Fiction
When Toxic Rivers Flow Part 6
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson and Henry James Series By P.G. & Sharon Barnett
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson, and I’m Henry James, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth Magazine.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
It was pretty easy to tell a few of us sitting in the bullpen at Dark Sides this Tuesday morning didn’t get much sleep last night. For Tim and Roberto it may have been an exciting adrenalin rush as they thought about the story they were about to cover. For the two of us, adrenalin had nothing to do with it.
“I swear to God old man if you don’t stop yawning I’m going to punch you in the throat.”
“Bite me, Johnson. I’m running on about two hours of sleep.”
“Things didn’t go well?”
“Better than I thought it would. That thing about Uttar not hiring?”
“Yeah?”
“It turns out your mother and the VP of HR at Uttar are tight. She gave me the woman’s name and said she’d reach out to her this morning. All Tim and Roberto have to do is show up and they’re in.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“Uh, well, she had a couple of conditions.”
“Thought so. What conditions?”
“She wants me to promise her I’ll come out of the field and fly a desk.”
Things grew quiet between us for several seconds. The sounds of writers in the bullpen making phone calls, mundane conversations interspersed with outbursts of laughter seeming to float around us.
“What did you tell her?”
“I didn’t tell her anything. She said she didn’t want an answer right then, but at some point I know she’s going to start pressing a little harder than she did last night.”
“I’ve never told you this Henry, but Robert’s been singing that tune since the kids were born.”
“Really.”
“You know what we do can get a little dicey at times.”
“Yeah, but it’s what we do Sunny.”
“Yes, but maybe we need to start doing it smarter. That’s all I’m saying.”
The topic of conversation shifted when Tim and Roberto got up and walked over. Tim was smiling, an awkward-looking grin that could have indicated he was jazzed about doing his first undercover assignment. Or perhaps he was suffering from a bout of constipation. You could never be certain with the man.
“Just got off the phone with Manny. He’s rented a house in Brownwood that ought to work for us perfectly. We can stock it with groceries when we get there. Here’s the address. Roberto and I are about to leave so I guess we’ll see you two there later today?”
“Wouldn’t miss this for the world Rice. You two have your cover identities already?”
“Yes. We went over them with Donnie this morning. Don’t much care for the names, but I’ll suppose they’ll do.”
“Bevis and Butthead?”
“Funny, Henry. No, I’m Daniel Wrigley and Roberto is Rafael Sanchez.”
“Well, Mr. Wrigley. I suppose you and Mr. Sanchez there ought to get out of here. We’ve got a few loose ends to tie up and then we’ll head out.”
Tim Rice nodded and he and Roberto walked back to their desks, loaded up, and headed for the elevators. We studied their faces as they passed us. Tim seemed excited, his expression a wide-eyed gaze of anticipation of a glorious unknown.
On the contrary, Tim’s partner Roberto De La Cruz seemed reserved and calm, his serious look of determination telling us he knew he and Tim were about to step into the lion’s den.
We were pretty sure we didn’t have to tell him to be on constant guard to make sure Tim didn’t do anything stupid. As he passed, he gave us both a knowing glance and a single nod.
“Well, here we go. What about the twins?”
“Got that covered, Henry. Donnie Sullivan’s going to be ferrying them back and forth to school and they’re going to stay at mothers until this is over.”
“Interesting, your mother didn’t mention that. When did you call her?”
“I didn’t. Robert did.”
“Wait. So your husband called and made the arrangements about the kids, and is the one who decided we were all going to be working on Tim’s story together. One happy little family?”
“Yeah, what’s the problem?”
“Didn’t you just tell me Robert’s been jaw jacking at you to come out of the field the same way Cynthia has? Sounds like he’s not planning on letting you out of his sight on this one princess. Possibly me as well. I may be wrong, but I think the two of them are scheming thick as thieves.”
“Possible. I wouldn’t put it past either of them. You ready?”
“Yeah, let’s do this.”
As she promised, the HR VP at Uttar Textiles quickly onboarded Mr. Wrigley and Mr. Sanchez and the days slipped by. Each evening after a quick debriefing and a little next-step planning, we had the routine banal conversations, then each of us retired to begin the monotony the next day.
Manny had seen to equipping both Tim and Roberto with button audio/video cams and each of us took turns monitoring the men as they went about what appeared to be quite normal, and extremely boring workdays.
For the rest of the week and then the following we watched and waited. When Tim found the barrels none of us could believe our eyes.
It was a collection of somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred fifty-five gallon drums nestled in the corner of a warehouse. Imprinted on each was the sentence — Property of Alexander Investments.
“Are you seeing this, guys?”
We were definitely seeing it. Before any of us could respond we saw the flicker of a shadow against the barrels, a quick-moving sillouette, and then we heard words that told us our plan had just been blown up.
“What the hell are you doing back here Wrigley?”
The next thing we saw was the onrushing concrete floor of the warehouse and then darkness.
“Roberto, Tim’s been made. He’s in some warehouse at the back of the plant. Roberto? Roberto?”
Manny turned away from the monitor and stared at Robert and us.
“Houston we got a huge problem.”
Read On — When Toxic Rivers Flow Part 7
Let’s keep in touch: P.G. & Sharon Barnett ([email protected]) © P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
