The Buck Stops Here (44 page)

“I don’t understand.”

“At the time she left me and went off to Europe, my company was still up and running, though it was getting near the end. She made friends over there and talked about the frustrations of this ‘exciting encryption program’ that might never see the light of day, one that her friends had developed over in the U.S. Soon, this guy, Habib, got word, and he started cozying up to her to get more information. She didn’t know he was a terrorist; she just thought he was a friend. Within a few weeks, he had names, location, personality descriptions, everything. He came to America and sought out James Sparks, the one they thought was most likely to be bought.”

“Loose lips sink ships,” I said.

“Veronica had a hard time of it. She was fully investigated and her life was turned upside down. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the only one of us who was still willing even to talk to her when all was said and done was Phillip. He had always loved her, you know, and I think he believed in her when the rest of us still had our doubts.”

“Do you have doubts now?”

“Absolutely none. I’ve seen the transcripts and studied the evidence. She was used, yes, but it wasn’t intentional. Still, she carries a lot of guilt around. It doesn’t surprise me that, like me, she ended up being involved in the nonprofit sector. It’s a way to give back, you know. To make amends.”

Tom put on his blinker and turned at the deserted strawberry stand.

“So who does that leave, Tom? Who was Sparks’ accomplice in all of this?”

“Callie, I just keep thinking that the key lies with whoever could’ve reconstructed that encryption program. When we disbanded the company, I saw that all copies of the program were destroyed except one, except mine. I never did quite comprehend how Sparks was able to rebuild it. It is only in the last few days that I have started thinking in terms of the program itself. I think Sparks didn’t want an accomplice, but he had no choice. He must’ve somehow been able to merge the fragments of the program that he had with another member’s fragments, building it back together into one complete whole. If that were the case, then Phillip is ruled out as a suspect. He was a hardware guy, not a programmer.”

“So that leaves Armand,” I whispered. “Or Beth.”

We pulled into the driveway of Ton Ton’s house, and Tom left the motor running as we got out. Immediately, the dogs at Armand’s started barking, but I could see in the dim porch light that they were tied up safely to a tree.

I turned my attention to Ton Ton. The woman was dead weight, and even though she was wiry and petite, getting her out of the car wasn’t going to be easy.

“This poor soul,” I said, struggling to pull her up into a sitting position by her hands. Her long black gloves slipped off, so I set them down and tried again. “I think she needs to find a good AA program. Do you know she has a big old whiskey still in her backyard?”

Tom opened the other door to try from that side. He put both hands under her arms, and pulled. As he did, I let go of her hands. They flopped down, lifeless, against her simple gray dress, and in the light of the car I couldn’t help thinking how oddly red they were. The palms were inflamed and angry, as if covered in a rash.

Or contact dermatitis.

I stood up straight and looked at Tom, my eyes wide. He was holding her up and trying to lift her so that he could carry her.

All at once I had a disturbing thought. Her hands. The still. What if it wasn’t being used to make alcohol?

What if it was being used to distill castor beans into ricin?

Suddenly, we were blinded by the lights of a truck racing into the driveway. As it screeched to a stop, the beams trained directly on us, Ton Ton stood up straight, pulled herself loose from the surprised Tom, and deftly stepped away. Before we knew what had happened, she had reached down toward her ankle and whipped out a knife. She held it up, ready to strike.

“No, Ton Ton, what are you doing?” Armand said as he climbed from the truck. “Put it away!”

The dogs went crazy next door, barking wildly, straining against their ropes to get free. My heart pounded. I forced myself to focus.

“They’re going to ruin everything,” she said to Armand. “Can’t you see that? All your work, all you’ve accomplished—they’re going to take that away from you.”

Armand looked at us desperately, and in his face I saw clearly fear, then guilt, then something like resignation.

“I always had a feeling there might come a time…” he began and then stopped and shook his head.

“What, Armand?” Tom asked.

“The encryption program. I knew I couldn’t milk it forever. But I thought at least I would be able to finish what I started.”

Tom shook his head sadly. “Armand, you’re the one?” he asked, sounding genuinely wounded. “You were James’ accomplice? But why?”

“James needed my piece of the puzzle, so I gave it to him. I didn’t know he was gonna get me on tape incriminating myself. And I sure didn’t know he was gonna turn around and sell the program to terrorists.”

“What did you
think
he was going to do with it?” Tom demanded.

“What I’ve done with it since then,” Armand replied. “Sell it to businesses. Donate it to government institutions. I still have the keys, you see. Everyone thinks their encryption is secure, and it is. Except from me. I can read anything I want to.”

My mind raced, wondering how I could have read this man so wrong. Unlike the greedy Sparks, money seemed the last thing Armand was interested in. I thought about that, and then suddenly understanding filled my brain.

“Your work with the swamps,” I said to Armand. “With the legislature. That’s your driving force.”

“Listen,
cher
, the only way to fight dirty politics is with something even dirtier. Between the money I make selling company information and the secrets I learn spying on government communications, I’ve been able to do a lot toward protecting my bayou. To me, that’s all that matters.”

I looked at Ton Ton, who still stood at the ready, the knife glinting in the darkness. I didn’t even have to ask her motivations. I felt sure she was willing to do whatever she could to protect Armand—including using her knowledge of swamp medicine to whip up a deadly poison of ricin and inject it into an inhaler.

“Do you know that your aunt tried to kill James Sparks?” I said.

Armand looked at Ton Ton in despair.

“No,” he said.

“I told you he couldn’t be trusted,” she said. “I told you the day would come when we would have to use Watts for more than just delivering messages.”

“But to kill him?”

“Armand,” Ton Ton said, “you honored your part of the agreement. James doesn’t understand that what you’re doing is more important than money.”

“What agreement?” asked Tom.

Armand hesitated and then exhaled slowly.

“When James got caught on film by the FBI, selling to the terrorists,” Armand explained, “he was gonna turn me in, but I gave him a better alternative. I told him that if he kept silent about my involvement, I would be able to make things happen on the outside, so that by the time he got out of prison, there would be some money waiting for him. Big money. We set up a numbered bank account overseas, and half of all my profits goes in there for him. He’s worth a couple million dollars by now.”

“Money he doesn’t deserve,” Ton Ton said. “James was supposed to keep his mouth shut. Then
she
shows up, and before you know it, he thinks he can dictate to us, thinks he can use
her
to get more money out of us. It makes me sick. I just did what I had to do. I’m still doing what I have to do.”

Tom and I looked at each other, eyes wide. My biggest fear was that he might try and do something brave so that I could escape. I had to keep that from happening, had to keep them talking until I could figure a way out of this where no one would get hurt.

“So when James was in that house in Virginia four years ago,” I asked Armand, “the phone call he needed to make was to you?”

“Yeah,
cher
. I had made some modifications to the program. I didn’t know that he would need to use the program himself or I wouldn’t have done it. As it is, once he had that boating accident, everything changed. When he found himself facing sixteen years, he started upping the ante with me.”

“James is always wanting money, more money, all the time,” Ton Ton added. “He doesn’t understand there are more important things going on here. The swamp is disappearing out from under our feet!”

“So let me ask you a question, Armand,” I said. “The day we met, outside of Family HEARTS, when I was mugged—”

“You were mugged?” Tom asked.

Armand looked embarrassed.

“Yeah, that was Ton Ton’s idea. I paid some kid twenty bucks to steal your purse and let me catch him. I needed a way to get you to trust me. I had to get close to you, to see what you knew.”

“She knows plenty,” Ton Ton said. “She’s got to go. So does he.”

She crouched a bit, focused in on Tom, ready to pounce with the knife. My pulse surged.

“Ton Ton,
you
put that kingsnake in my car.”

“That wasn’t no kingsnake,
cher
,” she said. “That was a canebrake. If it’d bit you, you’d be dead.”

“What did you do?” Armand demanded of his aunt.

“I drove up to the hotel yesterday and put a snake in Callie’s car. I thought she woulda been bitten and killed—and no one would ever have known it wasn’t an accident.”

I shuddered, realizing that the snake had been in the car with me all the way to Beth’s house and halfway back again before it showed itself.

“Ton Ton,” Armand said. “Put down the knife.”

Without waiting for her reply, he walked back to his truck and reached inside. When he reemerged, he was holding a shotgun. I thought he was going to point it at her, but instead he trained it on us.

“Go ahead, Ton Ton,” he said sadly, still looking at us. “Put your knife down. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Armand?” Tom said, taking a step back. “You’re my friend.”

Armand shrugged.

“But she’s family,” he said simply. “And in a way, she’s right. Our fight for the swamp must go on, whatever the cost. Think of it like a war. The two of you will just be casualties of war.”

Much to my amazement, as we stood there under the barrel of Armand’s gun, he and his aunt debated about the most logical way for Tom and me to die. They even talked about using the ricin, but Ton Ton said that sort of death wasn’t fast enough.

“They’ve got to disappear,” she said. “Now. Tonight. Just shoot ’em and we’ll sink their bodies out in the swamp.”

My mind raced to think of some way out.

“Too risky getting them out there,” he said. “I’ve got a better idea.”

With the gun he motioned for us to start walking. Quickly, I realized where he was leading us.

“Not the alligator pit,” I whispered.

“Look at it this way,” Armand said as we walked. “At least you won’t be eaten alive. Alligators like their food rotted. They’ll just drown you and then pin your body up under a log. In a few days, when you start to decompose, that’s when they’ll finish you off.”

“Thanks, Armand. That comes as a great comfort to me.”

I had to act, whether it got me shot or not. As we walked across Armand’s lawn to get to the trail that would lead to the pit, I knew I had one good option. I could only hope that Tom would be fast enough to react. Glancing at the upside-down pirogue on the sawhorses, I thought I could see that a few tools were still scattered across the top as they had been the other day. Without hesitating, I took a chance at what I knew was my only choice. Turning, I ran and dove for those tools, grabbing a hatchet and then hitting the ground and rolling toward the dogs, counting on the fact that he wouldn’t risk shooting toward them. By the time I held the hatchet up over my head and looked up at Armand, he had his arm gripped around Tom’s neck, the rifle pointed awkwardly at Tom’s head.

“Put it down, Callie,” Armand said. “What do you think you can do, throw it all the way over here?”

“No,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I guess not.”

As hard as I could, I slammed the hatchet toward the ground, cutting the rope that kept the dogs bound to the tree. In a flash, they were free, running to Armand and jumping up against him.

“Run, Tom!” I screamed. “Run!”

From the corner of my eye, as I took off myself, I could see Tom also break free and run. We both ran under the house and into the backyard, not even stopping when we reached the water.

Together, we untied the pirogue that was there at the dock, jumped in, and pushed out. We couldn’t get it to go fast enough, though, and soon we were being peppered with gunfire. A bullet hit the back of the boat, and it quickly began to fill with water.

“Get out and run,” I said to Tom. “It’s not deep here.”

We leaped into the water and tried to run, our feet sucked deeply into the mud.

“Forget running. We’ll have to swim,” Tom cried.

Together we did what we could, half swimming, half running, until the bottom dropped out and we were in open water.

“He’s coming,” Tom said, pointing to a light near Armand’s dock.

I could hear a boat motor quickly advancing toward us.

“We’ll have to go under,” I whispered. “Stay down as long as you can and don’t let out any bubbles!”

Without waiting for a reply, I sucked in a deep breath and did a surface dive, cringing as my face eventually touched the mud of the swampy bottom. Though I hated feeling around down there, I was able to dig out a root, which I held on to tightly to keep myself at the bottom. With my other hand, I grabbed at Tom’s arm and pulled it to the root as well, and then I struggled to pin my full skirt against my legs.

I didn’t want to open my eyes in the filthy water, but I had to look up. As I did, all I could see was a spotlight moving across the surface, about eight feet up. The light swept on ahead, and then the loud motor passed directly over us. The boat was moving slowly, the light sweeping side to side. I was desperately in need of air, and once it was about 20 feet ahead of us, I patted Tom on the shoulder and then let go of the root to shoot toward the surface.