The Glacier Gallows (8 page)

“Identification?”

“Two of the team are on site now. We're on top. Hold on.”

A long moment passed. Cole could feel his heart beating in his throat. He strained to hear the conversation in the headset over the din of the Black Hawk.

“What have you got,
S&R
-one?” Special Agent McCallum sounded less jocular than when he was giving instructions to the hiking party.

“Male, deceased, massive trauma to the back of the head. Looks like he fell. We've got recently disturbed talus and scree. They have a wallet. Hold. Okay, we've got possible
ID
. Foreman, Blake. We'll have to confirm with the autopsy. Thirty-six years old, address is in Georgia, but the licence is expired.”

“Alright, I'll pass the word up here that we have our missing person. We'll have Evidence Recovery on station in the next hour. You're in a second crime scene,
S&R
-one.”

OTTAWA, ONTARIO. FEBRUARY 13.

BY 8:00 AM BRIAN MARRIOTT
was back at his office, digging. But digging for what? he asked himself, elbows on the desk, head in his hands. He picked up the phone and dialed the number of Rick Turcotte's parliamentary office, but all he got was voice mail. Ministers and parliamentary secretaries usually huddled around 7:30 each morning, so it was likely Rick and his staff were in the minister's office. Brian left a message.

For the next hour he skulked around various parliamentary news­letter web pages and searched for anything he could find about today's announcements. When his phone rang at 9:00
AM
, he jumped. He snatched the receiver up. “Marriott,
AEG
.”

“Mr. Turcotte is holding for you,” said a woman's voice.

“Put him on, please.” There was a pause.

“Brian, you called?”

“Mr. Secretary. Yes, I did. That was quite the reception last night.”

“Are you pleased with the announcement? You got what you wanted, didn't you?”

“I guess I'd like to read the full instructions for the regulatory review before I say one way or the other.”

“Well, I can arrange to have them sent over, but it will have to wait until after today's press conference. This government doesn't want any leaks. Will you be there?”

“I'm considering it.”

“You should be. This is good news for you.”

“So you say, Secretary.”

“I do. I'll see you there. I have to go, Brian. Eleven
AM
. Don't be late.” Rick Turcotte hung up. Brian looked at the receiver in his hand and did the same.

A moment later, the phone rang again. He thought it might be Turcotte calling back. It was Joe Firstlight from the Blackfeet Nation. Brian let out his breath. “Hi, Joe, how are things in big sky country this morning?”

“Cold and dry. We haven't had any snow here in a month. Last winter we had record snow; this year, nothing.”

“Extreme fluctuations in annual weather patterns are one of the consequences of climate change.”

“If this keeps up, we're going to have to truck water in as early as June this year. Listen, you asked me to dig around about High Country Energy. I did. There's some pretty testy people right now on the Blackfeet Council. I've got a pretty good idea of what's happening—why we've been shut out, and why
HCE
has had the doors opened wide for them.”

“Did you find out if
HCE
had someone in the closed-door meetings last month?”

“I found out they did, but not who. I don't think it was the head honcho. It was someone local who is on the payroll. Some kind of consultant or something.”

“Can you find out who?”

“Nobody will talk with me anymore, Brian. Even my friends on the council have clammed up, and I think I know why the tribe is doing this. At first, I just thought that all these gas wells were going to net the band a lot more money. I've poked around and I'm pretty sure someone is on the take. It looks like
HCE
has offered to build a new community center in Browning, fix up some of the cultural sites around the res, and even fix some of the water infrastructure at the local high school.”

“Strictly speaking, that's not graft, it's extortion, in the political sense, but I don't know if it's illegal.”

“The band says that all of those projects will cost about six million dollars—six-point-three, to be exact. But I got a friend in the
IRS
down in Great Falls who was able to do some dirty work for me, and he says that High Country Energy reports marketing and promotional expenses for this project that are closer to eight million.”

“Maybe they're padding their promotional budget somewhere?”

“Yeah, I thought of that. But
HCE
doesn't do any formal marketing. No advertising. This isn't Chevron; they don't sell anything to the end consumer. All these guys do is find oil and gas, get it out of the ground, and then sell it to someone else to refine and pass on to the consumer. No, this two-million-dollar discrepancy is something other than billboards and
TV
ads.”

“Where
do
you think it's going? If
HCE
is reporting it to the
IRS
, then it can't be for bribes.”

“Depends on what you call a bribe.”

“Is there proof? You could go to the media.”

“I don't know. There's no straight line.”

“What do you want to do, Joe?”

“I don't know what to do. Remember what I told you about our beliefs about digging holes in the ground, Brian?”

“How could I forget?”

“High Country is going to drill eighty of them.”

BRIAN MARRIOTT WENT
through security at the House of Commons and picked up his pass. He walked up the stairs to the main entrance hall and then proceeded to the National Press Theatre.

As he entered the room, his Blackberry buzzed. He was a few minutes early, but the room was already crowded with reporters and parliamentary staff. He found a seat near the back and looked at his phone. There was a message from Charles Wendell:

Sorry 4 last night. By way of apology am sending u this frm the review guidelines 2 be released at 11
.
“The Minister shall direct his department to include other forms of power generation to be included under the category of ‘alternative' so that they may be considered for energy procurement programs under the new guidelines: wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, run of the river (hydro), traditional hydro, nuclear, clean coal technology and other forms of power deemed to be ‘alternative' by the Minister.”

Brian checked his watch. It was 10:58. He typed back quickly.
Where did you get this?

Friend inside Dept leaked 2 me. Gone out to reporters. It's a trap.

Brian looked around the room. There were about twenty reporters there. He zeroed in on Tara Sinclair, the science reporter for the
Globe and Mail
, in the front row. She had her head down, looking at her iPhone.

Brian typed back,
I'm in the Press Theatre.

Get out now.

Brian had started to stand when David Canning walked in the door. With no way of making an exit without raising a ruckus, Brian sat down and waited for the trap to be sprung.

“THE MINISTER WONDERS
if you have a moment to talk, Mr. Marriott.” Brian had made the most of his House of Commons pass and seated himself in the government lobby. Behind each side of the House of Commons was a sitting area where members from all parties could chat, eat, plot, and be on hand in the event that they were needed in the House. Brian had been talking with several government backbench
MP
s about the day's announcement when the aid to the minister found him.

“Sure. Where?”

“Upstairs. He's just finishing up an interview.”

Five minutes later, Brian was seated on a sprawling leather couch in the minister's parliamentary office. The room was massive, with high ceilings and a fireplace and ornate wooden bookshelves. Brian felt a little like an errant schoolboy awaiting a scolding. The minister was in an adjoining office, taping an interview with
CBC
radio. Brian heard the man sign off, and a moment later Canning came through the door.

Brian stood and shook the proffered hand. The minister forced a smile. “Thanks for seeing me, Brian.”

“Thank you, Mr. Minister.”

“Do you want anything? Coffee, a soft drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Sit, please.” The two men sat across from one another. The minister crossed his legs and straightened the pleat on his suit pants. They were alone in the room. “You didn't like the announcement.” It was a statement.

“No, sir.”

“Why not? You wanted a review of government regulations on alternative energy, and that's what you got.”

“Nuclear energy is not an alternative to oil or gas. And there is no such thing as clean coal.”

Canning waved his hands in a dismissive gesture. “That's what the environmentalists all say, Brian. Please don't tell me you drank the Kool-Aid.”

“If you were serious about opening up the market to more alternative forms of energy, you wouldn't have muddied the waters by lumping nuclear and coal into the mix.”

“Brian, do you have any idea what's at stake right now?”

“I think I—”

“You have no goddamned idea what's at stake.” He still spoke calmly, but his tone silenced Brian. Canning gritted his teeth. “No idea. This country has to assert itself on the global stage. We have to take our place as an energy superpower. It's all we have. All the shit that the environmentalists and other bleeding-heart liberals want won't happen if we can't maintain our position as an energy-exporting nation. Without clean coal and nuclear power to drive these systems, that's not going to happen.”

“This isn't about alternatives at all, is it, Minister?”

“What are you saying, Brian?”

“This is about something else. It's about expanding the tar sands.”

“Brian, please don't tell me you've strayed so far from the fold that you'll join the radicals at Green Earth as they strangle this country's economic growth.”

“Why else would you push for more nuclear?” Brian spoke quietly.

The minister stood up, and Brian snapped back to reality. “Brian, we want to find a place for alternatives in this country's energy mix. That's not going to happen without including all forms of nontraditional energy production. It just won't happen.”

Brian stood up. “You want to use nuclear power to fuel tar sands growth. You've been sold. So you add nuclear to the list of energies that can be considered alternative, and that way you can skate around your own requirements for renewable-energy standards for federal projects.”

Canning stared at him. “Let me ask you this, Brian. You were at the reception last night. Did you post the video of my remarks?”

Brian focused. “I didn't.”

“Who did? You were the only environmentalist in the room.”

“I don't know who did. Maybe one of your friends isn't as friendly as you thought.”

“What happened to you? You used to be
with
us
. You used to
be
one of us. Now you take a page from the tactics of the fucking tree huggers. I spent half of my goddamned press conference explaining why I love democracy and don't want to lock up environmentalists. I should have been talking about alternative energy. Is that what you want?”

“Due respect, Minister, you shouldn't have said it. This is the digital—”

“Don't lecture me about the digital age! I get that from my teenage daughters! Let me tell you something, Brian. I see you at another one of my events and I'll make sure you never speak to another person at Natural Resources Canada as long as I'm minister. You understand? Anything that you and your Alternative Energy Group are trying to do will be dead in the water. Do you hear me? Dead. I am very disappointed in you, Brian.
Very
disappointed.”

“That makes two of us who are disappointed, Minister.”

BROWNING, MONTANA. JULY 10.

COLE BLACKWATER HAD NEVER BEEN
to Browning and wished that he wasn't there now. It was hot and dusty and he was in a hotel room that, even by his very liberal standards, qualified as a dive. After he had showered and been chaperoned by the
FBI
to dinner at the Junction Cafe, three of his fellow hikers had slipped past the Blackfeet tribal policeman sitting watch in his
SUV
and joined him in his room for a beer.

“We're
not
supposed to discuss this,” climate activist Jessica Winters said. “We get caught, there are going to be consequences.”

“We may as well already be in jail,” responded Peter Talbot.

“This is pretty much the best Browning has to offer,” said Joe Firstlight. “You should see our budget places.” He laughed, and the others smiled.

“What do we know?” Cole sat on the edge of his bed and drank a cold Pilsner from the can.

“They seem to be mapping out each of our movements over the last few days. They wanted to know where everybody was last night and this morning,” said Talbot. He too had a beer in his hand.

Winters said, “It feels like a week ago.”

“They asked about what time everybody got up and when we went to bed and who knew Brian before this hike and who was the last to see him,” said Talbot.

“They asked me all those questions too,” Cole said. “But I just don't see anybody in our party as responsible. I don't see it.”

“What about the guides?” asked Talbot. “Tad? What about this Foreman fellow?”

“Foreman is dead too.” Winters shivered despite the stuffy room.