst through it, out into blinding sunshine and onto a deserted street.
Simeon Jarrett was gone.
* * *
Lieutenant Suarez stared blankly at me from across his desk. I could tell he wasn’t buying it. Neither was Danny, sitting in the chair next to me, his eyes boring into the side of my head.
“Nothing,” I’d said repeatedly when they’d repeatedly asked what had happened out there.
“Nothing?” Suarez said dubiously, almost mimicking me.
I knew Danny was concerned about me, but I was annoyed with him for diming me out. I loved him like a brother, and like a brother, sometimes I wanted to kick his ass. Yes, he deserved an explanation, and as soon as I had one, he’d be welcome to it.
Until then, fuck him.
“Whatever,” Suarez said, closing the file in front of him and rubbing his eyes. “Look, you sure you don’t want to take some time off?”
“I am taking some time off.”
His eyes narrowed, as if he didn’t believe me.
“Weekend with Nola. Visiting a friend on Martha’s Vineyard.”
“Martha’s Vineyard? What’s that?”
“Little island off Cape Cod.”
“Sounds nice. Good for you. But that’s not what I meant, and you know it. You’ve declined counseling, and apparently I can’t force you to go. Okay. We’re all grateful for what you did in Dunston,” he said, waving his hand as though he was quoting a line he didn’t believe. “Until I’m comfortable that you’re one hundred percent—and frankly, the way I see it, you’re not even close—you’re on low-impact duty.”
Six months earlier, while on suspension and out of jurisdiction, I’d stepped into a big case and got banged up. A lot. It had taken a while for things to get back to normal. Guess they weren’t normal yet.
“So, I want you to think about it seriously: are you sure you don’t want to take some leave time? You’ve already been approved for it. Just a few weeks on us, take your time and come back right.”
I snuck a glance at Danny and got the look I expected: a little bit worried, a lot pissed off.
“No,” I said, my eyes firmly back on Suarez. “I’m good.”
2
The sun had been up since six, but you couldn’t tell from the blue-gray light seeping through the window. I’d been awake since four, lying there looking at Nola, waiting for the moment when that first golden ray would play across her face. Wasn’t going to happen today.
She looked beautiful as always, but the gray light brought out the sadness in her face. My insomnia had been going on for months, but this part I didn’t mind. I loved watching as she slept, and not just because these days that was the time we got along best. Her face was endlessly fascinating, and I loved to study its lines. Lately, her brow would furrow as she slept, but in the suffused, early morning light, you almost couldn’t see the crease between her eyes.
She sighed deeply, stretched, and rolled away from me. Soon, she’d be awake, and things would get tricky.
I got up and made coffee.
The place was tiny and a bit of a mess, not that I minded. When Nola first moved in, she’d enjoyed keeping it spotless. Now it was almost as bad as when I lived on my own. A few months earlier, we’d talked about buying a place. We even found one, at the edge of the city but right on the woods. We ran the numbers, figured out how much we’d need to make it happen. But then things started getting weird, and we both let it go. We hadn’t mentioned it in weeks, like a silent agreement that we weren’t ready and maybe never would be.
By the time the coffee was done, Nola was in the shower. I put hers on the sink, then pulled on my jeans and a shirt, grabbed my shoes, and got out of the way.
Twenty minutes later she came out of the bedroom wearing jeans and a T-shirt, boots in one hand, mug in the other. “Thanks for the coffee,” she said as she drained it.
“You look great,” I told her. “And Greensgrow would be crazy not to hire you.”
She did look great, but not great for her. The stress was pulled tight across her face. She’d been looking for a job for months, but there wasn’t a lot of work for an organic farmer in the middle of Philadelphia. And not too much else Nola felt comfortable doing. She had a history of chemical sensitivity; she’d ended up in the hospital a couple of times when she was younger because of lawn spray or new carpets. Greensgrow was an urban farm less than a mile from our apartment. I’d told Nola about it but had never been there, because before I met her it never would have crossed my mind. Now it seemed like the ideal job for her.
“Yeah, right,” she said, her smile nervous but giddy with excitement. “I’ll see you afterward for lunch, right?”
“Green Eggs Café,” I said. “Two o’clock.”
* * *
“This sucks,” Danny muttered, breaking the silence between us.
“Tell me about it,” I replied, immediately realizing my mistake.
I’d been watching the tension build in his jaw all morning, and I knew something was coming, but after standing in that hallway for four hours, I guess I’d gotten careless.
“Of course, it could be worse,” he said. “You could be on paid leave. But then again, that would mean I could be out tracking down Simeon Jarrett instead of making sure the deputy assistant undersecretary of useless bullshit doesn’t get ambushed by a Mexican drug cartel in the middle of Philadelphia’s City Hall.”
We were babysitting some low-level federal bureaucrat who was too big a deal for a regular uniform escort but too small for Federal Protective Ser
vices. Suarez had snickered when he assigned us. Danny’s eyes hadn’t stopped smoldering since.
“Come on, Danny,” I said. “That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair, Doyle. Besides, it’s true and you know it. And while we’re standing here with our dicks in our hands so you can try to prove whatever you’re trying to prove, Jarrett’s out there doing whatever he came to do and going on his merry way.”
Danny had been closing in on Jarrett three years earlier, and the guy had vanished. Now he was back, and we didn’t want him to get away again.
I kept quiet, hoping he was done.
He wasn’t.
“I know you went through some crazy shit out there, and a lesser man might have crumbled completely, but you’re delusional if you don’t think you got a little dinged up.” He pointed to his head, in case I missed the point. “You got to heal, buddy. You might have saved the day up there, proved you’re a certifiable badass, but I’ll tell you what—right now you’re not. You walk into that same situation right now, and you’re toast.”
I don’t know if I was more pissed off because what he was saying wasn’t true or because it was. I didn’t have an argument to make, but that had never stopped me before. I opened my mouth. Luckily, before I could say something stupid, the door behind us opened as well, and the deputy assistant undersecretary of useless bullshit walked out.
We escorted our guest back onto I-95 South under a light rain. It was one-thirty and I wasn’t supposed to meet Nola until two, but I had Danny drop me off near the restaurant anyway. I figured a walk in the rain would be more pleasant than hanging around with Danny. Besides, unencumbered by me, maybe he could go out and do some real police work.
I was walking north on Second Street, approaching Spring Garden, when the guy walking toward me stopped abruptly and turned down Green. Medium height and broad shoulders, face obscured by a blue hoodie. Something about him seemed suspicious, and familiar. I turned and followed. At the end of the block was a sheer concrete retaining wall with I-95 on top of it. Squeezed right up against it was a narrow block of Hancock Street. Not a typical pedestrian route. I kept back but kept up, and at the end of the block, he turned to look at me.