And from time to time Decker would feel guilty that he was becoming so absorbed in his work that the memories of his family were receding into a little box in his head, only to be taken out from time to time and wept over. And for him that equated with forgetting about his wife and daughter, or at least allowing other priorities in life to supersede what they had meant to him while alive. And this after he had promised them faithfully, while standing over their graves, that they would be the center of his life until he joined them. A sense of betrayal steadily crept over him.
A tear from his right eye fell onto Molly’s photo. He very carefully brushed it away from the picture, fearful that it would mar her final captured image.
He had told himself back in Burlington when he had been visiting their graves that he could live in the past or live in the present, only he couldn’t do both. Although part of him desperately wanted to.
So what’s it going to be, Amos?
He supposed all who had suffered such a loss struggled just as he did. That notion didn’t console him at all.
We all feel alone. We all feel unique in our pain.
He slid the photos back into his wallet and put it away.
It was then that he noticed the bulge in his jacket pocket.
He slowly put his hand in there and pulled out . . . a phone?
The answer hit him a second later.
Robie.
The man had slipped this phone into his jacket when he had helped Decker up in that alley. He had said he would figure out a way for them to communicate, and this must be it. He looked more closely at the device. It both looked and did not look like a typical mobile phone.
He punched in the number of his own cell phone to see if it would go through. It didn’t.
He looked down at the phone, then simply pushed the green talk button.
The phone made a small buzzing sound and then the voice came on.
“I expected you to be a little quicker on the uptake,” said Robie. “I’ve been waiting for your call for an hour.”
“I just found the phone and figured out how to work it.”
“Anything up or are you just checking in?”
“The latter. So if I push the green button you come running?”
“No. If you push the red button I do. But I don’t have a cape and superpowers, so don’t expect me to be there in seconds.”
“So it’s like a panic button, then?”
“And only use it when you are indeed panicked. Now if there’s nothing else, I’m going to get some shut-eye.”
“Sorry to bother you,” said Decker brusquely.
“I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, Decker. But this is a job. A critical one. We’re not here to make friends.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Good.”
“One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for saving my butt tonight.”
“You’re welcome.” Robie clicked off.
Decker stood, put the phone on the nightstand, stripped off his wet clothes, and changed into dry skivvies. He lay back on the bed, suddenly wanting to be anywhere other than here. That was surprising, shocking even, because normally he wanted to be wherever there was a crime that needed solving. And right now that was squarely in London, North Dakota.
The first victim, Irene Cramer, had a mysterious past and might not have been who everyone thought she was. She was a teacher by day, and doing something else entirely at night. She had been murdered and a postmortem performed on her body, presumably by her killer. Something had perhaps been taken from her stomach or intestines.
The man who had found her, Hal Parker, was looking for a wolf that had killed some cattle owned by Hugh Dawson. And now Parker was missing. And Pamela Ames was dead. Had Parker killed Cramer and Ames? But if he had, why pretend to find the body and call the cops? That put him right in the middle of the investigation, which made no sense.
Now Decker came to Will Robie’s involvement. He only had Robie’s word for it that he worked for the federal government. But Robie had saved his life. And the man who had tried to kill Decker? Where had he come from?
And finally, Decker came back to what his brother-in-law had said the man from the Air Force station had told him about sitting atop a time bomb. Did it tie into the row of ambulances at the facility, and did it explain the reluctance of the station’s commander, Colonel Sumter, to cooperate with them? They had to find the man who had uttered those words. And he would need Baker’s help in learning more about this fracking business. In Decker’s experience, when there was money to be made, big money as here, that provided an excellent motive to kill.
As if humans really needed a reason to hurt other humans.
With that thought, he fell into a troubled sleep.
“THIS LOOKS LIKE a command center,” said Jamison.
She and Decker were inside a roomy trailer staring at a series of computer screens set atop a long, laminated desk. They were at an oil rig site that was in the process of being fracked. Baker sat in a swivel chair in front of the desktop units, his gaze flicking alertly over each screen. The trailer had a bathroom and an AC window unit and was quite comfortable inside.
“That’s exactly what it is,” said Baker. “We actually call it the data center because that’s what all this is,” he added, pointing to the screens. “Data.”
Jamison indicated a Maxwell House coffee can sitting on a table with its plastic lid on. “You’ve got a Keurig over there, so what’s that for?”
“Don’t open that top,” warned a grinning Baker. “It’s the other supervisor’s spit can. You can’t smoke anywhere around a rig, so nicotine addicts chew tobacco instead.”
“Great, thanks for the heads-up,” said Jamison, looking disgusted.
Baker pointed to one screen. “This monitors the barrels of fracking fluid we pump in the hole by the second.”
“Is it important to monitor it that closely?” asked Jamison.
“Oh, yeah, because things can go sideways fast and people might get hurt, and you could end up wrecking a wellhead site. Nobody wants that to happen. Now, we’re just beginning to frack this well. The drilling and piping have all been done by a separate crew.”
“How does all that work?” asked Decker.
“The initial well bore is drilled. After that’s done the drill pipe and bit are taken out. Then a steel tube, which we refer to as a surface casing, is put in the hole. That makes the sides of the well rigid and stable and also prevents stuff from leaking out. Then cement is poured in to secure the casing tube. We pressurize the shaft to make sure it’s holding okay, sort of like testing a plane fuselage. Then the drill pipe and bit goes back in and the drilling continues vertically. When that’s completed the horizontal drilling starts up. We continuously lower in more casing and cement to make sure everything is secure. When that’s all said and done, then comes the insertion of the fracking fluid. It’s all done in stages. And each one takes about two hours.”
“How many stages?” asked Decker.
“Nearly a hundred,” said Baker.
“Good God,” said Jamison. “Why so many?”
“We’re going down a long way, and we have to break up the rock in just the right manner and direction.” He went to the small window and pointed out. “Those trucks will pump the fluid mix into the wellhead through all those connected pipes. Now, we’ve also got an artillery van where they prep the necessary explosives and attach the detonating gun to the perforating gun.”
“An artillery van,” exclaimed Jamison. “Sounds like you’re going to war.”
“We are in a way, against some really tough subterranean rock that’s a zillion years old and has never been disturbed before. We pump the gun down to blast fractures in the rock. Then the perforation device extends fissures or cracks that reach into the oil deposits, sort of like fingers poking in to get something. Then we drop a ball down and seat it in a plug. That isolates the area
we’re interested in, and that’s when we start blasting fracking fluids into the rock cracks and fissures.”
“What do the fluids consist of?” asked Decker.
He led them back over to the screens. “It’s a pretty well mapped-out mixology of stuff. Sand and fresh water make up ninety-nine-point-five percent of what we put down the hole. The rest are chemicals—biocide to kill bacteria in the water so it can’t foul the product, then other chemicals to provide viscosity to the liquid. Guar gum, magnesium chloride, barite, hydrochloric and citric acid, ethanol and methanol, sodium erythorbate. All this stuff has different purposes. Some help with gelling, others with iron control, corrosion counteractor, clay stabilization, friction reducer, crosslinker, and the list goes on and on.” He grinned. “Hell, some days I feel like I’ve got my degree in chemistry three times over. These graphs over here chart the PSI in the pipe. We use regular sand, which we refer to as the proppant, to start with, and then change over to ceramic sand, which holds the fractures open longer.” He glanced at Decker. “Like your ‘stent’ analogy to unblock an artery. We use about two hundred fifty thousand pounds of proppant per stage.”
“That’s a lot more than a sandbox full,” noted Decker.
“Which is why you see all those trucks hauling it in,” replied Baker. “Without sand none of this works. Natural sand comes from Wisconsin. The ceramic stuff is imported from China.”
“So the Bakken region is chock full of oil and gas?” said Decker.
“Northwest corner of North Dakota hit the jackpot for fossil fuels. All told the state is pumping about two million barrels of oil a day. To give you some perspective, the Saudis alone do around twelve million barrels a day. The Middle East in total has about half the world’s total proven oil reserves. And over forty percent of the natural gas.”
“Which is why everyone pays attention to what goes on there,” noted Decker.
“So most of the oil is trucked out?” said Jamison.
“No, a lot of the oil captured here actually gets transported out via the Dakota Access Pipeline, which is a lot cheaper than trucking it to a train. But that pipeline is filling up fast, so they’re building another one.”
Jamison said, “And this is one of Stuart McClellan’s operations?”
“That’s right.”
Decker said, “The Air Force station is close to here. And the Brothers’ Colony.”
“Yep. McClellan’s rigs are the only ones hereabouts except for one company also located near the Air Force station.”
“What about all the gas flares?” said Jamison. “Isn’t that wasteful?”
“It is,” conceded Baker. “But there aren’t enough pipelines here to transport the gas. And even if there were, the gas up here has a high percentage of hydrocarbons. Pipeline operators hate that because it can clog the pipe.”
“What’s the solution?” asked Decker.
“They’re coming up with a technology to separate the methane from the hydrocarbons right onsite.”
“Do any problems come up with fracking?” asked Decker.
He nodded. “Something called a ‘screen-out’ is fairly common. That happens when the sand plugs up the perforations. The pump automatically shuts down when that happens because the PSI spikes and the warning bells go off.”
“What do you do to fix it?” asked Jamison.
“We open the well and force up lots of barrels of fluid that we just sent down to clean up the blockage. If there are more serious issues, like a well needs some type of invasive intervention because it’s deteriorating, equipment has corroded, or the reservoir conditions have changed, then we call in a workover rig. They’ll drop in a wireline to lower both measurement and testing equipment to see what the issue is and arrive at a solution. They can usually find an answer and get it back online.”
Decker looked impressed. “And here I always thought you were just a guy digging holes with a shovel.”
Baker grinned. “Well, I did my share of that too, back in the old days. Now it’s all technology and science and engineering. But, hey, I’ll take working inside a trailer with my own toilet and AC in the summer and heat in the winter any day.”
“Quite the operation,” noted Jamison.
“How long do you see yourself here, Stan?” asked Decker.
“Long enough to save up what I need to retire and to help out the kids and their education. Then I’m heading to Florida, chucking my cell phone into the ocean, and I’m going fishing. And I’m not going to stop till I croak.”
“Now, tell me what you remember about this guy who talked about the time bomb,” said Decker. “His name was Ben?”
“Yeah, least that’s what he said.”
“Last name?”
Baker rubbed his face and sat back in his chair. “I’m not sure. It was over a year ago and there were a lot of people around and I’d been drinking.”
“And you’re sure he was in the Air Force?”
“Yeah, he was in his official cammies and he told me he was assigned there.”
Decker said, “What if we can show you pictures of people who worked there? Would that help?”
“It might, yeah. But how are you going to do that? I was in the military. They don’t like giving out info to nobody.”
Decker glanced at Jamison. “We’ll think of something.”
“HOW ARE WE GOING to get Colonel Sumter to give up his list of personnel?” said Jamison on the drive back. “He hasn’t even gotten back to Kelly on his earlier request. And I don’t see us getting a search warrant. We have no probable cause. And on top of that, this Ben guy was military; he’s not there anymore anyway. It’s all Vector personnel now.”
“So let’s dial up some help.” Decker pulled out the device Robie had given him.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Apparently, a hotline to Batman.”
He hit the green button. Within two seconds, Robie answered.
“Yes?”
“Need some help. Wondering if you could provide it?”
“Tell me what it is and I’ll see what I can do.”
“We’re looking for a guy who used to work at the Air Force station here. First name Ben, last name unknown.”
“Is he military?”
“Yes. We learned that the DoD pulled out the military component and outsourced the work to a firm named Vector. You know them?”
“Why is this guy important?” said Robie, ignoring the query.
“He told a guy I trust that we were sitting on a ticking time bomb here. So I want to talk to him.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Irene Cramer. Any idea why the Feds are interested in her?”
The line went dead.
Jamison glanced at Decker. “Well?”
“Not sure. I might have just said something I shouldn’t have.”
They drove past the western edge of the Brothers’ Colony, where they saw colorful oil rigs erected along the way with trailers and trucks and lots of activity.
Decker read the sign erected in front of one rig nearest the Air Force property: THE ALL-AMERICAN ENERGY COMPANY. Two large Stars and Stripes were suspended from tall flagpoles and flapping in the breeze. Decker said drily, “Well, that’s patriotic.”
“What could be more American than drilling for oil?” quipped Jamison.
* * *
Kelly said, “We’ve had a BOLO out on Parker from the minute we found him missing. There’s been no sign of the guy.”
They were walking to the room where the postmortem had been performed by Walt Southern on Pamela Ames.
“I guess around here there are lots of places to get rid of a body,” said Jamison.
“Yep. We got landfills full of crap that they add to every day, including some radioactive stuff that comes naturally out of the drilling process.”
“Radioactive,” said Jamison. “And they can just dump that in a landf
ill?”
“Well, they’re not supposed to. But people aren’t supposed to do lots of things and they still do.”
“That’s why we have a job,” grumbled Decker.
As they entered the room Southern was finishing up some notes in a paper file.
He eyed Decker warily. “Heard you came by to look at Cramer’s body while I was out of town.”
“I did.”
“It looks like you opened her up again.”
“I did,” Decker said again.
“Why?” he said sharply.
“Because I had to. Now, I’d prefer to talk about Ames’s post.”
Southern started to say something but then seemed to catch himself. “Okay. Not much to tell. Dead about fourteen hours when you found her. Single contact GSW to the right temple. Dum-dum round.” He held up a baggie with the round inside. “All beaten to hell. No striations, lands, or grooves visible. Did what it’s designed to do. Won’t get a ballistic match off it.”
“Fourteen hours,” said Kelly. “So around ten o’clock at night?”
Southern glanced at his notes. “About, yes.”
“Stomach contents?”
“Some dinner, half digested. That’s it. Tox screens have been sent out. I found no obvious signs of drug use. No sign of a sexual assault or recent sexual intercourse.”
Kelly nodded but said nothing. He was watching Decker.
Decker said, “Did you confirm that nobody cut her up, like they did Cramer? We didn’t look under her clothing. Just noted the gunshot wound and bagged her for the post.”
Jamison looked at her partner in surprise, because this was an unusual thing to say. But from the look on Decker’s face, the man had a reason.
Southern slowly put down his file. “Do I have to read between those lines or are you going to come to the point?”
“You noted that Cramer’s stomach and small intestines were sliced open. Sliced. I don’t need to tell you those places are pretty popular to hide contraband. When I asked you if there was anything unusual in the post you never mentioned either of those things. Now I’d like an explanation for that.”
Walk the Wire Page 13
