Con Law Part 47

Chapter 33.

Book woke in a teepee to a ringing phone. He reached down and grabbed his jeans then dug the cell phone out of a pocket.

'Professor.'

Nadine.

'Why aren't you out running?'

She giggled.

'I was up late.'

'I bet. Well, wake up Carla and come over.'

'Why?'

'I figured it out.'

'I did the math. The numbers don't add up.'

An hour later, they all sat in Nadine's hospital room in Alpine. Stacks of paper surrounded her in the bed.

'I talked to Professor Lawson. He said the fastest way to cut expenses is on disposal costs, said they've skyrocketed to about nine dollars per barrel of flow-back. So, if five million barrels of frack fluid go down the hole and fifty percent comes back up, that's two and a half million gallons of flow-back that's got to be injected down disposal wells. A barrel-that's how they measure everything in the business-is forty-two gallons, so two and a half million gallons is roughly sixty thousand barrels. Times nine dollars per barrel, that's half a million dollars in disposal costs per well. That's a lot of money, so I started looking at the disposal numbers.'

She held up a piece of paper from her left side.

'Well number three-twenty-four. Fracked last November seventeenth. The well log says they injected right at three million gallons of frack fluid down the hole.'

She held up another paper, this one from her right side.

'But the expense worksheets-these are the work papers the accountants generate from the actual receipts, bank statements, that sort of thing-for last year's tax return shows Barnett paid for six hundred twenty-five tanker trucks to deliver frack fluid to well number three-twenty-four on November seventeenth.'

'And?'

'And each tanker carries eight thousand gallons. Do the math, that comes to five million gallons.'

'So he's either cheating on his taxes or he's cheating on the amount of fluid used to frack that well. I understand the taxes, but why the frack fluid?'

'I'm getting there.'

She held up another piece of paper.

'After fracking, fifteen to fifty percent of the fluid comes back up the hole-remember, Billy Bob told us that?'

Book nodded.

'That's the flow-back. It's collected in an open pit then pumped into the tanker trucks to haul off to the disposal wells.'

'Okay.'

Back to the second piece of paper.

'The expense worksheet says Barnett paid for three hundred tanker loads to the disposal wells. Do the math, that's two-point-four million gallons. Which is eighty percent of three million-that's too much flow-back-but only forty-eight percent of five million. Which fits.'

'Which leads us to conclude that-'

'They used five million gallons to frack that well and recovered two-point-four million gallons of flow-back.'

'I agree.'

Another paper.

'But, this expense sheet lists all the disposal costs, but by date, not well. On November nineteenth, Barnett paid one hundred seventy thousand dollars to dispose of nineteen thousand barrels of flow-back in the Pecos County disposal well.'

'Which means?'

'He's short.'

'How?'

'Like I said, one barrel equals forty-two gallons. So they disposed of only eight hundred thousand gallons of flow-back from that well.'

'So two-point-four million gallons came back up the hole, but only eight hundred thousand gallons were trucked to the disposal wells?'

'Looks that way.'

'What happened to the other one-point-six million gallons?'

'Never made it to the disposal wells.'

'Where'd it go?'

'He dumped it,' Carla said.

'Why?'

'To save money.'

'About three hundred and forty thousand dollars,' Nadine said.

'On one well,' Carla said. 'Times a hundred wells a year, that's-'

'Thirty-four million dollars,' Nadine said.

'That's real money,' Carla said, 'even in Texas.'

'And especially if you've got three ex-wives to support,' Book said.

'And five children,' Nadine said.

'And a cocaine habit,' Carla said.

'So Nathan was wrong. Billy Bob isn't contaminating the groundwater; he's contaminating the land and surface water.'

'I've gone through the numbers on twenty wells so far,' Nadine said. 'Same deal.'

'But for him to dump that much frack fluid,' Book said, 'the trucking company would have to be a co-conspirator in a criminal enterprise.'

'Wouldn't be the first time,' Carla said. 'The trade treaty with Mexico allowed cross-border trucking, so the cartels bought up a bunch of Mexican trucking companies. They know a little something about criminal enterprises.'

'That's another piece of the puzzle, Professor,' Nadine said.

'What?'

'Apparently someone at the trucking company had a conscience. Wade Chandler, s.h.i.+pping supervisor. Nathan had several manifests signed by Chandler.'

'How?'

She shrugged. 'Who knows? Maybe Nathan figured it out, asked Chandler for the records.'

'Where's this Wade Chandler?'

'Dead. Died in a car accident, two days before Nathan.'

'Why didn't the sheriff mention that?'

'Probably didn't know. Happened in Pecos County. That's two counties north of Marfa.'

'Looks like Billy Bob partnered up with some bad guys, Professor, maybe a cartel,' Carla said.

'Where would he meet cartel people?'

'c.o.kehead needs a supplier. Maybe he's killing two birds with one stone-buying his cocaine and dumping his flow-back.'

'We need proof.'

'These papers,' Nadine said.

'Too complicated. We need a smoking gun.'

'Don't guns smoke after they've been fired?'

'So where would he dump the fluid?'

Carla spread her arms.

'It's a big desert.'

Chapter 34.

At three the next morning, Book and Carla sat in her pickup truck parked out of sight off Highway 67 northeast of Alpine, just outside Barnett Oil and Gas Company Well Site 356. They had the high ground; down below, more flow-back fluid in the open pit was being pumped into a long line of tanker trucks. Book was in the driver's seat; Carla was in the pa.s.senger's. They ate beef jerky. The evening air had now turned cool, and the breeze brought the smell of distant rain. That night Book would learn Nathan Jones's truth.

'Boo!'

Carla screamed; Book jumped then recovered and saw a face behind night-vision goggles peering in through Carla's window. A hand yanked the goggles off to reveal a familiar face.

'Big Rick? What the h.e.l.l are you doing out here?'

'Scaring the s.h.i.+t out of you two.' He laughed. 'My reliable source said something big is going down at this well site tonight. Thought I'd check it out myself. You know what it is?'

'We think they're dumping frack fluid out in the desert.'

Big Rick opened Carla's door. 'Scoot over.'

She did, and he climbed in with a backpack and an AR-15 a.s.sault rifle.

'Is that loaded?' Book asked.

'Why would I carry an unloaded weapon?'

'Point it out the window.'

He did.

'So what's the plan, Professor?'

'We wait. See where those trucks go.'

Carla held up her camcorder. 'We're going to follow them and videotape the dumping. A smoking gun.'

'Well, I've got my gun and I've got my smokes.'

Big Rick pulled out a joint and lit it. He inhaled deeply then offered the joint to Book and Carla; they declined.