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  “But denying the mine safety inspectors access is a federal crime,” Thayne said.

  “That’s true. They delayed them for several hours and eventually let them in so the MSHA safety inspectors never actually ended up filing a complaint.”

  “It sure as hell sounds like your agents are trying to do their jobs, sir,” Jarrett remarked.

  SAC Howard narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what the truth is. Perhaps they are exaggerating Boggs’s involvement.”

  “Or perhaps this mine’s manager has something to hide,” Jarrett said. “Citations and delayed inspections should be a dead giveaway.”

  “Well, that’s what you’re here to find out,” SAC Howard said with finality. He stood and Jarrett and Thayne did as well. “Here’s the address of where you’re headed. Our satellite office where Lafford and Sales work is in a trailer in Athens, but you’ll meet them out at the hospital in Bluefield where the surviving miner is.” He handed Thayne a slip of paper with an address, presumably of a hospital close to the Red Hills Mine. Jarrett looked at the address over Thayne’s shoulder.

  “I know where it is.”

  “Okay.” SAC Howard reached out and shook Jarrett and Thayne’s hands and the men spun on their heels, exiting the office. As soon as they were outside, they hailed a cab and headed back to the airport.

  ****

  Bluefield Regional Medical Center was ten minutes from Mercer County Airport where they’d taken a small commuter jet from Louisville. Jarrett and Thayne stopped by the car rental desk and picked up the keys to a four-wheel drive Chevy truck since it was the only thing they still had available at 8:00 p.m. The clerk behind the rental desk told them the airport was so small, there were only six vehicles available for rent at any one time and because it was late, the truck was all they had. As soon as Jarrett got behind the wheel of the silver truck, he felt at home. In fact, as soon as he stepped out of the plane, he’d felt at home. There was something about the sounds and smells of a small town that brought him right back to memories of his childhood. They pulled into the hospital parking lot and got out of the truck. A few minutes later they were taking the elevator up to the second floor where the volunteer at the reception desk had directed them. When they got off the elevator and stepped into an extremely busy hospital corridor, Jarrett was surprised.

  People stopped to stare at them and the minute he got a look at the milling crowd, Jarrett recognized many of them as miners. Most wore grubby soot-stained clothing, their faces smeared with sweat and blackened by coal dust. The air was filled with the scent of smoke and something Jarrett could easily identify as the smell of coal. Some held bottles of water and all wore overalls and boots. A few even had a smear of blood on the graying long underwear that peeked out of their shirt sleeves at the wrists. He wondered if all of these men had been involved in the rescue and recovery operation at the Red Hills Mine but it was fairly apparent that they had been. They were greeted with stares and even a few glares as they looked around for someone in charge. When two men walked up to them and flipped open ATF credentials, Jarrett was only slightly relieved.

  “Are you Special Agents Evans and Wolfe?” the shorter of the two asked.

  “Yes, I’m Evans and this is my partner, Special Agent Wolfe,” Jarrett replied. He reached into his jeans for his own credentials and showed them his badge as Thayne did the same. Sales and Lafford were dressed as casually as he and Thayne were and Jarrett was very grateful his partner hadn’t argued with him about changing into jeans and flannel shirts when he’d made the suggestion while still in the airport.

  “I’m Bud Sales and this is my partner, Clint Lafford,” the shorter agent said. He held out a hand and shook Jarrett and Thayne’s. His partner did the same. “We can talk in here if it’s okay with you.” He pointed to a door marked Doctor’s Lounge. “We’ll fill you both in on what’s been going on and then maybe you can tell us why SAC Howard called you two all the way from California.”

  Jarrett nodded grimly, not excited about having to step in to the other men’s investigation but knowing it was important to be honest with the agents right off the bat. He knew he’d be pissed if Stanger called in someone to investigate alongside of him and Thayne.

  “Thank you.” They followed the two men into the empty doctor’s lounge and closed the door. After they were seated across the table from Lafford and Sales, Thayne began explaining what they were doing there.

  “We were sent here to assist the two of you in investigating the mine accident. What can you tell us about it?”

  Sales frowned deeply. “First, tell us why outsiders—from a division across the damn country—were brought in to ‘assist’. We didn’t ask for help and we know these miners and this mine better than any outsider ever could.”

  Sales spoke with a native drawl and Jarrett could understand why the man was feeling territorial but he really didn’t care what either man thought. They were there to do a job and they could either do it with their cooperation or they could do it alone. “Have you ever thought that’s exactly why he thinks ya need a second set of eyes on this? Because you know these miners so well?” Jarrett asked honestly.

  Lafford snorted in disgust. “If Howard’s actually afraid that we can’t remain objective, why didn’t he pull us off the case entirely?”

  “Because you do know this mine well,” Thayne said. “You not only know the miners but the way the foreman runs the mine and the way the mine owner behaves when faced with safety concerns. You know the whole operation but he’s also concerned that you might not be objective when it comes to who you think contributed to the problems the mine’s been having. That’s not unusual. We’re here to help you investigate the disaster, not to investigate you two and the sooner you realize that, the faster we’ll get out of your hair and go home because we don’t want to be here anymore than you want us here.”

  Jarrett watched his partner closely as he laid it all out for the two agents. Most of what he’d said was true. They were there to investigate the job the two agents were doing but he was glad that his usually brutally honest partner had at least not blurted that out. To their credit, Sales and Lafford seemed to accept the straight talk as much as Jarrett hoped they would, had their roles been reversed. He knew it was hard not to be territorial, especially when the two agents had been living as part of the community just like SAC Howard had said. Sales and Lafford seemed to accept what Thayne said because they exchanged a glance and then leaned forward, relaxing their composure just a bit more.

  “Okay, fair enough,” Sales drawled. “Where do you want to start?”

  “Tell us what happened, beginning with the accident itself and then if ya don’t mind goin’ over the mine’s safety record with us, we’d appreciate it,” Jarrett said. “We understand there’s been several safety citations issued.”

  “Yeah, okay. Either one of you familiar with mining?” He turned to stare hard at Jarrett. “You sound like you’re from around here. You ever worked underground?”

  “Yeah, I’m from the area. It’s been more’n fifteen years since I was down in the mines but I spent a couple years working in one before joining the Marine Corps. I know how things work down there but for the sake of my partner here, maybe you can tell him what happened in more detail than y’all might take with me.”

  The two agents looked at Thayne and the dual expressions of suspicion shone all over both their expressions. Jarrett bit his lip to keep from laughing.

  “City boy, huh?” Lafford asked.

  Thayne blinked a couple of times and then nodded. “I guess you could say that. I’ll do my best to follow if you go into any deep explanations… you know, just so I don’t get confused,” he said, sarcastically. Thayne turned to look at Jarrett and rolled his eyes. Jarrett couldn’t stop himself from smirking.

  “What my partner ain’t tellin’ you is, he’s damn smar
t. He just don’t know the mines. So, go ahead and explain what happened.”

  “Okay, about one a.m. last night, five miners went down into the mine during a nonproducing shift to perform routine maintenance on equipment,” Lafford said.

  “I assume that’s routinely done at night when there aren’t any miners down there,” Thayne stated.”

  Lafford nodded. “Yup, that’s right. The Red Hills Mine used to have ‘round the clock shifts but what with the reduction in mining over the last eight years, the manager has laid off about a third of the miners and cut back production by nearly a quarter.”

  “That’s not balanced, though,” Thayne said, interrupting. “If they laid off a third of the workforce, they should have only cut back production by a third so how is it that they’ve cut back production by only a quarter? Are the two thirds of the remaining miners doing three quarters of the work?”

  Jarrett nodded. His partner sounded outraged. “That’s the way it goes in this industry, Thayne.”

  “But how can that be safe? If men are exhausted, that means they are going to make mistakes. Do they work longer hours or just faster?”

  “Both,” Sales and Lafford answered in unison.

  “But the union? How do they let the mine owner get away with that?”

  “The UMW makes noise about it but they know the men who haven’t lost their jobs are desperate to keep ‘em and they’ll work as long and as hard as they’re told to. Strikes used to be very common but the mine owner has the miners over a barrel and most out of work miners have no choice but cross the picket lines in order to feed their families. Things are much different than they were even ten years ago. If coal production was on the increase instead of a downhill slide, everything would be different. The UMW could ask for whatever they wanted for the workers and they’d get it. Unfortunately, the economy for coal mining is in a free fall.”

  Jarrett waved his hand at them and looked at Thayne. “Save your outrage for later, partner. We can discuss the fate of coal mining in this country for the next ten years but now, I wanna hear how the explosion happened.”

  Thayne looked furious but Jarrett knew his partner hated to see anyone being wrongly treated and his outrage wasn’t directed toward him at all. Thayne had such a deep-seated sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice, Jarrett thought it made him almost military in his way of thinking. A wave of warmth passed through him as he witnessed those emotions in his lover’s expression.

  “I’m sorry,” Thayne said to the two men. “Go on and tell us what happened with the explosion.”

  “Okay,” Lafford started again. “Of the five miners underground, three went off to do the maintenance on the equipment and two split off to remove roof straps from the ceiling in order to replace them. Of those two men, one was the afternoon shift foreman who’d stayed after with the other miner to work. They took an acetylene torch down with them. The section they traveled to was right beside a sealed section of the mine.”

  “I’m sorry,” Thayne interrupted. “A sealed section of the mine?”

  “That’s a section which has been worked out so they seal it up,” Jarrett explained.

  “I see. Go on. Sorry to interrupt.”

  Sales nodded. “So, it looks like they started cutting a section of metal roof strap with the acetylene torch and it caused an explosion, since they didn’t know there was an accumulation of firedamp in the mine.”

  “Firedamp?” Thayne asked.

  “Yeah, firedamp is a buildup of flammable gas found in coal mines.”

  “Methane right?”

  “That’s right,” Lafford said. “It accumulates in pockets of coal and the adjacent strata but when it’s penetrated, the release can trigger an explosion.”

  “Firedamp and the ignition of suspended coal dust by a spark are the two most frequent causes of explosions in mines,” Jarrett said.

  “But, if a mine has proper ventilation, firedamp shouldn’t be a danger,” Sales added.

  “So the ventilation was bad,” Thayne concluded.

  “Because of where the explosion was triggered, the suspicion is that one of the seals to the worked out section was cracked and leaking,” Lafford said, “So, the short answer is yes.”

  “Wow, so if the mine foreman fired up the acetylene torch to cut a roof strap, and I assume a roof strap holds up a section of roof, the flame could have triggered an explosion, right?”

  Jarrett smiled and nodded. “Yeah. That’s right, Wolfe.”

  “But methane stinks. Wouldn’t the miners have known it was too dangerous to begin work down there if they smelled it?”

  “The mines often smell like methane but unless an alarm sounds, miners feel the levels are safe to work, so they wouldn’t have even known it was unsafe until the explosion was triggered,” Lafford said.

  “How awful,” Thayne remarked, shaking his head. Jarrett watched the tight set of his jaw. His partner was deeply affected by this but then again, mine accidents had always pissed Jarrett off something fierce. Some miners lived in poverty with rough working conditions and the work was hard and dirty. Many died before they reached retirement age and some who did reach retirement age were plagued with health problems, despite modern medicine and safety measures in the mines. “Am I to assume the worked out section of mine is sealed to avoid explosions triggered by methane?”

  “Firedamp, yeah,” Lafford said. “The miners would have expected that methane would have built up behind the seals but it can’t be avoided. That’s what the ventilation is there for. But leaks from the seals wouldn’t have been anticipated if the seals had held. Miners are very careful when working around a sealed-up section for just this reason so if an alarm didn’t sound, it means the alarm system wasn’t measurin’ the amount of firedamp properly.”

  “So, it sounds like the ventilation system might have been sufficient, but no one could have anticipated a leaking seal,” Thayne said.

  “Anything’s possible,” Lafford replied. “It’s more likely a combination of insufficient ventilation on the working side of the mine and an accumulation of methane from the leak which had escaped into that area.”

  “In any case, the explosion killed the two miners instantly and resulted in the total destruction of the seals,” Sales said.

  Jarrett watched Thayne nod. “And the three miners who were working on the equipment?” he asked. “How were they trapped?

  “As best we can tell, as soon as the explosion happened, they immediately donned their SCSRs and tried to evacuate,” Lafford said. “Two of them were trapped in a different shaft by a minor cave-in and it looks like they periodically removed their SCSRs in order to communicate. Eventually, they succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. Only the one man survived and he’s in very bad shape.”

  “Sorry, what’s an SCSR?” Thayne asked.

  “It’s a self-contained self-rescue device,” Jarrett said. “Think of the tanks and face masks that firemen use.”

  Thayne eyeballed him. “Oh, I get it, okay. But what would make them remove the face masks to talk? They had to know that was dangerous.”

  “They no doubt knew it very well but we think there was so much smoke down there, it was nearly impossible to see to dig themselves out,” Sales said. “They were overcome and suffocated the same way someone trapped in a fire would.”

  Jarrett watched Thayne shake his head. His eyes were filled with anger and despair. “What a horrible way to die. They must have been terrified,” his partner said.

  Jarrett and the two other agents could only nod. “Only someone who’s lived through something like that can explain the panic they must have been feeling at first but eventually, the carbon monoxide from the afterdamp built up in their blood and would have left them lethargic, messing with their thought processes.”

  “So, afterdamp is some
thing different from firedamp?” Thayne asked.

  Jarrett nodded. “Yeah, firedamp is a flammable gas formed from a buildup of methane which caused the explosion when it was ignited, whereas afterdamp is the toxic gas mixture left in the mine following an explosion. That includes carbon monoxide. Basically, they just lay down to die because they literally couldn’t keep their eyes open and were too disoriented to care about findin’ a way out at some point,” Jarrett said. He watched Thayne’s expression morph into worry and he somehow sensed what he wanted to ask. Has that ever happened to you? To his credit though, he didn’t ask.

  “Have you had a chance to inspect the mine since the explosion?” Thayne asked instead.

  Both agents shook their heads. “It took the search and rescue party almost ten hours to locate them all. Harlan Sizemore, the man who survived, was only two hundred feet from the entrance to the mine and he was the first man found. The other two who were working on equipment were found a couple hours later eight hundred feet deeper into the mine buried behind the partial collapse, and the men at the seals were found last. It was determined they died almost immediately because they had extensive blast injuries and hadn’t moved from where they fell,” Sales said.

  Jarrett and the others glanced up when the door to the doctor’s lounge was pushed open. A man with a soot-covered face poked his head in. “Harlan’s comin’ ‘round. If ya wanna talk to him, now’s yer chance. After that, the doc says he’s gotta rest.” His face was unfriendly and he practically glared at the agents. They all stood up.

  “Thank you, Bert,” Lafford said. The man walked into the room.

  “This here’s Bertrand Middleton, the morning shift foreman,” Lafford said.