Death Canyon (40 page)

“I know.” Daniel nodded. “When you emailed me that name and phone number, I did some investigating of my own. Turns out the Denver office had an ongoing investigation involving that Ricker kid you mentioned. He was just a pawn, but the search led to Jan and Makter.”

“What kind of investigation?”

“Eco-freaks, I guess. I don't know all the details exactly. Sabotaging construction sites. Maybe worse.”

“Murder?” Jake asked.

“I can't really go into it.” Daniel looked over at Noelle.

“She's a federal agent too, Dan. A park ranger.”

“Still, I can't tell you any more, you know that.”

“What's going on, Jake?” Noelle's voice was shaky.

Jake walked over to her. “Doesn't matter. We're safe now.”

Confused, Jake probed his friend further. “Why didn't you just call the Denver office? How did you even find this house?”

Daniel paused for a moment. “Some of that I can't share, and we'll get to the rest. C'mon, let's get you two out of here.” He headed to the door and waited for Jake and Noelle to follow.

Something didn't feel right.

“Don't you need to investigate the scene?” Jake didn't move toward the door.

The agent paused again. “Denver is coming up to do it.”

“You should look out back, over the hill. There's some weird stuff back there. Something industrial. Huge, fake trees with water running to them. I don't know what it . . .” Jake stopped talking.
Daniel's gaze had fallen to the ground for a second and then he reached for the door, closed it, and clicked the lock. When he looked back up, there was a saddened expression on his face.

“
Fuck
me. Are you kidding?” Daniel said quietly. He was shaking his head with a look of despair on his face. “Why did you look back there, Jake? Why do you always snoop around when you aren't welcome? This nut job really blew our cover, huh?” He nudged Makter's lifeless body with his boot, then checked the rounds in his pistol.

Jake tried to decipher Daniel's face.

“Sit back down, Jake.” His gun was pointed at Noelle. “You too.” He motioned for Noelle to join Jake on the opposite side of the garage. She sat on the floor, her eyes wide like those of a doe on the highway.

“Danny, I didn't . . . How did you get here?”

“I was sent here, Jake.” He put his mask back on.

Daniel aimed at Noelle first. In a soft, morose tone he said, “Would it be easier for you to go first, Jake?” Jake couldn't answer that question. He cared about Noelle too much.

Would it be better for her to face death first? Otherwise, she would have to watch me die—a horrifying sight. Probably not worth it for a few extra seconds of life.

She was looking at him, afraid and expecting him to save her. He had no more tricks up his sleeve. He looked at the ground, embarrassed. He had failed her.

Daniel cocked his gun. As Jake was contemplating life's last moments, a shadow underneath the door caught his eye. Jake's mind left thoughts of the existential and focused on survival.

“What is it? Back there, I mean? What's going on?” Jake knew there was no reason for Daniel to share this information, but he hoped the agent might talk, if only to delay the horrible act he was
about to commit against someone he had once called a friend. He was playing to the only weakness he could sense in Daniel.

“Really? That's your last request?” Daniel chuckled. “Still trying to solve the crime on your deathbed?”

Jake maintained his eye contact, and Daniel started to talk.

“We can't all just leave the business like you, Jake. Some of us get more deeply involved. These jobs have their perks—and they pay a hell of a lot more than eighty grand a year.”

A quake violently shook the house. Drywall cracked on the near wall. The garage door was almost shaken from its track.

Jake looked quizzically at Daniel, who began to speak again.

“Fuck it, you're dead anyway. We all are.” The gun was at his side now. “Some years back, there was an effort in Switzerland to harvest electricity from the earth. Endless possibilities. They used heat from the earth's mantle to boil water, sent it through a steam turbine that made electricity.

“Then it went wrong. They were forced to shut the experiment down. It was too dangerous. So that concept was never realized.

“Our own government had played with geothermal power for decades. When the U.S. military heard about the Switzerland experiment, they were enthralled. A bright, young navy scientist came up with the idea of using tectonic manipulation in warfare. The problem was that we needed an in—a way to disrupt the earth below an enemy target. It couldn't be done remotely, so we needed geothermal rigs placed throughout foreign countries.

“What we came up with was a pretty basic deception plan. Since many of our enemy countries have unreliable electricity sources, it made sense to offer to build them these electricity plants as an aid project. A nice gesture, you know? Good foreign policy.

“Most of the countries we approached agreed. Turns out, people
like the idea of free power. Things were moving ahead. The last step in the experimental phase was to determine the sensitivity of the trigger—see what amount of drilling causes what result. Yellowstone was the perfect testing ground.”

“What about all the people? The government has no regard for its own citizens? And the land?”

“We closed the park. Our team had a pretty good idea of how much water can be pumped before something disastrous is triggered.”

After seeing the park a few hours ago, Jake wasn't so sure about that.

“And Jan? Makter? What's their involvement?”

“Merely coincidental, really. Our Manhattan office was throwing some pretty serious charges at Jan. Narcotics, conspiracy. This was his plea deal. We gave him some temporary work. He handpicked Makter. Bad idea. We lost control.”

“So those two coordinated the bear attack, the avalanche, the drowning, all of it?”

“Not coordinated, no. It was just Makter. Before we could get rid of him, the experiment was in jeopardy. Plus, Jan kept assuring us that he could handle it.”

“Why involve criminals? Why not keep it all under wraps—a government secret?”

“Plausible deniability, Jake. If the public got suspicious, we could peg it all on Jan. Paint him as a criminal mastermind working for some foreign government. Use part of the truth to lie. People would buy it.”

Jake was angry now.
How could they do this?

“You put a madman in charge of public relations. Now innocent people are dead.”

“No, Jake. Plausible deniability, remember? Jan put a madman in charge.” Daniel raised his gun again and prepared to fire.

Jake saw the shadow under the door again. Daniel cocked his handgun.

I don't know who you are, but for God's sake, move now!!

Noelle was weeping. Jake wanted to comfort her one last time, but he had no idea what to say.

Better to die,
he thought.
I would never forgive myself for this.
He closed his eyes.

The door came crashing down. Dust flew into the air, obscuring the intruder for a few seconds. Daniel aimed steadily in the center of the ghostlike cloud.

“Put your gun down, Officer!” Daniel shouted.

“You first!” Chief Terrell yelled back. “I heard it all. You'll kill us either way!”

The stare-down went on for a few seconds in silence. Suddenly,
Daniel backed down. “Here's the deal, we put down our weapons at the same time and kick them to the corner there. Then we figure out a way to resolve this without anybody getting hurt.”

The chief sized him up. “Fine. Agreed. Put it down slowly.” The two men bent toward the floor with their eyes still focused on each other. For a split second, the chief glanced over at Jake, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

The agent's gun hit the floor first and Jake lunged from the chair, slid toward Daniel, and kicked the gun into the corner. The chief stood up and trained his pistol on the unarmed agent.

“Don't fucking move,” Terrell said.

“Nice of you to join us.” Jake smiled at the chief and then grabbed the pistol from the floor. “We need to stop the drilling and pumping before this thing blows. Noelle, go upstairs and look for a way to shut it down.”

She nodded. The chief forced Daniel into the chair that had held Jake just a few minutes earlier.

*  *  *

Noelle came back empty-handed.

There were violent rumbles almost constantly now. The furniture in the house was bouncing around rowdily, and it was getting difficult to stand. Looking out into the night air toward the park, they could see that geothermal activity was putting on a natural pyrotechnics show.

“I didn't see anything. No switches or anything like that. The computers all require passwords. I don't even know what we would do if we could access them.”

“Okay.” Jake thought for a moment. “Let's all go upstairs.” He grabbed Daniel by his wrists; they were now bound behind him with duct tape.

On the way up, Daniel became talkative again. He was starting to plead. “This is a mistake, Jake. You can't just interfere with this high-level shit. This is progress, Jake! I can assure you it would be used only in emergency situations, if it's ever even employed. Hell, this might be the last we ever see of the stupid idea!”

“I'm not even thinking that far into the future yet, Daniel. I'm trying to stop something that is happening
now
. I was in the park. We need to shut it down immediately.” He pulled Daniel up the last few stairs against his will.

“Every new idea requires some sacrifice, old friend. The park is cleared! If the thing does blow, casualties will be minimal.”

Jake stopped and gave him a dubious look. “You want me to sacrifice our lives and allow you to destroy one of the most unique places in the world, and in the name of what? This has to stop, Dan,
now.
”

Daniel fell quiet again. When they got into the control room, the chief took over. He sat Daniel down in a chair in front of one of the computers, removed the duct tape, and held the gun to his head. “Log in.”

Daniel started punching keys. The computer screen showed an operating system that was unfamiliar to all three of them.

“There's no way to shut it down.” As he spoke, Daniel was toppled from his chair by a tremor. The lights overhead pulsed. Sparks flew from the electrical sockets. Noelle grabbed Jake's shoulder to steady herself.

Terrell pulled Daniel up by his shirt and dropped him down into the chair.

“Shut it all down now!” This time, Daniel didn't move.

“I can't do that. I'm sorry. I don't even know how.”

The chief pushed the barrel of the gun hard into the soft spot at
the top of Daniel's neck, but he didn't flinch. The computer screen blinked out. Drywall cracked and fell in the control room.

“Now!” The computer screen lit back up.

Backup Power Initiated.

Daniel repeated himself, shaking his head. “I can't do that.”

Without warning, the chief moved the gun so its barrel was pointed directly down onto the agent's bent knee. He cocked the weapon.

“Don't be stupid! I'm a federal agent!”

The bullet traveled through Daniel's kneecap and tunneled into his fibula. Noelle screamed and jumped back.

Daniel let out a yelp. Blood was pooling around his shoes. Terrell moved the gun to his left knee.

“Shut it down.” This time, the chief said it more calmly. No response. The chief fired again, blowing apart the agent's left knee.

Daniel screamed again, followed by a series of soft whimpers. The chief put the barrel of the gun against Daniel's shoulder. “I'm sick of you hotshots bossing me around in my own town.” He looked at Jake for a moment. “You think you're such hot shit, coming in here from back East?”

Jake and Noelle exchanged looks. The chief seemed to be losing his cool. Daniel could sense it too. His shoulders dropped in surrender.

“I'm going to ask you one more time,
boy
. Shut the system down, or I'll blow your shoulder up like I did your knees. Then you've got one more shoulder before I use your big fed head as a bargaining chip.” Terrell dug the barrel into the wound on Daniel's right knee. Daniel hissed through his teeth, trying to hold in a scream. He was breathing hard. Nearly in shock.

Terrell cocked the gun and pushed its barrel hard into Daniel's right shoulder. The agent was losing significant blood. He tried to collect himself.

There was an uneasy silence for a moment before Daniel started typing. After forty-five seconds of entering some series of codes and swearing under his breath, he spoke aloud. “It's done. You're going to regret this, Jake.” He groaned in pain. The chief rapped the pistol's grip hard against Daniel's temple, knocking him unconscious.

A window popped up:

EMERGENCY OVERRIDE: Drilling is incomplete. Do you wish to abort the Hot Rock Experiment?

The chief hit enter.

The hum filling the house came to a sudden stop. Only the noise of the quakes remained. Groaning and rumbling. The house was collapsing.

“Let's go.”

Terrell handed his pistol to Jake and walked down the stairs, out the door, and down the driveway. Jake and Noelle followed after him, dragging Daniel down the crumbling stairway.

“What the hell is with Terrell?” Noelle exclaimed when they got outside. Her voice was still shaky. Jake only shook his head.

“Guy's had a hell of a week.”

Jake checked Daniel's injuries. The chief had done an extraordinary job of missing central veins and arteries. Daniel would be in extreme pain when he woke up, but he wouldn't bleed out.