Metallurgical Murder

By Clayton Benjamin Pinkos

Few could have guessed how it was done, but many knew why it was done. FBI agents Jarrick and Gina peel back the layers of an assassination plot that was accomplished without a bullet or a gun. When patriotic senator Robert Bob Foster is killed in the mountains of West Virginia, it wasnt his love of speed but his love for his country that ended his life. The weapon? An often-overlooked industry whose intended purpose is to improve the qualities of steel. Jarricks unique knowledge and skills coupled with Ginas intellect and iron will lead them down an unfamiliar path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524573638

Book preview

Chapter 1

Bob was staring at his hands instead of the road, not a wise thing to do while driving through the mountains of Virginia. But he just couldn’t take his eyes off of his new custom-made deerskin driving gloves. They were American, like his car, a Corvette. He insisted on it; buy local, buy American. He had shot the buck in the Appalachians, just as his father had done and his father before him and their fathers for generations back. Bob was Robert Foster, US senator, and buy American was not just an old slogan that no longer had any meaning. It was his gospel, his mantra, and he meant to see it all come back home again, not just for his sake, but for his children and grandchildren and generations yet unborn.

He was unyielding in his belief that America was not just the greatest nation ever conceived but had a mission to change and influence civilization the world over, if civilization were to continue at all. It was the crucible of the world in science, medicine, and getting man on the moon; twelve Americans had walked there. He was not naïve. There were injustices and atrocities, of course, but also great hope and faith for redemption. He refocused on the road. God, what a country, he thought as he crossed over into West Virginia through the East River Tunnel. As he left the tunnel, the white light hit his eyes, and he scrambled for his sunglasses just in time to see Welcome to West Virginia, big, blue, and bold.

He gripped the wheel at ten and two, rotating his wrists for the feel of leather on leather, the feel of control, of contact with the road. He was on his way to Charleston, West Virginia, not far enough for a plane but perfect for his icon of the American automotive industry. Hugging the curves of a road that had been blasted through the mountains, multicolored rock faces flashed by in a blur, becoming snapshots with a split-second turn of the head. Passing runaway truck ramps every so often, he wondered, as most did, if they had ever been used, washboards of sand running up the side of the mountain so steep they defied the angle of repose. It looked like a semi was more likely to crash into it than climb the incline. Some of the ramps looked abandoned, with vegetation growing everywhere, while others looked freshly groomed. Were they ever used or just maintained?

Bob had made this trip many times and always used the far left lane when climbing, because the trucks, no matter how much momentum they had going downhill, almost came to a standstill as they struggled uphill, creating an inclined truck stop. Then he would switch to the right lane to head downhill for the flash of rock wall and hairpin turns his Corvette loved to devour.

As he settled into the rhythm of the drive, he reflected on his love of this country and its history. He had been to every Civil War battlefield at least twice. The honor and the sacrifice had to have a greater purpose, and it did. It had stopped the Kaiser and Hitler, tore down the Berlin Wall, and broke up the Soviet Union. What other society could produce Lincoln or Edison, provide the freedom for Einstein, or offer the challenges for the Wright Brothers, Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, Mark Twain, Neil Armstrong, Jesse Owens, and Aaron Copland? Then, in between the thoughts and the troughs, on the inside lane around the curve, the drive failed.

He drifted slightly backward and applied the brakes. Then he let them off for the few yards to the bottom. He gunned the engine and went nowhere; he was a sitting duck. Before Bob could reach for the door handle, the grille of a Peterbilt filled his rearview mirror, and the lights went out. Like a truck ramp, the Peterbilt had help stopping from the mountain, carrying the Corvette, or what was left of it, across half the distance of level ground. The sound of the Jake brakes echoed down the mountainside, jackknifed trucks slammed against each other, and antilock braking systems took over in cars and SUVs, to the relief of their panicked drivers.

The unusually light traffic resulted in only one fatality: Robert Foster, U.S. senator, American.

Chapter 2

The state police had their hands full, untangling the bird’s nest of vehicles strewn across the mountainside. It wasn’t immediately evident that the only fatality was the pilot of the Corvette, whoever he was.

Sheriff Stone called in to dispatch. Tara, we got one hell of a mess. No one coming from the south has gotten here yet. I had to walk a quarter of a mile just to get to the scene. Couldn’t get a bicycle through.

Stone had seen his share after twenty-three years, but nothing like this. All four tires had been stripped from the wheels, and very little was left of the bright yellow fiberglass body. He could tell it was a new car; the twisted metal was still gleaming.

Access was not easy in the mountains, not like Ohio’s straight, flat I-75, which rolled past many large cities along the way. Charleston was miles and miles away, and the broadcast of little villages tucked away in the hills couldn’t offer much, even if they could get there quickly.

It would be many hours before they would discover who the victim was, and when it was known, the consequences were devastating. Foster was more than just a US senator, which was tragic enough. He was seen as the defender of the American way of life, a rallying point for so many patriots. At a time when people had grown complacent, surrendering to the notion that America’s time had come and another great civilization had gone the way of Greece or Rome, he refused to capitulate. He believed all people were created equal, and the United States was the only society on the face of the earth where any individual could reach for the stars and grasp them. This very notion had its enemies, with the Quislings among us. Great profits were to be made overseas. They used the tariffs and regulations Foster supported, as did some in the press, to label him a protectionist.

Not true, professed Foster. Buy American because of the quality, not in spite of it.

A level playing field was just part of the picture. With Foster gone, a new wave of manipulation could begin. Joan of Arc was dead.

Foster’s death required an FBI investigation, no matter how straightforward the cause may have seemed. The man for the job was Jarrick Shaw. Anything mechanical or automotive in nature fell on Jarrick. He had a degree in engineering and seemed destined for the automotive world, but he chose the bureau instead. His practical background on the factory floor differentiated him from the theoretical academicians. He’d put in his time on the auto line at the insistence of his grandfather and great-grandfather.

Work good for soul, his great-grandfather Teofil would say to him in his broken English.

The Shaw last name was originally Chawazenski. Teofil had anglicized it when he emigrated from Poland in the early part of the twentieth century. It hadn’t been necessary, however, because at that time Hamtramck, Michigan, was a Polish enclave within Detroit. One had to go to Poland to find more Poles. Both his grandfather and great-grandfather worked at Dodge Main, as it was called in those days, the car company started by the Dodge brothers, John and Horace. By the time Jarrick came along, Dodge Main was a memory, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get his hands dirty. Detroit was peppered with industry.

The wreck was hauled to a small junkyard in Deep Water, West Virginia. To Jarrick, moving the wreck to let traffic resume was like letting a herd of elephants trample the crime scene, if there had been a crime. The position of the vehicle, its orientation to the road, and skid marks on the pavement were all obliterated. Having to drag the corpse, probably losing a bone or two along the way, to some Podunk junkyard to mix with the rabble of past disasters just made it worse. However, the sheriff believed that the wreck site was just too dangerous to wait for Jarrick to arrive, and the threat of rain didn’t help. He wired ahead to have officers cordon off the Vette with yellow police tape and cover it with a canopy to minimize contamination. Though no one thought anything could be learned from the wreck, they also knew that the FBI agent was meticulous.

Jarrick pounded his fist on the tray table as the Hawker prepared to set down at Chuck Yeager Airport. Perched on an escarpment above Charleston, Yeager Airport was three hundred feet above the valleys of the Elk and Kanawha Rivers and almost a thousand feet above sea level.

He knew visiting the scene would be useless now. Like a jigsaw puzzle thrown in the trash and hauled to a dump. It’s hard enough when you have all the pieces in front of you, Gina. Too much has already been compromised.

Gina Prescott was one of Jarrick’s FBI colleagues, still in training, ten years his junior, an academic who lacked his practical field experience. But in every other way, she was his intellectual equal. They complemented each other without any professional or intellectual jealousy.

Surely you don’t think this was anything but a tragic accident, she said.

Not until I examine every detail. Deep in thought, Jarrick rested his chin between his thumb and forefinger. Bob Foster was much more than the flag waver depicted in the press. He was awakening American people about their special place in the world, their responsibility. Not that they were better; quite the opposite. They were helping their fellow humans to be better. After all, why are Americans so adamant about spreading democracy? They want other people to enjoy the same freedoms they enjoy.

Jarrick felt quite strongly about this point. Seeing that Gina was intrigued, he continued. Bob didn’t just pontificate about his American convictions. He acted on them. He took a deep breath, and Gina knew she was in for a longer sermon.

Did you know, Gina, that he had a small vineyard in Virginia?

Point being?

Thomas Jefferson was working on an indigenous American species of wine grape. He wanted to compete with the Europeans, to show them that this was more than just a fledgling colony. Though Jefferson was unsuccessful, Dr. Daniel Norton took up the cause, and cultivated the Norton grape. In 1873 the native-born American Norton took the stage at the International Exhibition in Vienna and left with the gold medal.

So why haven’t I heard of this before? asked Gina. I’m not exactly ignorant about the subtleties of the vine.

"The progression of the Norton grape was halted by Prohibition. Vineyards were uprooted and replaced by table grapes. The Norton grape survived in small pockets, probably due to the efforts of bootleggers. A half-century after repeal, the resurgence of the wine industry did not include the all-but-forgotten Norton. It