“Yes, Steven,” the minister said, welcoming the twenty-something aide who faintly resembled Jim Carrey. “What do you have to sour my weekend?”
“Don’t worry, sir, no environmental disasters of note,” the aide smiled. “Just a brief report from the Pacific Forestry Centre in British Columbia that I thought you should take a look at. One of our field ecologists has reported unusually high levels of acidity in the waters off Kitimat.”
“Kitimat, you say?” the minister asked, suddenly stiffening.
“Yes. You were just there visiting a carbon waste facility, weren’t you?”
Jameson nodded as he grabbed the file and quickly scanned the report. He visibly relaxed after studying a small map of the area. “The results were found some sixty miles from Kitimat, along the Inside Passage. There are no industrial facilities anywhere near that area. It was probably an error in the sampling. You know how we get false reports all the time,” he said with a reassuring look. He calmly closed the file and slid it to the side of his desk without interest.
“Shouldn’t we call the B.C. office and have them resample the water? ”
Jameson exhaled slowly. “Yes, that would be the prudent thing to do,” he said quietly. “Call them on Monday and request another test. No sense in getting excited unless they can duplicate the results.”
The aide nodded in consent but stood rooted in front of the desk. Jameson gave him a fatherly look.
“Why don’t you clear out of here, Steven? Go take that fiancée of yours out to dinner. I hear there’s a great new bistro that just opened on the riverfront.”
“You don’t pay me enough to dine there,” the aide grinned. “But I’ll take you up on the early exit. Have a great weekend, sir, and I’ll see you on Monday.”
Jameson watched the aide leave his office and waited as the sound of his footsteps faded down the hallway. Then he grabbed the file and read through the report details. The acidity results didn’t appear to have any correlation to Goyette’s facility, but a feeling in Jameson’s stomach told him otherwise. He was in too deep to get crossways with Goyette now, he thought, as the instinct for self-preservation took over. He picked up the telephone and quickly punched a number by memory, grinding his teeth in anxiety as the line rang three times. A woman’s voice finally answered, her tone feminine but efficient.
“Terra Green Industries. May I help you?”
“Resources Minister Jameson,” he replied brusquely. “Calling for Mitchell Goyette.”
18
Dirk and Summer quietly shoved their boat away from the municipal dock and drifted into the harbor. When the current had pushed them out of view of the dock, Dirk started the engine and guided them slowly down the channel. The sky overhead had partially cleared, allowing a splash of starlight to strike the water as the midnight hour was consumed. The bellow from a bay-front honky-tonk provided the only competing sound as they motored slowly away from town.
Dirk kept the boat in the center of the channel, following the mast light of a distant troll boat heading out early in search of some prize coho salmon. Easing away from the lights of Kitimat, they sailed in darkness for several miles until navigating a wide bend in the channel. Ahead, the water glistened like polished chrome, reflecting the bright lights of the Terra Green sequestration plant.
As the boat moved downstream, Dirk could see that the facility grounds were dotted with brilliant overhead floodlights, which cast abstract shadows against the surrounding pines. Only the huge covered dock was kept muted by the spotlights, shading the presence of the LNG tanker that lay moored inside.
Summer retrieved a pair of night vision binoculars and scrutinized the shoreline as they cruised past at a benign distance.
“All quiet on the Western Front,” she said. “I only got a quick glimpse under the big top but saw no signs of life around the dock or the ship.”
“Security at this hour can’t be more than a couple of goons in a box staring at some video camera feeds.”
“Let’s hope they’re watching a wrestling match on TV instead, so we can grab our water samples and get out.”
Dirk held the boat at a steady pace until they had traveled two miles past the facility. Safely lost from view behind several bends in the channel, he spun the wheel to starboard and brought the boat up tight along the shoreline, then cut the running lights. The patchy starlight provided enough visibility to distinguish the tree-lined bank, but he still eased off the throttle while keeping one eye glued to the depth readings on an Odom fathometer. Summer stood alongside, scanning for obstructions with the night vision binoculars and whispering course changes to her brother.
Moving barely over idle, they crept to within three-quarters of a mile of the Terra Green facility, staying out of direct view. A small cove provided the last point of concealment before the floodlights scorched the channel surface. Summer quietly released an anchor off the bow, then Dirk killed the engine. A slight whisper of wind through some nearby pines rattled an otherwise eerie nighttime silence. The wind shifted, bringing with it the whine of pumps and the humming of electrical generators from the nearby facility, the noise easily concealing their movements.
Dirk glanced at his Doxa dive watch before joining Summer in slipping into a dark-colored dry suit.
“We’re approaching slack tide,” he said quietly. “We’ll have a little head current going in, but that will give us a push at our backs on the return swim.”
He had calculated as such earlier in the evening, knowing that they didn’t want to be fighting the current to return to the boat. Though it probably wouldn’t have mattered. Both Dirk and Summer were excellent swimmers, often engaging in marathon ocean swims whenever they were near warm water.
Summer adjusted the straps on her BC, which held a single dive tank, then clipped on a small dive bag containing several empty vials. She waited until Dirk had his tank on before slipping on a pair of fins.
“A midnight swim in the great Pacific Northwest,” she said, eyeing the stars overhead. “Almost sounds romantic.”
“There is nothing romantic about a swim in forty-two-degree water,” Dirk replied, then clamped a snorkel between his teeth.
With a quiet nod, they both slipped over the side and into the chilly black water. Adjusting their buoyancy, they took their bearings and began kicking their way out of the cove and toward the facility. They swam near the surface, their heads just breaking the water like a pair of a prowling alligators. Conserving their dive tanks, they used snorkels to breathe, sucking in the brisk night air through their silicone breathing tubes.
The current was slightly stronger than Dirk had anticipated, led by the runoff from the Kitimat River at the head of the channel. They easily overpowered the headwaters, but the extra exertion built up body heat. Despite the frigid water, Dirk could feel himself sweating inside the thermal dry suit.
A half mile from the plant, Dirk felt Summer tap his shoulder and turned to see her pointing toward the shore. In the shadows of a jagged ridge of pine trees, he could make out a boat moored close to land. It was darkened like their own vessel, and, in the dim night light, he was unable to ascertain its dimensions.
Dirk nodded at Summer and swam deeper into the channel, putting a wide berth between them and the boat. They continued swimming at a measured pace until they closed within two hundred yards of the facility. Stopping to rest, Dirk tried to get a lay of the land beneath the blaring spotlights.
A large L-shaped building stretched across the grounds, its base next to the covered dock. The whine of pumps and generators emanated from the structure, which processed the liquid carbon dioxide. A separate windowed building adjacent to a helicopter pad stood a few yards away and appeared to contain offices. Dirk guessed that the housing accommodations for the workers were located up the road, in the direction of Kitimat. Off to his right, a sturdy pier jutted into the channel, hosting a single boat. It was the same dark speedboat that had chased them away earlier in the day.