He moved to her wrists, which he bound with several more layers of tape. There was no way she was going to wiggle free from her restraints without help.
“Now we have a party!” Makter said with a malicious grin. “Tell me, Jake, is this your lady friend? She’s pretty, you know.” Makter ran his fingers through Noelle’s hair. She yanked her head to the left to escape his touch, but he pulled her hair sharply so that her head was against his crotch.
Jake finally spoke. “We’re okay, Noelle.” There was calm in his voice. In response, a riotous laughter spewed from Makter’s mouth.
“You most certainly are not okay.” He laughed again and approached Jake. “You are going to die, Trent. So that’s not okay. Is it? The girl, what’s her name?” Jake said nothing. “Anyway, I can assure you she’s not going to be okay either.”
With his captor’s face only inches away from his own, Jake finally addressed him. “What are you doing here, Makter? You came across the country to have your revenge on me for doing my job? Pitiful and stupid, but not surprising, I guess. Let the girl go, she has nothing to do with our history.”
The confidence in Jake’s voice was surprising to Noelle. He’s been in this situation before.
“The girl obviously has something to do with you, Trent. Otherwise, what would you care what happened to her? Let me ask one more time, is this pretty little thing your girlfriend?”
Jake chose to respond this time. “She’s a national park employee, you idiot. An agent of the federal government. You want her murder on your rap sheet? I barely know her. She was showing me around Yellowstone today.”
“Ha! The park’s closed, asshole.”
“She has special privileges and she shared them with me.”
“I bet she did!” He glanced over at Noelle, who was trying to hold back her sobs now. An overwhelming feeling of regret again—she hadn’t bargained for this.
“Listen, I know both of you were snooping around up here. Don’t lie to me.” Makter had taken a seat on a tool station.
“You were setting me up, you and Jan? Framing me, I mean?” Jake looked straight at Makter.
He’s trying to get information. To gain leverage. Noelle watched Jake work.
“Of course. That’s part of it. Also I just wanted to kill you, still do. Have a little fun, you know? Jan doesn’t know how to have fun, unfortunately, which is why I shot him.”
“What’s the rest? Why the fake trees?”
Makter looked confused. He took a moment to respond. “I am not going to share that with you.”
Jake went on. “Why not? You’re going to kill me, right?”
He’s trying to get in his head. Buy some time.
Before Noelle could finish her thought, the captor had come up behind her. He grabbed her hair again, pulling her head back so she was looking right into his eyes.
She could smell him. His breath was awful, and his body odor was worse. He reeked of sweat and soil. His hands were dirty and calloused. The blood on his shirt made her squirm.
Soon my blood will be there too.
“I may not kill little Miss Park Ranger, though. Maybe I’ll take her along with me.”
His tone changed. “You know what?” Makter jammed the barrel of the gun against her lips. She could taste blood.
“I had the most wonderful massage yesterday. I think that’s where I’d like to start with you. I’m stressed, you know? It’s a good release for me. Can you give a good rubdown? What happens next is up to you. Yesterday didn’t turn out so well for the masseuse. She made quite a bit of noise.”
Noelle was quivering.
“Do you know where she is now!?” he growled.
Jake spoke calmly. “We’re okay, Noelle.” Makter ignored him.
Noelle still said nothing.
“Answer me!” he screamed, putting his hand behind her head and forcing her mouth over the barrel. When her mouth opened, blood poured down her face. The barrel had knocked out a molar.
She shook her head emphatically.
“She’s in the fucking trunk!” He pointed through the garage door. “I’ll show you later.” He winked at her.
36
THE HOT ROCK TRACT
Makter was pacing, screaming and threatening and intermittently cursing Jan.
“Doesn’t matter! He’s fucking dead by now!”
“Still, he tried to abandon you. He left you to do the dirty work.”
Jake was trying to steer Makter into a rage aimed anywhere other than at himself and Noelle. He was also trying to discern more information, but making very little progress. As had been the criminals’ modus operandi during past operations, Makter, Jake was beginning to sense, was really just the muscle.
There was a knock at the door that led to the main house. It startled Makter.
“Fuck! Don’t move.” He gave his prisoners a “hush” signal with his finger over an evil grin. With his gun at the ready, Makter went to the door.
“Jan?”
A grunt came from the other side of the door.
“Is that you? Shit. We’ll get you help.” He spoke nervously. Mak’s habit of deference was still there.
Another grunt in reply.
Makter started to turn the knob. “You’re just in time, I’ve got Trent primed and ready for the big show!”
Schwaaap, schwaap! Makter’s knees buckled and he fell immediately to the concrete. Inky blood pooled around his head. At the door was a tall man wearing black work pants and a dark gray sweater. A black cotton face mask covered his facial features. Without saying a word, the man knelt down and took Makter’s pulse. Apparently pleased with the lack of heartbeat, he stood up. Rivulets of blood were headed toward the drain centered in the garage.
Jake released a sigh. The maniac is dead.
Noelle was sobbing and squirming uncontrollably now. The man took a large folding knife from his waistband and walked toward her purposefully. She closed her eyes and turned away.
The man first grabbed her legs below the calf. Noelle squirmed and tried to kick him to no avail. He coolly held her down and used the blade to cut the tape from her ankles. She tried to get to her feet immediately—her flight instinct had taken over. He held her down for a moment more as he freed her hands. When he was done she got up and ran to the door he had come from. There she stood frozen, still unsure of the man’s intentions. The man looked back at Noelle and removed his mask. He had chiseled facial features and short-cropped hair.
“You hurt, Trent?”
“Daniel?” Jake said, surprised. “How the hell did you know we were here? I’m fine, just a bump on the head.”
The agent smiled at his old friend and freed him from his restraints.
“It was Makter and Jan, Dan. What the hell were they doing out here? What the hell are you doing out here?”
“I know.” Daniel nodded. “When you emailed me that name and phone number, I did some investigating of my own. Turns out the Denver office had an ongoing investigation involving that Ricker kid you mentioned. He was just a pawn, but the search led to Jan and Makter.”
“What kind of investigation?”
“Eco-freaks, I guess. I don’t know all the details exactly. Sabotaging construction sites. Maybe worse.”
“Murder?” Jake asked.
“I can’t really go into it.” Daniel looked over at Noelle.
“She’s a federal agent too, Dan. A park ranger.”
“Still, I can’t tell you any more, you know that.”
“What’s going on, Jake?” Noelle’s voice was shaky.
Jake walked over to her. “Doesn’t matter. We’re safe now.”
Confused, Jake probed his friend further. “Why didn’t you just call the Denver office? How did you even find this house?”
Daniel paused for a moment. “Some of that I can’t share, and we’ll get to the rest. C’mon, let’s get you two out of here.” He headed to the door and waited for Jake and Noelle to follow.
Something d
idn’t feel right.
“Don’t you need to investigate the scene?” Jake didn’t move toward the door.
The agent paused again. “Denver is coming up to do it.”
“You should look out back, over the hill. There’s some weird stuff back there. Something industrial. Huge, fake trees with water running to them. I don’t know what it . . .” Jake stopped talking. Daniel’s gaze had fallen to the ground for a second and then he reached for the door, closed it, and clicked the lock. When he looked back up, there was a saddened expression on his face.
“Fuck me. Are you kidding?” Daniel said quietly. He was shaking his head with a look of despair on his face. “Why did you look back there, Jake? Why do you always snoop around when you aren’t welcome? This nut job really blew our cover, huh?” He nudged Makter’s lifeless body with his boot, then checked the rounds in his pistol.
Jake tried to decipher Daniel’s face.
“Sit back down, Jake.” His gun was pointed at Noelle. “You too.” He motioned for Noelle to join Jake on the opposite side of the garage. She sat on the floor, her eyes wide like those of a doe on the highway.
“Danny, I didn’t . . . How did you get here?”
“I was sent here, Jake.” He put his mask back on.
Daniel aimed at Noelle first. In a soft, morose tone he said, “Would it be easier for you to go first, Jake?” Jake couldn’t answer that question. He cared about Noelle too much.
Would it be better for her to face death first? Otherwise, she would have to watch me die—a horrifying sight. Probably not worth it for a few extra seconds of life.
She was looking at him, afraid and expecting him to save her. He had no more tricks up his sleeve. He looked at the ground, embarrassed. He had failed her.
Daniel cocked his gun. As Jake was contemplating life’s last moments, a shadow underneath the door caught his eye. Jake’s mind left thoughts of the existential and focused on survival.
“What is it? Back there, I mean? What’s going on?” Jake knew there was no reason for Daniel to share this information, but he hoped the agent might talk, if only to delay the horrible act he was about to commit against someone he had once called a friend. He was playing to the only weakness he could sense in Daniel.
“Really? That’s your last request?” Daniel chuckled. “Still trying to solve the crime on your deathbed?”
Jake maintained his eye contact, and Daniel started to talk.
“We can’t all just leave the business like you, Jake. Some of us get more deeply involved. These jobs have their perks—and they pay a hell of a lot more than eighty grand a year.”
A quake violently shook the house. Drywall cracked on the near wall. The garage door was almost shaken from its track.
Jake looked quizzically at Daniel, who began to speak again.
“Fuck it, you’re dead anyway. We all are.” The gun was at his side now. “Some years back, there was an effort in Switzerland to harvest electricity from the earth. Endless possibilities. They used heat from the earth’s mantle to boil water, sent it through a steam turbine that made electricity.
“Then it went wrong. They were forced to shut the experiment down. It was too dangerous. So that concept was never realized.
“Our own government had played with geothermal power for decades. When the U.S. military heard about the Switzerland experiment, they were enthralled. A bright, young navy scientist came up with the idea of using tectonic manipulation in warfare. The problem was that we needed an in—a way to disrupt the earth below an enemy target. It couldn’t be done remotely, so we needed geothermal rigs placed throughout foreign countries.
“What we came up with was a pretty basic deception plan. Since many of our enemy countries have unreliable electricity sources, it made sense to offer to build them these electricity plants as an aid project. A nice gesture, you know? Good foreign policy.
“Most of the countries we approached agreed. Turns out, people like the idea of free power. Things were moving ahead. The last step in the experimental phase was to determine the sensitivity of the trigger—see what amount of drilling causes what result. Yellowstone was the perfect testing ground.”
“What about all the people? The government has no regard for its own citizens? And the land?”
“We closed the park. Our team had a pretty good idea of how much water can be pumped before something disastrous is triggered.”
After seeing the park a few hours ago, Jake wasn’t so sure about that.
“And Jan? Makter? What’s their involvement?”
“Merely coincidental, really. Our Manhattan office was throwing some pretty serious charges at Jan. Narcotics, conspiracy. This was his plea deal. We gave him some temporary work. He handpicked Makter. Bad idea. We lost control.”
“So those two coordinated the bear attack, the avalanche, the drowning, all of it?”
“Not coordinated, no. It was just Makter. Before we could get rid of him, the experiment was in jeopardy. Plus, Jan kept assuring us that he could handle it.”
“Why involve criminals? Why not keep it all under wraps—a government secret?”
“Plausible deniability, Jake. If the public got suspicious, we could peg it all on Jan. Paint him as a criminal mastermind working for some foreign government. Use part of the truth to lie. People would buy it.”
Jake was angry now. How could they do this?
“You put a madman in charge of public relations. Now innocent people are dead.”
“No, Jake. Plausible deniability, remember? Jan put a madman in charge.” Daniel raised his gun again and prepared to fire.
37
THE HOT ROCK TRACT
Jake saw the shadow under the door again. Daniel cocked his handgun.
I don’t know who you are, but for God’s sake, move now!!
Noelle was weeping. Jake wanted to comfort her one last time, but he had no idea what to say.
Better to die, he thought. I would never forgive myself for this. He closed his eyes.
The door came crashing down. Dust flew into the air, obscuring the intruder for a few seconds. Daniel aimed steadily in the center of the ghostlike cloud.
“Put your gun down, Officer!” Daniel shouted.
“You first!” Chief Terrell yelled back. “I heard it all. You’ll kill us either way!”
The stare-down went on for a few seconds in silence. Suddenly, Daniel backed down. “Here’s the deal, we put down our weapons at the same time and kick them to the corner there. Then we figure out a way to resolve this without anybody getting hurt.”
The chief sized him up. “Fine. Agreed. Put it down slowly.” The two men bent toward the floor with their eyes still focused on each other. For a split second, the chief glanced over at Jake, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
The agent’s gun hit the floor first and Jake lunged from the chair, slid toward Daniel, and kicked the gun into the corner. The chief stood up and trained his pistol on the unarmed agent.
“Don’t fucking move,” Terrell said.
“Nice of you to join us.” Jake smiled at the chief and then grabbed the pistol from the floor. “We need to stop the drilling and pumping before this thing blows. Noelle, go upstairs and look for a way to shut it down.”
She nodded. The chief forced Daniel into the chair that had held Jake just a few minutes earlier.
* * *
Noelle came back empty-handed.
There were violent rumbles almost constantly now. The furniture in the house was bouncing around rowdily, and it was getting difficult to stand. Looking out into the night air toward the park, they could see that geothermal activity was putting on a natural pyrotechnics show.
“I didn’t see anything. No switches or anything like that. The computers all require passwords. I don’t even know what we would do if we could access them.”
“Okay.” Jake thought for a moment. “Let’s all go upstairs.” He grabbed Daniel by his wrists; they were now bound behind him with duct tape.<
br />
On the way up, Daniel became talkative again. He was starting to plead. “This is a mistake, Jake. You can’t just interfere with this high-level shit. This is progress, Jake! I can assure you it would be used only in emergency situations, if it’s ever even employed. Hell, this might be the last we ever see of the stupid idea!”
“I’m not even thinking that far into the future yet, Daniel. I’m trying to stop something that is happening now. I was in the park. We need to shut it down immediately.” He pulled Daniel up the last few stairs against his will.
“Every new idea requires some sacrifice, old friend. The park is cleared! If the thing does blow, casualties will be minimal.”
Jake stopped and gave him a dubious look. “You want me to sacrifice our lives and allow you to destroy one of the most unique places in the world, and in the name of what? This has to stop, Dan, now.”
Daniel fell quiet again. When they got into the control room, the chief took over. He sat Daniel down in a chair in front of one of the computers, removed the duct tape, and held the gun to his head. “Log in.”
Daniel started punching keys. The computer screen showed an operating system that was unfamiliar to all three of them.
“There’s no way to shut it down.” As he spoke, Daniel was toppled from his chair by a tremor. The lights overhead pulsed. Sparks flew from the electrical sockets. Noelle grabbed Jake’s shoulder to steady herself.
Terrell pulled Daniel up by his shirt and dropped him down into the chair.
“Shut it all down now!” This time, Daniel didn’t move.
“I can’t do that. I’m sorry. I don’t even know how.”
The chief pushed the barrel of the gun hard into the soft spot at the top of Daniel’s neck, but he didn’t flinch. The computer screen blinked out. Drywall cracked and fell in the control room.
“Now!” The computer screen lit back up.
Backup Power Initiated.
Daniel repeated himself, shaking his head. “I can’t do that.”
Without warning, the chief moved the gun so its barrel was pointed directly down onto the agent’s bent knee. He cocked the weapon.
Death Canyon Page 30