K Nilsen - The Yellowstone Traps

The take-him-down mindset Winnie fostered when she first arrived at Independency had atrophied. She had been keen to get at the man, Whittemore, and get under his skin so that her data and reports could be made available to intelligence professionals. Now she understood that the portrait that she and Midlands’ clients had of fulminating phantoms in the northland was well off the mark. Still, the information she had gathered might soon lead to the disruption of his full-blooded social experiment, one she now felt strongly should be left free to prosper and mature.

Winnie soaked in the heater’s BTUs, pretending she might tire and go to bed, but her nervous system was pulsing with the energy even as her thoughts descended to nadir.

Her training had been designed to wall her off from emotional attachment to subjects under scrutiny. The drill was to approach everything from a diamond-hard professional perspective. Fascination with a target was fine, but sympathy, adoration or complicity was impossible. Then why, Winnie chided herself, had she let her emotions derail her efforts? She got close to Abel, too close. Was it a lark and nothing more or was it a fundamental misstep?

Quandary, that’s what it was. She thought she had some inkling how Abel might present himself in the flesh, but his personality had confounded her and then pulled her into his orbit. He brandished a biting and calculating pen. Yet in person, he could set his weighty message aside and take delight in the lives and thoughts of others. Face-to-face, he relished simple pleasures, a friendly chat, a walk along the bluffs, a glass of homemade wine.

Winnie ran a hand through her wiry hair, trying to wring out the static in her head. The gesture didn’t work. Reaching across the computer desk, she gripped a coffee mug full of pens and pencils. In a single motion, she jerked the container off the desk and hurled it across the room.

The woman whistled loudly through her teeth and went to work hammering on the keyboard—something about a rendezvous in Sioux City. Meet at Buffalo Alice Restaurant for a $10 pizza and good beer. Get a room overlooking the river.

Winnie finished her keystrokes, sent the e-mail she just typed to a computer on a desk in Prospect Bluffs, Minnesota and loosed a volley of words to the darkened Florida Room. “God, I didn’t think I’d actually like the man.”

Leaning against the window trim, arms folded tightly across his chest, Wesley stood laboring as if he were out of breath. Stroking his moustache, he gazed on funnels of loud mineral spring steam bellowing from the Mammoth Hot Springs thermal terraces just above and behind the headquarters. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Liz entered his office suddenly and stopped. She looked Wesley over. He did not look altogether well.

“Are you okay, Wes?”

The geo office veteran ran a hand over the bridge of his nose to clear it of accumulating moisture. “I need to make a decision. I’d like your professional opinion, Ms. Embree, before you vacate the premises for the weekend. I’ve been asking any and everyone their thoughts.

“At no time in my tenure here have I ever recommended to the park administrators that they close the park to the public during the summer season. Close certain terrain, yes, like Norris, but not all of Yellowstone. But I’m terribly concerned about the data stream. I need your input. Please don’t take this lightly. If an advisory hits at the start of the tourist season, it’s likely to impact the Park Service terribly and bring caustic responses from everyone, from the chambers of commerce to the halls of government.

“This place is the cornerstone of the economies of big portions of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, you must understand. But it’s my duty to insure that the Park Service has the information necessary to safeguard the public. Nothing is more important than that.

“So, Ms. Embree, do you think there is, right now, a real danger to the public or don’t you, given what we’re seeing?” asked the supervising geologist.

Liz hesitated not a second. “Absolutely there’s danger, Wes, and it may get more so. I think you should insist that Parks close the park down—all of it, every square foot. The whole region from Norris to Park Point and the Brimstone is sweltering. The lake villages are uninhabitable and the lake itself is positively dangerous for recreation.”

“You’re afraid of another phreatic explosion in the lake?”

“That and the rapid accumulation of CO 2at ground level and in the water column. I think it would be criminal not to close access to the entire lake and its environs. Then what have we? Not a soul can walk into Norris geyser basin now. Other basins are really too hot for safe tourist access.”

Wesley rotated away from the window and took a seat behind his desk. “And what about the Brimstone, Ms. Embree? It’s looking very ugly.”

“I’ll bet we haven’t seen the last of our trouble out there, Wes.”

“No, I think not.”

“Have you talked with Fred Womack at CVO?”

“Yes, of course.”

“What does he have to say?

“We’re all on the same page, Ms. Embree. We should pull the plug on Yellowstone.”

“Then do it, Wes.”

Wesley nodded. “Thank you for your opinion.”

“You’re welcome. Good luck, Wes.”

Liz left the office, leaving Wesley slumped at his desk, framed by stacks of data printouts. Ah, technology, he thought, grumbling, He shoved the data pile aside. Papers spilled on the floor. What remarkable tools to work with. What a blizzard of information to sort through and interpret. Maybe there was too much data, too much of every damned thing. No seat-of-the-pants flying anymore.

Wesley picked up the phone and dialed Parks. Throngs of tourists had to be kept away for the summer season. No families with young children were going to perish because the geology community failed to act. Yellowstone would not be another Mount St. Helens. Not on his watch. No, sir! He rang the emergency management offices in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho and called ranking U.S. Geological Survey officials, the CVO and FEMA as well. He recommended the Park Service and state emergency management officials place employees on standby. Only those with official business should be permitted to move through Yellowstone. Park officials were to prepare to clear Yellowstone of workers and contractors should things escalate to a full evacuation order—a volcano alert.

It would not take long, Wesley calculated, for the phone to ring off the desk, once word made the rounds of state and federal emergency management agencies. He did not expect to receive Montana Governor Randall Seifert on the line within minutes, particularly late on a Friday afternoon. Seifert always worked a long full day on Fridays, not one to waste a single penny of the taxpayers’ money. The retired Army major tuned politician wasn’t happy at this hour.

“What the hell is going on down there?” roared the governor through teeth as large as those in the mouth of a horse. His raging words crashed from the speaker on Wesley’s desk system and ricocheted about the room. “And what gives you the right to screw with our parklands, huh?”

Wesley stiffened and responded succinctly, but the governor would not back off.

“You know what you just did, mister?” the governor fulminated. “You just yanked the happy tooth out of every tourist’s head. We need every one of those yahoos in that park. They bring in money, you understand, from Frisco to Philadelphia. You put the dagger of doubt in everyone’s back.”

“Governor,” Wesley retaliated, distraught over being assaulted over the phone, “it’s my responsibility to protect the public. Your citizens, mind you. I’m doing just that. As for tourists, an advisory will push your tourist business through the roof. Everyone will want to come to the Yellowstone country this summer to see what the commotion is about. You remember Mount St. Helens?”