by Dan Kolbet
“Looks like it.”
Antoine came down below deck.
“We might be in a spot of trouble,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Luke asked.
“I think the Boy Scouts just found us.”
Luke looked out a porthole window and could see that two DWO security guards were waiting at the end of the dock. One of them was talking on his phone while the other scanned the marina.
“You need to leave before they see you,” Antoine said. “They know the boat’s name and will be here any second. I’ll play along as the stranded boater, but you need to get going and don’t come back. Get these samples to Estevan. He’ll show you what to do.”
“But you’ll be arrested,” Luke said.
“I’ll be fine, just do some good with those rocks. They’ve only hurt our family.”
“What do you mean?”
“No time to explain. Just go.”
Antoine gave them instructions on how to avoid the guards. They went over the edge of the boat on to the opposite side of the slip from where the guards were standing. The marina had an elevated boathouse a few docks down. Wealthy boat owners used the boathouse during hurricanes and rough seas to protect their precious boats. Staying low to the dock, they crept behind a series of boats before reaching the building.
There was a two-foot gap from the walls of the large boathouse to the surface of the dock to separate the rocking dock with the fixed building. The waves were too high to safely enter the building at the gap. One large wave could crush them between the dock and the building.
Luke went into the water first, followed by Kathryn. Together they swam into the boathouse, hoping it was unoccupied. He found a ladder, climbed up and helped Kathryn onto the deck. There didn’t appear to be anyone else in the boathouse. Peering through a crack in the wooden slats, Luke saw the security guards approach the Anchor Point.
The guards and Antoine exchanged a few words, but Luke was too far away to hear what was being said. One of the DWO men boarded the boat and walked over to where Antoine was standing behind the cabin. They were out of Luke’s view.
Antoine’s gut-wrenching scream pierced the quiet night. Then silence again. Luke headed down to the ladder to help the boat skipper.
“What are you doing?” Kathryn asked, looking at Luke in bewilderment.
“I can’t let them hurt him.”
She grabbed his arm tightly.
“If you go now, its just a matter of time until you’re screaming like that.”
Luke knew she was right. He had no weapons and was unfamiliar with the marina. What was he actually planning to do? Time slowed to a standstill as they waited for the guards to leave. Could they have killed Antoine? But that punishment wouldn’t seem to fit with his crime of fishing in restricted waters, he thought. Five minutes went by before both guards left the boat, trotting down the dock and jumping into a waiting SUV that sped away.
“OK, they’re gone. Lets get out of here before they come back,” Kathryn said.
The man could be hurt or even dead because of them, Luke thought. He couldn’t just abandon him.
“Feel free to leave, but I need to go back to the boat,” Luke said, slinging the bag over his shoulder. “He might need our help.”
***
DWO Security Chief Ernesto Hines had just received a call from his bosses at DWO corporate headquarters, warning him to take extra care patrolling the waters around the oilrig tonight. When his patrolman, Phil, radioed in that he was helping a stranded boat, he worried that it might be too late. When the boat was miraculously repaired on its own, he alerted his men at the marina to investigate.
“Sir, the boat owner’s not talking,” the guard said into his cell phone. “We Tasered him when he tried to run. He lost consciousness. There’s no use wasting time with him now. The guy’s not got long to live.”
“Let’s not let that happen,” Ernesto said. “I’ll call the med unit and get someone over there. He was alone?”
“We found two sets of wet diving gear in the cabin, but the owner was bone dry. We talked to a local who said he saw a man and a woman board the boat earlier tonight.”
“The call from corporate said a couple might be out on the water tonight,” Ernesto said. “They must have hired the boat for a ride. Keep looking. Word is that they may have something that doesn’t belong to them.”
“We’ll fan out and find them.”
“This one came from the top,” Ernesto said. “So I don’t want to hear from you until you’ve found them.”
Chapter 45
Estevan was stoking the fire in the pit behind his home, waiting for word from the underwater expedition. He was managing to keep his expectations low. The thought that MassEnergy would do anything to help the cause that he cared most about was pretty far fetched. He knew Luke and Kathryn only wanted the minerals for their own selfish use, although spreading wireless electricity to the far reaches of the world was undoubtedly a benefit, but not the one he’d hoped for. Further research on the mineral would be good and this might be the only shot he had to help push it along, so he was willing to tutor them a bit.
The fire pit was four feet in diameter and was dug into the ground roughly three feet. A cast iron grate covered the blaze. Resting in the middle of the grate was an old oblong whiskey still. It narrowed at the top where a copper tube curved down to the ground in a collection bucket.
He hadn’t used the still in years, but remembered the precise steps his father taught him for separating the rock and mineral. He was about to share a family secret. Hopefully it would do some good. He stoked the fire and waited for his guests to arrive.
***
Luke used a fireman’s carry to get Antoine to the car. The DWO SUV was long gone. Kathryn had to continually remind Luke he needed to keep the car under the posted speed limit as he drove to Estevan’s house. The last thing they needed was to attract attention from the DWO goons. She attended to Antoine in the backseat as Luke drove.
“He’s still out, but he’s breathing,” she said. “Luke, we can’t afford to let this guy slow us down. He’s lived a long life. We might need to cut him loose. If they find us with a dead body, we’ll never leave this place. Lets just head for the airport.”
“Are you serious? He just risked his life – twice – to cover our tracks. I’m not leaving him,” Luke said with both hands on the wheel to hold the car steady around a steep curve at a high speed. “We’re going to Estevan’s house like we planned. He can attend to him there.”
“I’ve got a lot to live for and I’m serious,” Kathryn said. “I’m not going to let this guy drag me down. We need to get off the streets.”
“It’s just around the corner up here.”
“There’s no way we can get through the port of entry with those guards looking for us,” she said.
“We don’t know that they are looking for us.”
“They were on the boat, Luke. They had to have seen the scuba gear and they know Antoine wasn’t in the water.”
“Let’s say you’re right. How do we get home?”
“We’ll charter a plane. I’ll call Portland and arrange it. Once I tell them what you’ve got in that bag, they will demand we fly home immediately.”
When they pulled up to the house, Kathryn walked away from the car with her phone to her ear, ignoring the dying man in the backseat. Estevan came to the side of the house where Luke parked. He took one look at Luke and knew something was wrong.
“Where’s Antoine? What happened?”
Luke filled him in on the pertinent details as they carried Antoine inside the house. Estevan noticed two dark circles on the front of his cousin’s shirt when they placed him on a bed. He had matching burn marks on his skin left by the Taser. Estevan gave him a full medical evaluation.
“It doesn’t look like he’s had a heart attack, which is the big fear with those electroshock devices, but his body is still in shock,” Estevan said, in his best bedside
manner. “I really won’t know anything for sure until he wakes up. I don’t have anything to monitor him with here and moving him to the hospital would be risky at this point.”
“He saved us out there and he didn’t have to,” Luke said.
“He’ll be fine, I suspect. He just needs some rest, really. He’s tougher than he looks. You, my friend are another story. You’ve got blood on your face.”
Luke had forgotten about the ocean depth he had just endured. The heavy water pressure caused his bloody nose.
“I got a bloody nose down below. It’s nothing.”
“Whatever you say.”
They left him resting in Estevan’s bedroom and went out back. Luke gave Estevan several of the rock chips from the bag for him to look over.
“You got the right ones. Not very many though.”
“I was sort of in a hurry. That’s not enough?”
“Oh no, this is fine, it’ll just separate down to almost nothing. I’m sure you have some pretty sophisticated stuff back in the States to separate the minerals, but let me show you how we used to do it. It’s not perfect, but it’s reliable.”
Estevan placed three rocks in a vise and clamped them down. He then attached a dull blade over the top of the rocks. It looked like an upside down blender. He affixed a hydraulic lever to the top and pumped it to lower the spinning blade onto the rocks. They settled in the vise as it clamped tighter. Once they were firmly in place, the blade began to slowly turn, grinding away the porous rock. Small bits of rock and dust fell from the vice into a collection drum below it.
“The rocks are rather soft really, which is why you were able to collect them with simple hand tools, even under water.”
“So you can just crush the rock into dust?”
“Essentially yes. But it takes a few times through and finer blades to get it just right.”
After the first pass of the grinding blade, Estevan sifted out the larger pieces of rock and repeated the process. On the third pass he emptied the collection bin into a small metal Petri dish, added a blade that looked like a meat grinder and pumped the hydraulic lever until the material was as fine as sand. The whole process took just minutes.
“This is silver sand. At least some of it is.”
“It looks like ashes.”
Estevan used large oven mitts to open the hatch of the whiskey still on top of the fire pit’s grate. He added a few buckets of water, which began to boil and evaporate almost immediately, forcing steam out of the open hatch. He used a long pair of tongs to carefully empty the Petri dish into the still, then quickly closed the hatch and tightened down the lock to seal it.
“In a still, the pressure of boiling liquid inside forces the lighter elements to evacuate the main chamber through steam as it rises and looks for an escape route. Typically these stills are used for booze. Whiskey mash heats up and the alcohol escapes through the top of the still and into a collection tank.”
“But we’re not making Bourbon, right?”
“Not exactly, but the process is strikingly similar in its simplicity. The minerals we want to collect are carried by steam to the copper tube and then into the collection tank. After about an hour on a boil the material is separated and the waste rock sinks to the bottom of the still. I’ll disconnect the tube, use a swab to push out any excess material and you’ll have the same raw material we used to make the viberock.”
“It seems very elementary.”
“Because it is,” Estevan said, pouring in another few buckets of water. “Remember, this was developed by my grandfather over 60 years ago.”
“But what about the purity of the material?”
“This is as pure as we’ve ever got it.”
Kathryn had ended her phone call and was watching the process from the side of the house. She stepped out into the light of the fire.
“I’m sure our guys at MassEnergy have the equipment to get this in a pure form,” she said. “This looks like a caveman developed it.”
“I welcome your improvements on our design,” Estevan said. He set about adjusting the collection barrel as Luke and Kathryn walked to the other side of the yard out of earshot.
“What’d they say?” Luke asked.
“Beckman is arranging a private plane to pick us up at the airport in the morning. To put it mildly, he’s excited to see what we’ve got. He’ll have a car waiting to take us to the office in Portland. We’ll just wait here until then.”
Luke could sense Kathryn eagerness to get back home.
“You feeling all right?” he asked. “I mean, you kind of freaked out back there.”
“What, because I don’t feel like getting held in some third-world prison?” She seemed annoyed by the question.
“You were ready to dump Antoine by the side of the road.”
“He’s fine, I saw him. He knew the risks better than we did when he agreed to take us out there. If this silver sand or viberock - or whatever they call it - is the same mineral as what is inside ARC, then we’ve just broken StuTech’s back. This is what we came here for Luke. Don’t be such a wimp. Grow a pair. There will be casualties in this fight.”
“I don’t disagree with you and that’s all I’ve ever wanted, but the ends don’t justify the means,” Luke said, calmly. “If not for Estevan and Antoine, we’d never have found it. We owe them, personally.”
“Maybe you do. Not me. This is business,” she said, sticking her hand out abruptly. “Hand over the car keys. I’m going back to the hotel to get my things. Give me your room key and I’ll get your bags too.”
Chapter 46
Estevan started a pot of coffee. No reason to think they’ll be sleeping much tonight. Antoine finally woke up about 2 a.m. with a throbbing headache, but not much the worse for wear. Estevan ordered him to stay in bed and rest.
“At least he’s all right,” Luke said.
“He’s been through worse,” Estevan said. “He was in and out of the deep everyday for decades as a welder. The companies he worked for didn’t always put safety first. They pushed for longer dives and fewer safety stops because it shortened the time in the water. He got decompression sickness about ten years back. Never went back under after that. Spent a week recovering in a decompression chamber in Antigua.”
“Is that why he stopped diving for the silver sand?”
“That and they built the oil rig and restricted access to it.”
“Speaking of the rig, I didn’t think there were oil deposits this close to the island. Most rigs are in much deeper water.”
“Apparently there’s something down there, otherwise they wouldn’t have built that monstrosity off the coast. The only good I’ve seen come from that thing is the revenue the company dumps into the economy here. They fund schools, roads and infrastructure.”
“But with the rig only producing a small amount of oil, they still have the money to bribe the government?”
“It’s not a bribe when it’s legal.”
Luke was exhausted, but he knew Kathryn would be back any minute and they would have to leave for the airport. He needed some answers from Estevan before it was time to go.
Luke sat down next to the fire. He was still chilled from the cold dive and his adrenaline was finally slowing.
“Estevan, I need to ask you about your daughter,” Luke asked. “Kirkhorn was trying to fix Loretta, we’ve established that. I can only assume he was doing it under your supervision. You used this mineral on Ann. What happened?”
Estevan stared at the fire and sipped his coffee.
“I never told Brother Kirkhorn that it would work, but he insisted on trying, despite the risks. When Loretta became paralyzed, I was the first person he called. I’d long given up hope that my work would do anything to help people like Ann. I thought that maybe he could find something that I didn’t.”
“What didn’t you find?”
“I didn’t find anything. I am, or at least was, a medical doctor, not a medical researcher. It’s a different
type of medicine and skill set. I wasn’t looking at trials and documentation. I wanted to fix my daughter, but in my blind emotion, I ... I killed her.”
Estevan said this with the matter-of-fact tone of a man long resigned to the reality of his actions.
“I don’t understand,” Luke said. “How did you kill her?”
“What did Kathryn say? A caveman created this process? Yes. I tried to recreate it in a lab environment, but I was clueless. The mineral wasn’t extracted in a pure form. It still contained trace elements of rock and sediment and probably other things that I didn’t know how to remove. And because I was doing the testing alone, I couldn’t ask for help. Which was my first mistake. Blaine led me to believe that his material was special in some way, but I didn’t dare tell him what I was planning on doing. He’d have tried to stop me. Anyone would have told me that injecting this material into a human wasn’t safe.”
“So you injected it in Ann’s spine?”
“Not at first. I couldn’t risk it on my daughter. I injected myself first. I placed it on the same area of the spine that was damaged in Ann. It did nothing to me. I didn’t feel it, no sensation, nothing. But no side effects either.”
“So that’s when you gave it to Ann?”
“I thought that it couldn’t do any harm, since it didn’t do anything for me. She wanted me to try and I couldn’t say no, as much as I knew it was wrong,” the tears were flowing down his face. “She was in so much emotional pain. She wasn’t herself anymore. She hated being stuck in that chair, so I gave her what she wanted. Its impact was immediate. She went into cardiac arrest and died within minutes. I couldn’t save her.”
Couldn’t save her. In Luke’s mind he could see the headlights of the truck bearing down on him and his parents on that dark highway. He could see his father dying in front of his eyes. He was familiar with the torture Estevan felt. Helplessness.
“I’m so sorry,” Luke said. “That is a terrible thing to have to live with.”
“My guess is that the injected material entered her blood stream and traveled to her heart, where it caused a blockage and forced the cardiac arrest.”