Ground Truth (4 page)

As he ran along the shaded streets and settled into a familiar routine, he thought about teaching. He’d spent eight years making the law comprehensible, even intriguing, to bright-eyed students. In an instant, that was over. He’d taken so much for granted, assuming that hard work would carry him to his goal. He’d never lost at anything. Now, in one day, he’d lost everything, but he’d be damned if he’d feel sorry for himself. He’d suck it up and start over.

He had a life-changing decision to make. Butler’s ultimatum rang in his ears: “Call me by nine o’clock tonight, or I can’t help you.”

If he accepted the offer from the Sierra Club, he’d be working in the public interest. On the other hand, Sinclair & Simms meant so much money he’d have to guard against becoming addicted to it. Success at S & S also meant the Supreme Court track might come back to life.

Most lawyers would say he’d be nuts to turn down a partnership at S & S. If the dead could give their opinions, Peck would steer him to S & S for sure. Well, Sam Butler had advised him to bury his father, and that’s what he intended to do. He didn’t care what Peck would advise. This decision was his alone.

Before their conversation today, he’d trusted Butler completely. But Butler had telephoned Calder, and, in his zeal to protect the school, the old man had probably told Thompson what he’d learned. That had set off the firestorm that cost Jack his job, maybe his future. Butler might be trying to compensate by lining him up with Sinclair.

Jack liked to analyze all variables, options, and consequences before making a decision. No time for that tonight. He had to make a decision now.

He turned for home.

Chapter 7

June 3

10:30 am

HEIDI KLEIN’S stomach tightened the second her assistant identified the caller. She detested the man, but didn’t have the will to decline the call. Not from
him.
She waved at the masseur to leave her office and clutched the front of her silk kimono over her breasts as if, somehow, the caller could see her. She picked up the receiver.

“This is Dr. Klein,” she said.

“So it’s ‘Dr. Klein’ now? Well, you’ll always be Heidi to me. I remember—”

“There’s nothing to remember,” she said sharply. “I’m surprised to hear from you.” Her tone was less respectful than during the years she’d worked for him. She slipped into the soft leather Knoll chair behind her desk.

“I’ll get to the point,” he said, with no effort to be cordial. “I’m about to give you the best proposition you’ll ever get.”

“I’ve had a few, and you’d rank at the bottom.”

“Please don’t interrupt, Heidi.”

His power trips had always infuriated her, but she no longer had to put up with them. “Fine. I’ll just hang up if I get bored.”

A moment passed without reply. He was deciding whether to challenge her. If he didn’t, it meant he needed her for some reason.

He let it slide. “There’s a situation that’s costing companies all across the country hundreds of millions of dollars and will eventually screw up the whole damned economy. I know exactly what to do about it. That’s why I’m calling you.”

He either didn’t realize how much she loathed him, or he was so arrogant he didn’t care.

“My solution is incredibly simple,” he said when she didn’t respond.

“Then maybe you can simply explain the problem.”

“Hazardous waste.”

What a letdown
. “You want me to help you collect trash?”

“Not trash, for God’s sake. I’m talking about materials that have to be transported by rail, truck, or barge to treatment facilities. Then it’s sent somewhere remote for permanent storage. Most of it is chemical and biological, and stuff like cadmium, lead, mercury, and dioxin, that you definitely don’t want to migrate into water supplies and kill people.”

“Are you including nuclear waste?”

“Some of it is, but nothing you have to worry about.”

“Well, it’s all outside my area of expertise. You’re calling the wrong person.”

“Just hear me out.”

She didn’t have to hear him out. In their past, he’d suckered her into his schemes, even seduced and used her emotionally. That was over. “Why should I?”

“Because I’m asking. Please.”

That was better. “Go ahead.”

“The volume of hazardous waste is skyrocketing, but most treatment facilities are mom-and-pop operations. Storage sites are filling up, so they charge whatever they want. Research labs, hospitals, and scrap yards can’t get hazardous waste off-site fast enough, so they started dumping it illegally. Sooner or later they poison a neighborhood. Do you remember Love Canal, near Niagara Falls?”

“Not the details, but I remember it was a public health emergency.”

“Hooker Chemical buried 21,000 tons of toxic chemicals and then sold the property. Many years later, a neighborhood was built on top of the dump site. After that, homeowners began noticing high rates of epilepsy, retardation, birth defects, and more. We can help prevent that sort of thing.

“Here’s my point,” he hurried on, as if he sensed she was ready to hang up. “Every state refuses to be a dumping ground for the rest of the country. To make it worse, Homeland Security now requires companies to spend millions to make chemical, biological and nuclear waste secure from terrorists—which they can’t do. Businesses are going to be forced to shut down, and that includes some very large public utilities. Together, we can fix all that.”

The man had an ego the size of Alaska, but this sounded too big, even for him. Still, it might be worth playing along.

“What about regulations?”

“They’re usually ignored. Once in a while some hero snitches, and a company pays a few fines.”

“Does anyone inspect those places?”

“The inspectors are low-paid grunts eager to get off the property as fast as they can. They leave owners to operate on the honor system. You can guess how that works out.”

Where was this conversation going? She wanted him to get to the point so she could tell him no, hang up and get back to her massage.

“Bottom line, what do you want from me?”

“My new way of disposing of hazardous waste is today’s equivalent of inventing the microchip, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe billions. And you can be part of it,” he said magnanimously.

“If you’re going to suggest that my company starts treating hazardous waste, that’s not going to happen.”

“You’re way off the mark. I can solve this hazardous waste crisis, at least for those lucky enough to sign up as my clients. And I can make a place for you. In fact, my dear Heidi, I’d take it very badly if we don’t go forward with this together.”

“That sounded like a threat. Do it again and I’ll hang up.”

“Ah, you’re so feisty now. I rather preferred the relationship we had in the old days, but I suppose things change. All right, here’s the plan. I’ll arrange for a continuing flow of hazardous waste to be shipped to your site.”

“I just told you—”           

“Listen to me. You’ll only be a middleman, transferring incoming material into trucks to be dispatched to their final destination. Each round trip will take two or three days.”

“They could reach any of 20 states in that time. Where would they be going?”

“That’s not something you need to know, my dear.”

She clamped down on her emotions.
Jerk
. “Hold on, my assistant needs me,” she said, and left him listening to elevator music.

She wanted a moment to think. Something about his plan wasn’t logical. Bringing the two of them in as middlemen in an existing system would have to cost the clients more, unless . . . she got it! He wasn’t going to use any of the existing hazardous waste storage sites. He planned to dispose of tons of lethal waste somewhere beyond the reach of regulations.

Because of far lower costs, he could undercut the legitimate market. That’s why his plan required shipping to a location as remote as hers. Using her company as a drop-off would prevent clients from tracking where their waste wound up. She had to admire him. As always, he was far out in front of the pack.

It had to be illegal as hell, but if she confronted him with that it might be a deal breaker. Anyway, in her line of work she’d learned not to be squeamish about the letter of the law. No, she wouldn’t raise the illegality of his proposal, but it would definitely raise her price.

She clicked back on the line. “I’m here. Look, my company would have to buy or lease trucks, then hire drivers and laborers. I’d have to build a cover story and produce a reasonable flow of revenue for the company. So exactly what are you offering?”

“I’ll be paying you directly and in cash. You make whatever deal you want with your company or none at all.”

She ran her tongue along her upper lip. Tax-free income would enable her to leave the company before one of its covert operations landed her in jail. But making a deal with the devil also meant a high risk of being incinerated.

“That’s fine, but the risks are high, so I have two conditions. First, make me a dollar offer, and I’ll accept or reject it. No second chance. Next, give me all the details of how your plan works.”

“The deal is fifty thousand dollars for every truck that leaves your site fully loaded for the destination I set. Expect a minimum of one million dollars a month. Your second request is out of the question.” Before she could object, he said, “Now I have two requirements of my own. This agreement will be verbal only, and we deal solely with each other.”

The amount of money took her breath away. At those numbers, she didn’t care where he disposed of the stuff or how much he raked off for himself. She didn’t answer right away even though she knew he’d just bought her.

Finally, she announced, “You have a deal, partner.”

“We’re in business together, not partners. By the way, people who think they’re indispensable are always wrong, and it costs them. Don’t make that mistake. I’ll call you in a few days with a timetable and the specs for the trucks.” He broke the connection.

From the yellow pad, she tore off two pages of notes she’d made during the conversation and slipped them into the bottom drawer. She reached across her desk and picked up an eight-inch tall pyramid-shaped wedge of black basalt she’d found while kayaking through the Grand Canyon. Holding an object over two billion years old had always calmed her. This time, however, it couldn’t offset the wave of anxiety that swept over her.

Chapter 8

June 3

10:50 a.m.

OUTSIDE HEIDI’S office window, a Land Rover with a swivel-mounted M-60 cannon rolled along an asphalt strip that wound like a black anaconda across the wasteland.

She remembered the afternoon several years ago when two men had come to her former office. Before they’d sat down at her conference table, the older man, who’d introduced himself as Callahan, started the kind of full body scan she endured often. When his gaze dropped from her green eyes and curly auburn hair to linger on her chest she said, “What else may I do for you gentlemen?”

“Dr. Klein,” the other man, named Lee, had said, “we represent the Board of Directors of a certain company whose CEO skied off a cliff. Dead at the bottom. We’re here to offer you a job as our new CEO. We’ll double your present salary to start, and if you’ve met our objectives at the end of the first year, you can expect further increases.”

Guessing it had been a trap set up by her boss, wanting to see if she’d bite, she’d decided that if a few blunt questions didn’t expose the hoax, she’d show them the door.

“Why me? And what’s the name of your company?”

“We know you’ve been very successful managing top secret projects,” Lee had said. “But despite that, you’re underpaid, excluded from the inner circle, and your boss doesn’t give you credit for your good work. Do we have that about right?”

They damn sure had
. “You forgot to mention what your company does.”

“You’re familiar with ‘gray companies’ that do billions of dollars of business with the government,” Callahan had told her, “the kind of business that never becomes public.”

“I also know,” she’d replied, “that gray companies operate at the edge of the law, sometimes over the edge. I’m not interested in prison.”

“As our CEO, we’ll see to it that you are untouchable.”

“Think about our offer in principle,” Callahan had said. “I’ll call you at four on Friday. If you’re interested, we’ll fly you out for a look at our headquarters. If you decide not to come on board, this conversation never happened. By the way, our deceased CEO never used his real name when he traveled, including ski trips.”

He’d been clever. He’d anticipated she’d research accidental deaths at ski resorts to find out whether their story was true.

The big money, a new challenge, and getting credit for her work had been powerful incentives. But it would be a one-way trip. The ego of her present boss would never let him take her back.

A week later she’d boarded the company’s Gulfstream G450 with its luxurious stateroom, exercise bike wired to the Internet, and burled maple everywhere. After three hours flying west, they’d passed above brown mountains where horizontal yellow bands rose and fell like waves. The Gulfstream had dropped altitude fast and landed like a whisper on a private airstrip in the high desert. A man wearing a camouflage uniform loaded her suitcase into a Lexus SUV left running so the air-conditioning could combat the fierce heat.

On the other side of a rock-strewn ridge stood a very unimpressive cluster of office buildings, a dozen warehouses, and a line of eighteen-wheel trailer trucks.

It turned out that the reality was quite different. The five adobe-style office buildings, designed to blend into the landscape, were state-of-the-art inside. Top-secret assignments took place underground in a fortified, four-level complex whose boundaries extended far beyond the offices on the surface. Yellow sulfur lights hung from gooseneck poles. An electrified razor-wire fence, twice the height of a man, guarded the company’s 18,000 acres.

The environment was foreign to her, but the salary had been too good to pass up.

NOW, HAVING MASTERED the job of ruling her desert kingdom, she was bored. Socially, she felt locked up in a high-tech nunnery. Her senses were starved. She was long overdue for some excitement. Suddenly, this unexpected telephone call had dropped a combination of both a golden goose—and a lifeline—in her lap. She couldn’t resist the money or the risk, but had a lurking feeling she was going to regret it.