Page 73 of South of Nowhere

The entrance to Redding Mining looked more like a prison than a business.

An acre of gravel—and today, mud—was encircled with a six-foot-high fence of thin metal posts sharpened like old-time Prussian army helmets and painted gray. Entry was via an electronically operated chain-link gate about twenty feet wide. Inside the forbidding barrier were administrative offices to the right and factories and workers’ buildings to the left. Straight ahead were the three mine shafts themselves.

Colter Shaw rolled his bike to a stop just outside the gate and squinted to make sure he was correctly reading the signs above the entrances.

inferno

hades

hell

A man with a perverse sense of humor, this Gerard Redding.

In the hills behind the mines were two smokestacks a hundred feet high, with fumes wafting from them. Scaffolding and fencing and pipes and conduit and relics of old, rusting machinery were everywhere. Mining apparently did not require tidiness.

A skeleton crew was working today and their efforts had nothing to do with copper. While Annie Coyne’s battle technique was digging trenches, Gerard Redding’s men and women were filling and stacking sandbags. To gain access to the office you had to climb up and down sandbag “stairs” assembled at the gate. All the workers’ vehicles were parked outside this perimeter, except for a late-model Mercedes and a Lexus, which were inside the protection zone. The owners of those vehicles weren’t going anywhere.

He climbed off the bike. There was an armed guard in a small shed beside the gate. “Can I help you?”

“I’m working with Mayor Tolifson. I’d like to see Mr. Redding.”

The guard looked him over as he made a phone call and explained Shaw’s presence. He seemed to stand slightly to attention as he listened to the response—though this might have been imagination. He disconnected and said, “Wait here.”

Shaw recalled that Tolifson and Starr had not spoken kindly of the man.

That’s putting sugar on it…

Shaw reflected that the attack earlier by Bear, while it might technically have been on the Redding Mining property, was a long way from this location. Was that significant?

He looked at the sandbagging operation. It was an impressive wall. Had they started building it before the levee’s collapse? Maybe, though they were moving quickly. It was not impossible that they began their work after the witching hour of 6:15 a.m.

A few minutes later a man in his seventies appeared from one of the buildings He was stooped but in fit shape, and clearly muscled. His face was weathered, and thinning white hair was combed back over the top of his narrow skull.

He walked with a stride, and climbed the improvised stairs to join Shaw. “It’s okay, Fred,” he said to the guard.

The man retreated to the shed.

“Gerard Redding.”

Shaw identified himself.

The miner glanced at the Yamaha and Shaw looked for any indication that the man was familiar with him or the bike—and therefore had heard a report from Bear about the earlier encounter.

None that Shaw could see.

He handed Redding another Shaw Incident Services card. Unlike Coyne he stuck it in his rear slacks pocket without as much as a glance.

“You know about the levee.” Shaw nodded to the sandbagging workers. Did they fill and stack just a bit more quickly now that the boss was present? He added, “The city’s overwhelmed, so our company’s helping. The mayor’s ordered a mandatory evacuation.”

A breezy laugh. “He the police chief now?”

“Acting, yes.”

“Hm. Well, sir, you’re standing inunincorporatedOlechu County. Somandatory’s not a word that means anything.”

“Then ‘requesting.’ ” Shaw looked around. “Your employees might want the option. Though it looks like you sent most of them home anyway. Or told the shift not to come in.”

Was it the latter? That could be incriminating, depending on when he’d issued the stay-at-home order.

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