Charon's Landing

The Richardson Highway North of Valdez, Alaska

The Richardson Highway, arguably one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world, parallels the Tiekel River as it gouges its way through a rocky canyon. The road boasts no fewer than twenty-five scenic overviews within the first forty miles north of Valdez. At points, the valley was barely wide enough to allow the river and two lanes of traffic; other times it opened dramatically into alpine meadows and side valleys with spectacular views of the Chugach Mountains and the Worthington Glacier. The highway also traversed Thompson Pass, an area fabled for holding all three national records for snowfall — seasonally, monthly, and for a twenty-four-hour period. On a single day in 1955, more than five feet of snow had covered the top of the twenty-six-hundred-foot pass. But there would be no records tonight. A storm was dropping snow, but rain fell with it, creating a frigid slurry that squirted from under the heavy lugged tires of a fuel tanker truck as it sped north.

The beauty of the ride was lost on the driver of the eighteen-wheeled tractor trailer; the truck’s powerful headlamps couldn’t penetrate deep enough into the storm to reveal the towering cliffs over his head or the vistas to the left and right. Occasionally, one of the many waterfalls not yet frozen by the unusually frigid weather flashed by like a white smear against the black night, but he had eyes only for the dark ribbon spread before his truck.

Brock Holt was not a happy man despite the country music blaring from the cab’s eight speakers. The conditions of the road didn’t bother him too much. To a native of Prince William Sound, a storm like this was nothing but a mild nuisance. What bothered him was the full load of Petromax gasoline, nearly eight thousand gallons, in the tanker behind him. He hadn’t been scheduled to make the run from the Anchorage depot for another two days, but the influx of media had supposedly emptied the service stations around Valdez. His dispatcher had assured him the early run was necessary, yet when he arrived at the Petromax stations, he found that they hadn’t called for him. In fact, they probably wouldn’t need the gas from his regular delivery either.

The stations’ owners complained that an environmental group had targeted them for a series of protests and boycotts. While the other stations in town were doing a brisk business, collectively Petromax hadn’t sold more than fifty gallons all week. The dispatcher must have assumed that since the other stations were pumping, so was Petromax. “Snafu,” Holt cursed as he began the long haul back north, anxious to chew out his dispatcher, Hank Kelso.

Since he was missing a repeat of the Country Music Awards on cable, Holt soothed himself by selecting another disc on the ten-disc CD changer in the cab. His only consolation, thin as it was, was that traffic on a night like this was nearly nonexistent. He rolled the big diesel as fast as he dared in the vain hope that he could catch the show’s big finale just before midnight.

On the downhill side of Thompson Pass, in a forlorn gravel turnoff overlooking the Worthington Glacier thirty miles from Valdez, a yellow Range Rover sat as quiet as the storm, its lights off and its engine idling just enough for the heaters to work. The only indication that the luxury vehicle was occupied was the frosting of the passengers’ breath that smoked the windscreen and side windows. The custom-painted Rover had been there so long that its tire tracks had been obliterated by the continuous snowfall.

Two of the three men in the vehicle had fidgeted away the past two hours, shifting constantly in the plush leather seats, sighing occasionally and staring at the cellular phone mounted under the dash in the hope that it would ring. The third man, the driver, sat calmly watching the storm, following individual drifting flakes as if they needed his permission to land. The intensity of his blue eyes was almost enough to melt snowflakes before they touched the ground.

His hands, powerful and deeply tanned, rested on the steering wheel, the occasional tap of his index finger betraying the anxiety he felt. His handsome face was as still as the glacier to their left. While the other two men sported layers of wool, nylon, and Gore-Tex, he wore only a Norwegian roll-neck fisherman’s sweater and a pair of jeans. His companions shivered in the cab of the Rover and muttered complaints, but he didn’t even feel the cold. He saw the low temperature as something to be embraced rather than warded off.

Nature, he thought, was not meant to be a struggle; it was to be enjoyed. To fight it only served to antagonize it and force it to oppose that much more. He’d often said that every time we attempt to show dominion over nature, she counters, even stronger than before. To him, it made more sense to accept its elemental life force and revel in its magnificence.

He’d tried to teach that to his people, but few really understood. True, some would join him when he swam in subarctic water or trekked through searing deserts, but they did it more out of sheer will than in communion. To them, it was a means of proving that they could endure the worst that nature possessed. They faced the elements not as its vassal but as an equal. He saw his actions as the highest form of worship. To stand before a natural force was to stand before God Himself.

The only other person who truly understood was Aggie. She saw nature as he did. The crashing waves of a winter storm on a forlorn coast or an intense rain that made it impossible to breathe were forces that she could appreciate. She saw these things as the highest expression of perfection. Let others stand in awe before a Picasso or the Sistine Chapel. These were man-made and thus inherently flawed. They paled before the perfect beauty of a tropical sunset or a coral reef. Aggie believed him when he said that humanity had changed so much from our original intentions that we had become a danger to the planet. She didn’t balk when he said that if the end of our existence was the price to pay to save the earth, then so be it.

The ring of the phone was just a quiet chirp, but the men in the Rover started at the sound. They’d been waiting two long hours for it. There was no need to answer the call. Their look-out had already hung up and was on his way back to Valdez from his position atop Thompson Pass.

They didn’t speak as they exited the vehicle, stretching for a moment to work out the kinks from so many hours of immobility. The driver opened the back door of the truck, revealing the five-gallon red plastic jerry cans that they’d loaded in Valdez. Each can weighed thirty-five pounds, and as each man heaved two from the cargo deck, only the driver didn’t stagger or struggle with his burden.

The storm whipped at them without mercy, snow and wind battering all three as they crossed the parking area, heading for the shoulder of Richardson Highway. They had chosen this location for two reasons. It was the steepest part of the descent from the top of the pass, and the road curved sharply along the precipitous bank of the Tiekel River, twenty-five feet below.

Their actions were well planned and carried out with a minimum of confusion. The lookout’s call confirmed that the Petromax tanker truck had just reached the pinnacle of Thompson Pass and that no other traffic was headed their way. Each man emptied his cans of water onto the road in a precise area, so that a maximum amount of the highway was soon covered with a thin sheet of invisible black ice. This alone would not guarantee that the truck would skid out of control, so they had to be back in the Rover before the tractor trailer appeared.

“Hurry up,” the driver urged, though he knew by earlier timed tests that they had another few minutes.

The last can was emptied, and the water rushed down the inclined road for a moment before slowing to the pace of molasses as it froze. The three men hurried to the Rover, the driver shifting the idling vehicle into gear as he settled in the seat. His two companions muttered about the weather and brushed themselves off, but a childlike, expectant tension shone on their youthful faces. They’d just pulled off a bit of mischief and gotten away with it. To them, it all seemed a game.

The driver, older by fifteen years and wiser by a couple of centuries, knew what was at stake. He understood fully what they had just done and silently wished that they could do it more often.

Brock Holt eased the truck over the top of the pass and worked the transmission up through a few gears. He’d driven this road so many times in the past six years that he knew he wouldn’t need to downshift for another mile and a half, until the road really started to descend into the gorge. The storm had intensified since he’d left Valdez, but it still wasn’t strong enough to concern him. He kept one hand on the wheel as he slid a stick of chewing gum from the pack he’d left on the center console. His heavily bearded jaws jumped rhythmically as he chomped on the gum and mumbled the words to the song belting from the stereo. The digital clock on the dash told him that he just might make it to Anchorage in time to see the finish of his show on the small black-and-white TV in Hank Kelso’s office.

The road started to drop away, and Brock downshifted, the big diesel bellowing at the extra strain of slowing the rig. The steering wheel was a living creature under his hands, twisting and writhing as he guided the eighteen-wheeler off of Thompson Pass. As the road dipped farther, he dropped one more gear, slowing even more, cautiously easing the truck along the road. When the front wheels hit the black ice, he was traveling slowly enough to correct for the short slide, but the patch was much larger than anything he’d ever experienced before.

The cab began losing its grip on the road. Holt could feel the wheels spinning uselessly against the slick surface, yet he had no choice but to turn the wheel to take the corner coming at him dangerously fast. He feathered the brakes and shifted down into low range, using the engine to gain just enough traction to keep the rig on the road. As the truck began to respond, he became aware that his heart had moved from his chest and was now pounding in his throat. For the barest fraction of a second, he’d almost lost the rig, but he’d gathered the truck like a wild horse bucking at the reins.

That’s when he saw the yellow Range Rover pulling out of an overlook and diving straight into his path.

He mashed his foot against the brake, slamming the pedal against its stop in a purely reflexive act. Even as he cursed the idiot in the other vehicle, he could feel his rig losing control once again. The massive trailer and its forward movement was a force that the cab could not overcome. The rig began to jack-knife, the trailer pushing the truck out to the side of the road in an obtuse angle. Just as quickly as the Range Rover had jumped into his path, it dove out of the way of the runaway tractor trailer. But it was too late for Brock Holt.

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.

“As to the official position of PEAL, we are here to make sure that never comes to pass.” Voerhoven nodded to another nationally recognized reporter.

“When the President announced that he would suspend oil imports, PEAL had no official comment, yet since the opening of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, your organization has been extremely vocal on the subject. Would you care to comment?”

Voerhoven smiled, his eyes bright with humor. “The one announcement followed so closely after the other that we didn’t have time to react.” The members of the press chuckled with him. “Of course, we applaud the suspension of oil imports. Getting just one supertanker off the oceans is a major victory. And we fully support the search for alternative energy. But only a few weeks after the President’s speech, we see what we have to pay for that victory. By so quickly capitulating to the power of the oil lobby, the President has shown that he really doesn’t have a serious commitment to the environment. When his ten-year deadline is up and we still don’t have a viable alternative energy source, you can believe that the oil companies will be there, eager to peddle their poison again.”

“What about the research to be carried out by the Johnston Group, founded by the president of Petromax Oil, whose sole aim is to find a solution to the world’s oil dependency?”

Voerhoven’s eyes drilled into the reporter who’d asked the question. “They’ll make a lot of noise, promising that they’re on the verge of a great discovery, but in ten years’ time they’ll have nothing to show us, and the Johnston Group will quietly close their doors. Max Johnston will be right back in the oil business.”

The bitterness of Voerhoven’s answer prompted an even more challenging follow-up from the same journalist. “How do you respond to the accusation that PEAL is a band of so-called eco-terrorists?”

“You call my organization a band of eco-terrorists?” Voerhoven raged. “Did you get a close look at the truck that went over the guardrail, pouring thousands of gallons of gasoline into that river? It doesn’t say PEAL on the side of the trailer; it says Petromax Oil. Don’t call me a terrorist when they are the ones working to destroy the planet.”

“Dr. Voerhoven, you know what I mean. Many feel that the tactics used by PEAL to promote global environmental awareness are so extreme they border on terrorist acts.”

“Why is it when someone fights for a belief that you disagree with, he is called a terrorist, yet when you are sympathetic to his cause, he’s referred to as a freedom fighter?” Voerhoven challenged. “In today’s world, context no longer determines meaning. Today it’s all a matter of perception. Are the goals and methods of PEAL extreme? To some, I’m sure that they are, but to call us terrorists is to place yourself in opposition to the environment. If you believe the health of our planet isn’t worth fighting for, then yes, we are eco-terrorists. But to those who see our cause as just and our methods as necessary, we are freedom fighters, engaged in a war to save the very place that gave us life.

“To win this war, we must win each and every battle. Alaska is about to face a massive assault by oil companies fixed on making a quick profit, and PEAL is here to lend a hand in her defense. But as we saw here tonight, nature is not entirely defenseless. She has made a clear statement. The oil companies and their eagerness to destroy will not be tolerated.” Voerhoven turned away from the cameras without another word, striding purposefully toward the Range Rover.

A man had died that night in a horrible crash, leaving a widow and two young daughters, and as the press packed up their gear, they felt almost good about it. Such was the power of Jan Voerhoven’s oratory.