GUT-CHECK GREEN Cli-Fi Thriller, chapter one

GUT-CHECK GREEN by Peter Prasad

A climate fiction thriller of vigilante justice. “This is Gut-Check Green, the defenders of Mother Nature, checking in. Dirt-ball corporations: we rank them, spank them and prank them. Lasso makes poison and now you’re all going to die. Remember to love your planet. This is Gut-Check Green, checking out.”

SET-UP: P.I. Jake Knight goes undercover to chase a vicious group of killers, skilled at evading a terrorist task force. With a raid on a corporate wine dinner, they launch a chain of events with world-rattling repercussions. Only Jake can bring them to justice, but first he must face a ruthless killer, the Pencil Man. As Jake closes in, he discovers the shocking secrets that make these terrorists so desperate. Does their message have truth or is it all madness? Guilty, yes, but sacrificial lambs, maybe, too?

Enjoy a controversial, fast-paced thriller set in the heart of California wine country. Gut-Check Green dances with diabolic characters and an action-packed plot to explore the future of our food supply. It raises disturbing questions about the drift toward over-dependence on GMOs. Here is a conspiracy so plausible it will rattle your dinner plate and change the way you sip chardonnay.

DEDICATION: I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. It is the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose hearts are firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death. - Leonardo da Vinci

CHAPTER 1

Their dance with the Grim Reaper had arrived. After tonight, there’d be no turning back. Pencil, Lizard Bill and Brandy Wine huddled on the tattered bench seat of a smelly plumber’s van. Rain drops tattooed the windshield in an empty car park on Petrified Forest Road outside Calistoga, a hot springs resort town at the top of the Napa valley.

Pencil heard a motorcycle echo on the mountain road and paid it no attention. The heater roared but he shivered anyway. Dim light from the dash-mounted GPS guided his hand into a bag at his feet. He peeled off the VA prescription label and filled the syringe. Living with the effects of exposure to an Agent Orange dioxin was his permanent pain. He’d been within inhalation range of a dirty bomb sometime during his career for the red, white and blue, all off the record in lands far away. He injected the cocktail of anti-viral meds. He had so many cancers, he was metastasizing to a cold grave.

He bagged the meds and wiped his nose on the dirty sleeve of his blue overalls. His hands rarely stopped trembling. He longed for a pain killer, a skin pop of the Dilaudid, his favorite hydromorphone, but he denied himself. Tonight he had work to do.

“It’s about frickin’ time. Lasso Corporation is going down.” Brandy spoke from the driver’s seat with a fervent fire in her eyes and stared at her two soldiers. Her voice ratcheted to a war cry. “We’ll get the attention of the kids, the campuses, the future farmers and foodistas, and we can change the world.” She smacked the steering wheel and pushed her clenched fist toward her partners.

The rabid zeal in her voice embarrassed Pencil. He turned to face her, his ice-cold eyes catching every gesture. He’d heard it before in a dozen briefing rooms and war zones. It was stupid to go into battle with emotions over-amped. But Brandy gave the orders, and Pencil needed her. She was the mother of his craving, so he went along.

Her flushed cheeks glowed red; her bugged-out eyes animated a sad, drooping face. She chomped on a wad of gum. He guessed she was high on amphetamines, with a chaser of nicotine gum. She motor-mouthed her insecurities when she got like this. He knew she drew on a festering ache. This was personal for her.

“Last go for Lasso. Ready to raise the flag?” Brandy howled. She needed to hear them say it one more time. She had a habit of seeking reassurance every thirty minutes, despite being the smart one.

Pencil groaned and knew, for her, it was another kind of need. Brandy had never killed, but Pencil had, too many times. She identified targets and left the execution to him. Lizard was the PC whizz, the creative one, back-up for supply and logistics. It was Pencil who got the killing done. He leaned forward and tapped out a drum roll on the dashboard. He wanted to get his blood up. Every command-post jockey needed to hear her foot soldiers say ‘Oorah’.

“Do or die and maybe both,” Lizard chimed in and bumped fists with Brandy. His laughter turned into a hacking cough with a wheezy rumble deep in his chest. Pencil lived with that sound. He often debated with Lizard about who was sicker.

Pencil extended his fist to bump brotherhood. “I’m dead already,” he said. “Tonight decorates my tombstone.”

“So what if we’re all sick puppies,” Brandy said. “I refuse to let Lasso Corporation poison my planet.” Her jaw chain-sawed at the gum. Pencil cringed; it was like she was auditioning for a Rambo movie.

“Lasso’s wall of lies gets plowed under tonight.” Brandy bounced up and down in her seat like a demented juvenile. “I want to see a sweet harvest for these chemical monsters.” She was wound up higher than a soap box. Chemical monsters? Sure they were; Pencil had a grudge he could extend to any target at any time.

“College campuses will rise up. Society will hear us.” Brandy’s voice overcame the hum of the heater, the engine and the rain. Pencil was afraid to look. He suspected she might be foaming at the mouth. “We the people will know,” she screamed. “And a certain class of assholes goes on notice. Take responsibility for your products, or die. You can’t pump that poison any longer. We, the people, won’t stand for it.”

Pencil wondered if Brandy’s speech qualified as end of life counseling. It made her feel better, and she made him feel better, so what the hell. Then the flash of police lights splashed across the ratty interior and caught him unprepared.

Strobes of red, blue and white flooded through the vehicle in a rapid flicker that sickened him. He closed his eyes, pressed down on his stomach and exhaled slowly. No way could the cops have an alert out already, he thought. He’d stolen the plumber’s van off a job site that morning in San Jose, a hundred miles south, and changed license plates. It had to be routine, or worse, a curious rookie cursed with the helpfulness disease.

“Oh god, Pencil, deal with it,” Brandy shrieked. Her bravado evaporated. She slid down in her seat and moaned like a wounded animal. The flashing colors bounced off her golden locks. She looked wicked old, paste-white skin and sunken eyes. She folded under a chocolate colored party dress and clutched her legs to her chest. Pencil saw the toes of her red stiletto heels hang over the edge of her seat.

Lizard went all spastic, clutching Pencil’s arm, his hands bad with tremors. “I’m begging, bro. Time to do your thing.”

Pencil took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, pushing his pain away. “For fuck sake, get a grip, we haven’t started yet,” he said as he rolled down his sleeve and pried off Lizard’s hand.

“But it’s over if they catch us now,” Brandy wailed. She had burrowed into the frilly skirts of her taffeta gown. Hiked up on the seat, her skinny stork legs were bent at the knee, covered in sheer stockings with a pattern of chocolate hearts. She looked like the action end of a sex doll.

Pencil had an idea; the cop would go all fixated as soon as he looked in on her. Pencil pulled at Brandy’s knee to spread her legs. He pushed Lizard’s head down into the crotch of her panty hose. “Stay like that and don’t look up, no matter what,” he said.

Pencil popped his door open and slipped out, not letting it click shut. He heard the cop tap once on Brandy’s window. “Hey, you…” he commanded, then, sure enough, he went quiet. Lizard’s leg kicked at the dashboard as he twisted and pushed his face in deeper. The van started rocking gently. Pencil imagined the cop was getting an eye full. He wanted this trooper flustered and embarrassed.

Pencil snuck around the back, past the motorcycle with its lights flashing. He peered around the van to size up the trooper. In tall black boots and raingear, the patrolman watched the imagined action between Lizard and Brandy. The visor of his helmet was up. He was leaning in close and his breath steamed the window. He stared intently at what he thought was the climax of orgasm. Brandy must have figured it out, because she started to moan.

Pencil saw the cop was a few inches taller, so he allowed for that. With the flashing lights behind him, the cop wouldn’t see his face. He patted the pocket of his overalls for a number two lead pencil, long, yellow and sharp. He eased it out with his right hand and squeezed tight on the eraser end.

“Officer,” he hollered as he stepped out. “It’s my van. I’m right here. Just wandered away so my crew could have some hankie-do. You want my license and ID? I got it right here.” Pencil steamed forward, his left hand held out where the cop could see it.
He felt the tingle, the old familiar rush of adrenalin, the gas that gooses a killer’s spirit. He inhaled and moved forward, not too fast, closing the gap in three steps. “No worries,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt your evening. Pissing down tonight, hey?”

The cop jerked back and twisted away from the window. His pale face was blushing, his mouth open. He stopped licking his lips. Pencil saw the parade of lights splash off his teeth. The trooper raised a hand to shield his eyes. He held a club-like flashlight in his hand.

“You don’t want to be watching that kind of kinky love,” Pencil said with a chuckle. “It’ll rot your brain.”

DUE JUNE 20th to Celebrate Summer