Horse Creek Lemonade

By FA Shepherd

Horse Creek Chemical Company is struggling to remain solvent due to the arrogance and incompetence of a former president. Chemicals from kudzu including a new biofuel promises to ease the companies money problems, but an accident in their pilot plant may dash those hopes. When a former employee is brought back to investigate the accident he discovers drugs, terrorists and a moonshining operation that only adds to their problems. The unorthodox methods their new head of plant protection and security uses to get rid of the drugs and terrorists may cause even bigger problems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456746179

FA Shepherd

FA (Freddie) Shepherd is a retired research chemist, retiring from Tennessee Eastman’s Research Laboratories in 1992. After retiring he began spending his winters at Bob’s Landing in Florida, his summers in a house that he built himself on TVA’s Cherokee Lake in East Tennessee and doing some traveling. He was in Moscow in 1995 for their 50th anniversary celebration of the end of WW II. He also traveled to Great Britain and did some short term mission trips with Crossroads Missions building houses and churches in Mexico. He is an army veteran with service in Germany in 1958, and was in the Tennessee National Guard for more than 10 years. He has been a member of Colonial Heights Christian Church for more than 40 years. He now lives in Gray, Tennessee and enjoys playing golf and writing. Freddie has a way of seamlessly blending history with fiction and some of his own experiences to weave a variety of partly truth and partly fiction stories and tales. The Secrets of Hickory Hollow is his third book. Visit oldshepbooks.com for details about his other books.

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Prologue

Horse Creek Chemical Company is struggling to remain solvent after a former president nearly bankrupted the company. He ignored all advice and continued to expand the company into areas where it was not needed. This resulted in an oversupply in the market place and the bottom fell out of prices. The lower prices were less than the cost to produce the products and the company was losing millions. As a result they had the first ever in the history of the company layoffs and cutbacks. When he was forced to resign, Sean Harris was brought in as the new CEO to clean up the mess. He had a reputation as a no nonsense administrator and could be heavy handed when he needed to be. His bringing in minorities to help reduce labor costs caused a lot of hard feelings and brought out prejudices that some folks didn’t even know they had. Soon after that rumors were rampant about drugs and terrorist cells at Horse Creek. While Sean was busy shutting down and selling off plants that were no longer needed Charles Goins a company VP was busy trying to shore up moral and upgrade some of Horse Creek’s decaying infrastructure. When two new construction contracts were given to Mexican companies Horse Creek became a powder keg just waiting for someone to light the fuse

Horse Creek’s research and development group was about the only good news they had. When it was announced that a biofuel that would free Horse Creek from dependence on foreign oil had been discovered there was reason to be optimistic and the future looked bright. Then an explosion and fire in the research pilot plant dashed those hopes. Because of all the rumors everyone blamed the accident on sabotage. They had planned on making eight pilot plant runs of what had been named CZ2010 to both collect data for a plant size scale up and to build up a working inventory of the biofuel. They were in the middle of the fifth run when the explosion and fire destroyed not only all their records and equipment, but the computer models and programs as well as part of their inventory.

Frank Hoover the director of R & D was one of the most feared men at Horse Creek. Very few liked him, and almost no one trusted him. However, he probably was their most competent chemist and everyone in management thought he was one of their most loyal employees. While the rest of the plant was struggling during those lean years Frank saw to it that R & D was not affected by any of the layoffs. In fact, Frank had managed to add several jobs during that time. When the cutbacks came Frank saw to it that it was from top to bottom. His and all other managers salaries were cut right along with all the others. He also was the loudest voice against all the minorities. None of them worked in his R & D and he intended to keep it that way. He had butted heads several times with Sean over this issue. After the fire he was like a mad man trying to get the plant put back together and had vowed that heads would roll over all the records being lost. Only one man knew that the records were not as lost as everyone thought they were. He had them stored on his computer’s hard drive but wasn’t about to let Frank know that, not yet anyway. John Wilder had come to work for Horse Creek as a chemist and through some political maneuvering and apple polishing had worked his way into Frank’s confidence. He had become Frank’s trouble shooter.

Over Frank’s objection Southeast Industrial Accident Investigators had been retained to investigate the fire and explosion. Frank didn’t see the need to have an outside firm doing the investigation and did everything in his power to keep them out. Because of Frank’s reputation this had caused some to question whether or not Frank might have had something to do with the fire. Southeast had sent Bill Arnold to do the initial evaluation. Bill had spent almost five weeks gathering information and testing theories about the fire. He had written his initial report, but had agreed to give a verbal presentation to several members of lower management who would not be getting the written copy. Bill’s initial investigation had raised almost as many questions as it did answers and he had agreed to stay on until those questions were resolved. He had gone out of his way to avoid any contact with Frank during his investigation and thought that he may have gotten away with it until he saw Frank walk into his presentation.

Chapter 1

Frank and Bill

Bill and Linda

What is CZ2010

The fire started in a control panel on the second floor of Building 109. For those of you not familiar with this building it was or is one of the most versatile buildings in the research complex. It was designed to be a two story structure with two separate floors on one side of the building and on the other side of the building it is a large two story tall room where most any configuration of processing or manufacturing equipment can be installed. For the CZ2010 project the top floor contained all the control equipment and some of the computers for operating the still. The still and related equipment was two stories tall and took up most of the room on the other side of the building. The bottom or ground floor under the control equipment was home to all of the control consoles and computers where the operators ran all the equipment from. Also, the computers that were gathering and storing all the run information were in that room. The extra space on the floor around the cook pot and base of the still was used for drum storage for the distillate. Since the fire when it first started was confined to the inside of the control console on the office side of the building it did not set off the automatic sprinkler and alarm system. It did however ignite the vapors that had been leaking into the ventilation system for the past few hours and that set off the first explosion. That explosion and fire traveled through the ventilation ducts into the next room where it tore out the ceiling and tore off the top of the still which then exploded destroying everything in that room including the solvent and fuel drums that were stored in there. Some of those drums contained part of the biofuel inventory the pilot plant had been producing. In fact, over half of all of the biofuel that had been produced was stored in that room. Even if the sprinkler system had been activated it is doubtful that it would have made any difference since the vapors probably would have been ignited before the sprinkler system could have put out the fire. The vapors that caused all this devastation had been coming from the plumbing that had been put in place to carry the biofuel distillate from the cooling system at the top of the still to the collection system on the ground floor. A section of the pipe went past the ventilation intake vent and a joint in the pipe there had started leaking. Not a bad leak but just a drop every once in a while that over time had caused the vapors to built up to a critical level. The shift the day before the explosion had noticed the odor and tried to get rid of it but did not try to find out where it was coming from. The pilot plant operator was the only person on duty in the building at the time and he was not actually in the building. He said he had stepped out to go to the bathroom. The other operator that would have been in there had taken his supper or breakfast, whatever you call it on the graveyard shift, break. By that coincidence no one was in the building and no one was hurt.

By the time the firefighters arrived the building was totally engulfed. As a result they went into a containment mode instead of trying to extinguish the flames that were still coming from that building. By that time anything combustible had been consumed and most of the fire was coming from the burning solvents and fuel anyway. Although this resulted in the complete loss of that building it did save the surrounding buildings and prevented an even more devastating explosion. The building next door was connected to 109 by a breeze way and was not more than ten feet away. The wall of this building next to the explosion was heavily damaged, but since most of the explosive force had gone up through the roof of 109 the building was not damaged as badly as it might have been. This single story structure was being used as a storage facility and the mixing equipment that was used to prepare the mash for the still. The pumps and plumbing to move the mash from the mixer to the still were also in that building. In addition it contained over one hundred drums of solvents and chemicals that were needed for the mash, and about half the inventory of the biofuel. If the fire had of gotten to that building probably about half of the pilot plant would be gone now along with several lives. The firefighters did one hell of a job keeping that building cool and the fire away from it. They did put a lot of water on building 109 in order to contain the fire and that water helped keep the building cool enough so that most of the equipment was still recognizable. Had it not been for that, the fire was hot enough so that at least some of the equipment would have been melted. That would have made the investigation more difficult, if not impossible. Because of that I was able to reconstruct a lot of the equipment and that was invaluable in my investigation. Had this been a plant sized operation the still and equipment that caused the explosion would have been outside and any leaking fluid would have evaporated without harm. However, this equipment was assembled for a special pilot plant operation and was placed indoors for that reason. Circumstance had as much to do with this explosion and fire as anything else. One thing that hindered the firefighters at first was the reaction soup that had been in the pot. When the still top blew off it ruptured the pot and several hundred gallons of this chemical mix spilled onto the floor where it was ignited and was now running down the street like a river of fire. When the firefighters first arrived their first priority was to contain this fire and determine what this fluid was and if it was toxic. When someone told them what was in that storage building they started wetting it down immediately and all that extra water made the job of containing the spill that much more difficult. However, even if they had started fighting the fire inside the building as soon as they arrived the outcome probably wouldn’t have been any different.

As Bill finished his presentation and started to ask if there were questions Frank Hoover came through the door. Good of you to join us Frank someone in the back of the room said. No one in the room had noticed the look that had passed between Frank and Bill when Frank came in. Before he even sat down and Bill could finish asking if there were any questions Frank was already talking. I read your report Frank said to Bill and I have a few questions about it. This would be the time for that Bill said. Well for starters Frank said, just how did you arrive at the notion that a fire started in a control panel and that was what caused the explosion? As I said in my presentation that room was pretty well destroyed, but since most of the equipment in there was metal it was not burned, just beaten and bent up by the explosion. It took some doing, but I was able to examine the control panel Bill said. Since its insides were burnt far beyond what the condition of the outside of the control panel indicated they should have been was a pretty good indication that there was a fire on the inside of that panel. Also from questioning the people that worked in there I learned that they had been having problems with one of the control panels and had turned in a work order to have it checked out. I also found out from them about the noticeable odor of fumes in the control room. One shift the day before had even placed a fan in there to get rid of the odor. I think that probably a relay switch shorted out setting fire to some insulation. Most of the damage was confined to the other room where the still had been and the drums were stored so I was able to get a pretty good idea of what happened by examining what was left of the control equipment. In other words its part of my job to know what I’m talking about and this is the most explaining I’ve ever done to justify my credentials. What a bunch of malarkey Frank said. You’re still just as full of crap as you always were. He started to say something else, but before he got a chance Bill stood up and said I had to take your shitty abuse one time Frank, but I don’t have to take it now. As far as I am concerned you can go to hell and before Frank could reply Bill was out the door. John who had made the remark about Frank joining them looked around and said to anyone who wanted to listen, what was that all about? Frank was still trying to recover his composure as he got up and left before anyone could say anything else. As Bill was getting in the car Frank came out the door and hollered at him. Bill didn’t want to have another confrontation, at least not just yet, so he told his driver to ignore Frank and take him to Charles’ office.

In addition to his duties as a vice president Charles or Charlie as he was known to his friends had also recently become the head of the plant protection and safety department at Horse Creek. He had been the one that retained Southeast to do the explosion investigation and had insisted that Bill be the investigator. It wasn’t that Southeast had more expertise in these investigations or that Bill was any more competent than other investigators. He had chosen Southeast because Bill had at one time worked for Horse Creek Chemicals. When Bill got to Charlie’s office he didn’t even pause when Linda, Charlie’s secretary, tried to tell him that Mr. Goins was busy. As Bill came through the door Charlie was just getting off the phone. Why don’t you just come on in and have a seat he said to Bill and before Bill could get to a chair he added, you want to tell me your side of what happened. I just got off the phone with Frank. Ignoring the remark, Bill asked am I working for you or for Frank? You’re working for me Charlie said, but that was Frank’s pilot plant that was destroyed, so you and he are going to have to get along. We never did, so what makes you think we can now Bill said? Are we going to start that stuff all over again Charlie asked? That will be up to

Reviews for Horse Creek Lemonade

[amanda0bookbuzz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Horse Creek Lemonade Has It All Suspense, Action, & MysteryA mix of corporate life with mystery and suspense, Horse Creek Lemonade is a surprising thriller that will leave you speechless. The plot is magnificent and characters are believable. This book could easily become an action packed movie on the big screen!