Smoking Gun (Adam Cartwright Trilogy Book 1) (8 page)

Tom Beatty’s story was similar. Both of them also claimed that they were not the only ones to be ripped off in that way.

Asking them to remain seated I rang the gate keeper and asked him to escort the two visitors across to my office. When the gate keeper knocked I walked over to open the door and meet the visitors. I did not shake hands with them, I merely motioned towards two empty chairs and said, “You can sit there. I want to talk to the gate keeper for a minute.”

Following a brief conversation the gate keeper left. I walked back into my office and closed the door. As soon as I sat down I said to the two inspectors. “Okay. Now, which of you is Wilson?” One of them held up a hand. So I looked at the other and said, “So you must be Watson.” He nodded and started to speak but I cut him off holding up a hand and saying. “May I have a copy of your business cards please?”

Silently they extracted the requested cards and handed them to me. After examining them on both sides with a skeptical look on my face I said, “So you claim to be representing the Mareeba Shire Council here today?” They both nodded but did not speak.

Looking up at the two men I switched my gaze back and forth for a few moments before continuing. “In case you are wondering who these others are… their names are Tony Payne, Tom Beatty and Bob Thomas. They are here at my request. I believe that you know Tom and Bob already.”

I then paused, waiting for a response.

Wilson and Watson exchanged worried glances and eventually nodded in reply. I think that they now sensed that I intended to make things difficult for them but did not know just what I had in mind when I resumed talking. “I’m told that you are here to carry out an environmental audit as provided for in the environmental regulations. Is that correct?”

Wilson, who seemed to be the more dominant personality of the two, replied, “Yes.”

“And that you are empowered to come onto this site and carry out that audit as designated officials of the Mareeba Shire Council?”

Wilson, refusing to acknowledge Watson staring at him anxiously, responded defiantly. “Yes.”

I exhaled slowly watching him closely as I swung my computer monitor around so that the others could all see the screen and said, “I have trouble believing that the Mareeba Shire Council has any responsibility in regard to the environmental regulations. As you can see the table of Regional and Shire Councils displayed on the screen lists the local government bodies that do not have environmental responsibilities devolved to them. The Mareeba Shire Council is one of them.”

The two inspectors sat silently staring at me. They were bewildered and nervous so I decided to increase their concern and said, “No doubt, you are both aware of the serious penalties of misrepresenting yourselves as officials in respect to the Environmental Act and Regulations. Custodial sentences are mandatory as provided for in the Act.”

Watson was the first one to panic as he blurted out. “There seems to have been some sort of misunderstanding. We have been misinformed. We are sorry for any inconvenience.”

I had no sympathy for their now obvious distress. But I had to move quickly as they would eventually realize that my mention of prosecution for misrepresentation was just a hollow threat. “There is also the matter of your extortion of bribes from people like Tom and Bob here. I am going to give you five minutes to decide whether you will make restitution to Tom and Bob and all the others that you have cheated.” I gestured towards the office next to mine. “I suggest that you both go next door and discuss what you intend to do. You must come back in here and give me a commitment to making restitution. It is no good you thinking that you can just leave the site. The gate keeper to not open the gate for you without my approval.”

Wilson spluttered. “You… you can’t do that. You can’t keep us here against our will.”

“You are probably right. I’ll probably have to make a citizen’s arrest then. I’ll charge you with attempted extortion.”

“But that’s not true.”

I smiled. “So you say. But, the rest of us remember things rather differently. Anyway, look at it this way. Extortion is your stock in trade, so we wouldn’t really be lying.”

Wilson and Watson gaped at me momentarily before looking at the others. They were all nodding. Tony Payne said, “Four against two. I don’t like your chances.”

The two sorry-looking inspectors silently trudged out of my office.

***

Promptly, five minutes later there was a knock on my office door and the two inspectors entered. Motioning towards the seats that they had sat in earlier I said, “Sit down. Tell us what you have decided.”

It was immediately clear that they had recovered some of their former bravado. Wilson sounded almost belligerent when he spoke. “We ain’t going to do anything. You can do your worst. You still have to prove your claims.”

As soon as he paused Watson added. “We don’t reckon that you will go through with your threats. You have no proof.”

I smiled. I had expected that they would regroup when they had a chance to talk things through. But I had one more card to play and said, “What you say was true when you left my office five minutes ago. But now the situation has changed. We now have a recording of your discussion in the next office. Every word that you have said has been recorded. We now have all the evidence that we will ever need.”

My bluff worked. Neither attempted to try and bluster their way out of the situation. After a brief feeble attempt to regain their equanimity they sat with their faces in their hands. Their collapse was complete. They must have realized that whatever they had talked about in the office next door would have been their undoing.

While they sat there, temporarily oblivious to their surroundings, I took my cell phone out of my pocket, clicked it on to record, and placed it on my desk in front of me. Tony Payne and the other two watched me in silence. Neither of the inspectors noticed what I had done.

Slapping the top of my desk with both of my palms to get their attention I said loudly. “Okay. Okay. Let’s wrap this up. Let me recap. Mister Wilson, do you agree to make full restitution of all the bribes that you have extorted from numerous persons while carrying out your duties as a building inspector for the Mareeba Shire Council?”

Wilson barely looked up as he mumbled his agreement.

Watson also confirmed his commitment to make restitution when I asked him the same question.

I was almost finished. “Do you, Building Inspector Wilson, and Health Inspector Watson, both acknowledge that you knowingly made false claims when you said that you were responsible for enforcing the environmental regulations here on this site?”

Neither responded so I raised my voice and said tersely. “Well. Say something!”

Eventually they did say something. Together they muttered. “Yes.”

I sat silently watching them for a few moments before finally speaking a single word. Pointing to the door I said, “Go!” Then as they were exiting the door I called out. “Wait!”

When they turned to look at me I added. “You are both persona non grata on this site. Also if you fail to make restitution then today’s recordings will be widely circulated.”

***

After the inspectors departed I turned to the others and stood up indicating that it was time for them to return to work. Extending my hand to shake hands with each of them I said, “Thanks for sitting in on this.”

Tony Payne looked at me with a curious expression and said, “So now you have recorded them confessing and agreeing to paying restitution.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“But did you actually record them when they were in the office next door?”

I shook my head. “No. I was bluffing.”

He grinned and said, “Well, you sure had me fooled.” Then laughed and added. “Remind me to never play poker with you.”

***

A major concrete pour was scheduled this morning. It was the final stage of the foundations for the primary crushers and the Mill Building. In a weeks time the final major concrete pour was scheduled for the processing plant. As usual I was there to see the inspectors do their final checks before the pour commenced and I stayed there to see it completed. If things went wrong during a concrete pour, decisions may have to be made quickly. I preferred to be there on the spot if a problem occurred. Not for me to step in and make decisions but to expedite getting assistance or co-operation from other sections of the workforce if it was needed.

Constructing complex building elements with concrete has a certain fascination. It probably has its roots in the same genetic elements that led us to build sand castles at the beach when we were very young. Pouring concrete and forming useful structures probably fulfils one of mankind’s primal instincts; to build a shelter.

It’s not as though concrete is a modern building material. The Romans are well known for their extensive use of concrete more than two thousand years ago. But they were not the first. The earliest known use of concrete dates back to before 5600 BC; a 25 centimetre floor slab discovered on the banks of the Danube in Yugoslavia. In Egypt, murals dating from 1950 BC show workmen engaged in the process of making and placing concrete.

During the Middle Ages, the use of concrete declined, although isolated instances of its use have been documented and some examples have survived. It became more extensively used during the Renaissance and its manufacture was described in a work published in 1568. At that time, mass or plain concrete was used in structures such as bridge piers, many of which still exist today.

Structures made of mass concrete exploited its great strength in compression, but its weakness in tension limited its early use. The final advance was the inclusion of steel bars to provide tensile strength making concrete a much more versatile construction material. But even this had been pioneered by the Romans when they embedded bronze in concrete when they constructed the dome of the Pantheon in 125 AD. Much later Christopher Wren had also seen the need for tensile strength and had embedded iron chains in concrete to resist lateral thrust in the dome of St Paul’s church in London, when it was built between 1675 and 1710.

In the 18th century the industrial revolution brought with it a greater interest in concrete. At the time that modern Australia was being settled and developed there had been an urgent need for infrastructure and the use of concrete was widely embraced.

Even though the practice of reinforcing concrete with steel rods was established in the late 1800s, the term ‘reinforced concrete’ only came into general use in the early 1900s. Concrete has been one of the most widely used building materials since then. It has made possible numerous complex structures, ranging from bridges, monuments and buildings, to civil engineering works.

Nowadays we have better knowledge of the chemical processes involved in the hardening of concrete and can predict its ultimate strength. Mixing concrete is now a science, not an art as it was in its early days. Nevertheless its placement and treatment after pouring to maximise its structural strength requires skill and diligence.

One of the key checks before a concrete pour was to confirm that the steel reinforcement had been correctly fixed in position and would not be displaced during placement of the concrete. Even though we had a good team of concrete workers on the project the inspectors needed to be vigilant. My presence at the placement of the concrete ensured that the inspectors were also on their toes.

But I was not there just to be a policeman. I got a deep satisfaction from seeing the creation of a structure. The transforming of an idea on paper to a physical reality. Whether it was the pouring of concrete, the erection of structural steel columns and beams or installing and commissioning a large item of equipment, I got a feeling of achievement. I guess it could be called job satisfaction. Today, being the second last major concrete pour, the completion of the crusher and Mill foundations, was a project milestone.

As I stood there watching the concrete workers complete cleaning up and applying the finishing touches to the poured concrete I was aware that I now had another decision to make. The aggregate used in the twenty thousand cubic metres of concrete poured to date was crushed limestone that had been quarried onsite.

I had had a battle to get approval to quarry the aggregate on the mine site. Initially I had been prompted to look for an onsite solution when the Mareeba Shire Council quarry, thinking that they had us over a barrel, had quoted an excessively high price for concrete aggregate. Then the Council had claimed that we did not have the right to quarry our own aggregate on the mine site, but that was soon refuted.

Initially a number of rock outcrops onsite had been tested but proved to be unsuitable for concrete making. They were either too soft, too mineralised or not in a convenient location. Eventually though, Ted Brennan, a mine geologist involved in the development of the open pit, located a source of stable limestone in a convenient location. I thought that the matter had been resolved when engineering tests showed that it was suitable as concrete aggregate but the design engineers then vetoed its use. They claimed that limestone would react adversely with the cement in the long term and weaken the concrete. After several weeks of argument I was able to produce engineering studies that confirmed that the opposite was true. The design engineers had consequently conceded but with I thought was rather bad grace.

I had been aware that the design engineers were annoyed because I had challenged their expertise in the past and would not concede that I had been wrong. Even so I was surprised when they had intervened in an attempt to prevent me using crushed limestone as concrete aggregate. Eventually when the stated grounds for their intervention had been shown to be invalid I discovered that they had been acting on instructions from the Project Manager.

But in spite of the initial opposition, quarrying our own concrete aggregate had worked out well. Very well in fact. But we now had adequate stockpiles of crushed limestone to satisfy the remaining requirement for concrete to finish the processing plant plus the outstanding road and drainage works. Today, I no longer needed to continue producing concrete aggregate. I now had the opportunity to close down the quarrying of limestone and return the hired crushing and screening plant to its owner.

***

But now I had another issue to resolve. The risk of flooding of the processing plant area. Perhaps it would be better to say, my perception of the risk of flooding.

Strictly speaking it was not my responsibility. I should just let it go. I had made my reservations clear and proposed a corrective course of action. But, my suggestions had been rejected. When I had persisted and continued to present my case I had been given specific instructions to construct the mine site drainage plan exactly as designed.

Nevertheless I was the man on site. To me it was not just a distant location drawn on a plan. I could see the contours of the land and the nature of the valley floor. Very little of any rainfall would be absorbed in the soil. Most of it would flow down the valley, along the southern edge leading to the mine site.

If an engineer decides to design a drainage system to handle stormwater by-the-book it is a fairly simple task. There are Australian Standards that specify the intensity and duration of rain storms that should be provided for. The engineer then, when he has contour plans available, has the simple task of calculating the rainfall catchment area. Finally he would look up some reference books to find factors to allow for the slope of the land and the ability of the topsoil to soak up at least some of the rainfall. Using simple arithmetic he will calculate a theoretical maximum flow of stormwater and look up another table to find what sized drainage pipe, or open channel, is required. Eventually he would have an impressive set of calculations to support his conclusions. Later, if problems occurred, he could deflect criticism by claiming that it had been done by-the-book.

The by-the-book approach is simple. Too simple. But that was how the design engineers had carried out the calculations for the Red Rock mine site drainage plan.  I did not deny that this approach had its place in hydrology. But it should only be regarded as a ball-park estimate.

An experienced engineer would then look more closely at the consequences if the stormwater drains turned out to be inadequate to prevent flooding. If the cost to repair flooded facilities, or the cost of lost production, is highly significant then a higher safety factor should be included in the calculations. Also, instead of designing a drainage system to accommodate a standard rainfall intensity, the engineer should provide for a given storm scenario. In the case of Red Rock the logical design storm would be a Category 5 cyclone crossing the coast near Cairns and continuing inland to pass to the south of Red Rock.

Due to the clockwise circulation of wind around the centre of a cyclone the rain would approach Red Rock from the east. As the storm travelled down the valley towards Red Rock the runoff on the ground would be travelling with the storm thus maximising the peak stormwater runoff as the storm passed over Red Rock.

If the same cyclone passed to the north of Red Rock then the storm would advance on Red Rock from the east, travelling up the stormwater catchment. In that case the total rainfall would be the same but the peak stormwater flow at Red Rock would be less.

My view was that the risk of flooding the processing plant and causing a significant loss of production could, and should, be avoided.

The drainage plan that I was obliged to construct was a badly flawed concept. The planned collection of the stormwater runoff, and piping it through the processing plant area, was bad engineering. It was not just that the main drainage pipe might be too small. It meant that all the eggs were in one basket.

There should be a plan B option to handle the runoff if the pipe got blocked.

I was at a decision point now because there was no longer a need to keep producing concrete aggregate. The connection being that limestone had been quarried for concrete aggregate from a deposit that outcropped on the ridge leading to Lookout Hill. Not only had we produced cheap aggregate but the first stage of a stormwater discharge channel had been created. A channel that, if completed, would ensure that storm water runoff could be discharged at no risk to the open pit mine or the processing plant.

I had been instructed to construct the mine site drainage scheme exactly as designed and that was what I had done. But I was not told that I shouldn’t excavate a bypass channel, I just hadn’t been given the funds to do so.

Jack Gilmore had fully supported the under-the-radar excavation of the stormwater discharge channel. So did Ted Brennan, the Red Rock mine planning geologist. They were the only other persons aware of the ploy.

When I gave Ted Brennan the brief to find a rock deposit suitable for quarrying for concrete aggregate there had been a basic requirement. If at all possible, the deposit had to be located in the ridge leading to Lookout Hill. As it turned out he found a stable limestone deposit on the perfect alignment for a cutting that could serve as a open channel for stormwater discharge. It was during a mini trek by the two of us to inspect the limestone deposit that he and I had walked to the top of Lookout Hill. The intention was to get an overview of the mine site and the proposed limestone quarry, aka the stormwater discharge channel. But Ted’s deep interest in gold exploration geology emerged and he proceeded to give me a lecture on gold mineralogy and exploration that I had found inspiring.

Ted Brennan was a friendly, affable character in sharp contrast to his earnest demeanour when talking about geology. Sweeping an arm to encompass the panorama spread out below us he said, “Somewhere out there lays a mother lode. A body of rich, gold-bearing rock from which the gold has been leached and disseminated by geological processes over millions of years. Gold that we will extract from the open pit down there. One day we will find that rich mother lode and the Red Rock Mine will evolve into a major gold mine.”

I looked out over the desolate looking landscape. There was little vegetation and no visible animal life. It seemed to be incredible that anything of value existed in that wilderness. Much less gold-bearing material that was sufficiently valuable to justify the spending of more than $200 million to develop a mine to extract it.

Seeing that he had my attention Ted Brennan proceeded to give me a lecture on geology as it applied to the Red Rock deposit. He explained how a pocket of very high grade gold bearing rock, a mother lode, had been formed during volcanic activity tens of millions of years ago. Subsequently gold bearing material leaked from the mother lode due to pressure and tectonic movements of earth’s upper mantle. In time, it was widely distributed without any surface evidence of its existence.

I was curious and asked, “What makes you think that a high grade mother lode exists here? As you say, there is no indication of it on the surface. All that you have found so far is moderate grade ore. No mother lode. Why do you think that it exists?”

He replied, “Well, it must exist somewhere. The widespread distribution of moderate to low grade ore has to have come from somewhere. The probability is that the mother lode is lurking nearby. Perhaps it is too deep.  Our immediate exploration objective is to find a high grade zone below, or adjacent to, the planned open pit on which to base an underground mine. We need to think outside the square and challenge the basic assumptions made when analysing drill core samples to locate a mother lode. We should not rely on ore grade quite so much but look more closely at variations in chemical binding and crystal formation for clues to its source.”