“Thanks.” I poured the salt into my glass. “Then when Ryan Beltzman comes with the radwaste truck, they make their swap. The Swap Cask, now containing talc,” I held up my glass of salt, “for a resin cask from Beltzman’s radwaste shipment.”
Walter was already filling a glass with pepper.
We swapped glasses.
I continued. “So now Beltzman, with the Swap Cask full of talc in his truck, continues on to the dump. Where the cask gets buried.”
Walter set his glass of salt on the table and covered it with a napkin.
God, I loved this man. “Meanwhile, the resin cask,” I held up my glass of pepper, “awaits Jardine in the offroader’s trailer. So Jardine now drives his rig to his depot. A mine, let’s say.” That place we’re going to find when we build ourselves a new map.
Soliano was nodding.
“But instead of storing the resin cask at his depot, Jardine dumps out the beads.” I grabbed the nearest thing at hand, a wastebasket, and dumped in the pepper.
Hap chuckled.
I held up my now-empty glass. “Now Jardine has an empty cask. And he can take it back to the talc mine and fill it with talc.” Walter already had another salt shaker open. I poured the contents into my glass. “And this now becomes the Swap Cask for the next exchange, when Beltzman next comes with a shipment of hot resin casks.”
“Ongoing?” Soliano said. “This is what you mean?”
That’s what I meant. “Talc for resins, talc for resins, and so on and so on.”
Scotty sat forward. “And he dumps the resins, at the depot, every time?”
“Yeah, he’d have to.”
“Into what?”
“Good question.” Where, in the depot mine, is he stockpiling those resin beads? Not in a wastebasket, that’s for sure. It would overflow.
“Christ,” Scotty said, white, “then all the beads are uncasked.”
There was a long silence, in which shouts from the pool filled the vacuum. No one moved. No one recapped the salt and pepper shakers. No one touched the wastebasket containing stockpiled pepper. It might as well have held resin beads.
“And so,” Soliano finally said, “his ongoing swap comes to an end Monday night. This means the resin cask in the talc mine — which Mr. Jardine came to fetch — that is the last cask exchanged?”
“It’d have to be.”
“How long do you theorize this swap has been running?”
I looked to Ballinger. “How long has the dump been taking the hot resins?”
Ballinger’s face took on a sickly hue.
“Well,” Hap said, “we get resins from reactor cleanups, spent fuel pools, messes at legacy sites.” He whistled. “Boy could’ve stockpiled one hell of a shitload of stuff.”
“And what,” Soliano asked, “could he contaminate with such a quantity?”
“A shitload of the priceless.”
“A shitload,” Scotty said. “How the hell much is a shitload? How the hell is my team supposed to handle that? This is unbelievable. You guys let this clown steal this stuff for God know’s how long and it’s out there. Jesus Christ.” He ran his hands through his hair. “And don’t forget the Spare Cask. Why’d he steal that one? What’s that for?”
I shrugged. Good question.
“Let me have a go at it,” Walter said. “Let us say, on one of his swaps, he does not empty the resin beads into his stockpile. He sets that resin cask aside. For a rainy day.” Walter selected an unopened pepper shaker, and set it aside. “Then, to keep the swap going, he will need a new empty cask. So he steals another — the second cask missing from the dump.” Walter picked up the empty glass I’d set on the floor. “The Spare Cask, which now becomes the cask used for the ongoing swap. And the swap continues.”
“So he’s got his shitload of loose resins in the depot,” Scotty said, “and he’s got this rainy-day resin cask somewhere? Jesus H. Christ.”
“Well what’s the friggin rainy-day cask for?” Ballinger asked.
“What is any of it for?” Soliano snapped. “Find it. Before it matters.” He checked his watch. “We have fifty hours until his deadline.”
Walter said, “Cassie, there’s something else.”
With an effort, I nodded. What the hell else could there be?
“A message was sent, about finding our car.”
“Backpackers. Hap told me.”
Hap looked up from his sketchbook. “Told her what the message said.”
“The wording is irrelevant,” Soliano said. “The provenance is telling. It was a text message, routed through a resender in Bulgaria.”
It took me longer than it should have. “Jardine?” I went cold. “But why?”
“The message means that he knew about, or carried out, the attack. Presumably his purpose was to interrupt your work, steal your samples. That achieved,” Soliano shrugged, “perhaps he did not wish to accrue another murder charge.”
“Jeez,” Ballinger said, “that makes him some kinda twisted guardian angel.”
The hairs rose on my forearms.
“Don’t look like the hands of an angel,” Hap said.
We all turned.
Hap was studying his sketchpad. “Look real earthly, to me.” He reversed the pad, showing us. “Roy’s hands.”
The sketch was surprisingly detailed, considering the short time Hap had given it. Roy Jardine’s hands looked ready to move. The long fingers flexed, showcasing big knuckles. The nails were short, squared. There was a signet ring on the right pinkie.
I said, “What’s that engraving on the ring?”
“Beats me. I’m drawing it from memory.”
Scotty peered. “The ocean, and a beach.”
Walter moved closer. “No, it’s the desert.”
Hap beamed. “How about it’s a Rorschach test? You know, the ink blots where everybody sees what they want to see? So Scotty wants to be surfing, and Walter’s right where he belongs, the desert rat. How about the rest of you? Milt? Ever notice Roy’s ring?”
“No, but I’d like to wring his disloyal neck.”
“Hector? Give it your best shot. Could be a clue.”
Despite himself, Soliano edged in for a look. “Desert,” he said finally.
“Cassie?”
I said “Death Valley” although it could equally well have been the Great Rift Valley in Tanzania. I wished Jardine in Tanzania.
“Then desert it is, with a prejudice toward Death Valley.” Hap studied his sketch. “Now the hands. You notice that little callus on the right middle digit? That’s maybe Glock finger. Not so angelic. That’s what you get when you shoot a lot and your finger rubs against the trigger guard.” He glanced at us. “I used to shoot.”
Walter threw me a look. Men carry guns, too.
“So what?” Scotty said. “We already figured Jardine shot Beltzman.”
“Yeah but we haven’t figured why.” Hap shut the sketchbook. “I have a theory.”
Soliano gave him the long look. “You are being very helpful, Mr. Miller.”
“Doin my best, which y’all might mention to the CTC honchos, in case the subject of rewards comes up.” Hap grinned. “Anyhoo, I call it the one-thing-leads-to-another theory. Goes something like this — Ryan effs up some little thing and Roy yells at him. Ryan gets his feelings hurt and then, by and by, the gun comes out. Don’t know whose gun, who shoots the tires, but at the crash site the gun ends up in the hand of the guy with Glock finger, Roy Jardine.” Hap whistled, sound like a falling skyrocket. “The oops factor.”
Soliano frowned. “The what?”
“Human frailty, Hector. Murphy’s Law.”
“You make a point, Mr. Miller?”
“Maybe you don’t know Murphy’s Law, not being a native speaker. That’s when everything that can go wrong does go wrong, in the worst possible way.” Hap cocked his head. “Surely y’all experienced that? You make a mistake that leads to another mistake, that leads to a real big miscalculation?”