The Yellowstone Brief

by Larry LaVoie

  Henry was turning to leave.

  “Henry, stay a minute.” Nathan said. He walked up to Henry and put his hand on his shoulder. “Sorry I didn’t take your concern more seriously. You understand I’m taking my cues from you scientists. Last week you said it was nothing to worry about, and today I’m getting Emails from the Deputy Secretary. He’s only two people removed from the President, for God’s sake. I need for you to be my technical eyes and ears. I’ve got a feeling more is about to erupt than this caldera we’re standing in. You understand, don’t you?”

  “You may be right,” Henry said. “My dad had a saying, When politics are the cooks, Murphy will be on the menu.”

  “I know, if anything can go wrong, it will,” Nathan said, nodding his head.

  “You said it, Boss. If I learn anything, I’ll let you know.”

  Chapter 15

  August 14th, Washington, D.C.

  Heather rolled over in bed and checked the digital alarm clock. The knock at the door was louder and more urgent. She grabbed her gun from the nightstand drawer and held it behind her, as she went to the door. Who could it be this time of night? She put her eye to the peephole, unlocked the door, and removed the chain. Matt Renfro was about to knock one more time when she swung the door open. “Agent Renfro, you woke me.”

  “I need you to make a trip out west,” Renfro said.

  “I just started to work for Green Keepers. I can’t fly off before I even started.”

  “Normally I’d say you’re right, but this is an emergency. I need for you to investigate the death of Colonel Frost. Get dressed and come down to the office for a full briefing. You can call your boss tomorrow morning and tell him you had a family emergency in Oregon.”

  There were several others in Renfro’s office, none of whom she recognized. “We already had our contact in Mexico nose around, but it seems the only eyewitness, a volcanologist assigned to Frost, has already left the country on his way back to Oregon,” Renfro said. “Agent Martin, we need you to meet with Agent Nichols in our Portland office. She’ll make arrangements for you to interview Dr. David Wayne. The rest is in this folder, you can read on your way.”

  An hour later, Heather was boarding a business jet on the tarmac at Reagan International Airport. She settled back in a glove leather seat, fastened her seatbelt and started reading the heavily redacted report. What kind of information is in here that they have to redact the title of the paper? she wondered.

  She was pinned back in the seat as the jet left the runway and rose steeply to cruising altitude. As she thumbed through the file pages, she put together a picture of a disaster, no a massacre. Ninety-two people were presumed dead or missing, including six scientists contracted to the Army Corps of Engineers, three Army officers including Colonel Parker Frost, and the balance, Mexican government troops assigned to a tunnel site in Baja Sur. Only one scientist was listed as a survivor, Dr. David Wayne, volcanologist loaned to Colonel Frost from the Western Regional Office of the USGS. She finally saw why it was so important for her to conduct the interview in person. There was also a handwritten note, Green Keepers were demonstrating near the site. Coincidence? Maybe.

  She scanned the dossier of Dr. David Wayne. Age 32, graduated University of Utah in 1994 and received his doctorate in geology from Idaho State in 1998. Since leaving academia, he had worked for USGS as a field volcanologist. Married to Katarina Williams, age 23, in Eugene Oregon in 2000. In 2009, his wife, originally a British subject, was killed in a terrorist attack while visiting her parents in England. His 2-year-old son was also killed in the attack. The terrorists, a fringe group of Al Qaida called the Brothers of Amadon, took credit for the attack, but there were no arrests made and the case had gone cold.

  She started to theorize about David Wayne. It’s rough losing someone you love, but to lose your child also could drive you over the deep end. How did you survive and all the others perish? After reading this I don’t know whether you were lucky or had something to do with the death of the others. What connection do you have with Green Keepers?

  August 15th, Eugene, Oregon

  David hobbled along the ramp, disembarking the Boeing 737-800 into the Eugene airport. The trip home had been exhausting. Although he was in a below-the-knee walking cast, he found the use of crutches helpful for balance, but cumbersome.

  He had had to travel to Loreto, the only town with an international airport close to Santa Rosalia, before taking the flight to Los Angeles. The plane was crowded with tourists and he could not get the first class accommodations he’d requested for his stiff and swollen leg. He had to bend his broken leg to fit in the cramped space between the seats in coach. His leg felt like it was going to fall off by the time he disembarked at Los Angeles International. At least he was able to take advantage of business class from Los Angeles to Eugene, but he was still looking at over an hour travel by car to get to his home in Florence.

  He felt like kissing the ground when he retrieved his rolling suitcase from the baggage claim area. He hobbled outside into the cool evening air. When he had left for his assignment in Mexico, he had only one day to go home and pack before flying out again. He had parked his car in long term parking at the Eugene airport. Can’t be too hard to drive with this thing, he thought, as he hobbled through the short term parking area to the long term lot, dragging his suitcase and crutches behind him. The normally five-minute walk took him twice as long, with frequent stops as he tried to juggle the crutches and suitcase in one hand and his computer case in the other. When he got to his late model Jeep Cherokee, he activated the tailgate and tossed in his luggage including the crutches. The computer, he placed on the passenger seat. Once in the driver’s seat, he noticed the cast on his right foot would not flex to activate the accelerator. He moved the seat back, so he could barely reach the steering wheel. His leg could barely move enough to work the gas pedal. Fortunately, the Jeep had a steering wheel adjustment that allowed him to reset it closer to him. On the trip home he could use the adaptive cruise control lessening the need to use the accelerator as much. He decided the brake could be operated with his left foot. After making final adjustments, he idled up to the toll booth and paid with a hundred dollar bill. Receiving only three dollars in change, he threw it, and the receipt, on the passenger seat. He was finally headed home. The hour-plus drive to Florence would give him plenty of time to think about the events in Santa Rosalia. Had it not been for his injury, he might still be in custody in the Mexican police station. He’d been questioned repeatedly while in the hospital, but there was nothing he could offer. He had arrived too late, was confused about the facts, and didn’t want to speculate on what happened. To make matters worse, the local airport had tried to hold him ransom for crashing their rental helicopter. Clayton Brown had wired the rental company a check for $122,000 to keep him out of jail. Clay had assured David he would take it out of his pay if the insurance company didn’t settle. But that was all behind him now. As he left Eugene and drove west through the mountains, he saw the sun gradually drop out of sight. His automatic headlights switched on.

  Florence, Oregon

  David had been home less than four hours. He was enjoying the first night of blissful sleep in a month, when his cell phone rang. He rolled over and looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. Who could be calling at 3:14 in the morning? He reached over and answered. “This is David.”

  “Dr. David Wayne?”

  It was a pleasant female voice, which he tried to put a face to, but it wasn’t familiar. “Speaking. Who am I talking to?” David sat up in bed, reached over and turned on his bedside lamp.

  “Sorry to bother you. I know it’s early. I’m FBI Special Agent Heather Martin. I’m investigating the death of Colonel Parker Frost. I was hoping to come by and talk with you in person.”

  “It’s three in the morning.”

  “Again, I apologize, but I just arrived from D.C. and wanted to catch you before you started your day.”

  “You acco
mplished that,” David said, now fully awake. “When do you want to meet?”

  “I’m at the airport now. I thought I’d drop by your house.”

  “The Eugene airport?”

  “No, I’m in Florence.”

  David shook his head, not quite believing his ears. The Florence airport was too small to accommodate a jet plane, even a private jet. “Do you have a car?”

  “I’m in the car now. My GPS says I’m three minutes out. Is that too soon?”

  “I’ll put on some coffee. I’m sure you wouldn’t be here unless it was important.” David hung up. By the time the conversation was over, David was already out of bed and putting on a bathrobe and a slipper on his good foot. FBI, investigating the incident in Mexico. They’re going to be here in a minute. He tried to process the conversation.

  David had just finished scooping coffee into the Mr. Coffee machine when the doorbell rang. He started the coffee maker and hobbled on his walking cast to the front door. He flipped on the porch light and opened the door. Two women dressed like twins, held their badges up for him to see.

  “That didn’t take you long,” David said, eyeing the credentials before opening the storm door and inviting them in. “What kind of plane was small enough to land in Florence?”

  “We took a helicopter from Eugene,” the young woman said, reaching out her hand. “I’m the one who spoiled your night’s sleep, Special Agent Martin.” She motioned toward the other woman. “This is Special Agent Nichols, from our Portland office. I flew out from our D.C. office last night.”

  The woman standing next to Martin was nearly 6 ft. tall and dressed in the same navy- blue suit, white shirt, and navy-colored tie as the much shorter Martin. Nichols wore her dark hair short, which added to her masculine appearance, but his eyes quickly returned to Agent Martin, a petite blond with the cutest lips that seemed to smile even when she was trying to be serious. Her eyes were pale blue and clear. He caught himself staring.

  “We’re not usually in the habit of making calls this early in the morning,” Nichols apologized, “but something’s come to light that demands immediate attention. May we be seated?”

  David motioned to the couch. “Would either of you like coffee?” he asked.

  “Not me,” Agent Nichols said, motioning with her hand. “I’ve had as much as I can handle already. My day started at midnight.”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” David said heading for the kitchen, “I haven’t had my first cup, yet.”

  “I like mine black,” Martin called after him.

  David brought in two steaming mugs of black coffee and handed one to Martin. He noticed the gun in Martin’s shoulder holster as she reached for the mug. Both agents were seated on the couch with a coffee table in front of them. David set his mug on the table and pulled up a chair facing them. He retrieved his coffee and cautiously took a sip. She is the cutest FBI agent I’ve ever seen. “You said you flew out from Washington, D.C., Agent Martin?”

  “I already said I was from D.C., Dr. Wayne.”

  “Right,” David said, embarrassed. “Please call me David. Your first name is?”

  “I didn’t say,” Heather answered. “We tried to catch up with you in Mexico,” she said, ignoring her coffee. “You didn’t waste any time getting out of there.”

  “It was a good place to be from,” David said. “The volcano blew! I was in a helicopter crash and broke my leg. No one told me you were going to visit. Are you accusing me of something?” David realized he was defensive and angry. He didn’t like her accusatory tone.

  “There were 92 people murdered, and you were the last to see them alive.” Martin said. “You might have expected a few questions. Is it true you were the only survivor?”

  “I told the Mexican authorities everything I know,” David said. “As far as surviving, I was in Santa Rosalia when the others perished.”

  “We’re having a little trouble in translating the Mexican report,” Martin said. “If you can take a moment and try to recall all that happened, it will be a big help. It was our people conducting the experiment on the volcano, and Mexico is saying we caused the eruption. As the volcanologist on site, I’m hoping you can clarify a few things.”

  David raised his eyebrows. “To tell the truth, I’m not certain we didn’t cause the eruption. Then again we may have prevented it.”

  “You think we were at fault?” Martin asked, closely watching David’s expression. “You were the civilian scientist in charge.”

  David leaned forward. “I wouldn’t say I was in charge. I was sent there to support the townspeople. I had no idea what was going on until I arrived and was briefed by Colonel Frost. It wasn’t until then that I found out they were planning on tunneling into an active system. They wanted me to help them determine the path of the tunnel. Luckily, I had some information that helped me determine where and how magma was rising in the volcano. I did my doctorate on the Las Tres Virgenes Geothermal Field and had extensive knowledge of the size and shape of the magma chamber under the mountain. I didn’t find out the scale of Colonel Frost’s project until I visited the site on the mountain. Looking back on it, I suppose it wasn’t an accident they chose me, but I swear, I didn’t know it at the time. My boss, Clayton Brown, isn’t the easiest to get information out of. Boring a 60-foot diameter tunnel into the side of an active volcano isn’t something you see everyday. As far as I know, the data I gave Colonel Frost was accurate. The outcome, the disaster, was completely unpredictable, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “No need to be defensive. It wasn’t you that killed Colonel Frost and his crew, was it?”

  “When I got to the tunnel site everyone was already dead. You knew they didn’t die because of the eruption?” David watched as Agent Nichol’s jaw dropped. He took notice of Agent Martin’s expression.

  “Before that─you told the Mexican police there were intruders a few days earlier,” Martin said.

  “I thought you didn’t talk to the police.”

  “Let’s just say we have some information from a Mexican Police report. We’d like to hear the story again from you directly.”

  David went over the last time he’s seen Colonel Frost, and the, so called, intruders he’d seen being held at gunpoint when they came out of the tunnel.

  “The next time I visited the site, two days later, they were all dead. I have no idea who did it or why.”

  “Why don’t you start with what you know? We need every detail,” Martin said, picking up her coffee. “It seems you are the only witness. When the volcano erupted we lost all evidence of the massacre.”

  “Massacre? I guess it was, if the gas from the tunnel didn’t kill them. At the time, my best guess was that gases from the drilling killed the people on the mountain. I have to admit, I couldn’t come up with a plausible way that could happen. Prevailing winds and the lack of a basin for the fumes to collect in, make it less than plausible.”

  “Tell us again, what you saw that day,” Martin said. “Did you see any evidence that the site was attacked?”

  David was feeling a bit queasy, thinking of the dead, bloated bodies. But the more he thought about it, it seemed like something unusual had happened. “When I got there, I found dead bodies everywhere. In the headquarters of the scientists everyone was dead at their station, or on the floor, as if they were caught by surprise and died instantly. I didn’t see any massacre in the usual sense, just grotesque dead bodies.” David proceeded with his account of the events leading up to his crash in the desert. “The bodies I saw didn’t seem to have any gunshot wounds or any obvious cause of death. In fact, I don’t recall any blood. That’s why I thought they were poisoned by the HS gas.”

  “HS gas?” Nichols asked.

  “Hydrogen sulfide. Volcanoes are notorious for belching out the deadly stuff. There have been reports of whole villages near volcanoes being wiped out by the gas.”

  “Unfortunately, there wasn’t any evidence left behind. If we had a body we could do an autop
sy, but the volcano wiped out everything.” Martin slid her empty cup to the center of the coffee table.

  “I’ll get you a refill,” David said, rising. He went to the kitchen to get the coffee pot.

  “What do you think?” Martin asked Nichols while David was out of the room.

  “I don’t think he knows any more than he’s told us. He certainly doesn’t have a history of protesting or anti-government activity. He’s clean. I think we’ve hit a dead end.”

  Martin shook her head. “This one has me puzzled. How does a site with nearly a hundred people get wiped out by gas without anyone escaping?”

  “I just thought of something,” David said, coming in from the kitchen. He filled Martin’s mug and then poured his. “You sure you don’t want some, Agent Nichols?”

  Nichols shook her head. “I’m good. What did you remember?”

  “That day, the day the volcano erupted, I was leaving the tunnel in a panic. The mountain was vibrating and I knew it could blow at any minute. Everyone who wasn’t in the trailers was in the tunnel without a gas mask. Masks were available. Why would they go into the tunnel without them?”

  “Do you have a theory?” Martin asked.

  David scratched his head. “I saw some containers that looked like tear gas canisters on the ground around the site. Could they have contained a deadly gas?”

  “What did the canisters look like?” Martin asked.

  “I told you, I thought it was tear gas, like the police use to control crowds.”

  “Anything else?” Martin asked.

  “If someone attacked the camp with poison gas, those outside could have retreated to the tunnel to get away from it, only to be overcome by the deadly gas in the tunnel. They must have been in a panic, to run into the tunnel without grabbing a gas mask.” David looked into Martin’s eyes. She looked too beautiful to be an FBI agent. Not the statuesque superhero you see in the movies, just a feminine girl, like you might expect to see coming out of your neighbor’s house. He had to remind himself this was serious business. “Another thing. Colonel Frost mentioned Green Keepers were protesting the tunneling.”