Fury (End Times Alaska Book 4) by Craig Martelle

Author:Craig Martelle [Martelle, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Winlock Press
Published: 2017-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

THE ROAD TO VALDEZ

As I suspected, Lucas refused to give us the truck. He insisted on driving himself to take care of his baby. So we loaded up with a chainsaw, all the gas we could spare, pry bars, parts for the truck, tools, and game bags. We loaded our rifles and pistols, too. We were giving ourselves five days to get there. The last time I’d traveled that road, it was pretty clear. Three hundred miles, but it was early fall and better to go now than when the weather turned. We weren’t afraid it would snow. We still had at least three weeks before we’d get dusted, although it could rain and freeze at almost any time.

So we made time our friend. Over the past ten years, we’d cleared a road through the city of old Fairbanks to make it easier to get to North Pole where the Russian community had been established, taking over the old elementary school when we moved out.

Ben had even turned his old fish wheel over to them and they were pleased to get it.

I started out in the front, next to Lucas, while Terri was in the back with Floyd, keeping the half-wolf company. He’d warmed up to her fully, and if I hadn’t known better, I thought he might like her more than me. I didn’t want to test that premise.

We passed North Pole, continued to Salcha and kept on until we reached Delta Junction. Although we took it easy, the road was mostly clear, the drive uneventful, and we made good time. We had to move some debris going through Delta Junction, but once Sumitomo arrived, they’d clear these roads so we weren’t too bothered that we moved just enough out of our way so we could squeeze through.

The mine was about fifty miles down a dirt road northwest of town, where they had a full-sized work camp, a temporary facility with everything needed to continue mining for twenty-four hours a day. All they had to do was to add power, rejuvenate the camp, and get back to work. It was an underground mine with a great deal of support required for active gold production. The mine had previously used a variety of methods, but the chemical reagent methods probably wouldn’t be useful until they could stock sufficient quantities of acid. How many tanker trucks would that take? More than the startup work, I suspected.

They could also use gravity and flotation, both tried and true methods that only required water and power to recover at least a quarter of the gold from the rock. The rest would have to wait until the chemical methods were available. However, it would start the revenue stream. With the depression, gold was at an all-time high. Any gold mined was good gold; even a quarter of what was available would be lucrative.

I was on my way to Valdez to sign the access agreement. It was simple, but appropriately ambiguous, and since we controlled access we could always stop the trucks and end the export until we resolved our issues.

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.