Chapter Four

The construction site was an ugly tangle of cranes and bulldozers, cylinder pipes and scattered materials, all along a ten-mile trench where construction workers barked at each other over the growl of their idling machines.

Mira spied the corporate executive trailer through her binoculars.

She could see shadowy figures through the drawn blinds and not much else, so she scanned the trench, surveying the progress that the Starlight Energy Project had made. It never failed to boggle her mind how quickly projects like this could get underway. In less than two weeks, Starlight had dug the trench where the pipeline would be assembled then buried over. According to their timeline, the pipe would be laid and gas would be flowing in less than three weeks if she didn’t shut them down.

The sun was creeping up the horizon as she lowered her binoculars and turned to face her team, a twelve person environmental group called One World, which she had founded the year after graduating college

“We should have gotten here sooner,” said Carter, who was staring at her with round eyes and folded arms from where he stood in front of the team.

 “Before they dug the trench?” she asked.

“Before the sun Mira this morning,” he clarified. “We can’t get into position now. Construction workers are swarming the area.”

Carter indicated for the binoculars, and she handed them over, watching him as he spied the enemy. A tall black man whose muscular stature and booming voice could intimidate the most callous corporate executive, Carter had gone to the same college as Mira. They had constantly fought, debating their ethics on how to achieve clean energy. He had been a constant source of aggravation during those four years, but when they

graduated and Mira was garnishing members for One World, approaching

Carter had been a no brainer. He was damned good at getting things done

and undeniably fearless.

“Where were you last night?” he asked, passing her the binoculars.

“I called five times. We could have really used you at the strategy briefing.”

“And I would have been there if I knew you had organized it,” she countered, deflecting the actual question. “We had already gone over the measures we would be taking.”

 “Yeah, but we didn’t have contingencies.”

 “So you called a last minute meeting?”

 “You are avoiding the question,” he pointed out with a cocky smile.

“I was relaxing,” she said, “clearing my head to get focused. I shut my cell off.”

“Why is it that the bigger the job, the harder it is to get in touch with you the night before?”

 “What are you talking about?”

“I pick up on these things,” he said. “Hey, it’s none of my business”

“I would say.” She held his gaze for a beat, then asked, “Did you come up with a plan B?”

 “It’s not foolproof, but it could work.”

 “Will it work without us getting arrested?”

Carter held his breath instead of coming out with it, which was enough of an answer. She knew him far too well, and as effective as his proposed strategies seemed to be on paper, she’d had to veto them on more than one occasion for this very reason. Activism was a slippery slope when it came to not breaking the law, and though One World had a stellar attorney, the bottom line was that the group could do more good in the field than by twiddling their thumbs behind bars and waiting for bail to post.

 “What is your idea, Carter?” she pressed.

Setting the stage, he said, “We have to slow them down.”

“Which we will do,” she agreed. Their plan had been to show up before the construction employees arrived and chain themselves to the stack of cylinder pipes, but the strategy relied on the employees getting to the site at seven. One World had gotten there at 5:45 a.m. to find Starlight already in position. It had almost been as though the executives of Starlight had seen this coming.

Carter drew in a deep breath and went on. “Layla and I found a container of dynamite at the site”

 “No way”

 “It’s leftover from carving out the trench”

 “Carter, we can’t steal their explosives to use against them”

 “Why? It’s poetic.”

“It’s beyond illegal, not to mention the whole point of this operation is to keep people safe”

“To keep residents safe against gas leaks, which you know are inevitable,” he corrected.

 “Forget it.”

“The piping cylinders are more than twenty yards away from their vehicles.”

“At the moment, but they’re going to move them closer to the trench.”

 “Which is why we have to act fast and act now. Layla’s on board.”

Mira glared at him then rolled her eyes. If Carter Simmons was radical in his logic, and he often was, Layla Moser was twice as daring. For a woman barely five foot two, Layla seemed ten times her size and never shied away from confrontations, which made for a passionate albeit volatile romance with Carter. Mira hadn’t brought Layla into One World, but had agreed when Carter vouched for her last year. She had done great work in Michigan to help Miracute a fracking company with a class action lawsuit thanks to her legal background, but when it came to working in the field, she was undoubtedly a loose cannon.

“You have a better idea?” he challenged.

“Yeah,” she said with a sly smile. “I’m going to talk to them and negotiate.”

“We aren’t in a position to negotiate, because we literally aren’t in position.”

“Hold that thought,” she said, suddenly distracted by Hector, the newest addition to One World, when he held up her purse.

Pacing away from Carter, she walked over to Hector, who was standing in front of their Gatorade table.

“Your phone’s vibrating,” he explained, looking somewhat sheepish to be handling her purse.

She fished for her cell, but as soon as she gripped it, she immediately noticed it felt odd in her hand. It wasn’t until she glanced down at it that she realized it wasn’t hers, and recognized her own cell number flashing across the screen.

 Confused, she answered the call.

 “Hello?”

His voice came deep and smooth and clear as a bell. “Do you know who this is?”

“I have a pretty good idea,” she said, recognizing the male timbre in her ear. “When exactly did you switch our phones?”

 “When I thought I might not see you again.”

“That was the plan, wasn’t it?” It had been, but Mira couldn’t deny she was smiling, rolling her shoulders into a secretive hunch and pacing away from Hector and the team.

 “It was,” he agreed. “But I have a better plan.”

 “And what’s that?”

 “I’m going to be in town a few days, maybe a week. It could be fun to get together. That is, if you have time.”

She smiled to herself, staring out at the trench, the bulldozers, the construction workers who were assembling in front of the stack of pipe materials. Shutting down the Starlight Energy Project would be no easy task, and each day could very well cause her stress to go through the roof.

An entire community was depending on her and One World to keep Bellevue safe, and straight out of the gate her team had lost the upper hand.

Having a mystery man, whose name she’d yet to learn, waiting in the wings for her might not be the worst idea.

 “I will think about it,” she said finally.

“Think about it?” he asked in a teasing tone. “You mean fantasize?”

 “If you want to call it that.”

“At the very least you will need your phone back, so why don’t we meet up tonight?”

“I don’t know,” she said, taking a brief moment to eye his phone then return it to her ear. “I kind of like this phone.”

 “Yeah, so do I.”

She was about to tell him she knew where he was staying and imply she would swing by at some point, but the sight of Carter and Layla sneaking off towards the construction site and heading in the direction of the stack of pipes caused a jolt of panic to course through her veins.

“I will be in touch,” she said quickly, then hung up the phone and tucked it into her back pocket. She jogged after the daredevils. “Are you crazy? Get back here!”

As they reached the trench, Mira trailing after them by ten yards, Layla swung her backpack off her shoulder and dropped to her knees, while Carter pulled explosives out of the sack in a rushed tangle.

Beyond the trench, a number of suited executives stepped out of the corporate trailer, and one of the construction workers who appeared to be the head honcho stalked over to the executives, his construction team following him.

“Oh crap,” Mira said to herself, seeing that the pipes were now unguarded. “Don’t!”

Her voice carried, drawing the executives’ attention, but her gaze

was locked on the stick of dynamite in Carter’s hand, towards which Layla was angling a lit lighter.

When in the hell did they even get those sticks? Had Mira been so engrossed in her three-minute call that she hadn’t noticed Carter rush over and get them? Or had he already gotten the explosives when he’d proposed the insane idea?

 “Carter, don’t do it!”

But he already was. He pitched the stick into the air, its firecracker wick flaring, and the rest seemed to happen in slow motion Layla meeting her gaze, Carter scanning the trench, the dynamite stick arching through the air, the executives registering what was going on, the construction workers running for cover, the dynamite touching down, bouncing and rolling towards the stack of pipes.

 BOOM!

 Mira dropped to her knees, covering the back of her head with both hands, but luckily the explosion only caused the pipes to tumble down, rolling haphazardly across the site and into the trench. They were too heavy to launch into the air. When she lifted her eyes to survey the damage, it was clear no one was hurt.

“Carter! What have you done?” she demanded, as she ran over and grabbed him by the arm.

 Layla was on her feet looking satisfied.

“You are no good to me if you are in jail,” she yelled, shifting her gaze from Carter to Layla and back again.”

 “We just bought you a day, at least,” said Layla.

 “You just bought me a lawsuit I can’t afford.”

As soon as Mira heard sirens blaring in the distance, she knew her life would never be the same