David Dun - At The Edge

''You know that THP we talked about that we were gonna start this weekend."

"We joked about bringing out a huge crew and dropping everything," Dan said.

"You and I were joking. Anderson went and tried it."

"We told him to do a normal operation."

"That's what we told him, but he didn't listen."

"What has he done?" Dan asked, not indicating that he already had a good idea of the corrupted timber harvest plan (THP).

"The asshole didn't follow instructions. Instead of doing as he's told, Anderson sends in a thirty-man falling crew on Friday and they go nuts. I guess they hatched this brilliant plot at the bar, and got out every faller they could find. Most of 'em never even worked for Anderson a day in their lives. They start dropping every tree in sight and tried to fall a major chunk of the clear-cut portion in three days. It's dangerous, and it's nuts. We found out first thing this morning when the media was called out by a bunch of hysterical enviros. We have our forester going out now to shut them down."

"We'll be in court first thing Monday morning and the judge will no doubt eat me for breakfast."

"I know," the vice president said. "I know."

Patty McCafferty sat in a lavender love seat in a small sitting area at one end of her large office. Maria seated herself in a matching love seat on the far side of a brass-and-glass coffee table.

"Dan Young is a class-A jerk," Maria began. "I'm so mad at him I could spit. He was hiding Anderson's logging. Not just hiding, trying to deceive me. And for no reason. Our people had already found the loggers."

"Which reminds me. We need a restraining order on that."

"Oh, I intend to get one first thing tomorrow morning. For this, I think we can get right to a judge."

"Did you know they were doing accelerated cutting?"

"What do you mean accelerated? I saw a lot of trees down."

"They brought in way more fallers than usual on Friday, Saturday, and this morning when you flew over. They're dropping all the trees first, then yarding them. They girdled trees they couldn't cut to make sure they would die. That way, no matter what the court decides, those trees would have to go."

It was like someone had hit her in the gut. She had been twice betrayed. Hiding Saturday- and Sunday-morning harvesting was one thing. Girdling trees with a plan to drop everything in sight before she could get a court order was another thing entirely. It bordered on criminal.

"I… I… don't know what to say."

"Can you take a case like this against Dan Young?" Patty asked.

"I certainly can. I'll gut him."

Patty nodded but didn't look entirely convinced. "What about working with him on the Highlands compound and the money?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do about that. Dan's on some kind of holy war. When they broke into his house… well, he's pissed. According to him, it's about the money they stole, the Highlands compound, bats, even the death of Catherine Swanson. But most of all, it's about his wife dying and what has happened to his life since then. I'm not sure he knows that."

"Well, I've sent those equations and the bat picture to the people at the university. Do you want to meet with them?"

"Definitely."

"Rumor has it that you are fond of Mr. Young."

Maria felt herself blush. "Right now I'd say that we are just survivors of a major trauma mat in an odd way has drawn us together. That includes his housekeeper Pepacita and his little boy. We all got a little bit close. But it was nothing romantic. And it ended with this latest episode."

Patty's steely eyes locked with Maria's.

"Really," Maria said. "He's lost his wife. He's in no condition to be romantic." Still, Patty said nothing. "Oh God, listen to me. Now I'm implying the only problem is his dead wife when I don't mean that at all."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean there is absolutely nothing between us. He's a liar. I could never trust him. And I can't imagine anything in the future."

"Your love life is your business. But you do have excitable clients-"

''You don't have to explain.'' Maria rose and came around the coffee table, sitting beside Patty. "You know I wouldn't keep it from you if I thought I was falling in love."

The older woman reached out and took Maria's hands. "I guess I value your work and your company so much that I selfishly didn't want you getting involved with this industry fellow."

"You haven't a thing to worry about. Now when can I get to those experts?"

"Ready when you are. So do you take Dan?"

"I don't know yet. I just don't know."

Walking down the hall to her office, Maria took out Dan's card and punched his home number into the phone. Only then did she realize how odd it was that her secretary had come in on Sunday.

It took a minute to talk to Nate and for those few moments she managed to stuff her anger. Then Dan came on.

"Just give me a straight answer, Dan, and I mean it. Did you know that Anderson was furiously chopping down trees with a huge crew, dropping everything and girdling the ones he couldn't cut-all over the weekend to avoid a court order?"

There was a long pause.

"Maria, believe me, I'd like to answer all of your questions on this, but attorney-client privilege-"

"Did you know?"

"I would never, ever condone girdling or this accelerated cutting you're talking about."

"I didn't ask if you condoned it, Dan." She felt on the verge of hurling the phone across the room. "I asked what you knew. And if you have to assert the privilege, then you knew."

"It's not what you think."

She hung up.

Night-vision goggles on, able to see in only the faintest glimmer of starlight, Corey moved through the darkness like a cat. After she completed a steep uphill hike, steam rose from her body into the chilly mountain air. In her pack she carried sugar, to mix with soil on-site, and a small arsenal- a relatively light incendiary bomb, a stun grenade, the. 300 Weatherby, a can of military-strength pepper spray, handcuffs, and a razor-sharp stiletto.

It had all been easy to obtain except for the stun grenade and portions of the bomb, a homemade concoction of potassium permanganate, glycerin, and a high explosive. A timer controlled the mixing of the potassium permanganate and glycerin, which would ignite seconds after coming into contact, causing detonation of the explosive. The high explosive and the stun grenade had both been stolen from an armory in South Carolina by someone selling in the black market.

On a sunny spring day, the side of Tiger Mountain, gateway to the Highlands Forest, appeared as a multitextured, bushy, green patchwork. Brush patches, three to fifteen feet in height, intermingled with clumps of Douglas fir, redwood, Sitka spruce, and alder. In coastal fog the landscape took on a desolate, mysterious feel, the kind that could put a chill up the spine. But tonight the place was just dark, cold, and lonely.

Despite her load, Corey was able to move swiftly. Because she was far from her target, silence was not yet required. She had established a rhythm and kept to it, her breathing in sync with the raspy crunching sound of her boots on the soil and rock.

She thought of her body as that of a warrior's. There was an animal toughness in her square shoulders; her stomach was as flat as a granite wall; her biceps, her rock-hard thighs, and her calves were fighting trim. Not a body, she thought, a living sacrifice, in the service of Mother Earth.

Bile had risen in her throat as she watched Anderson loggers fell ancient giant trees in front of helpless-looking activists. The demonstrators were treated as a mere nuisance, petty criminals on the fringe of sanity. The quiet of her Sunday morning had been disturbed by the call. The only person in the regular movement who still spoke with her had rambled on, telling her of the biggest logging show they'd ever seen. It was on Otran land. No doubt Maria and her new buddy Dan Young were in on it. As Otran's attorney he must have known, and if he knew, she knew.