“The pH reading is about 6.4. Not nearly the extreme we found two days ago, but still well below normal seawater levels.”
“Low enough to create havoc with the phytoplankton, which will ultimately sound a death knell up the food chain,” Dirk noted.
Summer gazed at the serene beauty of Gil Island and the surrounding passage inlets, then shook her head. “Hard to figure what could be causing the high acidity levels in such a pristine area,” she said.
“Maybe a passing freighter with a leaky bilge or one that outright dumped some toxic waste,” Dirk posed.
Trevor shook his head. “It’s not very likely here. Commercial traffic generally runs on the other side of Gil Island. Typically, the only traffic through here is fishing boats and ferryboats. And of course the occasional Alaskan cruise ship.”
“Then we’ve got to expand our sampling until we can pinpoint the source,” Summer said, labeling the specimen and preparing the Niskin bottle for another drop.
For the next several hours, Dirk steered the boat in ever-widening circles, while Summer and Trevor took dozens of water samples. To their chagrin, none of the samples approached the low pH levels reported by the Seattle lab. Letting the boat drift as they took a late-afternoon lunch, Dirk printed out a chart and showed it to the others.
“We’ve run a series of circles extending to an eight-mile radius from our initial sample. As it turns out, that was our peak reading. Everything south of there showed normal pH levels. But north of that point, it is a different story. We’re picking up reduced pH levels in a rough cone shape.”
“Flowing with the prevailing currents,” Trevor noted. “It might well have been a onetime spill of pollutants.”
“Perhaps it’s a natural phenomenon,” Summer suggested. “An underwater volcanic mineral that is creating a high acidity.”
“Now that we know where to look, we’ll be able to find the answer,” Dirk said.
“I don’t understand,” Trevor replied with a blank look.
“NUMA technology to the rescue,” Summer replied. “We’ve got side-scan sonar and an ROV aboard. If there is something on the bottom, we’ll be able to spot it one way or another.”
“But that will have to wait for another day,” Dirk said, noting the late hour. Restarting the motor, he nosed the research boat in the direction of Kitimat and accelerated to twenty-five knots. When they drew closer to Kitimat, Dirk let out a low whistle when he noticed an LNG tanker tucked under a covered dock off a small inlet.
“Can’t believe they run one of those babies in and out of here,” he said.
“She must be offloading at Mitchell Goyette’s carbon sequestration facility,” Summer replied. As she and Trevor explained to Dirk the function of the facility, he eased off the throttle and turned toward the docked tanker.
“What are you doing?” Summer asked.
“Carbon sequestration. Carbon dioxide and acidity go together like peanut butter and jelly — you said so yourself,” he replied. “Maybe there’s a connection with the tanker.”
“The tanker is bringing in CO2 to offload at the facility. An inbound ship could have had an accidental leakage in the passage,” Trevor said. “Though that particular tanker must have come in last night or early this morning.”
“Trevor’s right,” Summer added. “The tanker wasn’t there yesterday, and we didn’t see it in the channel before that.” She studied the facility’s pier, which stretched out into the channel, noticing that Goyette’s luxury yacht and the other visiting boats had all disappeared.
“No harm in collecting a few samples to make sure they’re honest,” Dirk countered.
Seconds later, a dark speedboat came roaring out of the covered dock and headed directly for the NUMA vessel. Dirk ignored the boat and held his course and speed.
“Somebody’s awake,” he muttered. “We’re not even within a mile of the place. A tad touchy, aren’t they?”
He watched as the speedboat veered off when it drew near, circling around in a loop before pulling alongside the research boat. There were three men seated aboard, dressed in innocuous brown security uniforms. But there was nothing innocuous about the Heckler & Koch HK416 assault rifles they each held across their laps.
“You are approaching private waters,” barked one of the men through a bullhorn. “Turn away immediately.” One of his partners, a stocky Inuit wearing a crew cut, waved his rifle toward the NUMA boat’s wheelhouse for added emphasis.
“I just want to fish off the inlet,” Dirk yelled back, pointing toward the waterway that led to the covered dock. “There’s a deep hole off the mouth teeming with coho.”
“No fishing,” blared the voice through the bullhorn. Crew Cut stood up and pointed his rifle at Dirk for a moment, then motioned with his barrel to turn away. Dirk casually spun the wheel to starboard and pulled away, feigning ignorance of the threat on his life as he tossed a friendly wave at the speedboat. As the boat turned away, Summer nonchalantly leaned over the stern deck gunwale and scooped up a vial of water.
“What’s with the heavy security?” Dirk asked Trevor, as they sped the last few miles to Kitimat.
“They claim they’re trying to protect their proprietary technology, but who knows for sure? The company has shown signs of paranoia from the first day that they broke ground. They brought in their own team of construction workers to build it and have their own team of people to run it. They’re mostly Tlingit, but not from around here. I’ve heard that not a single local resident has been hired for any phase of the operation. On top of that, the employees have their own housing on the grounds. They are never even seen in town.”
“Have you been through the facility?”
“No,” Trevor replied. “My involvement was upfront, with environmental impact statements and the like. I reviewed the plans and walked the site during construction, but was never invited back after they received all of their building approvals. I made several requests to make an on-site review after they went operational, but never got the backing from my higher-ups to press the issue.”
“A powerful guy like Mitchell Goyette can incite a lot of fear in the right places,” Dirk noted.
“You are exactly right. I heard rumors that his acquisition of the building site was accomplished by a great deal of coercion. His building and environmental approvals breezed through without a hiccup, which is nearly unheard-of around here. Somehow, somewhere, there were some skids greased.”
Summer interrupted the conversation by entering the bridge with a vial of water held up in front of her. “Acidity level is normal, at least from a mile outside the facility.”
“Too far off to tell us anything for sure,” Trevor said, looking back at the facility with a contemplative gaze.
Dirk had his own deliberate look about him. He liked to play by the rules but had little tolerance for authoritarian bullying tactics. Summer liked to joke that he was a jovial Clark Kent, who always gave a handout to a beggar or held a door open for a woman. But if someone told him he couldn’t do something, he was apt to turn into the Tasmanian Devil. The confrontation with the security boat rattled his sense of propriety and alerted his suspicions, while silently elevating his blood pressure a few millimeters. He waited until the boat was docked and Trevor waved good-bye, agreeing to meet for dinner in an hour. Then he turned to Summer.
“I’d like to take a closer look at that sequestration facility,” he said.
Summer stared at the first lights of Kitimat shimmering on the water as twilight approached. Then she replied, answering in a way that Dirk least expected.
“You know, I think I would, too.”
16
It was after six P.M. when Loren and Pitt arrived at Georgetown University Hospital and were allowed into Lisa Lane’s room. Given her brush with death earlier in the day, she looked remarkably robust. A mammoth bandage covered her left shoulder, and her broken leg had been set in a cast and elevated. Beyond a pallor from loss of blood, she appeared fully luc
id, and perked up at the sight of her visitors.
Loren rushed over and gave her a peck on the cheek while Pitt set a large vase of pink lilies next to the bed.
“Looks like the good folks of Georgetown patched you up nicely,” Pitt observed with a grin.
“My dear, how are you feeling?” Loren asked, pulling a chair up alongside the bed.
“Pretty good, under the circumstances,” Lisa replied with a forced smile. “The pain medication isn’t quite keeping up with my throbbing leg, but the doctors tell me it will heal as good as new. Just remind me to cancel my aerobics class for the next few weeks.”
She turned to Pitt with a serious look. “They’ve given me six units of red blood cells since I arrived. The doctor said I was lucky. I would have died from blood loss if you hadn’t found me when you did. Thank you for saving my life.”
Pitt winked at her. “You are much too important to lose now,” he said, brushing off his actions.
“It was a miracle,” Loren said. “Dirk told me how devastated the lab was. It is amazing that no one in the building was killed.”
“Dr. Maxwell stopped by earlier. He promised to buy me a new lab.” She smiled. “Though he was a little disappointed that I didn’t know what happened.”
“You don’t know what caused the explosion?” Loren asked.
“No. I thought it came from a neighboring lab.”
“From what I saw of the damage, it appeared that the blast was centered in the room where I found you,” Pitt said.
“Yes, that’s what Dr. Maxwell told me. I’m not sure he believed me when I told him that there was nothing in my lab that could have caused that large of an explosion.”
“It was a pretty powerful bang,” Pitt agreed.
Lisa nodded. “I’ve sat here and pictured every element and piece of equipment in that lab. All of the materials we have been working with are inert. We have a number of gas tanks for the experiments, but Dr. Maxwell indicated that they were all found intact. The equipment is basically benevolent. There was simply nothing volatile I can think of that would have caused such a thing.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Loren said. “Maybe it was something with the building, an old gas line or something.”
They were interrupted by a stern-faced nurse who came in and propped up Lisa’s bed, then slid a tray of dinner in front of her.
“Guess we better be on our way so that you can enjoy the hospital’s epicurean delights,” Pitt said.
“I’m sure it won’t compare to last night’s crabs,” Lisa said, struggling to laugh. Then her face turned to a frown. “By the way, Dr. Maxwell mentioned that an old car parked in front of the building was severely damaged by the explosion. The Auburn?”
Pitt nodded with a hurt look. “Afraid so,” he said. “But don’t worry. Like you, she can be rebuilt to as good as new.”
There was a knock on the door behind them, then a lean man with a ragged beard entered the room.
“Bob,” Lisa greeted. “I’m glad you’re here. Come meet my friends,” she said, introducing Loren and Pitt to her lab assistant Bob Hamilton.
“I still can’t believe you made it out without a scratch,” Lisa kidded him.
“Lucky for me I was in the cafeteria having lunch when the lab went boom,” he said, eyeing Loren and Pitt with uncertainty.
“A fortunate thing,” Loren agreed. “Are you as stumped as Lisa by what happened?”
“Completely. There could have been a leak in one of our pressure canisters that somehow ignited, but I think it was something in the building. A freak accident, whatever the source, and now all of Lisa’s research is destroyed.”
“Is that true?” Pitt asked.
“All the computers were destroyed, which contained the research databases,” Bob replied.
“We should be able to piece it together once I get back to the lab… if I still have a lab,” Lisa said.
“I’ll demand that the president of GWU ensure that it is safe before you step into that building again,” Loren said.
She turned to Bob. “We were just leaving. Very nice to meet you, Bob.” Then she leaned over and kissed Lisa again. “Take care, honey. I’ll visit again tomorrow.”
“What a terrible ordeal,” Loren said to Pitt as they left the room and walked down the brightly lit hospital corridor to the elevator. “I’m so glad she is going to be all right.”
When all she got from Pitt was a slight nod in reply, she looked into his green eyes. They had a faraway look, one she had seen on many occasions, usually when Pitt was struggling to track down a lost shipwreck or decipher the mystery of some ancient documents.
“Where are you?” she finally prodded him.
“Lunch,” he replied cryptically.
“Lunch? ”
“What time do most people eat lunch?” he asked.
She looked at him oddly. “Eleven-thirty to one, I suppose, for whatever that is worth.”
“I walked into the building just prior to the explosion. The time was ten-fifteen, and our friend Bob was already having lunch,” he said with a skeptical tone. “And I’m pretty sure I saw him standing across the street looking like a spectator after the ambulance left with Lisa. He didn’t seem to show much concern that his coworker might be dead.”
“He was probably in a state of shock. You were probably in a state of shock, for that matter. And maybe he’s one of those guys that goes to work at five in the morning, so he’d hungry for lunch by ten.” She gave him a skeptical look. “You’ll have to do better than that,” she added, shaking her head.
“I suppose you are right,” he said, grabbing her hand as they walked out of the hospital’s front door. “Who am I to argue with a politician?”
17
Arthur Jameson was tidying up his mahogany desk when an aide knocked on the open door and walked in. The spacious but conservatively decorated office of the natural resources minister commanded an impressive view of Ottawa from its twenty-first-floor perch in the Sir William Logan Building, and the aide couldn’t help but peek out the window as he approached the minister’s desk. Seated in a high-back leather chair, Jameson peered from the aide to an antique grandfather clock that was ticking toward four o’clock. Hopes of escaping the bureaucracy early vanished with the aide’s approaching footsteps.
“Yes, Steven,” the minister said, welcoming the twenty-something aide who faintly resembled Jim Carrey. “What do you have to sour my weekend?”
“Don’t worry, sir, no environmental disasters of note,” the aide smiled. “Just a brief report from the Pacific Forestry Centre in British Columbia that I thought you should take a look at. One of our field ecologists has reported unusually high levels of acidity in the waters off Kitimat.”
“Kitimat, you say?” the minister asked, suddenly stiffening.
“Yes. You were just there visiting a carbon waste facility, weren’t you?”
Jameson nodded as he grabbed the file and quickly scanned the report. He visibly relaxed after studying a small map of the area. “The results were found some sixty miles from Kitimat, along the Inside Passage. There are no industrial facilities anywhere near that area. It was probably an error in the sampling. You know how we get false reports all the time,” he said with a reassuring look. He calmly closed the file and slid it to the side of his desk without interest.
“Shouldn’t we call the B.C. office and have them resample the water? ”
Jameson exhaled slowly. “Yes, that would be the prudent thing to do,” he said quietly. “Call them on Monday and request another test. No sense in getting excited unless they can duplicate the results.”
The aide nodded in consent but stood rooted in front of the desk. Jameson gave him a fatherly look.
“Why don’t you clear out of here, Steven? Go take that fiancée of yours out to dinner. I hear there’s a great new bistro that just opened on the riverfront.”
“You don’t pay me enough to dine there,” the aide grinned. “But I’ll t
ake you up on the early exit. Have a great weekend, sir, and I’ll see you on Monday.”
Jameson watched the aide leave his office and waited as the sound of his footsteps faded down the hallway. Then he grabbed the file and read through the report details. The acidity results didn’t appear to have any correlation to Goyette’s facility, but a feeling in Jameson’s stomach told him otherwise. He was in too deep to get crossways with Goyette now, he thought, as the instinct for self-preservation took over. He picked up the telephone and quickly punched a number by memory, grinding his teeth in anxiety as the line rang three times. A woman’s voice finally answered, her tone feminine but efficient.
“Terra Green Industries. May I help you?”
“Resources Minister Jameson,” he replied brusquely. “Calling for Mitchell Goyette.”
18
Dirk and Summer quietly shoved their boat away from the municipal dock and drifted into the harbor. When the current had pushed them out of view of the dock, Dirk started the engine and guided them slowly down the channel. The sky overhead had partially cleared, allowing a splash of starlight to strike the water as the midnight hour was consumed. The bellow from a bay-front honky-tonk provided the only competing sound as they motored slowly away from town.
Dirk kept the boat in the center of the channel, following the mast light of a distant troll boat heading out early in search of some prize coho salmon. Easing away from the lights of Kitimat, they sailed in darkness for several miles until navigating a wide bend in the channel. Ahead, the water glistened like polished chrome, reflecting the bright lights of the Terra Green sequestration plant.
As the boat moved downstream, Dirk could see that the facility grounds were dotted with brilliant overhead floodlights, which cast abstract shadows against the surrounding pines. Only the huge covered dock was kept muted by the spotlights, shading the presence of the LNG tanker that lay moored inside.
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