CHAPTER 31: Something to Ponder

Stacked neatly on Frédéric Trinité’s desk were half a dozen reports including a very thick one on the EU’s energy market within the context of the Russia/US/NATO conflict in Ukraine. There was a new report on Australian lithium mining as impacted by Chinese manufacturing trends. He set aside a Pacific Rim timber sourcing report by Dr. Smith for reading later. Always intelligent, always well written, thought Trinité. 

Trinité started with the shortest, an update on the activities of US West Coast cell. Trinité scanned the first page. Superfluous detail, boring, poorly written—at least it’s brief, he thought. He was pleased to read that the recent blazes had resulted in no loss of life but were extensive enough to create logging work for a few months, to increase production while reducing wholesale pricing. Mission accomplished, thought Trinité.

He scanned the next page which reported that dozens of people interacted with their consultant in the field. After the enterprise, while securing equipment in his vehicle, the operative had been approached by a woman in a truck registered to a Virginia Anderson, executive director of the Yellow Ribbon Alliance, a pro-logging advocacy group based in Silvercreek.

Merde! thought Trinité as he moved on to page three where he read about The Los Angeles Tribune investigation. Pure luck, he thought. Unlikely the reporter will ever know this has leaked, but why, he wondered, would an L.A. reporter be on the ground on the Olympic Peninsula? Why was she asking questions about the Rockefeller Charitable Trust?

Trinité tossed the report across the polished surface of his antique mahogany desk. Paper clips scattered. Très mauvais! he thought as he texted Marguerite in Bonn: Disengage PNW and SWUSA consultants ASAP.

He fed the report through the shredder and moved on to a discussion of the BRICS proposal for a gold-backed currency and digital assets, pros and cons.

Fascinant, he thought.

<><><><> 

Grace avoided the freeways, taking back roads from LAX to Santa Monica and Rustic Canyon, winding up Chautauqua Blvd to the gated underground parking at her condominium in Pacific Palisades on the Westside of Los Angeles. She rolled her suitcase into the elevator and rode it up to the fourth floor. Inside her condo, she laid her backpack down on her desk and flung open the windows and the French doors in the living room. Compared to the Pacific Northwest, California had moved solidly into spring and the birds were chattering up a storm while, on her tiny balcony, succulents in dried out pots hung precariously to life.

Grace slumped on the blue and yellow couch in her living room, put her feet up on the book-covered coffee table. She laid her head back and studied a photo hanging on the wall, a stone house with blue shutters on a cobblestone street in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie on France’s Lot River. I must visit that village one day, she thought.

As the sun set, Grace thought about the call she’d received from Jackson while navigating the terminal at LAX. He’d reported on the meeting he and Tom had with Sheriff Russo. The Sheriff was comparing notes with the fire investigation team, not mentioning the illegal entry to the garage and its contents—all inadmissible in court. Based on multiple witnesses seeing Seamus Boyle—aka Robert Patton, aka Mark Reading—at the burn site, the Sheriff could question him, ask if he’d seen anything suspicious.

“Tire tracks next to a partially melted dragon egg would be a good start,” Jackson had explained, “but drones means Boyle was far removed from the fire’s ignition point. The Sheriff hopes to build a case on Nate’s detective work, Ginnie and Nate spotting that small black ball roll out of his vehicle, maybe convince a judge to issue a warrant for the garage.”

“That could work,” Grace had said.

“The Sheriff says don’t hold your breath, Grace,” said Jackson. “He asks to be updated on whatever you discover.”

Grace watched the light cotton drapes in her small living room float in a warm breeze. The sunlight faded, to be replaced by the glow of city lights. Outside, the top branches of eucalyptus trees shivered, releasing scent from their oily leaves where it combined with salt from the Pacific Ocean.

Grace removed her clothes and lay down on her bed’s linen sheets, letting the cool night air wash over her.

Outside, four stories below in the small communal garden shared by sixty residents of the complex, behind a chipped stucco wall decorated with mass-produced imitations of hand-painted Mexican tiles, faint sounds floated up—bubbles in the spa and snippets of conversation.

“More wine?” whispered a man a bit too loudly.

“Yes, please,” said a woman.

“More me?” the man offered hopefully.

“Yessiree,” giggled the woman.

Grace heard the couple leave by the spa’s creaky side gate. A few minutes later, a timer automatically switched off the jets.

A siren wailed then faded into the hills and, except for the low hum of a large city at night, it was blissfully quiet. A California quail called, “Chi-ca-go, Chi-ca-go.”

The brush rustled and the covey flushed. Coyote, thought Grace.

Grace rose from her bed and donned a silk kimono. She filled a watering can and tended to the bone dry plants on her little patio.

If Patton/Reading/Boyle runs, she thought, I’ll be left with a tenuous string of leads to Europe and a theory that could get me institutionalized.

As she sprinkled the thick dusty leaves of her succulents, the sound of falling water brought back memories of Treasure Pool. She thought of the shimmering cottonwood trees against the blue sky.

Jackson, she thought. She remembered his reaction when he learned about Tony, the way he looked at Ginnie. Grace turned, went inside and unpacked. She emptied her backpack. Laid her binoculars on her dresser and opened her grandfather’s bird book to the page where she’d pressed the flowers and evergreens she’d collected on their walk to Treasure Pool. The faint aroma of the forest floated in the air.

Me with a lumberjack? she thought. He’ll never move to L.A. What would he do here? Trim palm trees? And I can’t move up there—all that rain! Silvercreek doesn’t even have a local paper. A few more years and there might not be a town.

She lifted the evergreen bouquet to her nose, inhaled deeply. Memories came flooding back. Jackson. How the electricity flowed through both of them that first time they touched under the brim of his hat in the rain. She could see the creases around his eyes when he smiled. She felt his body in her memory, his kisses running down her neck, their physical and spiritual connection.

She sat on the edge of her bed and wept.

<><><><> 

Four miles to the east in Brentwood, Seamus Boyle watched the movers pack up his townhouse. He signed the paperwork and they left with the last of his belongings.

Boyle walked through each room checking for anything left behind and thought about Warren Jonah’s direction to shut everything down and his advice, Call when you’re settled. It’s a vacation. Golf. Get a tan, Seamus.

He flipped on the music app on his cellphone, turned up Dr. John singing, “I Walk on Guilded Splinters.”

Some people think they jive me / But I know they must be crazy / Don't see their misfortune / Guess they just too lazy

J'suis le Grand Zombie / My yellow belt of choison / Ain't afraid of no tom cat / Fill my brains with poison

Walk through the fire / Fly through the smoke / See my enemy / At the end of a rope / Walk on pins and needles / See what they can do / Walk on gilded splinters / With the king of the Zulu

Kon killy, killy kon kon / Walk on gilded splinters

Roll out my coffin / Drink poison in my chalice / Pride begins to fade / And y'all feel my malice / Put gris gris on your doorstep / Soon you'll be in the gutter / Melt your heart like butter / And I can make you stutter

Kon killy, killy kon kon / Walk on gilded splinters / Kon killy, killy kon kon / Walk on gilded splinters

“Fuck,” said Boyle as he sprayed surfaces with cleanser and wiped off fingerprints, poured bleach down drains to kill off any DNA. He deeply resented uprooting his life. Disappearing now was not part of the plan, he thought.

He’d canceled a meeting with his buddies at the sports bar, told them he had a job flying a band around the country. “Good money,” he’d said.

“Gotta go where the work is,” they replied, nodding. His girlfriend Carol cried a little. Sweet, thought Boyle.

After he locked up the townhouse for the last time and tucked the key under a pot by the front door. he met up with Carol. She gave him the keys to a car she had rented and they drove up two hours north to Santa Barbara where they spent a few lazy days at an Airbnb she had rented. After that, he gave her $5,000 and put her on the train back to L.A. and he checked into the Seaside Inn under the fresh identity of Jordan Prescott.

Now, here he sat, in his dark hotel room, worrying about the Suburban locked in the garage in Seattle. After he’d settled in the Seaside Inn, Jonah had shared the info that the blonde bombshell at the burn site was a big deal in Silvercreek, Ginnie Anderson. Even worse, an L.A. reporter was sniffing around, a Grace Newman.

He didn’t think he’d left any fingerprints in the vehicle or the garage. The guns and the Suburban were registered to Mark Reading.

Reading’s gone—forever, thought Boyle, hoping the wall around him would hold. He had his doubts that Jonah would go the extra mile to protect him. Will I be their fucking fall guy? he wondered.

Boyle didn’t care about losing the Mark Reading alias, but he hated to think that his life as Bob Patton in Brentwood was over, that he and Carol were done for good.

It was a good life—he’d worked hard to build it; but he was smart enough to know nothing lasts forever.

<><><><> 

Jackson tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep even though he was dead tired. Grace’s theories ran through his head.

Is this Frederic Trinity playing God with our lives? he thought. How do I beat him or bring him to justice? How long does the mill have? How long ‘til timber harvesting on the West Coast comes to a complete halt? How long ‘til I’m just another unemployed logger set adrift on the planet—or a full-time fire fighter?

Jackson tugged at the bed covers, punched his pillow. Scout looked up from his corner bed, studied Jackson.

And what about Grace? How can I compete with this Tony, a man she once loved, worse, might still love? And what would she want with a logger fighting for the last vestiges of a dying town? She’s certainly not moving up here and I can’t move to L.A. I’d shrivel up and die there!

Finally, just before sunrise, Jackson woke from a fitful sleep. He knew exactly what he was going to do.

<><><><> 

In Frank’s office at Armstrong Mill, Jackson told his brothers what he knew. Tom cursed while Frank sat quietly, then swiveled his chair and looked out over the mill floor. On the computer screen, their brother Phillip and their mother and father—Vivian and Steven—shook their heads.

“You say we’re fighting this madness while our competition is sending piles of money to bankroll the enviros?” asked their father, Steven Armstrong. “These groups aren’t funded by donations from little old ladies who don’t have a clue?”

“Doesn’t appear that way,” said Jackson.

“We’re losing what we have—our friends, everything they have—because people with way too much of everything think we’re friggin’ inconvenient?” yelled Frank.

“Could be,” said Jackson.

Frank stood up. “And some guy with three different names is flying in and out, committing arson in our backyard?”

“Looks like it,” said Jackson.

“Well, I won’t stand for it,” said Frank, banging his fist on the desk. “I just won’t stand for it!”

“Calm down, son,” said Vivian Armstrong. “We need to think on what we can do about it.”

“If it’s true,” said Tom. “I think it hard to believe…” He shook his head.

“I know, dear,” said his mother. “Evil does exist and we need to think on this very carefully, not do anything rash.”

“Absolutely,” said their father.

“What can we do?” asked Phillip. “Demand Congressional investigations and go through five years, hundreds of hearings and millions in legal fees? Wait for The Tribune to publish a story so edited we won’t recognize the basic premise? Contact the NGOs and demand they stop cheerleading for this nightmare? What exactly can we do about it?”

Frank paced the room like a penned bull. Outgunned, outmaneuvered, he thought. “Shit,” he said. “We can’t just stand around and wait for the end! If we don’t figure a way to fight this, we’re finished.” Frank picked up papers from his desk. “Court approved that injunction on Jackson Valley,” he said.

Everyone groaned. “Judge Meyers?” asked Phillip.

“Judge Meyers,” said Frank.

“Hell,” said Tom. “We own it but can’t log it ’til Park Service clears it.”

“Yeah, pulled that inholder shit on us again,” said Frank. “Another bureaucratic layer.”

“There goes another year!” said Phillip. “Even if we navigate that maze, we’ll probably lose half the land in settlement.”

“I know. I know,” said Frank.

“How many does that make for Meyers?” asked Vivian.

“Too many,” said Frank. “He’s running 80/20 against us.”

“Ginnie pull his records?” asked Steven.

“Yep,” said Frank. “He’s running a little lower on the other mills, but Masters Logging is—”

“Let me guess,” said Steven. “Solidly the other way?”

“Yep,” said Frank. “’Bout 20/80.”

“Son of a bitch,” said Jackson. “Judge in the pocket?”

“Back pocket,” said Frank.

“He’s up for election next year, right?” asked Tom.

“Ginnie’s all over it, taking a serious look at the other guy.”

“Who is he?” asked Jackson.

“No idea,” said Frank, “If Ginnie likes him, I like him. Anyone is better than this guy, Jack.”

Jackson nodded and Frank paused, shook his head. “Lord, I hate to tell you this now,” he said, handing Jackson an official looking document. “Dragonfly River’s been moved up the list for consideration under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. We’ve been invited to another hearing.”

Jackson scowled at the paper. “Invited? Fuckers,” he said, shaking his head.

“Gets worse,” said Frank. “State water wants new filters. Engineering estimates it’ll cost a quarter of a mil.” Frank shook his head. “I swear: those who can, do and those who can’t, go into government—so they can tell the can-do folk what they can’t do!” He paced. “I’m about ready to call it a day. How much of this is caused by aligned agendas and how much is just plain old bullshit? At this rate, we’ve got a few years before we have to go to auction, take whatever Masters Logging wants to give. If it all doesn’t burn by then. Then what? Where’ll we go? What’ll we do?”

“It’s a big world,” said Jackson, pointing to the world map tacked to the wall. “This Frederic Trinity might be the Powers That Be behind some of this mess, but if he were here, in Silvercreek, we’d invite him for a drink, talk it out. Just because he lives in Europe doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do just that. I’m going to chat with Mr. Trinity, one businessman to another. No police, no lawyers. If Trinity can’t see that his interests are best served by backing off, then he’s not as intelligent as he appears to be.”

“I don’t know, son,” said Steven. “It can be dangerous telling powerful people what you know.”

Frank shook his head. “Anyway, how you gonna get that rich son of a bitch to listen to one lonely little logger? What’s your ace in the hole, Jack?”

“Facts, Frank. Witnesses put Boyle at the fire scene, a Seattle garage full of weapons, drones and dragon eggs. We’ve got a plane, two vehicles, addresses, aliases. Grace tracked ties to the Rockefeller Charitable Trust, to Montreux Trading, all the way up to this Trinity character. With what we know, we could put a few folks in jail, make others damn uncomfortable. What if we got the FTC to open anti-trust investigations on these assholes? These people work out of sight. Their plans will be ruined if exposed.”

“Fame, the kiss of death,” said Tom.

“You’re talking a trip to Europe, hotels and all. If he doesn’t play ball, more lawyers. Where’s the budget for all that?” asked Steven.

“We’ve got tons of frequent flyer miles from all those DC trips,” said Jackson. “Plus, I’ve got an equity line on Dragonfly Glen. If we need more, I’ll sell my land to the feds. They want it for another friggin’ park.”

The group groaned. Frank shook his head. Jackson without Treasure Pool and Molly’s home!

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, son,” said his mother.

“Yeah, straight on, guns blazing. It might work,” said Frank. “I should go with you.”

“Dad, Mom and Phil are busy in DC, and you and Tom have got the mill to run. I can do this alone.”

Frank mulled over the plan. “Europe,” he said. “You remember that little town we visited where Grandma was born?”

“Yeah,” said Jackson. “Seems like a lifetime ago.”

“Well, that broker who contacted me about pine plantations in the Carolinas remembered me mentioning she was from France, told me about a mill for sale over there. It’s not much, but it comes with timberland. It’s on the Lot River. Small-scale hydro.”

“A place to start over, you’re thinkin’?” asked Jackson.

“Yep,” said Frank.

“I would posit,” said Jackson, “anywhere without trees, grazers and big free birds is a place we don’t wanna be.”

“Agreed,” said Steven and Vivian. Phillip, Frank and Tom nodded.

“They practice continuous cover forestry over there, sylviculture irrégulière,” said Jackson.

“That they do,” said Frank.

“Pretty country over there,” said Jackson.

“Very pretty,” said Frank.

“It’s also a Constitutional Republic,” said Jackson.

“Yep. 1792,” said Frank pointing at France on the world map.

“17 friggin’ 92,” said Jackson. “Plus the French don’t concentrate power in the Capitol. Every village—whether it has two thousand people or a hundred—has an elected Mayor and a council. Line up a valley with a hundred villages, all those politicians standing in front of all those engaged and enraged French citizens—hell, nothing gets past them”.

“Keeps the big boys out,” said Steven.

Jackson smiled. “Local control,” he said.

“Local control,” said Frank, nodding. “I’m just saying, maybe we should think on it. You’re going that way. Stop off and see it? We might have to start from scratch and I’m not sure it can be done in America anymore. I think we may have hit critical mass here.”

Jackson nodded. “Livin’ in the wrong country?”

“Or right country, wrong time,” said Frank.

“OK, a Plan B.” said Jackson.

“More like a Plan E, F or G,” said Steven. “Still, something to ponder.”

“Definitely, something to ponder,” said Jackson.