Ray White

Death comes in many guises, Alexander thought.

Early morning dewdrops glistened like rhinestones from the bright green tips of grass blades, arrowhead leaves and cattail shoots. The still water of the eighty-acre pond reflected the blue gray sky, and the graceful fronds of weeping willows dangled over the water’s edge. Across the water a limestone bluff dotted with ochre lichens and emerald green moss towered over the pond, and atop the bluff an abandoned factory lay in ruins.

Ancient wooden signs, their peeling paint warning people not to go in the water were posted at intervals along the banks. The newer, orange and black hazardous waste warnings looked out of place, as did the corroded chain link fence topped with razor wire that ran around the perimeter.

Alexander glanced at his companion and thought, “Many guises, indeed.”

Standing 5’2” tall, the top of Maria Elena Zelenskaya’s head barely came to his shoulders. Her slender, athletic build suggested a much younger woman, but the lines on her face and her hard eyes revealed her true nature. She brushed her dark brown hair behind her ears, stepped into a clearing filled with white Dutchman’s Breeches and pale pink Spring Beauties and said, “I didn’t expect it to be so lush, or to look so...clean.”

“It isn’t,” Alexander replied dryly.

And that was when she noticed the stillness wasn’t just a lack of breeze. There were no birds. The melody of life: birdsong, frog croaks, fish splashes and insect hum was missing. Here there was nothing - absolutely nothing. Goosebumps ran up her arms. This place was dead.

Alexander unlocked a gate and they were in. Down by the pond a dark forest green forty-foot semi-trailer with large white letters spelling ENVIROTECH stood like a lonely sentinel. Black and white plastic hoses ran from the trailer to the pond and when they got closer they could hear pumps whirring softly inside.

Maria touched the side of the trailer and felt the slight vibration. “This is it?” she asked. “No guards, just a padlock and a fence?”

“That’s all,” Alexander agreed. He spread his arms, presenting her with a gift. “One fully-automated filtration and remediation lab. A tech checks the place once a month, refills the hoppers if necessary, and takes samples back for further analysis. There’s an alarm system that calls if the chemicals get too far out of balance and a back up generator if the power fails, but that’s it.”

“Then all we have to do...”

“Is gain control of Envirotech. When we do that we’ll control access to forty-three of the deadliest, most heavily polluted, hazardous waste sites in America. More importantly, we’ll control the flow of information from those sites to the EPA.”

Alexander skimmed a pebble across the pond, satisfied that it skipped three times before plopping in. He pointed to the lab.

“We’ll reset the system to merely run the waste through untreated; bring in the new chemicals by truck and dump them during the day. Everyone will assume we’re cleaning the mess.”

He pulled out a USGS topographic map and unfolded it against the side of the trailer so she could see, then pointed to an area of the map where the brown elevation contour lines all ran together. “That’s the bluff and this blue area is the pond. And over here,” he shifted his finger to a long blue line that snaked across the map, “is the Schuylkill River, and the Belmont and Queen Lane Water Treatment Plants, watering trough to millions of Philadelphians.”

He brought his finger back up and traced it along a small blue line quite close to the pond. “And this is the Arapahanock River, which as you can see, flows into the Schuylkill.”

“So we only have to trench from the pond to the river?” Maria asked. “That can’t be more than 400 meters.”

“387 to be exact.” Alexander folded the map up and pocketed it. “We fill the trench with five-inch river rock and perforated pipe and cover it with the topsoil we stockpile during excavation. When your toxic cocktail is ready to drink we open the water gate we’ll install and the pond water will flush into the Arapanahock like a toilet. Simultaneously, our people will sabotage the intake valves of the treatment plants. By the time your brew hits Philadelphia it will be so diluted it may not kill more than a few thousand...”

Maria shook her head, interrupting him, “So few?”

He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her dark brown eyes. “Of course it’s not enough. We can never kill enough of them, but we don’t have to. We just have to make Americans believe they can’t trust their drinking water. It will cost them hundreds of billions to fix the damage to their infrastructure.”

“And we do this times forty?”

“More or less. We’ll tailor our containment breach and dispersal methods to fit each site, just like you will with your chemicals.”

“How long?” she whispered, and her voice was the only sound in the dead wilderness.

Alexander shrugged, squinting into the morning light. “Nine months to create the proper chemical mixes - that’s your job - and build the delivery systems.”

“That’s all?”

“It is much too long. Once we start we’ll be exposed.”

She looked around at the isolation. “That can’t be a problem, can it?”

“They’re not all this lonely. The key is Envirotech. If we control the company nothing can stop us.”

“And when does that happen?”

“I’m flying in to New York to see James Blackwell tomorrow. We’ll have Envirotech by the end of the week.”

“James Blackwell?” Maria asked, confused. “But I thought it was owned by Nick Kuiper.”

Alexander smiled like a wolf. “Not after tonight.”

“What happens tonight?”

“Our Mr. Kuiper will discover he is a king without a kingdom. The Blackwells are going to take over.”

“And you will negotiate with the Blackwells?”

“They will work with us. Trust me, Maria; everything will be well. They won’t know what’s happening until it’s far too late.”

“And we do this times forty?” she asked again, her eyes gleaming with anticipation.

“Yes,” he said. “America will reel from this blow like she was struck by the fist of God.”