Tanner pointed to a narrow channel up ahead.
“You see that?”
She nodded.
“That’s a lock. It can be sealed off and either flooded or drained to raise or lower the boats.”
“Like a water elevator?”
“I suppose.”
She shook her head in amazement.
“With as smart as people were, how did we end up like this?”
“One of our smart inventions got loose. That’s how.”
“Because of Dr. Jarvis,” she said, referring to the scientist who released Superpox-99 upon the world.
He shook his head. “If it hadn’t been Jarvis, it would have been someone else. We were at the breaking point. He was just the one who picked up the hammer first.”
“Ooh, look!” she said, pointing to two towers poking above the trees. Their distinct hyperboloid shapes left no doubt about their use. “The nuclear plant. It’s over there.”
He nodded. “We’re getting close.”
Not yet having found a timepiece that suited her distinctive sense of style, Samantha leaned over to check Tanner’s wristwatch. There were no numbers on its dial, only luminous markers, and she struggled to tell whether it was time for lunch or time for bed.
He slipped it off his wrist and passed it over to her.
“Just wear it already. You need it more than I do.”
Samantha studied the watch. It was as unique as it was large. The Kobold Seal had a disproportionately thick case, with stubby lugs and a wide ratcheting bezel that made it look like a ship’s porthole. Everything about it shouted rugged and dangerous. Perfect for Tanner. Not so much for a ninety-five-pound girl.
“It looks expensive,” she said. “Who’d you steal it from?”
“Who says I stole it?”
Samantha tipped her head forward in a way that said “Who are you trying to kid?”
“It was what you might call an involuntary donation.”
“Involuntary because you took it after beating someone to a pulp?”
He shrugged. “Can’t recall at the moment.”
“Uh-huh.”
Samantha flipped the watch over. An inscription was carved into the caseback.
The Sopranos
1997–2007
“Rest in Peace”
Thank you,
–J.G.
“Look,” she said, tilting the watch toward Tanner. “This belonged to a famous singer.”
“Not quite,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s a collector’s watch from James Gandolfini.”
“Who?”
“You know. The guy who played Tony Soprano.” He waited for any hint of recognition. When there wasn’t one, he cleared his throat and tried to imitate the famous actor’s Italian Jersey accent. “What kind of person can I be, where his own mother wants him dead?”
Samantha cringed. “His own mother wanted him dead?”
“Not in real life. In the show.”
“Oh. That’s better, I guess.” She held the watch out to him. “Here. You can have it back.”
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Now that you told me about his mom wanting him dead, it sort of creeps me out.”
“That’s ridiculous. It was just a television show.”
“Still, can’t chance it.”
Tanner slipped the watch back around his wrist. While it may have reminded Samantha of a scornful mother, for him the rugged timepiece brought to mind the show’s notorious “cut to black” ending. He had always taken it as Gandolfini’s way of saying “Screw you, it’s over,” and Tanner secretly hoped that one day he might be fortunate enough to exit with an equal measure of grace.
“If we’re lucky,” Samantha said, disrupting his train of thought, “we might be on our way back home before it gets dark.”
“Maybe,” he said, knowing full well that neither of them could find luck in a patch of four-leaf clovers.
Tanner drove the Power Wagon out onto the bridge, easing past an abandoned service truck with its hood propped open. No one was inside, and it looked like it had been there for some time. He continued on, crossing the three-thousand-foot dam without difficulty. When they arrived at the far side, they came upon a building that looked like a miniature air traffic control tower. Behind it sat an electrical substation filled with transformers, capacitors, and transmission lines.
Samantha pointed to the maze of electrical equipment.
“Is all that to power the dam?”
“Other way around. The dam generates electricity.”
“How’s it do that?”
“They let water flow through to spin giant turbines. That makes electricity.” He nodded toward the substation. “Those little doohickeys distribute it to nearby towns.”
“Doohickeys?”
“What do I look like, an engineer?”
She studied him for a moment.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to envision you with thick glasses and one of those little pocket protectors.”
“And?”
“Honestly, it’s a little scary.” She giggled, and he couldn’t help but join in. “If the dam generates electricity, why can’t someone just turn it on?”
He nodded toward the nuclear towers.
“Unlike the plant, they probably don’t have generators or batteries large enough to open the dam’s control gates.”
“Let me get this straight. Without electricity, the gates won’t open. And without the gates open, the dam won’t generate electricity.” She shook her head. “That’s nutty.”
“What can I say? The electrical grid was the big honeypot that made everything possible. Take that away, and everything suffers.”
“Hey,” she said, turning to him with excitement in her eyes. “Maybe we could get the dam working.”
“And how are we going to do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s a hand crank to open the gates. You know, some kind of manual control.”
He reached over and patted her leg.
“A man and his daughter can only do so much. Remember that. Let’s do what we came to do and get back to Issa.”
She took one last look at the big power station and nodded.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. Knowing our luck, we’d end up creating some kind of electricity monster.” She opened her eyes wide and shook from side to side, making a bzzt, bzzt sound.
He cracked a smile. “No doubt we would.”
They continued ahead another quarter-mile, approaching the turn that led down into the plant. To their surprise, several pickup trucks blocked the road, and armed men stood guard. Most wore mismatched combat fatigues, but a couple simply had on blue jeans and long-sleeved cowboy-style shirts. All of them carried AR-15s or long-barrel shotguns.
One of the men stepped forward and held up his hand.
Tanner immediately slowed the Power Wagon.
“What do you think they want?” Samantha said in a worried voice.
“Looks like a simple roadside check. I don’t think they’re looking for trouble. But just in case…” He slid the shotgun under the front of his seat. “Stay ready.”
She nodded. Her rifle was too big to hide from view, so she laid it across her lap with the muzzle pointing out her window. It seemed doubtful that half a dozen men armed with semi-automatic rifles and shotguns would be overly concerned by a twelve-year-old girl holding a squirrel rifle.
Tanner brought the truck to a stop, and the man stepped closer. He wore a dark gray baseball cap displaying two crossed muskets and the words “Tennessee Watchmen.” A Velcro patch above his pocket read “Combs.”
“Where you folks headed?” he said, leaning in to rest both forearms on the windowsill.
Tanner put on his best good-ole-boy smile.
“We’re on our way up to Cookeville. Heard there’s work up that way.” He glanced behind the man at the cooling towers. “You boys guarding the plant?”
“Something like that.” He eyed Samantha, and she offered a timid smile. “Is this your dad?”
She nodded. “All my life.”
The man looked from Tanner to Samantha and then back to Tanner, obviously searching for some resemblance. Other than two eyes, two ears, and a nose, there wasn’t any.
Samantha said, “I look more like my mother.”
“Lucky you.”
She smiled. “Believe me, I tell myself that every day.”
Combs cracked a smile.
“It all right if we go on our way?” asked Tanner.
“You betcha.” He stood up and motioned to the others to let them pass. A couple of the men hopped in trucks, moving them aside to create a narrow passage. Combs patted Tanner’s door. “Watch yourself. The roads can be dangerous.” He glanced back in at Samantha. “Especially for a young girl.”
Tanner nodded his thanks and eased the truck through the barricade. He continued another half-mile before turning off onto a small service road. When he was certain that he was out of sight from the highway, he stopped and shut off the truck.
“Combs seemed friendly enough,” said Samantha.
“That’s because he was the one holding the gun.”
“Maybe. Did you see his hat?”
Tanner nodded. “Tennessee Watchmen. Must be some sort of patriot group.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“On whether they’re the type of patriots who love their country, or the type who hate their government.”
“I’m guessing that the first ones are good, and the second ones are bad?”
“Not necessarily. But armed men who believe their liberties are being stomped on by an oppressive government tend to take things too far.”
“Oh.” She considered that for a moment and then smiled.
“What are you smiling at?”
“I was just thinking that sounds a lot like you.”
He chuckled. “I suppose it does.”
She looked in the direction of the nuclear plant, but the trees hid the towers from view.
“Why would they be guarding the plant?”
“To keep folks out, of course.”
“I get that. But why would they want to keep people out?”
“That, darlin’, is what we’re going to find out.” Tanner slid his shotgun out from under the seat and opened his door. “Get your stuff together. We’re going to hike in and get a better look at things.”
Samantha climbed out and slipped on her knapsack.
Tanner took a moment to rummage through a toolbox in the back. When he straightened, he was holding a pair of linesman pliers.
“What are those for?”
“Can’t a man carry a pair of pliers?”
She furrowed her brow. “If he’s heading to fix a car, maybe.”
He slid them into his back pocket.
“Trust me. These babies can do a lot more than fix a car.”
The hike from the small turnoff to the outskirts of the nuclear plant was a good hard mile. The distance by itself wouldn’t have been so bad had it not been for the unforgiving brambles snagging their shirts and biting at their flesh.
“I remember now why I hate hiking,” Samantha said, picking off a long vine covered in prickly thorns.
“It builds character.”
“Getting poked by thorns builds character?” she said, obviously not buying it.
“Sure it does. It reminds us that nothing comes easy.”
She wrinkled her nose as she pondered that bit of wisdom. Before she could think of a suitable comeback, they pushed through the thicket of trees and found themselves staring at the western face of the Watts Bar Nuclear Facility.
“Whoa,” she said, marveling at the size of the plant. “It’s ginormous.”
The tree line was several hundred feet from the outermost fence, but even at that range, the two cooling towers loomed in the distance like the tailpipes on a ’71 Plymouth Road Runner.
Tanner took a long moment to study the plant’s layout. Parking lots butted up against the north and west sides, and a sprawling switchyard covered with metal framework, distribution lines, and other electrical equipment lay to the south. The enormous cooling towers were on the far side, and their corresponding reactor containment buildings resided at the center of the facility in distinctive dome-topped structures.
Samantha pointed to the southeast. “You can see the river from here.”
He nodded. “They built it that way in case they needed to pump water into the reactors. River water probably isn’t ideal for cooling nuclear materials, but anything’s better than having them turn to radioactive mush.”
“You mean radioactive sludge,” she said, echoing Dr. Laslow’s colorful description.
“Call it whatever you want. It’s dangerous stuff that’s best kept underwater.” Tanner studied the plant a moment longer. “Over there,” he said, pointing. “Workers.”
Samantha leaned forward and squinted. She could just make out a dozen or more people, all in matching navy-blue uniforms, crossing a courtyard set between two buildings. A handful of Watchmen stood nearby, watching them with rifles in hand.
“They’re being held prisoner,” she said.
“So it would seem.”
“There are more guards over there.” Samantha pointed to a pair of men on patrol to the south. “And there,” she said, spotting another group. By the time she finished, she had counted five different patrols, all circling inside the fenced perimeter that surrounded the heart of the facility.
“Fifteen men on guard duty, plus half a dozen more watching the road. Figure another dozen inside, plus a batch for night guard duty. That means we’re probably dealing with at least fifty of them.”
“But why would the Watchmen take over a nuclear plant?”
“Don’t know.”
“Maybe they’re planning to blow it up!”
Tanner shook his head. “Finding one person with a death wish is hard. Finding fifty is all but impossible. These men have something else in mind.”
She leaned against a tree. “Too bad we can’t just ask one of them.”
Tanner stared at her as if she had just solved Conan’s Riddle of Steel.
“What?” she said. “What’d I say?”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Even if we captured one of them, he probably wouldn’t tell us anything.”
“Depends on how nicely we ask now, doesn’t it?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh no, what have I done?”
Tanner figured their best bet was to slip inside the fence line, hide out until dark, and then grab one of the guards. The fact that the Watchmen traveled in pairs didn’t concern him too much. In his experience, a little surprise was more than enough to put two men face down in the dirt before they could put up much of a fight. Penetrating the perimeter, however, required getting through a razor-wire-topped fence. And that was precisely why he had brought along the linesman pliers.
As soon as the closest patrol was out of sight, he and Samantha raced up to the fence. Starting at the bottom, Tanner used the pliers to snip two three-foot-long vertical cuts. Samantha stood behind him, sweeping the area with her rifle.
“Hurry,” she prodded.
“Almost there,” he said with a grunt, as he cut through the last link. “All right, let’s go.” Stepping back, he pulled the flap of fence toward him so that it created a gap for her to crawl through.
“Neat,” she said, scampering under on all fours. “It’s like a giant pet door.”
When she was clear, he pushed the flap toward her.
“Pull it your way.”
She grabbed the strip of fencing and pulled it back, doing her best to create a gap large enough for him to squeeze through. By the time he was on the other side, he was bleeding from scratches on b
oth forearms.
“Sorry,” she said, eyeing the thin streaks of blood.
“Don’t worry about it.” He pushed the flap of fence back in place, confident that it would pass a cursory visual inspection by the guards.
“There!” he said, pointing to a large five-story building. “Quick as you can.”
They ran toward it, slipping in through a side door that had been propped open for circulation. A stairwell led up, and another door led deeper into the building.
They stopped for a moment to put together a plan.
“What’s that smell?” Samantha asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Machine oil.” Tanner put his hand on the wall. The entire structure reverberated with a low hum. “Must be generators inside.”
She stepped closer to the interior door and peered in through its window.
“Are generators giant motor-looking things?” Before he could answer, she suddenly ducked down and became very still.
Tanner instinctively squatted. “What is it? What’d you see?”
“Someone’s in there.”
“They see you?”
“I don’t think so.”
Tanner crept up to the door and peeked through the dingy glass window. An operator stood next to a giant piece of machinery, tapping on a big round gauge. A second man in camouflage pants and a black t-shirt stood behind him, looking over his shoulder. The operator was clearly nervous, no doubt due to the short-barrel rifle pointed at his back.
“Should we find a different place to hide?” whispered Samantha.
“No need. These guys are as good as any to give us some answers. Let’s see if we can get them to come out into the stairwell.”
“Okay, but how?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard.” He looked around. “You go up the stairs far enough that you’re out of sight. Once the guard comes out, get the drop on him. Sound good?”
She shrugged. “Not great. But okay, I guess. How are you going to get him to come out without shooting you?”
“Oldest trick in the book.”
“They wrote a book on this stuff?”
“If only. Now go on. Up the stairs.”
She turned and hurried up the stairs.
“Tanner?” she called back in a loud whisper.
Dark Days Page 14
