Ground Truth (30 page)

Damn it!
He’d known Sinclair might use that letter to get him in trouble with the Bar, but he hadn’t expected to be confronted with it on Air Force One.

Gorton scanned the letter and leaned forward. “Mr. Strider, this letter certainly undermines your credibility. Do you challenge its authenticity?”

“No, sir.”

“And when you said the pipeline system had been ‘damaged,’ that was a result of your taking the law into your own hands?” He pulled open a drawer under the table, took out a black cigar, and lit it. “I may have to hand you over to the Secret Service until we sort this out.”

“Sir, I decided to act in the public interest even though the Bar association might question me about it later.” He felt conflicted. If they kept talking about the aquifer, his time would run out before he could warn the President about the nuclear waste smuggling. He had to change the subject and keep talking.

“Mr. President, my time with you is limited, and there’s another extremely urgent matter you need to know about.”

“Stop it!” Sinclair exploded. “This fellow simply cannot be believed. You know the aphorism, ‘Like father, like son.’ Jack Strider is the son of H. Peckford Strider who was responsible for the deaths of innocent young girls and the scourge of AIDS he imported across our border. The San Francisco District Attorney is investigating Strider to determine whether he would be prosecuted for involvement in the multiple felonies committed by his father.”

“Judge Peckford Strider,” Gorton said. “I hadn’t made that connection.”

Jack saw uncertainty in Gorton’s eyes as he took a long draw on his cigar. The smoke he blew at the ceiling immediately swirled back down toward the table.

“Mr. President,” Jack said, “may I respond?”

Gorton waved his cigar in reluctant acquiescence.

“Mr. Sinclair said I was fired by Stanford Law School. That’s not true. I resigned from the school to accept an offer from Mr. Sinclair to become a partner in Sinclair & Simms. The Dean of the law school will confirm my resignation.”

“I made that offer,” Sinclair said, “before his father’s crimes were splashed all over the front page of the
San Francisco Chronicle
. You have no idea—”

Gorton silenced Sinclair with a stern look and nodded for Jack to continue.

“Mr. Sinclair knew my father well for more than thirty years, knew him as a highly respected judge. Yet he has the gall to use guilt by association to try to discredit me, the same tactic used by the late Senator Joseph McCarthy.”

Despite Jack’s rebuttal, Sinclair looked composed, obviously confident that his status as a trusted advisor was enough of a shield.

“Justin, your attempt to impugn Mr. Strider’s character was less than successful,” Gorton said caustically. “Mr. Strider, before we were interrupted you wanted to raise some other issue. Keep it short so I can get back to Washington before my term expires.”

Jack checked his watch. 12:40.
Still no Debra.
At any moment Gorton might give the signal to get Air Force One ready for takeoff.

“What I’m going to tell you about is potentially more dangerous to the United States, and to you personally, than the threat to the aquifer.”

Gorton took several short drags on the cigar, and another cloud of smoke added to the miasma in the conference room. “That sounds very unpleasant, Mr. Strider, which means I should hear about it. Go ahead.”

“It’s about illegal disposal of high level nuclear waste.”
It was done.

“Stop!” Sinclair roared. “I won’t stand for this. Jason, don’t let him take us on another wild goose chase.” Red-faced, nostrils flared, he looked like he was about to have a stroke.

“Justin—” Now Gorton was angry. “—be quiet. I am damn well going to hear this.”

Jack was ready. “For at least several months, power plants, hospitals, research labs, and maybe some government weapons facilities have been illegally shipping high level nuclear waste to a place called—” He paused and watched Sinclair. “—D-TECH.”

Sinclair’s face tightened.

Gotcha.

“Where is this D-TECH?” Gorton asked. “Who owns it?”

“It’s a ‘gray company’ near Mescalero in the New Mexico desert. I don’t yet know who owns it.”

“Look,” Gorton said impatiently, “we have a half-dozen agencies dealing with nuclear waste issues. If you see some problem, take it to one of them and they’ll do . . . something.”

Jack shook his head. “This is way out of any bureaucrat’s league. You’re the only one who can deal with it. The nuclear waste I’m talking about doesn’t stay at D-TECH. It’s loaded into trucks that are driven across the border into Mexico.”

“Impossible!” Gorton exclaimed and sat up straight in his chair. “There’s no way the Mexican government has approved that. It would take five years of negotiations and hundreds of millions in sweeteners before they’d help us like that. But wait a minute.” His brow furrowed. “How do they get it across the border without being stopped?”

“Bribes. Or maybe the guards won’t inspect trucks with hazardous waste symbols. Inspections may be tight on the U.S. side when cargo is coming north, but heading south the Mexican guards don’t care much. After the trucks cross the border, they go straight to Palmer Industries in Juarez where they take on fuel.”

“Palmer Industries?” Gorton’s voice rose in pitch. “You mean all this stuff is connected?”

“To Strider everything is connected to Palmer Industries,” Sinclair scoffed. “He’s obsessed by it.”

“Sir,” Jack said, “may I lay out the rest of this?”

Gorton made some notes on a previously untouched yellow pad then jerked his head at Jack to continue.

“They switch crews so no one knows the whole route. With new drivers, the trucks head south past Batopilas and offload into a heavily-guarded cave at the closed end of a box canyon. Then the trucks go back to Palmer Industries, pick up the original drivers, and return to D-TECH.”

Gorton looked up from his pad. “If the Mexicans had approved a facility for storage of nuclear waste, I’d know about it.”

“I’ve seen that cave,” Jack said. “The government can’t have approved it for anything. It’s filled with piles of metal drums, concrete crates—”

“Did you see any long cylindrical shapes?” Gorton looked worried.

He gets it. He understands there’s highly radioactive waste in the cave.
Jack felt triumphant. “Yes, sir. Quite a few.”

Gorton squinted at Sinclair whose face was as stony as a West Virginia road cut. No doubt he has a cover story ready, Jack thought, but he has to be sweating, not knowing what’s coming next.

“Jason, don’t let Strider’s fairy-tale make you react without thinking it through.” Sinclair had changed tactics, using a composed tone to say,
Listen to me. I’m the voice of reason
.

“Are you saying Strider’s lying about this?” Gorton asked.

“Of course he is, and for the same reason he made up that story about an aquifer being poisoned. He’s lying because Arthur Palmer has been riding him since the day they met, trying to get me to fire him. He claims he was assaulted in Juarez by thugs sent by Montana, but he has no proof of that either. And did you report anything to the police, Mr. Strider?” He barely paused. “Of course not. He’s so hostile toward Palmer Industries that he was ready to violate his fiduciary duty and help PROFEPA shut them down. You read his letter.” Sinclair managed to look as affronted as if he represented all lawyers everywhere. “And remember, he’s a wanted man in Mexico. The Secret Service should take custody of him right now.”

“That’s such a standard tactic,” Jack said to Sinclair. “Attack me because you can’t refute anything I said. I’m convinced Tom Montana and Palmer Industries are a menace. If the Juarez police want to talk with me, it’s because I tried to stop Montana. When I was attacked in Juarez, a senior associate in your law firm was with me. We were both injured and barely got away alive. Maybe you think she was hallucinating as well. The fact remains that you haven’t discredited one word I said.”

Sinclair ignored him. “Jason, buying into his ridiculous theories would make a president look pretty damn stupid. That’s not what you want.” He sounded solemn and judicious, and then turned to face Jack. “You, sir, are a damned liar.” This time his booming words filled the room. “We do not require your further presence here.”

“Stop!” Gorton snapped. “You two have given me a goddamn headache.”

“Mr. President, you have to listen to me,” Jack said, and instantly knew he’d misspoken when Gorton’s face flushed. Before Jack could soften his words, Gorton spoke.

“No force on this planet can make me listen if I don’t want to. Now you listen to me. You haven’t shown me anything solid, certainly no smoking gun. You’ve made your report to your Commander-in-Chief. I’ll let you know what I decide to do, if anything.”

Jack had been a little intimidated at meeting the President of the United States. He was over that now.

“Mr. President, I can’t leave until you hear what’s going on down there. By coming here, I’ve put myself in a no-win situation. If you dismiss me now, Sinclair will try to destroy me. If you believe me, I’ll be known as a whistleblower, an outcast. Give me a few more minutes. Then, if you want me to, I’ll leave without another word.”

Gorton swiveled slowly side-to-side in his chair, looking first down the table at a man he’d met less than half an hour earlier, then to his right at the man he’d known for decades. He cleared his throat.

“Mr. Strider, you pushed hard to get this in front of me, but Justin’s right. What you have is speculation. I want you to report all the information you have to the Base Commander and write down your suggestions for dealing with it. As far as everything that’s been said in this room, I hereby classify all of it as top secret. If you violate that classification, I’ll have the Secret Service take you into custody.”

His sober tone told Jack that this wasn’t a hollow threat. Jack stood staring at him, trying to decide what to do. If he walked out now, Sinclair would control what happened next. If he pressed his case, someone’s blood would be on the deck a few minutes from now, very likely his.

“Mr. President, if you leave me no other choice, I will hold a media conference on the steps of the Supreme Court building. The
New York Times,
CBS, CNN, and the rest will come to hear what the son of Judge H. Peckford Strider might reveal.” Ironically, that would be the closest he’d ever get to the Supreme Court now. “Even if you have me locked up afterwards, the media will investigate and confirm that I’m telling the truth. That will be easy because by then it will be too late.”

“You’ve just threatened your president.” Gorton’s tone was icy.

He didn’t respond but returned Gorton’s stare, willing himself not to blink, prepared to hold it for as long as it took.

“I’ve been around long enough to know when a man’s bluffing,” Gorton said, “and you’re not. For Christ’s sake, there’s no need for a public pissing match. We don’t want to spook the good citizens. I think you’re even nuttier than Justin says you are, but I’ll give you a few more minutes. If you don’t convince me, I’ll put you where the sun don’t shine until we extradite you to Mexico to play games with the Juarez cops.”

Sinclair was making no attempt to restrain his merciless smile.

Jack pointed to the photographs on the table next to Gorton. “Those show the black trucks at D-TECH. The report from Dr. Rincon is an analysis of Eberline contamination counter and dosimeter readings from inside the cave. The readings prove there’s radioactive material there.”

“So there are trucks at D-TECH,” Sinclair said. “How amazing. But he can’t show what’s in them and can’t connect them to Palmer Industries. You’ll notice there are no pictures of any trucks at the cave, because it doesn’t even exist. That’s what I mean by speculation.”

“I didn’t take pictures at the cave because the people on the ground were shooting at us. But I have some photos that show the trucks on the road between the cave and Palmer Industries.”

He reached for his cell phone. It was gone.
Oh my God.
Chief Williams had taken it, and he wasn’t aboard Air Force One. He had to ask Gorton to send for him. But what if Gano’s photos weren’t convincing or, God forbid, he hadn’t sent them? He had to gamble.

“Sir, those photos are on my cell phone, and it’s in the hands of the chief who drove me here from the gate. If you can have him brought aboard—”

“He has no photographs,” Sinclair said contemptuously. “And if he had, we probably couldn’t even tell what
continent
they were taken on.”

“Mr. Strider,” Gorton said with a sigh, “I don’t have time to chase down some chief. Anything else in your bag of tricks?”

“Yes, sir. This document is a summary of several disaster scenarios that can result from cramming high level nuclear waste into the uncontrolled environment of that cave.” He took it to the President.

“As far as we know, that came from a science fiction writer,” Sinclair taunted.

“It was prepared by Stanford hydrology professor Dr. George McDonald. He’d be here right now to present his findings except—” Jack paused until Sinclair noticed the delay and looked at him. This was the money shot, and Sinclair was the eight ball. “—he was murdered this morning in the parking lot of the Palo Alto Westin Hotel.”

“Jesus, he was
murdered?”
Gorton exclaimed. “Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Jack stared steadily at Sinclair who now knew the name of the man he’d had assassinated.

“Probably shot by a drugged-out carjacker,” Sinclair said smoothly.

Sinclair was quick.
No phony questions about Mac. No denial. Just a brush off, as though they were discussing a traffic ticket given to a stranger, to keep Gorton from thinking that Mac’s murder was relevant.

“I’ll get back to that,” Jack said, “but I want to stay on point. We have D-TECH, trucks and a radioactive cave. Those are the mechanics. Now I’m going to tell you how all this started.”

“You see what he’s trying to do?” Sinclair broke in. “He can’t support this nuclear waste malarkey, but he’s still going to try to blame it on his favorite villains, Montana and Arthur Palmer.”

Jack heard a subtle difference in Sinclair’s voice. Now he sensed the deeper danger and realized he was no longer defending a client. He
was
the client and in a fight for his life.