The Minoan Cipher

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

The next morning after a breakfast of gluten free raisin bread, Molly got into her leathers and straddled her Harley. Leaving Bend, she followed the road through the forests around Mount Hood. She rolled into Portland late in the morning and pulled up in front of the Dragonfly coffee shop on Thurman Street.

A few blonde wood tables were occupied. A man and woman sat at one to the rear of the shop. When she stepped inside they waved her over. She walked past a man in a Red Sox baseball hat who was bent over his laptop.

“I’m Molly Sutherland,” she said. “I think you’re waiting for me.”

With his long, graying, brown hair tied in a pigtail, and a neatly trimmed beard, the man at the table looked like an aging hippie. He maintained a grim expression on his gaunt face, told her to take a seat and introduced himself as Jared Spaulding. The woman in the business suit identified herself as Attorney Alberta Mullins. Her manner was crisp rather than cold, Molly thought, but her attempt at a warm smile wouldn’t have melted an icicle.

“Thank you for coming all this way, Ms. Sutherland. After your call, I ran your name and telephone number through a private investigator. He said you were retired Army. Is that correct?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s correct.”

“What do you do now?” she said.

“I’m on an Army pension but I work as a bird photographer and trainer at the High Desert Museum in Bend. You can call them if you want.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.” She jotted down the information in a small notebook. “Would you tell us again why you’re interested in Auroch Industries and Viktor Salazar?”

Molly was ready for the question. “Like I said, my Uncle Gowdy died in a coal mine explosion. While I was working on a family history project, I found out that the mine was owned by Auroch. I started poking around and learned that they were never called into account for safety violations. Mr. Salazar is the boss, so I thought maybe he might do the right thing and apologize, even though it was years ago.”

Spaulding let out a barking laugh. “Good luck with that.”

“I see what you’re saying,” Molly said. “Big company like that wouldn’t pay any attention to me.”

“Uh-uh,” he said. “They would pay a lot of attention, and that’s the problem.”

Molly furrowed her brow. “Not sure I understand.”

Attorney Mullins reached into the briefcase by her side, pulled out a folder and opened it on the table. She extracted half a dozen photographs and spread them out. Taken from different angles, at ground level and from the air, the photos showed a village, or what was left of it. Most of the corrugated metal shacks had disappeared into a sinkhole.

His voice cracking with emotion, Spaulding said, “I’ve got photos of the same scene repeated over and over again in different places. Only the body count varies. In this incident, twenty-three people — men, women and children — died when an Auroch mining operation weakened the ground under their village.”

“Mr. Spaulding was the chairman of an environmental and humanitarian organization when these disasters occurred,” Ms. Mullins chimed in. “After a series of highly-publicized disasters near Auroch mines, Jared pulled together an international consortium to confront the company. He can tell you what happened next.”

“We had lots of momentum,” Spaulding said. “Their public relations department folded under the world-wide criticism. They put me directly in touch with Salazar. To my surprise, he took full responsibility, said he would provide restitution to those impacted, and would be open to suggestions on how Auroch could make amends and prevent further disasters. He said Auroch was heavily involved in alternative energy.”

Molly nodded. “I saw that Auroch belongs to an energy council working on stuff that could put him out of business. Seem funny to you?”

“Yeah. Go figure. Maybe that’s one reason we believed him when he said he’d tend to our demands personally and have his staff carry out his wishes.”

“Salazar was a man of his word,” Attorney Mullins interrupted. “Auroch had an army of lawyers, investigators and accountants in-waiting. They must have been prepped for weeks because we were served with subpoenas within hours of the telephone call. Offices and cars were vandalized. Our computers were hacked. Worse, the police came in with false charges that were brought against the organization; our donors were warned against giving any funds to help us. People followed our staff everywhere.”

“That’s an awful lot of trouble.”

“We planned to hang in, but we had some amazing bad luck. Our treasurer was killed in a car accident. Hit and run. That put us over the edge. In a matter of days, our organization was dead as well.”

“Sorry to hear that. Sounds like you tried to do some good.”

“We did lots of good,” Spaulding said. “And if you know what’s good for you, stay away from Auroch and Salazar. They’re poison.”

“Thanks,” Molly said.

Spaulding must have noticed the firm set of her jaw. “You’re not going to take our advice, are you?”

“Uncle Gowdy’s wife was my favorite aunt and their kids are my best cousins.”

The attorney shook her head. “Weren’t the Hatfields and McCoys from West Virginia?”

“Hatfields were. McCoys came from Kentucky. I’m probably related to both of them. That’s the way it is where I come from. We’re all kin.”

Spaulding sighed. “If you persist in going ahead, promise me a couple of things. One, come to us if you need help. Two, be careful.”

“My Maw and Paw didn’t raise any dumb kids,” Molly said sarcastically. “I’ll keep looking over my shoulder.”

If Molly heeded her own advice, she would have paid more attention to the man in the Red Sox cap who was positioned so he could glance up from his laptop without seeming too obvious. He had purchased the cap in Boston, where he had been the day before when the call came in telling him to fly to Portland. He had arrived that morning on the red-eye and taken a cab directly from the airport to the café. He wore a hearing aid that could shut out extraneous sound. He had been listening to the conversation, typing out notes on who said what. He had already taken down the license plate number of the Harley. When the conversation ended, he typed out the time, then sent the notes as an attachment to the email.

Within milliseconds, the words spoken at Molly’s table winged their way across the continental United States and the Atlantic Ocean to the security department of Auroch Industries. The recipient glanced at the source, printed out the message and then placed it in a folder that was delivered by hand to the big office with the strip-mining murals on the walls.

As Molly was throwing a leg over the seat of her motorcycle, her words were being studied by the subject of her discussion. Salazar was back in his office after a quick flight from Santorini. He read the notes again. It was a small annoyance, but he was a man who abhorred loose ends, and after the Santorini debacle, he wanted someone to pay. He reached for his phone, punched a button, and said:

“Tell our man on the scene to deal with this Sutherland person. Immediately.”