The service road to the Ridgeview booster station climbed steeply through the pine ridge, a single-lane strip of patched asphalt flanked by deep drainage swales and rusted chain-link fence. Miller’s cruiser took the switchbacks hard, its heavy tires throwing wet pine needles into the darkness. Behind us, the lights of the town dropped away, replaced by the black expanse of the municipal watershed.
At the summit, the booster facility loomed against the treeline: a low, cinder-block bunker surrounded by an eight-foot perimeter fence topped with three strands of angled barbed wire. The floodlights over the primary loading bay were dark, but the steel access gate stood wide open, its heavy padlock hanging loose from the latch chain. Parked inside the gravel yard, shielded from the road by the bulk of the transformer yard, was Ray Patterson’s grey pickup truck, its tailpipe still breathing faint wisps of white exhaust into the damp mountain air.
Miller killed his siren as we hit the apron, sliding his cruiser across the gravel to block Patterson's truck against the concrete retaining wall. I killed the wagon's engine, grabbed my master key set from my pocket, and threw open the door before Miller had even cleared his seat.
"Cole, wait for cover!" Miller yelled, his service flashlight cutting through the mist as he drew his sidearm, keeping it held low against his thigh in the ready position.
"There's no time for cover, Dan," I shouted back, hitting the gravel at a dead sprint. "The chemical pumps run on a ten-minute cycle. If the intake reaches forty pounds, the whole line is poisoned."
The heavy steel exterior door of the booster house stood cracked open an inch, wedged with a discarded piece of two-by-four. Inside, the roar of the massive three-phase electric motors was deafening, a bone-rattling mechanical vibration that shook the concrete floor. The air inside the vault didn't smell like pine; it smelled like sharp, alkaline vinegar and scorched electrical insulation.
I threw the door open and stepped onto the metal catwalk overlooking the pump gallery.
Down on the lower deck, illuminated by the harsh yellow glow of the emergency lights, stood Ray Patterson. He had the side panel of the chemical injection manifold torn off, a heavy pipe wrench in his gloved hands, and a thick industrial hose running from the back of an unbolted three-hundred-gallon poly tote directly into the secondary suction line. He was cranking down on the brass gate valve, his work jacket soaked with sweat, his face pale and contorted under the glare of his headlamp.
"Patterson!" I yelled over the thunder of the turbines.
Ray flinched, his wrench slipping off the brass nut with a harsh metallic clang that echoed through the concrete chamber. He spun around, his eyes wide and bloodshot, his breath ragged as he looked up at me on the catwalk. When he saw Miller step through the doorway behind me, gun drawn, the wrench slipped entirely from his fingers, clattering onto the steel deck plates between his boots.
"Cole," Patterson stammered, backing away toward the wall until his shoulders hit the master telemetry cabinet. "Cole, you weren't... you weren't supposed to be here. Vance said he had you detained at the house."
"Vance is sitting on my driveway waiting for county internal affairs, Ray," I said, descending the steel stairs two at a time, my hand already closing around the heavy square key on my ring. "Step away from that manifold."
"You don't understand how deep this goes, Cole," Patterson shouted, his voice cracking with panic as he pointed a trembling finger at the open injection line. "The syndicate already bought out the township water commission! They promised me sixty thousand dollars to clear my debts if I let the pressure drop below the state threshold tonight! If the transfer goes through, they privatize the whole valley! They’ll fire the whole union anyway! You can’t stop it—the valve is already cracked half an inch!"
"I'm not here to talk about the syndicate, Ray," I said, reaching the bottom of the stairs and stepping past him without breaking stride. "I'm here to save the water."