53 Miles West of Venus Ch. 03

"Well, I think at first that this is all some sort of joke, being left there all by myself, but I then hear a cough from one of the back corner cells and I find out that I'm not quite all alone and I pretty quickly figure out that Granger thought I should talk to this guy in private without Ellis or anyone one else knowing about it, so I did. The guy was in for D&D, drunk and disorderly, from a bar fight on Friday night. He's kind of a repeat customer apparently. Judge hit him with a $300 fine or a week in jail, but his girlfriend couldn't swing the cash so he's doing the time. He was awakened in his bunk Sunday morning when our intruders were rather briefly parked next to him and he could hear pretty much anything and everything they said. His memory wasn't so hot until I started to peel off some green paper of my own with pictures of dead presidents.

"That does tend to improve most folk's memory!" Brice laughed.

"Worked like a charm. After a few Ben Franklins the guy was fairly chatty even. The intrusion team didn't say much while in their cell except that their leader guy, probably the one that stayed at the van, reminded them that their bosses had been warned that they were here and that they should all just relax and keep quiet and they'd all get out of there soon. When their mouthpieces arrived less than half an hour later, the guard, probably Ellis, unlocked their cell and then left, leaving them alone with their lawyers. They asked the guys a few quick questions before they left, like "did they make it inside or find a way in?", to which they said 'Yeah, easy!' Quote. And they asked about our security, to which one of the guys said 'Even easier'. Also a quote. One of the lawyers then said, 'Good, we'll have an easy contractor option if the EPA visit doesn't work next week'. Again, quote. And then they left, pretty quickly and quietly.

She paused for dramatic effect, but it was pretty much unnecessary. Phyl had everyone's complete attention.

"That's what he said... an EPA visit, and next week! He was sure that these were the exact words, no mistake. The guy's probably an early stage meth-head tweaker, but he'd been clean and sober for a couple of days in his cell by then and he seems credible. I'd have liked to have asked him a few more questions but right then I could hear someone coming down the next hallway and I needed to scoot. Odds are that he'll smoke or drink up the money I gave him the moment he gets out, but I think he's given us about all he really knows without having had time to get creative and invent stuff he'll think that we'd want to hear. That's assuming someone doesn't now decided that their meth-head guest is something of a collateral liability and that a few of the deputies don't decide to arrange either a jail cell suicide for him or make sure that the punk has a swift overdose right after he's released. I'd give that notion even money, now that I think about it.

"Somehow, I got my ass out of there without Ellis seeing me and I avoided everyone else on the way out of there! Got into the van, aimed it west and did at least ninety miles an hour all of the way home with my eyes glued to the rear view mirror, imagining all sorts of scary stuff that wasn't really there. So that's the situation... any questions?

There was mostly silence for the next minute or so until Brice said what everyone else was undoubtedly thinking.

"EPA... that means a Section 72b inspection, without a doubt; there are worse things I suppose... at least we have an existing plan for dealing with that!" We did - sometimes being overly paranoid comes in handy when people really are after you!

"Without any doubt," I agreed, "call it a near certainty, and yes we do have a plan for that, and so does corporate... both of them, I'm sure. Phyl, call downstairs and have someone bring up that binder so we can review it too, next. It's a shorter checklist than the Orange ones, and I think there's a lot of overlap, so we won't waste too much extra time and maybe we can get these both done simultaneously and not take up half of the night."

That was perhaps an overly optimistic expectation. Dealing with the EPA, and on a rather short notice was nothing short of a nightmare, but at least we did have a written plan!

The former Presidential resident of the White House was of an extremely fiscally conservative bent and nearly his first act upon taking office was to try and trim down the entire executive branch of the federal government to something that he considered 'manageable proportions' in his quest for a balanced budget and significant national debt reduction. By this he meant slashing the budgets of every federal agency to the bone and beyond, trying to reduce governmental bureaucratic staff by up to fifty percent in most departments. In this endeavor, he was largely unsuccessful, due to the strength of the government employees unions, but he was able to enforce a complete governmental hiring freeze and a policy of encouraging (or forcing) 'early retirements' that had slowly succeeded in reducing staff.

The so-called reform of the EPA had been one of his few signature successes. At first glance, the new reform law restricted the ability of the EPA to 'interfere' with business, except under very specific or 'critical' measures of environmental protection, and even then subject to judicial review and approval. In theory, it was a business developer's or corporate expansionists wet-dream come true - do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, etc. A license to pillage and plunder, Big Business thought at first... until the full details of a minor amendment in the law became public... details that the political machine of the current (and somewhat middle of the road) President's party began to exploit to the fullest, to much public unpopularity.

The so-called Section 72b sections of the law permitted 'private prosecutions' by the EPA at the bequest of any individuals, groups, or organizations (or corporations) willing to pay the substantial filing fee plus all costs of the 'private investigation'... and this also gave the EPA investigators extreme extra-judicial powers to 'temporarily' seize private property without a federal judge's order, in the event that a Class A Environmental disaster could be discovered in the course of the private investigation. In theory, what constituted a Class A violation was spelled out further down in the legislation, albeit a bit too vaguely and this was already the subject of considerable ongoing judicial review. In practice, a Class A violation was usually whatever the chief EPA inspector claimed it was, with their filings invariably channeled to liberal, environmentally 'friendly' federal judges.

With a Class A violation finding, the chief EPA investigator would immediately appoint a 'Remediation Conservator', place a federal seal upon the property and effectively seize it, calling in federal marshals as necessary to evict the prior residents and ownership. The appeals process to appeal or overturn a Class A finding was slow, taking months at a minimum and up to years to get a decision overturned and the seized property returned. Most appeals were still working their way through the system, and we didn't want any part of that nightmare!

In practice, the 72b legislation appeared to be a liberal activist's fondest fantasy come true, and for awhile it was. Well funded extreme environmental groups like Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and PETA could (and did) file suits against any corporation or organization that offended them, and with disturbing early success. Domestic oil production was cut by at least half right from the start as most of the nations refineries were shut down pending judicial appeal. Also most of the beef and poultry processing plants in the nation had been closed for 'remediation' driving up meat prices in the grocery stores to insanely expensive levels, far beyond the means of most working households. The seafood companies were next, with the avowed activist goal of an enforced vegetarian diet for everyone in the nation in sight of becoming a reality, consequences be damned!

Texas ranchers, like our neighbors the Collins, quickly discovered and enjoyed something of a slight loophole. They could cheaply transport their beef or poultry into Mexico, which had recently opened a multitude of brand new processing plants near the border to handle the surging demand, which then 'exported' the processed meat back into the USA. Northern beef and poultry producers were now moving their operations to Canada to do the same. This provided some 'imported' meat for the supermarkets, but at prices that were mostly out of the range of the poorer classes. Congress couldn't close this distribution 'loophole' without violating the conditions of NAFTA or starting up a trade war that they couldn't win and now no one anywhere close to the political center (especially libertarians) were particularly happy with the current results.

Regardless of the goals of left and right-leaning politicians, it didn't take the more amoral multinational corporations like AIS long to figure out that they could play this game too, and they had deeper and wider pockets to virtually suborn the entire EPA to now dance to their tune instead. Money does talk, and when multinational corporations were now providing over 50% of the EPA total annual operational budget it started to become increasingly unclear about who the EPA was now really working for. Certainly not the lower or middle classes... and probably not even for any actual protection of the environment anymore either.

Section 72b was now just another weapon in the corporate arsenal for arranging a hostile takeover of another rival company, or a direct and relatively inexpensive means of blatant corporate espionage. File a complaint against a competitor and 'arrange' (pay) to become the remediator of the seized property (physical and intellectual) once a Class A violation was found (or manufactured). Within days, all of the victim's secrets, designs, methods and processes would be in the hands of the predatory remediation corporation, effectively screwing permanently the victim and invariably driving them entirely out of business, or sold for pennies on the dollar of their prior worth.

It was even an on-going joke in the Wall Street Journal that targets for corporate acquisition were told to submit and give in, or else face being closed down and stripped by a 72b. Not a very funny joke either! Some industry analysts referred to it as the latest take-over 'nuclear option', and just about as loud, messy and economically destructive.

Majority public opinion was firmly and loudly howling for a repeal of Section 72b and it was starting to become a national scandal, but by now too many special interests both liberal and conservative were lobbying Congress (and paying record amounts of campaign donations) to keep it just as it was. The odds that this joke of a law will get repealed anytime soon is fantasy, regardless of which party wins the Presidency this fall, it is likely that 72b will stay. It's just too useful a weapon for whomever is in power, the power of cheeseburgers and decent tuna sushi be damned!

Being forewarned is forearmed. We started to review the EPA checklists first and step number one for getting ready to deal with an imminent 72b investigation was to get rid of anything that you didn't want the inspectors to poke their fingers into. Fast... yesterday, if possible. This was easy enough to arrange, and also already part of our Code Orange procedures.

"Brice, down inside the mine I can pretty much keep the investigators busy enough and out of trouble, but we've got a lot of stuff queued up outside for removal and also lined up on mining cars all over Level One. I can explain anything and everything that they might look at, but let's get the stuff... all of it, out of here. I know we intentionally decided to hold on to several rail hoppers worth of stuff just to keep on-hand, or for quick transport if the other test operation in Idaho ever expanded, but they won't be... and we don't really need it here anymore and I think corporate would really regret just losing it all. When can you get Union Pacific over here to take it all away for KCS to send down to Oceana in Mexico?"

"UP? Not soon and probably not in time, I called around last Tuesday. BNSF can spare us an older SD38 Dash Two with enough box and flat cars to take out pretty much everything on the priority list. It's already on hold for us and can be here tomorrow night, probably also when the regular truck gets here, so we'll be double busy. I've already told my boss to send a couple of extra trucks tomorrow night along with an extra big sized work crew for an extra big pickup. We won't actually have that much if anything really extra," he said taking a long glance at Peggy, "but we can start loading up all of the extra hardware and equipment, not to mention junk that's been kicking around upstairs for a few years. That will be a good start tomorrow night on the Code Orange checklist stuff, namely the confidential hardware marked for early removal and not destruction. BNSF can take all of the rest sometime late next week."

"No..." Peggy agreed, "our weekly production will be about the same as usual, just a fraction more than usual perhaps. We're going to start the shutdown of everything tonight, per Orange, and depending how many trips we need up the freight elevator we can get all of the important stuff up to level one, ready to take out on rail and loaded. It's all on wheels or moveable with a forklift, but extra hands are going to be needed... at least a dozen. I've got to lay off most of the contract lab crew in the morning and means just four gals... and you, are going to be left here and available to move out everything!"

Ouch... that could take us weeks, not days. That meant another late night call to our corporate tonight to hopefully get a dozen or so of our corporate security staff over here to help the Littlejohn team sometime in the morning. Enemy surveillance be damned... we needed to get the job done fast even if that meant landing them here with choppers!

"I'll call BNSF right now to finalize the contract then and offer a bonus for the emergency priority service," Brice added, "and also give a call to our rail friends in Wyldewood to keep a discrete eye over things to make sure that no one tries to redirect our train and its stuff... and that we can schedule a swift turnover with our usual KCS contacts. Everything goes then to Mexico to Oceana Nitrates, for them to ship to the island as routine cargo?"

"That would seem best. Under normal Orange conditions, I'd have preferred to send it all by rail to Littlejohn in Arizona first, quietly. Maybe have them refine the stuff a bit more before shipping off to Poravuvu, but the faster our stuff gets gone the safer and happier we'll all be!" Being an business entity of an independent sovereign island nation sometimes had many practical advantages, like avoiding 72b complications over there entirely!

Brice took out his corporate cell phone which undoubtedly had a level or two of encryption protection for his otherwise public calls and he leaned out far enough over the roof railing to just catch and hold a signal. His calls were brief but successful. Tomorrow night Burlington Northern Santa Fe would be sending an older but reliable engine and about two dozen empty cars for us to load. The engineer would remain on-premises with the engine and ready to leave for Fort Hancock the moment we completed loading, hopefully in less than twenty-four hours. There at the railyard near the Mexican border, he would leave the load for pickup the following day by a Kansas City Southern train, licensed to enter Mexico. That train would take our cargo to one of our regular long-time corporate partners, Oceana Nitrates near the port of Mazatlan, where a regularly scheduled ship would transport it to Poravuvu - and safety. Various corporate security teams would shepherd every phase of the delivery and that was a huge weight off of my thoughts.

Littlejohn would also be bringing us two crews of security cleared laborers and another dozen specialists in the morning via passenger vans to help us with the moving and other technical details. Technically of course, they'd report to Brice rather than me, but that wasn't going to be a problem, hopefully.

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For the next five hours we reviewed Orange checklists until our eyes nearly started to bleed. Drinking too much beer wasn't helping me stay either aware or alertly intelligent and managerial either, not to mention causing me to take regular breaks to take a wiz off into the air from the rooftop. Peggy really had the most 'to-do's but with the majority of her staff being let go in the morning she wasn't going to be able to knock out much of her urgent stuff until our various security folks started arriving. It was going to be 'all hands on-deck' for security from now on but Phyl could probably spare a guard or two, at least for tomorrow morning, but there was no escaping the fact that she had an awful lot to do in probably a short amount of time as well.

Yeah, my ass was going to be down there too tomorrow morning packing, porting and punting the crap upstairs where it could be dealt with, sooner rather than later.

Once the meeting was finally over Brice and Peggy took off at once to start their most critical assignments and perhaps even get a few brief hours of shut-eye. Phylicity and I had much less to actually 'do', at least right away, and virtually none it needed to be started now, so we shuffled on downstairs to Security to fill out a few dozen or so more or less critical reports for corporate and sent them off. This included a report of our assumption (fairly well founded) that AIS was the entity responsible for our recent security breaches and that an EPA 72b investigation of our facility was now probable within the next week or two. I also suggested that having some friendly legal backup for our asses might be necessary, too!

It was closer to dawn than midnight by the time Phyl and I were ready to pack it off to bed and perhaps a few hours of sleep. I was really to call it a night and I gave her a brief hug before starting towards the downstairs elevator, but she grabbed my arm to stop me.

"Sorry... I just don't really want to be alone right now. Can you walk me downstairs and then stay for a bit? Just a few minutes maybe even?"

Sure. I walked down the security staircase with her to her quarters and Phyl wrapped her arm around mine and held on, a bit more firmly that just the usual gentlemanly token escort sort of holding. When we reached her room she turned around to face me and for a moment I thought that we were going to kiss, but slowly instead she just moved close to hug me tightly for a long moment. We were just about the same exact height so it was easy for her to rest her head upon my neck.

"Just hold me for a few minutes," she asked, "at least until I get to sleep. It's been a bad couple of days and I'm tired of thinking about them. I just don't want to think at all right now."

Phyl stepped back away from me for a moment and shucked off her sandals and then her denim skirt and in the very dim light I could just make the pleasant sight of her bare mocha colored butt as she climbed under the covers of her bed. She'd left the tank top on and it was pretty clear that the partial nudity was not an invitation to romance.

"Just hold me for a few minutes, next to me." She again asked and I kicked off my loafers and cuddled up next to her, lying on top of the blanket. She wiggled up a bit closer right next to me and I put my hand around her stomach with the covers between us. I continued to hold her close and just when I thought that she was about to drop off to sleep I felt her hand grasp mine and pull it with her under the covers so that it fell upon her bare warm skin. Another few moments later and her hand gently but firmly guided mine upwards under the thin cotton of her shirt so that my hand fell upon and could grasp her right bare breast.