American Justice

by J K Ellem

  The counting was over.

  Careful but firm hands pulled him out of the back, and the cold air hit him immediately. The ground was dirt, he smelled dust and the forest around him.

  Shaw cashed out, the game over, and thanked the dealer. He counted up the piles of time chips in his head, all neatly arranged according to color, each color a different speed, terrain, and distance.

  They had placed him in the back of the SUV, in the middle between two others, a gun pressed against his ribs the entire trip. It was late afternoon, despite the window tinting he could feel the sun come in through the left side and touch his left knee, not his right. Driving north, afternoon sun dipping in the west, left knee warm, right knee cold.

  Then they’d turned east.

  He totaled up his winnings.

  Just under two hours of driving time, different speeds and different directions, but up a mountain side. Still in Utah.

  They marched him forward then pulled him up. He could feel something expansive open up before him, something reaching out toward him, something sinister, something dark and empty. Then a sharp sting in his right thigh, and it didn’t matter if the hood was on or not. Shaw slid into a deep dark hole of unconsciousness.

  45

  By her second cup of coffee, Beth began to feel some form of composure. She had awoken on the couch to see Ryder standing over her. While Beth splashed water on her face and straightened her uniform in the restroom, Ryder gave her an update.

  The meeting room was empty when they walked in. All the agents were in the field, either at Pritchard’s property, searching Vince Taylor’s two-bedroom duplex, or finishing up at the truck stop.

  Someone had made another food run to a local diner and the table against the wall was once again crammed with steaming hot coffee and takeout boxes of pastries, ham and cheese melts, and a stack of bagels with cream cheese.

  Beth wasn’t hungry but she grabbed a bagel thinking it would fill the hole she felt in her stomach. She had finally left Pritchard’s shed at 3 a.m., leaving the FBI agents and forensic team to continue. Then she’d dropped by home just long enough to check on Frank before grabbing a change of clothes and heading back.

  Ryder could see the strain on Beth’s face as she sat opposite her. Her obsession with finding Pritchard had taken its toll. Sleepless nights, long hours, her own health and welfare neglected, she had pursued this man who had eluded her for so long. He was her nemesis, and in a cruel twist of fate, just when they had found the lair of the highway killer, it was empty, Pritchard was gone, vanished like the elusive ghost he was.

  “Are you okay, Beth?” Ryder asked.

  Beth waved her away. “I’m fine, just a little tired.” But Beth was not fine, she needed a break from the case, a distraction, something else to shift her mind for a while, otherwise it was going to drive her insane. Admittedly, she was glad the FBI had stepped in. She was happy for Miller and his team to run with it, to find Pritchard and Taylor’s killer as well. Beth was exhausted, mentally more than physically, and she knew her limitations. This was too big for her now, and she appreciated the help.

  Ryder could sense it too, but Beth wasn’t the type of person who would just sit idle. She needed something else to occupy her, to give her mind a rest from Pritchard.

  “Beth I need your help, your local knowledge,” Ryder said slowly, hoping Beth would take the bait.

  “What do you need to know?” Beth picked at the bagel, arranging the crumbs in a little pile.

  There was no one else in the room but Ryder still spoke in a low voice. “We need to do this quietly, no one else can know.”

  Beth’s eyes narrowed. Now she was intrigued.

  Ryder continued, “I need you to do some digging for me, literally.”

  There are more than 450 known abandoned coal mines in Utah. Those are only the registered ones, just sixty percent of the total possible coal mines that were once productive but now were abandoned. Some of those coal mines hadn’t been active since the late 1800s.

  It was mid-afternoon by the time Beth and Ryder sat down in front of the computer. On the screen, Beth pulled up a Utah geological survey map. It was dotted with 38 abandoned mine sites in Iron County alone, most within an hour’s drive south of Cedar City.

  “There are so many,” Beth said as she played the mouse over the screen. Each abandoned mine was grouped into either yellow or green spots on the survey map. As she zoomed in, the circles expanded into blue markers. Beth clicked on a marker and a square box appeared on the screen, listing the particular details for that mine site such as the name of the mine, coalfield name, date opened and date closed, and location coordinates. “We don’t have time to search them all,” Beth said.

  Ryder studied the detailed map on the screen then passed Beth a list of the seven leases Prometheus Mining had. Within minutes Beth had located all seven mines that were scattered throughout the various mountain ranges. It certainly made the task easier but they still didn’t have the resources to thoroughly investigate all of them. Ryder had to go with her gut. Then she had an idea.

  “Beth, how well do you know the history of the area?”

  Beth turned to her, “A little, you mean as in the mines?”

  Ryder nodded at the cluster of blue markers on the screen. It was a long shot but her investigative reasoning made sense. “Tell me, Beth, of these old mine sites, which one would you not want to go into.”

  Beth scoffed, “That’s easy. None of them. They’re all dangerous as hell. Some have been closed for over a hundred years. Been boarded up and left undisturbed. God knows what’s in some of them. A lot of them are flooded in the lower levels. Saw a report a few years back from UGS. Most of these mines are death traps.”

  “How so?” Ryder asked.

  “Some of the mines were investigated. Most had roof cave-ins, flooded chambers, bottomless pits where the underground strata had fallen away. Some of the mines, the ones closer together, are apparently interconnected. It’s like a maze of tunnels and shafts. If you go in there you could end up wandering around in the dark and never see daylight again.”

  Most people would be deterred by this knowledge, but it was music to Ryder’s ears. “So there’s no access into any of them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Has there been any activity up there recently?” Ryder asked. “Anything reported as strange?”

  Beth thought for a moment. Then her expression changed. “Now that you mention it, a couple of kids went missing a few years back up there. Just teenagers.”

  Ryder sat forward on her chair next to Beth. That was interesting. It could be nothing, or it could be something. “Tell me what happened.”

  Beth continued talking as she moved the computer mouse and searched for a missing persons report. “We found their pickup at the base of a mountain range, not too far from the opening of one of these mines.” Beth opened a list of computer files in a separate window. She scrolled down until she found the one she wanted. “There was a search of the area, but the mine was too dangerous to go in too far.” She clicked open the file and a Missing Person Report from the Cedar City Police Department appeared. “I was on leave when it happened so I wasn’t directly involved. But it was in the newspapers for a few weeks, and I read the report when I returned.”

  Ryder read the report over Beth’s shoulder as she scrolled through it. Two boys, brothers, Matt and Roy Chandler, went missing two years ago. Their pickup was found locked but empty up near a mine site called Square Mountain.

  Ryder felt that first tinge of excitement you get when your intuition starts to change shape into something more solid. “That’s one of the mines on the list,” Ryder said. “I’m sure it is.”

  Beth split the screen so the police report and the satellite survey map could be viewed at the same time. “Here.” Beth overlaid the mouse pointer on a blue marker on the map. A small box appeared above the marker that contained information about the mine site.

  Beth read f
rom the screen, “Square Mountain, Kolob Coalfield, opened in 1929, closed in 1931. The mine was operated by the Square Mountain Coal, Oil, and Gas Company, before its closure.”

  Ryder checked her list. The area was now leased to Prometheus Mining, had been for the last five years.

  “Are any of these mines operational?” Ryder asked. “Has anyone reopened any of them?” She stared at the blue marker on the screen and felt the hairs on her neck prickle. She was starting to get a feeling about the place.

  “Hell no,” Beth replied. “As far as I know, no one has done anything up there for decades. Maybe a few kids go up there to fool around, but look what happened to the Chandler kids. They were never seen again. Could have fallen into a shaft or down a sinkhole.”

  “Then why would anyone want to lease several old abandoned mines without actually doing something with them like prospecting or starting possible exploration again?”

  Beth looked at Ryder, each woman feeling and thinking what the other one was, their intuition in sync.

  “Are you going to tell me who owns the leases now?” Beth asked. “What’s going on?”

  Ryder thought about it long and hard before she answered. She needed Beth’s help but she didn’t want anyone else to know. If she told Miller, even though she was his boss, he would laugh behind her back and her theory would make it back to her bosses. She would become a laughing stock.

  She had to trust her gut. If she was wrong, then it could blow up in her face. Her course of inquiry was politically sensitive.

  “I need to keep this quiet, Beth. No one else can know.”

  Beth nodded. “You said that before.”

  “And I’m telling you again. It’s just a hunch, could be a wild goose chase.” This could cost Ryder her career if she went too far without any solid evidence. What she was suggesting was so implausible, so left-field, that it bordered on science fiction.

  Beth gave a knowing smile. “Most of my best arrests came from just a hunch I had.” She placed her hand on Ryder’s knee. “Sometimes we get lost with all this technology, you know, the Internet, face recognition software, cyber policing. We’ve lost faith in trusting our basic intuition, lost what real policing and investigating are all about.” She smiled. “Trust your gut, Carolyn.”

  Ryder appreciated the support. She had chosen the right woman to be her confidant. When it was all over they would either both get a medal or both be unemployed for the rest of their lives.

  Ryder nodded. “I’ll tell you everything on the drive up there.” Ryder pointed at the blue marker on the screen. “That’s where we’re going, Square Mountain.”

  46

  They found the vehicle on the Internet, going cheap, from a used vehicle dealer in Las Vegas. It was manufactured in 1999, the chassis built by Blue Bird. The engine, a 5.9 liter Cummins diesel, was in good condition considering the miles it had on the clock. It had a 5-speed automatic transmission and air brakes that would serve it well for their purpose.

  The color of the vehicle was formulated back in 1939, specifically chosen for its attention-grabbing qualities, particularly in the peripheral vision of the human eye. It was a unique color, universally identified. When people saw the vehicle and its color, certain words came to mind: caution, beware, safety, don't come too close.

  It would blend in while still looking safe and familiar. There were thousands of them on the roads across the country, travelling regular routes, stopping often, picking up and delivering the precious cargo.

  Despite its well-maintained condition, they made certain modifications to the vehicle. The heavy old floor plate was removed and re-sheeted with a thinner variant with a hollow cavity sandwiched between two layers of low-density sheet metal that was installed on the underside. The rubber flooring was stripped away, the inner walls removed, replaced with a lighter, thinner aluminum skin. It could seat fifty-six adults in relative comfort on vinyl brown bench seats, but there would be no passengers on this trip. So, to save weight and obstruction, the seats were unbolted and removed, leaving an empty shell of an interior.

  The manual bi-fold door at the front worked well, but the hinges could use a little grease.

  A secondary, more powerful truck battery was installed and new electrical wires were run under the flooring and into a special mechanism installed on the underside. The secondary battery would power the triggering device when it was time.

  Every piece of metal and scrap that was removed or discarded was shipped to a car crushing facility back in Las Vegas where it was compacted into a cube before being placed in a landfill, untraceable and never to see the light of day again.

  Inside the floor cavity, sandwiched between the newly installed sheeting and the under chassis plate, the substance was then laid. It was inert to work with, making it easier to mold and shape as specified.

  They laid it the entire length of the vehicle from front to back and also up the side walls to just below the roof.

  Next, the substance was embedded with eight thousand high-temperature nonporous alumina oxide spheres, sourced from an advanced ceramics company in Sacramento. Each sphere was the size of a gumball but lighter, harder, and had a lower thermal expansion rate than its steel ball bearing equivalent. The substance was shaped, and the oxide spheres strategically placed, so they would travel horizontally, outward from both sides along the entire length of the vehicle. Once again, they followed the instructions they had been given on how to embed the spheres for the required directional effect.

  They had already tested the dynamics of the blast pattern in a remote forest, using an old sedan wrapped the same way with the substance embedded with the hardened oxide spheres. The farthest they had found one of the spheres from the core of the blast was two hundred feet away. They had to cut the sphere out with an axe, it had penetrated ten inches into the dense woody fiber of a mature tree—after it had already passed clean through four other tree trunks during its flight.

  Flesh and bone would not present a problem.

  47

  The road was not listed on any map. But it was there. It wound its way through a bare and raw landscape between tall mountain ranges as cold and as gray as pig iron. Beth figured they had about three hours of daylight left, more than enough time to drive to the abandoned mine called Square Mountain and take a look.

  On the drive up Beth listened while Ryder outlined her theory about Prometheus Investments and its mining subsidiary that held the lease on the mine. Ryder didn’t mention Senator Adam Tanner of Utah.

  The road narrowed and the air grew cooler as they wound their way up through the mountains. Beth's replacement SUV powered up the steep gradient before the road finally levelled then stopped abruptly at the tall gate of a chain-link fence that cut across the road before disappearing into the trees on each side. There was no typical “Keep Out - Private Property” sign on the fence.

  Beth put the car in park and they both got out.

  The fence was old and sagged in places where the wire had rusted over the years. The dirt road continued past the gate, winding its way into a small canyon in shadow. Rugged raw slopes rose tall on each side, dusted with brilliant white snow on the upper peaks and ridges that glowed in the late afternoon sun.

  "So what now?" Beth turned to Ryder. There was no chain or lock on the gate, just a rusted latch and bent hinges. It bothered Ryder that there was no signage, no warning to keep out. “Reverse psychology,” Ryder said.

  Beth frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Ryder nodded at the fence. “Don’t you think it’s strange? No warning signs, no company name?”

  Beth considered it then understood. “Put a sign up telling people to keep out and they become naturally curious.”

  “And they want to see what’s inside,” Ryder continued.

  “Or put a sign up with a company name and install security cameras and people will think there’s something of value in there, maybe equipment,” Beth added. “So there could be something worthwhile in ther
e. But on what legal grounds do we have to enter?”

  "Probable cause to search." Ryder smiled. "We believe a search will reveal criminal and possibly terrorist activity." Prometheus Mining was somehow involved but to what extent, Ryder couldn't say.

  Ryder held the gates open while Beth drove through. Shutting them behind her, they continued into the canyon.

  The canyon opened into a flat, wide clearing hemmed in by sloping walls of rock. Scattered around were piles of waste rock, old seized machinery choked with weeds and brittle scrub, stacks of old timber, thick and bleached gray. Old storage sheds, with tin sheeting split and stained rust-red, sat crumpled to one side.

  A mine shaft opening was cut into one rock wall, a large rectangular mouth of black framed on three sides by large support beams, weathered rough from years of heat and cold.

  Shadows had already started to creep down from the high ridges above, the afternoon sky still a clear shade of brilliant blue.

  Beth parked the SUV and they made their way toward the mine opening, the ground littered with broken rock and shale, twisted metal scraps, and discarded rubbish—a lifetime of neglect, abandonment, and uninvited visitors.

  To Beth, the place was a graveyard: cold, desolate, and silent. Men had toiled here, deep underground, and there was a good chance some of them never made it out.

  They paused at the opening. It yawned wide in front of them, black and fathomless, threatening to swallow them up. They each carried a flashlight. Beth checked her cell phone; the signal was down to just two bars out of five. Ryder’s cell phone reception was no better. Both women knew that once they descended into the mine, they would be cut off from the outside world. No communication whatsoever.

  Something caught Beth’s eyes and she squatted down and ran her fingers over the dirt. "Tire tracks." The last rainfall in town was maybe two weeks ago, a cold miserable storm that boiled out of the dry plains. Maybe the tire tracks were made after the storm. Maybe the storm never made it this far to wash away these tracks. It was impossible to tell. But they had been made recently either way; the ridges and groves from the tires were still preserved in the dirt.