Ground Truth

by Rob Sangster

  He pushed those images from his mind and imagined the hot water washing away his tension. Tomorrow was going to be a bitch.

  As soon as he went back into the other room, Gano jumped up, saying, “My turn.”

  The moment the bathroom door closed behind Gano, Jack said to Debra, “I think they’re filling up that cave near Batopilas with nuclear waste. We’re going back there in the morning.”

  “You were almost killed tonight at the plant.” Her eyes were wide with alarm. “Please don’t go to that cave.”

  “It’s not my first choice either, but there’s no other way to find out what I need to know.”

  “Why tomorrow?”

  “Our attack on the wells failed. We only crippled them, and Montana got away. He can’t get them operational tomorrow, but it won’t take much longer than that. I only have a few hours to fly to the cave and get back here in time. Besides, he’ll be as mad as a buffalo with a spear up its backside. He’ll have people searching for me, kicking down doors. And the Juarez cops will be after me for what I did to the plant. Maybe even for the murder of Ana-Maria. I can’t let that psycho police chief at the Juarez jail get his hands on me again.”

  When Gano reappeared in clean clothes, Jack said, “We need special gear for tomorrow. The only place we can get it by then is from Ed Rincon. Debra, will you call and persuade him to meet us at UTEP as soon as he can get there?”

  She cut her eyes at him, still angry. “I may not be able to persuade him to do anything. He’s already right on the edge of calling the cops.”

  “Tell him we’ll feed him some information. Maybe he’ll be curious enough to come.”

  “And maybe not.” She stalked out of the room to make the call.

  DEBRA’S DESCRIPTION of UTEP professor Ed Rincon had been dead on. Ghost thin, glancing incessantly around the room.

  “Thanks for coming, Dr. Rincon,” she said. “I’d like you to meet Jack Strider and Gano LeMoyne.” They shook hands, and Rincon sat on a high stool, waiting.

  “Now,” she said, “if you agree to strict confidentiality, Jack will fill you in.”

  Jack watched Rincon think that over, knowing he didn’t have enough facts to take to any authorities. Rincon popped the knuckle of his middle finger and said, “Very well.”

  Bone weary, Jack leaned against the edge of a table. The point of telling Rincon anything was to set him up for the request he planned to make in a minute.

  “The samples Debra brought you came from huge tanks in Juarez that are full of those chemicals,” he said. “Someone is about to dump them down injection wells into the aquifer. Gano and I tried to destroy the wells, but we were attacked by armed guards and barely got away.”

  “Ah,” Rincon breathed, in what seemed to be his equivalent of excitement. His restless gaze stopped and focused on Jack.

  Jack walked across the room to where Rincon perched on his high stool. “The damage we did gives us a small window of time while the wells are being repaired, but that same person has another scheme that could be even more disastrous. Early tomorrow, Gano and I are going to a secret site where I think he’s been dumping huge quantities of nuclear waste. Dr. Rincon, we need your help to stop him. I’m depending on you to get us the right equipment to test for radioactivity.”

  Rincon’s pupils again started bouncing around like pucks in a pinball machine.

  “Nuclear waste. Hmmm. How could you possibly know it’s nuclear waste?”

  Jack pulled out a print Debra had made from a frame of the video he shot over D-TECH. “Look at the markings on those barrels.”

  “The black and white one that looks like an atom is the sign for nuclear power,” Rincon said, “and the yellow and black one, the trefoil, is a radiation warning symbol. But even if you’re right, I don’t have any equipment that would be useful to you.”

  What was with this guy? He must be afraid that if he helps he’ll be blamed for something.

  “Look, Dr. Rincon, we’ll use this equipment exactly the way you tell us to. If you want, I’ll write up a statement holding you harmless. Now, even if you don’t have what we need here in your lab, it must exist somewhere in this university.”

  Rincon looked thoughtful. “Mr. Strider, you haven’t even told me the locations of the tanks or the cave or who’s behind this. I need to know all of that.”

  Jack read the bluff. Rincon didn’t “need” to know anything more. He was just a slave to his curiosity.

  “If you can help us but refuse to do so,” Jack said quietly, “you’ll have the consequences on your conscience.”

  This time Rincon didn’t hesitate. “The physics lab storeroom is on the floor above this one. Be right back.”

  Rincon returned with his arms loaded with gear. After he set the pile on the table, he held out a fiberglass case, about the size of a pulp paperback, with a small red bulb on top. “This is an Eberline Personal Contamination Monitor. The faster it clicks, the higher the radioactivity. It’s like a Geiger counter. It uses a string electrometer and ion chamber to detect gamma rays and—”

  Jack shook his head, conveying “you’re telling us more than we need to know.”

  “Yes, well,” Rincon went on, “you’ll also need these HEPA filter masks. They should protect you from inhaling airborne alpha-emitter particles from nuclear waste. Inhale too much of that, and you’ll die. Do not take the mask off.” He popped the knuckle of his index finger.

  He held out a half dozen of what looked like convention name tags. “These badges measure how much radiation you’ve been exposed to. Unfortunately, if the reading is high, it’s already too late to save yourself. You won’t be wearing an overcoat made of lead, so your only protection against Gamma rays is to get the hell away from the source as fast as you can.” He raised both skinny arms, palms up, as if committing Jack’s and Gano’s fates to the gods.

  Debra’s face was grim as she listened to Rincon describe threats more deadly than bullets. Even Gano made no wisecracks.

  They left the lab with Rincon, and Gano carried the gear in a sack as they walked across campus. Rincon pointed out the trapezoidal four-story main buildings made of stone blocks. “They’re replicas of dzongs in Bhutan, part fortress and part Buddhist monastery. Of course, nowadays almost no one knows or cares what they represent. That’s why—”

  “Ed,” Jack said, “we have to get going.”

  Rincon nodded to each of them and walked away, shaking his head.

  “Gano,” Debra asked, “what do you think of Jack’s plan?”

  “Totally nuts!”

  “So he shouldn’t do it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And you won’t help him with it.”

  “I’d have to be crazy.” He grinned and pinned on a badge.

  Chapter 42

  July 10

  10:00 a.m.

  GANO AMUSED himself playing chicken with treetops in a two-person helicopter that looked like a Plexiglas dragonfly. “This EchoStar is the cat’s ass,” Gano called over the sound of the rotor. “You should see me whip one of these suckers through the Grand Canyon.”

  They were headed for the Big Silverado mine shaft located on the other side of the mesa from the cave near Batopilas. As they flew, Gano told him a story.

  “The miners who dug the Big Silverado a hundred years ago accidentally broke into the Tarahumara sacred cave, the big crack you saw. They tried to keep it secret, but word of the desecration leaked out, and the Tarahumara shamans hurled curses and hexes at the Big Silverado. Soon after that, the thick vein of silver ore played out just as the shamans had promised, and the mine shut down.”

  “Is that story the reason you think the Big Silverado is a back door to the cave?” Jack asked. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Does a bird shit on your fre
shly washed truck?”

  Even though it was a long shot, Jack had to know whether there was radioactivity in the cave. “Back door it is.”

  “Here’s the way we do it,” Gano said. “I’ll bring this baby in as quiet as I can, but in this still air you can hear a pine needle drop. We have to figure the trolls over in that cave will hear us.” He throttled back. “Probably the last helicopter they heard was us snooping around. When they hear a chopper on this side of the mesa, they’ll come looking pronto. The road from the cave goes all the way ’round the end of the mesa. That gives us forty-five minutes max before they roll in here.” He pushed the control forward. “Elevator going down,” he said, and dropped below the rim of the mesa toward the mine opening.

  This was his third time with Gano in a tiny aircraft, and despite the acrobatics, he was beginning to feel okay about it. They hovered about thirty yards in front of the Big Silverado, looking at dozens of massive boulders piled up to block the entrance.

  “Son-of-a-coyote,” Gano exclaimed. “Those ol’ boys in the canyon have locked the back door. Look at the cat tracks of the machine that did all that. Those tracks are pretty new, too.”

  “Land anyway. We’ll take a closer look.” Jack checked his watch. Forty-five minutes wasn’t much time.

  When they climbed out of the EchoStar, the boulders rose thirty feet above their heads. Bolted to a 4 x 4 cedar post driven into the rocky soil was a metal sign bearing one word, “Peligro!” and the international symbol warning of falling rocks.

  “They’ve shown us their hole card,” Jack said. “They wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble unless they had something important to keep secret.”

  “Yeah, but we’re still locked out.”

  “Maybe not. Before we landed, I thought I noticed an opening under one of the biggest boulders.” He pointed near the top of the left side of the pile. “Could be a way in.”

  “I should have mentioned this before, oh Great Spelunker, but I have a bit of the ol’ claustrophobia. Squeezing in under a boulder that could shift and squash me is way more than I signed up for.”

  “No problem. I’ll take the gear and go in alone.” Jack wasn’t looking forward to fumbling his way through an abandoned mine shaft full of bats and scorpions, but he wasn’t turning back. He reached into the chopper, retrieved his gear, and slung the strap of the Eberline contamination counter case over his shoulder. He clipped the dosimeter to his belt and stuck a couple of HEPA filters into his pocket. He’d put one on at the first sign he was nearing the intersection with the cave.

  “Hold on, pard,” Gano protested, “I’m not explaining to Debra that I was out here sitting in the shade and having a belt of tequila while you were inside getting fried. Know what I mean?” He clipped on his dosimeter, stuffed the HEPA filters away, and hung a coil of rope over his shoulder. He tossed a flashlight to Jack. “Stealth LED, best there is.” Then he checked his .38.

  Jack walked to the boulders and started pulling himself up until he reached a horizontal fissure a couple of feet high, maybe two and a half, between monster rocks. He shined the powerful flash inside. The beam revealed nothing. He had to commit himself without knowing what was on the other side of the pile, which could be a sheer drop—or he might get wedged in part way, unable to back out.

  Jack checked his watch again. Ten minutes had passed since they’d landed. “I’ll go first.” He edged ahead, clawing with fingers, pushing with toes. The clearance quickly narrowed to just a few inches. He felt as if he were in a stone coffin with tons of rock poised to settle and flatten him into a wet spot. He began to hyperventilate. His chest expanded. The space closed in. Get a grip.

  He forced his breathing to slow, and, after inching forward over a second boulder, then a third, his beam of light showed he had reached the mine’s main tunnel. He kept scooting until he was hanging head down on the angled surface of a boulder about 15 feet above the tunnel’s floor. He gave a last push to free himself from the crevice and swung to his left for a handhold. He got it, but couldn’t hold on, and dropped, barely getting his feet under him. The momentum threw him onto his back, and his skull banged against the tunnel’s floor. That pain was nothing compared to his relief.

  A beam of light appeared above him, then Gano’s head. “Damn, I hated that. I closed my eyes and made like a crayfish all the way. Couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t gone first, Old Scout. You’re not so bad, even if you don’t pack heat.”

  “Push yourself out and get your feet under you. I’ll break your fall.”

  Gano did as instructed. Then, with Gano close behind, Jack moved down the tunnel slowly, using the slimy wall as a guide, flashing the Stealth only long enough to reveal the next few steps. When he rapped a century-old timber support beam, it sounded hollow, as if dry rot had eaten it. A few feet farther, and the ceiling began to slope down to his shoulder level, forcing him to bend deeply.

  “Maybe it’s breathing air that smells like rotten fungus,” Gano said hoarsely, “but I’m good for about one more minute before I need to head out of here. I’m no goddamned mole.”

  “Can’t be much farther.” Seemed like the best thing to say even though he had no idea how far they had to go. He guessed that the side shaft that intersected with the cave would branch off to their left. If he was wrong and they had to retreat and try another shaft, men driving from the cave could show up in time to trap them in the mine.

  Just then, his beam of light picked out a side shaft partially blocked by a crude wooden barrier. That had to be it, so he edged past the barrier. The ceiling of the side shaft remained low, and the width narrowed. The mountain was closing in. His back ached, but if he complained, Gano would use that as an excuse to bail out.

  He stopped to listen. The faint sound of running water that had been with them for a while was getting louder. Now it was joined by the low hum of a motor and muffled voices. He fitted a HEPA filter mask to his face, signaled to Gano to do the same, and inched forward, feeling his way along the rough wall.

  The ceiling rose abruptly, so far up he couldn’t touch it. A faint light began to illuminate their shaft, growing stronger as they advanced. Voices grew louder. They had reached the sacred cave.

  He rolled his shoulders and shook his arms a few times to loosen up and then peered around the last corner. A floor-to-ceiling wire mesh barricade bolted to the stone walls blocked their way. Beyond the mesh, more than a dozen men were at work, every one wearing knee-high rubber boots, rough work clothes and a face mask. A man shouting orders to the others wore gloves and a protective suit that looked like it was made of aluminum foil.

  A great chamber opened up ahead of him, its scale far greater than he’d imagined. The section he saw was filled with hundreds of metal drums stacked in neat rows. Off to the left, cement cylinders the size of mini-submarines were lined up behind red warning tape.

  He couldn’t fully interpret what he saw, but those cylinders weren’t for low-level waste from hospitals or university labs. They looked exactly like pictures he’d seen of containers for high-level nuclear waste.

  Two forklifts idled, drivers talking with one another, and then one drove in their direction. He told himself there was no way the operator could have spotted them, that they were safe behind the wire mesh, but the machine coming at him was unnerving. Fifty feet away, the driver wheeled ninety degrees to place another metal drum in its row.

  Gano tapped his back to get his attention, then tapped the glowing face of his watch. Thirty minutes had passed. They were out of time, but a radioactivity reading was the whole point of taking this risk. He swung the Eberline counter around in front of him and felt across the control panel until he found the “On” switch. Ed Rincon had described the low buzz the machine would produce if there were any radioactivity; slow clicks for a low level, faster if the level was high. Fortunately, the sound should be masked by
the machinery in the cave.

  He flipped the switch to “On.” It started as a slow hum and immediately rose to sound like a rasp drawn across the edge of sheet metal. Within ten seconds the rapid-fire clicks blurred together in a whine that reverberated back into the mine shaft. He slapped at the switch, missed, and had to fumble to shut off the racket, too late to prevent workmen from hearing and knowing where it came from.

  Gano pulled him away from the mesh barricade and gave him a shove to propel him back to the shaft’s opening. He stumbled forward, banged his forehead on the lower ceiling, but managed to keep his flashlight on as he shuffled, bent over, at triple their pace coming in.

  “You okay?” he called back to Gano.

  “Yeah, but now I’m worried more about the artillery comin’ by road.”

  They reached the boulder barrier. Jack pulled himself up, diving into the crevice head first and wriggling thorough like a salamander.

  Just before the opening, he stopped, remembering that Gano was armed and should have gone first. But if the guards were already there, Gano’s gun couldn’t save them. He poked his head out of the crevice. No vehicles in sight, and the chopper appeared untouched. He moved out of Gano’s way and scrambled down the boulders.

  “Guess we’re not as popular as we thought,” Gano said. “Let’s take off before the party starts.” Then he pointed to Jack’s belt and said, “Son-of-a-bitch! Does that dosimeter reading say what I think it does?”

  Before he could unbuckle the dosimeter to read it, a dust plume rose near the end of the mesa. “They’re here.”

  They raced to the chopper. Seconds later, a pickup with a bed full of men barreled down the dirt road toward the Big Silverado.