“I think I'm catching on,” I said, and shuffled another two or three unfolded maps aside so I could reach the bottle.
Around midnight she tossed the maps aside, looked at her notes, and said, “Brazos Bend. It's gotta be the Brazos Bend State Park. Or Lake Texana. But Brazos Bend is closer so I'll start there tomorrow morning. You take Lake Texana.”
“After I get some sleep and check out the last place at the plant I haven't looked at yet. Then I'll drive out to Lake Texana and capture our mystery man.”
* * * *
Maria called me just as I left the plant and headed west toward Lake Texana State Park. “I found him,” she said. “Space number one-twenty-one.”
“Great! Did he agree to see us?”
“I don't think so. Someone must have told him I asked for him and he went out the back way. Left fast too. The little trailer door was hanging open.”
“So you went in...”
“So I went in to close up—you wouldn't want wild animals to roam through your trailer way out there in the wilderness, would you?”
“Absolutely not. Find anything?”
“No snakes or crocs, but there was this scenario-looking book lying there, so I took it to keep the wind from damaging it.”
“Well, if it's for safekeeping ... I'll look at it tonight. And it's alligators, not crocs, in Texas”
“You can look at it when you pick me up. You know those little electric cars only get about eighty miles on a charge? And nothing here fits this car plug.”
When I finally opened the scenario late that evening, after recharging and returning my neighbor's car, it took me all of ten minutes to solve the mystery of how the plant was to be blown off the face of Texas. I called George at home, and before I could say a word, he said, “Glad you called. I know who one of the extortionists is. It's that guy from the Emergency Planning department—the one that they had to let go? Gruber.”
“How'd you find out?”
“One of the people in the EP department, who's in a position to know, told me.”
“Who, George? Who told you?”
“Can't tell you. I promised him anonymity. He's afraid one of the gang will shoot him in the back of the head too.”
It didn't sound right to me, but I let it go for the time being. I told him I wanted another plant tour, early the next morning. And I wanted an escort who would be an unshakable witness.
“What!” he said.
“A police officer would be ideal, if you know one with a plant clearance.”
“What!” he said again.
In the end, by telling him I had a hot tip, he agreed, so very early the next morning I went out to the plant and loitered around the entry gate. My escort turned out to be an NRC resident inspector, the junior one. We stood around in the parking lot, and I briefed him on what I intended to do. He nodded at all the appropriate spots; he already knew about the extortion scheme. When I finished, he grinned and said, “Just don't cause an incident or do anything that would make me shoot you.”
I laughed.
I quit laughing when he sent a nine millimeter Glock through the X-ray scanner, and he quit grinning when I sent through a pair of large diagonal cutters. I quit laughing because I didn't even know the NRC could carry weapons, and I think he quit grinning when he realized that I, too, was a tech.
We went into the zeppelin hangar-sized turbine building and on past the turbines to the generator section, where we stopped. I looked at the huge spinning bomb and prepared to climb all over it. I'd already told the resident inspector what I was looking for, so he stood back, arms folded, and watched me climb.
Turbogenerators of this weight and output generate more than electricity: They make a lot of heat. Hence the window wall to allow some heat to escape. It's also the reason for the cooling systems. The stator, which doesn't rotate but provides a path for the outgoing power, is cooled by water flowing through the center of its power-carrying conductors—and no, it doesn't short out.
Since it's difficult to feed water into something that's spinning at 1800 rpm, the rotor is cooled by a gas flowing through its space. That gas is hydrogen. Hydrogen is terrific for carrying away heat, but in concentrations between fourteen and seventy-five percent in air, it can also provide a hell of a fire, or an explosion. Power companies take great care to not allow hydrogen to mix with air. I was looking for something that was specifically designed to mix the two.
It took me almost thirty minutes to find it. It was a solenoid valve connected to the hydrogen supply line. I waved at the resident and he was there almost instantly. I pointed at the valve, the pipe it came from, and the large-bore vent pipe it would divert the hydrogen to if the valve activated. I pointed at the power wires to the solenoid. They led off in the direction of the nearby wall, zip-tied to an existing cable or two. A patch job, but everyone had missed it.
I pulled the cutters from my pocket and raised an eyebrow to the resident inspector. He shook his head and held up a finger. He inspected the solenoid valve, read its label and traced the power wires, then nodded.
I studied the power wires. Finally I leaned in and cut the blue wire. Then I shrugged and cut the other one too. Not much drama in this sort of thing when there's no countdown timer flashing at you. I bent the cut wires back out of all possible contact and put the cutters back in my pocket. The resident had traced a second set of wires coming from the wall-mounted intercom box back to the generator and waved me over.
The second set of wires fed a timer, set for ten minutes after power was applied to it, which would feed power on to a small device I had never seen before. I raised an eyebrow at the resident and he pulled the sound protector away from my ear and yelled “flare box” into it. Ignition source, I translated. I cut those wires too.
Back outside, where it was cooler and I could hear again, we sat down on a tall curb.
“Nice work,” he said.
“Same to you,” I said. “Suppose cutting that wire had vented all the hydrogen to the building?”
“Been an incident.”
“Could have asked the shift supervisor to lower the power.”
“Been a different incident.”
“Oh,” I said. “What if we hadn't found it?”
“Been an incident,” he said. “Right up there with Chernobyl.”
“Ought to track that intercom box power to its source,” I said. “Since the people doing this will show up there at least on the day after tomorrow.”
“Planned on it. Starting tonight, but we want the FBI to do it. It's their kind of thing; their responsibility. Besides, they'll probably want to set up a video filming site or two. Gather evidence of intent and all that.”
“Good plan,” I said. “They could probably get some good publicity out of it too. Tell them to start tracing that power at the box out at the pumping station on the Colorado River.”
The resident stood and stretched. “Why start way out there?”
“Because it's way out there. It's almost off the LoBRA property, has access from the river, and is a long way from where the explosion is supposed to occur.”
“Huh. We'll make it first on their list. See you there?”
“Wouldn't miss it,” I said, and allowed him to escort me back to the parking lot.
My cell phone was ringing when I got to the car. I quit wondering what I wanted to do with the rest of the weekend and answered.
“Forgot to tell you,” said George Taylor, “I'm having a barbeque here and you were invited. Wanta come over?”
“Sure, give me some directions and I'll be there soon. Anything I can bring?”
“That no-nonsense girl you were running around with? Bring her.”
“She wouldn't miss it.”
“You do any work this weekend? That deadline is creeping up on us.”
“Oh, a little. Drank some wine, found the bomb. I'll tell you about it when I get there.”
“Whaaat!” I heard him yell as I disconnected.
/> * * * *
Maria and I spent the next morning soaking up sun lying on my high deck. Neither of us mentioned white sand, but it was in my thoughts. I was also lazily considering making a pass when the damn cell phone rang.
“Mr., uh, Vlad?”
“Close. Who is this and what can I do for you?”
“Uh, I'm Chip. I used to work out at the nuclear plant, the big one, you know?”
“Chip?” A new player. I jotted his name on a notepad.
“Well, uh, I go by Chip. I saw a flyer somewhere that you were looking for a copy of the 2007 Emergency Exercise. And, I had one. In fact, I wrote most of that scenario.”
It took a moment to click. “Your last name wouldn't be Gruber, would it?”
“Why yes, it is.”
“Wonderful. Would you like to sell your copy? I can pay you well for it.”
“Well, that's the point. Someone stole it, but I remember all the details. Maybe, uh, I could brief you. For a lot less money than just buying it? If you're still interested?”
He was giving up, about to hang up.
“No, wait. Look, why don't you sell me one of the other copies? There must be dozens here and there.”
“No. There's no others. Bob, uh ... a friend of mine from the plant told me someone shredded them all a month or so ago. Every last one.”
“He say who did it?”
“No. Said it would be dangerous to talk about. I believe him—I mean, this morning's paper said my friend Arturo was shot out there.”
“How'd you know Arturo?”
“Oh, he was one of my system experts—for writing the details in the scenarios, you know—and we just got along. But I have no idea why he got shot. Nothing we were doing, I'm sure.”
Maria was sitting up and looking at me. I put the phone on speaker. “How's this?” I said. “You tell me what you remember about the scenario and I'll send you a fee to a general-delivery address. That safe enough?”
There was a long pause. Then he said, “You'd do that?”
“Sure, I trust you to tell me what I need to know.”
He cleared his throat and started. He gave me the reasons for the scenario, the number of tasks and skills that it was intended to test, and worked in the annual regulatory objectives that it had to meet. Then he outlined the action, hitting the evaluation coverage hard, and noting where all the exercise controller decision points were located in the script. I asked a few questions; few needed to be asked. It was an excellent briefing and it confirmed what I suspected: Chip was more interested in training than money.
“Is that enough?” he asked. “I can give you more details if you like.”
Maria was shaking her head. “No, that's more than enough. You seem to be pretty good at these things.”
“Well, the boss didn't seem to think so—he fired me right out of the blue, moved me all the way into Houston. I hated that place.”
“You working?”
Another pause. “Day labor. Just to get by. But I'm writing a book.”
“Good for you. Wanna give me a locality for that general-delivery post office now? I'll get a payment right out to you. And how about a phone number—just in case I've a question.”
He did, and we politely disengaged.
“So. Is he involved?” Maria said.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“If this man were involved, he wouldn't have used an old script. He'd have worked out a whole new one, complete with an analysis of what could go wrong, then prevented anything from going wrong. He looks at the entire problem and removes the snags; he's a strategist. Whoever's doing the extortion isn't.”
Maria nodded. “Probably find out tomorrow for sure.”
* * * *
Early the next morning, we went to the plant and were escorted to a conference room. It was set up with recorders and phone tracing equipment linked to George's cell phone. The NRC was represented and the senior resident was briefing them. Several well-dressed, somber men were standing around. I took them to be FBI. There was a very large TV screen on one wall. It was currently showing several shots on split screen. One was an exterior shot, showing a wide brown river moving right along. Another showed a stretch of swampy land along the edge of the river. The others showed different angles of the pumping station: close-ups of the intercom box, the parking lot, and the station door. Nothing was moving in any of the shots except the river.
The resident inspector finished his briefing and walked over to us. We talked a little about the setup and he said, “You were right about the power feed to the bomb equipment—right there in the pumping-station box. First place the FBI looked. They think we're geniuses. We told them who the genius really was.”
“You didn't give them my name, did you?”
He frowned, “Sure. Credit where credit is due—why?”
“Once before, they thought I knew too much about a case they were working. If they make the connection...”
“Sorry. How did you know where the power feed would be, anyway?”
“It's what I would do.”
George came up, touched Maria lightly on the elbow, said hello, and added, “We've a favor to ask. Do you think you could piss off, uh, make the extortionist angry when he calls for us to release the money? We'd like to see if he really intends to do us harm.”
“Me?” she said, touching her breast, “Everyone loves me.” She waited a beat, and then said, “Of course I can.”
“George,” I asked. “Where's your pay-em-and-get-on-with-it assistant manager?”
“I don't really know. He called early this morning and said something about a ‘family problem’ he had to take care of.”
It was one of the FBI agents who saw the extortionist first. He jumped up and started talking fast and low to his hand and I followed his gaze to the screen and saw the boat where a moment before there had been no boat. A man had disembarked and was striding—long strides—toward the pump house. He worked a key in the door, swung it open, and stepped inside.
He stopped near the intercom box and took two cell phones from his pocket, inspected them, and selected one. He punched a button on it and George Taylor's phone rang. George picked it up, looked at it through a ring, and handed it to Maria. She stood and let it ring three more times, and then she answered.
“Can you hold just a second? Thank you.” She held the phone down and watched the sweep hand on the wall clock make two full circles.
“I'm sorry, what may I do for you?”
“You can put George Taylor on the line, bitch.” The voice was tinny. Voice-masking, I thought. Through some form of video magic, the caller's words were also showing up in a crawl line on the big screen.
“Oh. Is this about that financial matter?”
“Right for once. Now put him on.”
“I can't do that. My company has contracted me to represent them in that matter. You may make your offer to me now, or wait until I mail my limited power of attorney to you.”
“Get that money en route now! Right now, or I'll take out the plant.”
“Isn't that—” began someone in the back of the room.
“Shhhh!” said George, and the room grew quiet.
Maria waited twenty seconds, and then said, “I'm sorry, sir. We've done a stress analysis on your voice and feel that you are bluffing. There will be no money transferred.”
“Put Taylor on the line right now!”
Maria held the phone away from her as she watched the sweep hand on the wall clock. After forty seconds, she put it back to her ear. “I'm sorry sir, but he does not wish to speak with you.”
The screen image threw down the phone. We heard it hit. Then he stomped over to the intercom box and yanked open the door. He picked up a small, tape-wrapped pushbutton wired into the box and viciously jabbed the button. Then he glanced at his watch and went outside. There he stood and faced east—toward where we stood watching him. He checked his watch over and over.
Of course, I thought, he's waiting for the ten-minute delay to build the explosive mixture.
Twelve minutes after he had punched the button, the caller spun and headed for his boat, only to find a man in a blue windbreaker with yellow letters on it sitting on his gunwale, shotgun across his lap.
The extortionist turned and ran toward the station, only to see another blue jacket coming from behind it. He veered and plunged into the swampy area, his long legs pumping high and splashing madly. The camera focused there caught his actions going away. As he plowed through an area of tree and brush litter I saw movement and something lurched up from its nest.
It's never a good idea to run through an alligator's nest, but especially not this time of the year. The mama alligator stood swaying, looking after the long-legged beast that had destroyed her household as he moved farther away. Then she went after him.
“Geez, I didn't know they could move that fast,” someone said.
“Shhhh.”
George Taylor stood and took a step toward the screen. “Isn't that—”
“Grayson,” said several people around the room.
“Oh, my. She's got him,” said someone in the front of the room.
“Boy, has she got him,” said one of the FBI men.
When the alligator began dragging the body toward the deeper water, most of us got up and left. I met Maria in the hallway.
“You knew it was Grayson, didn't you?” she said, as she walked up to me.
“Well...”
“How did you know?”
“He lied to us. He told us all the exercise events got mixed in his mind, but he had been quoting details from twenty scenarios for a half hour or more—with hardly a glance at them.”
George walked up. “You guys are great,” he said. “Even if you did leave me without an emergency planner.”
“I might be able to help with that,” I said, and handed him a card with Chip's name and phone number on it. “Call this guy and ask him to come in for a job interview. I think you'll be surprised.”
George glanced at the card, nodded at me, and tucked it away. “Thanks, I'll do that. And the FBI just told me they matched the third set of prints on the plastic bag to Grayson. Easy to do if you're told where to look, I guess. Looks like you two were right all along—he used Jimmy and Arturo, then dropped them out of the equation. Anyway, you saved us a lot of money and damage today, so come by tomorrow afternoon and I'll give you a fee you'll remember a long time.”
AHMM, September 2012 Page 7
