Scratchgravel Road: A Mystery

by Tricia Fields

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Sandy Davis, the lead engineer studying the flood problem, is here in my office. She and another engineer took a helicopter up to check the mountains. They spotted a breach this morning. The chance of a mudslide just increased tenfold.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “She said it was hard to speculate. They spent all morning checking measurements. There’s so many variables. Including the current rain.”

  “What kind of problems are you talking about?”

  He sighed. “It’s best if we talk in person.”

  “Okay. Worst-case scenario. How long?” Josie listened to Diego’s muffled voice as he conferred with his engineer. He finally came back on the line. “If the mountain runoff breaks loose, a mudslide is imminent. She thinks worst case is three hours.”

  Josie felt the panic well up in her throat. “Have you started making calls for resources—people and agencies who can help with an evacuation?”

  “Sylvia is on the phone. Another engineer is helping her place the calls. She’s already called your county maintenance.”

  “We’ll be there in five.”

  * * *

  On the drive back to the plant Josie reached Lou and filled her in on the situation. She requested that Lou call Marta in for assistance but was told that the mayor had just sent her over to Presidio to aid in an evacuation. Two families were stranded in their homes due to flooding and the water was rising.

  “I was picking up the phone to call you and Otto out when you called. I’ve lived in Artemis twenty years and never seen flooding like this,” Lou said.

  “Keep me updated. I’ll check in after my meeting at the Feed Plant.”

  Ten minutes later Josie and Otto were sitting in a large meeting room at a conference table. Sylvia Moore had ushered them in and placed coffee on the table for them, then sat down at the far end where she turned on a laptop. Diego entered shortly after and one woman and three men followed behind him. Lines radiated from his eyes as he talked quietly to the woman, who Josie assumed was the lead engineer at the company. He pulled her chair out for her and she sat, the conversation never missing a beat. She had short gray hair cut close to her head and wore a tasteful starched blue shirt and dress pants. Josie figured she was in her late fifties and thought she appeared to have an easy disposition.

  Diego remained standing and called them together with few formalities.

  “I realize we don’t have the full group. As more people become involved, we’ll update as needed. Sylvia will be typing up our plan so we’ll all be clear on the details.” He glanced at the wall where her notes were being projected.

  He sat down and cleared his throat. “First, introductions. To my left is Chief of Police Josie Gray. She and Officer Otto Podowski actually met with me earlier this morning about our disaster preparedness plan. I appreciate the department’s forethought.” He gestured to Otto, who nodded to the engineers across the table. “They will be our liaisons with the law enforcement agencies and will be key to moving this plan forward. If we need additional manpower I will count on Josie’s help to work with area residents.”

  Diego looked at Josie and she nodded in agreement. Rarely were the local police afforded the respect that they deserved for their experience and expertise in dealing with local disasters.

  “To my right is Sandy Davis. She is our lead engineer. She knows the layout of the plant, including the danger areas, better than anyone.” Sandy introduced the three men sitting to her left, all of whom were engineers. They obviously would be taking their orders from her. And, finally, she introduced Scott Franklin, a chemical expert.

  Diego took over the meeting again. “Sandy, I’d like for you to first explain the concern you shared with me before the meeting. It’s important we put this into perspective for everyone.”

  She straightened her back and folded her hands on top of her legal pad. Her face was lightly freckled and it reddened as she began speaking. Her voice was quiet but controlled and confident.

  “I have been following radiation disasters throughout the world for thirty years. There have been surprisingly few. Given the potential for disaster, the industry has put strenuous safeguards in place. With that comes a cost. When a catastrophe does strike, there is very little to fall back on in terms of response and baseline data. To my knowledge, I don’t know of another former weapons plant that has faced flooding, or more specifically mudslides.” She turned to Josie and Otto. “This is new territory, and we don’t have a sufficient response. The tsunami that hit Japan was a completely different situation. We’re not dealing with reactors or meltdowns. We’re dealing with enriched uranium byproduct. Waste that is highly radioactive.”

  “Are you referring to the barrels?” Josie asked.

  She nodded. “In part. They are the most immediate concern because the mudflow would hit that area first. But there are other areas of the plant that could be in more serious jeopardy. The pilot unit has a significant amount of high-level radioactive matter. It would be disastrous if that building was compromised. We also have two concrete silos that are not in good shape.”

  “What’s inside them?” Otto asked.

  “Sludge. Radioactive byproducts. The waste is safe inside the concrete, but you know the immense damage that can be wrought by a mudslide. If the slide gains momentum as it comes down the mountain, and picks up debris along the way, it will act like a bulldozer by the time it hits the plant. My greatest fear is that it will pick up those metal barrels and they’ll have the force needed to tear down the silos and certain buildings in their path.”

  She stopped, and no one spoke for a time.

  Finally Diego broke the silence. “Our current disaster plan does not sufficiently prepare us for a mudslide of the magnitude that we’re facing. Mudslides have never been a serious risk until now. In the past, heavy rains have funneled to the east of the plant due to the natural contours of the land.”

  Sandy broke in. “It’s the mountain range behind the plant. Specifically, Norton’s Peak. Our pilot’s been flying over it the past two days. It’s crumbling. And there’s a great deal of mud and debris coming with it. We have concrete barriers in place, but the response won’t be enough if we have an actual slide.”

  Diego said, “I’d like to list the major issues we’re facing, and then we’ll prioritize.” He turned to Josie. “Finally, we’ll come up with a command group and dole out responsibilities.” He glanced around the table and received nods.

  Over the next twenty minutes the engineers made a list of key areas that had to be protected. They also agreed they needed the helicopter back in the air to monitor the flow. Once the list was generated, they prioritized and starred the situations that had to be dealt with immediately. Finally, Sylvia took the list and put it into a table format and they began listing agencies and key personnel that needed to be called for information or manpower.

  One of the engineers walked to the back of the room to call the helicopter pilot, who was fueled up, ready to fly, but on hold waiting orders. He was told to take two other engineers to fly the area and collect information to share with Mike Ramey, one of the engineers at the table. In his early twenties and fresh out of graduate school, Mike wasn’t quite smiling with excitement, but he was obviously glad to be a part of the response group.

  “Let’s get a camera up there too,” Mike said. “We can get a live feed in here to monitor what they see from the air.”

  Sandy gave him a thumbs-up and he left the table to get it set up.

  Diego was saying, “Our number-one goal is to shift that slide so it moves around the plant, not through the middle of it. This was part of our emergency plan, but we hadn’t seen it as an immediate threat. The flows have always taken place east of here, but something broke loose in the mountains with the foot of rain we received this week. Everything has shifted course.”

  “Wouldn’t it be faster and more reliable to organize a quick-response te
am to move the material? Why not get as many flatbed trucks and semis—every truck we can find—to move those barrels to higher ground?” Josie asked.

  Diego stared at Josie for a moment and she assumed he was choosing his words carefully.

  He pursed his lips and ran a finger between his neck and shirt collar as if trying to stretch the fabric. “The barrels are not in moveable condition. We’ve held off on the waste in the barrels because we’re close to a better solution for storage. They were better off stationary than moving them twice,” he said.

  “So what you’re saying is that the barrels are corroded to the point that we can’t move them?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “What happens if they’re moved in the mudslide?” she asked.

  “The barrels in the back third of the parking lot were placed there first. They’ve received the most weathering. They are what we’re most concerned with. The metal on some of the barrels has weakened. They are not leaking. There’s no groundwater contamination. However, I would not feel comfortable moving them without precautions.”

  “We don’t have the time to move them safely,” Sandy agreed.

  “How do you divert a wall that could weigh hundreds of tons by the time you figure in the momentum of the moving debris?” Otto asked. “I’ve seen news footage of people trying to divert mudslides, and they usually end in disaster.”

  Sylvia raised a finger and held a phone receiver against her chest. “Mr. Paiva?”

  He nodded for her to continue.

  “Department of Transportation is sending a team. They should be here in thirty minutes. Environmental Protection Agency is flying in a team as well, but they’re about an hour out.” Paiva thanked her and she put the phone back to her ear.

  He continued. “We’re in agreement. We’ve all seen the slides in Japan where entire interstate systems were wiped out in a matter of seconds. Those massive structures didn’t even slow the mudflow.” He glanced at Sandy, who took over the conversation.

  “Fortunately, we’re not facing a mudslide of that magnitude. It is the location of this slide that is our concern. We’re thinking our best bet is to go down, not up.”

  Josie said, “In other words, dig a trench instead of building a wall.”

  Diego nodded. “Have you had any experience using explosives to divert mudslides?”

  Josie and Otto both shook their heads no.

  “We have the explosives. But we need an explosives expert to develop a plan.”

  Otto said, “You want to blow holes in the ground. Make a trench to divert the flow?”

  “That’s exactly it,” Sandy said.

  “Why not just use a trencher?” Josie asked. “Wouldn’t that be safer?”

  “We can use it to lay the explosives, but not for the whole diversion,” Sandy said. “We have a Ditch Witch Quad trencher on site, and it’ll dig down eight feet, but only twenty-four inches wide. That won’t help with the mudslide. We need a five- to ten-foot width to do any good.”

  Diego’s face was grave. “Here’s another concern. We can make estimated guesses, but in the end, we don’t know what the explosions are going to do to the equipment and the volatile nature of some of our experimental solutions.”

  “When you say volatile nature? Are you referring to a nuclear explosion? What do you mean?” Josie asked.

  The chemical engineer sitting to Sandy’s left raised a finger and looked at Diego. “Mind if I take this?”

  Diego nodded. “Please do.”

  The man had been introduced as Scott Franklin. He was a chemical expert who said he specialized in designing and implementing cleanup solutions.

  “Part of my job is to supervise volatile chemical experiments in the pilot plant. We deal with chemicals that quite honestly are just as dangerous as the radiation everyone fears. The explosive nature of some of the chemicals is enough to kill us all several times over.” He pursed his lips and glanced around the room, letting the weight of his words sink in. “I guess my point is that we’re working in unpredictable conditions. I have chemical compounds that haven’t been exposed to tremors. There are a lot of variables with explosives that I don’t personally feel comfortable with. What kind of tremors will be felt in the lab?” He frowned and looked around the table, his expression full of worry.

  Sandy’s face reddened and her eyes widened. “We’ve been through this. None of us are comfortable with any of this! We’re operating in crisis mode here, Scott. This isn’t the time for covering your ass. We need your expertise to help us figure out solutions based on the facts we have. Not what we would like to have.”

  Scott looked hurt by her response but he said nothing in return.

  “Do you have an explosives team?” Josie asked.

  Diego smiled grimly. “I was going to ask you the same. Sandy and I have talked. We’ve got the explosives, but no one on site with the experience to work with them.”

  Josie glanced at Otto, who nodded agreement.

  “Otto and I know someone who might do it. He works at the County Maintenance Department in Artemis as a mechanic. He was in the army. Served as an explosives ordnance disposal tech.”

  Diego looked skeptical. “How long ago was he in the service?”

  “He’s been out of the service a little over a year,” Josie said. “He served two tours of duty in Iraq. I don’t think you’ll find a better option than Mitch.”

  Otto said, “The local paper had a writeup when he came home. He was a master EOD specialist when he left the army. Received some kind of commendation for valor.”

  “Let’s get him out here then,” Diego said.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Cassidy stood in front of her living room window and peeked through the curtains. She watched Leo back out of the driveway and drive toward town, where he was headed to pick up groceries. Cassidy had convinced him she had a headache and felt too sick to run errands. Begrudgingly, he had left.

  Cassidy figured she had twenty minutes. She sat at the kitchen table where Leo kept his laptop set up, where he conducted his research for the Feed Plant. She had stood behind him while she was making dinner on two different occasions and was able to figure out his login and password to unlock the computer, and to connect to the Internet. Cassidy had shown no interest in computers or the Internet, and she was hoping she could use this to her advantage. She was hoping once she logged in to his computer, the information wouldn’t be protected or hidden.

  First, she logged in to his e-mail account and read everything for the past two weeks, both sent and received. She found nothing that connected to the body or Scratchgravel Road. In order to cover her tracks, she marked the new e-mail she had just opened as unread, and then closed the program. She had no idea if he would be able to tell that she had opened his e-mail, but she couldn’t worry about it at this point.

  Next, she opened Internet Explorer and checked his bookmarked sites. She clicked through several Web sites and found horrific pictures of radiation poisoning and chemical burns. She could barely force herself to look at the pictures, worrying that Leo might have killed the man in the desert in the same way the people in the pictures had been killed.

  Since the evening she had come home from the hospital and threatened to move out, Leo had changed. He had been talking to her more, helped her cook dinner the night before, actually acted interested in what she had to say. But his attempts were too little, too late. She thought it was all an act. He was spending countless hours on the computer each day, and she suspected it was related to the dead man.

  Cassidy was scrolling through his list of “Favorites” and saw a link to First Bank and Trust—not their bank. She clicked on the link and a login appeared with Leo’s name preloaded. As far as she knew, they only had one account, with Bank of America, where both their checks were automatically deposited. She typed in the same password that she had used to log in to his computer and was taken to an account page. A few clicks later and she discovered Leo had made a deposit
the day before in the amount of $1,200. She leaned back in the chair, staring at the computer screen, with no idea how to move forward.

  * * *

  Mitch Wilson entered the conference room thirty minutes after his conversation on the phone with Josie. He was wearing a grease-stained navy blue mechanic’s shirt and pants. With his shaggy black hair, tattooed arms, and deep southern drawl, he seemed more Hell’s Angel than ordnance specialist, but Josie felt confident in his abilities. She hoped the group from Beacon wouldn’t judge his skills by his appearance.

  She introduced him to the group, and he apologized for his uniform.

  “Had my head under the hood of a plow. Trying to keep those old machines on the road in this kind of mess is a never-ending problem,” he said.

  “Please don’t apologize. We appreciate you coming on such short notice,” Paiva said. “I understand you worked as an EOD for the army?”

  He nodded slowly. “Trained at Fort Lee. Served six years.”

  “I served as an engineer in the army for twenty years. My experience led me here.”

  Mitch nodded.

  “I believe Chief Gray gave you a rundown on our situation. If the rain keeps up, we’re facing the potential of a mudslide in a matter of hours. And that’s just a guess. We don’t have time for options. Diverting the flow is the best idea we’ve got right now.”

  “Makes good sense to me.”

  “Are you experienced in laying and detonating explosives?”

  “Take ’em apart, put ’em together, blow ’em up.” He grinned. “You name it, I can do it.”

  Diego laughed. “It’s good to see your confidence. I’m afraid we’re well out of our comfort zone here.”

  “C-4 explosives?” Mitch asked.

  Diego nodded.

  “You have enough det cord, blasting caps, and so on?”

  “We’ve got everything you need. One of our engineers will get you set up,” Diego said.

  “Excellent. Let’s do this.”

  Paiva nodded, and Josie could see the relief in his expression.