Lethal Dose

PRAISE FOR JEFF BUICK
AND
BLOODLINE
!

“Buick has created an intense, gut-twisting thriller with his brilliant debut. With characters modeled from real-life headlines, he gives the book depth and a life of its own.”
—The Best Reviews

“
Bloodline
is an action-packed thriller…[that] starts faster than a racing car in a straightaway and never slows down. Jeff Buick is a writer with a great future ahead of him.”
—Harriet Klausner

BREAK-IN

The intruder scanned the hard drive for Wes Connors's client's files. They were grouped together in a folder in Microsoft Word. Each client had a profile, including their address, phone number and why they had sought out the services of a private investigator. Most were local clients but a handful were from out of state. Attached to the client profile was an accounting sheet with detailed expense reports, billable hours and dates. The intruder switched his approach when he saw that Connors kept exact dates on when he worked for each client. He searched the client files for any customers with August 2005 dates. The search produced three names. He perused each of the files and sent them to the printer. Then he closed each file, shut down the computer and shifted his attention to the filing cabinets.

They were locked but it took him seconds to pick the lock and slide them open, one drawer at a time. He flipped through the files, looking for hard copy on the three clients Wes Connors had been working for during August. He found a single file for each client. Receipts were neatly filed in the folders and when he opened the third one he knew he'd hit pay dirt. Gordon Buchanan's file had a Visa receipt for an electronic ticket to Richmond dated August 31, just five days prior. And Connors had been in Richmond, poking into something that had ruffled some big feathers. The man replaced the files exactly as he had found them and quietly left the office, locking it behind him.

When he was on the street, two blocks away at his car, he made a phone call from his cell. “I think I've found what you want,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

Other
Leisure
books by Jeff Buick:
BLOODLINE

LETHAL

DOSE

JEFF BUICK

To Ron and Nancy Buick

My parents, who gave me
so much more than just life.

 

DORCHESTER PUBLISHING

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016

Copyright © 2005 by Jeff Buick

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Trade ISBN: 978-1-4285-1849-0
E-book ISBN: 978-1-4285-1838-4

First Dorchester Publishing, Co., Inc. edition: September 2005

The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Printed in the United States of America.

 

Visit us online at
www.dorchesterpub.com
.

 

Special thanks to George Hunter, PhD

Department of Pharmacology
University of Edmonton

If the technical stuff is correct,
George gets the credit.
If it's wrong, the mistake is all mine.

1

A little bit of fear is a good thing
.

The thought passed through Gordon Buchanan's mind as he gazed into the smoke from the approaching forest fire. The April sun was a hazy red ball, diffused and weakened by the floating ash. Six miles and closing quickly. Inside twenty-four hours, the flames would be licking at his timber concessions. Destroying the forest and costing him millions of dollars. No upside to the fire. None at all. And in forty-eight hours, it would be threatening his sawmill.

He glanced away from the incoming carnage as a voice, almost obscured by static, came over his two-way radio. One of the mill hands asking for him.

“This is Gordon,” he said into the transmitter. “Go ahead.”

“The forestry guys are here, Gordon. They want to speak with you.”

“I'll be there in twenty minutes,” he replied, and returned the walkie-talkie to his belt. The air was thick with smoke and ash, and his throat burned with each word he spoke and each breath he sucked in. He hailed a rugged-looking logger working the trunk of a sixty-foot Ponderosa pine with his chain saw and pointed in the general direction of the sawmill. The man nodded, and Gordon jumped in his truck and steered onto the bumpy trail leading back to the mill.

Gordon Buchanan was in his domain—the forest. His father had worked with timber, and after his father had passed away at an early age, Gordon had followed on, building the business into a thriving sawmill. At forty-four, Buchanan was a self-made multimillionaire who preferred faded jeans and denim shirts to business casual. The leather on his steel-toed work boots was cracked and peeling. He wore no jewelry and seldom carried more than fifty dollars in his pocket. His face always had a tinge of red, either from the summer sun or the blustery winter winds that howled through the Montana forests. His face was well proportioned, with a long, sloping nose, bushy eyebrows framing intelligent brown eyes, and a high forehead with a full head of dark hair swept back in a permanent wave. At six-two and a hundred and ninety-five pounds, he was lean and powerful, something most women found attractive. That he was rich didn't hurt his appeal either. But to date, no woman had managed to get him in front of a justice of the peace, despite many trying. For good reason: Gordon Buchanan liked being single.

The sawmill materialized through the trees as he took the last sweeping turn and entered the log yard. To the north were stacks of felled pine, their limbs removed and ready for a trip through the planer. Almost five million in rough timber. To the south of the mill were hundreds of pallets of finished precision end-trim studs, another eight million in product ready for market. And between the raw and processed wood stood a thirty-million-dollar mill. He glanced again to the sky, darkened with acrid smoke, and wondered if this was the time he would lose it all.

Fires had threatened his mills in the past, burning one of his smaller ones to the ground, but he had never had so much at stake as now. This mill was different, larger and more sophisticated. The equipment was new, fast, and very expensive. The building itself had cost over three million just for the frame. Count in the timber on either side of the operation and he was looking at well over forty million in losses if the fire could not be stopped. He wasn't sure he could recover from that.

The main administration building was attached to the east side of the mill, and he parked close to the door. Three forestry trucks were already occupying spots near the office. His brother Billy's truck was there as well. He entered the office to exactly the scene he expected. Six forestry officers, Billy, and his mill foreman were huddled over a huge table in the center of the room. They looked up from the map as the door slammed shut.

“Hello, Gordon,” one of the forest rangers said. He was mid-fifties, with wisps of gray tracing abstract lines through his black hair. His face was worn from too much exposure to the sun and wind—too many days in the vast Montana wilderness. He was the oldest of the group and their leader.

“Sam,” Gordon said, outstretching his hand. Sam Bennett was the top dog in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest Department, and a friend for more than twenty years. Both men ended up working in the forestry industry, one saving them and the other cutting them. But it was Gordon's commitment to responsible logging that kept the men best friends. Sam Bennett knew that if the timber concessions were granted to someone other than Gordon, his days would be filled with monitoring the areas slated for clear cut. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship that had survived many years, both bad and good.

“What's the situation?” Gordon asked. “How close is the fire?”

“About five and a half to six miles. It's moving quicker than we thought,” Sam said, looking back to the map. He pointed to a series of closely spaced isometric lines, indicating a sharp ridge. “We thought the fire would veer once it hit Sheep Mountain, but it circled the peak and kept coming. The pines are dry, Gordon. Not enough snow, and hot spring temperatures.”

“That and the damn pine beetles. Water-starved pines don't produce pitch, and that leaves them at the mercy of the pine beetles. We've got thousands of dead Ponderosa pines out there, and they make good firewood.” Gordon glanced down at the forestry map. “If it's broached Sheep Mountain, that leaves one natural firebreak between it and the mill. Canyon Creek.”

Sam nodded. “Other than the creek, it's all dry timber. Crazy that everything's so dry before the end of April, but it goes with having no snow last winter.”

“It's a tinderbox out there, all right. And there's nothing to stop that fire from coming right at us,” Gordon said quietly. He rubbed his temples gently, fished a toothpick from his pocket, and clenched it between his teeth.“What's the weather forecast?”

“Dry for a couple of days, but there's a low-pressure front moving in from southern Canada. The guys in meteorology are saying there's a good chance of rain when it hits. First couple of days should see heavy rains, tapering off to a drizzle.”

“Two days until we get rain,” Gordon said, staring at the map. “That's going to be cutting it pretty damn close.”

Bennett looked grim. “Too close. I had my crew run the numbers using the current wind speed and direction, and extrapolating the fire's progress since it started. It doesn't look good.”

“How not good?” Gordon asked.

One of the technicians, a black man in his mid-twenties with close-cropped hair and a stack of papers in front of him, answered. “Given that the variables don't change, and the fire continues its progress unabated, you've got between forty and fifty hours.” Lewis Carling was Sam's second in command, meticulous in his work, and more knowledgeable about forest fires than anyone in the forestry service in the northern states or southern Canada. “Without the rain, the fire will reach the mill.”

Gordon was silent. Everything he'd worked for all his life was on the line. He was insured, but only to seventeen million, the max his insurer would cover. The shortfall, some twenty-five million, would be a total loss. It would wipe him out. Pattengail Creek was too far west to provide a break, and Trapped Creek was south, almost at the mill. Too dangerous letting the fire get that close before trying to stop it. That left Canyon Creek, a rough slash through the virgin forest. Extremely rugged country and totally impenetrable by land.

“Billy,” he said, turning to his brother. “Could you get a crew on the south edge of Canyon Creek, down in this area?” he asked, his finger stabbing at the map.

Billy Buchanan was thoughtful. He was a large man, almost six-three, with an athletic frame and chiseled features. His face was sunburned from the early-spring heat wave, highlighting his rugged features and accentuating his blue eyes. “We could cut a firebreak at the creek, but the only way in is by chopper. I'd need at least fifteen men with chain saws. The break for the creek is already sixty to eighty feet wide. If we can extend that by another thirty feet, we could stop the fire from jumping.”

Gordon looked to the young technician. “What do you think, Lewis?”

“What height are the trees on the north side of the river?”

“Fifty feet, tops.”

Lewis checked the wind speed and slowly nodded. “If Billy can widen the break to just over a hundred feet, we might stop it.” He looked directly into Gordon's eyes. “I say
might
, Gordon. There's no ‘for sure' here.”

Again, Gordon was silent. Everyone in the room looked to him for direction. This was Gordon's timber, his mill, and his decision. Dropping men in to hand-slash a firebreak was not without its risks. Chain saws were dangerous, the terrain rugged and unforgiving. A misplaced foothold or a felled tree snagging and kicking back could injure or kill a man in a split second. Dropping a crew into an unreachable region and keeping them supplied with food and water as they worked was going to be difficult. The logistics were completely against it.

But this was not just his livelihood on the line, it was half the town as well. Without the mill, two hundred jobs would be lost and the town would suffer immeasurably. Businesses would close and families would be forced to move away. The small town of Divide would probably not survive, and the damage to Butte would be significant.

“Well, I've always said that there's nothing more useless than burnt timber.” He glanced about the room at the men waiting for his decision. “Let's do it,” he said to Billy, running his hands through his thick brown hair. “Let's get a crew in there and try to save the mill.”

Billy Buchanan grinned. “You got it, Gordon.” He grabbed a phone from the desk and dialed.