High Citadel / Landslide

by Desmond Bagley

  ‘Then you haven’t caught him yet,’ said Clare.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said the patrolman. He stood back and waved us on.

  Work was still going on at the powerhouse and I could see a few minuscule figures on top of the sheer concrete wall of the dam. There was still the sea of mud at the bottom of the escarpment, a slick, slimy mess churned up by the wheels of trucks. It had been too much for a couple of trucks which were bogged down to their axles. A team of sweating men had anchored a power-winch on firm ground and was hauling one of them out bodily.

  I pulled up next to a big car and found myself looking at Donner, who looked back at me expressionlessly, then got out of the car. I went to meet him with Clare close behind. ‘Donner, you’re in trouble.’ I waved at the powerhouse and up at the dam.

  ‘Trouble!’ he said bitterly. ‘You think this is trouble?’ For a reputedly bloodless and nerveless man he was showing a hell of a lot of emotion. ‘Those goddam crazy Mattersons,’ he burst out. ‘They’ve put me in one hell of a spot.’

  I knew what was wrong with him. He was one of those people who make bullets for others to shoot, but he’d never take responsibility for pulling the trigger himself; a perfect second-in-command for Bull Matterson but without Bull’s guts. Now he found himself in charge of the Matterson Empire, if only temporarily, and the strain was telling. Particularly as the whole thing was about to fall apart. Nothing could now prevent the whole story coming into the open, especially the double-dealing with the Trinavant Trust, and it was easy to see that Donner would be hunting around for ways to unload the blame on to someone else.

  It wouldn’t be too hard—Bull Matterson was too sick to fight back and Howard, the murderer, was a perfect scapegoat. But it was a trying time for Donner. However, I wasn’t interested in his troubles because a bigger danger was impending.

  I said, ‘This is more trouble than you think. Did you read my report on the geology of the Kinoxi Valley?’

  ‘That was Howard’s baby,’ said Donner. ‘I’m just the accountant. I didn’t see the report and I wouldn’t have understood it if I had.’

  He was already weaselling out from under the chopper; he could see trouble coming and was disclaiming responsibility. Probably, on the balance of things, he really hadn’t seen the report. Anyway, that didn’t matter—what mattered was getting every construction man off the site as soon as possible.

  I pointed up at the escarpment. ‘That hillside is in danger of caving in, Donner. It can go any time. You’ve got to get your men out of here.’

  He looked at me incredulously. ‘Are you crazy? We’ve lost enough time already because that dumb bastard Howard pulled men away to look for you. Every day’s delay is costing us thousands of dollars. We’ve lost enough time because of this mud, anyway.’

  ‘Donner, get it through your skull that you’re in trouble. I really mean what I say. That bloody hillside is going to come down on you.’

  He swung his head and stared across at the solid slope of the escarpment, then gave me an odd look. ‘What the hell are you talking about? How can a hill cave in?’

  ‘You should have read that report,’ I said. ‘I found quick clay deposits in the valley. For God’s sake, didn’t you do a geological survey of the foundations of the dam?’

  ‘That was Howard’s business—he looked after the technical side. What’s this quick clay?’

  ‘An apparently solid substance that turns liquid if given a sudden shock—and it doesn’t need much of a shock. As near as I can check there’s a bed of it running right under that dam.’ I grinned at him humourlessly. ‘Let’s look on the bright side. If it goes, then a couple of million tons of topsoil is going to cover your powerhouse—the clay will liquefy and carry the topsoil with it. That’s the best that can happen.’

  Clare touched my elbow. ‘And the worst?’

  I nodded towards the dam. ‘It might jerk the foundations from under that hunk of concrete. If that happens, then all the water behind the dam will flow right over where we’re standing now. How much water is backed up behind there, Donner?’

  He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he smiled thinly. ‘You tell a good story, Boyd. I like it very much, but I don’t go for it. You have a good imagination—an earthquake laid on to order shows real creative thought.’ He scratched his chin. ‘The only thing I can’t figure is what you reckon to gain by stopping construction now. I just can’t figure your angle.’

  I gaped at him. McDougall had been right—this man figured every motive in dollars and cents. I drew a deep breath, and said, ‘You stupid, ignorant oaf!’ I turned from him in disgust. ‘Where’s the police captain who’s supposed to be here?’

  ‘Here he comes now,’ said Donner. ‘Coming out of the valley.’

  I looked up to the road that clung to the hillside above the dam. A car was coming down, trailing a dust plume behind it. ‘Captain Crupper hasn’t the power to close down operations,’ said Donner. ‘I wish I knew what you were figuring, Boyd. Why don’t you tell me what you’re getting at?’

  Clare said hotly, ‘Something you wouldn’t understand, Donner. He just wants to save your life, although I’m damned if I know why. He also wants to save the lives of all those men, even though they were after his blood not long ago.’

  Donner smiled and shrugged. ‘Save those speeches for suckers, Miss Trinavant.’

  I said, ‘Donner, you’re in trouble already—but not in real bad trouble because the worst that can happen to you is jail. But I’ll tell you something: if anyone gets killed here because you’ve ignored a warning you’ll have a lynch-mob after you and you’ll be damned lucky not to be strung up to the nearest tree.’

  The police car rolled to a stop quite close and Captain Crupper got out and came over. ‘Mr Donner, I asked you to meet me here, but apparently it is now unnecessary.’

  Donner said, ‘Captain Crupper, this is Mr Boyd and Miss Trinavant.’

  Crupper switched hard eyes to me. ‘Hm—you stirred up something here, Boyd. I’m sorry it had to happen to you—and to you, Miss Trinavant.’ He looked at Donner. ‘It appears an investigation of the Matterson Corporation would be in order; running a private manhunt doesn’t come under normal business procedures.’

  ‘That was Howard Matterson’s affair,’ said Donner hastily. ‘I knew nothing about it.’

  ‘You won’t have to worry about him any more,’ said Crupper curtly. ‘We’ve got him.’

  ‘You got on to him fast,’ I said. ‘I’d have guessed it would take longer.’

  With grim humour Crupper said, ‘He’s not as good in the woods as you, apparently.’ His lips tightened. ‘It cost us a good man.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  He slapped his gloves against his thigh. ‘Gibbons was shot in the knee. His leg was amputated this morning.’

  So Gibbons had to go and do the heroic bit after all. I said, ‘I warned him not to monkey around with Howard. Bull Matterson warned him, too.’

  ‘I know,’ said Crupper tiredly. ‘But we always try the pacific way first. We can’t shoot on sight just on someone’s say-so. There are laws in this country, Boyd.’

  I hadn’t noticed the law around the Kinoxi Valley during the last couple of weeks, but I said nothing about that. ‘There’s going to be a lot more good men lost if this idiot Donner doesn’t pull them off this site.’

  Crupper reacted fast. He jerked his head round to look at the powerhouse, then speared me with a cold glance. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Donner said silkily, ‘Mr Boyd has laid on an instant earthquake. He’s been trying to make me believe that hillside is going to collapse.’

  ‘I’m a geologist,’ I said deliberately. ‘Tell me, Captain: what is the road like up in the Kinoxi? Wet or dry?’

  He looked at me as though I had gone mad. ‘Pretty dry.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘You were kicking up quite a cloud of dust coming down the hill. Now tell me, Captain: where the hell do you t
hink all this mud is coming from?’ I pointed to the greasy waste around the powerhouse.

  Crupper stared at the mud, then looked at me thoughtfully. ‘All right. You tell me.’

  So I went into it again and finally said, ‘Clare, tell the Captain of the demonstration I showed you with the quick clay cores. Don’t embroider it—just tell it straight.’

  She hesitated. ‘Well, Bob had some samples of earth—he’d taken them from up here before Howard ran him off. He took a piece and showed how it could bear a big weight. Then he took another piece and stirred it in a jug. It turned to thin mud. That’s about all.’

  ‘Sounds like a conjuring trick,’ said the Captain. He sighed. ‘Now I have a thing like this dumped on me. Mr Donner, what about pulling your men off pending an expert investigation of the site?’

  ‘Now look here, Crupper,’ Donner expostulated. ‘We’ve had enough delay. I’m not going to waste thousands of dollars just on Boyd’s word. He’s been trying to stop this project all along and I’m not going to let him get away with any more.’

  Crupper was troubled. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do, Mr Boyd. If I stop work on the dam and nothing is wrong my neck will be on the block.’

  ‘You’re damn’ right,’ said Donner viciously.

  Crupper looked at him with dislike. ‘However,’ he said firmly, ‘if I thought it in the public interest I’d stop construction right here and now.’

  I said, ‘You don’t have to take my word for it. Ring the geology faculty at any university. Try to get hold of a soil mechanics specialist if you can, but any competent geologist will be able to confirm it.’

  Crupper said with decision, ‘Where’s your telephone, Mr Donner?’

  ‘Now, wait a minute,’ cried Donner. ‘You’re not going to grind this man’s axe for him, are you, Crupper?’

  Clare said suddenly, ‘Do you know why Bull Matterson had a heart-attack, Donner?’

  He shrugged. ‘It was something about Boyd being Frank Trinavant. Now, there’s a cock-and-bull story!’

  ‘But what if it’s true?’ she said softly. ‘It will mean that Bob Boyd will be bossing the Matterson Corporation in the future. He’ll be your boss, Donner! I’d think about that if I were you.’

  Donner gave her a startled glance, then looked at me. I grinned at Clare and said, ‘Check!’ She was pulling a bluff but it was good enough to manipulate Donner, so I followed up quickly. ‘Do you pull the men off the site or not?’

  Donner was bewildered; things were happening too fast for him. ‘No!’ he said. ‘This is impossible. Things don’t happen like this.’ He was a man who lived too far from nature, manipulating his money counters in drilled formations, unconscious of living in an artificial environment. He could not conceive of a situation he could not control.

  Crupper said harshly, ‘Put up or shut up. Where’s your site boss?’

  ‘Over in the powerhouse,’ said Dormer listlessly.

  ‘Let’s get over there.’ Crupper moved off through the mud.

  I said to Clare, ‘Take the car and get out of here.’

  ‘I’ll go when you go,’ she said firmly, and followed me to the powerhouse. There wasn’t much I could do about that, short of spanking her, so I let it go. As we went along I sampled the mud, rubbing it between forefinger and thumb. It still had that slick, soapy feeling—the feeling of disaster.

  I caught up with Crupper. ‘You’d better plan for the worst, Captain. Let’s assume the dam goes and the lake busts through here. The flood should follow the course of the Kinoxi River pretty roughly. That area should be evacuated.’

  ‘Thank God this is an underpopulated country,’ he said. ‘There are only two families likely to be in trouble.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘And there’s a new logging camp just been set up. Where’s that goddam telephone?’

  Donner came back just as Crupper finished his telephone conversation. Behind him was a big hulk of a man whom I had last seen closely when crashing a gun butt into his jaw.

  It was Novak.

  He stiffened when he saw me and his hands curled into fists. He shouldered Donner aside and strode over and instinctively I got ready for him, hoping that Crupper could break up the fight quickly. Without taking my eyes off him, I said to Clare, ‘Get away from me—fast.’

  Novak stood before me with an unsmiling face. ‘Boyd, you bastard,’ he whispered. His arm came up slowly and I was astonished to see, not a fist but an open hand extended in friendship. ‘Sorry about last week,’ he said. ‘But Howard Matterson had us all steamed up.’

  As I took his hand he grinned and rubbed his face. ‘You damn’ near busted my jaw, you know.’

  ‘I did it without animosity,’ I said. ‘No hard feelings?‘

  ‘No hard feelings.’ He laughed. ‘But I’d like to take a friendly poke at you some time just to see if I could have licked you.’

  ‘All right,’ said Crupper testily, ‘This isn’t old home week.’ He looked at Donner. ‘Do you tell him—or must I?’

  Donner sagged and looked suddenly much smaller than he really was. He hesitated and said in a low voice, ‘Withdraw the men from the site.’

  Novak looked at him blankly. ‘Huh?’

  ‘You heard him,’ said Crupper abruptly. ‘Pull out your men.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard him,’ said Novak. ‘But what the hell?’ He tapped Donner on the chest. ‘You’ve been pushing to get this job finished; now you want us to stop. Is that right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Donner sourly.

  ‘Okay!’ Novak shrugged. ‘Just as long as I get it straight. I don’t want any comeback.’

  I said, ‘Wait a minute; let’s do this right. Come with me, Novak.’ We went outside and I looked up at the dam. ‘How many men have you got here?’

  ‘About sixty.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  Novak waved his hand. ‘About half are down here at the powerhouse; there are a few up at the dam and maybe a dozen scattered around I don’t know where. This is a big site to keep track of everybody. What the hell’s going on, anyway?’

  I pointed up the escarpment to the dam. ‘You see that slope? I don’t want anyone walking on it. So those guys up at the dam will have to take to the high ground on either side. See Captain Crupper about getting the boys away from the powerhouse. But remember—no one walks on that slope.’

  ‘I guess you know what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘As long as Donner goes along with it, it’s okay by me. Getting the guys off the dam will be easy—we have a phone line up to there.’

  ‘Another thing—have someone open the sluices up there before leaving.’ That was merely a gesture—it would take a long time for the new Lake Matterson to empty but whether the slope collapsed or not it would have to be done eventually and the job might as well be started as soon as possible.

  Novak went back into the powerhouse but I waited a while—maybe ten minutes—then I saw the small figures of men moving off the dam and away from the danger zone. Satisfied, I went inside to find Crupper organizing the evacuation of the powerhouse. ‘Just walk out of here and find high ground,’ he was saying. ‘Keep off the Fort Farrell road and away from the river—keep off the valley bottom altogether.’

  Someone shouted, ‘If you’re expecting the dam to bust you’re crazy.’

  ‘I know it’s a good dam,’ said Crupper. ‘But something’s come up and we’re just taking precautions. Move, you guys, it’s no skin off your nose because you’re still on full pay.’ He grinned sardonically at Donner, then turned to me. ‘That means us, too—everyone gets out of here.’

  I was feeling easier. ‘Sure. Come on, Clare. This time you are leaving, and so am I.’

  Donner said in a high voice, ‘So everyone leaves—then what?’

  ‘Then I have a closer look at the situation. I know the dangers and I’ll walk on that slope as though on eggs.’

  ‘But what can you do about it?’

  ‘It can be stabilized,’ I said. ‘Others
will know more about that than I do. But in my opinion the only way will be to drain the lake and cap the clay outcrop. We can only hope the thing doesn’t slip before then.’

  Novak said in sudden comprehension, ‘Quick clay?’

  ‘That’s right. What do you know about it?’

  ‘I’ve been a construction man all my life,’ he said, ‘I’m not all that stupid.’

  Someone yelled across the room, ‘Novak, we can’t find Skinner and Burke.’

  ‘What were they doing?’

  ‘Taking out stumps below the dam.’

  Novak bellowed, ‘Johnson; where the hell’s Johnson?’ A burly man detached himself from the crowd and came across. ‘Did you send Skinner and Burke to dig stumps below the dam?’

  Johnson said, ‘That’s right. Aren’t they around here?’

  ‘Just how were they taking out those stumps?’ asked Novak.

  ‘They’d got most of ’em out,’ said Johnson. ‘But there were three real back-breakers. Skinner has a blasting ticket so I gave him some gelignite.’

  Novak went very still and looked at me. ‘Christ!’ I said. ‘They must be stopped.’ I could visualize the effect of that sharp jolt on the house-of-cards structure that was quick clay. There would be a sudden collapse, locally at first, but spreading in a chain reaction right across the hillside, just like one domino knocks down the next and the next and so on to the end of the line. Firm clay would be instantaneously transformed into liquid mud and the whole hillside would collapse.

  I swung round. ‘Clare, get the hell out of here.’ She saw the expression on my face and turned away immediately. ‘Crupper, get everyone out fast.’

  Novak plunged past me, heading for the door. ‘I know where they are.’ I followed him and we stood staring up at the dam while the powerhouse erupted like an ants’ nest stirred with a stick. There was no movement on the escarpment—no movement at all. Just a confusion of shadows as the low sun struck on rocks and trees.

  Novak said hoarsely, ‘I think they’ll be up there—on the right, just under the dam.’