Harv shook his head. Macanas was getting rich while these mine workers wrecked their backs, destroyed their hearing, and ingested toxic levels of mercury. He didn’t see the retorts Estefan had mentioned, but he couldn’t miss the five-hundred-gallon propane tank that supplied their fuel for cooking the amalgam. From the look of things, Macanas had a very profitable operation going. It was tempting to burn this place to the ground, but that would only hurt the people who worked here. Then again, maybe it would be doing them a favor and even save their lives in the long run.
Harv reminded himself that he and Nate weren’t here to play God with these people’s lives. They were here to help Estefan avenge his father’s murder and now, his bludgeoned wife and torched house. They were here to stop a rogue killer, a killer they’d created. Harv had never liked Raven, though it was difficult to pinpoint why. Maybe it was a chemistry thing. There’d just been something about the guy he found unsettling. It wasn’t normal to act so calmly all the time. Nothing ever seemed to rattle the guy.
He pushed the thought aside to remain focused. The helipad’s fence became an asset. He could use it as a visual screen to approach the lumber mill. Beyond the wind sock, he saw the ominous black form of the mill’s huge gabled roof. The main building had to be forty feet high and at least one hundred twenty feet long. His NV registered the glow of the trees to the east, which meant at least one exterior light was on over there. Confident he was alone, Harv advanced to the office wall and flattened himself against it. He reached over to the air conditioner’s compressor and felt it for warmth. It was cool to the touch.
“I’m at the ore-processing plant’s office. No satellite dishes present. Stand by.”
Nathan gave him a click, and he eased along the wall toward the dark window. Before pivoting his NV goggles up, he took a slow look around. Even though the office was dark, he knew someone could still be in there. He placed his ear against the stucco wall and didn’t hear anything. Surprisingly, the window’s shade was only partially drawn. He leaned forward and used his NV to scan the interior. The tiny light on the computer’s CPU blinked sleep mode, providing one-second intervals of illumination. Excepting the digital scale on the desk, presumably used to weigh gold, it looked like a moderately furnished office. Nothing out of the ordinary jumped out at him. A door on the west side probably led to a bathroom.
Time to move on.
Harv walked directly toward the helipad, planning to skirt the fence’s eastern hemisphere. He wondered why the canvas covering the fence had an ivy pattern. Was it for aesthetic or tactical purposes? Whatever the case, it had prevented him from seeing it earlier. At the fence he peered over the top and saw the gate on its west-facing side. In the middle, a round concrete pad was surrounded by a sea of fist-sized river rocks. Smart, Harv thought. The rocks wouldn’t be disturbed by the rotor wash. No vegetation was present — not even a single weed. The fence didn’t screen the helipad from an elevated position, but it did offer privacy at ground level. Harv didn’t think Raven would be overly worried about anyone besides kids scaling the mountainside to watch the helicopter land and take off — what would be the point? Everyone in town could clearly see it as it overflew the area. As Pastor Tobias’s letters had indicated, it was no secret why it came and went.
Just north of the covered slab, Harv encountered the supply side of the canal and saw a well head and several large pressure tanks. Apparently, the pressurized water for the hose bibs came from here. Harv had no trouble stepping over the three-foot-wide channel. At the helipad fence he turned east and worked his way around to where he had a clear view of the lumber mill.
The illumination he’d seen earlier got increasingly brighter as he navigated the fence. Once he had a clear view of the mill, he made a TI sweep and didn’t detect any warm bodies. He’d expected to see a sentry.
The mill looked a lot bigger than it had on the aerials. The main building towered over the other two structures. Harv estimated it was at least forty feet high with a rectangular footprint of fifty by one hundred fifty feet. The smaller of the two buildings was on the south side of the property, and Harv saw light leaking from drawn blinds or curtains. He also heard the drone of an air conditioner, its noise originating from the far side of the small structure. A larger freestanding building was on the north side of the lumber mill’s property, likely the barracks where Raven’s men lived. A large parking lot to his left held half a dozen lumber trucks, a backhoe, a front-end loader rigged with grappling arms for moving timber, and some smaller vehicles that appeared deserted. He studied the area surrounding the office and almost missed seeing the satellite dish mounted on the wall. Half of its oval form was screened by a light-colored Range Rover. Harv saw an opportunity to look inside. Superbright slits of light came from the upper parts of the windows. With a little luck, he’d be able to peer inside, but he’d have to climb onto the Range Rover’s hood. First things first. He needed to disable the satellite dish. At this distance he couldn’t see if the coaxial cable ran down the wall or if it punched directly through the wall behind the mounting bracket. He’d know soon enough. He also needed to check in with Nate, which he did.
He froze when he realized he’d forgotten something critical.
Dogs.
He should’ve checked for them at the ore-processing plant as well.
If there were dogs outside the lumber mill’s office, they might hear his approach, even over the compressor’s humming. The TI would be better to see their heat signatures, so he switched devices. Watching for movement, Harv pulled his suppressed Sig, crouched, and issued a soft, high-pitched whistle. He waited a few seconds before repeating it. He knew his whistle might be heard by humans, but it was a risk worth taking. A tactical dog, or even a junkyard mutt, could put a world of hurt on him if he missed shooting it during its attack run — not a nice thought. When no dogs appeared, he hustled over to the office’s wall and nearly tripped over a rusted wheelbarrow concealed by weeds. He told himself to slow down. The fact that no sentries were present out here presented only two possibilities. They were either unwilling or unable to come outside. Perhaps Raven had given them orders to stay put. In a few minutes, they wouldn’t be getting any more orders, period. They were about to be cut off from the outside world. Harv saw where the coaxial cable disappeared through the wall. Clipping it with the wire cutters would be easy.
“I’m in place at the lumber mill’s office. There’s a satellite dish. I’m standing by to cut its coaxial cable on your mark.”
“Good work, Harv. Estefan, ninety seconds.”
CHAPTER 28
Franco fully expected to have heard from his men at the lumber mill by now, and his patience was stretched to the breaking point. What were they doing up there? He didn’t like being in the dark. The last update he’d received was fifteen minutes old. His bean-counting cousin inside the mill hadn’t reported hearing any additional gunshots. The three men who’d gone outside to investigate the single gunshot hadn’t come back yet. Franco felt uneasy about the situation, but getting irritated accomplished nothing. Santavilla was a small town, but it covered a huge area. Men on foot wouldn’t be able to patrol its entire expanse quickly. It could easily take forty-five minutes to an hour. And it was possible the initial gunshot could’ve been a farmer shooting or scaring off an intrusive animal. He was about to call the lumber mill again when his flip phone rang. He patched it through his BluLink adapter.