'Maybe he knew it was dangerous. Maybe he was acting like the king who has a taster eat his food to see if it's poisoned.'
'He's still walking around,' she said. 'Whatever the reason. I used up a perfectly good bomb on a dumb bitch.'
'So next time we'll do it together. And wouldn't you rather do them both? One right after the other?'
'I would.'
'And what if we got her to talk. Admit they were taking money.'
''Could we make a video and show it to the movement?''
'Sure. Why not? But we need a place to take her.' There was a pause.
'I know a perfect place.'
'I'll call you soon to hear your ideas.'
Groiter felt that at last he was making progress. She was starting to rely on him.
Dan watched the fence, listening intently for dogs or people. Only after seeing the fence for the second time, observing the meticulously coiled razor wire, did he contemplate his enemies' determination to protect their secrets.
It was 7:00 a.m. The forest was drippy with moisture, cool and dark. Angled shafts of early-morning sun barely penetrated the upper layers of the forest. The ground was in deep shadow. The clarity and pureness of a spring day made emerald green of the grasses and trees.
Nothing moved. The owls were perched, and the daytime predators were not making themselves known. A dusky-footed wood rat had scurried by, no doubt looking for the nearest windfall.
For 2? hours Dan attempted to retrace the route he and Maria took the day of the car chase. Finally he recognized the large barrier logs and the hemlock they'd used to bridge the windfalls. Now he crouched just outside the double chain-link fence. Not a dog in sight. The diversion seemed to have worked.
Because of its warm-when-wet properties, he wore wool head to toe. That was at Maria's insistence. She even found him wool pants. Wool was not only warm, she said, but unlike fabrics like Gore-Tex it was also quiet when moving through the forest. No matter how hard she had tried to make her assistance seem trivial, it was endearing.
She had gone in with the biologists as a public representative. Whatever that was. The whole concept of self-appointed public do-gooders marching around on private land irritated Dan. After all, the government was supposed to represent the public, and the bureaucrats were bad enough without volunteer bureaucrats. Yet here he was using the very system he hated in order to snoop and trespass. The world was a complicated place.
He wondered if there were electronic sensors or infrared beams that would enable them to detect him when he passed through the fenced area. The thought was hard on the nerves. He had been acting like a fearless commando around Maria. Now, by himself, without an audience, how brave was he? It was that precise thought that brought a curse to his lips and brought out the wire cutters.
Quickly he snipped the heavy chain-link fencing. Pushing himself so he wouldn't mentally freeze and crawl back under his bush, he cut quickly, and in seconds he had chopped up a three-foot section and bent it inward. Sweating profusely, he tossed the cutters through the hole in the first fence and crawled through after them. He used the same technique on the second fence and was soon on the far side.
No alarms had sounded. Moving slowly through the woods with a light pack on his back, he stayed in the thick undergrowth and used a compass along with the handheld GPS, moving toward the area of the tank. He had no idea where the lab was located or what other amenities might be found on the property. Every time he stepped, he made a sound unless he deliberately disciplined himself. After more than a few crackles and snaps, he decided to take off his boots and socks and put them in his pack. This enabled nearly silent movement. His tender feet could feel any twig about to snap and the leaves were moist enough that they were a mere whisper against his skin.
He found himself wishing he had brought a handgun. Fear did that. In the more rational confines of his office, he had come up with several good reasons not to bring a weapon of any kind. After many minutes he came to a lightly graveled road. In most places the gravel had sunk into the soft ground, leaving a surface that was partially dirt. It appeared that heavy vehicles used the road frequently. He wondered if the workers came and went at night so as not to attract attention.
Shrinking into the forest, he began to parallel the road, and in a few minutes he came to what resembled the letter Y. The ground was becoming rapidly steeper. The trees remained giant with few breaks in the overhead canopy, the road largely winding around their trunks. Where a tree had been removed, a telltale patch of blue sky shone through.
There was nothing to distinguish the fork of the Y bearing right from the one bearing to the left except that the left-hand fork rose at a steeper gradient. If he were correct about his position relative to the main buildings, the road to the right probably led to the gate. The one to the left had an unknown purpose and was therefore the more intriguing. He decided to keep to the left and look for the tank and the boards on the side of the mountain.
He walked what he guessed was a hundred yards before he came to a small clearing. At the edge of the clearing, but back under the tree canopy and nearly out of sight from the air, he found the man-made reservoir, some forty feet in diameter. It looked to be about five feet deep. Like an aboveground backyard pool, it appeared to have a liner, but its sides were made of concrete. Leading in two directions from the reservoir was a four-inch- diameter plastic hose. One hose went in the direction Dan had come; the other went nowhere and was coiled near the edge of the clearing.
Vehicles obviously frequented the area; this reservoir must be a center of activity. Looking to the far side of the clearing, he saw a portable toilet. In front of the plastic structure, a heavy man sat in a chair not far from what looked like a boarded-up mine shaft. The man was reading a book with a bloodred cover. Although still in the bushes and virtually invisible, Dan nearly stepped into the clearing. The thought was unnerving. Stooping down, he removed a pair of field glasses from his pack.
Dan saw that the man was armed with a prominently displayed semiautomatic pistol. With the binoculars he saw what looked to be an underground tunnel entry that was not seriously boarded up; someone had merely leaned the lumber against the rock face and over the opening. Somehow, he guessed, the reservoir and the mine were connected. In fact, the coiled-up line could have led from the reservoir to the mine. He had to look in that mine shaft. Removing his camera from the pack, he took several photos at slow-shutter speed from a tiny collapsible tripod.
As he studied the guard, it became apparent that he was not watching the area. In the movies someone would knock him out, but the whole notion of attacking a potentially innocent man and giving him a concussion was out of the question. He would just have to hope the guy didn't look around.
If they were operating in secret, it made sense that they would close everything down for an inspection. He wondered if Maria's group would observe this area or if they would be led around it.
Within about forty feet of the mine entrance, there was heavy forest. Moving as quickly as he could, he walked around the perimeter of the clearing, careful to remain far enough back in the trees to stay hidden.
When he arrived at the forest edge nearest the mine entrance, he quickly put on his socks and boots. It made him feel less vulnerable. The guard turned a page and didn't pause to look up. A heavy black holster with cuffs and pepper spray on his belt completed the police-officer look that private-security people often affect. The man could, Dan realized, be an off-duty cop.
It would only take one glance for the guard to see a man running in the open to the mine. Even peripheral vision might do it. Maybe he shouldn't try. To psych himself for the sprint, he made himself think of all the reasons the man wouldn't risk shooting him on sight.
He forced himself to breathe deeply and slowly, took a last look around, and ran on his toes, as quietly as he was able, all the way to the mine entrance. In seconds he moved. three boards to the side, then slipped in. In a few more seconds he had the boards back in place. Not a sound came from the guard. Dan waited a moment for his heart to slow. Light shone through the wooden slats, creating a halo near the entrance. Behind him it was black and cool. Reaching into his pack, he pulled out a penlight and played it around the confined space. On the rock wall were pegs; on the pegs hung eight yellow suits smeared with gray, dustlike particles of soil.
Those outfits, he was certain, served as a barrier against some kind of toxin. Next to the suits there were bottles of compressed air. Of course, if it were an old sulphur mine, it could be that the earth had acted as a retort and created acid. He had read about that. But if that were true, why would these people want to go down inside?
