means you have the ability to turn it on a little or a lot. Say with a rheostat. I want the climate to be just like 1982. Instead of stopping it completely and being stuck in this year. If you claim you can stop it then you are also saying you can start it. That means you have control over it and can reverse it. If you have control over the climate then I want it to be just like it was in 1982.”
“Nick, it’s not a rheostat.”
“Of course it is. Climate change people say it has taken decades to make it warmer and will take even more decades to make it warmer still. They never tell you where they want it to be, only that they don’t want it to change. Does that mean they want it to be just like it is now? Or like it was before, whenever that was? Beside the point. If you claim people have made it warmer, it follows that people can make it cooler.”
“That’s logical, okay.”
“So if you can make it cooler, I want it to be just cooler enough to make it 1982 and nothing further back than that. What year would you like it to be?”
“Something in medieval times, I think. When the Romans grew grapes in England and Greenland was green.”
“Good choice. I like grapes.”
We’d covered most of the Bandon area from the Highway 101-42S split to Larry’s Express Lube to the south. Sal had marked and forwarded to Forte some 65 potentially bad sites where bombs would cause enough encircling fire to virtually destroy the town. But it still didn’t make much sense.
“Why are they doing this? Whoever ‘they’ are?” I asked.
I pulled the Vic into the empty police parking lot, shut it down and we sat for a second.
“Don’t know, Nick. Maybe revenge. Maybe someone doesn’t like us having so many tourists and thinks this will scare them off. I’ve been trying to get a mental handle on all the possible reasons, and damned if I can come up with a single one that makes sense.”
We pushed our way through the door, waved at Beth and wound our way to Forte’s office.
It had changed since earlier. On the wall behind his desk, a 5-foot-by-5-foot map of Bandon was marked with large red Xs in all of the places Sal and I had phoned in. Some had circles around the X. Yellow stickies marked some areas.
The Chief’s desk had been swept clear and now was covered in Post-Its, each with a scrawl.
Forte had the phone crooked between his shoulder and ear.
“Yeah, Bill’s Creek Road… See it? The wooded area?... Look there.” He looked at Sal and me, gave a half-hearted smile and held up two fingers. “And have Tommy check near the abandoned mill.”
The Chief hung up and turned to us.
“Two found. Plus yours and the one behind the station means there are 36 to go. At this rate, we’re not gonna make it.” He checked his watch. “A bit more than five hours to go.”
Sal passed around three mugs of cop-house coffee from a stained, battered urn that occupied an equally scarred side table in the office.
Forte nodded thanks, took a swig, made a face. “I took this job for peace and quiet, not bad coffee or maniacal arsonists.”
“Sal and I are going to move further up 101. Other side of the bridge. Might get lucky.”
“I don’t know, Nick. This whole thing has me scratching my head. Why do this? What’s the point?”
“We’ve been asking ourselves the same thing.” After restating our thoughts about revenge and other possibilities, all of them sounded as lame as a matchbook’s 98 pound weakling.
“It’s pretty obvious the first bomb, the one the kid brought in, was a plant. It was intended to be found. The kid got a couple hundred bucks to make sure you saw it.” Checking the corner where it was last stashed, “I see the Mounties came and got it.”
Forte nodded. “Treated it like it was nuclear even though I told them it was disarmed already. Came in bomb gear and helmets with thick Lexan facemasks. Carried it out like a premature baby.”
“What about the others?” Sal asked.
“Both had that capacitor wired into them. Glad you gave us the heads up. The Mounties are supposed to pick ‘em up. But, geez, the state police aren’t set up for this here. They barely have enough bodies to fill two shifts on highway patrol.”
“They sending people from Eugene or Portland?”
Forte nodded. “Yeah, but they’re at least a couple hours away.”
“Helicopter search, maybe?”
Sal answered before Forte could. “With these things in the woods, helicopters couldn’t spot ‘em.”
Forte added, “And one of the two we found was covered in a green tarp. Only found it by accident, really.”
The landline phone on the Chief’s desk jangled. He swiped at it and plugged it into his ear.
“Forte.” His face darkened. “Anyone hurt?” He punched the speakerphone button. On the other end, “…singed is all. The other officer was burned on both arms and chest. Damn, Forte, what’s going on?”
“Don’t know, exactly. Fire under control?”
“Not yet. FD is dumping water on it as fast as they can, but that propane tank and the dynamite went up like the fourth of July. We’ve got at least an acre of flames up here.”
Forte’s eyes closed and he shook his head. “Well, you gotta take care of your own, Brownie. Thanks for at least the offer of sending guys down here, but now it looks like we’ve got a county wide problem.”
Hanging up, “Couple of the Coquille guys found one of the bombs up near the railroad tracks. Were carrying it to their car when they bumped the timer. It reset for 30 seconds instead of an hour. They just had time to get away before it took out their cruiser and an acre of woods.”
“Wait, did you say an hour?”
“Yeah. Obviously the plan was to detonate earlier there than here.”
“That makes 35 to go,” I said. “And it’s not just Bandon.”
Forte began shaking his head. “Not so sure, Nick. What if they’re distractions only? What if they’re intended to go off earlier than ours just to keep adjacent fire departments from helping us?”
Walking to the Bandon map, running my hand over the outer edges of town, “We’re screwed. Put bombs in these wooded areas and they’ll start a forest fire that wipes out the entire town. Just like ’36.”
Sal rocked in his chair, staring hard at the map, beard twitching, eyes scanning. Then, “We assume the worst. If I were going to burn Bandon to the ground, I’d put maybe 15 of the bombs up near Bill’s Creek Road. The wooded areas near the power station. Another 10 or so north of Larry’s Express Lube from east to west. Maybe spot five or so near the high school and another five on the bluffs overlooking Old Town. The rest diversionary. Coquille, Coos Bay,
