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“He expressed surprise and maybe fear when we told him about the activity going on at the land the Air Force had sold. He said, ‘They’re drilling on that land?’ ”
“I don’t remember him even saying that,” said Jamison.
“Well, that’s sort of my department, to recall stuff like that. But he lied to us. They didn’t get rid of that stockpile.”
“Maybe he thought they had.”
“No, he wouldn’t have been concerned about them drilling on the land unless heknewthat stuff was down there.”
Jamison nodded. “Yeah, I guess that does makes sense. I suppose he didn’t trust us with the information.”
“And then there was an off-color section of wall in the lower level of the radar building. I think there was a door there that was later walled up. And why have a door more than a hundred feet belowground?”
“You’d only do that if there were a tunnel to be accessed through it.”
“Exactly,” said Decker.
“But why in the hell would the government sell off that land with those weapons buried there? That’s what I don’t get.”
“The easiest answer would be the folks in charge today had no idea it was even there.”
“But wouldn’t there be records of it?” said Jamison.
“If so, they might be buried as deep as that crap was. But I think what happened was the Air Force continued to do work on biochem weapons even after the order came down to stop. Or else they didn’t want to destroy what they had worked so long to make. So they, or some rogues working there, decided to bury the shit. Maybe they thought it could come in useful down the road. Or they didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing, or what they had come up with. But they had to put it somewhere that they thought was safe. Back then nobody ever imagined they’d be fracking up here.”
Jamison said, “And Daniels was the only one left who knew the truth? I can understand his telling Purdy. He was in the Air Force and had security clearances and all. But why would he tell Irene Cramer? Hell, he wouldn’t even tell us at first.”
Decker said, “Cramer’s mother was a spy. Maybe the daughter learned some interview techniques from her mother. She could have taken her time, asked innocuous questions at first. Maybe she noticed Daniels’s hat like I did. Maybe she researched him after he let something slip. She was a PT person. He liked her, she probably made him feel comfortable. She could have spent months working on him until she got most of the story from him. But she didn’t get all of it, which led her to come here and start asking questions. The fact that she was trying to meet oil field hands and not people from the military facility should have been a clue. She probably found out it was on the landaroundthe installation, but she just didn’t know exactly where.”
“But still, you would have thought Daniels would have been more careful.”
“He’s an old guy, Alex. I’m not saying he’s not sharp, because he is. But he wasn’t going to be on his guard now to the extent he was all those years ago. And he probably never thought she would ever do anything with that information. He couldn’t have known about Cramer’s past, or who her mother was.”
“So, a perfect storm,” said Jamison.
“That’s right.”
“So then who killed Cramer? The people behind All-American?”
“They would be the ones with a motive. Same for Parker and Ames. They had learned things and had to be eliminated. And Purdy might be in that mix as well.”
“And maybe Cramer had some evidence, which she swallowed, and they cut her open to get it back. And they blackmailed Walt Southern to mess with the post reports.”
“It all fits together,” agreed Decker. “In fact, it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“So whoever is behind this has some serious money.”
“And the sort of firepower they’ve brought to this area isn’t cheap either, like Robie said.”
“But what would be the reason to release biochem weapons in a remote area like this? I mean, I get that it would be terrible to happen anywhere. But to do the most damage, you’d set the stuff off in a large city where millions of people and billions of dollars of property could be impacted.”
“Well, it might have been impossible to dig the bunker up without anyone knowing. And if they did succeed in digging it up, how were they going to safely open that crypt and collect the stuff inside? And then transport it out of here without anyone knowing?”
“But still.”
“And you forget that while there aren’t millions of people here, there are billions of dollars’ worth of property in North Dakota.”
Jamison said, “Of course, the oil and gas. It could have made this place uninhabitable and contaminate the oil and gas fields for centuries.”
