by J K Ellem
He slowed the car to almost a crawl, fearful the car would be stuck in a quagmire of mud. But the wheels held their traction. The steering wheel bucked a few times as the car surged and bounced over fresh potholes. He gunned the engine some more, increasing his pace across the waterlogged landscape.
The glow on the horizon intensified and over a crest the Morgan compound appeared in a ring of blazing lights. Shaw continued downwards, following the road towards the guardhouse and barrier gate.
The barrier gate had been raised. A lone figure wearing a rain poncho stood next to the entrance, assault rifle professionally held, angled downwards.
The figure waved him through, and Shaw was thankful for the heavy rain that fogged the windshield, but driving a police car certainly helped.
Through the gate the road gave way to cement and he turned left into a large open parking lot. He passed rows of luxury sedans and high-end SUVs, and found a gap at the far side of the parking lot, a dark corner that suited him. He slid the cruiser between two massive pickup trucks that hid him from view. He flipped off the lights and waited a few minutes. The rain had eased and the engine hissed as it cooled.
No one approached him.
Taylor Giles knew what to do, where to go. But Shaw didn’t. He had his own agenda for the evening.
He slipped out of the driver's seat, locked the car and headed towards the only place he wanted to see.
36
It only took Shaw a few moments to orientate himself relative to where he had come off the ridge previously and made it through the perimeter fence. He was just south of that location, but if he followed the fence line around to where they had caught him, he would have stood out as a stray guest, someone who wasn’t supposed to be there. He didn’t want to follow the main paths either. He was only in half a police uniform and that would have drawn attention. But he guessed correctly that there were no security cameras within the compound itself. They were on the perimeter looking outwards, towards threats coming from outside. He was inside the fence.
He stayed away from the floodlight areas and off the paths, moving in the opposite direction towards the sounds of people laughing and music playing. The ground he crossed was soggy and sunk under each step.
He wanted to locate the demountable building he had seen before, where the two men with hardhats had stood and talked. He skirted around a refueling bay with large sodium vapor lights and threaded his way between a maze of timber pallets.
There were no workmen around, unlike the other evening. Shaw guessed they had been all sent home. They weren’t part of the gathering community.
He paused at the end of a row of pallets that were stacked twenty feet high. In front of him in the distance, near the perimeter fence, he saw the shipping containers, wet and glistening, and the portable site office to one side.
Looking around, he saw no one. The site office was in darkness.
Shaw eased out from between the stack of pallets and walked casually towards the office. Better to act naturally.
Stairs and a rail led up to a small veranda. He tried the door and it was unlocked. Without pausing he slid inside and shut the door behind him.
Muted light filtered through thin venetian blinds. Shaw shut them tight and pulled out a flashlight, covered the lens with one hand and switched it on.
The office was small, two desks, filing cabinets against one wall, a large worktable in the center that was covered with sheets of paper and scrolls with rubber bands. He immediately moved to the table. It looked like a drafting table. Layers of geological maps were spread out covering the entire surface. Covering the maps was a scatter of measuring rulers, colored pens, calculators, small field notebooks and big legal pads. Shaw rifled through one. It contained pages and pages of hand written notes, figures, arrows and calculations all in neat script that made no sense to him. He peeled back one map, the edges curled, and he looked beneath. More lines and curves. They weren’t like normal maps. There were no streets, towns or common landmarks, just contour lines, and numbers and odd symbols in tiny detail. These were different to the maps he and Daisy had examined in her father’s study. These were like in reverse, below the surface, negative numbers, underground.
To one side on the table was a folder, no label, just plain.
He opened it.
There were color charts inside and a two-page report stapled. He recognized the company logo at the top of the page. It was the same logo that he had partially seen the other night, when he watched the two men talking outside this building. The image on the side of the pickup wasn’t an electricity tower as he had first thought. It was something else.
Shaw had got it wrong. Completely wrong.
Shaw looked over his shoulder at the door. It was unlocked. He quickly locked it. He bent the blinds near the door with his fingers, not too wide, just a slit to look through.
There was no activity outside. The surrounding building and sheds looked deserted. In the distance the Morgan house sat sprawling on the hill, all lights blazing, a beacon in the darkness. To one side was a broad halo of light, the clouds above illuminated on their underside. There was more movement and commotion there, but the main work area of the compound was deathly quiet.
Shaw went back to the report on the table and ran his eyes down it. It was written in layman’s terms, obviously for whoever had commissioned the report. Succinct points and a conclusion. Clear and direct. There were a few numbers in a small table on the second page.
Large numbers. Huge. Beyond comprehension. He felt sick.
The numbers were worth killing for. People had killed for less. Countries had invaded others and gone to war for less.
Shaw returned to the maps. Now he knew what he was looking for and he quickly located the map he wanted. It was big, maybe three feet by two feet. The detail was astonishing. He pulled away all the maps on top of it and pushed the other equipment aside so he could see this one properly.
“Oh my god,” he whispered. He took his hand off the flashlight and panned it across the surface. Almost all the map was shaded grey, like a lake.
Massive, an ocean. If the calculations in the report were right, it was gigantic.
Shaw folded the report and placed everything back on the table as best he could.
There was a steel locker against one wall with a simple latch. He opened it and shone the flashlight inside. On a hanger was a pair of utility pants, the type with multiple side pockets, and a jacket the same color, flat dark earth, a company uniform.
He quickly changed. The pants were loose, but he found a belt in the locker and a baseball cap with the same company logo as the jacket. He balled his jeans and the police shirt and threw them into the corner of the locker. He kept his boots. He shut the locker, slipped his flashlight into a side pocket along with the report. On the wall was a line of clipboards. He grabbed one and slid a few pens into the arm pocket of the jacket just for effect. Now he looked just like one of the contractors, in a uniform, clipboard and all.
He found a row of keys on a plastic key holder next to the door. They had colored plastic little tags labeled with car license plates. He selected one and looked at the manufacturer's logo on the key fob.
He smiled. “Nice.”
Shaw pulled open the door. No need to scuttle about now. He was meant to be here, he looked the part. He walked down the steps, casual, like he belonged. He had a clipboard, the oldest trick in psychology. I’m in charge. I’ll ask the questions, not you. I’ve got a clipboard and you don’t.
Shaw walked with purpose. He was going to drive straight out of here all official, not skulk about like an intruder.
The path cut left. Shaw, clipboard under one arm, was almost tempted to whistle.
He found the cars parked neatly on an apron under a steel awning a few minutes later. He had seen them the previous evening. This part of the compound must have been allocated to the contractor company.
He pressed the key fob and orange side-lights blinked twic
e along the row.
“Perfect,” he said.
He looked around one more time then stood on the side-step of the vehicle, opened the door and slid into the driver's seat of the Ford Super Duty truck. Two tons of polished chrome and steel.
The engine purred to life and the entire front console lit up like the cockpit of a jumbo jet.
“I might not return this,” Shaw said, as he eased out of the parking lot, and drove towards the entrance gate of the compound.
37
Blood was in his mouth.
Some people describe the taste as coppery or metallic. But they are wrong. Blood tastes like blood, not like anything else, and if you lived in a violent world, you were all too familiar with that fact.
But right now, all that Shaw could taste was the bitterness of defeat. His head lolled to one side. He was sitting on a solitary chair, in a small room, concrete floor and concrete walls. His hands were tied behind the chair with thick black cable ties, so were his feet. Tight, really tight. They weren’t taking any chances this time.
“Wake him up,” a voice said, gruff and impatient. A shadow passed in front of his closed eyelids then a brutal slap across the face, stinging and teeth-jarring at the same time.
Shaw opened his eyes.
Under the harsh overhead lights Jim Morgan stood in front of him, clutching the report Shaw had taken from the office. Flanked on either side were Billy, Jed and Rory Morgan, their expressions a mix of contempt and arrogant smugness.
“Did you really think you could just drive out of here with this?” Jim Morgan demanded, waving the report in his hand. Gone were the niceties, his controlled manner, the soothing rhetoric. It was all cold rage.
“Where’s Taylor Giles? What have you done with him?” Billy Morgan stepped forward, a baton in his hand. Twelve inches of hardened rubber mallet like the kind used by riot police—or those dishing out torture.
Shaw turned his head and pain shot up his spine and neck.
He wondered how he got here, his memory just fragments of blinding light, gunshots, crunching metal and screams. Leaning against one wall was Cole, the head of security. An observer now, taking a front-row seat to the pain and suffering the Morgan brothers were about to unleash.
Shaw ignored Billy Morgan. He knew they were going to kill him.
Billy hit Shaw again, harder this time. The blow drew blood across his mouth. “I said, where is Giles? You’ve got his car, we found his shirt in the office you broke into,” he snarled, spittle flying from his enraged mouth.
Shaw twisted his jaw. Nothing broken. “The door was unlocked. I didn’t break in.” Shaw looked up at Billy and smiled. “Why don’t you cut me loose and then we’ll see how well you go hitting me?”
“We’re wasting time,” Jed Morgan said. “We’ve got guests waiting.”
Jim Morgan dismissed him with a wave. “They can wait. There’s enough food and drink to keep them occupied while I deal with this.”
“We can deal with this,” Billy Morgan insisted.
Jim Morgan turned on his son, “You can’t deal with this,” he yelled. “If you had, we wouldn’t be here now.” He pointed at Shaw. “He wouldn’t be here now.”
Billy Morgan flinched under the wrath of his father. He wanted to prove he was capable, in control, able to show his father that he, the eldest of the three brothers was ready and capable of taking over the family business. But this stranger, this new person was a thorn in his side. He had humiliated Billy Morgan, and he seethed with resentment. He wanted to kill Shaw here and now, dispose of his body like the others. They had the barrels ready and waiting. Maybe down the mineshaft. That’s where Annie had gone. Three times they had gone back there, to the old pit mine on the McAlister Ranch, just for fun to hear her moans drift up from the hole. She was beaten up pretty badly when they threw her in, but she lasted for nearly a week, slowly dying in the cold watery dark.
“What about the entertainment?” Billy Morgan said to his father. He nodded at Shaw.
Jim Morgan took a breath to calm down. He turned back to Shaw, who seemed amused by the family confrontation.
“Yes, the entertainment.” Jim Morgan looked at Shaw like he was a side of beef hanging in a store window, a cold calculating expression on his face.
Shaw twisted his neck again, loosening the joints and muscles, traces of the concussion he had suffered all gone. He was fully alert and his memory restored.
Jim Morgan sensed this as he looked at him. “The pickup truck you stole is a total write off. It rolled several times, you know. Mr Cole here and his men riddled it with bullets. You are lucky to be alive.”
Shaw had nearly made it out. He had driven towards the gate, but it had been closed, the path also blocked by another pickup truck and five men with assault rifles pointing at him. Not quite the going away party Shaw was expecting.
They knew.
A drone had been flying the perimeter fence, a pre-programmed security loop. It spotted the pickup truck leaving the garage bay and tagged it as an unauthorized use of a company vehicle. It notified the security room and then tracked Shaw from above.
Shaw backed up the pickup truck and was determined to ram the fence, but they shot out the tires and he hit a drainage gully then rolled, coming to rest just a few feet short of the fence. They had dragged him unconscious out of the cab and brought him to the detention cell.
Jim Morgan motioned to Cole. “Can you give us a moment please.”
Cole nodded and left the room, closing the soundproof door behind him. Now it was all just family, Jim Morgan and his three sons.
“How much do you know?” Jim Morgan demanded. “You read the report.”
“I know that you have been lying. I know that you plan to cheat Daisy McAlister out of her land.”
“It’s the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest. I have an opportunity and I intend to exploit it,” Jim Morgan replied. “Knowledge is power, that is the only real thing of value today.” Jim Morgan looked at the report again. He had read it a thousand times and still he couldn’t believe what was sitting on his doorstep, right under his nose, yet just a few feet from his grasp. The first survey report that he had taken from Stan McAlister was safely locked away in the safe in his study. It was the report done by Linton Geological that had first alerted Jim Morgan to what was under the McAlister ranch, the immense untold wealth that had laid there for millions of years. It was only by accident that Edward Linton, the geologist who had been hired by Stan McAlister to undertake some testing on the land, had revealed the secret to Billy Morgan.
Linton happened to be sitting at the bar in Martha’s End, having a drink, Billy Morgan a few feet way. Blind luck for Billy. Jim Morgan had no interest at all in the McAlister ranch other than wanting to expand his own land holdings.
But when Billy overheard Linton tell the bartender that he was only in town for a few days, doing some work at the Stan McAlister’s property, Billy’s ears pricked up. Billy bought the old geologist the next few rounds of drinks and plied him for information. At first Linton didn’t say much, because he didn’t know much. Then on Linton’s last night in Martha’s End, when his work was done, Billy made it his business to have one last drink with him before leaving the next day. A few too many Jack Daniels later Edward Linton, his speech thick and slurred, revealed what he had found. The signs were there, the geology was consistent, but he couldn’t say with absolute certainty until deep test drilling was undertaken. But all the signs were positive.
Billy went straight back to his father and told him. He told his father Linton would be back in a month to deliver his report in person once it was completed. It would take him that long to confirm his findings and test his samples further. Jim Morgan made his mind up. Edward Linton would never be allowed to hand his report to Stan McAlister. If he did, the McAlisters would become one of the richest family legacies for all time, right up there with the Rockefellers, while the Morgan name would shrivel into the dirt by comparison. Jim Mor
gan was never going to let that happen.
So when Linton turned up in town a month later telling them he had sold his business, and this was the final task he needed to do before retirement, they became suspicious. Linton was not that old, but shrewd and as tough as the rocks in the ground. After three hours of torture in the old bank building he finally told the truth. The report confirmed everything and much more. Linton said he hadn’t breathed a word to anyone about what was in the report, especially Stan McAlister. He quickly sold his business and was going to convince Stan McAlister that he should come in as a business associate. A full-time geologist. His professional expertise would be needed. But he didn’t get past the Morgan brothers. They took his report and gave it to their father.
After Jim Morgan had read it in full he locked it away in his safe. It was then Jim Morgan knew he had to kill Stan McAlister. The stubborn old fool had an idea of what was under his land. He would never sell, and in time would find another geologist.
Jim Morgan would never allow that to happen. It was his family dynasty, no one else’s. So he agreed to meet Stan McAlister up on the ridge, neutral ground so to speak, to make him one last offer. But then Stan sneered at him, saying he would never sell, no matter the price, and Jim Morgan saw his dreams and the chance of immense family wealth vanish. So Jim Morgan hit Stan, dragged him semiconscious to the edge of the ridge and threw him off.
He knew with Stan gone, Daisy would be easier to deal with, not as stubborn—but he had guessed wrong. She had inherited the same dogged determination as her father. Still, Jim Morgan knew Stan McAlister hadn’t told his daughter. If he had, she would have done or said something in the months after her father's death. But she never mentioned it. Stan McAlister and Edward Linton both went to their graves with the secret intact.
“It’s her land, what’s under it also belongs to her,” Shaw said, keeping his eyes on the report that Jim Morgan held, a second report his own geologists had prepared based on the original from Linton. They had done a more extensive survey, satellite imagery and the works. It had cost a fortune, but had been worth it. If anything, Linton had been conservative, he had underestimated the quality, yield and production capacity.