Chapter 9 - Behind the Barbed Wire of Mercer Quarry
Three days later, I returned to Harrington County one last time, accompanied by Special Agent Reid and a convoy of federal environmental investigators.
The autumn air was crisp, the gray storm clouds having cleared to reveal a brilliant blue Virginia sky.
We drove through the rusted iron gates of the Mercer Development Limestone Quarry off Route 9. The property was surrounded by ten-foot barbed-wire fencing, but the gate now hung open, guarded by federal marshals in tactical vests.
Heavy yellow excavators and hazardous-materials transport trucks filled the massive gravel pit.
Technicians in white hazmat suits were systematically unearthing hundreds of rusted steel drums from the deep trenches beneath the quarry floor. Each drum was stamped with the toxic chemical hazard symbol and the logo of Apex Logistics.
Agent Reid stood beside me at the edge of the pit, looking down at the operation.
“Your wife is a hero, Blake,” Reid said quietly. “If Emily hadn't mapped these geological fault lines and taken those core samples under threat of death, this poison would have seeped into the primary municipal reservoir within another six months. Half the county would have developed leukemia within a decade.”
“She refused to look away,” I said. “Even when she knew what Mercer was capable of.”
“And you backed her up with an entire task force,” Reid added with a faint smile. “The local folks in town are already talking about taking down the statue of Daniel Mercer’s grandfather in front of the municipal hall and renaming the central county park after Emily.”
I looked across the quarry toward the rolling blue ridges in the distance.
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For twenty years, fear had paralyzed this valley. People had kept their heads down, paid their bribes, and looked the other way while a tyrant and his psychopathic son treated their home like a private dumping ground.
All it took was one brave woman who refused to break, and one soldier who knew how to fight back.
