Death Canyon by David Riley Bertsch

Author:David Riley Bertsch
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scribner

16

THE HOT ROCK TRACT, MONTANA, ELEVEN MILES NORTH OF YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. THE SAME NIGHT.

The man looked out over the Yellowstone Plateau from a large house on a hill. The home was a modern-looking cedar structure and it was built in a hurry. He had bought up the land and contracted the build from start to finish in only six weeks. Cost was no concern. It sat up high in a swath of trees that was surrounded by wildfire damage, facing south so that the sun warmed it during the day.

The room resembled a control center. A few computers, a fax machine, two flat-panel TVs, and other various, albeit less common, electronic devices. Like the rest of the house it was cold, unlived in.

The man stood up and rolled his neck. He had been sitting at the computer for too many hours. Checking numbers and worrying.

Walking to the window that looked out on the national park’s northern tract, he inhaled deeply and rubbed his face with his hands. He was anxious.

His name was Jan Lewis Rammel, pronounced “John” for simplicity’s sake. Born in Germany, he had a huge, muscular body that stood six feet three inches tall. His cropped blond hair was just now starting to gray as he approached middle age.

A former college athlete and successful businessman, he was used to pressure, but the type of pressure he was under now was enough to make anyone crack. The unlikely possibilities were slowly turning into probabilities, and they were sickening. If the worst happened, the consequences were mind-boggling.

Horrific, really.

But the others involved in the project seemingly couldn’t be bothered with that reality. They were trying to remain optimistic. “Stay positive. Do your job,” they told him. But they were unrealistic and greedy. The truth of the matter was that the situation was getting out of control, and there was no stopping it.

At first he had spent what seemed like eighteen hours a day, seven days a week with them. Working to end the crisis. Save the world. He wasn’t so sure they weren’t destroying it.

Now everyone had left. Now, with the wheels in motion. They’d all gone back to their cities: D.C., Houston, Abu Dhabi, and New York.

They were oilmen and politicians mainly, all criminals in one way or another, but that identity was hidden behind a thick wall of respectability. A few, he didn’t know what the hell they did. They operated in the shadows. Google searches revealed nothing. They treated Jan like shit.

He was the low man on the totem pole, except for Makter.

Jan’s wealth was significant, but not compared to theirs. Anyway, his money had been made by endeavors more conventionally criminal: drugs, arms, and bribes. A few times, someone’s life. This made Jan a less-legitimate businessperson in the eyes of the others. It also made them fear him.

In his own eyes, he wasn’t hopelessly evil. Quite the contrary. He was motivated by success just like anyone else. And like most, especially those who had hired him, he was indiscriminate about the means to the end.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.