Chapter 47 - The Federal Subpoena
At eight-fifteen the following morning, Judge Rebecca Vance-Hawthorne (no relation to the family, but legendary throughout the Ninth Circuit for her zero-tolerance stance on environmental racketeering) slammed her gavel down in the Portland Federal Courthouse with a crack that sounded like a rifle shot.
"Counsel," Judge Hawthorne said, fixing her gaze upon Harrison Cross and the three senior partners from Pacific Mineral’s white-shoe defense firm who sat sweating in their bespoke three-piece suits. "In my thirty-two years on the federal bench, I have rarely seen a more egregious display of bad-faith corporate wildcatting."
Julian stood at the plaintiff’s podium, impeccable in his charcoal suit, with Cassidy seated directly behind him. Laid out across the evidence table were three items:
First: The original, certified 1978 Department of Defense Revocation Order, retrieved two hours prior from the Oregon City safe-deposit box, completely invalidating the 1964 Boreas lease.
Second: The certified water-quality test from the Clackamas County Health Department showing that the exploratory drill bit operated by Pacific Mineral had already cracked an unmapped pressurized line containing twenty thousand parts per million of toxic Aroclor 1254.
Third: The financial records from Donald Vance’s personal checking account, showing a direct wire transfer of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars from a Pacific Mineral shell company registered in the Cayman Islands—labeled unambiguously as *‘Consulting Fee: Acquisition of Surface Access via Forced Foreclosure.’*
"Your Honor," Pacific Mineral’s lead counsel stammered, his fingers shuffling wildly through a stack of useless preliminary motions. "Our client was acting in good-faith reliance upon the representations of Donald Vance, who presented himself as the sole surviving managing partner of the Vance Estate—"
"Donald Vance is a convicted petty embezzler currently subject to a five-year civil restraining order in this very county!" Judge Hawthorne snapped. "Your due diligence department could have discovered that in three clicks on a public terminal! You didn't rely on him, Counselor. You weaponized him."
She signed the paper before her with a heavy, deliberate stroke of an ink pen.
"I am issuing an immediate, indefinite Federal Preliminary Injunction enjoining Pacific Mineral Exploration Syndicate, its subsidiaries, agents, and contractors from approaching within one thousand yards of Parcels 104 through 112. Furthermore, I am directing the United States Marshals Service to seize the drilling equipment currently trespassing on the sanctuary land as instrumentalities of a federal environmental crime."
The judge looked directly at Harrison Cross, whose face had gone the color of skim milk.
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"And as for Mr. Donald Vance," the judge added coldly, "I am referring this entire file to the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon for an immediate grand jury indictment on charges of wire fraud, environmental endangerment, and interstate transport of stolen property."
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