One Mile Under (20 page)

Hauck was impressed. It was clear they did have multiple layers of protections to prevent anything harmful from seeping into the surrounding soil. They had even built up berms and protective ditches surrounding the well pad so that if anything came back up to the surface it couldn’t escape.

“So where do you get all the water from?” Hauck asked. “You said what, a hundred thousand gallons a month?”

“We buy it on the open market just like any other commodity. And locally we have some leases …”

“But it’s totally dry here. The river’s down. Look at the fields …”

“Everything is for sale, Mr. Hauck.” Moss smiled. “For the right price. Now c’mon, let’s go inside the office. I’ll introduce you to the guys.”

In one of the two domed Quonset huts, Moss introduced Hauck to some of the technicians seated behind computer screens.

“This is where we operate the drill.” Moss put his hand on a worker’s shoulder. “Where we pump in the water, build up the temperature, even pinpoint at which exact spots we’re going to inject the mixture into the shale. It’s all controlled by these 3-D configurations. See …” Moss pointed to a screen where there was what looked like a multicolored cross section of what was under the earth. “This is seven thousand feet down. Real time.” He pointed to a depth gauge to back him up, like a reverse altimeter. “Here’s the shale deposit.” Moss ran his finger along a lighter, almost milk-colored shadow amid various striations of gray and black. “This and this are layers of surrounding rock. You can see the drill tube …” He pointed out a long red line that ran under the 3-D rendered shale line. “I can’t tell you how it’s done, these guys are a lot smarter than me, but if it shoots the water and sand mixture, let’s say right here, or
here
”—Moss placed his finger on various spots—“it essentially loosens up the oil or gas, and that’s how we’re able to get at it.”

“That’s pretty good, Mr. Moss,” one of the seated technicians said, as he turned around and grinned.

“Thanks, Francisco … Here, this is interesting,” Moss said to Hauck as he picked up a multicolored, laminated chart similar to the three-dimensional image Hauck had just looked at on the screen. “It’s a 3-D seismic image. This is how we evaluate if there’s the prospect of oil down there. These trucks on the surface emit sound vibrations that travel thousands of feet below the earth’s surface, and then the readings are run into a 3-D seismic volume, like this, which gives you an image of the different masses that are down there. This mass is rock.” Moss pointed to a dark striation. “And this is shale.” He indicated a wispy, lighter band that ran through the rock.

“Kind of like reading an X-ray,” Hauck volunteered.

“Very much like that. You can see the different masses … So we know with a much higher level of probability what’s down there before the first drill bit hits the earth. And over here is what’s down there now …”

He took Hauck over to a different screen, where he saw a computer rendering of the main well, its many protective layers inside it, and then farther down, how it suddenly branched off horizontally. “Hannah One,” Moss said. Thousands of feet down, there were two other horizontal channels that fed out in other directions. “Meet her cousins, Hannah Two and Three.”

It resembled the branches of a tree. Perfectly straight ones. With various colors in the cross section, representing different layers of rock. “How long does it take to drill one of them?” Hauck asked.

Moss shrugged. “Twenty-one to twenty-eight days, depending on if we can go day and night. Previously, we’d be sinking wells into the earth all over this area if there was a high probability of oil. The Wattenberg field we’re in has what we call the EUR, the estimated ultimate recovery, of some fifty-five million barrels.”

“That’s a lot of money at stake.”

“It is, but let’s be clear, it’s not just about the money.” Moss leaned back against the workstation. “Or being able to run your air conditioners twenty-four hours a day and drive around gas guzzlers. We’re not just talking lower gas prices anymore. The real number that matters is the percentage. The percentage of domestic to imported oil. That’s what we’re really doing here, Mr. Hauck. What’s really at stake. It’s about independence. The independence from the Middle East. Economically and politically. Trust me, Mr. Hauck, what we’re doing here is a lot deeper than simply pleasing our shareholders. We’re talking foreign policy, and national security.”

National security … The battle for hearts and minds, just like in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s how Alpha fit in, Hauck began to see. Shifting the battlefield. The new football fields, fancy parks. Town centers.
Inform. Persuade. Influence
. As lethal as if they’d sent in the Special Forces commandos to take out a bad actor in the night.

The last thing you wanted was for anyone to get in the way.

“So what do you think?” Moss’s smile had returned. “Impressive …?”

It was clear to Hauck he was getting the tour designed to push him off why he was here. Moss had already been alerted about him. Before Hauck even showed up today. “Very.”

It was Moss himself who had said it:
I was using the word
environment
far more broadly …

What the hell had Trey Watkins’s father done?

On the drive back, Moss’s conversation grew more personal. Who was Hauck up here with? What else he’d done with his time? How long was he planning on staying? They got back to the RMM lot. Moss asked where Hauck had parked and drove him over to his car.

“Sorry I couldn’t have been more helpful on the Robertson thing. Hope you enjoyed the tour, though.”

“Thanks. It was very interesting.” They shook hands and Hauck stepped out.

“Next time through,” Moss said, “I’d like you to meet Mr. Stafford, our regional general manager.”

“Maybe that can be arranged,” Hauck said, watching Moss’s expression slide. “I’m not sure I’m leaving so soon.”

Dani was going stir-crazy. Growing worried, too. He had left around ten and it was already after three. She’d called. She sat around watching Oprah and Ellen. She called again.

Finally he knocked on her door.

“I was worried. I didn’t know what happened to you,” she said, shifting on her bed, her arms around a pillow, the TV on. “You left for RMM at ten. That was over four hours ago.”

“I got waylaid,” he sheepishly replied.

“
Waylaid?
”

“I went to see Hannah.”

“Lucky you.”

“Hannah’s a well, Dani,” he said, noting her perturbed expression. “It’s where those trucks we saw on the road were heading the other day. And I found out a few things you might want to know. The first is, those tankers we almost ran into weren’t filled with oil after all.”

“What were they for then?”

“Water. Lots of water.”

“Okay. And what’s so great about that?”

“Water is how they get the oil out. They—”

“Fracking. I get it, Uncle Ty. I think I told you that when we drove up. I know the process.”

“Dani, look around … What’s the one thing you don’t see around here? The place is in the middle of a two-year drought. And RMM needs thousands and thousands of gallons of water. So where do you think it comes from?”

She nodded. “Those trucks coming up from the river …”

“That facility we thought was a well, well, it isn’t. It’s a pumping station. For water. They’re literally draining the river. And they might well be dumping it back in once they’re through with it. You want your potatoes irrigated with fracking wastewater?”

She shook her head. “No, not really.”

“Neither would I. I’m starting to see how Alpha fits in to all this.” Hauck sank into a chair across from her. “Their job is to eliminate any organized or lingering opposition before the oil companies come in and do their thing. They come up with a strategy, just like they did in the war: persuading the local population, buying any resistance off. E.g. the fancy football fields, health centers, and municipal buildings. And maybe turn the screws on anyone else.”

“I thought they handled issues relating to the environment,” Dani said.

“It
is
the environment. They’re just using the word a lot more liberally. Meaning anyone—a town council, a building ordinance, or even a stubborn individual who is standing in their way, or maybe stirring up trouble …”

“Trey’s father.” Dani nodded, starting to get the picture.

“I think I’d like to pay him another visit, if your friend Allie is still there.”

“I think she’s heading back tomorrow.”

“Up for it?” Hauck winked.

“I’m up for anything that gets me out of this dump you made me hang out in all day.” She wheeled around and put her feet into her sneakers. “You know you could have called. After what happened on the road, when I didn’t hear back for all this time, I was worried. That wasn’t nice.”

“You’re right.” Hauck tossed her her Whitewater Adventure sweat shirt, which was flung over the chair. “Won’t happen again. My bad.”

They drove back out to the farm, sure that Trey was killed for some action aimed against his father. They got there at around 4:30, hoping to catch Watkins at the end of the day.

This time, there were only a few cars in front of the house and a few hands milling around. They knocked on the front door. Trey’s mother, Marie, a warm, but no-frills-looking woman in her fifties with graying hair and no makeup, opened it, and let them in.

“Mrs. Watkins …” Hauck said.

She wasn’t rude, but she wasn’t welcoming, either. Dani went into the bedroom to speak with Allie. Hauck asked if they could speak to her husband one more time.

“He’s out by the barn. But I’m not sure he’ll want to speak with you. He was upset after the last time. We all were. Now that our boy is buried, can’t we just let him lie in peace?”

“If I could just have a couple of minutes, Mrs. Watkins, that’s all I ask.”

She tossed a rag on the table. “Wait here. I’ll see.”

She went out back. Hauck stood looking out the window at the barn. Hay bales were being stacked, hands transferring them into the big barn. That’s what they were farming now. All the land would give them.

The room was a kind of sitting room, with old, upholstered chairs and a wear-worn couch, close to the kitchen. The place had the cozy smell of biscuits baking and there were flowers placed everywhere in all this drought, probably from the funeral. Their daughter, Kelli, who lived in Greeley, came out from the kitchen. She was pretty, in trendier jeans and a red knit top. “You can see how it is here,” she said, with a hint of apology. “She might be right, though. It may just be better if you leave them alone.”

“I’m not trying to cause anyone any pain, Kelli. But there are some things you all should know.”

“You’re not a cop?”

“No. Not anymore.”

“So then why are you digging into this? Why are you putting yourself on the line? What’s your interest in Trey?”

Hauck was struggling for an answer when he heard the screen door in the kitchen open.

Chuck Watkins came in, in jeans and a work shirt and a Caterpillar baseball cap. He stopped, removed a work glove from his hand, and put it on the table. “I don’t mean to be unneighborly, Mr. Hauck, but I’m pretty sure my wife made it clear just how we feel.”

“All I want is just a couple of minutes,” Hauck said. “If that’s—”

“I don’t have a couple of minutes. What I have is twenty acres full of undersized potatoes and beet root that need to be watered best we can. And a whole bunch of hay to stack and bring in. I told you the other day, there’s no point in trying to make some case here. We’re the ones who have to live with what happened to Trey, not you.”

“I know that.” Hauck took a step forward. “But your son—”

The bedroom door opened, and Dani and Allie came out from where they’d been talking.

“My son died from an accident, Mr. Hauck. Not from anything else. The police in Carbondale confirmed that to my satisfaction. The parks investigators looked into it too, and didn’t find any differently. So I don’t know who you are or what you think you have, but all it’s going to do for us is bring up a lot of questions that will never be answered and just upset everyone around here, who are already pretty upset. So I’m asking like I did the first time, to just let us alone now and leave.”

“I want to show you a photo, if I can …?” Hauck told out his phone and scrolled to the shot he had taken yesterday at Alpha of Robertson in the 301st Airborne. He narrowed in. “You recognize this person?”

Watkins shook his head. “No.”

“His name is John Robertson. Do you know that name?”

Watkins shook his head again, but this time after a slight pause.

“I know what it’s like, sir, but it’s important you hear about RMM and some of the contractors they’re using …”

“You know what it’s like? You’ve both been in town all of about two days and you’ve got it all sized up. Well, I’m glad we’re such a learning experience for you, Mr. Hauck.”

“I know you were standing up against them in some way. RMM. I know they use contractors whose job it is to break down local opposition to the wells. They’re trained by the U.S. Army, Mr. Watkins. It’s called the Alpha Group. They all did questionable stuff over there, and now they’re here, and what else you ought to know is, there was someone who was an operative for Alpha who was on the river at the same time Trey was—”

“That’s enough!” Watkins’s voice made a few people turn, then he lowered it. “Our son is dead, sir. Isn’t that enough? He lived in his own freewheeling way and that’s how he died. Why does there have to be anything else to it?”

“Mr. Watkins, I found Trey on the river.” Dani came forward. “I know better than anyone what kind of whitewater he could handle and how he—”

“I said, that’s enough! I know you were his friend, miss, and I appreciate that, and what you’re trying to do. But I’m asking you to leave my house now. Both of you. I don’t want another word.”

“Dad.” Kelli stepped toward him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Just listen to them, please …”