Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel by Mike Doogan

percent, are pretty solid citizens. Married, sending their money home, doing their jobs and happy to have them. Hell, some of them even moved their families out to Devil’s Toe so they can go home to mama when their shift’s over.
    “The twenty percent, though, are a different proposition. They’re just blue-collar bums, moving from job to job whenever somebody needs a truck driver or a mechanic. They’ve been drawing a good paycheck long enough to forget what it’s like to be out of work. And they’re getting tired of the job. Can’t blame them, really. It’s tough work, especially in winter. Plus they just don’t like being in one spot too long. They get twitchy.
    “So they’re acting up more. Drinking, fighting. It’s only a matter of time before one of them maims somebody or decides if he can just get away with the payroll he’ll never have to work again.”
    “You’re worried about your own employees robbing you?” Kane asked.
    “I don’t think any of them would try anything,” Simms said, “except for those people over in Devil’s Toe. That’s just a bad lot over there, and when they get tired of taking the mine’s money one paycheck at a time, they’ll try something. That Big John, he looks like a fellow who would do anything, and he’s smart enough to plan something that could work. Give him the right inside man, and there could be real trouble.”
    Real trouble could cost Simms his job, Kane thought, so he might be overreacting to the situation. But probably not. Simms wasn’t the best man the department had ever produced, but he was usually steady. So if he was this antsy something was probably up. And, judging by his gate guard, he didn’t have first-rate help.
    “That was Lester Logan out at the gate, wasn’t it?” he asked.
    “Yeah,” Simms said, “but what can I do? The good cops want to keep being cops.” He noticed Kane’s look and said, “No offense, Nik.”
    “None taken,” Kane said. “So, to sum up, you’re nervous but not about anything specific, and I’m here on other business. So why am I talking to you?”
    Simms stood and walked to the door.
    “For one thing, you’re here to meet the mine manager,” he said. “Why don’t you follow me?”
    They walked down a short hallway and entered a conference room. A fellow in his mid-forties, with dark, curly hair and wearing a suit and tie, stood at one end of the table. Clumped together along one of its sides were a half dozen or so Asian men in dark suits, white shirts, and dark ties. Some were grayer than others. Several wore glasses. But on the whole they seemed much more alike than different to Kane.
    “Ah, Simms, you’re just in time,” the curly-haired man said. “I was just about to fill our visitors in on the Pitchfork mine. Why don’t you and your guest sit down?”
    “Well, ah, Mr. Richardson,” Simms said, “Kane here isn’t really a guest in that sense.”
    “Nonsense,” the curly-haired man said. “The more the merrier. I can always use a bigger audience. Sit. Sit.”
    With a shrug, Simms sat. Kane followed suit. For the next half-hour, the mine manager explained in great detail, aided by a PowerPoint presentation, the workings of the Pitchfork mine. One of the younger Asian men murmured a translation as he talked.
    “Not many people know,” Richardson began, flashing a photograph of five men, each holding a gold pan full of nuggets, “that most of Alaska’s mines are not hard-rock but placer operations. Placer means they use water. There used to be placer mines here, but the Pitchfork is what’s called a hard-rock mine, an open-pit mine. Essentially we dig a big pit in the ground and mine the ore out that way.”
    He flashed a photo of the mine taken from the air, a big gouge in the ground with the mine buildings down in the left corner. Then he was off on what was obviously a well-traveled trail:
    “Most modern gold mines are mom-and-pop operations that use low-power explosives,