Chapter 11

After some good-natured ribbing at the breakfast table, Jeremy followed Lucy and Luis to the barn. Luis had already roused the goats and released them to graze in a fenced area north of the barns before breakfast. He explained that when the olive harvest was done, the goats would be sent into the groves to clear out unwanted undergrowth and any rotten olives on the ground. Their grazing kept out vermin and snakes.

Leaving the two men talking, Lucy fired up the tractor. Her next task of the day was to transport her workers from the bunkhouse out into the fields for a day of picking. She climbed into the cabin of the tractor which had two large bins for the fruit hitched to the rear. Although the tractor looked massive with its large back wheels and its hydrogen engine slung beneath and in front of the cab, Jeremy had no doubt that she could manhandle that beast.

"She sure is strong," Jeremy said to the back of the departing vehicle. Luis snorted.

"Lucy says her husband ran off with another man," Luis said. "I think she broke him. I'll bet you a hundred credits she broke his penis off at the base, by accident." He twisted his hand like he was tightening a screw with a screwdriver. "She made a little 'crick, ' and, oops, it fell to the floor, bloodless and limp."

"I won't take that bet, Luis," Jeremy said. They both laughed loudly.

Luis was showing Jeremy around when they came across two other bins, one of which had a large hole on one side and the other with a seam split from top to bottom. The bins were huge, taller than both of them and big enough for an entire futbol team.

"Do you see what I have to deal with?" Luis said. "I can't afford to replace these bins and I'm not going to pay to dump them at the landfill. The fees are outrageous."

Jeremy went over to the bins and inspected them.

"These are plastick. Why don't you just recycle them?"

"Our recycling center doesn't handle anything this big and I'd lose a day of harvesting to take my tractor over there — a complete waste of time," Luis said with frustration.

Jeremy gave him a pat on the back.

"Think outside the box. You can prep them for recycling here. Do you have access to apple vinegar and an ultraviolet light?"

"We use ultraviolet light to identify fungus on the olives. A common fungus shows up as dark brown spots on the fruit under ultraviolet," Luis said. "Ask Maria for the vinegar."

"The apple vinegar can be tweaked with a common cleaning solvent, probably under Maria's kitchen sink. We paint the liquid on the bins and run them under the ultraviolet. When the plastick starts to melt, we tear the bins into strips and roll them into bundles. The bundles would be easy to carry and would fit in a truck."

The task took a better part of the day. As Jeremy worked, Lucy would drive the tractor into the second barn where the fruit was processed. Picking olives was labor intensive and little of it was automated. The olives were given a quick wash to remove dirt and then the fruit was run under ultraviolet. The rejects were removed by hand. Luis explained that he grew a fairly uncommon type of olive, which was much more popular on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and easily identifiable to connoisseurs. His yield per tree was smaller, but he made more credits at the pressing with larger quantities of extra virgin oil.

Jeremy loaded the last bundle of melted plastick in the truck and sat on the sideboard to rest for a moment. The big payoff for him was getting off of the farm for an hour or so to see a little bit of the surrounding world. Farms no longer held any particular appeal for him. Manuel could rest in peace, Jeremy mulled, comforted in the fact that he wouldn't be returning to the fields.

Emma came charging out of the house on the heels of Luis and made a beeline for Jeremy. She didn't look happy.

"You can't go," she said. "You are here to hide and you cannot take a chance of having your face seen anywhere in public. They are looking for you."

"How do you know?" Jeremy asked with annoyance in his voice.

"I can't tell you and you really don't need to know. Government authorities have no clue as to where you are but the private firm is fairly certain that you have left..." Emma stopped when Luis came closer.

"Sorry you can't drive with me, Enrique," Luis said. "It's okay. You more than paid for your dinner tonight. Go waste your time lazing about while I continue to break my back and sweat like a pig. We'll drink when I return."

Jeremy stood up and grabbed Emma by the arm, dragging her towards the groves south of the barn. Luis gunned the engine and slid the truck into gear with a loud grinding. He turned north and took the dirt drive that led out to the main road.

"What is happening," Jeremy said, still walking towards the olive trees.

He stopped short when he realized that all of the ground around the olive trees was covered in a woven material that was suspended several centimeters above the ground. The fruit was resting in piles in the indentations of the fabric. He turned back to the lemon groves.

"Tell me," he insisted.

"The hired guns are a North American firm. The Outfit was surprised because, of all the continents, North America is the most incompetent of the lot in this sort of work. Our first guess is that your ex-wife chose them because this firm reputedly has Bureau of Prisons connections. One of their execs is retired from the Bureau. However, we dug deeper and discovered that this firm and your father-in-law had a long business relationship. Your ex-wife may have been using them to destroy you for a number of years before she succeeded."

"Leandra has some brains, but this sort of clandestine stuff is far afield from her business school studies. She inherited daddy's money, so why not inherit his dirty work firm as well. Funny how she never mentioned its existence to me in all of our years together," Jeremy said. "What has this dirty work firm learned about me?"

"They stopped looking for you in South America. We picked up some background chatter on the digital front here and there on that continent, nothing too concrete but enough to establish a pattern. The chatter has ceased.

"The good news is we've kept an eye on the address you gave us in Sao Paulo and there has been no activity there, which restricts our search to one location. Maybe they were able to go through the surveillance tapes at the library. However, a data review of this sort would require government access. No access has been granted unless someone was compromised. It's possible, but we're talking about librarians, a pretty reliable group in general," Emma said.

Jeremy was not satisfied with her answers.

"Someone alerted the library security guards."

Emma took a moment to consider the fact. "The guards work for a private contractor. They could legally pass along anything they saw to another company. However, any recordings belong to the library. To cover this angle, we can alert the local and state authorities of a working plot to steal artifacts from the upstairs vaults, a plot that relies on an inside accomplice. In a day or two, we should be able to pry out any useful information."

"What about this continent? Why do they think I'm here?" Jeremy asked, even though he knew the answer.

"Your daughter is in Geneva. Anyone's best guess would be that if you want to clear your name, your first destination would be there. The source of her attorney's fees isn't public knowledge as far as we can find and its origins have been actively suppressed among your former business/social group. Your ex-wife wouldn't have the information. This firm may be assuming that you are footing the bill."

"What is the name of this firm?" Jeremy asked.

"Hightower Associates, based in Roanoke."

"Being based in Roanoke would imply they have government access. The American state capitol is there," Jeremy said. He saw the look on her face. "Not relevant. I understand."

They walked in silence for some time. Jeremy was trying to piece together a coherent plan now that they knew a bit of what he was up against.

"Who is the Outfit?" Jeremy said.

"The part that you know is the ten million credit life insurance policy that you took out five years ago. We're spending your ten million as we speak," Emma said.