“Is he one of us?” The question came from Al, who was seated on the other side of the campfire.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Has he joined Green Rage? Is he standing with us or is he on the outside looking in?”
“I haven’t joined Green Rage,” Ben answered. “I’m sympathetic to the cause. But that’s really irrelevant to my work as a lawyer. I don’t have to agree with everything my client believes to represent him.”
Al threw down his cowboy hat. “Man, that’s just not good enough.”
Maureen cut in. “Al, listen for a minute.”
“I’m listening, Maureen, but I don’t like what I hear. There’s no way I’m going to spill my soul to someone I don’t know who isn’t even in the group. For all I know, he could be a Cabal plant. Or a Freddie.”
Ben glanced up at Maureen. “Freddie?”
“Forest ranger. It’s a nickname.” She glanced over at Al, who was on his feet and pacing. “Not a very flattering one.”
“Aren’t the rangers on your side?” Ben asked.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no, the rangers side with the loggers almost every time. They’re part of the establishment. Do you realize that fifty percent of the clear-cutting in this country is taking place on national park land? True. The government is selling the country out from under us. And the rangers are being paid to go along with the sellout.” She looked back at Al. “Look, it’s this simple. Do you want Zak to go to prison? Or worse?”
Al pursed his lips together. “No.”
“Then cooperate with Ben. We’ve checked him out, and we think we’re damn lucky to have him. More important, we think he’s just about Zak’s only hope of beating this trumped-up charge. We have to do everything we can to help him.”
“You can do whatever you want to do,” Al said. “It ain’t gonna help.”
“And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, Zak’s got his dick in a ringer and he ain’t never gonna get it out.” There was a chorus of groans and disapproval. “You clowns are just kidding yourself. We all know what’s really going down here. Why are we afraid to say it?”
“I’d like to know,” Ben interjected. “What’s really going down here?”
“It’s the Cabal, man. They set this whole thing up. They’d do anything to get us out of the forest. They killed that logger and they framed Zak.”
Ben arched an eyebrow. “I see. It’s all a conspiracy.”
“Don’t patronize me, man. I don’t have to put up with that.” He took a step toward Ben, but a sharp look from Maureen stopped him in his tracks. “I’m not talking about alien abductions here. But it is a fact that the logging companies have poured a ton of money into stopping us and other groups like us. The Cabal has more operating cash than they know what to do with. Framing Zak would be a piece of cake for them. Put some money in the right hands, plant a little false evidence, and presto! Zak’s on his way to Death Row.”
Christina edged into the conversation. “But why would they go after Zak?”
“He’s been the driving force of this group since he joined, and they know that. Cut off the head, and the body withers.” He paused for breath. “Same reason the Mob killed Jack Kennedy.”
“Sit down, Al.” Maureen’s directive was echoed by several other groans and
“I’d like to talk to each of you,” Ben said. “I’d like to know everything you know, everything there is to know about Zak. Who was with him the day of the murder, who saw him where. Did he ever talk about the loggers, the victim, planting explosives.”
“Zak talked about explosives every day of his life,” Doc said. “It’s what he did. More than once I had to treat him for a burn because he spilled some chemical or another on himself.”
“Of course,” Deirdre suggested, “that could be exactly why the Cabal would use that M.O. to kill the logger. The use of a bomb guaranteed the cops would come looking for Zak.”
“All this speculation is getting us nowhere,” Ben said. “I need to know the facts. Who knew Zak best?”
Ben noticed several false starts before Maureen finally spoke. “We all knew him, Ben. Intimately.”
Al swallowed a smile. “Yeah. Especially the women.”
Molly shot him a killing look.
Doc chimed in. “What about you, Deirdre? You knew Zak rather well, didn’t you?”
Deirdre flushed. “Zak and I spent a lot of time … talking.”
Ben saw Al cover his mouth, as if he was about to burst out laughing.
“I don’t know if you know this yet,” Deirdre continued, “but Zak has an enormous brain. He was always asking questions, helping me date trees, trying to learn something new. He was very interested in my work.”
Al’s laughter finally burst out explosively. “The only thing he was interested in was getting into your pants!”
“Al!” Maureen’s eyes were like lasers cutting across the camp. “If you can’t be helpful, maybe you should go for a walk. Preferably over a cliff.”
“All right, all right.” He waved his hand at her. “I know when I ain’t wanted, man.” He ambled over into the forest and in a matter of moments had disappeared.
“Zak isn’t the only subject I need to know about,” Ben explained. “I want to know everything there is to know-everything that’s factual-about this so-called Cabal you all seem so paranoid about.”
“The Cabal is hell on wheels,” Rick muttered. “And its leader, Slade, is the fuckin’ Prince of Darkness.”
That again. “Did you get that, Christina? Prince of Darkness.”
She nodded. “Do we have subpoena power over a foreign potentate?”
Ben smiled. “If you people want me to believe there’s some gigantic high-powered conspiracy out to get you, you’re going to have to work a lot harder. Why would anyone want to do this?”
Maureen looked at Ben squarely. “In a word, money.”
“The conspiracy you’re describing sounds like it would be expensive, not profitable.”
“You have to understand the big picture. Ben, what do you think is the main purpose of our monkeywrenching activities?”
He shrugged. “I assume you’re trying to scare people off. Threaten the loggers with their lives.”
“Wrong. That’s the way the media plays it, that’s the line the logging conglomerates feed them, but that isn’t the truth. We take every possible precaution to make sure no one is hurt by our activities, and so far we’ve been successful. Monkeywrenching is about money.”
“I’m afraid I don’t get it.”
“Let’s take tree spiking, for example. Tree spiking is not about trying to hurt loggers. Tree spiking is something we do when we hear that another expanse of old-growth forest is about to be sold for logging. Basically, we hammer a nail or some other large piece of metal into a tree. We then warn the Forest Service or the timber company bidding on the sale or both. At that point, if the Forest Service still wants to sell the forest, they have to send a crew out with metal detectors and crowbars to remove the spikes. It’s a lot of trouble and expensive. In many cases, the Forest Service simply cancels the sale. If they do proceed, many logging companies will not bid, because they know that if a spike runs through their lumbermill, it could damage the blade of the saw and cost them thousands of dollars. Toss in some sabotaged tree cutters or haul trucks, and before long the profit margins start shrinking. And since profits are the raison d’etre of big corporations, the trees don’t get cut. Not because the loggers have decided to perform a service for humanity, but because our efforts have simply made it too expensive.”
“But tree spiking still creates a danger that someone will be hurt.”
“We always discourage spiking trees at low levels, where it could strike a chain saw and hurt a logger. We spike up higher than they can reach.”
“Wait a minute,” Christina said. “I remember hearing about some logger who got hurt by a spiked tree.”
“But do you know what actually happened?”
“Well …”
“Here’s the facts. In 1987, a band saw in a Cloverdale, California, mill struck an eleven-inch spike and shattered, sending pieces of blade flying across the room. One section hit a logger named George Alexander and broke his jaw. Instantly, the media jumped on the bandwagon denouncing eco-terrorists without doing the least
