Cash went to fetch Maximilian and brought him in. Colcord remained seated and did not greet the security director, focusing his attention instead on a file of papers.
“What’s this about?” Maximilian asked.
Colcord ignored the question and looked up from his papers only after a long moment had passed. His idea was to establish at the outset who was in control of the room. Maximilian was a carefully measured personality, and Colcord did not have much faith they’d be able to get anything from him—but you never knew.
“Have a seat,” he said, then went back to studying his papers.
“Look,” said Maximilian after a moment, “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.”
Colcord slid his cell phone into the center of the table and turned on the recorder. “State your name and title for the record.”
After a hesitation, Maximilian sat down and did so.
“And you agree to have this voluntary interview recorded?”
“Yes.”
Colcord read out the other preliminaries. Then he finally looked Maximilian in the face. “I was in Eagle today, at the historical society archives.” He paused. “I was getting maps of the mines up here.”
He let a beat pass.
“All the mines. And I made a discovery. There aren’t two mines up here. There are three. There’s the Jackman Mine.”
“What about it?”
“When we asked you about the mines, you said there were two—the Fryingpan and the Hesperus. You never mentioned the Jackman. Why is that?”
At this, Maximilian visibly relaxed. “Sheriff Colcord, there really is only one giant mine up here—they all connect with each other. The three names are a historical oddity. We never used the name Jackman among ourselves, and to be honest, I haven’t heard that name in years. We at Erebus got in the habit of speaking of the two mine areas we’re using. What’s more, we completely sealed up all the mine entrances except the ones we’re using, which includes all the Jackman Mine entrances and ventilation shafts. And internally, we sealed up with steel all the tunnels that connect Jackman with Hesperus and Fryingpan. If you’re implying we’re trying to hide something, I can assure you there’s no basis to that. It just didn’t seem worth mentioning, and as I said, the Jackman portion of the complex is completely sealed up. Completely.”
“The Jackman maps were recently stolen from the historical society.”
“I can assure you we had nothing to do with that.”
Colcord felt a rising frustration. The man was an impenetrable shield. Of course, he might be telling the truth.
“Have any search parties gone into the Jackman Mine?”
“No. There’s no point. As I said, all the entrances to that mine have been sealed with steel plates that can’t be opened. Solid steel. To get in, you’d have to cut your way in with a torch. At the outset of the investigation, we did, in fact, inspect all the openings and found the steel intact and undisturbed. The killers are not in there, I can assure you.”
“Could there be openings you failed to find? Ventilation shafts?”
“No. We copied those maps that you say were stolen and tracked down every opening. We’d be happy to share those maps with you—I’ll email them to your office. We have no secrets. We used those maps to identify every single opening, and we sealed them up completely. And as I mentioned earlier, those tunnels from the Jackman that connected with the other two mines were also plated with steel. There’s no way in or out of Jackman.”
“Please do send me those maps,” Colcord said. He wasn’t going to say he had other, better, maps. “So you’re sure the killers are not in Jackman?”
“Positive. However, if you want to search Jackman, we’ve no objection. We’ll be happy to cut open one of the entrances and initiate a search.”
“Thank you. We might ask you to do that.”
“Trust me, Sheriff, when I tell you we are as anxious to get these killers and close this case as anyone. There’s no reason for us to hinder your investigation in any way.”
Colcord nodded. He was half-convinced that Maximilian wasn’t hiding anything, that he was telling the truth. The man was persuasive. He turned to Cash. “Do you have any questions, Agent Cash?”
“I do. Mr. Maximilian, you were with us when we toured the labs. What didn’t we see in that tour?”
“Well, actually, there’s quite a bit more to the labs. We have freezers where we keep remains and sections of frozen Pleistocene mammals, we have storerooms, we have preparation areas and a morgue where we dissect animals that die, experimental failures, that sort of thing. And there are also quarters for scientists and Erebus staff who might be working late or don’t wish to stay in the lodge. We have guest quarters for visitors.”
“Could we see those?”
“Of course. Anytime.”
Cash looked at Colcord. “No more questions.”
Colcord said to Maximilian, “That will be all—thank you.”
The security director rose. “Always glad to help.”
He left.
Colcord turned to Cash. “What do you think?”
Maximilian had shut the door on his way out, but outside in the hall, Colcord heard a sudden sound of running feet and muffled voices. He opened the door to see security personnel sprinting by the door, heading to the main security office.
“What’s going on?” he asked Maximilian, who was speaking to a security guard.
“The drone camera has been turned back on. And it’s transmitting something … totally bizarre.”