Dark Justice (12 page)

A row of small blue nylon tents nestled just inside the clearing. A stone circle told Ben where the campfire had been and would likely be again. There were a few boxes, shirts, plates, and other signs of humanity strewn about, but not many. It appeared to Ben that they had made a genuine effort to leave the area undisturbed.

“So this is the big secret terrorist camp?” Christina said. “How disappointing. I was expecting something out of a James Bond movie.”

Rick laughed. “We like to keep things simple. All we need is a base of operation, a place to stow our gear. Creature comforts we leave for someone else. Besides, it’s important that we be able to pack up and move at the drop of a hat. The logging company has people searching for us at all hours of the day. And that’s in addition to whatever Slade and the Cabal might be doing.”

The Cabal, Ben thought. Zak had told him about that, but he had suspected it might just be a fairy tale Zak cooked up to make his situation seem more dramatic. Or just a paranoid fantasy. Well, if it was, it was a shared fantasy.

“Let me introduce you to some of the rest of the group.” Ben saw people emerging from the edge of the forest or out of tents.

“You’ve met Maureen, of course.” Ben nodded in Maureen’s general direction. She looked just the same as before. It was possible she’d changed to a different flannel shirt, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Of course,” Ben said. “One never forgets one’s cellmates.”

“She’s our communications expert. Everything from ham radios to e-mail.”

Rick continued moving down the line. “And here’s another distaff member of the Green Rage team. Deirdre Oliphant. Excuse me,
Dr.
Deirdre Oliphant.”

Ben shook her hand. “A medical doctor?”

She shook her head. “A scientist.” If so, Ben thought she was about as unscientist-looking as anyone he had met in his life. She had long silky blonde hair and a tall hourglass figure that could easily have graced the cover of a fashion magazine. “I’m a dendrochronologist,” she explained.

“Oh,” Ben said. “Wonderful.” He shot a quick glance at Christina. “Should I pretend I know what that means?”

Deirdre laughed. “It’s really very simple. I study trees. My speciality is determining their ages.”

Christina nodded. “Counting their rings and all that?”

“Exactly. Except that it’s a little more complicated than that, especially with the older trees. We have to use other techniques, like extracting core samples, to date trees without cutting them down.”

“Is this speciality greatly in demand?” Ben asked.

“It is with us,” Maureen interjected. “It’s crucial to our work. We can occasionally get government support for preserving old-growth trees.”

“You wouldn’t believe how old some of these trees are,” Deirdre explained. “Beyond these pines is a dense forest of cedars that go back hundreds of years. Of course, there are redwoods in California that go back thousands of years, but for cedars, five hundred years is awesome. Can you imagine? These trees were here when Beethoven was taking piano lessons.”

“Impressive.”

“My holy grail is to find a cedar larger than the current recordholder in Forks, a town a few hours south of here. If I can find that, it could save the forest.”

Ben gazed about, awed by the thought of the living history all around him. It went back to what he was feeling before. Even though he couldn’t explain it, he had a sense of tranquility, of timelessness. Of constancy through the ages.

“The next fellow in line,” Rick continued, “the one doing the Santa Claus impression, is Doc Potter. I think we mentioned him before. He’s our medic and the senior member of the team.”

Ben shook hands with the gentleman, who sported a bushy snow-white beard. Ben guessed him to be in his mid-fifties, considerably older than the rest of the group.

“I’d like to think people whose only goal is preserving forests wouldn’t need a medic,” Doc said. He had an open, avuncular manner that Ben liked immediately. “But experience has proven that we do. This is the seventh Green Rage team I’ve been part of.”

“It must be exciting work,” Christina said.

“Yes, it’s exciting.” He glanced at his compatriots. “Sometimes it’s a wee bit too exciting. You may have heard about the incident in Oregon a few years back. Loggers came in the night, grabbed some environmentalists, dragged them out of their tents. Beat them up pretty badly. And by the time they got to a hospital, one of them had bled to death. Since then, we’ve always had a medic with every away team.”

“Sounds like what you need is a pack of thugs or attack dogs.”

“Don’t think we haven’t considered it,” Rick said. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t keep dogs out here. And Slade has all the thugs.” He took another step down the line. “Let me make a couple more introductions, then we’ll give you a rest. This is the lovely Molly Evans.”

Ben thought Rick’s manner altered as he came into Molly’s presence, although he would be pressed to explain just how. Molly had short bobbed brown hair and a clean honest look. Which pleased him since, if he recalled correctly, she was going to be his ace alibi witness. “You were out in the forest with Zak the night of the murder.”

Molly’s round brown eyes glanced quickly at Rick, then back to Ben. “That’s right. I was with him. We were … um, talking.”

“That’s fine,” Ben said, smiling. No need to embarrass her now. They could get into the details later. “And you’re willing to testify?”

“Can’t say that I’m looking forward to it,” she said honestly enough, “but I feel I have an obligation to Zak.”

“I understand,” Ben answered. “And I appreciate it.”

Rick nudged Ben to the end of the line. “This is our resident radical, Al Billings.”

Ben shook hands with the robust man sporting the red beard and earring. “I thought Zak was the resident radical.”

Rick laughed. “Zak believes in monkeywrenching logging equipment. Al here favors targeted nuclear bombing.”

“That
is
radical.”

Al grinned, toothy and earnest. Ben had the impression he had heard Rick’s teasing before and had learned to be good-natured about it. “Rick exaggerates a bit. But the fact is, WLE and Slade and the Cabal aren’t pulling any punches, so why should we?”

“If you try anything too extreme, public sentiment will turn against you,” Ben said.

“Hasn’t that already happened? All our tactics to date have been kindergarten stuff, just pranks—but we’ve already been painted black as night by the loggers and the media. I say it’s time we did something to deserve our reputation.”

“Al is a little high-strung,” Rick explained, “but he makes dynamite gumbo, which is the real reason we keep him around.”

“Have I met all the leaders of the group?” Ben asked.

“Just about,” Rick answered. “All but—” Rick stopped short. Ben saw Maureen shoot him a stern look. “I mean, that’s all.”

“Rick,” Ben said, “you guys are going to have to level with me.”

“You have met all the current leaders,” Maureen explained. “What Rick is stumbling around is that one of our leaders left, just a few days ago. Her name was Kelly. Kelly Cartwright.”

“Why did she leave?”

“Oh, it’s too complicated to explain. And it’s all political. Nothing to do with this case.”

Is that right? Ben wondered. Then why didn’t you want Rick to tell me about her? “Where is she now?”

“I don’t know exactly. I heard she joined some kind of camp in Oregon. I could probably track down an address if it’s really important to you.”

Al interrupted. “Rick, we need to talk.” He glanced at Maureen. “About the woman. She’s here. I’ve got her in a tent.”

“Later.” Rick guided Ben and Christina toward the campfire. He pointed toward the nearest boulder and suggested that Ben sit down. Not exactly a recliner, Ben thought, but he could probably get used to it.

The rest of the group joined him around the campfire. Maureen took the lead in the conversation. “As most of you already know, the new kid in town is Ben Kincaid. He’s a lawyer, a right-minded activist, not to mention a distinguished published author, and he’s agreed to represent Zak in this upcoming trial. He’s represented Zak before; they have some history. He’s also considering doing some writing about our group and the efforts we’re making to prevent this whole forest from being leveled. I want every one of you to give him your utmost cooperation. Anything he needs, he gets.”

“Is he one of us?” The question came from Al, who was seated on the other side of the campfire.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Has he joined Green Rage? Is he standing with us or is he on the outside looking in?”

“I haven’t joined Green Rage,” Ben answered. “I’m sympathetic to the cause. But that’s really irrelevant to my work as a lawyer. I don’t have to agree with everything my client believes to represent him.”

Al threw down his cowboy hat. “Man, that’s just not good enough.”

Maureen cut in. “Al, listen for a minute.”

“I’m listening, Maureen, but I don’t like what I hear. There’s no way I’m going to spill my soul to someone I don’t know who isn’t even in the group. For all I know, he could be a Cabal plant. Or a Freddie.”

Ben glanced up at Maureen. “Freddie?”

“Forest ranger. It’s a nickname.” She glanced over at Al, who was on his feet and pacing. “Not a very flattering one.”

“Aren’t the rangers on your side?” Ben asked.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no, the rangers side with the loggers almost every time. They’re part of the establishment. Do you realize that fifty percent of the clear-cutting in this country is taking place on national park land? True. The government is selling the country out from under us. And the rangers are being paid to go along with the sellout.” She looked back at Al. “Look, it’s this simple. Do you want Zak to go to prison? Or worse?”

Al pursed his lips together. “No.”

“Then cooperate with Ben. We’ve checked him out, and we think we’re damn lucky to have him. More important, we think he’s just about Zak’s only hope of beating this trumped-up charge. We have to do everything we can to help him.”

“You can do whatever you want to do,” Al said. “It ain’t gonna help.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, Zak’s got his dick in a ringer and he ain’t never gonna get it out.” There was a chorus of groans and disapproval. “You clowns are just kidding yourself. We all know what’s really going down here. Why are we afraid to say it?”

“I’d like to know,” Ben interjected. “What’s really going down here?”

“It’s the Cabal, man. They set this whole thing up. They’d do anything to get us out of the forest. They killed that logger and they framed Zak.”

Ben arched an eyebrow. “I see. It’s all a conspiracy.”

“Don’t patronize me, man. I don’t have to put up with that.” He took a step toward Ben, but a sharp look from Maureen stopped him in his tracks. “I’m not talking about alien abductions here. But it is a fact that the logging companies have poured a ton of money into stopping us and other groups like us. The Cabal has more operating cash than they know what to do with. Framing Zak would be a piece of cake for them. Put some money in the right hands, plant a little false evidence, and presto! Zak’s on his way to Death Row.”

Christina edged into the conversation. “But why would they go after Zak?”

“He’s been the driving force of this group since he joined, and they know that. Cut off the head, and the body withers.” He paused for breath. “Same reason the Mob killed Jack Kennedy.”

“Sit down, Al.” Maureen’s directive was echoed by several other groans and
oh, mans
. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“I’d like to talk to each of you,” Ben said. “I’d like to know everything you know, everything there is to know about Zak. Who was with him the day of the murder, who saw him where. Did he ever talk about the loggers, the victim, planting explosives.”

“Zak talked about explosives every day of his life,” Doc said. “It’s what he did. More than once I had to treat him for a burn because he spilled some chemical or another on himself.”

“Of course,” Deirdre suggested, “that could be exactly why the Cabal would use that M.O. to kill the logger. The use of a bomb guaranteed the cops would come looking for Zak.”

“All this speculation is getting us nowhere,” Ben said. “I need to know the facts. Who knew Zak best?”

Ben noticed several false starts before Maureen finally spoke. “We all knew him, Ben. Intimately.”

Al swallowed a smile. “Yeah. Especially the women.”

Molly shot him a killing look.

Doc chimed in. “What about you, Deirdre? You knew Zak rather well, didn’t you?”

Deirdre flushed. “Zak and I spent a lot of time … talking.”

Ben saw Al cover his mouth, as if he was about to burst out laughing.

“I don’t know if you know this yet,” Deirdre continued, “but Zak has an enormous brain. He was always asking questions, helping me date trees, trying to learn something new. He was very interested in my work.”

Al’s laughter finally burst out explosively. “The only thing he was interested in was getting into your pants!”

“Al!” Maureen’s eyes were like lasers cutting across the camp. “If you can’t be helpful, maybe you should go for a walk. Preferably over a cliff.”

“All right, all right.” He waved his hand at her. “I know when I ain’t wanted, man.” He ambled over into the forest and in a matter of moments had disappeared.

“Zak isn’t the only subject I need to know about,” Ben explained. “I want to know everything there is to know—everything that’s factual—about this so-called Cabal you all seem so paranoid about.”

“The Cabal is hell on wheels,” Rick muttered. “And its leader, Slade, is the fuckin’ Prince of Darkness.”

That again. “Did you get that, Christina? Prince of Darkness.”

She nodded. “Do we have subpoena power over a foreign potentate?”

Ben smiled. “If you people want me to believe there’s some gigantic high-powered conspiracy out to get you, you’re going to have to work a lot harder. Why would anyone want to do this?”

Maureen looked at Ben squarely. “In a word, money.”

“The conspiracy you’re describing sounds like it would be expensive, not profitable.”