The Zarrabian Incident by C. A. James

Author:C. A. James [James, C. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller, fbi, international, Detective, terrorist, crime, Terrorism, nsa, Politics, geopolitical thriller, iran
ISBN: 9781507613054
Amazon: B0178AU8QU
Goodreads: 27270230
Publisher: Createspace
Published: 2015-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

The half moon overhead provided enough light to see an old tractor trail that ran between two walnut orchards. Christine and McCaig strolled slowly in the warm night air.

“Pretty intense,” said McCaig after a few minutes.

“Uh huh,” Christine replied.

“What’s our next move?”

“This seems pretty good. He needs some time. We threw a lot at him.” She saw him nod silently out of the corner of her eye. They strolled on in silence.

Ten minutes later they came across a huge old barn. It was hard to tell the color in the pale moonlight, but Christine supposed it was a faded red, like most old barns. Its two-story structure had a classic Dutch-style roof—wide at the top floor and angling down steeply on the sides. They walked wordlessly up to the huge, gaping door, wide enough, she supposed, to permit a tractor or combine to park inside.

Through the door, she could see shafts of moonlight shining through hundreds of missing shingles. Shadows hinted of rusting farm equipment, piles of lumber, and an outline that looked like an antique tractor.

Christine suddenly gave a little screech and ducked as a huge, silent shadow swooped just inches over their heads. McCaig laughed.

“It’s just an owl.”

She was embarrassed. “It just, you know, startled me. I didn’t hear a sound!”

“Yeah, they’re like that. They have special feathers that evolved to fly in complete silence. Imagine how the mice feel. Just going about their business and bam! Your buddy’s gone.”

“What is this? I mean, I know it’s a barn, but . . .”

“A dairy barn.”

“How can you tell?”

She could see a bemused expression on his face in the moonlight.

“Everything in here tells you a story. You can sort of see,” he said, waving left and right, “along each side there are stocks and feed troughs for the cows. They’d come in here for milking.” He pointed to their right. “See that wicked-looking thing there with long tines? Sort of like an overgrown pitchfork or something?”

“Looks nasty.”

“That’s a Jackson fork. It went through a block-and-tackle to a railing at the roof-peak up there, and they used it to hoist bales of hay up to the loft. A place like this probably had thirty or forty cows, and they’d have to grow hay in the summer and store enough in the barn’s loft to last all winter. If a rancher didn’t store enough, he’d have to slaughter some of his cows, and that could cut his income for years.”

“Hard life,” she said.

“A good life. Until it wasn’t.”

She turned and started strolling back. McCaig looked at the moonlit barn for a few more moments, then turned and caught up with her.

“So what happened?” she asked as they strolled.

“Dairy farms were at the forefront of the agribusiness takeover. Way back in the thirties, before World War II. Used to be a farmer would milk his cows and sell it locally. Then they passed health laws about pasteurization, sterilization, bottling, and such. One guy on a farm like this just couldn’t afford the equipment.

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