“I was not careful. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t look familiar,” said Crutcher coldly.
“I make this trip twenty times,” Pitt said quietly. “I’ve seen you lots before. Your name is Crutcher. Three deliveries back, you punched my gut for unloading the fish too slow.”
The guard studied Pitt for a moment, then gave a short laugh, a jackal laugh. “Get in my way again, and I’ll boot your ass across the channel...”
Pitt registered a look of friendly resignation and jumped back onto the deck of the fishing boat. The rest of the fishing fleet was slipping into the openings at the dock between the supply ships. Where there was no room, the boats tied together parallel, end to end, the crew of the outer boat transferring their cargo of fish across the deck of the one moored to the dock. Pitt joined the fishermen and began passing crates of salmon up to one of Broadmoor’s crew, who stacked them on flatbed trailers that were hitched to a small tractor vehicle with eight drive wheels. The crates were heavy, and Pitt’s biceps and back soon ached in protest. He gritted his teeth, knowing the guards would suspect he didn’t belong if he couldn’t heave the ice-filled fish crates around with the ease of the Haida.
Two hours later the trailers were loaded, then four of the guards and the crews of the fishing boats piled aboard as the train set off toward the mining operation’s mess hall. They were stopped at the tunnel entrance, herded into a small building and told to strip to their underwear. Then their clothes were searched and they were individually X-rayed. All passed scrutiny except one Haida who absentmindedly carried a large fishing knife in his boot. Pitt found it strange that instead of merely confiscating the knife, it was returned and the fisherman sent back to his boat. The rest were allowed to dress and reboard the trailers for the journey to the excavation area.
“I would think they’d search you for concealed diamonds when you came out rather than entering,” said Pitt.
“They do,” explained Broadmoor. “We go through the same procedure when we exit the mine. They X-ray you going in as a warning that it doesn’t pay to smuggle out a handful of diamonds by swallowing them.”
The arched concrete tunnel that penetrated the mound of mine tailings was about five meters high by ten wide, ample room for large trucks to transport men and equipment back and forth from the loading dock. The length stretched nearly half a kilometer, the interior brightened by long rows of fluorescent lighting. Side tunnels yawned about halfway through, each about half the size of the main artery.
“Where do those lead?” Pitt asked Broadmoor.
“Part of the security system. They circle the entire compound and are filled with detection devices.”
“The guards, the weapons, the array of security systems. Seems like overkill, just to prevent a few diamonds from being smuggled off the property.”
“Only the half of it. They don’t want the illegal laborers escaping to the mainland. It’s part of the deal with corrupt Canadian officials.”
They emerged at the other end of the tunnel amid the busy activity of the mining operation. The driver of the tractor curled the train of trailers onto a paved road that circled the great open pit that was the volcanic chute. He pulled up beside a loading dock that ran along a low concrete building in the shape of a quonset hut, and stopped.
A man wearing the white attire of a chef under a furtrimmed overcoat opened a door to a warehouse where foodstuffs were stored. He threw a wave of greeting to Broadmoor. “Good to see you, Mason. Your arrival is timely. We’re down to two cases of cod.”
“We’ve brought enough fish to grow scales on your workers.” Broadmoor turned and said in a low voice to Pitt, “Dave Anderson, the head cook for the miners. A decent guy but he drinks too much beer.”
“The frozen-food locker is open,” said Anderson. “Mind how you stack the crates. I found salmon mixed in with flounder your last trip. It screws up my menus.”
“Brought you a treat. Fifty kilos of moose steaks.”
“You’re okay, Mason. You’re the reason I don’t buy frozen fish from the mainland,” the cook replied with a wide smile. “After you’ve stored the crates, come on into the mess hall. My boys will have breakfast waiting for your people. I’ll write a check as soon as I’ve inventoried your catch.”
The wooden crates of fish were stacked in the frozen food locker, and the Haida fishermen, followed by Pitt, thankfully tramped into the warmth of the mess hall. They walked past a serving line and were dished up eggs, sausages and flapjacks. As they helped themselves to coffee out of a huge urn, Pitt looked around at the men sitting at the other tables. The four guards were conversing under a cloud of cigarette smoke near the door. Close to a hundred Chinese miners from the early morning graveyard shift filled up, most of the room. Ten men who Pitt guessed to be mining engineers and superintendents sat at a round table that was set off in a smaller, private dining room.
“Which one is your disgruntled employee?” he asked Broadmoor.
Broadmoor nodded toward the door leading into the kitchen. “He’s waiting for you outside by the garbage containers...”
Pitt stared at the Indian. “How did you arrange that?”
Broadmoor smiled shrewdly. “The Haida have ways of communicating that don’t require fiber optics.”
Pitt did not question him. Now was not the time. Keeping a wary eye on the guards, he casually walked into the kitchen. None of the cooks or dishwashers looked up as he moved between the ovens and sinks through the rear door and dropped down the steps outside. The big metal garbage containers reeked of stale vegetables in the sharp, crisp air.
He stood there in the cold, not sure what to expect.
A tall figure moved from behind a container and approached him. He was wearing a yellow jumpsuit. The bottoms of the legs were smeared with mud that had a strange bluish cast to it. A miner’s hardhat sat on his head, and his face was covered by what Pitt took for a mask with a breathing filter. He clutched a bundle under one arm. “I understand you’re interested in our mining operation,” he said quietly.
“Yes. My name is—”
“Names are unimportant. We don’t have much time if you are to leave the island with the fishing fleet.” He unfolded a jumpsuit, a respirator mask and a hard hat and handed them to Pitt. “Put these on and follow me.”
Pitt said nothing and did as he was told. He did not fear a trap. The security guards could have taken him anytime since he set foot on the dock. He dutifully zipped up the front of the jumpsuit, tightened the chin strap of the hard hat, adjusted the respirator mask over his face and set out after a man he hoped could show him the source behind the violent killings.
Pitt followed the enigmatic mining engineer across a road into a modern prefabricated building that housed a row of elevators that transported the workers to and from the diggings far below. Two larger ones carried the Chinese laborers but the smaller one on the end was for the use of company officials only. The lift machinery was the latest in Otis elevator technology. The elevator moved smoothly, without sound or sensation of dropping.
“How deep do we go?” asked Pitt, his voice muffled by the breathing mask.
“Five hundred meters,” replied the miner.
“Why the respirators?”
“When the volcano we’re standing in erupted in the distant past, it packed Kunghit Island with pumice rock. The vibration that results from the excavating process can churn up pumice dust, which raises hell with the lungs.”
“Is that the only reason?” asked Pitt slyly.
“No,” replied the engineer honestly. “I don’t want you to see my face. That way, if security gets suspicious, I can pass a lie-detector test, which our chief of security uses with the frequency of a doctor giving urine tests.”