The Covert Element Read Online Free PDF Page A

sense of all this, too.
    "I s’pose Hells Angels is the closest we’ve got to any organized
crime syndicate," I said. "But if it was a biker gang, the BCA should
find evidence of motorcycles all over the place. I didn’t see any
tracks around that house this morning. Still . . . you never know."
    I was out of ideas. Maybe some solid police work would give
me new options to consider soon. In the meantime, while ruthless
killers roamed loose in or around Ottawa County, I would sleep very
lightly indeed.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    Three years ago, not far from Red Wing.
     
    The tiny farming community of Bellechester, Minnesota had
fallen on hard times of late. The ag economy was trending to larger
and larger producers, who required larger and larger facilities and
resources to handle their crops and process their milk. The
Bellechester Farmers Elevator had neither the strategic plan nor the
resources to compete with the big boys of agriculture in this
changing marketplace. Farmers began bypassing the small crop
storage and processing facility, instead taking their harvest and
milk directly to the large facilities operated by ADM, Cargill, and
Central Grain.
    Eventually, the small elevator operation went out of business.
Expenses exceeded income. It was not an uncommon story in the
rural economies of the U.S. Without the customer base the Elevator
had provided, many other Bellechester businesses were headed
south, too. The General Store. The Ace Hardware franchise. Even
the local Farm & Fleet store eventually picked up its bags and
moved on.
    Coonie’s Bar and General Mercantile was the only business left
standing when a former Cargill executive had a brilliant idea that
would change Bellechester’s fortunes forever. Walter Marsden was
a native Minnesotan and a long time Cargill employee who was
tired of big business destroying family farms. The time had come
for a brainchild he had been nursing for quite some time.
    His idea was to find a suitable location, raise the necessary
capital, and either build or refurbish a grain and dairy processing
facility strictly to support organic farming.
    The plan was a stroke of business genius. For years, the small
time farmers of Ottawa County had been searching for a way to
increase their incomes without having to work even more hours or
to go even farther into debt to lenders.
    Marsden started polling farmers around Minnesota to see if
there was enough interest to support an all-organic processing,
shipping, and marketing facility anywhere in the state. He found
what he was looking for in and around Bellechester.
    His first order of business was to pitch the idea to investment
bankers and private investors. It took a fair amount of effort – and a
number of failed attempts – but eventually Marsden found the
funding he needed in an international agri-banking operation know
as AgInvest. They were impressed not only by his plan, but by his
experience in agri-business at Cargill and his devotion to the plight
of the small farmer.
    They would lend him the money he needed, provided that he
kick in $250,000 of his own funds. That contribution would stretch
Marsden’s finances thin. But he made the commitment, and the
plan was underway.
    Next up was the purchase and development of the facility itself.
The owners of the now defunct Bellechester Farmers Elevator were
pleased to have an offer of any sort for their property. One can
imagine that there aren’t a lot of alternative uses for a grain
elevator. So they took Marsden’s first offer, transferring the elevator
and surrounding property to Marsden’s venture group for what
both parties considered a fair amount.
    Now Marsden signed contracts with neighboring farmers in
which they agreed to produce only organic crops and dairy products
as soon as they were able to qualify with the USDA to do so. That
USDA approval process would take three years for those who had
been using conventional pesticides and herbicides