The Cardinal Divide (12 page)

He was checking his email when he heard a tap on the door and the sound of a key scraping in the lock. The door opened and he looked up and smiled.

“I'm sorry, Cole,” smiled Deborah, as if she were having a pleasant, run-of-the-mill day. “I didn't know you were in here.”

“No problem. I'm just getting some work done between interviews.” He continued with his cover story, though he realized it had one glaring hole in it: Peggy McSorlie had made his reservation for him. He hoped that Deborah wouldn't make the connection.

“Do you want me to come back later?”

Cole weighed the options in his mind. Shooing Deborah away would ensure he wouldn't become entangled in this domestic dispute. On the other hand, he was curious about Deborah Cody, and wanted to learn the truth behind George's accusations.

“No, you can tidy up now, if you like,” he said. “As long as I won't be in your way, you won't be in mine,” he smiled again.

“Fine with me,” she said and started to pull the sheets from the bed. He sat with his back to her and typed while she put new sheets on the bed and straightened the covers. He watched her surreptitiously in the full-length mirror screwed to the wall next to the desk. She moved purposefully about the bed, making quick work of the job. She was a beautiful woman, he noted, confirming his first impressions. Faded blue jeans hugged her shapely butt and a cotton
T
-shirt rode up to expose her smooth midriff when she bent to flatten the blankets. Her sandy hair was tied up above an elegant neck. Cole Blackwater felt the attraction. Any man could succumb.

Deborah Cody said nothing as she moved to the bathroom to clean it and change the towels. If he didn't act now, he would lose the opportunity.

“I'm working on a story about the Buffalo Anthracite Mine,” he said, typing with emphasis. “I do mostly freelance work, and I hope to run this piece in
Canadian Business
magazine.”

She continued to clean in the bathroom, behind the door. Had she heard him? He continued typing.

“I'm focusing on, you know, how the economy of this region is tied to mining. Uh, since the prospects for the new mine look good, how's the economy of this place going to buck the current trend by, um, remaining vibrant while other towns, like Cache Creek, have crumbled as opportunities have disappeared?”

There was silence, and then, “That sounds interesting,” Deborah said as she stepped from the bathroom, a heap of towels in her arms.

“I think so,” he lied. “I'm heading out to the mine this afternoon to interview Mike Barnes.” He looked at his computer and tried to gauge her reaction from the corner of his eye.

If she had any, he could not discern it. She walked behind him to the open door and dumped the towels and used sheets into the waiting hamper.

Cole decided to go for broke. “Do you know Mr. Barnes?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” she said, and Cole took a breath. “He was a guest here for a few months when he first came to town, before he found
a place to rent. We have a few suites with kitchenettes in them.” Cole could detect no strong emotion one way or the other in her words. Her voice was flat. Uncharacteristically so.

“What's he like?”

“He's all business,” she said, arranging some cleaning products on the trolley. “People say he's going to turn that mine around, save the community. He certainly spends enough time at it. While he was staying here, I hardly saw him. He was always out at the site.”

Cole smiled and attempted to employ the journalist's trick of silence. Deborah Cody either didn't fall for it, or didn't have anything else to say. “Anything else I can do for you, Cole?” she said, her voice taking on the slightly sultry tone that Cole had grown accustomed to.

“I don't think so,” he lied again. He could think of half a dozen things she could do for him, but thought better of it. “Thanks so much,” he said and turned back to his computer.

When she left, Cole pondered the information. All business, she said. Turn the mine around. Save the community. A lot was riding on Mike Barnes. Maybe Cole's speculation about the man was right. Maybe Cole's cover wasn't so far fetched after all. If what he suspected was true, the little group of environmentalists were in for the fight of their lives. It wasn't only the Buffalo Anthracite Mine and Athabasca Coal they were fighting. It was the whole town. Cole had visions of lynch mobs and torches. Bricks with death threats taped to them heaved through windows. It wasn't unlikely. In the United States clashes over the use and exploitation of natural resources – timber, oil, ore – sparked violence, and even murder. People's homes had been burnt to the ground. Forest Service offices had been bombed. And the violence wasn't always perpetuated by the right-wing proponents of development. In one high-profile case the Earth Liberation Front, or
ELF
, had burned a resort development in Vail, Colorado, to the ground. Nobody was injured, but the cost was in the millions.

Both sides of the ideological spectrum spawned their share of raving lunatics. People with strongly held views on either side of the issue sometimes came unhinged as they struggled for what they believed was right.

For
ESC
o
G
to stop the new mine, they would need to make more than an environmental argument; they would need a well-constructed and community-supported economic argument. How was this mine going to be bad for the people over the long haul? Cole considered this as he scanned his emails.

Then he thought back to the loose ends created by his morning's conversation with Dale van Stempvort. He Googled the story and read it again in the online version of the
Red Deer Advocate
. He found the paper's phone number, broke the connection with the internet, then picked up his room phone and dialled the number.

A receptionist answered the phone and he asked for Richard T. Drewfeld. What a name, Cole thought. What does the “T” stand for? Timid? Tepid? Tenacious?

“Drewfeld here,” came a gruff voice on the other end of the line.
OK
, not timid, thought Blackwater.

“Cole Blackwater here,” said Cole in his roughest, whiskey-soured voice. It was pretty rough.

“What can I do you for?”

“Mr. Drewfeld, I'm a writer doing a piece on the Buffalo Anthracite Mine for
Canadian Business.
Read your piece in the
Advocate
this morning. Good bit of writing,” said Blackwater.

“Thanks. Who did you say you write for?”

“Doing the piece on spec. Hope to place it with
Canadian Business
,” said Cole, slinging the lingo.

“Right, well, what can I help you with?”

“Little bit of journalistic indulgence. Some tit-for-tat, say. I was wondering how you got the tree-huggers to talk? They seemed kind of tight lipped to me? You must've really worked your address book.”

There was silence, and Cole let it linger. Even journalists got anxious with the silence eventually. “Well,” said Drewfeld, “not really. That van Stempvort likes to spout off any chance he gets. He's a real talker.”

“So you just phoned him up out of the blue? Just like that?”

“Well, you don't need to write for the big boys to figure that those fish kissers would be planning on putting up a fight, do you?”

“Guess not,” confessed Cole. “But still, seems like you really got the timing right. How did you know to call van Stempvort
when you did?”

“Let's just say a little birdie whispered in my ear.”

Cole didn't say a word. He held the phone against his face, listening to the other man breathe. Finally he said, in as calm a voice as he could, “Got a source, do you?”

“Maybe, maybe not. What's the tat part of this equation? What did you say your name was, Blackwater?

He could hear the other man typing, likely doing a web search on his name. Cole's mind raced. He had shut down his web page last night when
ESC
o
G
had decided that he would go undercover. He hoped he had covered this tracks well enough. “I'll call you when I've got something,” Cole said quickly and hung up. But there would be no need to call the reporter back. He already knew enough. There was a mole in the Eastern Slopes Conservation Group, and it wasn't Dale van Stempvort.

Cole muttered expletively under this breath. He slammed his fist onto the shaky table. His laptop jumped dangerously. Papers spilled onto the floor. He did it again.

He pressed his head into his palm and slumped over. This was entirely unexpected. Cole closed his eyes, the better to picture each member of the group. Faces came and went in his mind, blurring and melding, but he didn't have the foggiest idea who the snitch was.

He pulled himself upright and dialled Peggy's number. He broke the news to her.

“Oh, Cole, what now?” she asked, her voice shaking.

Cole exhaled slowly and said, “We've got to work fast, Peggy. It may be that whoever has burrowed into
ESC
o
G
is working alone, but it's unlikely. I'm betting that our mole is connected to the mine. From what I hear of Mike Barnes – smart, strategic, more than a little devious – he could be capable of placing someone inside to monitor our work and report on our actions to keep one step ahead of the berry-suckers. But they've played their hand too early.”

“What does it mean for your cover, Cole?”

“It's probably blown,” said Cole. “But I'll string it along for a few more hours and see what I can milk from the community. My meeting with Mike Barnes is this evening ... either his secretary doesn't know about it, or Barnes doesn't care.”

“Maybe he's using you, Cole.”

Cole laughed. “Maybe. We'll see who gets the upper hand.”

“Be careful, Cole. Whoever gets the upper hand gets the Cardinal Divide,” reminded Peggy.

Cole sobered: “You don't need to remind me, Peggy.”

Peggy heard the defensiveness in Cole's voice. “You're right; I don't need to remind you. What should I do, Cole?”

Cole thought a second. “We'll cut the planning team to no more than a few trusted people, Peggy. We'll keep folks informed, but I only want you and a few others that you can absolutely trust, people you've known all your life, that you can vouch for one hundred percent.”

“That's no problem, Cole. I can do that.”

“Good. I'm going to run. I need to make hay while the proverbial sun shines on my cover story, Peggy.” He hung up.

Cole gathered his things, picked the papers off the floor and stacked them on the desk, then left and locked the door behind him. He headed downtown in the Toyota and stopped for fuel and a coffee at a gas station before turning off the highway. Main Street, the original heart of the city, ran perpendicular to Highway 16. On it was a block of charming heritage buildings, bordered on both sides by newer offices including the mandatory, and startlingly ugly, post office at one end, and the squat, institutional Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment and a bright, but Spartan-looking Chamber of Commerce building at the other.

That was Cole's destination.

The single-storey building was bordered tightly by a sidewalk and buffered by planters displaying a few small wild rose bushes not yet in bloom. Cole walked up the steps and entered the broad front doors. A bell chimed as he entered.

“May I help you?” A young woman seated behind the front desk looked up as he approached.

“Hi,” he said, “I'm a freelance writer doing a story on Oracle and the Buffalo Anthracite Mine. Can I speak with anybody about that?”

The young woman picked up her phone and looked at Cole. “Let me see if David Smith is available. What's your name?”

“Cole Blackwater,” he said. This was no time to further complicate things with a pseudonym.

The woman spoke into the phone and then placed it back on the receiver. “He can spend a few minutes with you if you like.” Cole followed her to a back office.

David Smith was a large man with broad shoulders and a thick neck who carried thirty extra pounds on his chest and belly. He rose from behind a wood-panelled desk and reached out his hand when Cole entered his office. When the two men shook, Cole sensed the power in his massive hands and arms. Like most in this part of the world, thought Cole, he must have spent a fair portion of his life hewing wood and drawing water.

“Have a seat,” ordered Smith, and pointed to one of two chairs arranged on the opposite side of a broad, wooden desk. Cole sat. “So you're a reporter?”

“Thanks for seeing me. I know I should have called, but just happened to be walking by and thought I'd come in and introduce
myself,” Cole began. “I'm a freelance writer, actually. I don't write for any particular magazine or paper. I come up with story ideas and pitch them to publications – ”

“I know what you do,” said Smith, smiling broadly, and Cole felt a lump in his throat. “I wasn't thrown off a turnip truck yesterday.” The man smiled again. Cole relaxed. “What are you writing about?”

“The new McLeod River Mine is seen as Oracle's saviour. How does the Chamber view that?”

“You got a tape recorder?” asked Smith.

“No, I hate the things. Always messing up. I'm an old fashioned guy,” said Cole. He found a pen in his pocket and began to scribble in his notebook.

“Well, I know that mine like the back of my hand. I worked there for almost twenty years. I started out on the shop floor and made my way up to mill foreman. I did well for a guy without a college diploma. It was good work, but after a while I moved on. Started a business selling parts to the Buffalo, and to other mines in the region. Now here I am,” he said. He opened his arms wide, gestured to the room, and leaned back in his chair. “It's been a long journey from the shop floor to this office, and I'm proud of every step I've taken.