FROM THE TRANSCRIPT OF CHARLIE ROSE BROADCAST MAY 24
Rose: With us tonight, we have Dr. James Bennington, Purdue University professor of geology. He is here…at this table…for the first time…to discuss…the potentially life-altering events taking place—as we speak—in Yellowstone…National Park. Welcome.
Bennington: Thank you for having me, Charlie.
Rose: Is there…a volcano…in Yellowstone?
Bennington: Yes. There are two. They are about nine miles apart. One of them can be compared to Mona Loa in Hawaii. The other can be compared to Krakatoa, except that Yellowstone will be three to four times more destructive.
Rose: Will be. And so, what are we doing about it?
Bennington: We are drilling two tunnels to relieve the pressure.
Rose: And how is that proceeding.
Bennington: Until recently, it was going fine.
Rose: Until recently. What has happened?
Bennington: Sabotage.
Rose: Sabotage. That is a serious charge.
Bennington: Yes. I meant for it to be.
Rose: What are we doing about it?
Bennington: I’m flying out there tomorrow…
“Those of us at the Earth Mechanics Institute believe that finding gold in the North Tunnel can only indicate imminent breakthrough into the magma chamber as long as you turn the direction of the machine to bore into it. Therefore, we advise that you follow the scent.” Byron Cody tries to explain these measurements according to old Geology, which is three parts college and one part coon dog. He is not on the Russian side, but through naiveté and bad luck, he dovetails with their intentions.
Cody finishes, “Since heaviest concentration of gold was picked up by the mass spectrometer intake on the right, we suggest that the TBM is steered to the right, and turn due-north.”
Colonel Jeter is not comfortable without consensus. “Yes, but Bennington disagrees. I’d like to hear this again. Dr. Cody, please restate your theory and then Dr. O’Dell, please restate Professor Bennington’s.”
“Alright, Colonel. We search for the Yellowstone Magma Chamber. We know gold often precipitates out of sulfur bearing ground water in regions of Felsic magmas. For one thing, Yellowstone is famous for its geothermal water and its geysers. For another thing, the Yellowstone magma chamber is Felsic. There it is in a nutshell.”
Short and sweet, Jeter thought, with logic obvious to any layman. Now he will give Digger a chance at presenting Jim Bennington’s explanation.
“Well Colonel, as of this date, the North Machine is still wholly within Mafic rock. It is tunneling through pure Basalt, we have found no Rhyolite at all yet, nothing Felsic.
“Previous investigations have found that when gold deposits lie within Felsic rock, the concentrations are small. Yet, our spectrometer found the gold in immense concentrations, the equivalent of maybe 5% per ton of ore. That is extraordinarily rich.
“When gold is found in high concentrations in volcanic areas, the mineral Greenstone has always been present as well, and it has further been found that the host rock is Archeon aged Basalt, once again a Mafic rock. However, Archeon means two and a half billion years old and that is far older than anything in the Rocky Mountains, which only began building 60 million years ago.
”Furthermore, when gold is occasionally found in Felsic rock, it is found in subduction zones and there has never been that kind of tectonic plate activity at mid-continent since Pangaea split apart 200-million years ago.
“Finally, Colonel, our boring depth of four-miles is considerably deeper than geothermal ground water. Such gold deposits lie within one kilometer of the surface and above a shallow magma chamber. The gold we’ve measured in the North Tunnel, was found eight-times deeper and reflective seismology tells us the magma chamber has only pushed up a mile, leaving it still three miles below the surface. Therefore, Colonel, both Jim and I suggest that we remain on course.”
Convincing as well, Jeter thought. He nodded again to Cody.
“Colonel, the Institute contends that this gold deposit WAS INDEED formed near the surface but WAS SUBDUCTED when the Wyoming Province of the North American Plate moved into its present location. We theorize that the Madison River Valley lies within what we call a passive margin between the North American Cordillera and the Wyoming Province of the North American Plate.
“We are not contending that this is a subduction zone in the classical sense, but rather an area of only LOCALIZED subduction. It is very likely that the North TBM is very near the border of the Wyoming Province where this local plate subduction occurred.”
The Colonel nods to Digger. “So how did the gold get there?
“It had to be planted, Sir.”
“Who would have that motive, Digger?”
“I’m just a geologist, Colonel.”
Colonel Jeter notes that Bennington would not have given up so easily, but perhaps the big man is not giving up. Perhaps Digger concedes that we are simply at the limits of what is known. Perhaps Digger is too honest to give me guesses. This is a lot to think about.
If they turn the wrong direction, they lose two feet for every foot that is bored. To make the stakes even higher, it is the North Tunnel that is the one in the lead. Losing time, losing ground, it is a risk.
Jeter takes the gamble. He turns the North Tunnel fifteen degrees magnetic, while South stays on the original heading. Victor will report back through channels, giving the men on Russky Island another chance to toast their luck.
Bennington points his rental car south from Bozeman-Yellowstone International Airport, down U.S. Highway-191. It is late afternoon. The highway is two-lane. The river is almost at his car on one side, and on the other, the base of the mountain, rising 1,600 feet above Bennington, comes down to the shoulder of the road. Here, the view is enforced with austere economy.
The Madison Mountains, to his right, line the west side. The Gallatin Mountains, to his left, line the east side. The Gallatin River is to his left, in places almost at the roadside. The river is not wide, but it is fast and it is scalloped with whitecaps that seem to pace his car. The two mountain ranges are separated only by the narrowest of valleys. Together, they leave little room for both the river and the highway.
The only direction in which Bennington can see very far is straight up. Here, a day is two long twilights separated by a night, and taunted by a fleeing banshee sun that flies from peak to peak.
Twilight has lasted so long that, finally, Bennington has lost his certainty whether he is next expecting day or night. Day drags its feet, refusing to get it over with, and then night crashes in to confine the world to the space between his high beams.
As Bennington speeds alongside the Gallatin River, he has the road to himself as far as he can see, but the highway never shows him much. Just as he forgets about the larger world, another car is suddenly upon him, with another driver also not watching the advent of the next curve. There is nowhere to go for either one, but straight, while praying for the other guy.
Bennington drives dazed by thoughts about the project, about Claire, and about his interviews and press clippings. He never notices a thing about the drive until he snaps out of it in the middle, about three miles south of Spanish Creek, where the mountains come down so close that they barely leave room for the river, the road and a single guardrail.
Alert, claustrophobia floods across the underlying panic of being lost. Bennington is unable to reconstruct how he has gotten to this point. Nervously, he glances down to the gas gage, over and over. There are no crossroads. There are no buildings. There are no signs. He cannot remember if he is getting farther and farther or if he is getting closer and closer. He cannot remember anything since the airport. He cannot even remember if his suitcase is in the trunk.
It is impossible to turn until he reaches the road to Earthquake Lake. Only then, does he realize that he has never been lost, that it had been impossible to make a wrong turn. All along, he could do nothing else than drive to West Yellowstone. The inevitability and the mountains are in league.
Soon, he relaxes for the first time; the drive is nearly over. It is in this state of mind that Bennington stops at the Best Western Motel. He has not been in town since last August. The only changes seem to be that every street is tightly lined with cars, and, he hears a succession of loud music merging as he drives past. One raucous melody blends into the next until it begins to sound to Bennington like all the music he has ever heard is coming back at once.
“Mister, we stopped taking reservations during the fall of last year.”
He smiles pleasantly. “Can you recommend another motel?”
“Mister, this town is full.”
“The whole town?”
“It’s been full for ten months.”
“Then what am I to do?”
“Maybe Idaho Falls.”
“Idaho Falls!”
“Listen, Mister. My rooms are going for three times what they were a year ago and I still can’t get a vacancy. Eighty percent of my rooms are taken by single women. Now what does that tell you? This whole town has got thrown wide open. West Yellowstone, Montana has got everything there is except a good night’s sleep. It’s all the police can do to keep it down to a dull riot. The residents have never made so much money or been so scared. Thank god for those volcanoes or else organized crime would be in here.”
“What would you do if you were me?”
“Go back home.”
“What if I sleep in my car in your parking lot?”
“Don’t matter none to me, except you’ll get awakened every hour with a billy club on the window.”
“Because of vagrancy laws?”
“No. Checking to see if you was dead.”
Next door, across a common parking lot, is the Geyser Saloon. He sees it clad in weathered barn siding, except there is a sharp division of new wood where a top floor has been added. He remembers when it was a tough hole in the wall. Now, it takes up half the block. As he opens the door, the blast of musical notes draws a shudder from him.
Once inside, three men sit on stools, and observe him closely. They are each larger than is Bennington. As he passes them, he remembers that he wears a suit. His tie is already loosened below the open button of his collar. It quickly goes into his pocket.
It is a cavern spotted with points of light. There are not single sounds, only a roaring. He picks his way past the tables to the bar.
One particular barstool has been ordained for Bennington since the moment when the day was cloven from the night. This barstool is in the middle of the bar, and every move that Bennington has ever made has served only to steer him toward this particular barstool on this single evening.
To his right, men are talking. To his left one man sits quietly and alone. He sees all of them in the mirror above the tiers of liquor bottles.
Bennington asks himself why he is here. It is not for dinner. He knows people, but they would not be in this place. He needs to be looking for a room. If all else fails he will drive into the work camp. Colonel Jeter will put him up for the night, but he might run into Claire.
It would be easier if he had replaced her, but he has had no such luck. He has been too busy. No one has caught his eye. Besides, she cannot be replaced, only compensated for. He decides that if the bartender does not take his order in a few seconds, he will leave.
A palm slaps soundly across his back. “Well Jim, if you ain’t a sight for sore eyes.”
He turns his head to the right and into a massive wall of suit and tie. It is surmounted by a cowboy hat. It is Marshal Blevins.
“Bill! How nice to see you.”
“Where you been keeping yourself, partner?”
“You know, work, work, work.”
“You going to come by and see us?”
“Yes, sir. You bet.”
“Well, Jim. I gotta check my traps. You know how it is. See you soon, I hope.”
“Bye now.”
As the Marshal steps away, the light along the far wall catches Jim’s eye. It is a long row of pinball machines. But in the middle is a dart board, and the men at nearby tables are waving and clapping their hands. The man at the board turns. Bennington is struck by his size, and focuses. It is Digger O’Dell. A woman from the table stands. He knows her shape. His throat tightens. His breathing grows shallow. The men are waving her on. She turns as she passes Digger; it is Claire, reaching up to kiss him. He feels his heart break in two.
She toes the throwing line with her right boot. She reaches down to her knee and pulls her knife. She flips it, catching it by the blade. She leans forward, calmly eyeing the board past the handle of the knife. She slowly rears back from the waist, bringing the knife to her ear. She lunges it forward to stick the knife outside the wire of the bulls-eye. The nearby tables are on their feet. Bennington cannot see past them except to watch her arm as she tugs the knife out of the board.
As the men at the tables begin to sit, Bennington quickly turns away, to his left. This most unhappy and most inevitable of coincidences has left him reeling.
“Blonde woman throws well, do you not think?”
A quick, flat smile. “She is spectacular.”
“Spectacular, yes. You have no idea.”
“Oh, I think I do.”
“How is it that you have idea?”
“She was a student of mine.”
“Ah! School teacher.”
“Professor,” he hastily corrects.
Bennington. It flashes through Victor Rostov’s mind. Unbelievable. Truly a night for coincidence, Victor thinks. He must play it cool.
“What school you are professor at?”
“Purdue.”
This confirms it for Victor. “Ah, yes. The University of Purdue.”
“We just call it Purdue University.”
“Of course, Dr. Bennington, the Boilermakers.”
Bennington freezes. He has not mentioned his name. He is sure of it. Victor notices him staring as though ready to speak, but unsure.
Damn, Victor thinks. I could not have known his name. Stupid. Very Stupid. I must talk my way out of this.
“How…how did you know my name? Have we met?”
“There are only three in Yellowstone from Purdue. The other two are at the darts. That leaves one. Therefore, in process of elimination, he must be Dr. Bennington. Your fame is well known here, is it not?
“Well, yes. Actually, I’m the one who discovered the volcanoes.”
“Of course. The discoverer returns. Your reputation precedes you. What brings you back to Yellowstone?”
“There is a problem with one of the tunnels.”
“Is it the North Tunnel?”
“Yes. How do you know?”
“I am tunnel worker. That is where I work.” he says proudly. “Boring machine functions normally. Truly amazing how something that big can turn a corner.”
“Yes. It’s going off in the wrong direction.”
“No. Impossible. There are so many to watch so closely.”
“Have you heard about them finding gold in the North Tunnel?”
“Of course. Who has not heard? But it was already a gold mine.”
“How’s that?”
“I am paid twenty thousand per month. This makes it gold mine.”
“Well, I have to find out how gold has been getting into the sensing instruments.”
“Ah yes, the mass spectrometers in the cutterhead. “
“You are very well informed.”
“Of course, I often work in cutterhead. I do probe drilling, change cutter wheels, shovel muck.”
“Probe drilling.”
“Yes, probe drilling. Do you know of it?”
“It is just that you have given me an idea.”
“Then you must buy me a beer. One idea. One beer. Is this not the way it works?”
“Sure. Let’s have one. I don’t suppose that there is any way you could get me down there?”
“Down there into North Tunnel?”
“Yes. Into the cutterhead and at the rock face.”
“In front of cutterhead most dangerous place. You sure you want there?”
“Just for one minute. Is there any way?”
He knows that Bennington will see his name on his fire entry suit. He does not know if Claire ever told Bennington about him by name. Tomorrow, on the first shift, Victor will watch Bennington’s face closely for some sign of recognition. For now, he tips his hand to see Bennington’s reaction. “Of course, Victor Rostov can get you in. I know of spare suit your size. We all look alike in suits except for the big Purdue man.”
“Oh, Digger? Yes, he’s big, isn’t he?”
Good, he thinks. Now Victor knows that if Claire has told Bennington about him, she had never mentioned him by name. “Yes, Professor. Digger look like Varangian we Russians descend from.”
“Russian? You’re a long way from home.”
“Yes, Victor go all over world. Follow tunnel-boring projects. Where work goes, Victor Rostov goes. When you want to do this?”
“Is tomorrow okay?”
“Perfect. Sooner the better. Victor promise such good care of famous Bennington that you never want to leave tunnel.”
“Yes. Thank you, Victor. But do we have to mention who I am?”
“What? Oh! Publicity, you mean. Paparazzi. No. You and I, we go like spies. You see.”
“Great, Victor. Okay, tell me how this is going to work. By the way, is there a hardware store in this town?”
Victor observes that Bennington does not take one last look around before he enters the hatch of the elevator. It is just as well that this does not become sentimental, Victor thinks.
This is a maintenance shift. There will be three maintenance shifts, back to back. This is part of the forty percent of each week that the TBM is not boring through the rock.
Colonel Jeter had asked Dempsey for sixty-percent utilization, ten-percent more than is usual. The forces within the TBM are enormous. There is metal fatigue, causing replacements and lubrication, hydraulic fluids and helium gas to add to the reactor.
Each cutter wheel is nineteen inches in diameter. It will cut the Basalt rock face with the force of 350 kilonewtons. This is 78,750 pounds. There are fifty of them bolted into the inside of the cutterhead. Combined, they press nearly four-million pounds against the rock and rotate one revolution every eight seconds.
There are only five men on this shift. Bennington is the extra one. They ask him if he is new. Victor answers for him, calling him an inspector. The others let it go at that.
Later on, when Victor and the other three men ride back up without him, they will ask where he is. The count must always be satisfied.
Victor will tell them that the inspector has remained behind in the coolness of the TBM control room. The inspector has decided to stay over another hour, one more shift. He is an inspector. It is his call.
One of the men will shrug, “Okay, it’s his funeral.”
Victor will shrug in return. “Bring us to the surface,” he says, making it final.
During Bennington’s descent down the North Shaft, all of what he sees is the culmination of that idea that he ventured at Grant Village in May of the year before. It is an uncommon experience to see your thoughts given life and shape by the hands of others. It must have meant a great deal to him.
All of this, every moment of it, must have been for Bennington the experience of a lifetime—riding down the shaft through the crust of the earth, then transferring from the elevator down into the subterranean station, then leaving that controlled environment through the airlock, suited up and breathing compressed air.
The moment that he stepped out onto the platform and into the Abyss must have been profoundly moving. Great flood lamps with heat resistant lenses and ceramic sockets pushed a glow of yellow light against the primordial blackness. He would have seen the crust of the planet only a few feet above his head. He would have seen the steel fastened into it, gripping, holding on. Over the edge of the working platform was a drop-off that could scarcely be imagined.
The hood of his fire-entry suit held a view port in front of his eyes with its two gold plated lenses followed by two lenses of tempered glass, three insulating air spaces in all. He would have clumped across the springy steel planking of the working platform. Then onto hard rock as he stepped down from the steel and into the dock.
He took a seat on the atomic train and rode it through the Earth’s Lithosphere nearly ten miles to the tunnel boring machine—all as from the pages of Jules Verne while hearing only the mesmerizing hiss of his own breath through the mouthpiece of his air supply.
Once inside the environment of the TBM, they remove their hoods and mouthpieces.
“I have to get into the space between the cutterhead and the rock face.”
“Last shift finished boring cycle. Cutterhead against rock face. Victor will retract it six-feet. Then you enter the cutterhead from control room through airlock. After that, four access doors through the cutterhead into the tunnel.”
“Have you used the probe drill?”
“Yes, Dr. Bennington. Now that project getting close, probe drill samples once each day.” It is as Victor has suspected.
“Is its drill bit back out of the hole?”
“Yes, Dr. Bennington.
Bennington feels the vibration of the cutterhead pulling back. “Where is the most recent probe hole to be found?”
“Lower right corner of rock face.
Bennington bites down on his mouthpiece and puts his hood back on. He makes his way through the airlock into the confined space and searing heat of the cutterhead. It is dimly lit from a single flood lamp on a flexible shaft. He trains its beam upon the closest doorway. Ahead of him are four round ports in the forty-foot diameter cutterface. Each is four-feet across. Cam-levers at quarter points secure each one. He removes the lowest door and wiggles through the port and into the space between the cutter face and the rock wall. Behind him, the light breaks though the opening into the confined space created when Victor pulled the cutterhead back six-feet.
Behind Bennington are fifty cutter wheels. The edges of their blades extend out from the cutterface nine and one-half inches. In front of Bennington is the rock face, scored with fifty Kerfs. The cutterface towers behind him, bejeweled by cutter wheels polished by work. These are the regions of which Jules Verne had dreamed. Bennington is only seconds from hell.
He locates the hole from the probe drill. He takes out his metal brush. It is from a gun cleaning kit. It is threaded into a long aluminum tube. He removes the cap from an empty tin of chewing tobacco. His brush pulls the dusts of the probe hole into the can. As he works, the grains sparkle at Bennington with confirmation. He is confident that he has his proof. This is a refined gold dust that no natural process could account for.
Inside the control room, Victor hinges open a safety cover. He presses his thumb down upon the keypad, above the word “INITIATE.”
Victor Rostov has commenced a boring cycle. Programmed operations sequence into action.
Pumps raise hydraulic pressure and pistons push the cutter face away from the cutterhead six-feet to the rock face. The cutter wheels reenter the kerfs, and pause. The ten five-hundred horsepower motors rest quietly among the annular gears. The space between the cutter face and the rock face has been reduced to only half the diameter of the nineteen-inch cutter wheels. The insulation and the thermal breaks impose an absolute silence. Victor’s hand returns to the keypad. He knows that it will be over quickly. He poises his thumb above the word “ENGAGE.”
Colonel Jeter’s face is tense and waxen. He has found Digger sitting at the control console in the trailer.
“They discovered Jim Bennington’s wallet on the floor of a locker at the North Shaft.”
Digger looks confused. “We had not even finished drilling the north pilot hole by the time Jim left last summer.”
“There are receipts inside it dated this week.”
“Jim is here?”
“I checked with Marshal Blevins. He says he saw Jim two nights ago. He told him that he was going to come by to see us”
“Where did the Marshal see Jim?”
“The Geyser Saloon. He was on the barstool next to where Victor always sits. Blevins says he saw Victor sitting there.”
“I was there with Claire. We never saw him.” Digger wonders—must have been tough for Jim, if he saw us, and you have to think he did.
“We took a count on all the fire entry suits. We’re one short.”
“So then he’s down below? We’d better go looking for him. What could he be doing here?”
Jeter understands. “This must have to do with the controversy at the North Tunnel over which element or mineral the mass spectrometer navigates by.
“Jim felt as you did, that the gold had to be man-made. Jim is down there right now looking for sabotage. We have to think that way. The alternative is too horrible to consider. Let’s find him.”
“Maybe this is related somehow, Colonel, but I was looking back through the North Tunnel record and the cutter penetration log shows movement sometime during a maintenance cycle of three shifts two days ago.”
“How much?”
“Precisely one complete boring cycle.”
“We bored six-feet? Only six-feet? Were they testing? Have we finally run into mixed strata?”
“Never heard anything about it.”
“Put one of the men on it and then meet me at the North Elevator. Get us a list of who was working any of the maintenance shifts that day.”
Digger follows Colonel Jeter through the airlock at the stern of the North TBM. They each pull off their hoods and remove their mouthpieces.
“Let’s go forward and start there. After looking at the cutterhead, we can leave our suits in the control room.”
Now that the Colonel was looking everywhere, he became alarmed when he finally realized how many places there were to hide, or to hide a body. Piping, conduit, ductwork, the main beam, the muck conveying system, stairs, mezzanines, automation closets, electrical rooms, mechanical spaces, all were places he had not looked at for months, until now. Three-hundred feet had never seemed so large.
Reaching the control room, Colonel Jeter gave orders to the workers on-hand. “Ramp down the drive system. Retract the cutterhead to the start of a boring cycle then de-energize it. Then throw the circuit breaker and padlock the control panel. Make sure you give me all the keys. Dr. O’Dell and I are going into the cutterhead and then we’re going outside.”
The interior volume of a cutterhead of the size of a Yellowstone TBM is approximately the same as a classroom, except rotated on its side ninety degrees. Much of the space is taken up by the augur bit raising muck up to the conveyor. There is always shovel work to be done in the cutterhead.
Both men shine the beams of flashlights with boxy battery packs across the dusty steel. Finding nothing, Digger switches to the pile of muck at the bottom by the augur. The aspect ratio is the same throughout—black flakes, thin and rectangular. Across the crunchy rubble, a single whitened speck stands out. It has been rotating in here for days, never caught by the auger.
It is round. It is the ball joint of a human femur and it is filled with someone’s DNA.
“Hey, Rostov. The Marshall’s looking for you.”
This hits Victor like a ton of bricks, but he betrays nothing. “What he want?”
“Never said. Just asking where you are. You on your way in?”
“Yes, now I leave sooner to see what Blevins wants so Victor not late for shift.”
Victor had been in line at the Subway on the edge of town. He leaves without ordering. He drives back to his room at the Best Western and cleans it out. Victor will drive to the Russian safe-house in Bozeman. Yet he cannot leave the area. He must remain nearby to monitor progress. Many disguises are possible for Victor, and Marshall Blevins is not hard to spot.