“You snatch up the claims that McLeod lets lapse. But he keeps active the three he says will deliver big. And he’s registered these in the names of his kids. How am I doing so far?”

Moving ever so slowly, I laid the spade across my knees.

“McLeod buys it in his Cessna, so now it’s just the three bambinos.”

Fast was arcing the gun back and forth along the row of barrels, uncertain of my exact position.

“You and Tyne set up the Friends of the Tundra scam to get McLeod’s children to sign over what they think is worthless land to help save the caribou. Tyne is the front man. He never mentions mineral rights. Eric Skipper discovers the caribou preserve is phony and confronts Tyne. I’m guessing he also tips Beck. Whatever. Beck won’t play ball, so you cap him. Skipper also has to go. If he exposes the con, Nellie won’t donate the land.”

I kept goading.

“Very clever, your plan for Ruben. You know she’s not competent to sign over anything, so you bury her in the Montreal sheet world under an alias, planning later to have her declared dead. The claims will belong to sweet, malleable Nellie Snook, who loves the caribou. This tracking right so far?”

Fast was now two feet from the barrels. I could hear breath rasping in and out of his nostrils. See the Beretta trembling in his grip.

“When Tyne tells you Ruben is back in Yellowknife, you hightail it out here from Quebec. Time to up the ante on little Annaliese. We know how that story ends, don’t we, Phil?”

With icy fingers, I groped the ground around me. Found what felt like an old rubber glove.

“You also snuff the babies? That how the big, bad ice road trucker rolls?”

A shot rang out and roared down the tunnel.

The rock beside me sparked.

I felt a jagged prickling on the side of my face.

Now!

Keeping low, I tossed the glove to the far end of the barrels.

Fast moved left. Another round exploded from the Beretta.

I sprang from my end of the row and, death-gripping the spade handle, sliced sideways with all my strength, aiming for the pale swath of flesh between Fast’s collar and his helmet.

The blade connected with a sickening thunk.

Subsequent events exist in my mind as disjointed images and sounds. At the time, they seemed to go on for hours. In reality, the sequence lasted but minutes.

Fast windmilled forward, legs pumping. Finding no traction, he stumbled to his knees. The Beretta flew from his hand. His forward momentum sent him into the last of the barrels. His helmet popped off and landed upside down.

The barrel spun, careened off a wall, tipped over, rolled, and boomed against rock.