Part 35 (1/2)
29.
”So,” joe asked mccann, ”who figured out that the microbes at Sunburst react with coal to produce gas?”
”Mmmf.”
”Nate, would you mind taking the duct tape off of Mr. Mc-Cann's mouth?”
”Happy to,” Nate said, reaching over the front seat of Lars's pickup. McCann tried to turn his head but Nate grabbed a cornerof the tape and ripped it off hard. Red whiskers and a few pieces of skin came with it. McCann howled.
They were headed south from Mammoth, climbing the canyon out of the valley, the snow a maelstrom. Joe was driving and McCann was wedged onto the narrow back bench seat, hands and feet bound with tape.
Joe was still angry that he had had to send his family away, that someone had tried to harm them. Seeing his daughters look back at him from the windows of the van as Marybeth pulled away had torn his heart out. It hadn't helped seeing the grim look on Marybeth's face as she drove, determined to get her girls out of there while at the same time upset over leaving her husband. Joe blamed McCann because he didn't know whom else to blame and McCann was in the truck. ”You can't do this,” McCann sputtered, tears in his eyes from the sting. ”I'm technicallyinnocent. This is kidnapping and a.s.sault.”
”Nate, can you put fresh tape on his face and rip it off again, please?” Joe said.
”Happy to,” Nate said.
”No!”
Nate stripped six inches of silver tape from the roll with a sound like fabric tearing.
”I asked you who figured out the microbes,” Joe said.
Nate started to lean over the seat.
”Genetech people!” McCann said quickly, ”but they didn't realize what they had.”
Nate shot a glance to Joe, who nodded back. Nate lowered the tape but glared at McCann with menace.
”Talk,” Joe said. ”It's the only thing that might save you right now. And don't start in on kidnapping and a.s.sault. You murderedsix people. Putting a bullet in your head will not cause any crocodile tears up here, I'd say.”
McCann breathed deeply, worked his mouth since he couldn't rub it with his hand. ”Why should I talk?”
”Because,” Joe said patiently but with an edge, ”it's the only chance you have to stay alive.”
”Why should I trust you?”
”Because you have no choice. We don't even have to kill you. All we need to do is stop and let you out, which I'm more than happy to do. The bears and wolves will take care of you. That's the disadvantage of living in a place where there are so many animals that can eat you. And with this snow, your bones won't be found until spring.”
”I recognize your voice,” McCann said. ”You were the one who yelled at me this morning outside the jail.”
Joe watched McCann's face in the rearview mirror. The lawyer seemed to be calculating his odds on the fly. He saw McCannshoot a quick glance out his window at a coyote nosing into the snow after a gopher. Good timing, Joe thought.
”Genetech has a little branch office in West Yellowstone,” McCann said. ”They hired two local guys who do no more than drive to Sunburst every couple of weeks, harvest the pink microbes,and send them in a special incubation container to Geneva. They're not engineers, just local boys. One of them got into trouble a year ago, DUI. He asked me to represent him, since I'm also local counsel for Genetech.”
”Stop,” Joe said. ”What does that mean? What do you do for them?”
”Very little,” McCann said. ”I file the annual extensions for their permit with the Park Service and meet a couple of times a year with James Langston to a.s.sure him the company is complyingwith all of the environmental regulations. I'm on a retainerto keep an eye out for my client in case something goes wrong or there is a challenge to their permit.”
”Ah,” Joe said, now knowing how McCann and Langston had met. ”Go on.”
”Anyway, this Genetech guy with the DUI was telling me about something that happened when they were at Sunburst gettingthe microbes. He's a smoker, and he said he tossed a cigaretteaside while they were working and suddenly flame was shooting out of the ground. He said it singed his jeans. At the time, I thought it was just one of those weird Yellowstone things, and I forgot about it.
”Then I was approached by the CEO of a start-up company out of Denver. They knew about my familiarity with Genetech and the permitting process, and they were interested in getting a permit from Langston to harvest thermophiles.”
”Who is the CEO?”
McCann sighed. ”His name is Layton Barron. He's a con artist, but I didn't know it at the time.”
”What's he look like?”
”Mid-sixties, thin, gray hair. An arrogant p.r.i.c.k.”
Joe turned to Nate. ”Sounds like the driver of the black SUV.”
Nate nodded.
”Anyway,” McCann said, ”Barron asked me to meet with Langston to try to secure a permit for them. He said he had investorslined up all over the world who would put up big bucks if EnerDyne got the permit. It had to do with bioengineering or something I don't really understand. It was later when I realized Barron was a f.u.c.king con man. He was fis.h.i.+ng, is what he was doing. He was just hoping that if his company could start harvestingmicrobes that maybe, just maybe, his engineers could figure out a use for them. Since the microbes from the park are unique to anywhere else, he might have been right, but who knows?”
”Did you get the permit for them?” Joe asked.
”I'm getting to that.”
Nate stripped off more tape.
”Okay, okay,” McCann said. ”I found out that some Zephyr employees were up in arms about the harvesting permits. They were environmental extremists, and they planned to start letter campaigns to newspapers and politicians and some kind of on-linefund-raising movement to wage war on Genetech and anyoneelse who was harvesting microbes. Legally Legally harvesting microbes, I might add.” harvesting microbes, I might add.”
”That's where Rick Hoening comes in,” Joe said.
”He was their leader. He made no bones about what he planned to do, and he was getting a buzz going in the park and within the environmental community all over the country and internationally. They wanted a moratorium on any new permits, and an investigation into who they'd been given to in the past and why. Langston was beside himself, to say the least, since he was the guy who signed the permits in the first place. Genetech slipped him a little something on the side, you see. I know that because I delivered the envelopes of cash.”
”b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Nate said.
”Barron and EnerDyne were even more up in arms when they found out about Hoening's plans. If he was successful, they'd never get their piece of the pie.”
”That's where you saw your opportunity,” Joe said.
”Being a lawyer is all about recognizing opportunities.”
”And here I thought it was more than that,” Joe said. ”Silly me.”
”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 d.a.m.ned 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.