“You won’t get away with it.” Dani glared. “He’ll get you. I don’t know what you thought you did to him, but he’s alive. He’ll bring you down.”
“Well, that’s something you needn’t be worrying your head about right now,” the man said. “Leave that as our problem. Take her up.” He nodded to Robertson. “I’m told you’ve wanted to learn about the water supply for our work here. I think it’s time you got to see it for yourself.”
“He’s going to kill you!” Dani yelled as Robertson dragged her toward a closed security door. The Alpha man headed back to the Audi. “You’ll rot in hell. He’ll kill you all!”
“By all means cling to whatever fantasy makes you feel good right now,” the man said back.
She fought, as Robertson kicked her legs out and dragged her to the door. She saw the rounded, concrete tunnel that seemed to run down to the river. She also saw a dam, one she’d never noticed from the road, the water table high on the Greeley side, water cascading through openings at the top and no more than a trickle on the Templeton side. The Falls. Robertson keyed in a code on the door lock and it opened, a buzzer going off. He wrestled Dani inside.
It was a huge metal tank, at least forty feet high. The sealed door clanged shut, echoing throughout the chamber. There was a metal staircase leading up the sides and catwalks on every level, and an escape door that led outside halfway up. Robertson pulling her by her binds, they began to climb.
“So since you wanted to know so badly, this is how we divert water from the river to the wells. It’s consolidated by the dam, then pumped in here through that underground conduit you saw outside, where it’s transferred to the trucks, which take it around to our active wells. You already know it takes quite a supply to keep the fragmentation process running …” He pulled Dani up, one step at a time, their footsteps clanging on the metal stairs, echoing through the empty chamber. There was about eight to ten feet of sitting water at the base below ground level.
“What are you going to do with me?”
A buzzer went off, the noise slicing through her. It kept repeating, five times. What was going on?
Then it stopped. Suddenly she heard a sound and saw the water level below her begin to swirl.
And slowly rise.
Water began to rush in.
“That’s coming in from the river.” Robertson kept pulling her up. “Through that conduit outside. Now come on along …” he said, the way you might to a child, “or I’ll punch your lights out here and just throw you in. Up to you. I promise, it’ll only make it worse.”
“Please, don’t. Don’t,” she said, fear rippling through her. “You don’t have to do this.”
They were on the second level now, above the water level, which, to Dani’s mounting alarm, was rising. It suddenly became clear what was going to happen. The current of the river water sloshing around was pouring in through multiple conduits. She looked up to the top.
“Ten minutes.” Robertson saw what she was thinking. “Until the water goes all the way up. Fifteen max.”
“People will find me,” she said, fighting against him as Robertson kept dragging her up. “They’ll know I’m here.”
“No one’s going to find you. When you get carried up to the wells, you’ll end up in an underground drainage pipeline we use to divert the tainted fracking water. All mud and slough. It’ll take as much as an earthquake for you to turn up one day. No one will ever even know.”
“Please,” she begged, pulling back from his grasp and looking into his eyes. “Please …” Knowing as she said it that this was the man who had killed Trey, and who had likely shot down that balloon. It was all falling on deaf ears. A professional.
“We gave you enough warnings. We told you to stay away.”
She kept pulling against him. “Please.”
Robertson forced her up another flight of stairs. There was a door there, the door she had seen outside leading to an emergency outside staircase. The only way out. That was how he was going to leave. She suddenly knew she was going to die in here. She’d drown. Deposited like waste in some deep, underground chasm. No one would ever know what happened to her.
They stopped at the landing in front of the door. “End of the line.”
They stood above the swirling water. The level had risen to about twenty feet now, increasing rapidly. No more than ten feet below them now. Thrashing and bouncing against the walls like whirlpools as it poured in from the multiple pumps. Close to half the tank was filled. Dani searched around frantically for any other way out.
“There is none.” Robertson yanked her over to the railing. “No other way out. Now, c’mon, don’t make the job tougher than it has to be.”
She knew now that Ty wasn’t going to come in time. She’d tried to alert him, but who knew if he’d even heard. Maybe he was dealing with his own situations. Maybe he wasn’t even alive any longer. She willed herself not to cry so that Robertson wouldn’t see her crumble.
“He’ll kill you.” She looked in Robertson’s face. “You know that, don’t you? He’ll kill you for doing this.”
“You keep saying that.” The Alpha man smirked through his light beard. “And maybe, someone will one day. But in his case, I don’t think so. He’s just one man.”
“Be sure of it.” The fire in her eyes softened into a resolute smile. “He will.”
“Well, here’s what I am sure of …” With a grunt, he threw her forward and forced her chest over the railing.