“I really didn’t care how it came out,” McCann said. “I looked forward to the fees that would come from litigation. But I did contact Hoening on behalf of Genetech. That’s when he told me about the flamers. He thought Genetech’s activities were causing some kind of disturbance, and he was damned mad about it. I remembered what the Genetech employee had said, and I gave this information to Barron. He sent a couple of his engineers up here, and they were the ones who made the connection between the microbes and the seam of coal. Barron was out-of- his-mind happy, and knew he really had something. The information was worth billions.
“See, the problem with coal gasification is the huge expense of building the plant, and the fact that Western coal is soft and might require so much coal to get gas that the dollars just wouldn’t work. But if these Yellowstone microbes could be injectedinto the ground, into that coal, a big plant wouldn’t be necessary.The coal gasification would occur underground, naturally. All EnerDyne would need to do was tap it and pipe it out. And I was the only person outside of his company who knew it. So we made a deal. They retained me as their counsel. Barron started working the inside, finding players who could help him get exclusivityin exchange for positions and stock within the company.
“But before we could get everything into place, Rick Hoeningstarted causing trouble.”
“So you had to stop him,” Joe said.
“Yes, I had to stop him.”
“But why kill the others? Why didn’t you quit with Hoening that morning?”
McCann shrugged. “Two reasons, Game Warden. If I’d walked away after Hoening went down, the investigation would have centered on him and me, and no doubt someone before you would have put the pieces together long before now. Plus, I had no doubt Hoening had recruited his friends to his cause. They would have carried out the campaign against bio-mining and made Hoening into some kind of martyr. Taking them out eliminated the effort entirely, and cast everything in the light of the Zone of Death instead of Hoening.”
“But,” Joe said, “four innocent people. .”
“No one is innocent,” McCann said definitively.
Joe just stared at him, hatred building.
“Joe. .” Nate cautioned.
Joe took a breath. “What happened next?” he asked McCann.
“Barron recruited Chuck Ward from your governor’s office so Ward would be available to head off any action that might stop EnerDyne at the state level. And he got Langston to buy in, knowing Langston was a few years from retirement and wanted a huge payoff.”
“Those bastards,” Joe said.
McCann shrugged. “It’s amazingly easy to buy public officials.Everybody knows that. Barron was a master of it, and quite a salesman.”
Joe was disgusted. The governor’s chief of staff and the chief ranger for the park had exchanged their positions of trust for big personal payoffs. Worse, they’d gone off the deep end to protect their interest, including the ambush of Judy Demming, the likely murder of Cutler, and targeting Joe and his family. As much as he despised McCann, Langston and Ward were as bad or worse.
The snow was building up on the road and Joe had to slow down. At least four inches had fallen and stuck. Park policy was not to plow the roads in winter, but to let the snow build up untilonly snowmobiles and snow coaches could use them. That meant if he got stuck, it could be days before someone found them. And, based on what they were learning, there were no guarantees that whoever found them would be friendly.
“Okay, so EnerDyne wants to harvest the microbes,” Joe said. “That I understand. But how did it happen that you turn into Rambo?”
For the first time, McCann smiled. Joe could see him in the mirror, and he thought McCann looked smug.
“That came about by happenstance. One of my clients is an elk poacher. He kills the elk, cuts off their antlers, and sells them to Asian firms who grind them up and sell it as an aphrodisiac.”
“I hate poachers,” Joe said, “nearly as much as bureaucrats who go bad.”
“I’m a lawyer, I don’t make moral judgments.”
“Which is why you’re an asshole,” Nate growled.
“Anyway,” McCann said, gaining in arrogance as he went on, Joe thought, “his hunting ground is near Bechler ranger station,technically in Idaho. He was contacted by the Idaho Fish and Game, who told him they were watching him. He came in to see me to find out whether Idaho could arrest him or not, since he was doing his poaching on federal park land. So as I researchedhis question, I found the loophole. I couldn’t believe it when I found it. I told Barron about it and said I’d take care of his Hoening problem if he’d make me financially secure for the rest of my life. You see, I’d learned about the annual reunions of the Gopher State Five from Hoening himself. I knew where they’d be, and when they’d be there.”
“You sound proud of yourself,” Joe said.
McCann shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I be? I committed the perfect crime.”
“So why didn’t you just leave with the money after you killed Hoening and the others?” Joe asked. “Why stay around to be caught?”
“First, I’m not caught,” McCann said. “Second, Barron renegedon me. It turned out he’d filed false financials with the SEC, and all that public money he promised was tied up in regulations.He simply didn’t have the cash. He lied to me.”
“Imagine that,” Joe said.
“Worse than that,” McCann said, “they panicked. They really are amateurs. Instead of concentrating on ways to get me the money, they screwed everything up by lying and delaying further. I knew they had decided to get rid of me somehow, so I stayed ahead of them and got myself put in their own jail where I’d be high profile and safe. Meanwhile, they tried to eliminate all of the witnesses, or anyone who might potentially be a witness. I want no part of them anymore, or EnerDyne. I just want my money.”
“But they want you,” Joe said, “so you won’t talk and implicatethem.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you kill that woman and the ex-sheriff?”
“They knew too much. If someone got to them, they might have exposed me.”
Joe said, “So you lured them into Idaho to kill them. You’ve admitted to kidnapping.”
McCann said, “Sure, I talked under duress. Under the threat of torture from your friend here. After being kidnapped and assaulted.Sorry, my confession won’t stand since I’ll claim I said whatever I had to to save my life. It would be your word against mine.”
He beamed at Joe.
Joe dug his microcassette recorder out of his pocket and held it up.
“Want to bet?” Joe said. “Anybody who hears this tape will hear how proud you are of what you did. None of it sounds forced out of you.”
McCann went white and his mouth sagged open.
“Shut him up,” Joe said, and Nate eagerly dove over the seat with the tape and stretched it across the lawyer’s mouth.
“You’ll get death,” Nate said, smoothing the tape.
“Assuming he lives long enough to get to trial,” Joe said, turning and looking into Clay McCann’s wide, panicked eyes.
And seeing that less than a hundred yards behind them was a park ranger Ford Explorer with wigwag lights flashing, gaining on them by the second, snow flying from the tires in twin plumes of white.
“Uh-oh,”Joe said.
McCann turned, saw the vehicle, and whimpered. He sagged in the seat to hide. The Explorer closed the gap, fishtailing a littlein the snow as the driver accelerated.
“Who is it?” Nate asked, squinting. “Can you tell?”
“My guess is Langston and Layborn,” Joe said, reaching behindhis back and gripping the Glock, putting it on the seat next to him. “Here we go.”
“I can put a bullet into the grille,” Nate said, “knock them out.” He ran the window down so he could lean outside. The cab of the truck filled with swirling snow.
“Hold it,” Nate said, “there’s only one guy inside.”
