Ground Truth (26 page)

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 freshly 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.

“Time to make like a flying saucer,” Gano said.

The engine of the EchoStar started. Rotors whirled slowly, then faster and faster. The craft began to get light on its skids. But it was all too slow. The pickup raced at them, bouncing crazily, but the men aboard were firing every weapon they had. The low hanging chopper couldn’t climb fast enough to get out of range.

Instead of trying to gain altitude, Gano spun the bird around to face the pickup, just a foot off the ground, and revved the engine. In seconds, a thick cloud of sand and dust engulfed them, and Gano whipped the chopper around 180 degrees to fly in the opposite direction, still hugging the deck. Several hundred yards away, he hauled back, and the EchoStar climbed out of the dust cloud, and out of firing range of the pursuers’ pickup, now buried in the dust.

“Well, that was almost kiss-my-ass-goodbye time,” Gano said.

Jack looked down at his Eberline contamination counter and dosimeter. He’d heard the buzzer go mad under the
blitzkrieg
of electrons from the cave, so he was worried. What would Rincon say concerning the strength of the radioactive emissions? Had they absorbed enough radioactivity to start glowing?

Chapter 43

July 10

4:00 p.m.

BACK IN THE El Paso airport, Jack reflected on what he’d seen. The markings on the barrels at D-TECH, the shapes of the containers in the cave, the contamination counter—everything told him that cave was packed with nuclear waste, at least some of which was high level. That made up his mind to take drastic action. He could contact the CIA or Homeland Security, but both were flooded by reports from alarmed citizens promoting conspiracy theories. There was no time to fight his way through their bureaucratic mazes. The only move left would be the most radical thing he’d ever done. Persuade Jason Gorton, President of the United States of America, to take control. Once Gorton heard about the pending disasters in El Paso, Juarez and Copper Canyon, he could stop them.

So how could he reach the President in an emergency? The White House switchboard wouldn’t put him through, but maybe he could reach a high-ranking staffer and persuade him or her to contact the President.

He called the White House and asked to speak with President Gorton. As expected, the operator politely offered to take a message. When he insisted the call was important, she routed him to a secretary in the Communications Office who, even more politely, offered to take a message. Again he insisted it was urgent. This time he was transferred to Alvin Thomas, Assistant Counsel to the President.

Thomas at least asked for his
bona fides.
As he recited the buzz words—Professor, Stanford Law School, Sinclair & Simms—he was very aware they were all past tense. Even though Thomas didn’t know that, he was unwilling to forward the call to President Gorton. “Send a registered letter, please” he said, and hung up with Jack in mid-protest.

Jack called Senator Toby Baxter, reasonably confident Toby could get a call through to Gorton. But his friend, or former friend, was deer hunting in northern Wyoming, unreachable unless he called into the office which, his assistant said, he never did. Another dead end.

That left Justin Sinclair as his only other conduit to Gorton. He would, by God, pressure Sinclair into contacting President Gorton for him.

When he called Mrs. Pounders she gave him a verbal stiff-arm, treating him like a paperclip salesman instead of a partner—former partner—in the firm. After he stressed the urgency, she said, “He’s booked solid except for one opening. His eight a.m. appointment tomorrow just passed away. You could call Mr. Sinclair at that time.” Jack said he’d be at Sinclair & Simms in person at eight.

MRS. POUNDERS, usually indifferent to anyone waiting to be admitted to Justin Sinclair’s inner sanctum, had delivered several frowns in Jack’s direction. She made no effort to hide her distaste for what she saw.

He didn’t blame her. Wearing a dirty twill shirt and boots caked with mud from the mine shaft, he looked like a vagrant tossed off the train from Fresno.

He’d left El Paso on time last night, but dense fog at SFO had diverted his flight to Reno for an overnight. By the time the morning flight reached San Francisco, it was too late to get home to Atherton to change into fresh clothes before meeting Sinclair.

When two law clerks came by, they looked first at him and then at the two armed Shorenstein Security guards posted in the hall. Were they there because Sinclair was worried that his former partner might do something crazy?
Little did he know.
Jack looked at his watch. Already 8:20.

Without looking at him, Mrs. Pounders said, “Mr. Sinclair called someone else in who arrived earlier. He’ll send for you presently.”

His idle glance down the corridor took in antique Tabriz carpets resting on enough black marble to pave a cathedral. On his first visit for the Sunday morning job interview, he’d been impressed by the emblems of accomplishment in the world he knew well. They’d made him feel at ease. Today, after all he’d been through, this office had become an alien place.

“He’ll see you now,” Mrs. Pounders intoned, just as the door to the inner office swung open. Justin Sinclair strode out, still the legal world’s facsimile of Charlton Heston—craggy features, intense blue eyes, and swept-back white hair. The instant he took in Jack’s appearance, his expression became decidedly less congenial.

“I’ll be damned. A couple of days ago I invited you to come meet with me, and you got prickly as a hedgehog. Now here you are. Well, come in. I’ve just been talking with someone about you.”

He followed Sinclair into his office where his eyes were immediately drawn to the east window wall and the gaunt frame of Arthur Palmer. The scowl and crossed arms said clearly that he’d heard from Montana about the attack on the plant.

What the hell?
Why had Sinclair brought Palmer in?
Maybe Sinclair had anticipated that Jack would be on the warpath, so he’d set up a dogfight scenario between Jack and Palmer, leaving him untouched on the sidelines. Whatever Sinclair’s reason, Arthur’s presence would make it much harder for Jack to get what he’d come for from Sinclair.
Damn him.

“You’re one crazy son-of-a-bitch, you know that?” Palmer snarled. “You set fire to four buildings. You stabbed the plant manager. You shot Montana, tried to kill him. I’ll see that you’re in the slammer for the rest of your miserable life!” Palmer was so mad his voice cracked.

“Here’s what really happened,” Jack said. “We started fires in metal trash bins to divert the guards. And I didn’t stab anyone. Your manager, Guzman, pulled a switchblade and attacked my friend. In self-defense, he stuck Guzman with a screwdriver. Montana was about to kill my friend, so I shot the gun out of his hand.”

“The Juarez police are after you for trespassing, destroying property—”

“It was an emergency. I tried to destroy the wells so Montana couldn’t use them to dump toxic waste into the local aquifer. He doesn’t give a damn that it will kill people and destroy the only water supply for Juarez and El Paso. By the way, you’ll be liable if he pulls it off.”

“Liable, bullshit.” Palmer pointed at him with both index fingers. “You just confessed to a felony. Justin’s a witness.”

“I had to go to the plant because you didn’t do the two things I told Justin you had to do to stop Montana.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I called Justin two days ago and told him I’d take action if you didn’t get Montana off plant grounds and dismantle those wells.”

“You sent
me
an ultimatum? You’re joking.” His tone reeked with scorn, but he glanced at Sinclair with a question in his eyes. “I heard nothing from Justin until I called about the fires you set. That’s when he said you’d given him a wild story about Montana planning to poison some aquifer. He also said he’d fired you after the Hearing and ordered you to stay away from Palmer Industries—which you obviously did
not
do.”

Jack noticed Palmer’s glance at Sinclair and thought he heard a slight change in his tone. Had he caught Palmer off guard? It didn’t matter. Palmer’s default response was to lie.

“I don’t believe you. You’re in this with Montana, and I’ll nail you for it.” He opened his wallet and withdrew the folded printout from Ed Rincon that listed the chemicals and carcinogens stored in the tanks on the ridge. “Here’s what Montana is ready to dump into the Hueco
bolsón.
You either ordered him to do it or looked the other way.” He tossed it on the desk. Sinclair picked it up and read it.

“You’re full of shit,” Palmer snorted. “I told Montana to make money for Palmer Industries. That’s all.”

“And that included bribing PROFEPA and the Hearing judge? I saw what happened at that Hearing.”

“For God’s sake! Has Montana ever bribed somebody in Mexico? Of course, but I’ve never heard of the Waco whatever-it-is and didn’t authorize him to dump anything into it. So get off my ass.”

“If I hadn’t gone after him, Montana would already have opened the valves and buried your company in bankruptcy. You’d be heading for prison. You want me to get off your ass? I
saved
your ass. Until now.”

Palmer turned his hawklike eyes on Sinclair. “I detest this son-of-a-bitch, but what if he’s not hallucinating? Bankruptcy? Prison? You’re supposed to be protecting us, and you’re not doing it.”

Sinclair leaned back in his chair, unruffled. “Turning on me would be very unwise, Arthur. I’ve supported Palmer Industries when other attorneys would have backed away. And,” he smiled grimly, “just in case your hands aren’t entirely clean in this matter, you’ll continue to need my help. You wouldn’t want me on a witness stand, would you?”

Palmer scowled, and his face reddened. “Don’t threaten me, Justin. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Sinclair didn’t respond, but his narrowed eyes said,
You damn well better remember who I am.
Aloud, he said, “Strider has upset you, Arthur, so I won’t take offense. Now, who are you better off listening to, him or me?” He turned to Jack. “Mr. Strider, you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

“What welcome? You only agreed to see me because you wanted to know my reason for coming.”

“I’m no longer interested.”

“Hold on,” Palmer snapped. “I’m the one he’s threatening. Besides, he’s a felon. I’m not letting him just walk away.”

“All right, damn it, what do you want?” Sinclair said gruffly with no pretense of civility.

Jack met Sinclair’s glare with one of his own. “To prevent a disaster, I need to meet with President Gorton immediately. I want you to set that up.”

“Jesus,” Palmer said. “Meet the President? That’s the last—”

“Quiet,” Sinclair barked.

Palmer ignored him. “I’ll go down there and kick Montana’s ass to China. I’ll make sure he won’t—”

“What Montana
won’t
do,” Jack said, “is take any more orders from you. He’s cornered, so he’s thinking about how to save himself. My guess is that he’s so mad he’ll poison the aquifer on his way out of town. And that will be on your head.”

He turned back to Sinclair. “President Gorton is the only one who can reach across the border and act fast enough.”

That shut Palmer up. He stepped back, deferring to Sinclair. Sinclair’s expression was pensive, looking at neither of them.

Jack knew exactly what was in Sinclair’s mind. Exposing the crisis to Gorton would put Palmer Industries squarely in the line of fire. Sinclair had a fiduciary obligation to protect this client, but that wasn’t a valid excuse for refusing to set up this meeting. He’d boxed Sinclair in by demanding something he had the ability to do and knew needed to be done. If Sinclair refused to make the call, he might have to defend his refusal in public after the disaster happened. If Gorton declined to meet with Jack, Sinclair could later say he’d tried. Jack wanted Sinclair to believe that the greater risk to him personally would be refusing to try.

Sinclair leaned back, tucked his chin and looked at Jack over his glasses, his face a mixture of amusement and scorn. “You’re asking me to use my relationship with the President to draw him into this grudge match between you and Tom Montana. You accuse Montana of all kinds of evil intentions, but the only actual damage has been done by you. You haven’t made your case, so I’m not disposed to call the President.”

Jack stared at the man, taken aback. Sinclair’s decision was contrary to his own best interests. Was he being illogical? Not likely. Therefore, he was bluffing. That forced Jack to choose between two last-ditch options, both bad. So far, he’d been careful to say nothing about D-TECH, the mystery trucks, or radioactivity in a Mexican cave. Those issues might persuade Sinclair of the urgency of this situation, but Jack hadn’t yet connected the dots. Sinclair would mock it as a conspiracy fantasy, cutting the legs from under the solid case he had about hazardous waste being dumped into the aquifer. He intended to tell Gorton everything he knew about D-TECH and the cave, but right now, he needed Sinclair to focus on the aquifer.

His alternative strategy was provocative and insulting, and the consequences were unpredictable, but it was the better choice.

“If you don’t set up a meeting with Gorton,” he said coolly, “I’ll call a press conference. You and Arthur can figure out how you’re going to answer questions from dozens of reporters.” He made his tone as matter-of-fact as Sinclair’s.

Sinclair’s head went back, chin up. “A couple of days ago you threatened to blow the whistle—but didn’t. You only get one bite of that apple. Besides, no reputable reporter would walk across the street to hear what you have to say.”

“Really? I race my boat against my friend Ronnie Patterson every week. As you know, he owns the
Chronicle
. When I give him this story, he’ll put it on page one.”

Jack felt like he was inside Sinclair’s head. If Sinclair wasn’t personally involved in what Montana was planning, Jack meeting with Gorton wouldn’t hurt him. If he doubted whether Arthur Palmer could stop Montana, meaning that the aquifer might actually be poisoned, Palmer Industries and everyone else would be better off if Gorton stepped in. And a media firestorm involving a major client would certainly tarnish Sinclair & Simms. Sinclair must see all that.

Sinclair took off his glasses, polished them, restored them to his nose and looked at Jack. “Well played, young man. My friend Jason Gorton will take my call, and you’ll have your meeting.” He stopped Arthur’s objection with a chopping motion of his hand. “Don’t say a word, Arthur. I’ll explain later.” Turning back to Jack, he said, “Now I’m going to send you away with something to think about. When you walked through my door the first time, you were in sad shape. You thought you’d hit bottom, but that was nothing. If you can’t prove every word of what you’ve just said, you’ll curse the day you met me.”

As Jack walked down the long hall, away from Sinclair’s office, he had no doubt that Justin Sinclair would try to destroy him no matter what happened with Gorton.

JUSTIN SINCLAIR SAT motionless, staring out the window at, but not seeing, Alcatraz, the prison-fortress in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

He hadn’t seen this move by Strider coming, and that worried him. Years ago, he would have been ready to block it. Now he was left with damage control and damn little time to perform it.

A diminutive celadon urn, one of a priceless pair on his desk, caught his eye. He picked it up, revolved it in his fingers, and hurled it across the room. Its thin shell evaporated on impact.