by C. J. Box
“Who is the CEO?”
McCann sighed. “His name is Layton Barron. He’s a con artist, but I didn’t know it at the time.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Mid-sixties, thin, gray hair. An arrogant prick.”
Joe turned to Nate. “Sounds like the driver of the black SUV.”
Nate nodded.
“Anyway,” McCann said, “Barron asked me to meet with Langston to try to secure a permit for them. He said he had investors lined up all over the world who would put up big bucks if EnerDyne got the permit. It had to do with bioengineering or something I don’t really understand. It was later when I realized Barron was a fucking con man. He was fishing, is what he was doing. He was just hoping that if his company could start harvesting microbes that maybe, just maybe, his engineers could figure out a use for them. Since the microbes from the park are unique to anywhere else, he might have been right, but who knows?”
“Did you get the permit for them?” Joe asked.
“I’m getting to that.”
Nate stripped off more tape.
“Okay, okay,” McCann said. “I found out that some Zephyr employees were up in arms about the harvesting permits. They were environmental extremists, and they planned to start letter campaigns to newspapers and politicians and some kind of on-line fund-raising movement to wage war on Genetech and anyone else who was harvesting microbes. Legally harvesting microbes, I might add.”
“That’s where Rick Hoening comes in,” Joe said.
“He was their leader. He made no bones about what he planned to do, and he was getting a buzz going in the park and within the environmental community all over the country and internationally. They wanted a moratorium on any new permits, and an investigation into who they’d been given to in the past and why. Langston was beside himself, to say the least, since he was the guy who signed the permits in the first place. Genetech slipped him a little something on the side, you see. I know that because I delivered the envelopes of cash.”
“Bastard,” Nate said.
“Barron and EnerDyne were even more up in arms when they found out about Hoening’s plans. If he was successful, they’d never get their piece of the pie.”
“That’s where you saw your opportunity,” Joe said.
“Being a lawyer is all about recognizing opportunities.”
“And here I thought it was more than that,” Joe said. “Silly me.”
“I really didn’t care how it came out,” McCann said. “I looked forward to the fees that would come from litigation. But I did contact Hoening on behalf of Genetech. That’s when he told me about the flamers. He thought Genetech’s activities were causing some kind of disturbance, and he was damned mad about it. I remembered what the Genetech employee had said, and I gave this information to Barron. He sent a couple of his engineers up here, and they were the ones who made the connection between the microbes and the seam of coal. Barron was out-of-his-mind happy, and knew he really had something. The information was worth billions.
“See, the problem with coal gasification is the huge expense of building the plant, and the fact that Western coal is soft and might require so much coal to get gas that the dollars just wouldn’t work. But if these Yellowstone microbes could be injected into the ground, into that coal, a big plant wouldn’t be necessary. The coal gasification would occur underground, naturally. All EnerDyne would need to do was tap it and pipe it out. And I was the only person outside of his company who knew it. So we made a deal. They retained me as their counsel. Barron started working the inside, finding players who could help him get ex clusivity in exchange for positions and stock within the company.
“But before we could get everything into place, Rick Hoening started causing trouble.”
“So you had to stop him,” Joe said.
“Yes, I had to stop him.”
“But why kill the others? Why didn’t you quit with Hoening that morning?”
McCann shrugged. “Two reasons, Game Warden. If I’d walked away after Hoening went down, the investigation would have centered on him and me, and no doubt someone before you would have put the pieces together long before now. Plus, I had no doubt Hoening had recruited his friends to his cause. They would have carried out the campaign against bio-mining and made Hoening into some kind of martyr. Taking them out eliminated the effort entirely, and cast everything in the light of the Zone of Death instead of Hoening.”
“But,” Joe said, “four innocent people . . .”
“No one is innocent,” McCann said definitively.
Joe just stared at him, hatred building.
“Joe . . .” Nate cautioned.
Joe took a breath. “What happened next?” he asked McCann.
“Barron recruited Chuck Ward from your governor’s office so Ward would be available to head off any action that might stop EnerDyne at the state level. And he got Langston to buy in, knowing Langston was a few years from retirement and wanted a huge payoff.”
“Those bastards,” Joe said.
McCann shrugged. “It’s amazingly easy to buy public officials. Everybody knows that. Barron was a master of it, and quite a salesman.”
Joe was disgusted. The governor’s chief of staff and the chief ranger for the park had exchanged their positions of trust for big personal payoffs. Worse, they’d gone off the deep end to protect their interest, including the ambush of Judy Demming, the likely murder of Cutler, and targeting Joe and his family. As much as he despised McCann, Langston and Ward were as bad or worse.
The snow was building up on the road and Joe had to slow down. At least four inches had fallen and stuck. Park policy was not to plow the roads in winter, but to let the snow build up until only snowmobiles and snow coaches could use them. That meant if he got stuck, it could be days before someone found them. And, based on what they were learning, there were no guarantees that whoever found them would be friendly.
“Okay, so EnerDyne wants to harvest the microbes,” Joe said. “That I understand. But how did it happen that you turn into Rambo?”
For the first time, McCann smiled. Joe could see him in the mirror, and he thought McCann looked smug.
“That came about by happenstance. One of my clients is an elk poacher. He kills the elk, cuts off their antlers, and sells them to Asian firms who grind them up and sell it as an aphrodisiac.”
“I hate poachers,” Joe said, “nearly as much as bureaucrats who go bad.”
“I’m a lawyer, I don’t make moral judgments.”
“Which is why you’re an asshole,” Nate growled.
“Anyway,” McCann said, gaining in arrogance as he went on, Joe thought, “his hunting ground is near Bechler ranger station, technically in Idaho. He was contacted by the Idaho Fish and Game, who told him they were watching him. He came in to see me to find out whether Idaho could arrest him or not, since he was doing his poaching on federal park land. So as I researched his question, I found the loophole. I couldn’t believe it when I found it. I told Barron about it and said I’d take care of his Hoening problem if he’d make me financially secure for the rest of my life. You see, I’d learned about the annual reunions of the Gopher State Five from Hoening himself. I knew where they’d be, and when they’d be there.”
“You sound proud of yourself,” Joe said.
McCann shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I be? I committed the perfect crime.”
“So why didn’t you just leave with the money after you killed Hoening and the others?” Joe asked. “Why stay around to be caught?”
“First, I’m not caught,” McCann said. “Second, Barron reneged on me. It turned out he’d filed false financials with the SEC, and all that public money he promised was tied up in regulations. He simply didn’t have the cash. He lied to me.”
“Imagine that,” Joe said.
“Worse than that,” McCann said, “they panicked. They really are amateurs. Instead of concentrating on ways to get me the money, they screwed everything up by lying a
nd delaying further. I knew they had decided to get rid of me somehow, so I stayed ahead of them and got myself put in their own jail where I’d be high profile and safe. Meanwhile, they tried to eliminate all of the witnesses, or anyone who might potentially be a witness. I want no part of them anymore, or EnerDyne. I just want my money.”
“But they want you,” Joe said, “so you won’t talk and implicate them.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you kill that woman and the ex-sheriff?”
“They knew too much. If someone got to them, they might have exposed me.”
Joe said, “So you lured them into Idaho to kill them. You’ve admitted to kidnapping.”
McCann said, “Sure, I talked under duress. Under the threat of torture from your friend here. After being kidnapped and assaulted. Sorry, my confession won’t stand since I’ll claim I said whatever I had to to save my life. It would be your word against mine.”
He beamed at Joe.
Joe dug his microcassette recorder out of his pocket and held it up.
“Want to bet?” Joe said. “Anybody who hears this tape will hear how proud you are of what you did. None of it sounds forced out of you.”
McCann went white and his mouth sagged open.
“Shut him up,” Joe said, and Nate eagerly dove over the seat with the tape and stretched it across the lawyer’s mouth.
“You’ll get death,” Nate said, smoothing the tape.
“Assuming he lives long enough to get to trial,” Joe said, turning and looking into Clay McCann’s wide, panicked eyes.
And seeing that less than a hundred yards behind them was a park ranger Ford Explorer with wigwag lights flashing, gaining on them by the second, snow flying from the tires in twin plumes of white.
“UH-OH,” JOE SAID.
McCann turned, saw the vehicle, and whimpered. He sagged in the seat to hide. The Explorer closed the gap, fishtailing a little in the snow as the driver accelerated.
“Who is it?” Nate asked, squinting. “Can you tell?”
“My guess is Langston and Layborn,” Joe said, reaching behind his back and gripping the Glock, putting it on the seat next to him. “Here we go.”
“I can put a bullet into the grille,” Nate said, “knock them out.” He ran the window down so he could lean outside. The cab of the truck filled with swirling snow.
“Hold it,” Nate said, “there’s only one guy inside.”
Joe concentrated on driving because it was getting harder to see where the road was in a sea of white. He shot a glance in his mirrors. Yes, there was only the driver, and Joe recognized him.
“Don’t shoot,” Joe said. “It’s Ashby.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ashby’s not involved, is he?” Joe called to McCann, who grunted something back.
“What did he say?” Joe asked Nate.
“I think he said no.”
“Let’s pull over and take our chances,” Joe said. “We can really use Ashby’s help if he’ll cooperate. Be ready.”
JOE DIDN’T DARE pull off the road and chance getting stuck in the snow, so he gradually slowed down. The Explorer stayed with him, a few feet behind, until both vehicles were stopped. Because of the way the wind-driven snow moved steadily across the meadow on either side of the road, it seemed to Joe as if they were still moving.
“Cover me,” Joe said, opening his door and jumping down. Snow lashed him in the face.
Ashby was out of the Explorer, his hand perched on his holstered gun.
Joe held up his hands to show he had no weapon.
“Up against the truck and spread ’em!” Ashby yelled. “And tell your buddy to get out and do the same.”
Ashby was wearing sweats beneath his parka, and had apparently jumped out of bed to pursue them.
“Hold it,” Joe said. “I’m on your side.”
Ashby withdrew his gun, held it with both hands in a shooter’s stance, aimed at Joe.
“Del,” Joe said, feeling his belly clutch up, “calm down. We have McCann. We’re using him as bait. Before you try and arrest me or pull that trigger, there’s something you need to listen to. We’ve got new information and you’re not going to like it.”
Ashby wavered, Joe could see it in his eyes.
“Five minutes,” Joe said. “Just listen to McCann’s confession. Then you’ll want to help us out.”
“Confession? Everybody knows what he did.”
“But not why he did it,” Joe said.
“He’ll tell me?”
“He doesn’t need to. I’ve got it on tape.”
Ashby seemed to weigh what Joe said, and while he did he glanced toward the pickup. His face dropped with shock and fear. Joe quickly followed Ashby’s sight line. The muzzle of Nate’s .454 aimed straight at the ranger.
“He’ll blow your head clean off with that,” Joe said.
“Tell him to lower the gun,” Ashby said. “I’ll listen.”
“You can tell him,” Joe said, able to breathe again. “He speaks English, you know.”
WHEN HE PUT Lars’s truck in gear and plowed forward in the untracked snow, Joe had trouble getting the image of Ashby’s face out of his mind from a few minutes before, when the ranger sat in the truck and listened to the tape. It was the stricken face of betrayal, and what he heard caused Ashby to slump against the door as if all the fight had been punched out of him.
“I know how you feel,” Joe said.
“Langston doesn’t surprise me as much as I would have thought,” Ashby said. “But Layborn . . .”
“Really?” Joe asked, surprised.
“I thought Layborn, despite his faults, was a true believer in the Park Service, in our mission here,” Ashby said. “I thought he was loyal to me.”
“Sorry,” Joe said, meaning it. “Why is it some bureaucrats always think they deserve more?”
Ashby shook his head. “I don’t,” he said.
Nate said, “That’s why you’ll always be poor like Joe. And I say that with compassion.”
Ashby still had the look on his face when he got out and trudged back to his Explorer to follow Joe, Nate, and McCann to the Old Faithful Inn.
“DO YOU THINK this plan is going to work?” Nate asked Joe as they picked up speed again and steered straight into the maw of the storm.
“Maybe not,” Joe said truthfully. “A lot of things could go wrong. And I didn’t count on this weather.”
Nate jerked a thumb at McCann. “Do you think they want him bad enough to follow us?”
Joe said, “I do. He’s their loose cannon, and they can’t afford to let him follow up on his threat to talk. Especially if they think he’s somehow hooked up with Bob Olig, who can corroborate much of his story.”
“That’s a hell of a wild card to play, isn’t it?” Nate said, referring to Olig. “We don’t even know for sure if he exists.”
“I’m trusting your instincts,” Joe said.
“Remind me not to play poker with you, Joe,” Nate said, grinning.
Joe shook his head. “You might want to rethink that. Both Sheridan and Marybeth always clean me out.”
30
JOE WAS THANKFUL FOR THE HIGH CLEARANCE OF Lars’s pickup by the time they took the turnoff to Old Faithful. It was early afternoon, completely socked in, ten to twelve inches of snow already on the ground, the lodgepole pine hillsides looking smoky and vague in the falling snow. When they cleared the rise they could see the Old Faithful Inn below—a boxy, hulking, isolated smudge on the basin floor.
His growing fear that Portenson didn’t or couldn’t make it due to either bureaucracy or the weather was relieved instantly when Nate pointed out the single Suburban in the parking lot with U.S. Government plates. The agents—Joe counted six—huddled under the portico of the inn near the massive front door. Joe pulled up under the overhang as if he were a bus disgorging tourists. Portenson was there, nervously inhaling a cigarette as if trying to suck it dry. Butts littered the concrete near his feet. H
is team of five wore camouflage clothing with black Kevlar helmets and vests, and looked competent and alert. Cases and duffel bags of weapons and equipment were stacked against the building. Two of the assault squad were smoking cigarettes and squinting through the smoke at Nate Romanowski, as if sizing up an adversary. Nate nodded at them without blinking as Joe shut off the motor of the truck.
“Glad you made it,” Joe said to Portenson, getting out. “I’m not sure that camo stuff will work all that well in the snow, though. You guys look like a bunch of bushes.”
Portenson was instantly around the truck in front of him, his face red. “Do you realize what will happen to me if this doesn’t work out? I put my career on the line for you and brought these men up here without authorization. This kind of operation requires sign-offs all the way to the director of Homeland Security himself.”
Joe nodded. “We couldn’t risk that. If it went federal up the chain of command, somebody might tip off Langston, since you’re all in the same happy family.”
“We are not,” Portenson said hotly.
“Sure you are,” Joe said.
Ashby had pulled up behind Joe and was watching the exchange closely.
Joe asked Portenson to send one of his men to drive the Suburban up and hide it behind the inn, out of sight. He asked Ashby to do the same with his Explorer.
“They won’t come in if they get any kind of indication that anyone is here besides us and Clay McCann,” Joe said.
“How do we get in?” Portenson asked, nodding toward the massive front door of the inn.
“I have a key,” Ashby said, handing it to Joe.
“Will you leave your Kevlar vests?” Joe asked Ashby.
INSIDE, IT WAS dark except for the tiny red glow of dots from the emergency backup system mounted high on the walls. Normally, Joe found the lobby of the inn impressive, but with the lights out and the snow covering up any light leaks, it was oddly intimidating. As the men entered, with every footstep echoing, Joe felt as if he were desecrating a cathedral. All the windows had been boarded up for the winter, and the temperature was colder inside than outside. There was no power or water. The building was completely winterized.