White Sky, Black Ice

by Stan Jones

  Active stood up, walked to Jermain's west window, and looked out over the ice of Chukchi Bay. Fortune spoke from behind him. "And, unlikely as it may seem to you, GeoNord would prefer to do the right thing, financial considerations permitting."

  A snowmachine droned past the window a few yards off the beach. It pulled a dogsled with four field-dressed caribou carcasses. A young man in dark glasses rode the runners. His hood was thrown back and his long black hair whipped in the wind. The afternoon sun was on his face. He spotted Active in the window and grinned as he passed. Active waved and envied the hunter. Caribou were far simpler prey than humans.

  "All right." He turned and sat at the conference table again. "I'll listen."

  Jermain and Fortune whispered together, then Fortune faced Active. "This may take some time. We should probably have something to drink brought in."

  "Sure," Active said.

  "Mr. Jermain here takes tea, and I take coffee. And you, Trooper Active?"

  "Coffee, thanks. Black."

  Jermain went to his desk, pressed a button on the phone, and ordered the drinks from Marie. He added a dozen doughnuts to the order and returned to the table.

  "How much do you know about copper mining?" Fortune said.

  "I know it produces some nasty by-products. Antimony, sulfur, arsenic."

  "I see you've been doing some homework," the lawyer said.

  "And, of course, I know it's killing fish on the upper Nuliakuk River."

  A look of great pain passed over Jermain's face, but he said nothing.

  "We'll get to that," Fortune said, waving a hand as if to fan away imaginary clouds of pollution. "But Mr. Jermain will be doing most of the talking, since the subject matter is somewhat technical. Provided, of course, that we agree all he's doing is outlining what he might say should he ever decide to give you a statement."

  "Agreed." Active pulled out his notebook.

  "I'm sorry," Fortune said. "No notes." Active debated briefly with himself, then put the pad away. The lawyer crossed his legs and swung one foot idly. Active suspected he was beginning to enjoy himself.

  Jermain cleared his throat and looked out the south window of his office. "Well, like you said, we're getting arsenic, sulfur, and antimony at the Gray Wolf. The antimony really isn't a problem, but sulfuric acid and arsenic are getting into the Nuliakuk, as you've apparently already guessed ..."

  "Christ," Active said, despite himself. "Nuliakuk village gets its drinking water out of that river. You may be poisoning everybody up there."

  "Bear with us a moment." Fortune looked exasperated. "We agree the situation can't continue. But we don't believe it has made anybody sick yet. We're quietly testing the river water at the village and the arsenic levels aren't dangerous so far. The sulfuric acid kills fish near the mine, but of course no one eats them and the acid itself dissipates long before it reaches the village."

  "My promise of confidentiality doesn't extend to the pollution problems," Active said. "Just information about the murders."

  Fortune waved his hand dismissively. "We know that. But we think you'll find your environmental protection department isn't too interested in the Gray Wolf." Fortune looked almost cheerful now. "They've already been, ah, consulted, you might say."

  Active felt a surge of pity for Kathy Childs and her earnest efforts to find the cause of the fish kills on the Nuliakuk, then a surge of anger for the company that had boxed her in and shipped her off to Bethel. He looked at the lawyer, who smiled back at him.

  Perhaps Fortune was thinking of his fee: a big one if he wangled immunity for Jermain and the company, a bigger one if they were tried for murder or pollution. He couldn't lose.

  "Money has even changed hands," the lawyer said.

  "You actually bribed somebody at environmental protection? You people must think you're in Guatemala."

  "Not us," Fortune said. "Tom Werner."

  "Tom Werner? You're saying Tom Werner bribed DEP?"

  Fortune made a tent of his fingers and looked over it at Active. "Not a bribe, exactly. It's my understanding that Chukchi Region Inc. employs as an environmental consultant someone from the DEP office in Nome, a Mr.—" Fortune opened his yellow pad and flipped through it, but Active knew what the name would be before the lawyer said it."... ah, here it is. A Mr. Charles Shotwell. The district director."

  "Shotwell works for Chukchi Region? How can that not be a conflict of interest? He's supposed to ride herd on the Gray Wolf, right?"

  "Well, technically speaking, the Gray Wolf is run by GeoNord, not Chukchi Region." Fortune let the pages of his yellow pad fall back into place. "And Mr. Shotwell's consultancy apparently involves reviewing the environmental record of a Seattle fish-processing plant that Chukchi Region is considering buying, so it's outside DEP's jurisdiction. I'd say Mr. Shotwell's moonlighting puts him in a gray area. Probably enough to get him fired, but not indicted."

  "But why would he take a chance like this? Chukchi can't be paying him that much money."

  "It's my understanding that Mr. Shotwell and Tom Werner were roommates at some Bureau of Indian Affairs school in Oregon," Fortune said. "And just before Tom Werner left the state senate, I understand he pulled strings to get Shotwell the job in Nome."

  Jermain ran his fingers through his stiff gray hair and looked at Active. "Tom Werner told me he would do anything to keep the Gray Wolf open. He told me that at least a dozen times."

  There was a knock at the door and Jermain's receptionist brought drinks and doughnuts into a frozen silence. Jermain picked up a maple bar and ate it in four rapid bites, including a fragment of waxed paper stuck to the bottom. "Thanks, Marie," he said, staring out the window.

  Marie hurried from the office, carefully avoiding their eyes. Fortune poured coffee for himself and Active and tea for Jermain. Active took a sip. The coffee tasted like Fortune's suit looked: expensive. Not like the Folgers from one of Jim Silver's Styrofoam cups.

  Fortune took a drink, then pursed his lips and sucked in a breath. "It's Kenyan. I brought it from San Francisco myself."

  "It's the first thing I'd pack for a trip to the Arctic," Active said, then regretted it. He knew he shouldn't let his resentment show, it was childish.

  Fortune shrugged and looked at Jermain. "Michael, I think you were telling Trooper Active about the by-products of copper mining."

  "Wait a minute, what about Tom Werner?" Active wanted to shout. But he didn't. It was obvious Fortune intended to do this his own way.

  Jermain turned his eyes from the window and studied his teacup. "The Gray Wolf produces antimony, arsenic, and sulfur, like any copper mine. No surprises there. Our problem is, we're getting far more arsenic and sulfur than we expected. That crud coming out of the settling pond—well, it's way too much for our pollution controls."

  "More than you expected?" Active asked. "You must have taken samples before you put in the mine."

  The lawyer and the engineer looked at each other, then Fortune spoke. "GeoNord hired contractors to do the analysis. The results were flawed."

  "A big company like GeoNord doesn't know how to find competent contractors?" Active asked. "Come on, you'd have gone broke long ago."

  "Actually, we believe these flaws were deliberate."

  "What?"

  "This particular contractor is a subsidiary of Chukchi Region Inc.," Fortune said. "Tom Werner insisted we use them or he wouldn't lease us the mine."

  "Tom Werner," Active said. "You think Tom Werner had his subsidiary fake the assay results to, to ..."

  ". . . to make the mine look more attractive," Fortune finished. "Yes, that's what we think. With copper prices so low, the mine wouldn't have been feasible if the state hadn't built the road and port. Likewise if GeoNord had known it would get three or four times as much arsenic and sulfur as our contractor's soils analysis predicted." He sipped his coffee and watched Active in silence.

  "How much would it cost to fix this problem?"

  "Seventy-five million dol
lars, plus or minus," Jermain said. "And it would raise our operating costs about two million a year."

  "Why not sue Chukchi Region?"

  "Chukchi doesn't have seventy-five million dollars," Fortune said. "And it's usually not a good idea to put your partner into bankruptcy. Especially if the partner is a Native corporation and you're a multinational mining company from Norway."

  "Then why not take your lumps and write the check yourself?"

  "In good times, we would," Jermain said, running a hand through his hair again. "But metals prices are still in the toilet. The Gray Wolf lost about fifty million dollars last year and we expect to lose another forty or so this year. Most of GeoNord's other mines are losing money too, and credit is tight. Our board said it didn't have seventy-five million. They told us to mothball the mine and wait for better prices. Then we'd upgrade the pollution controls and reopen."

  "But you stayed in production."

  "Enter Tom Werner again, lease in hand," Fortune said with another of his amused smiles. "Werner claims the lease would let him take back the mine, along with several hundred million dollars' worth of GeoNord facilities, if we shut the Gray Wolf down."

  "Would it?" Active asked.

  "In the long run, probably not," Fortune said. "Werner might win in the lower courts, especially if he got the case before a Chukchi jury. We'd win on appeal, but only after years of litigation, paralysis, and big black headlines about a multinational conglomerate screwing a bunch of simple Eskimo hunters."

  Fortune glanced at Active, who stared back. Was it a slip, or was Fortune baiting him? He waited, trying to keep his expression neutral.

  "No offense intended, Trooper Active," the lawyer said finally. "I'm sure you understand that was a press caricature I was describing, not my own views. No one would ever think of the Inupiat as simple in any way after meeting Tom Werner. Or you, for that matter."

  "No offense taken," Active said with a smile. "We're trained not to let anything that comes out of a lawyer's mouth bother us."

  Fortune smiled back, a little uncertainly perhaps. "Ah, where were we?"

  "You were about to tell me what the board said when Mr. Jermain here told them a simple Eskimo hunter might take their mine away."

  "Officially, they said . . . well, perhaps Michael should just read the letter." Fortune pulled a thick sheet of letterhead from his briefcase and handed it to Jermain, who unfolded it and read.

  "The board anticipates that GeoNord's Alaska staff will deal with local exigencies in accordance with board directives and company policy."

  "That's it? You're about to lose the mine and they send you one sentence?"

  "Officially, that was it," Fortune said. "Complete deniability."

  "And unofficially?"

  "They said if I could keep the mine running a couple years, they would try to scrape up seventy-five million to fix the pollution problems," Jermain said. He looked out the window again. "They made it clear it would be worth my while."

  "Worth your while."

  Jermain was silent.

  "So you put in the leach field," Active said.

  "I talked it over with Tom Werner and, yes, we put in the leach field," Jermain said. "It was in the summer, when there's always maintenance and upgrades going on, various contractors in and out all the time. We brought in an outfit specializing in, um, sensitive projects and told everybody they were upgrading the drainage system around the airport. Instead, they put in a great big pipe and the leach field and drilled some drain holes down through the permafrost. We started flushing the excess arsenic and sulfur and antimony into the ground. We thought it would slowly percolate down and cause no problem. Instead, it went sideways and came out in Gray Wolf Creek. Now it's killing whitefish and arctic char in the Nuliakuk."

  "Come on, Tom Werner would never do something like this," Active said. "You put in that leach field on your own. We're just another third-world country to you people." With an inward start, he realized it was the first time he had ever used "we" in any reference to Chukchi.

  Jermain was silent again.

  "I believe it's more accurate to say GeoNord found itself in a situation where it wanted to do the right thing and shut down the mine," Fortune said. "But it was prevented from doing so by a classic third-world Big Man. Tom Werner." He smiled at Active.

  "Big Man? Are you saying Tom Werner was skimming money from the mine?"

  Fortune and Jermain whispered together. Fortune nodded and turned to Active.

  "No," the lawyer said. "Tom Werner never asked for money. As far as we know, he doesn't have a Swiss bank account like so many of GeoNord's other partners in the, ah, developing world."

  "South Americans have them, Africans have them. God knows Russians have them," Jermain said. "But Tom Werner doesn't. At least not with our money."

  The phone on Jermain's desk trilled. Jermain started to rise, but Fortune motioned him back down. The lawyer walked to the desk and picked up the phone. "No calls means no calls," he said, then turned his back to Active and Jermain and listened.

  "Yes, he'll have to wait too. Tell him we're still in conference." He hung up.

  Active raised his eyebrows in the white expression of inquiry.

  "GeoNord's chairman," Fortune said. "He's keenly interested in the outcome of our discussion."

  "I'll bet," Active said. Fortune was silent. Jermain folded the letter from GeoNord and handed it to Fortune, who slipped it back into his briefcase.

  "So your leach field was out there leaching and things were fine, as long as you weren't a fish. Then what happened?"

  "Monday of last week, I went up to Tom Werner's office and asked him again to let us mothball the Gray Wolf," Jermain said. "As usual, he says no, a few dead fish are a small price to pay for the jobs and social benefits of the mine. Shows me a report from some social worker claiming wife-beating is down sixty percent among Gray Wolf employees. I give up and head back to my office for another slug of Mylanta when I see George Clinton going in to see Werner. Nothing unusual..."

  Active held up his hand, palm toward Jermain. "So you did see Clinton here last Monday. Then you were lying the other day when you told me you hadn't?"

  Fortune stood up and walked over to Jermain's desk. He sat on a corner and swung one leg.

  "Yes, I was," Jermain said. He dropped his eyes. "I've been doing a lot of that lately, but I'm still not very good at it."

  "And are you lying again today?"

  "No, I'm telling the truth now." Jermain's chin crinkled. He looked as if he might cry.

  "Sure you are," Active said.

  "You've made your point, Trooper Active," Fortune said from his perch on Jermain's desk. "Why don't you listen to what he has to say?"

  "Sorry," Active said. "So you saw George Clinton going into Tom Werner's office."

  "Right," Jermain said. "Nothing unusual there. Shareholders come in to see him all the time. But this feels funny, so I ask Werner about it later. He tells me that Clinton found the schematic of the leach-field project and showed..."

  "You put in an illegal leach field and you leave the plans lying around for your janitor to find?"

  "So I'm not a very good crook," Jermain said. "It's not my usual line of work. There was only one copy at the Gray Wolf and it stayed in my office safe. Except for this time, when I must have left it out. I guess the Clinton boy found it when he was cleaning the office. Even then, it shouldn't have been a problem, because—well, you saw. It was mislabeled as part of the sewage treatment system, plus it was drawn backwards."

  "And George Clinton could read this cryptogram of yours?"

  "Not George," Jermain said. "Aaron. That's what I was about to say. For some reason, George gave it to Aaron Stone, who could actually read the damned thing."

  "Gee, he must have been wearing his secret decoder ring."

  "Goddamn it," Jermain shouted, rising out of his chair. "Aaron Stone was ..."

  Active stood up and kicked his chair away from the table. Fo
rtune slid off the desk and cleared his throat.

  Jermain stopped halfway up.

  "Michael, collect yourself," the lawyer said. "Please forgive him, Trooper Active. He's been under a great strain."

  "Fuck him, let him charge me with murder," Jermain said. He looked at Fortune. "Fuck you too. I'll get my own lawyer. GeoNord can look out for itself. I don't have to do this."

  "Yes, Michael, I think you do," Fortune said. "It's too late to turn back now. Just calm down and tell him about Aaron." He settled back onto the edge of Jermain's desk.

  Jermain walked to the west window and studied the ice for a long time. When he spoke again, he sounded calmer, even resigned. "Trooper Active, did you ever meet somebody and realize you were both from the same planet, and it wasn't earth?"

  Active looked at Fortune, who shrugged and raised his hands and eyebrows in puzzlement, or a good imitation of it.

  "I guess not," Active said to the engineer's back.

  "Well, it was like that with Aaron Stone and me," Jermain said. "I already knew when I met him he was a great hunter, so I got him to teach me about caribou. What I didn't figure out for a while was that he was also a mechanical genius. Not only could he could fix anything that had a moving part, he could also read a blueprint at a glance."

  Jermain walked back to the table and sat down. "One night, we're camped in a tent way up on the Katonak. Cold as hell, maybe forty below, wolves howling out in the hills, the moon's up. I'm thinking this is as close to paradise as you can get in this century, when Aaron tells me he wishes he had pitched it all and become an engineer."

  "Why didn't he?"

  "He was already fifty when he realized not everybody could do what he did. 'Too late for me,' he says. 'Guess I'll just stay up here with these old caribou now.' "

  Jermain said nothing more, as if he had finished his story.

  "So George and Aaron found the leach-field schematic," Active prompted.

  "Oh, yeah," Jermain said. "It would have taken a professional engineer a while to decipher it but Aaron apparently figured it out in a couple of minutes."