Bee Conspiracy, page 22
If one looked at this logically, one might not see how a massive extermination of backyard bees and other garden insects across metropolitan Los Angeles would lead people to embrace the technology of this new robobee. But Gordon Lund was not being logical. He was grasping at straws. The only way this episode could end, in his mind, was with a massive aerial spraying, with helicopters overhead a la that scene in Apocalypse Now set to Ride of the Valkyries. This would imprint upon the public’s mind that the threat of these bees had to be met with massive measures. Part of those measures would be to transition people to the idea of the robobee. Whether or not this would work remained to be seen, but Gordon was all in. He would not quit now. He was doubling, no tripling down, to stage this spectacle for the world.
The mayor was wavering a bit and that was a problem. The environmentalists, the greens, the tree huggers were already out in front of city hall protesting since they had heard the news of the aerial spraying. They did not seem to be scared of the bees. These people had to be painted as extremists. Gordon decided to bring his social media and society connections to bear. This would bring massive public pressure on the mayor to follow through. He worked the phones, telling everyone from the Rotary Club to the country club to weigh in and exert whatever pressure they could on the mayor. Social media influencers were contacted to tweet out support for the aerial spraying. They were given financial incentives for every post they did. It was impressed upon businesses that the mayor must take swift, decisive action in order to maintain Los Angeles’ standing as a tourist destination. Without the denouement of the aerial spraying, how could anyone declare that the crisis was over?
Of course, Gordon Lund had to deal with the circulating conspiracy theory perpetrated by Kelso that the bee attack was a simulation, that he had created it in order to enhance the fortunes of his company and interests. He of course had easy plausible deniability over that claim, there was no evidence. Bagley was a delusional veteran with PTSD. In fact, Sage Chemical was donating the pesticide to be used in the aerial spraying out of the goodness of their hearts! So the idea that he would create and profit from this scenario was of course preposterous.
Gordon Lund had never mentioned his vested interest in facilitating society’s embrace of the robobee as an alternative to biological bees. The connection there was in no way concrete. He had plausible deniability. Lund stood in the crisis monitor room at the EOC and worked the phones. He contacted the general manager of Channel 12. “This is Gordon Lund, I’m part of the mayor’s task force on the killer bee crisis.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Lund?” the GM asked.
“I’m afraid that your reporter is spreading misinformation. She has interviewed a guest, a disgraced officer of the US Fish and Wildlife Service who is spreading a conspiracy theory that the current crisis is somehow manmade.”
“Hester is pretty good at sniffing out the truth on a story,” the GM replied.
“I’m afraid that this time she has been hoodwinked. Officer Bagley’s information is not accurate and he is biased against our best chance to defeat the threat.”
“Mr. Lund, with all due respect, we deal with this every day. We do our best to present impartially both sides of any story. In this case I think that Officer Bagley’s information is in the public interest.”
“Let me put this to you another way. My company advertises on your television station to the tune of six million dollars per year.”
“Yessir, I am familiar with your ads.” He heard the famous jingle in his head:
Sage Chem-i-cal
Pesticides bene-fi-cial
Life-saving and con-se-quen-tial
The GM hummed the words.
“If you continue spreading Officer Bagley’s disinformation, I will pull all of my advertising from your channel. We are about to launch a new, even bigger ad campaign and all of that revenue will go to your competitor.”
“Let’s not do anything hasty, Mr. Lund. We are not in the business of giving a platform to rogue information purveyors.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Lund replied as he hung up.
***
Hester stood on the roof of the Costco in West LA with the microphone in her hand. “This is Hester Lynne reporting from the scene of a Costco in West Los Angeles. I want you to take a look at this box here. It is a box of bees and it has a timer on it. This is set to release the bees in two hours. Jerry, can you get a close up of the bee box? You will see that the timer is connected to a valve which allows the bees to escape from this box. This box was deliberately planted here, ladies and gentlemen. And we are receiving reports that the bee attacks all over the city were executed in the same way. This is not a natural phenomenon! This is manmade. We have teams of local beekeepers and insect experts deploying all over the city to defuse these boxes, like UCLA entomologist Chris Helingdock is doing here.” Chris de-programmed the electronic valve lock and placed a plug in the valve so the bees could not escape.
Jerry scowled as he looked through his lens. The light on his camera went off. “What’s wrong?” Hester asked him.
“We lost our feed,” he said.
Hester looked down in the parking lot at their van. Its satellite transmitter was fully extended and pointing up at the sky. “Probably some interference with the microwave. Call broadcast engineering.”
Jerry texted their tech team on his phone. His phone immediately beeped back. He read the text. “They say it’s not weather or a technical problem,” he relayed.
“Okay, so what the hell is it? We need to get this story out.”
“The GM pulled the plug on the story.”
“What?”
“They want us to head back to the studio.”
“Now? Why?”
“Something about editorial revisions, they said.”
Hester looked at Jerry incredulously. Kelso, however, was not surprised. He realized that the ambulance chasing news must have become aware that they were trying to calm the panic. When panic sells, any attempt to assuage it must be stopped.
***
Albert Fossil was brought into the interrogation room. The intake nurse at the Metropolitan Detention Center had cleaned him up and given him prison issue clothing. There were bright red blotches over his skin. He remained taciturn as he sat down.
Detective Peters entered the room and sat down in front of the suspect. “Albert Fossil. My name is Detective Peters. I will be conducting your interview today.”
“You must be the good cop,” Fossil replied.
“I’d like to think so,” Peters answered. He had been chosen to conduct this interview since Duke was much too close to the action to be considered impartial. Duke remained behind the glass observation window.
“I will be recording this interview,” Peters notified as he pressed record on the LED panel on the desk. “Why were you on the property of the test farm for Sage Chemical, Mr. Fossil?”
“I work there,” he replied.
“Tell me about your relationship with Gordon Lund,” Peters asked.
“He is my employer,” Fossil replied.
“Did Mr. Lund order you to abduct either Detective John Wayne, his daughter Beryl, or Officer Kelso Bagley of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?”
“No, he did not,” Fossil replied.
“You abducted the victim and brought her to the premises of your employment, true?”
“She asked me to take her to the farm. She said she wanted to see the bees. She said they turned her on.”
“Haha. That’s a good one.”
“I think her father put her up to it, he and that desperate guy from Fish and Wildlife. They have some kind of vendetta against Sage Chemical.”
“Did you know Howard Skulberry, formally an employee at the Sage Chemical company?”
“On a cursory basis.”
“At the command of Gordon Lund, did you use bees in order to kill Howard Skulberry?”
“No. I did not.”
“Are you familiar with this woman?” Peters flashed a photograph of Valerie Wilder.
“I saw her on the news.”
“She was killed by bees. Her death was very similar to the method you were using to terrorize Beryl Wayne.”
“I didn’t do anything to her. She went in the hive room on her own.”
“You are here on some serious charges. Kidnapping, battery, assault with a deadly weapon.”
“I don’t even own a gun.”
“We are talking about the bees, Mr. Fossil. You used bees and, for the record, the insect known as Reduvius, as weapons.”
Fossil shrugged. “No. I was just raising them. It’s animal husbandry.”
“You hooked up a tube to Ms. Wayne’s mouth and tied her up.”
“No. She was observing the bees and entangled herself.”
“Mr. Fossil. You are on shaky ground here. You are going to go away for a long time based on what we already have on you. But you can make your sentence lighter if you will tell us what we need to know. We are scouring cameras in and around the scenes of these two crimes and I have no doubt we will be able to connect them to you. But if you can tell me about your employer’s knowledge of this beforehand, then maybe, just maybe, we will go lighter on you.
Fossil clammed up. He stared into space, looking right through Peters. In the observation room, Duke fumed, fogging up the observation glass.
***
Jerry drove the news van back to the studio. Hester Lynne rode shotgun. How dare they? How dare they cut off her feed just as she was in a live broadcast? This was unacceptable! She had other offers, you know. She could go elsewhere. Channel 12 wasn’t the only game in town. Yes, they were a steppingstone to a national network gig, but so what? She would not be treated like this. No, not when she was on the biggest story of her life.
“Siri, call my agent.”
The phone dialed and a perky voice answered. “Talented Artists Agency, may I help you?”
“Get Frank on the phone now.”
“Oh, hi Hester. We’ve been watching you. Great reporting by the way. One moment.”
The call transferred and Frank Kaplan, her agent, picked up. “Sweetums I am loving you on camera today. You are so on!”
“Spare me the obsequious bullshit, Frank. They just pulled my feed and told me to head back to the studio.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“They’re trying to kill my story, what do you think?”
“But why would they do that? You are on to something!”
“I don’t know, Frank. Can you spell the words cover-up?”
“Cover-up of what?”
“I want you to work the phones now. I want you to find me another outlet. I may be quitting in the next fifteen minutes.”
“But you can’t do that, you have a contract...”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the contract, Frank! They are telling me to back off and I will not! You had better have another outlet lined up for me in the next two hours because I will be damned if I am going to put up with this shit from Channel 12!”
“Got it, babe.”
“Don’t call me babe. I have not been your babe for a long time.”
“Right.”
“Do it, Frank! Do it now! We are going to expose the truth about these bees one way or another!”
Jerry pulled the van into the station and Hester hopped out, on the war path.
***
The robbery-homicide squad was a buzz of activity. Several detectives were vividly describing the looting that had transpired after the aggressive bees had been released from a planted hive near Pershing Square. They described how the perpetrators wore nylon stockings over their faces, which served the dual purpose of a bee veil and a disguise.
A uniformed cop walked in with a can of insect spray on his utility belt. Duke took him to task. “You really think that’s going to protect you?” he asked the officer.
“I don’t know, Duke. Our watch commander handed them out. Better than nothing, isn’t it?”
Duke shook his head. “You’d be better off with a smoker.”
“What could they do? Besides, smoking is not allowed in the building.”
“Not a human smoker, a bee smoker! Smoke calms the bees down.”
The officer marched off, not sure what the heck Duke was talking about.
Duke sipped from his coffee cup and paced the floor.
Kelso entered the squad room. His shoulders were slumped and he had a look of defeat on his face. He spotted Duke and marched over. “Hey. How’s the interrogation going?”
“I’m waiting to hear,” Duke replied. “There’s someone here to see you.”
A fit, stocky woman with leathery skin wearing khaki dress pants and a freshly pressed Oxford button down shirt emerged out of Captain Brader’s office. It was obvious she spent quite a bit of time in the outdoors but was now occupying the indoorsy world of Federal bureaucracy. This was Director Macy Camden of the Department of Fish and Wildlife: Kelso’s boss.
“Director Camden,” Kelso greeted her.
“A word, Kelso?” She motioned for him to come into Brader’s office. He entered and she closed the door behind him. “Sit down,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
“Kelso, it’s come to my attention that you fired a trank gun at a fellow member of the service.”
“That is correct, ma’am. I realize it was a poor decision, but Officer Charlie Benson was withholding evidence that we needed for our murder investigation.”
“But you’re not a homicide detective.”
“No ma’am, I’m not, but my partner is.”
“He’s not your partner.”
“We have been working this case...”
“I approved your leave to come out here because you said your friend had died. I did not know that you were going to carry out some major investigation.”
“He died because he was murdered. Surely you could understand that I would want to get to the bottom of it.”
“Yeah, but you got the wrong guy. Now it’s leaking to the press that he was coerced to confess.”
“I had nothing to do with that. I was always against charging him before I had all the evidence.”
“This is the big city, Kelso. They do things differently here. You’re not used to it.”
“But we’ve got the real guy now. He’s in custody.”
“Yeah. He’s claiming entrapment.”
“Entrapment? He kidnapped Duke’s daughter!”
“He claims it was a set up.”
“That’s ridiculous. Beryl will testify that’s not the case.”
“He’s saying that you are unhinged, that you got her to go along with the scheme to incriminate his employer, for which you have a vendetta.”
“He’s wrong!”
“The fact that the first suspect was coerced to confess doesn’t add to your case.”
“He’s a psychopath!”
“Maybe. But he’s got a good lawyer. And unfortunately, you and your ‘partner’ have given him a lot of fodder for their case. They will use the trank incident against you, too.”
“What do you want from me? “
“I want the item that you took from the field office, first of all.”
“I don’t have it. They took it.”
“Who took it?”
“Lund’s associate. I think he goes by the name Mr. Tan.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “You’re on suspension, effective immediately. That means not talking to the press or claiming to represent the interests of the Department.”
“Don’t I?”
“You can’t target deep pocketed pesticide companies without hard evidence and the cooperation of Federal prosecutors!”
“So, we are just going to let him douse this city with pesticide that will kill pollinators?”
“That is not our call, it is not our purview!”
Kelso handed in his badge and walked out. Duke paced back and forth by his desk. He turned when he saw Kelso. “How did the interrogation go?” Kelso asked.
“He claims he is just a beekeeper, doing his job, that we trapped him and Beryl was in on it.”
“I want to talk to him.”
“You can’t.”
“You’ve got to get me in the room with him.”
“I’m back on ad leave, thanks to you.”
“We’re being railroaded, Duke. Lund’s tentacles spread wide. They don’t want us on the case because we’re too close to the truth.”
Duke walked away from him.
“Where are you going?”
“I can’t do this anymore. Good luck to you.”
“Do you realize what’s at stake here? They are going to douse this city in toxic pesticide if we don’t do something.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“They are going to kill off a generation of bees, I don’t know if we’ll come back from that.”
“It’s a city. That’s what cities do.”
“I should have known.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You obviously wanted me gone a long time ago. To the point where you hired that snitch to scare me off.”
“J.D.? Okay, maybe I did. Maybe we both would have been better off if you had left a lot sooner.”
“Thanks for having my back, pardner.”
“I ain’t your partner.”
“I know that,” Kelso said. He faced away from Duke and walked down the hallway.
***
Back in Carthay Circle Duke pulled into his driveway. Kelso’s RV was gone. Duke opened the garage door and pulled Beryl’s Mustang forward. He closed the garage door and walked inside the house. Beryl was on the couch. He handed her the keys.
