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of Colville. Got permits, hardware on site, financing in place, but some members of the tribal council are claiming that the land use was never put to a vote."
     
    "Known malcontents?" I asked.
     
    "No, actually," Art sighed, "that's what's odd. I do a lot of res-related stuff and the static always seems to come from the 20-30 something activist types. Not this time. One of the people there is a woman…and 78 years old."
     
    "What's your client's take?" I probed.
     
    "He's a good dude," Art yawned. "He'll drop a project in a hot minute rather than disrespect a legit group of locals. But he'll also go to the mat if it's just a bunch of your chronic complainers, so he needs to know."
     
    "Well, Art," I mused, "much as I like you and much as I love your money, sounds like something one of your law clerks could do by phone or e-mail."
     
    "Yea," he said tentatively, "but there's something else…fishy about this."
     
    "Fishy how?"
     
    "Fishy from…well, from my guy's end, frankly," Art murmured.  "Like I say, he's some of the money in this deal. About 40% to be precise.  Another 10 is a couple of first-timers from Spokane, Dr. and Mrs. Clay Wright. He's a newly-retired plastic surgeon, about 55, from Burbank, California, married to the daughter of a good pal of mine, Gene Kasten, whose family is old, old, timber and land money.  Wright is worth about what Janie is, which is to say that they can comfortably afford their 10 percent, which amounts to about $25 mil."
     
    "Pshew," I yelped, "$250 mil gonna be quite a layout."
     
    "If it gets built," Art chuckled dryly. "The real hang-up in this deal is the third partner. This is a new outfit called PPV, short for Pembroke Property Ventures, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the British paper manufacturers, Pembroke & Hawkes, Ltd."
     
    "The ones who make about 20% of the currency stock for the entire world," I filled in.
     
    "Yeah, you're good," Art laughed." I never heard of 'em in my life 'til this project fell in may lap, but that's the deal."
     
    "Hmmm," I chuckled. "Paper company diversifies into property – read as 'Land – Acquisition' - jumps into a project in Colville, on some of the only old-growth timber in that corner of the state that's not protected national forest. Who would suspect anything there?"
     
    "Gets worse," Art sighed.  "Part of the development—a pretty big hunk, actually—cresses over into federal land. As you might suspect, the Bush Administration ain't exactly sending out the marines to protect 12 square miles of forest in some remote area of Washington State. I asked my guy about land use rights to that area and he sorta shrugged and said, 'Well, Pembroke took care of that.'"
     
    "I did a little job for the Sierra Club a few years aback. Never joined, but they send me their newsletter every month. Not a word in there about this," I mused.
     
    "From what I hear out of Colville, the earthmoving hardware and crews slid in there in the dead of night, like some commando operation. The camp is really out there a ways, so nobody is seeing or hearing anything. The only trouble so far was a couple of hikers who were following one of the old trails from a 1910 guidebook, and were approached by a couple of what they reported as looking like National Park service employees, but with 'wrong' uniforms. Had some stylized 'P' on the breast pocket, presumably for Pembroke. They were told, in a friendly but very firm way, that the old trails were closed and that those machinery noises were 'park improvements.'"
     
    "No park service employee would refer to national forest as a park," I observed.
     
    "That's what our hikers said," Art replied. "Nothing strictly illegal, since they weren't actual park service uniforms, but still…"
     
    "Tried to give that impression," I nodded. "Fishy."
     
    "My guy thinks so," he answered.
     
    "Something I'm not getting, Art," I yawned. "Why does your guy get in bed with somebody he doesn't know to begin