CHAPTER 27: No Conscience

The garage was in a mixed-use area on the outskirts of Seattle, built tight with bungalows in desperate need of paint, scattered among equipment yards and nondescript industrial buildings.

Jackson had removed the mill signs from his truck before leaving Silvercreek and now he circled the block. “This it?” he asked.

“Think so,” said Grace, reading Nate’s notes and checking his photos. “That one. Padlock, double doors. Let’s park and walk back.”

“No,” said Jackson. “I want a closer look, have a plan.” He drove to a sporting goods store and purchased a baseball and bat, two pairs of batting gloves, two caps. He paid cash.

“You want to play baseball?” Grace asked as they walked back to the truck. 

“I don’t want to leave fingerprints or a trail,” he said, handing her a pair of gloves and a cap. “Put your hair up under that,” he said, pulling on his cap.

Jackson drove back and parked. They walked to the garage, a separate building at the back end of the house’s long and narrow residential lot. Jackson gave Grace a boost and she peered over the fence. A kid’s sand box sat on a patchy lawn next to an apple tree. Baby clothes and diapers hung on a line strung between the house and this back fence. She jumped down. “They’ve got little kids, but all’s quiet,” she said.

A padlock secured the main doors, but a small window next to a side door looked promising. “Keep a lookout,” said Jackson, pulling on his gloves. He broke the window with the end of the bat, reached through the hole, and unlocked the deadbolt. He quickly moved inside with Grace right behind him, closed the door and flipped on the light. He laid the baseball on the floor in plain view so the broken pane would look accidental.

A black Suburban took up most of the garage. Jackson tried one of the doors. Locked.

“Look at that,” said Grace, pointing at the Mickey Mouse air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror. “Creature of habit.”

Cabinets lined the back wall from floor to ceiling and Jackson opened them. Paint, wire, electrical parts, gasoline, motor oil. Grace took pictures. Jackson started to close the last cabinet, but Grace touched his arm. “These cabinets aren’t deep enough,” she said.

Sure enough, the cabinet interiors went back only about one foot, leaving another six feet of dead space behind them. After a few minutes of searching, Jackson located a door latch behind empty boxes. He pushed the latch and a door swung inward, shelves, boxes and all. Grace shone her phone’s flashlight inside.

Four light bulbs hung from the ceiling inside a room which ran the width of the garage. Jackson reached up, pulled their cords. The space lit up.

On a work bench lay a neat selection of armaments and ammunition. Shocked, they said nothing and then Grace moved into action, taking pictures. Grace raised the lid on a large wooden box. Inside were plastic spheres spray painted charcoal. “Dragon eggs,” whispered Grace, her heart beating fast. Jackson raised an eyebrow and rolled back a dark canvas cover on a shelf revealing four drones plus parts. High tech arson, he thought. Grace took pictures while Jackson studied the guns and drones.

They carefully put everything back and worked their way to the side door. Jackson looked outside. “All quiet,” he said.

At the end of the alley, Grace handed him her gloves and said, “I'll meet you back at the truck."

Jackson grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Nosing around,” she said. “It’s what I do for a living.”

“Please, please be careful,” he said.

Grace kissed him and climbed out of the truck, walked leisurely around the corner to the front of the bungalow—it needed a paint job. A child’s tricycle was parked across the sidewalk. She saw Jackson move his truck to the end of the block, park within sight of the house.

Grace rang the bell and a woman in her early twenties opened the door, a baby on her hip. A three-year-old clung to the leg of her jeans.

“Hi, I’m Beverly Martin,” said Grace. “I rent a room at Mrs. Manor’s house.” She pointed in the general direction of north. The woman followed Grace’s finger and nodded. “I heard you might have a garage for rent,” said Grace.

The woman placed the baby on the carpet. “Well, yeah, we rent out our garage, but we’ve had the same tenant going on three years. I don’t think he’s planning on giving it up.”

“Oh,” said Grace, “long-term or month-to-month?”

“Pays up front for a year every June,” replied the woman. “Nice guy. Pilot, works for Marston and somethin’. Big law firm, I think.”

“Oh, I think I met that guy at the diner. Tall guy, reddish hair? Mark something or other?” asked Grace.

The woman nodded, “Yeah, that’s him. Mark Reading. Quiet guy. The only way we know he’s there is when we hear his sports radio. Big sports fan.”

“Yeah, when I met him he talked about the Seahawks,” said Grace with a smile.

“He gave my Charlie a Dodger’s cap once.” The three-year-old clinging to her leg looked up.

“Hi, Charlie,” said Grace, smiling. “Aren’t you a big boy?” He grinned and hid behind his mother’s leg. “Hey, well, thanks for letting me know about the garage. I guess I’ll just keep looking. Bye,” said Grace. “Bye, Charlie!” She waved as she walked away.

Say bye bye, Charlie,” said the woman. The little boy waved. The woman smiled and closed the door.

Grace walked to the truck. Jackson slowly drove around the corner and parked. Grace turned the corner and joined him. “Can’t be too careful,” he said.

“Agreed” said Grace. “Let’s find a private place to talk. Maybe together we can figure this out.”

<><><><> 

Seamus Boyle dialed on the lights in his townhouse in Brentwood, on Los Angeles’ Westside. He bee-lined to the bar, poured himself a rum. He opened his patio door, breathed in the warm night air and drank while massaging his sore lower back.

His cellphone chirped. “How was your trip, Seamus?” asked Warren Jonah of the Rockefeller Charitable Trust in New York. “Nothing out of the ordinary?” he asked in his relaxed, soothing voice.

“Well, the fire doubled back and I got blocked in. It was pretty chaotic and I just blended in, said I’d been hiking, offered to help. Got a real good workout. As soon as it was safe, I left.”

“Did anyone see the equipment?” asked Jonah.

“Nah,” said Boyle, “but…”

“But what?”

“I was closing the doors when a blonde bombshell pulled up. She didn’t see anything. She just smiled and thanked me for doing such a good job. Said her name was Ginnie.”

“Details?” asked Jonah. “For our records, in case we hear any chatter.”

Boyle put down his drink and opened his notebook, read out the license plate, a description of the truck and Ginnie. He didn’t mention the little girl sleeping in the car seat.

“We’ll call you,” said Jonah, ending the call.

Boyle stood with the phone in one hand, his notebook in the other.

Oh, well, he thought as he tore the sheet from the notebook, crumpled it and tossed it in the trash. Wrong place. Wrong time. He finished his rum, poured another. So much of life is dependent on luck.

<><><><> 

Grace and Jackson pulled into a waterfront café, after departing the garage in haste, but in silence. Both were deep in thought. They got coffee and sat at an outside concrete table. It was cold, but it was private, well-separated from the other café clients indoors.

They stared into each other’s eyes, in silence, trying to fathom what they had just seen, and how to interpret it.

“That was a serious armory in that garage and those were a high quality drones,” said Jackson.

“Tell me what you see in these pictures,” she said, turning on her recording app and showing him the pictures she took. Jackson reeled off names, “38 Special, Charter Arms Bulldog. 44 Magnum Automatic; some kind of sniper rifle—no idea what. Smith & Wesson Model 629. A 357 Magnum, Smith & Wesson Model 13, 18 boxes of shells, various caliber—might tell us something about that rifle.”

She showed him pictures of the drones. “Four drones, plus parts,” he said. “Like what the fed’s use, the real deal, military grade, can fly through smoke, even at night. No brands and the serial numbers were missing. Shit. There’s no end to the damage these can do.”

Grace turned off the recording app.

“Who the hell are these people?” he asked. “This is much more than a forest fire. Planes, vehicles, guns—and professionals to operate them! It’s a big step up from the bullshit we’ve been dealing with.”

“Can’t argue with that” Grace replied. “I can’t see the advocates, even the extreme ones, involved in this. Maybe—but just too risky for them.”

“How are you going to weave this into an article?” Jackson asked.

“No idea,” said Grace. “Adds a whole new dimension.” There was a momentary silence before Grace continued. “What I’m seeing so far in this whole conflict is polarization and complete distrust between the frontline soldiers on both sides. The NGOs and feds want to own the forests, without paying for them, nominally for ‘the public good’.”

“Public good?” laughed Jackson. “Someone always profits, privately. Anyway, to consolidate ownership, they’d have to find ways to take the current ownership away from forestry interests. It’s a war. Foresters and our families are collateral damage. I suspect the public may be collateral damage too, because closing forests rather than opening them for people is the way things are going and not in a good way.”

“Who really benefits from all this?” asked Grace. “If it’s not Nature, not foresters and not the public, who’s running this war?” Grace reached out and held both his hands in hers, staring into his eyes. “I have a theory,” she said. “We keep thinking about the local forestry industry, the state forestry industry, or the national forestry industry—bottom-up approaches. You know the players, their strengths and weaknesses.” Jackson nodded and she continued, “But what about the players in the global timber industry—the seriously big and wealthy corporations involved in the international resource trade? The big players operating on the global stage? Do you think they just wait on the sidelines for independent nations to overcome all their political problems and finally decide what they are going to do internally and then pick up the pieces?”

Grace took a deep breath, stood up and gave Jackson an overview of what she knew. She told him about Rockefeller Charitable Trust, about Dr. Smyth’s reports, about Frédéric Trinité and Montreux Trading. She walked him through the theory that was forming in her mind.

“Look, Jackson,” she said, sitting back down and leaning across the table. “There are lots of ways a corporation can use its money. You can do market research, develop new products, advertise to convince the public your product is better than the other guy’s. You can gossip about the other guy, ruin his reputation. You can establish trade barriers, break windows, blow up buildings. You can sue, bribe or harass the other guy. Ditto for the regulators.”

“It’s a good theory but some of what you propose is illegal,” said Jackson.

She wrinkled her brow. “If you had an oil company and a little start up in California was giving you a run for your money you could buy him out, right? But since supply and demand determine price, you don’t necessarily want his oil in the market. Burn him out maybe? Risky. You could donate, say, half a million to groups pushing for protection of desert tortoise habitat in his back yard or to save the earth from climate change. Your competitor would be out of business pretty darn quick, PDQ. Production drops, prices rise. Two birds, one stone. To make things even sweeter, your donations are tax deductible and generate positive press—establishes your corporation as the good guy.”

Jackson watched seagulls jockeying for the best spot on the metal railing. They lined up with military precision.

“This is not ground-breaking stuff,” said Grace. “The Endangered Species Act has been used before for financial benefit. Years ago, the Department of the Interior announced plans to acquire mountain lion and gnatcatcher habitat—if Congress appropriated the money. The Secretary of the Interior, various agencies and the State of California slapped a slew of regulations on grazing. The historic owners, seeing the writing on the wall, sold their now unusable California rangeland at below market prices. Those buyers then commissioned a study on the potential of that land for generating subsidized solar and wind energy. That established a new market value. When Congress finally authorized the money for purchasing this habitat, the buyers made a fortune. Taxpayers paid the tab. The same scenario is being repeated with sage grouse habitat.”

Grace shook her head. “It’s easy money and legal. So,” she said, “you’re in the timber business. A board is a board is a board. Not a lot of difference in where that board, or mass-produced doors or plywood, come from. How do you capture a bigger share of the market? A few short decades ago, American mills had clear advantages over offshore operations—a massive supply of trees, sophisticated management, well-trained labor in close-knit communities. You had efficient technology, advanced harvesting and milling techniques plus the biggest market in the world on your doorstep. Location. Location. Location. Lower shipping costs. If you were ruthless and competing with Armstrong Mill, how would you get that market?”

“No, it couldn’t be done,” said Jackson. “Even though the big global players are benefitting, they’d have to throw away a ton of cash for decades pushing something that can’t be controlled and may never happen. My experience is that people aren’t that patient.”

Grace laughed. “Says the man who harvests trees on 70-year cycles.”

“OK,” said Jackson, “I take your point, but if they got caught they’d do jail time for anti-trust violations. Hell, the timber lawyers read a warning at every meeting. US operations have to abide by the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Clayton Act. The Federal Trade Commission and DOJ enforce all that.”

“I think this is more than a theory now,” said Grace. “Early in 2024, Blackrock and JP Morgan backed out of a global climate alliance after questions of anti-trust violations were raised. Clearly their lawyers saw it as more than a theoretical exercise.” Grace leaned forward. “Anti-trust regs originated in the US, but they’ve expanded to 12 countries by 1970; now more than 125 countries have anti-trust laws on the books. Cartels operate all over the planet, anywhere huge sums of money are involved. They didn’t go away. They evolved. Opportunity is just that, opportunity. Business has no conscience.”

“Well,” said Jackson, “I’ll agree with you there. Business has no conscience, but people do. Everyone has to abide by the law or face the consequences.”

Grace paused. “Jackson, I want to tell you, to be honest with you. I heard you and those men in the wood shop the other night.”

“You did?”

Grace nodded.

“Exactly how much snooping are you doing?” he asked. “Guess I’m lucky I didn’t vote to torch the forest. Came close.” Jackson studied the docks. Then he turned to her and said, “Grace, if your theory holds water, these people have tremendous resources and are playing a complicated game for far more than just our little mill.” Jackson reached across the table for her hand. “We’re being honest here, right? I think you should know—the helicopter didn’t have a worn-out part.”

“What was it?” she asked.

“Someone monkeyed with a bolt,” he said. “Hacksawed halfway through. It flew off in flight. A second one was primed to join it.”

Grace swallowed hard. “And if that second bolt broke?”

He met her gaze, held her hand. “No sugar coating, Grace. It would have been impossible to control the chopper. We’d be toast.”

Grace shook her head, didn’t say anything for a minute, looked out over the water. “So, we’ve got problems,” she said. “Whoever hacked the helicopter will never be caught and I doubt The Trib would run a story on it—might trigger copycats, they’d say. Might be right. If the Sheriff goes directly after this Patton/Reading/Boyle character, whoever he is, he’ll just disappear.”

Jackson watched the seagulls hovering above fishing boats in search of a free meal.

“We can’t outspend ’em,” said Jackson. “We can’t beat ’em in court. No peace for the timber people of the Northwest?”

“Well, I have always believed in the power of the pen,” said Grace. “Expose it. Sunlight. We’ll get this out somehow, but we’ll need to have it completely pieced together. Jackson, I need to know more, lots more.”

“Let’s chew on this a bit,” he said. “Hard thinking never hurt anyone. That said, you need to send everything you have to the Sheriff.”

“I want to talk to him first,” she said.

“Can be arranged,” he said.

They stood and walked down the promenade, hand in hand, and stopped next to a dock lined with pleasure boats. A seal popped up in the harbor, looked around, disappeared under the water as mist rolled in.

Jackson pointed to the sky. “Albatross, good luck sign,” he said as he  lifted her hand and drew it to his lips. “We’ll figure it out. It’ll be OK.”

Grace shivered. She wasn’t so sure.