Baker shook his head. “They couldn’t have finished fracking that well. They haven’t been there long enough. They haven’t even been drilling that long, so they couldn’t have gotten down all that far.”
“Stan, how come McClellan didn’t get the rights to that parcel of land? He’s got most all the other ones around here.”
“I heard scuttlebutt that All-American kept bidding the price up to where it got crazy. Like two or three times what it was worth. I guess McClellan just thought those boys didn’t know what the hell they were doing.”
“I think they knew exactly what they were doing,” said Decker ominously.
Jamison said, “And they have one of those vent pipes like we’ve seen around, but there’s no lit flare coming off it.”
“A vent pipe!” Baker looked puzzled. “No way they could be having gas coming up at this stage.”
Decker suddenly flinched. “How farcouldthey have gone down by now?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say no more than a couple hundred feet.”
“That’s what I was afraid you might say.”
“Afraid? Why?”
Decker looked at Jamison. “I think we just found our ticking time bomb.”
* * *
When they reached the fenced-in area at the All-American Energy Company, Decker jumped out of the SUV and tried to open the gate. It was locked.
He climbed back into the vehicle.
“Ram it, Alex,” he ordered.
“Are you—”
“Just do it. We’re out of time.”
Baker, who was in the back seat, curled his fingers around his armrest and looked nervously at his brother-in-law.
Jamison gunned the motor, put it in drive, and slammed her foot down on the gas pedal. The big SUV leapt forward and smashed through the gates.
They leapt out, with Decker leading the way to the trailer. The door was locked.
“Decker, we don’t have a warrant,” said Jamison.
“To hell with a warrant, Alex.”
He pulled his gun and shot the lock off. He kicked open the door, and they plunged inside. It was set up much like Baker’s trailer, but there was only one computer monitor on the desk with what looked to be live data covering it.
Decker looked at the screen and said, “Stan, can you make sense of this?”
Baker sat down in the chair and started studying the graphs and other information flowing over the monitor’s face.
“No, I can’t, because it doesn’t make a bit of sense,” he said.
“What doesn’t?” said Decker.
“Well, for starters, I was right. They’ve only drilled down about two hundred feet. At about the hundred-and-fifty-foot mark they’ve started to go horizontally at about a forty-five-degree angle.” He used the mouse to manipulate the screen. Another image flickered up.
“And what is that thing?”
They all stared at where he was pointing.