Cam - 03 - The Moonpool

by P. T. Deutermann

  Where was Trask? Running to his boat? Had Billy moved the boat around to the inlet canal for easier access? Not possible—that would take too long. So where was Billy? He’s busy, Trask had said. Busy doing what?

  Behind me I sensed lights. When I turned to look, I saw two security vehicles coming full tilt in my direction. Okay, someone in the control room had pulsed the system about one of their people down at the tailrace. What people? We don’t have anyone down at the tailrace. It’s them.

  I hit that hole in the fence and struggled to get through. It was easier without my vest. Once through, I ran as fast as I could as the two vehicles came screeching to a halt inside the fence. I was into the trees before they had a chance to climb out and position their weapons. Just in case, I hit the deck as soon as I was out of sight, and a good thing, too, because some eager beaver cut loose with a burst, which showered bits of trees all over me. I was tempted to shoot back, but these were still just security guys doing their jobs. I crawled diagonally through the weeds until I was pretty sure they’d lost interest. Hopefully they hadn’t brought any dogs, and would now be asking Control if they had authority to go outside the fence.

  I trotted through the woods, which were getting darker the farther I got from all the lights at Helios. I swerved to my left to regain the towpath along the canal, swatting branches out of my face, and unlimbering that Colt as I went. After five minutes, I stopped to regain my breath and check out the gun. It was an M4 6920, a law enforcement model, and a beauty of an assault weapon. I made sure it was ready to work, and then resumed my advance through the woods to where we’d left Trask’s boat. I wondered if it was smart to be running out here in the open area of the path. About the time I thought maybe I should divert back into the woods, Billy the Kid stood up in the path, pointed some kind of short-shoulder weapon at me, and told me to stop right there. One of his eyes was swollen shut, but the other one radiated true rage.

  If that guard hadn’t said something about Billy shooting my dogs, I might have reacted properly and stopped in my tracks. Instead I looked at him and then said, “Hi there, short-eyes, fucked any little boys lately?” As his one working eye widened, I screamed to further distract him and then ran full tilt into him, the butt of the Colt held at face level. I stabbed the stock into his forehead before he could even think about pulling his own trigger, and then, as he staggered backward, a waterfall of blood blinding him, I kicked him in the crotch. Hard. Fourth-down punt hard.

  He gave a mortal grunt of pain and pitched forward to his knees with a gagging sound, and then I struck down with the butt of the Colt and put his evil young ass firmly on the ground. It was all I could do not to shoot him. Instead, I took some deep breaths, and then I delivered four precise kicks to the so-called charley-horse points on his arms and legs. That would ensure limb paralysis when and if he came to.

  I took his weapon and pitched it into the canal.

  Trask, I reminded myself. Find Trask. You can’t know what this is really all about until you take Trask.

  I started trotting down the towpath, into increasing darkness, now that Billy had been neutralized.

  Big mistake. What had Trask said when I asked him where Billy was?

  Busy.

  I hit the tripwire at full tilt and went flying, legs ensnared in something wiry and my body arcing through the air until I was hanging upside down from a tree limb above the towpath. As I twirled in the air, I looked around frantically to see who’d come to gloat.

  Nobody came. I could see the lights of Helios from over the treetops, but the ground spinning below remained dark and silent.

  I unlimbered the M4, got it into shooting position, even though I was upside down. Come on out, sumbitches, and see what happens. But nobody came out of the woods to declare victory.

  Okay, I thought. Engage brain and get your ass down.

  It was harder than getting under that fence. The blood was pooling into my head, and my brain resisted doing anything useful.

  I took another look around, still saw no one in the dark woods, and started bending myself into a U-shape. I finally got ahold of the wire, which had been thoughtfully greased for my climbing enjoyment. Busy Billy, indeed. But where was Trask? Watching from the woods? I didn’t think so. And the fact that Billy was lurking on the trail leading back to the boat told me that the boat might still be there.

  Get down, get to the boat, and wait for Mr. Trask.

  Sounded like a plan to me.

  A wire noose had my right foot in a tight vise. I was bent double, holding on to my right foot, since the wire was slipperier than owl shit. I couldn’t climb the wire.

  Swing. Swing until you can grab the branch, I thought.

  And that’s what I did—I induced a broad swing, doubled up in the shape of a climber’s carabiner, until I could reach out and grab the branch from which the wire was suspended. After that, I could release the noose, and then use the noose to swing myself back down and drop to the ground.

  My arm hurt, and now my ankle hurt. My pride hurt. I was no closer to Trask. That big siren was still wailing at Helios, and I had a fleeting vision of Tony facing off with the cast of thousands dealing with the moonpool. I think I was the one better off.

  I tried to remember where Trask’s boat had been anchored, how far down the outlet canal. I decided to walk, not run, and this time stay inside the woods line instead of on the path. I became more careful of what else might be waiting for me. Trask had thought ahead of me all the way here, and it probably wasn’t over.

  Twenty minutes later, I caught a glimpse of the Keeper, still anchored out in the outlet canal. There was a bow wave visible at her stem as the current from the condenser jets pushed downstream toward the Cape Fear estuary. I’d forgotten to check to see if that partially deflated dinghy was still in its tree.

  No matter. There was the boat. Still no lights. Still no signs of life, and no Trask. Okay, then: What’s the plan? Billy wasn’t going to be able to come out and play anytime soon, so: Swim out there? Or play AT&T, and reach out and touch someone?

  I settled down on the dark bank of the canal. It was cold now. That was good. Evil reptiles were still dying upcountry. I unslung the M4, leaned against a tree trunk, and waited. The siren was not as loud down here in the woods. Surely they’d found a way to refill that pool by now. So why was the siren still going?

  It was late and I was one cold, weary bastard.

  What in the world had Trask been thinking? That he was going to get away with this? Cause chaos at a nuclear power plant and then casually stroll into work the next day, see what was shaking? Hi, guys, I need to make a statement?

  Technically, it didn’t make sense to me, even if I was technically ignorant when it came to nuke power plants. On the other hand, he’d rolled a terroristic bowling ball into a clutch of bureaucratic tenpins: the NRC bureaucrats, who loved nuclear power but had to live a split-personality life in their regulatory personae; the power company, providing the only source of totally nonpolluting electricity, except when something went wrong; the FBI, suspicious of everybody, painfully aware of past failures in intelligence and counter-terrorism, and now seeing wild-eyed, virgin-obsessed rag-heads under every truck; Homeland Security, at war with the terrorists, the flying public, and the FBI; and don’t forget the benighted local cops—state, county, city—trying hard to live right while the federal host maneuvered all around them, often creating as much chaos as they were untangling.

  Trask may have had it right. Don’t execute an actual terrorist plot. Ignite a bureaucratic calamity. Make it seem as real and scary as possible. These days, in a complacent country, the perception of terror would be indistinguishable from the real deal, at least until the pregnant lady in the headscarf walked into the day-care center and pulled the wire hidden under her burkah.

  I looked out at that boat. For some reason, I was convinced that he was there. He was probably sitting on that comfortable screened deck, having a drink, and smiling in the dark. His
Billy Boy was taking care of business out there in the woods. His primary antagonists were in custody at the plant, trying to explain to a bunch of outraged nukes what they were doing there. The locals were cowering in their houses as the plant siren proclaimed that there was an invisible Destroyer abroad in the countryside. As he figured it, all he had to do was wait until daylight, and then appear back at the plant and add to the confusion.

  I settled into what shooters called the sitting position, even though I did not have a marksman’s sling. The Keeper was perfectly aligned with the center of the outlet canal, broadside to me, its anchor line taut in the tailrace current. I aimed the M4 at the waterline of that lovely old boat, took a deep breath, and opened single fire. The noise was shocking, even one round at a time. If there were any fishermen out there in the dark, there’d be some frantic pulling of engine cords going on about now.

  The M4 shoots what looks like a small round, 5.56 mm, but that little bitty bullet has a great big powder case behind it and travels at the speed of heat, squared. I started at the bow and worked my way back to the stern, stitching a dotted line of holes right at the waterline, inch by inch, until the magazine was empty. The sudden silence was dramatic. On the outside, the holes would be tiny punctures, but inside, they were probably the diameter of a coffee cup.

  Then I scrunched back into the woods, reloaded, and waited. The Keeper didn’t do anything, at first. I wondered if Billy had come to yet. If he had, he was probably praying for unconsciousness to return right about now. I actually thought about going back there and doing it all again. That kick would have gone eighty yards, easy. I looked back at the boat.

  She hadn’t moved from her anchored position out in the canal, but I could see her deck now, barely tilting toward me. I moved behind a stout tree just in case Trask decided to get one of his guns and rake the bank. But there wasn’t any movement out there. No emergency lights, no sudden starting up of engines or bilge pumps. Nothing, just more and more deck coming into view as she began to heel over.

  I missed my shepherds. They should be out there in the woods now, making sure no one was creeping in on me. It was quiet enough for me to hear pretty well, but still, not like they could.

  Quiet?

  I realized that big siren had gone off the air. Good. They must have their moonpool problem under control. Or the last guy leaving the plant had turned it off as he ran for his life out the door. I couldn’t detect any wind, which was probably a good thing.

  Keeper was really listing now, and I thought I heard some stuff inside falling over. Her port side railings were in the current, the stanchions lifting tiny individual bow waves of their own. The anchor line was also at a much flatter angle as she settled. One hole in a boat can be dealt with; thirty holes cannot. The water finally reached the rear hatchway, and a minute later, she went completely over with a lot of creaking noises and a couple of big vents of air from inside the hull. She flopped upside down for a few seconds, and then she went out of sight, leaving only a long trail of bubbles in the current.

  Current.

  The plant was still running, or there wouldn’t be any current.

  I relaxed just a bit, not that I’d really been afraid of some big radiation release. Much. Still, there was always a chance that the moonpool had not been the main event. Trask might even be up there in the plant, pretending to help, ordering his security forces around while Moira went after the main reactor control systems and I sat out here in the cold darkness, thinking I was doing something worthwhile. Maybe it was time to just get up, find my vehicle, and go home. Tomorrow would be a very interesting day, to say the least.

  But I didn’t do that. If Trask had been on the boat, he was now out there in that black water, maybe holding on to a cushion from the main cabin. My guess was that he would deliberately drift downstream until clear of the shooter on the bank, and then come ashore for a little one-on-one. Or, being smart in his crazy way, he’d go to the other side and simply walk away

  I was sitting behind a tree twenty feet or so from where I’d done the shooting. I decided that I needed to move downstream, in the direction of the current. Movement was dangerous, though; an old Ranger like Trask would get to the bank and then cling there like a crocodile, listening hard. If he was coming this would be a battle of sound, because it was pitch-dark out there now as even the ambient starlight was gone. But I still needed to move, because otherwise, if he came to my side of the canal, he could get behind me. That was not a happy thought.

  I rolled slowly to my right, holding the M4 out in front of me, and began the tortuous process of inchworming my way through all the litter on the forest floor, one elbow forward, the corresponding hip forward, then the other elbow, and so on. Foot by foot, I crawled in the downstream direction, parallel to the canal banks, orienting myself as much by smell and sound as sight. That was a strong current out there. If Trask had gone into the water about the time she began to keel over, he’d have been swept a hundred feet or more downstream before he could achieve either one of the banks.

  If he was even out there.

  He was out there. I sensed it, and I wanted it.

  I almost collided with a large white pine tree, from the smell of it. Its fragrant, heavy branches swept out over the ground in all directions, and I’d crawled under them without even knowing it. I was tempted to stop right there; it was good cover. The blanket of pine needles under the tree would deaden any sounds I made, and besides, I was really tired.

  I got close to the trunk, conscious of a zillion tiny insects moving around in all those pine needles. Even in the cold, the chiggers would be waking up about now, the mother of all blood meals right on top of them. My cheek touched the trunk and was rewarded with a dollop of pine sap.

  Sap running? In November?

  I turned my face full on to the trunk, brought my left wrist up, pointed my watch at the trunk, and flicked on the tiny light. There was a very fresh gash on the trunk, which was weeping sap. I quickly covered the light just before it winked out, and then began to roll over onto my back, a degree at a time, while trying to get the M4’s barrel pointed in the up direction.

  “That you down there, Lieutenant?” Trask called from somewhere way up in the canopy.

  “You bet, Colonel,” I said. Did he still have that shotgun? “Sorry about the boat.”

  “Not as sorry as you’re going to be,” he said. His voice was muffled by all those pine branches, so I had no idea of precisely where he was. I considered just emptying a clip straight up, but the tree was much too dense, and I only had the one clip left.

  “Billy’s not busy anymore,” I said. “In case you were waiting for some reinforcements.”

  “He dead?”

  “No, just wishing he was. One of the guards told me he shot my dogs.”

  “You bring an extra mag for that Colt?” he asked.

  “Two, actually,” I said.

  “Bullshit,” he said. “We only issue one in the weapon and one on the side.”

  “Tell me, Colonel,” I said, while I tried to think about position. It was comforting to be next to the trunk, but I was completely blind, and, in fact, a shotgun blast straight down the trunk had a better chance of getting a hit than I did through all those branches. I started to move. “What was all this really about?”

  “My contribution to the war effort, like I told you before,” he said. He was speaking amiably enough, but there was strain in his voice. He knew this was endgame.

  “Won’t work, you know,” I said, gaining another few inches of distance from the trunk. It was hard, moving on my back while keeping that weapon pointed up in the direction of potential business. Pine needles were dropping into my eyes as I moved, and that wasn’t helping.

  “That siren said otherwise,” he said. Was he moving, too? Could he hear any changes in the location of my voice? How high was he?

  “No, I didn’t mean that you didn’t scare ’em,” I said, “but they’ll never admit it.”

 
; “They’ll have to,” he said. “I spun up too many different agencies before we hit the pool itself. They’ll tell on each other just to cover their asses, and that’s how it’ll come out.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I was about one-third of the way from the trunk to where the branches began to thin out. “That’s one of the benefits of all this new coordination and cooperation. And it’s the one situation where bureaucracies always cooperate: to cover their collective asses.”

  “Where you trying to go, Lieutenant?” he asked. “You move out there in the open, me and Mr. Greener here will have your ass.”

  “We got each other, then, Colonel,” I said, but I stopped moving. “As I remember, the branches thin out up there in the air.”

  “Depends on which tree I’m in, smart-ass.”

  Now, that hadn’t occurred to me. Pine trees came in groves, didn’t they. He could well be up another tree. Except for that gash in the tree trunk. Keep him talking, see if you can locate him.

  “Tell me something else, then, Colonel: What’d you have on Thomason?”

  “He murdered his sister,” Trask said. “I found out.”

  “How’d he do that?” I asked. Should I come all the way out from under those big branches, or perhaps change sector? He’d get a shot if I was in the open, unless, of course, it was a dense grove and there was no open.

  “With a bottle of water,” Trask said.

  What did he just say? I felt my brain blink.

  I heard him bark a short laugh. “That get your attention, Lieutenant?”

  It certainly had. “Allie Gardner?”

  “The one and only,” he said. “I correlated a key card swipe with a radiation hit on a hall monitor. Had him cold, so to speak.”