“Stan, how come McClellan didn’t get the rights to that parcel of land? He’s got most all the other ones around here.”
“I heard scuttlebutt that All-American kept bidding the price up to where it got crazy. Like two or three times what it was worth. I guess McClellan just thought those boys didn’t know what the hell they were doing.”
“I think they knew exactly what they were doing,” said Decker ominously.
Jamison said, “And they have one of those vent pipes like we’ve seen around, but there’s no lit flare coming off it.”
“A vent pipe!” Baker looked puzzled. “No way they could be having gas coming up at this stage.”
Decker suddenly flinched. “How far could they have gone down by now?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say no more than a couple hundred feet.”
“That’s what I was afraid you might say.”
“Afraid? Why?”
Decker looked at Jamison. “I think we just found our ticking time bomb.”
* * *
When they reached the fenced-in area at the All-American Energy Company, Decker jumped out of the SUV and tried to open the gate. It was locked.
He climbed back into the vehicle.
“Ram it, Alex,” he ordered.
“Are you—”
“Just do it. We’re out of time.”
Baker, who was in the back seat, curled his fingers around his armrest and looked nervously at his brother-in-law.
Jamison gunned the motor, put it in drive, and slammed her foot down on the gas pedal. The big SUV leapt forward and smashed through the gates.
They leapt out, with Decker leading the way to the trailer. The door was locked.
“Decker, we don’t have a warrant,” said Jamison.
“To hell with a warrant, Alex.”
He pulled his gun and shot the lock off. He kicked open the door, and they plunged inside. It was set up much like Baker’s trailer, but there was only one computer monitor on the desk with what looked to be live data covering it.
Decker looked at the screen and said, “Stan, can you make sense of this?”
Baker sat down in the chair and started studying the graphs and other information flowing over the monitor’s face.
“No, I can’t, because it doesn’t make a bit of sense,” he said.
“What doesn’t?” said Decker.
“Well, for starters, I was right. They’ve only drilled down about two hundred feet. At about the hundred-and-fifty-foot mark they’ve started to go horizontally at about a forty-five-degree angle.” He used the mouse to manipulate the screen. Another image flickered up.
“And what is that thing?”
They all stared at where he was pointing.
It was represented on the screen as large and black. “They’ve got imaging sensors in the hole, obviously. And that sucker is showing up.”
“How big do you reckon that is?” asked Decker.
“If I had to thumbnail it, based on the scales I’m used to, I’d say it’s about fifty feet square.”
“So about the size of an average house?”
“About, yeah. Wait, you don’t think there’s a house down there?”
“No. But it’s a big space and you have to wonder what’s in it. And the All-American Energy Company is obviously curious because, from the screen, it looks like they’ve drilled right into it.” He indicated a spot on the screen. “Do you see where it shows one of the walls being pierced?”
“Decker!” exclaimed Jamison. “The biochem weapons!”
“The what?” barked Baker.
“I think we found them,” said Decker. “And so did they.” He glanced out the window of the trailer. “And why do I think that whatever is down there is an airborne weapon? And that right this minute it’s being brought to the surface through that pipe?”
“Holy shit,” said Baker.
“Stan, how do we stop that from happening? As fast as possible?” Baker ran outside and they followed. He rushed over to the drill site and stopped dead. “That’s odd as hell. They’ve got the vent pipe directly attached to the drill hole.”
Decker barked, “It’s not odd if that’s how they’re bringing this shit to the surface. It’ll cover the whole area, maybe the whole state.”
“But how are they bringing it up here?” said Jamison. “It’s not like oil, and the pressure makes it move up into the pipe and to the surface like Stan described to us.”
“Do you hear that?” said Baker.
“What?” said Decker.
“That low hum from somewhere. If I had to guess they’ve got some sort of vacuum system built into their equipment. That must be how they’re bringing whatever is down there up here. They’re creating a suction line.”
“Can we turn it off?” said Decker.
Baker shook his head. “Take too long to find it and figure out how to do it. And if the suction has already been deployed, it might not matter if we turn it off. It’ll be like a siphon hose into a gas tank.”
Jamison exclaimed, “But if they stored that shit down there all those decades ago, won’t it be like in bottles or some other containers and on shelves or even in some sort of secure vault? It’s not like gas sitting in a tank that’ll just be free to come up once a suction is started.”
Baker snapped his fingers. “But it might if they sent a detonator down there first and blew everything up. That would smash whatever containers they’re in and also create pressure vacuums within that bunker. Once pierced, the stuff, if it is airborne, would seek the point of least resistance to get out. And that would be this pipe. At least we have to assume it would be.”
Baker quickly examined the roughly twelve-foot-tall pipe and then pulled out his phone.
“Rick, this is Stan. I need a concrete pumper at the All-American Energy Company site. Yeah, I know that’s not our job. Just do it and tell them to move their ass. We got a pumper all loaded and ready to go over there. I want it here in ten minutes. Five would be better. Do it!”
“Guys!”
Jamison had gone back into the trailer and now appeared in the doorway.
They ran back inside. She was pointing to the screen. “Isn’t that the pressure indicator you showed us back at your trailer, Stan?”
“Yeah,” said Baker.
“Well it just spiked.”
“What does that mean?” said Decker anxiously.
Baker said, “It means whatever the hell is down there is coming up here. And fast.”
“Oh, shit!” Jamison exclaimed.
“Come on!” yelled Baker.
They all ran back outside and Baker started searching the work-site area.
“What are we looking for?” cried out Jamison.
“Something to cap that pipe.”
“Can’t we just bang the shit out of the end of the pipe and close it up that way?” said Decker.
“It’s twelve feet off the ground, Amos, and do you see anything here to bang it with? And if you’re right about the crap down there it has to be airtight.”
“A piece of metal,” suggested Jamison.
“You’re talking a lot of pressure in that pipe, including all the air that’s been trapped in that bunker. Unless it’s welded on we can’t count on a metal cap holding, and we don’t have time to weld it or thread it.”
They all looked frantically around.
“There!” shouted Baker.
It was a hose attached to a thousand-gallon barrel of water.
He grabbed the hose and ran the end of it over to the vent pipe. He flipped a box over and stood on it. “Alex, take the hose and get on my shoulders. Amos, there’s a hand crank on that water tank. Once Alex gets the hose in the pipe, pump like your life depends on it.”
“Well, it does,” Decker muttered, getting in position.
Alex took the hose. Baker bent down, and she climbed onto his broad shoulders. She settled in as he stood up straight. The top of the pipe was still a foot above her outstr
etched hands, but she worked the hose up and then managed to get the end pointed into the wide pipe.
“Go, Amos!” shouted Baker unnecessarily, because Decker was already pumping like mad. A few seconds later water started coursing through the hose and into the pipe.
“Are you sure this will work?” said Jamison.
“Water is heavier than air. So it should buy us some time until the concrete pumper truck gets here.”
“How will we know if it’s worked?” Jamison called out.
“We won’t be dead,” retorted Decker, breathing hard and furiously turning the hand crank.
And it did apparently work, because they didn’t die.
The pumper truck showed up a few minutes later, and Baker directed the stunned men to fill the pipe with concrete.
After that, Decker, Jamison, and Baker slumped to the ground.
Decker looked at his brother-in-law. “You’re a genius, Stan. You should get a medal.”
Jamison put a shaky hand on Baker’s shoulder. “I second that. A really big one.”
Decker let out a long breath. “Well, we stopped the time bomb. Now we just have to figure out who set it off and why.”
“SO YOU FIGURED ALL THAT OUT from Cramer’s comment about not eating stuff grown on that land?” said Jamison.
They were driving back to town.
Decker had called Robie and brought him up to speed. Robie had told him they were calling in the DoD and the Department of Homeland Security to take over the situation.
“Not just that. It was also something that Brad Daniels said,” said Decker.
“Which was what?”
“He expressed surprise and maybe fear when we told him about the activity going on at the land the Air Force had sold. He said, ‘They’re drilling on that land?’ ”
“I don’t remember him even saying that,” said Jamison.
“Well, that’s sort of my department, to recall stuff like that. But he lied to us. They didn’t get rid of that stockpile.”
“Maybe he thought they had.”
“No, he wouldn’t have been concerned about them drilling on the land unless he knew that stuff was down there.”
Jamison nodded. “Yeah, I guess that does makes sense. I suppose he didn’t trust us with the information.”
“And then there was an off-color section of wall in the lower level of the radar building. I think there was a door there that was later walled up. And why have a door more than a hundred feet belowground?”
“You’d only do that if there were a tunnel to be accessed through it.”
“Exactly,” said Decker.
“But why in the hell would the government sell off that land with those weapons buried there? That’s what I don’t get.”
“The easiest answer would be the folks in charge today had no idea it was even there.”
“But wouldn’t there be records of it?” said Jamison.
“If so, they might be buried as deep as that crap was. But I think what happened was the Air Force continued to do work on biochem weapons even after the order came down to stop. Or else they didn’t want to destroy what they had worked so long to make. So they, or some rogues working there, decided to bury the shit. Maybe they thought it could come in useful down the road. Or they didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing, or what they had come up with. But they had to put it somewhere that they thought was safe. Back then nobody ever imagined they’d be fracking up here.”
Jamison said, “And Daniels was the only one left who knew the truth? I can understand his telling Purdy. He was in the Air Force and had security clearances and all. But why would he tell Irene Cramer? Hell, he wouldn’t even tell us at first.”
Decker said, “Cramer’s mother was a spy. Maybe the daughter learned some interview techniques from her mother. She could have taken her time, asked innocuous questions at first. Maybe she noticed Daniels’s hat like I did. Maybe she researched him after he let something slip. She was a PT person. He liked her, she probably made him feel comfortable. She could have spent months working on him until she got most of the story from him. But she didn’t get all of it, which led her to come here and start asking questions. The fact that she was trying to meet oil field hands and not people from the military facility should have been a clue. She probably found out it was on the land around the installation, but she just didn’t know exactly where.”
“But still, you would have thought Daniels would have been more careful.”
“He’s an old guy, Alex. I’m not saying he’s not sharp, because he is. But he wasn’t going to be on his guard now to the extent he was all those years ago. And he probably never thought she would ever do anything with that information. He couldn’t have known about Cramer’s past, or who her mother was.”
“So, a perfect storm,” said Jamison.
“That’s right.”
“So then who killed Cramer? The people behind All-American?”
“They would be the ones with a motive. Same for Parker and Ames. They had learned things and had to be eliminated. And Purdy might be in that mix as well.”
“And maybe Cramer had some evidence, which she swallowed, and they cut her open to get it back. And they blackmailed Walt Southern to mess with the post reports.”
“It all fits together,” agreed Decker. “In fact, it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“So whoever is behind this has some serious money.”
“And the sort of firepower they’ve brought to this area isn’t cheap either, like Robie said.”
“But what would be the reason to release biochem weapons in a remote area like this? I mean, I get that it would be terrible to happen anywhere. But to do the most damage, you’d set the stuff off in a large city where millions of people and billions of dollars of property could be impacted.”
“Well, it might have been impossible to dig the bunker up without anyone knowing. And if they did succeed in digging it up, how were they going to safely open that crypt and collect the stuff inside? And then transport it out of here without anyone knowing?”
“But still.”
“And you forget that while there aren’t millions of people here, there are billions of dollars’ worth of property in North Dakota.”
Jamison said, “Of course, the oil and gas. It could have made this place uninhabitable and contaminate the oil and gas fields for centuries.”
“That’s right.”
When they got back to the hotel Jamison pulled the SUV to the curb and said, “What now?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to take a shower. Maybe none of that stuff got out of the pipe, but maybe some of it did. Who knows? I’m going to call Stan and tell him to do the same thing.”
Jamison’s eyes widened. “Right. I think I’m going to take a shower, too. And go through a couple bars of soap.”
They were about to climb out of the SUV when Jessica Reel appeared at the driver’s-side glass and said, “You need to come with me.”
“Why?”
“Decontamination.”
“Do you know what was down there?” said Jamison anxiously.
“Not definitively, but the speculation mandates that you two go in for decon and testing.”
“My brother-in-law—” began Decker.
“We’ve already picked him up. And the men from the pumper truck.” She pointed down the street. “We have a van over there. Get in the back and put on the suits that are in there.”
“Wait a minute—are you saying we’re contagious?”
“I’m saying we don’t know. We’ll take charge of your SUV. It needs to be tested, too. So leave the keys.” She moved back and pointed to the van.
They climbed into the back of the van and put on the hazmat suits that had been laid out for them. They even had their own closed-loop air pack systems.
“Okay, this is scary,” said Jamison, through her face mask. “Do you really think we’re contaminated?”
“I g
uess we’ll find out soon enough,” said Decker. “But we better not be.”
“Well, yeah, duh.”
“No, I mean we have murders to solve.”
IT WAS THE NEXT DAY and every known test had been run on them, Baker, and the other men and their vehicles before they’d finally been given the all clear. Whatever was in the pipe, first the water and then the concrete had stopped it from escaping. A federal hazmat response team was currently at the site, walling it off and using sophisticated detection technology to assess the situation.
Jamison and Decker were in a small conference room at their hotel. Robie, Reel, and Blue Man sat across from them.
Blue Man said, “You are to be commended. What you did saved a lot of lives.”
“The target had to be the oil and gas,” said Decker.
“Which explains the chatter we were getting from the Middle East,” said Blue Man.
“Meaning the threat came from there,” said Jamison.
“We believe so, and it would make sense from a geoeconomic perspective. Fracking in North Dakota helped in a very large way to make this country mostly energy independent,” stated Blue Man. “That is good for us, and that is very bad for every other petroleum-producing nation, including those who are members of OPEC, especially the Saudis. We still import oil from them, just not nearly as much as we used to.”
“So what exactly was down there in the ground?” asked Jamison. “No one’s told us.”
“That’s because we don’t know for certain. But since I learned of your discovery, I have been in touch with some high-level contacts from the DoD and informed them of the situation here. With some prodding from my superiors, they, in turn, did some deep digging within certain old records.”
“With what result?” asked Jamison.
“It seems that decades ago certain elements within the Air Force community might not have followed the presidential directive to discontinue all work on such weapons and destroy the stockpiles that did exist. Work on one project may have continued. The results of that work may well have been what ended up in that bunker.”
“There’s no maybe about it,” said Decker. “It did.”
“Any idea what that project was?” asked Jamison.
Walk the Wire Page 31
