Dirk was standing in the cabin of his own vessel when the blast struck and was unscathed by any flying debris. He immediately scrambled onto the dock and found Summer, being helped to her feet by Trevor. Like Dirk, she was unhurt by the blast. Trevor was less fortunate. His back was soaked with blood from a large splinter embedded in his shoulder, and he limped from a timber that had slammed into his leg. He ignored the injuries and hobbled over to the smoldering remains of his boat. Summer and Dirk checked each other to ensure they were uninjured, then Dirk jumped back aboard and grabbed a fire extinguisher, dousing several smoldering piles of debris that threatened to start a larger fire.
Summer found a towel and hurried over to Trevor, who was compressing the cut on his shoulder as he stared blankly at the ruins of his boat. As a police siren wailed its imminent approach, Trevor turned and gazed at Summer with a look of hurt and anger.
“It has to be Terra Green,” he muttered quietly. “I wonder if they killed my brother, too?”
AT A HARBORSIDE COFFEE shop two miles away, Clay Zak stared out the window, admiring the plume of smoke and flame that rose above the water in the distance. Finishing an espresso and Danish, he left a large tip on the table, then walked to his brown rented Jeep parked up the street.
“Smoke on the water,” he muttered aloud, humming the Deep Purple rock tune before climbing into the car. Without the least concern, he drove to the airport outside of town, where Mitchell Goyette’s private jet waited for him on the tarmac.
37
THE BUSINESS JET CIRCLED THE AIRFIELD ONCE, waiting for a small plane to take off and clear the field, before the control tower gave approval to land. Painted in the same shade of turquoise as its fellow sea vessels, the NUMA Hawker 750 touched down lightly on the runway. The small jet taxied to a redbrick building before pulling to a halt alongside a much larger Gulfstream G650. The fuselage door opened and Pitt quickly stepped out, slipping on a jacket to ward off a brisk chill in the air. He walked into the terminal building, where he was greeted by a rotund man standing behind a counter.
“Welcome to Elliot Lake. It’s not often we have two jets in on the same day,” he said in a friendly rural voice.
“A little short for the carriers?” Pitt asked.
“Our runway is only forty-five hundred feet, but we hope to expand it next year. Can I fix you up with a rental car?”
Pitt nodded, and soon left the terminal with a set of keys to a blue Ford SUV. Spreading a map on the hood of the car, he studied his new surroundings. Elliot Lake was a small town near the northeast shores of Lake Huron. Situated some two hundred and seventy-five miles due north of Detroit, the town lay in the Algoma District of Ontario Province. Surrounded by Canadian wilderness, the landscape was a lush mix of rugged mountains, winding rivers, and deep lakes. Pitt found the airport on his map, carved out of the dense forest a few miles south of the town. He traced a lone highway that traveled south through the mountains, culminating on the shores of Lake Huron and the Trans-Canada Highway. About fifteen miles to the west was Pitt’s destination, an old logging and mining town called Blind River.
The drive was scenic, the road winding past several mountain lakes and a surging river that dropped over a steep waterfall. The terrain flattened as he reached the shores of Lake Huron and the town of Blind River. He drove slowly through the small hamlet, admiring the quaint wooden homes, which were mostly built in the 1930s. Pitt continued past the city limits until he spotted a large steel warehouse adjacent to a field littered with high mounds of rock and ore. A large maple leaf flag flew above a weathered sign that read ONTARIO MINERS CO-OP AND REPOSITORY. Pitt turned in and parked near the entrance as a broad-shouldered man in a brown suit walked down the steps and climbed into a late-model white sedan. Pitt noticed the man staring at him through a pair of dark sunglasses as he climbed out of his own rental car and entered the building.
The dusty interior resembled a mining museum. Rusty ore carts and pickaxes jammed the corners, alongside high shelves that overflowed with mining journals and old photographs. Behind a long wooden counter sat a massive antique banker’s safe that Pitt guessed held the more valuable mineral samples.
Seated behind the counter was an older man who appeared almost as dusty as the room’s interior. He had a bulb-shaped head, and his gray hair, eyes, and mustache matched the faded flannel shirt he wore beneath a pair of striped suspenders. He peered at Pitt through a pair of Ben Franklin glasses perched low on his nose.
“Good morning,” Pitt said, introducing himself. Gazing up at a polished tin container that resembled a large liquor flask, he remarked, “Beautiful old oil cadger you have there.”
The old man’s eyes lit up as he realized Pitt wasn’t a lost tourist looking for directions.
“Yep, used to refill the early miners’ oil lamps. Came from the nearby Bruce Mines. My grandpappy worked the copper mines there till they shut down in 1921,” he said in a wheezy voice.
“A lot of copper in these hills?” Pitt asked.
“Not enough to last long. Most of the copper and gold mines shut down decades ago. Attracted a lot of dirt diggers in their day, but not too many folks got rich from it,” he replied, shaking his head. Looking Pitt in the eye, he asked, “What can I do for you today?”
“I’d like to know about your stock of ruthenium.”
“Ruthenium?” he asked, looking at Pitt queerly. “You with that big fellow that was just in here?”
“No,” Pitt replied. He recalled the odd behavior of the man in the brown suit and tried to shake off a nagging sense of familiarity.
“That’s peculiar,” the man said, eyeing Pitt with suspicion. “That other fellow was from the Natural Resources Ministry in Ottawa. Here checking our supply and sources of ruthenium. Odd that it was the only mineral he was interested in and you come walking in asking about the same thing.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“John Booth, I believe he said. A bit of an odd bird, I thought. Now, what’s your interest, Mr. Pitt?”
Pitt generally explained Lisa Lane’s research at George Washington University and ruthenium’s role in her scientific work. He neglected to disclose the magnitude of her recent discovery or the recent explosion at the lab.
“Yes, I recall sending a sample to that lab a week or two ago. We don’t get too many requests for ruthenium, just a few public research labs and the occasional high-tech company. With the price going so crazy, not too many folks can afford to dabble with it anymore. Of course, that price spike has made us a nice profit when we do get an order,” he smiled with a wink. “I just wish we had a source to replenish our inventory.”
“You don’t have an ongoing supplier?”
“Oh heavens no, not in years. I reckon my stock will be depleted before long. We used to get some from a platinum mine in eastern Ontario, but the ore they are pulling out now isn’t showing any meaningful content. No, as I was telling Mr. Booth, most of our ruthenium stocks came from the Inuit.”
“They mined it up north?” Pitt asked.
“Apparently so. I pulled the acquisition records for Mr. Booth,” he said, pointing to an ancient leather-bound journal sitting at the other end of the counter. “The stuff was acquired over a hundred years ago. There’s a detailed accounting in the logbook. The Inuit referred to it as the ‘Black Kobluna’ or some such. We always called it the Adelaide sample, as the Inuit were from a camp on the Adelaide Peninsula in the Arctic.”
“So that’s the extent of the Canadian supply of ruthenium?”
“As far as I know. But nobody knows if there is more to the Inuit source. It all surfaced so long ago. The story was that the Inuit were afraid to return to the island where they obtained it because of a dark curse. Something about bad spirits and the source being tainted by death and insanity, or similar mumbo jumbo. A tall tale of the north, I guess.”
“I’ve found that local legends often have some basis in fact,” Pitt replied. “Do you mind if I take a look at the jo
urnal?”
“Not at all.” The old geologist ambled down to the end of the counter and returned with the book, flipping through its pages as he walked. A scowl suddenly crossed his face as his skin turned beet red.
“Santa María!” he hissed. “He tore out the record, right in front of me. There was a hand-drawn map of the mine location right there. Now it’s gone.”
The old man slammed the book to the counter while turning an angry eye toward the door. Pitt could see where two pages had been neatly torn from the journal.
“I’d venture to say that your Mr. Booth isn’t who he said he was,” Pitt said.
“I should have suspected something when he didn’t know what a sluice box was,” the man grumbled. “I don’t know why he had to deface our records. He could have just asked for a copy.”
Pitt knew the reason why. Mr. Booth didn’t want anyone else to know the source of the Inuit ruthenium. He slid the journal around and read a partial entry ahead of the missing pages.
October 22, 1917. Horace Tucker of the Churchill Trading
Company consigned following unrefined ore quantities: 5 tons of copper ore
12 tons of lead ore
2 tons of zinc
¼ ton of ruthenium (Adelaide “Black Kobluna”)
Source and assayer comments to follow.
“That was the only Inuit shipment you have received?” Pitt asked.
The old man nodded. “That was it. The missing pages indicated that the mineral had actually been obtained decades earlier. That trading post in Churchill couldn’t find a market for the stuff until Tucker brought a sample in with some minerals from a mine in Manitoba.”
“Any chance the Churchill Trading Company records still exist? ”
“Pretty doubtful. They went out of business back around 1960. I met Tucker a few years later in Winnipeg shortly before he died. I remember him telling me how the old log trading post in Churchill had burned to the ground. I would imagine their trading records were destroyed in the fire.”
“I guess that’s the end of the line, then. I’m sorry about the theft of your data, but thank you for sharing what you know.”
“Hold on a second,” the man replied. He stepped over and opened the thick door to the ancient safe. He rummaged around a wooden bin inside, then turned and tossed something to Pitt. It was a tiny smooth stone, silvery white in color.
“Black Kobluna?” he asked.
“A sample on the house, so that you know what we’ve been talking about.”
Pitt reached across the counter and shook hands with the geologist, thanking him for his time.
“One more thing,” the old man said, as Pitt strolled toward the door. “You run into that Booth fellow, you be sure and tell him I’m coming after him with a pickax if I ever see him again.”
The afternoon had turned colder under the cast of an approaching front, and Pitt waited anxiously for the car heater to warm up as he exited the Co-op’s parking lot. Grabbing a quick lunch at a café in Blind River, he drove back through the winding mountain road toward the airport, contemplating the Inuit ruthenium tale. The ore had to have come from the Arctic, presumably near the Inuit camp at Adelaide. How had the Inuit, with primitive technology, mined the ruthenium? Were there still significant reserves in place? And who was John Booth and why was he interested in the Inuit ore?
The questions brought no answers as he wound through the scenic hills, braking as he pulled up behind a slower-moving RV. Reaching a straight stretch in the road, the RV driver pulled to the shoulder and waved for Pitt to pass. Pitt stomped on the accelerator and sped past the motor home, which he noted had a Colorado license plate.
The road snaked sharply ahead of him, the two lanes carving into the edge of a rocky mountainside that tumbled down to a river below. Twisting through a tight bend, Pitt could see the roadway a mile ahead, where the highway nearly doubled back on a parallel facing. He caught a glimpse of a white sedan parked in a turnout. It was the same vehicle that John Booth had climbed into at the Co-op. Pitt lost sight of the car as the roadway bent and twisted once more.
Rounding through a tight S curve, the road straightened again for a short stretch. To Pitt’s left, the hillside plunged in a steep drop-off, falling several hundred feet to the river below. As his rental car gained speed on the straightaway, Pitt heard a faint pop, like the burst of a distant Fourth of July firework. He glanced ahead but noticed nothing, as a deep rumble followed the initial noise. A movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see a house-sized boulder sliding down the mountainside above him. The huge rock was falling in a perfect trajectory to intersect with Pitt’s car two hundred feet down the road.
Pitt instantly stomped on the brakes, mashing the pedal to the floorboard. The tires chirped and shimmied in protest, but the car’s antilock braking system kept the vehicle from skidding uncontrollably. In the brief seconds Pitt waited for the car to stop, he observed that a full landslide was now under way. In addition to the huge rock, a whole wall of rocks and gravel was chasing the boulder down the mountainside. With seemingly half of the mountain barreling toward him, he knew he would have only one chance to escape.
His quick braking slowed the car just enough to prevent him from being flattened by the first mammoth boulder. The huge rock hit the asphalt just twenty feet in front of him, splintering into several smaller sections. Most of the rock pieces continued their downhill slide, smashing through the guardrail and tumbling down the steep precipice toward the river. A few large chunks died on the road, soon to be buried by the impeding landslide that followed.
Pitt’s car skidded into one of the chunks, a flattened slab of granite that instantly stopped his momentum. Though it mashed the bumper and grille, the car’s mechanics were undamaged. Inside, Pitt felt only a strong jolt, but it was enough to inflate the air bag, which ballooned in front of his chest as the vehicle bounced backward. Pitt’s quick senses had beaten the air bag, though. He had already jammed the automatic transmission in to reverse and stomped on the accelerator at the moment of impact.
The rear tires smoked as they spun wildly before gripping the pavement and propelling the car backward. Pitt gripped the steering wheel and held it steady as the car tried to fishtail from the sudden rearward torque before settling on a stable line. The transmission screamed beneath Pitt’s feet as the low-ratio reverse gear fought to maintain revolutions with the floored engine. Pitt glanced up the hill to see the sliding mass of rocks and gravel already descending upon him. The landslide had spread across a wide line, extending well to his rear. He quickly realized there was no way he could outrun it.
Like a slate-colored tidal wave, the sliding wall of rock cascaded onto the roadway, spilling first a few yards in front of him. For an instant, it appeared as if the speeding car might slip past the deluge, but then a separate cluster of boulders broke free and crashed to the road behind him. Pitt could do nothing but hold on as the car barreled into the moving layer of rocks with a screeching peal of twisted metal.
The car scraped over a large boulder, snapping off the rear axle and sending one of the drive wheels careening down the hill. Pitt was thrown back into his seat as a secondary wall of falling rocks smashed into the passenger side, lifting the car up and over onto its roof. Pitt was flung to his left, his head striking a side air bag as it inflated. Seconds later, he was jarred again to the side again, his head banging through the deflating air bag until striking the driver’s-side window. A great battering roar filled his ears as the car was pummeled across the road, slamming hard to a sudden stop. Inside, Pitt teetered on the brink of consciousness as the sound of rushing gravel surrounded him. His vision went blurry as he was buffeted in his seat, he vaguely felt a warm wetness on his face, and then all feeling vanished as he dropped into a silent void of blackness.
38
PITT KNEW THAT HE WAS ALIVE FROM THE jackhammer-like pounding that wracked his skull. His auditory senses kicked in next, detecting a rhythmic scraping sound nearby. He wri
ggled his fingers, finding a heavy resistance but confirming that they were still wrapped around the steering wheel of the rental car. Though his legs moved freely, his head, chest, and arms felt completely restricted. The realization that he couldn’t breathe suddenly struck his foggy mind and he struggled to free himself, but he felt like a bound mummy. He slowly pried open the lids of his eyes, which felt as if they had been glued shut, but all he saw was black.
The grip on his lungs grew tighter and he thrashed harder, finally freeing a hand and forearm from their mysterious hold. He heard a voice and a frantic scuffling sound, then a scraping sensation skinned his face as a burst of light blinded his eyes. He sucked in a breath of dusty air, then squinted through a thick surrounding haze. Staring back at him was a pair of affectionate brown eyes, affixed to the tiny head of a black-and-tan dachshund. Most confusing to Pitt, the dog appeared to be standing upside down. The dog inched closer, sniffing Pitt’s exposed face before licking him on the nose.
“Out of the way, Mauser, he’s still alive,” came a man’s voice from nearby.
A pair of thick hands appeared and scooped away more of the dirt and gravel that had buried Pitt’s head and torso. Pitt’s arms finally broke free, and he helped push the small mountain of dirt away from his body. Reaching up with his sleeve, he wiped away the matted blood and dust from his eyes and finally took a look at his surroundings. With the seat belt tugging uncomfortably across his chest, he finally realized that he was the one upside down, not the dachshund. The helping pair of hands reached in and found the release button on the seat belt, dropping Pitt to the ceiling of the car. Pitt shuffled toward the driver’s-side window, but the hands yanked him toward the open passenger door.
“You don’t want to go that way, mister. The first step is a doozy.”
Arctic Drift Page 18