White Fire p-13

by Douglas Preston

  Kerosene. Handcuffs. Rope. It needs to burn. Now, through the fog in her head, Corrie understood: Ted was the arsonist. A huge shudder of fear coursed through her, and she struggled against the cuffs despite the pain that racked her body.

  But then, as soon as she started to struggle, she stopped again. He cared for her — she knew he did. Somehow, she had to reach him.

  “Ted,” she croaked, managing to speak. “Ted. You know I’m not one of them.”

  “Oh, yes you are!” he screamed, leaning toward her, the white scum flying off his lips in droplets. As quickly as it had come, the icy, methodical veneer fell away, replaced by a mad, bestial rage. “You faked it for a while, but no — you’re just like them! You’re here for the same reasons they are: money.”

  His eyes were so bloodshot, they were almost red. His hands were trembling with rage. His whole body was trembling. And his voice was so strange, so different. Looking at him was like looking into the maw of hell. It was so awful, so inhuman an expression, Corrie had to avert her eyes.

  “But I don’t have any money,” she said.

  “Exactly! Why are you here? To find some rich asshole. I wasn’t rich enough for you! That’s why you played with me. Leading me on the way you did.”

  “No, no, that wasn’t it at all…”

  “Shut the fuck up!” he screamed at a larynx-shredding volume, so loud that Corrie felt her eardrums tremble at the pressure.

  And then, just as abruptly as it had left, the icy control returned. The fluctuation — from homicidal, brutish, barely controlled rants to a cold and calculating distance — was unbearable. “You should be grateful,” he said, turning away, sounding for a minute like the Ted of old. “I have conferred wisdom onto you. Now you understand. The others — the others that I’ve taught — they learned nothing.”

  Then, suddenly, he spun back, staring at her with a hideous, speculative grin. “You ever read Robert Frost?”

  Corrie couldn’t bring herself to speak.

  He began to recite:

  Some say the world will end in fire;

  Some say in ice.

  From what I’ve tasted of desire

  I hold with those who favor fire.

  He reached out, grasped a long, dry stick of old lumber from the many that littered the floor, and used the end of it to toggle the latch on the woodstove door open. The flames inside threw a flickering yellow light about the room. He shoved the stick into the fire and waited.

  “Ted, please.” Corrie took a deep breath. “You don’t have to do this.”

  He began to whistle a tuneless melody.

  “We’re friends. I didn’t reject you.” She sobbed a moment, gathered her wits as best she could. “I just didn’t want to rush things, that’s all…”

  “Good. That’s very good. I haven’t rejected you, either. And — I won’t rush things. We’ll just let nature take its course.”

  He withdrew the stick, the end burning brightly now, dropping sparks. His eyes, reflecting the dancing light of the fire, rolled slowly toward her, their bloodshot whites shockingly large. And Corrie, looking from him to the burning brand and back again, realized what was about to happen.

  “Oh, my God!” she said, voice rising into a shriek. “Please don’t. Ted!”

  He took a step toward her, waving the burning stick before her face. Another step closer. Corrie could feel the heat of the flaming brand. “No,” was all she could manage.

  For a minute, he just stared at her, the stick sparking and glowing in his hand. And when he spoke, his voice was so quiet, so controlled, it nearly drove her mad.

  “It’s time to burn,” he said simply.

  60

  Pendergast arrived in his office in the basement of the police station and placed the accordion file on his desk. It contained the documents he had earlier sought in the town’s public records office but which had, according to the archivist, mysteriously disappeared some years back. As he expected, he found them — or copies of them — in the filing cabinet in the home office of Henry Montebello, the architect who had prepared them in the first place. The file contained all the records relating to the original development of The Heights — documents that, by law, were supposed to be a matter of public record: plats, surveys, permit applications, subdivision maps, and terrain management plans.

  Delving into the accordion file, Pendergast removed several manila folders and laid them out in rows, their tabs lined up. He knew exactly what he was looking for. The first documents he perused involved the original survey of the land, done in the mid-1970s, with corresponding photographs. They included a detailed topographic survey of the terrain, along with a sheaf of photos depicting exactly how the valley and ridges looked before the development began.

  It was most revealing.

  The original valley had been much narrower and tighter, almost a ravine. Along its length, carved into a benchland a hundred feet above the stream known as Silver Queen Creek, stood the remains of an extensive ore-processing complex first built by the Staffords in the 1870s — the fountainhead of much of their wealth. The first building to be erected housed the “sampler” operation, to test the richness of the ore as it came from the mine; next came a much larger “concentrator” building, containing three steam-powered stamp mills, which crushed the ore and concentrated the silver tenfold; and finally, the smelter itself. All three operations generated tailings, or waste piles of rock, and those tailings were clearly visible on the survey as enormous piles and heaps of rubble and grit. The tailings from all of the operations contained toxic minerals and compounds that leached out into the water table. But it was the last set of tailings — from the smelter — that were truly deadly.

  The Stafford smelter in Roaring Fork used the Washoe amalgamation process. In the smelter, the crushed, concentrated ore was further ground up into a paste, and various chemicals were added…including sixty pounds of mercury for each ton of ore concentrate processed. The mercury dissolved the silver — amalgamated with it — and the resulting heavy paste settled to the bottom of the vat, with the waste slurry coming off the top to be dumped. The silver was recovered by heating the amalgam in a retort and driving off the mercury, which was recaptured through condensation, leaving behind crude silver.

  The process was not efficient. About two percent of the mercury was lost in each run. That mercury had to end up somewhere, and that somewhere was in the vast tailings dumped into the valley. Pendergast did a quick mental calculation: a two percent loss equaled about a pound of mercury for each ton of concentrate processed. The smelter processed a hundred tons of concentrate a day. By inference, that meant a hundred pounds of mercury had been dumped into the environment on a daily basis — over the nearly two decades during which the smelter operated. Mercury was an exceedingly toxic, pernicious substance, which over time could cause severe and permanent brain damage in people who were exposed to it — especially in children and, to an even greater extent, to the unborn.

  It all added up to one thing: The Heights — or at least, the portion of the development that had been erected in the valley — was essentially sitting atop a large Superfund site, with a toxic aquifer underneath.

  As he replaced the initial documents, everything came together in Pendergast’s mind. He understood everything with great clarity — everything — including the arson attacks.

  Moving more rapidly now, Pendergast glanced through documents relating to the early development itself. The terrain management plan called for using the vast tailing piles to fill the narrow ravine and create the broad, attractive valley floor that existed today. The clubhouse was built just downstream from where the old smelter had been, and a dozen large homes were situated within the valley. Henry Montebello, the master architect, had been in charge of it all: the demolishment of the smelter ruins, the terrain alterations, the spreading of tailings into a nice broad, level area for the lower development and the clubhouse. And his sister-in-law, Mrs. Kermode, had also been an integra
l player.

  Interesting, Pendergast thought, that Montebello’s mansion was on the far side of town, and that Kermode’s own home was built high up on the ridge, far from the zone of contamination. They, and the other members of the Stafford family who were behind the development of The Heights, must have known about the mercury. It occurred to him that the real reason they were building a new clubhouse and spa — which had seemed the very essence of needless indulgence — and situating it on the old Boot Hill cemetery was, in fact, to get it out of the area of contamination.

  Pendergast moved from one manila folder to the next, paging through documents relating to the original subdivisions and association planning. The lots were large — minimum two-acre zoning — and as a result there was no community water system: each property had its own well. Those houses situated in the valley floor, as well as the original clubhouse, would have obtained their water from wells sunk directly into the mercury-contaminated aquifer.

  And, indeed, here was a file of the well permits. Pendergast looked through it. Each well required the testing of water quality — standard procedure. And every single well had passed: no mercury contamination noted.

  Without question, falsified results.

  Now came the sales contracts for the first houses built in The Heights. Pendergast selected those dozen properties in the contaminated zone in the valley for special scrutiny. He examined the names of the purchasers. Most appeared to be older, wealthy individuals in retirement. These houses had changed hands a number of times, especially as real estate values skyrocketed in the 1990s.

  But Pendergast did recognize the name of one set of purchasers: a “Sarah and Arthur Roman, husband and wife.” No doubt the future parents of Ted Roman. The date of purchase: 1982.

  The Roman house was built directly on the site of the smelter, in the zone of greatest contamination. Pendergast thought back to what Corrie had told him about Ted. Assuming he was her age, or even a few years older, there was little doubt that Ted Roman had been exposed to toxic mercury in his mother’s womb, and raised in a toxic house, drinking toxic water, taking toxic showers…

  Pendergast put the records aside, a thoughtful expression on his face. After a moment, he picked up the phone and called Corrie’s cell phone. It went directly over to her voice mail.

  He then called the Hotel Sebastian and, after speaking to several people, learned that she had left the hotel shortly after her work shift ended at eleven. In her car, destination unknown. However, she had asked the concierge for a snowmobile map of the mountains surrounding Roaring Fork.

  With somewhat more alacrity, Pendergast dialed the town library. No answer. He looked up the head librarian’s home number. When she answered, she explained to him that December twenty-fourth was normally a half day at the library, but she had decided not to open at all because of the storm. In response to his next question, she replied that Ted had, in fact, told her he was going to take advantage of the free day by engaging in one of his favorite activities: snowmobiling in the mountains.

  Again, Pendergast hung up the phone. He called Stacy Bowdree’s cell, and it, too, went over to voice mail.

  A furrow appeared on his pale brow. As he was hanging up, he noticed something he normally would have seen immediately had he not been preoccupied: the papers on his desk were disarranged.

  He stared at the papers, his near-photographic mind reconstructing how he had left them. One sheet — the sheet on which he’d copied the message of the Committee of Seven — had been pulled partway out and the papers surrounding it displaced:

  mete at the Ideal 11 oclock Sharp to Night they are Holt Up in the closed Christmas Mine up on smugglers wall

  Pendergast quickly left his office and went upstairs, where Iris was still dutifully manning the desk.

  “Has anyone been in my office?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Oh, yes,” the secretary said. “I brought Corrie down there for a few minutes, early this afternoon. She was looking for her cell phone.”

  61

  The vile, rotting odor in the air seemed to intensify as Ted waved the burning stick about. The flames licking at its end began to die back into coals, and he pushed it back into the stove.

  “Love is the Fire of Life; it either consumes or purifies,” he quoted as he slowly twirled the stick among the flames, as if roasting a marshmallow. There was something awful — after his fierce and passionate ranting — about the calm deliberation with which he now moved. “Let us prepare for the purification.” He pulled the stick from the stove and passed it again before Corrie’s face, with a strangely delicate gesture, gingerly, tentative now — and yet it hovered so close that, although she twisted away, it singed her hair.

  Corrie tried to gain control of her galloping panic. She had to reach him, talk him out of this. Her mouth was dry, and it was hard to articulate words through her haze of pain and fear. “Ted, I liked you. I mean I like you. I really do.” She swallowed. “Look, let me go and I’ll forget all about this. We’ll go out. Have a beer. Just like before.”

  “Right. Sure. You’d say anything now.” Ted began to laugh, a crazy, quiet laugh.

  She pulled against the cuff, but it was tight around her wrist, securely fastened to the pipe. “You won’t get in trouble. I won’t tell anyone. We’ll forget all about this.”

  Ted did not reply. He pulled the burning brand away, inspected it closely, as one would a tool prior to putting it to use.

  “We had good times, Ted, and we can have more. You don’t have to do this. I’m not like those others, I’m just a poor student, I have to wash dishes at the Hotel Sebastian just to pay for my room!” She sobbed, caught herself. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “You need to calm down, Corrie, and accept your fate. It will be by fire — purifying fire. It will cleanse you of your sins. You should thank me, Corrie. I’m giving you a chance to atone for what you did. You’ll suffer, and for that I’m sorry — but it’s for the best.”

  The horror of it, the certainty that Ted was telling the truth, closed her throat.

  He stepped back, looked around. “I used to play in all these tunnels as a kid.” His voice was different now — it was sorrowful, like one about to perform a necessary but distasteful service. “I knew every inch of these mine buildings up here. I know all this like the back of my hand. This is my childhood, right here. This is where it began, and this is where it will end. That door you came out of? That was the entrance to my playground. Those mines — they were a magical playground.”

  His tone became freighted with nostalgia, and Corrie had a momentary hope. But then, with terrible rapidity, his demeanor changed utterly. “And look what they did!” This came out as a scream. “Look! This was a nice town once. Friendly. Everyone mingled. Now it’s a fucking tourist trap for billionaires…billionaires and all their toadies, bootlickers, lackeys. People like you! You…!” His voice echoed in the dim space, temporarily drowning out the sound of the storm, the wind, the groaning timbers.

  Corrie began to realize, with a kind of awful finality, that nothing she could say would have any effect.

  As quickly as it had come, the fit passed again. Ted fell abruptly silent. A tear welled up in one eye, trickled slowly down his cheek. He picked up the gun from the table and snugged it into his waistband. Without looking at her, he turned sharply on his heel and strode away, out of her vision, into a dark area behind the pump engine. Now all she could see was the burning end of his stick, dancing and floating in the darkness, slowly dwindling, until it, too, disappeared.

  She waited. All was silent. Had he left? She could hardly believe it. Hope came rushing back. Where had he gone? She looked around, straining to see in the darkness. Nothing.

  But no — it was too good to be true. He hadn’t really left. He had to be around somewhere.

  And then she smelled a faint whiff of smoke. From the woodstove? No. She strained, peering this way and that into the darkness, the pain in her hand, ribs, and ankle suddenl
y forgotten. There was more smoke — and then, abruptly, a whole lot more. And now she could see a reddish glow from the far side of the pump engine.

  “Ted!”

  A gout of flame suddenly appeared out of the blackness, and then another, snaking up the far wall, spreading wildly.

  Ted had set the old building on fire.

  Corrie cried out, struggled afresh with the handcuffs. The flames mounted upward with terrible speed, great clouds of acrid smoke roiling up. A roar grew in intensity, until it was so ferocious it was a vibration in the air itself. She felt the sudden heat on her face.

  It had all happened in mere seconds.

  “No! No!” she screamed. And then, through her wild cries, she saw Ted’s tall figure framed in the doorway to the dingy room from which she’d first emerged. She could see the open door to the Sally Goodin Mine, the dewatering tunnel running away into darkness. He was standing absolutely still, staring at the fire, waiting; and as it grew brighter and stronger she could see the expression on his face: one of pure, unmitigated excitement.

  Corrie squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, prayed — prayed for the first time in her life — for a quick and merciful end.

  And then, as the flames began to lick up all around, consuming the wooden building on all sides, bringing with them unbearable heat, Ted turned and vanished into the mountain.