The cab was now perpendicular to the trailer, hurtling down the icy road in the grip of gravity, wheels slipping against the icy tarmac. The guardrail separating the highway from the deadly drop to the river was just a narrow band of steel, puny compared to the force of the truck. Brock tried to steer into the skid and once again put the cab in front, but the trailer, with its twenty-eight tons of gasoline, pushed remorselessly and could not be controlled. The front fender of the cab now touched the rounded side of the tanker as it hurtled down the road.
In a last-ditch effort, Brock Holt hit the accelerator, hoping he could whip the trailer around, setting the rig back in tandem. His gambit almost paid off. The drive wheels were out of the ice-covered lane and began to pull against the trailer, dragging it slowly under control. Had the curve been another hundred feet away, he would have made it. The back of the cab hit the guardrail first, buckling the metal so badly that when the trailer hit an instant later, the whole section let go.
With a rending scream, the eighteen-wheeler went over the edge, the tangled guardrail twisting around the truck’s wheels. The rig rolled once, the top of the cab crushing against a rocky outcrop, the trailer splitting open like a wildflower bloom. The truck rolled again, spraying gasoline in a forty-foot Catherine wheel that splashed against the dark rocks and pelted the river like machine gun fire. The roll ended when the two halves of the rig locked together and the whole eighty-eight-thousand-pound mass slid down to the inky river, gouging a huge furrow into the earth.
The two passengers in the Rover sprang for their doors, but the driver halted them with a sharp command. He slid the vehicle into gear and slowly backed out of the parking lot until all four wheels were firmly on the Richardson Highway and then, just as carefully, drove forward again, guiding the Rover over its own tire tracks, making it look as though they’d just pulled into the lot.
“Flask,” he said as he killed the ignition.
The passenger in the backseat twisted as he pulled a silver hip flask from his parka. He carefully poured a few ounces of its acrid contents into each of the six jerry cans before returning it to his pocket. It took only a few shakes to coat the insides of the plastic jugs.
“Remember the scenario,” the driver cautioned. “We just witnessed a horrible accident and we’re the first people on the scene. Make sure your footprints in the snow show our urgency to help the driver of the tanker truck. Now let’s go.”
They dove from the Range Rover, dragging their feet slightly as if in shock and then began running across the road to the smashed guardrail. The first nauseating waves of gasoline fumes cloyed their throats when they were still fifty yards from the precipice. At the edge, it looked as though a giant ax had struck the earth; rocks, loose dirt, and the tenacious vegetation that grew along the slope had been thrown aside by the hurtling truck.
The rig lay halfway in the swift river, like a giant overturned beetle. The trailer resembled the glossy carapace, and the mangled wheels turning on their bent axles twitched like limbs. Under the beams of the powerful flashlights all three carried, the river downstream of the destroyed truck was rainbowed by the spreading slick of gasoline pouring from the huge tank. From their vantage point, they couldn’t see the fate of the truck driver; the cab was too dim even for the four-cell Maglites.
“Make sure he’s dead,” the driver said, meaning that if the driver had miraculously survived, he was to be killed, not rescued. “I’ll go call the police.”
He trudged back to the Rover, focusing his flashlight on the emblem painted on its front door. The seal depicted a very detailed globe, each continent and coastline rendered almost perfectly, yet the world was cut up into segments and laid back like the skin of an orange. It was a haunting image showing both reverence for the subject while demonstrating a concern for its future. Beneath it, in tall block letters, was written PEAL. He dialed 911. The connection to the police station in Valdez took only a moment.
“Hello, my name is Dr. Jan Voerhoven. I’ve just witnessed an accident on the Richardson Highway.”
It took an hour for the police to arrive, two patrol cars and a single ambulance. Voerhoven had assured the authorities that there was no need for urgency since no one had survived the crash. Four satellite uplink trucks roared into the parking lot only moments after the police, each van emblazoned with the logotype of a television network. Voerhoven smiled tightly when he saw the first of the vans arrive. Perfect. The media had been listening to police scanners, as he knew they would.
The police were thorough with their questions, considering PEAL’s global reputation. Two patrolmen took the time to follow their tire tracks from the highway to where the Rover had parked and studied the footprints across the snow. They seemed satisfied with Voerhoven’s explanation that they had been driving to Valdez when they saw the tanker truck lose control.
The officer in charge, a heavy lump of a man with a red nose that might or might not have been caused by the cold, told one of Voerhoven’s men to open all six jerry cans in the back of the Rover. He sniffed each one to confirm that the PEAL vehicle carried its own extra fuel, an environmentally friendly blend of gasoline and ethanol that hadn’t been commercially available since the 1970s gas crisis. The few ounces of gasohol poured from the flask were pungent enough to convince him that the cans had once been filled with the alternative fuel.
Cautious and considerate attention to detail had always been Voerhoven’s way of ensuring that PEAL, though always under suspicion, was rarely found responsible for its actions.
As soon as the police had finished with him, Voerhoven sent his two companions back to the Rover while he went to meet the members of the press who were arrayed like a choir awaiting its conductor.
“This has all been rather difficult for me, so I don’t have any sort of prepared statement, yet I’m sure you all have a number of questions.” When he spoke, his slight accent and his naturally compelling voice created an instant aura of trust. His blue eyes were captivating under the harsh glare of the cameras’ klieg lights.
“Given that PEAL’s latest target of protest is Petromax Oil, do you think it ironic that you were the person to discover this accident?” This from a local reporter, not one of the network heavy hitters who’d been shouted down by the woman’s grating voice.
“Ironic? I think it’s tragic that anyone has to see what happened here tonight.” He dismissed her summarily, then pointed to a CNN weekend anchor who’d been giving PEAL favorable coverage in the weeks since their ship, Hope, had entered Prince William Sound.
“Doctor, what is your personal reaction to what happened tonight and what is the official reaction from your organization?”
As he’d expected, the CNN reporter had just given Voerhoven the step he needed to mount his soapbox.
“How does it make me feel? To be honest, it scares the hell out of me. The driver of that truck was traveling much too fast for these conditions, indicative of the negligent attitude of the company that employed him. Petromax Oil established tonight that they can’t be trusted to transport a few thousand gallons of gasoline on a well-traveled highway, yet they are about to pump millions of barrels of crude through the pristine environment of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.
“Tonight, Petromax spoiled just a small portion of a glacial river that nature will be able to clean, but what happens when this very same company has a much more serious accident on the North Slope? The irresponsibility of one man has consequences that we can cope with, but the actions of the company he represents will be with us far into the future. When Petromax and the other oil companies turn the Refuge into a reeking plain of sludge, all the finger pointing in the world won’t clean it up.