"In a survey boat?"
"I was thinking of a canoe, local color and all."
"Forget the canoe. The waters around Kunghit are treacherous. The waves roll in out of the Pacific and pound the rocky shores like you wouldn't believe."
"You make it sound unsafe."
"If the sea doesn't get you," Posey said seriously, "Dorsett's goon squad will."
"So I'll use a bigger boat and carry a harpoon," Pitt said cynically.
"Why don't you simply go on the property with a bona fide team of Canadian environmental engineers and blow the whistle on any shady operations?"
Pitt shook his head. "A waste of time. Dorsett's foreman would only close down the mine until they left. Better to investigate when their guard isn't up."
Posey stared past Pitt out the window for several seconds. Then he shrugged. "Okay, I'll arrange for you to work under contract with Environment Canada to investigate the kelp forest around Kunghit Island. You're to study any possible damage to the kelp from chemicals running into the sea from the mining operations. How does that sound?"
"Thank you," Pitt said sincerely. "How much do I get paid?"
Posey picked up on the joke. "Sorry, you're not in the budget. But I might be persuaded to buy you a hamburger at the nearest fast-food joint."
"Done."
"One more thing."
"Are you going it alone?"
"One does not look as suspicious as two."
"Not in this case," said Posey grimly. "I strongly advise you take along one of the local Indians as a guide.
That will give you more of an official look. Environment Canada works closely with the tribes to prevent pollution and save forested land. A researcher and a local fisherman working on a project for the government should dilute any doubts by Dorsett security."
"Do you have a name in mind?" asked Pitt.
"Mason Broadmoor. A very resourceful guy. I've hired him before on a number of environmental projects."
"An Indian with the name of Mason Broadmoor?"
"He's a member of the Haida who live on the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia. Most of them took British names generations ago. They're excellent fishermen and are familiar with the waters around Kunghit Island."
"Is Broadmoor a fisherman?"
"Not really. But he's very creative."
"Creative at what?"
Posey hesitated for a few moments, straightened some papers on his desk and then stared at Pitt rather sheepishly.
"Mason Broadmoor," he said finally, "carves totem poles."
Arthur Dorsett stepped out of the private elevator to his penthouse suite as he did every morning at precisely seven o'clock, like a bull charging into the ring at Seville, huge, menacing, invincible. He was a giant of a man, brawny shoulders brushing the sides of the doorframe as he ducked under the lintel. He had the hairy, muscular build of a professional wrestler. Coarse and wiry sandy hair swirled about his head like a thicket of brambles. His face was ruddy and as fierce as the black eyes that stared from beneath heavy, scraggly brows. He walked with an odd rocking motion, his shoulders dipping up and down like the walking beam of a steam engine.
His skin was rough and tanned by long days in the sun, working in the open mines, driving his miners for higher production, and he could still fill a muck bucket with the best of them. A huge mustache curled downward past the corners of lips that were constantly stretched open like a moray eel's, revealing teeth yellowed from long years of pipe smoking. He radiated contempt and supreme arrogance. Arthur Dorsett was an empire unto himself who followed no laws but his own.
Dorsett shunned the limelight, a difficult feat with his incredible wealth and the $400 million jewelry trade building he built in Sydney. Paid for without bank loans, out of his own coffers, the Trump Towers-like building housed the offices of diamond brokers, traders and merchants, cutting and faceting laboratories and a polishing factory. Known as a major player among diamond producers, Arthur Dorsett also played a highly secret role behind the scenes of the colored gemstone market.
He strode into the large anteroom, past four secretaries without acknowledging their presence, into an office that was located in the center of the building, with no windows to allow a magnificent panoramic view of modern Sydney sprawling outward from its harbor. Too many men who had been crossed in business deals with Dorsett gladly would have hired a sniper to take him out. He entered through a steel door into an office that was plain, even Spartan, with walls two meters thick. The entire room was one gigantic vault where Dorsett directed the family mining ventures and where he had collected and now displayed the largest and most opulent stones dug from his mines and faceted by his cutting workshops.