Fatal Harvest

That’s when Matt bolted.

They ran after him. Shouting. Threatening to call the police, send him to prison, put him away forever. He wriggled under the park’s barbed-wire fence. Ran down the sidewalk and cut across the yards of several houses. Rounded a corner of the video store. Dashed down an alley. Found a culvert and hid. An hour. Two hours.

Sweating, smelling like dank water, his head throbbing, he ran all the way to the high school just as the last class was letting out. He hid in a clump of bushes and scanned the area for the Agrimax men or their car. Nothing. In the distance near the main door, he saw Billy waiting for him. Checking out the girls. Calling greetings to classmates. Matt wanted to go to him, tell him everything. But what if the two men were watching? Then they would go after Billy, too.

Matt made a dash for his pickup. He sped from the school parking lot, headed out of town. Drove to nearby Hope. Found a thicket of trees near Jim Banyon’s house. Cottonwoods, piñons, salt cedar. Not much cover, but he pulled his pickup as far into their midst as he could.

It was beginning to grow dark, so he checked his cell phone. A message from Billy that Matt’s dad was worrying about him, searching for him.

That didn’t sound right. His dad never cared where he was, did he? Were the Agrimax men holding Billy? Had they made him leave that message?

Shaken, Matt decided to place a call. He pressed the button and listened to the rings on the other end. When Billy answered, Matt barely managed to squawk his own name.

“Mattman, is that you?” Billy’s voice had a calming effect. Yeah, this was Billy. Life was normal somewhere out there. But not here…not in this pickup in the middle of a grove just outside Mr. Banyon’s house.

“Listen, Billy,” Matt breathed. “I got your phone message, okay? But don’t keep looking for me.”

“Where have you been, dude? I waited for you after class.”

Matt remembered their plan to go to Dairy Queen together. Like always. They each would have ordered an M&M’s Blizzard, talked about their classes, planned their weekend. But not now.

“Something bad’s going on,” Matt said. “Really bad.”

“What? You’re freaking me out. Where are you?”

“I’m going away. Don’t look for me anymore.” Realizing he was starting to cry again, which was totally uncool, Matt hung up.

He stared through his tears at Mr. Banyon’s house. Nearly paralyzed with panic, he wadded up the Snickers wrapper and stuffed it into the ashtray. What should he do? What was right—and wrong? None of this was supposed to happen! He had just wanted to help feed the hungry.

He needed to talk to Mr. Banyon. Jim Banyon made sense when he explained ethics, when he discussed the difference that Christians could make in the business world. He sounded just like Miss Pruitt when he talked about Christ’s command that Christians meet people’s needs—no matter what the cost. He understood Agrimax better than Matt ever could. Mr. Banyon would know what to do.

But what if the men were inside the house…threatening him and waiting for Matt? He knew what he ought to do. Leave. Disappear. Get out of town for a while. Isn’t that what fugitives did in the movies? But this wasn’t a movie. This was no computer game, where he could press a button and start all over. It was real.

He wished he could call Billy again. Billy always had advice—even if it wasn’t necessarily right. Matt stared at his phone. Then he threw it out the window into a tangle of tall grass. No phone. No contact. He looked at the laptop lying beside him on the front seat. He was afraid Agrimax had hacked his user account and could read his e-mails and personal information. He should toss that out, too.

No. He could use it to stay in touch somehow. But what if they traced him? Now he was getting paranoid. Matt knew more about computers than those two men did. They weren’t Princeton techies, after all. They were Agrimax goons.

All the same, Matt knew if he stayed around, his dad and Billy, and maybe even Miss Pruitt, would get involved. The way the Agrimax men had slammed him against the wall today, they wouldn’t hesitate to hurt people if that’s what it took to get their data back. Anyone connected to Matt would be in danger, because he had helped Mr. Banyon.

The Agrimax men would soon find out Matt was the one who had told Mr. Banyon that he could copy the incriminating Agrimax information onto a USB key. They would learn that Matt had used his own credit card—which his father had said was just for emergencies—to buy the key. They would discover that Mr. Banyon was going to give the USB key and all its terrible secrets to the chairman-elect of I-FEED, a man named Josiah Karume, who would turn everything over to the right people in government and the media. They would know that, in the name of God, Mr. Banyon was going to ruin them. And that Matthew Strong was helping him do it.

But where could Matt go if he ran? Granny Strong lived in Amarillo. She would take him in. He could drive to Hobbs and cross the state line into Texas. Pick up a map somewhere so he could find the right roads to Lubbock and then Amarillo. Spend what cash he had on gas and food.

He fought the panic that felt like a noose tightening around his neck. Dear God, please help me! I don’t know what to do. I need to talk to somebody. I need help. But You’re all I have.

He forced himself to reason. If God was all he had, wasn’t that enough? God is more than sufficient…a very present help in time of trouble…wonderful Counselor…

“Okay,” Matt breathed out. “Holy Spirit, give me wisdom. And courage, too. Please be my counselor. Help me not to blow this worse than I already have. Amen.”

When he lifted his head, he felt calmer. He wasn’t in such bad shape after all, he realized. He had about fifty dollars, a laptop, a vehicle. He had youth, energy and brains—more than enough to get him out of this hot water. He even had the credit card his father had given him. What more did he need? Maybe the Snickers had just given him a sugar high, but he was feeling better about the situation. He turned his attention to Jim Banyon’s house.

The thing to do was go inside and just talk things through with Mr. Banyon. Maybe everything was really all right. Maybe Mr. Banyon had spoken with the Agrimax men, calmed them down, given them the key, and assured them Matt hadn’t done anything wrong. Maybe they would go away, and everything would be normal again. He and Billy would rent a movie and eat four bags of microwave popcorn and drink a twelve-pack of orange soda.

Drawing a fortifying breath deep into his lungs, Matt eased open the door of his pickup. At the squeak, his palms went damp.

It’s okay, he told himself. It’s nothing. Be calm, Mattman.

He edged out of the cab and crept through the cover of trees. The lights were still on in the house. No silhouettes moving around inside. Darkness was falling fast.

Pausing at the edge of the grove, Matt crouched and scanned the area. There was no way to approach the house without showing himself. He dashed to the front door. It was ajar. He wedged himself against the frame and knocked quickly, quietly. He looked over his shoulder. Was someone moving out beyond the fence?

Gulping down the acid that bubbled up from his stomach, Matt pushed the door open and slipped inside.

“Mr. Banyon?” His voice came out soft and wimpy. Way too high. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Mr. Banyon, it’s me, Matt Strong.”

Nothing.

His own rapid breaths sounding like a locomotive engine, he moved forward. Down the narrow foyer. His rubber soles made a tump-tump sound on the tile.

Living-room light spilled into the hallway, and he stepped across it onto beige berber carpet. Someone was sleeping on the couch that faced the bank of windows opposite the foyer. An arm lay across the top of the sofa. Mr. Banyon’s arm. Matt recognized the turquoise-inlaid silver watchband. Whew. How bad could it be if the rancher was napping? That was normal after a long day’s work. His dad was always zonked out on the recliner in the evenings.

“Hey, Mr. Banyon, sir?” Matt said, moving around the couch. “Sorry to wake you up, but I—”

A monster stared back at him. Swollen eyeballs, blackened teeth, a crimson halo. Red stain on the sofa pillow. Bloodstain. Spatters across the back of the couch.

The body was Mr. Banyon’s—plaid work shirt, silver belt buckle, jeans, those old boots. But the face. Not the face.

Matt fought to keep breathing. Mr. Banyon’s other arm draped down to the floor. Six inches away lay a pistol. Matt’s eyes shot back to the face. The blackened teeth and burn marks on the lips…they could only mean…

No. Matt’s mouth formed the word, but no sound came out. “No,” he said again. “No, God, don’t let this be! Don’t let this be!”

He fell to one knee, grabbed Mr. Banyon’s shirt, and shook him. “Don’t do this! Not this!”

The monstrous head rolled, sliding down the pillow toward the shoulder.

Matt jumped backward, stumbling into the coffee table. He reached behind him to steady the large Hopi pot that always sat there. But it was gone—already lying on the carpet, broken into three pieces. Not wanting to look at Mr. Banyon again—and wanting to look just to be sure he hadn’t dreamed it—Matt forced himself to scan the room. Books that once lined pine shelves now lay scattered across the floor. A kachina doll’s glass case had been shattered. A curtain hung half-torn from its rod.

And Mr. Banyon’s desk near the fireplace…the drawers were out, their contents flung around the room…

The Agrimax men had been here. They came looking for it. For the USB key. They must have threatened Mr. Banyon the way they had threatened Matt. And when they left, taking the key and all its forbidden secrets, he had known he would spend the rest of his life in prison. So he had stretched out on the couch and put the pistol in his mouth and…and…

“It’s my fault!” Matt knotted his fingers in his hair, squeezed, and pulled. He felt like his own brain was going to come bursting out of his skull. “I did this! Me! It’s all because of me!”

He looked back at Mr. Banyon, and his eyes caught the flash of a headlight through the front window. Someone driving along the fence. Approaching the house. The Agrimax men!

Matt pounced on the pistol lying on the floor. He would shoot them. Shoot them both!

No, wait. He couldn’t do that. He had never fired a gun in his life. Hated hunting. Hated violence. Billy had teased him— Come on, Mattman, at least a jackrabbit! No, Matt wouldn’t do it.

Dropping the gun, he couldn’t keep his eyes from falling again on the monster. “I’m sorry!” he mouthed, tears wetting his lips. “I didn’t mean to do this!”

The crunch of gravel on the drive…then a car door slammed. Matt jerked, and his focus fell on a bulge in the pocket of Mr. Banyon’s plaid shirt. It was small, oblong, the size of a cigarette lighter. Only Mr. Banyon didn’t smoke.

As someone rang the doorbell, Matt slid two fingers into the pocket. Before he even touched it, he knew what he had found. The key fit neatly in his palm. He dropped it into the front pocket of his jeans and took off for the kitchen.

“Banyon? You in there?”

Matt could hear the voice echoing down the foyer. His foot landed on a small rug, and he skidded halfway across the kitchen floor. The back door stood ajar. Pushing open the screen, he burst through—remembering just in time to grab it so it wouldn’t slam shut behind him. Then he started toward the side of the house.

Down on all fours, he peered around the corner. The car parked out front didn’t belong to the Agrimax men. It was the sheriff. How had Sheriff Holtmeyer known to check on Mr. Banyon?

Now Matt could see two more vehicles moving up the rutted dirt road, their headlights bouncing. Grateful for darkness, he raced across the yard and dived into the stand of cottonwood trees.

Breathing hard, he yanked open the door to his pickup and climbed in. He turned the key in the ignition, reached for the shift lever, and paused. Leaving the truck idling, he leaned back in the seat and tried to collect his thoughts. If the Agrimax men hadn’t found the USB key, then maybe Mr. Banyon hadn’t killed himself. Maybe they had been looking for the device and had murdered him in the process. This was bad. Really bad.

Should Matt go to the sheriff, turn himself in, tell him the whole story, hand over the key? The information would go straight back to Agrimax, and that would be the end of everything Mr. Banyon had been trying to do. Had died trying to do.

Think, Mattman. Think, think. He wasn’t any good at thinking on his feet. Billy said he had no common sense, no street smarts. Give Mattman a logarithm. Give him calculus. Give him a computer to program. Give him Latin grammar or astronomy. He could puzzle through that stuff easily. But not this.

“Dear God, what am I supposed to do now?” he murmured, gripping the steering wheel. This had all been for God to begin with, hadn’t it? Feeding the hungry. Convincing Agrimax to turn over some of their excess. Finding a way to really do something for Christ—the way Miss Pruitt did.

But Mr. Banyon was dead now. Everything was over, wasn’t it? Matt thought of I-FEED, the organization Miss Pruitt worked with. Mr. Banyon had never heard of it until Matt told him about his teacher’s work in famine-stricken lands. Jim Banyon had spent his career in research and technology development for Agrimax. He had climbed the corporate ladder until he was rewarded with a vice presidency—and had lost his marriage and family in the process. But then he found a new life in Christ. Sickened at what he had been involved in through the years, Mr. Banyon told Matt, he was filled with remorse and anger. Finally, he had taken early retirement and moved to New Mexico to start over.

Mr. Banyon said until Matt came along, he hadn’t thought anything could be done to change the corporation’s practices. Not until the high school sophomore had knocked on his door to interview him for a term paper. Matt talked to Mr. Banyon about I-FEED. About the starving children. About his passion to feed the hungry. And somewhere in there, he mentioned the tiny USB flash drive he had his eye on at the computer store. Just plug it in and copy anything you want.

Anything? Mr. Banyon had gotten excited then. He knew the password system at Agrimax. He could get into the company’s mainframe, couldn’t he? He could download technologies still under development, products waiting to be patented, top secret plans that threatened the world’s ecology and would keep the poor on the brink of starvation. He could copy the details of Vince Grant’s elaborate monopoly scheme, his design for control of the world’s food supply and the ensuing global domination. He could blow the whistle on all the corruption—and in doing so, bring attention to the plight of the hungry. Mr. Banyon knew he could make it all happen, he had acknowledged to Matt. He could do this. He would do this for righteousness’ sake.

Matt had bought the flash drive and showed him how to use it. Then Mr. Banyon made one last visit to Agrimax, copied the data onto the USB key, and began preparing to deliver it anonymously to Josiah Karume at I-FEED. Once leaked to the media, the information would devastate Agrimax. Mr. Banyon said the company would be forced to its knees by a public outcry. Legal and media pressure would force Agrimax to change its policies and practices. The World Health Organization would get involved, and so would every environmental group worth its salt. Public attention would fall on the corrupt practices of the World Trade Organization and the food companies that controlled global food supplies. Vince Grant’s plan to monopolize this system would be exposed and derailed. All this…because of the USB key that now lay in Matthew Strong’s pocket.

Matt covered the small shape with his palm. If Jim Banyon had lost his life in trying to do this good work, could Matt do any less than risk his life to finish it? People were hungry. Children were starving. Babies were dying. For months Matt had been able to think of little else.

Now the answer lay in his grasp. What would he do with it? As the two cars pulled to a stop in the driveway, Matt recognized his father’s tall profile, his hat, his broad shoulders. Was that Miss Pruitt? How did she get into this? And Billy?

Disbelief twisted through Matt’s chest. Had his father really come looking for him? They hardly ever spoke these days. He wasn’t sure his dad even remembered he had a son. But there was Cole Strong, striding up to the door of Jim Banyon’s ranch house.

Had he decided to suddenly play the concerned parent? Matt frowned. It was a little late now. His son was grown—sixteen—and more than old enough to make his own decisions about his life. Matt had a job to do. As the others went into the house, he shifted the truck into reverse and eased out of the thicket. The gas tank was full, and he could drive all night.

“Hold it, Cole!” Sheriff Holtmeyer came around the corner of the living room in the foyer. “Don’t take another step, none of you. I’ve got a body here.”

Cole stiffened. “Is it—”

“It’s not your boy. It’s the old man—Banyon.”

“So where’s my son?” Cole started to edge past the sheriff, but Holtmeyer stopped him.

“This is a secured area, Cole. You can’t go barging in on it. I’ve got to get my people out here.”

“My boy may be in this house, and I intend—”

“Let us just look around for Matt, Sheriff,” Billy cut in. “We won’t touch anything.”

“I’m sorry, folks. These things have to be done the right way.”

“Sheriff, are you sure Mr. Banyon is dead?” Jill Pruitt asked.

“He’s dead all right. Suicide, I reckon.” The lawman shuddered. “You never get used to this kind of thing.”

Cole stared past him at the entrance to the living room. Suicide? Had problems with the farm been that bad for Jim Banyon? And what did Matt have to do with this—if anything? Did he know something about Banyon that had led him to call Billy in a state of panic?

“Cole, you’ve got to step back outside,” Holtmeyer said, hands at his belt. “I don’t think your boy’s anywhere around here. This looks pretty cut-and-dried to me.”

“Come on outside with us, Mr. Strong,” Miss Pruitt said, laying a hand on Cole’s arm. Her fingers were soft, startlingly warm against his skin. “Surely there’s something we can do to find Matt.”

Cole stared blankly at the teacher as she followed Billy out into the night. Vibrant with energy that radiated from her wild blond hair and compact figure, the young woman moved as though on a mission. His own body felt stiff, but his brain spun with questions. Where was Matt? Did he know about Banyon’s suicide? Who were the two men who took Matt out of class? What had they wanted with him? Did their conversation have anything to do with the suicide? Or had Banyon been just another desperate farmer watching his life savings slip away?

“Mr. Strong?” Corkscrew curls framing her green eyes, Miss Pruitt stuck her head back through the door. “I’ve had an idea. Why don’t you come on out, and I’ll tell you what I’m thinking?”

Like a tin soldier, Cole forced his legs down the foyer and out the front door. A dead man lay behind him in that house. Was Matt also in there somewhere? Was he dead, too? Images of his wife swirled upward like dry leaves caught in a dust devil. How ill Anna had looked, lying in bed day after day as the cancer that had begun in her ovaries swept through her body, invading blood and organs and bone. Clouds of dark, curly hair fell out in clumps, but the chemotherapy did no good. How desperately Anna had wanted to live. Not only for Cole, but for Matt. Such a small boy, and so in need of a mother. Cole’s greatest fear rose up inside him…Matt—he couldn’t lose the boy….

“Mr. Strong, drive me to your house,” Jill Pruitt was saying, her hand on his arm again. Touching him, drawing him back. “I’ll take a look at Matt’s computer. Try to see what he’s downloaded recently. Go back over his e-mails, websites he’s visited.”

“Hey, Miss Pruitt,” Billy said, “I just thought of something. Matt probably has his laptop with him. He used to take it to class so he could write programs when he got bored.”

“It wasn’t in his room this afternoon,” Cole said, the realization snapping him back to attention. “Remember, Billy? You mentioned that it had the most recent copy of his term paper.”

“Yeah, that’s right!” The boy’s face broke into the first grin Cole had seen in hours. “If Matt’s got his laptop, we can e-mail him!”

“Okay, I’ll take you to the house, Miss Pruitt. Billy, you can go on home, and I’ll call you if—”

“No way, Mr. Strong! I’m not going home until we find the Mattman. I’m with you guys.”

“Billy, there’s no point. Go do your homework.”

“You think you can just run me off, Mr. Strong?” Billy stepped closer, his chest swelling with bluster. “I know more about Matt than you or Miss Pruitt. I know what he’s thinking, where he likes to go, what he wants to do. And I know what he believes in, too. His mind works weird, and nobody can figure him out any better than me.”

“Yes, but, Billy, you’re a boy. You don’t need to get involved in this. I’m not happy you even know about this suicide thing—”

“I’m sixteen, Mr. Strong! I’m not a kid. I can drive, and I have a job lined up for this summer. I’ve already taken the ACT twice, and—”

“Billy, do you know Matt’s e-mail password?” Jill Pruitt’s hand rested on the boy’s arm now.

“Yeah, but I’m not telling.” He glared at Cole.

“I do think Billy could help us. He’s been Matt’s rudder since childhood.”

Cole looked from one to the other. He nodded. “All right.”

The teacher gave orders. “Call your folks and let them know where you’ll be, Billy. We’ll see you at Matt’s house.”

“Okay, Miss Pruitt.” Billy gave Cole a last resentful glance. “I’ll be there.”

As Billy stalked away, Cole opened the passenger-side door for the teacher. She climbed in and immediately took a cell phone from the bag of school papers and books she had brought along. As he started the car, she began to talk. Even her voice was peppy, as though perpetually on the verge of a laugh.

“Marianne, hey, it’s me! I’m out with Mr. Strong—Matt’s dad.” She paused. “Not out with him. We’re looking for Matt. You know those two recruiters who showed up at your class today to talk to him? Did they take him somewhere?”

She covered the phone and whispered across the front seat. “Marianne says they had gotten a pass at the office, and she assumed they were going to sign him out for an hour or so and take him somewhere to talk.”

As Cole drove back down the bumpy road, he passed a couple of deputies’ vehicles and the county coroner’s car, all heading toward the Banyon place. His fears for Matt were growing by leaps and bounds. Where would the boy go? Matt always came home from school, got to his homework immediately, and then stared at his computer or watched TV. Once in a blue moon, he mowed the grass or took a fishing pole down to the reservoir. Most afternoons, Billy dropped by and ate half the contents of the refrigerator while hanging out with his best friend.

“Okay, call the school secretary, would you?” Miss Pruitt said into the phone. “See if she’ll run over to the admin building and get those names off the log for us. I know it’s a pain, but we’re really concerned.” She paused, then glanced at Cole. “What…? No way. Please, Marianne. Give it a rest. Bye.”

“Give what a rest?” Cole asked.

“She thinks I should date.”

It took a moment for the meaning of her words to penetrate the fog of concern for his son. “Date me? Tell her I’m getting married in November. Which reminds me—can I use your phone? Is it all right if I call Albuquerque? I’ll keep it short.”

“Sure.”

As he drove, he punched out Penny’s number. How odd that he knew his fiancée’s phone number but not his son’s. Disturbed, he listened as it rang.