Power Down

by Ben Coes

  A group of men, shell-shocked from the events of the past half hour, lined up at the trailer.

  “Let’s get the heaters going first,” Savoy ordered. “Line them up every ten feet or so, in a circle. Then we’ll pass out blankets.”

  Soon, the heaters started to flare up and a makeshift assembly line went to work. Men carrying blankets came out and started to pass them out.

  Savoy approached one of the men setting up a kerosene heater, a foreman named Ned.

  “I have to leave now, Ned,” said Savoy. “I want you to take charge. Can you do that?”

  He looked at Savoy then looked at the crowd. He closed his eyes for a moment, then said, “I’ll do it.”

  “A plane’s en route,” said Savoy. “Keep everyone warm. Huddle around the heaters. The heaters will burn for thirty hours or more. They’ll be here long before that, I promise you.”

  Savoy passed through the crowd.

  “Are there children who don’t know where their parents are?” he asked. A few hands went into the air; a teenage girl with curly brown hair, a small boy no more than five or six years old, a dark-haired girl of three or four who stood alone, in shock. “Let’s bring them with us,” he said to Kimball. “I’ll get the little ones.”

  Savoy walked back to Ned. “We’re taking some of the children. If we missed anyone, if there are children without an adult, assign an adult to them. Don’t leave any kids by themselves. Got it?”

  Ned nodded.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Kimball. Aslan, the second-in-command, began to follow them back to the airstrip. “You’re staying here,” Savoy told him.

  Aslan stopped and looked at Kimball.

  “We need two crew,” said Kimball. “You know that.”

  “I’ll take the risk,” said Savoy. “Now let’s go.”

  “What, you think I had something to do with this?” said Aslan.

  “I don’t have an opinion and I don’t care what you think,” Savoy said. “You’re not coming. Get over it. Go help get blankets on the women and children.”

  A few minutes later, as the Gulfstream took off, Savoy looked at the three children. The boy was asleep. The teenage girl had her arm wrapped around the shoulders of the little girl. They looked startled.

  He picked up the satellite phone and dialed.

  “Spinale.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Mounties are on the way. Won’t be there until sometime after midnight. They scrambled a C-130. Should work on the big airstrip there.”

  “Good work. Did you lock down the nukes?”

  “Done. We established level-two protocols.”

  “Are you telling me the reactors are still at full capacity? The job up here was done by insiders. Shut the facilities down. Now.”

  “Got it. Let me put you on hold.”

  Savoy sat back and shook his head. He closed his eyes and rubbed them.

  The phone clicked on again with Spinale’s voice.

  “Done. Sorry about that.”

  “No apologies. After we get off I want you to get all employee manifests at the plants. I want all employees of Middle Eastern descent identified.”

  “What then?”

  “Let’s ask Jessica. Personally, I’d lock them up and ask questions later. But get her on the phone for me.”

  A few clicks came over the satellite.

  “Jessica Tanzer.”

  “Jessica, it’s Terry Savoy.”

  “Terry, how are you?” asked Jessica.

  Savoy had known Jessica Tanzer, the head of the FBI’s office of counterterrorism, for more than a decade. Jessica was Savoy’s main point-of-contact within the FBI on all matters concerning KKB security. Because the company owned and operated thirteen nukes, Savoy abided by a complicated set of regulations, security protocols and reporting frameworks that meant nearly constant government interaction. Savoy liked her. She was smart, quick, efficient—and unafraid to make decisions.

  “How am I?” asked Savoy. “Let’s just say I’ve been better, Jess. Did Spin bring you up to speed on what happened up here?”

  “Yes, he did, but I’m still trying to absorb it. Where are you now? Are you on your way to Washington?”

  “Yeah, and I have three kids with me. They’ll need care when we land.”

  “Go to Andrews. We’ll have someone there for the children. Are they all right?”

  “They just lost their parents. One of them can’t be more than four years old.”

  “We’ll take care of them. I’ll have a chopper to bring you downtown. Tell me what you know.”

  “Two maintenance men. Mirin and Amman. I can’t remember their last names. Corporate will have them. Been here a while, over three years, embedded. I saw the blueprints. They planted some sort of powerful explosive in one of the turbines.”

  “Did you keep the blueprints?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they write anything down on the blueprints?”

  “Lots. Arabic, looks like. I saw the letters ‘OC’ dash nine in a couple of places.”

  “ ‘OC nine’? I’ll run that by our munitions people.” She paused a moment. “Has Spin told you anything?”

  “About what?”

  Another second’s hesitation. “Capitana’s been destroyed.”

  “What? Colombia? The Anson field?”

  “Right. We don’t know if there are any survivors. Another massive explosion like yours, this one at the seafloor. The platform was destroyed. That’s all I know.”

  “I was supposed to go down there next week,” said Savoy, shocked, trying to catch his breath. “What about the nukes?”

  “Nothing. We have them locked down. Not just KKB’s. Every nuke in the U.S.”

  “You need to do more than lock down,” said Savoy. “These guys were insiders. You need to shut down, and look for suspects who fit the profile.”

  “Can you get us employee manifests?”

  “Got them,” Spinale chimed in. “You’ll have them in a few seconds.”

  “This was done by embedded employees,” said Savoy. “Long-timers. We’re not talking about guys hopping on an airplane with a box cutter. These guys worked here nearly five years.”

  “Got it. Hold on.”

  The line went silent for half a minute, then Jessica clicked back in.

  “Okay, Terry. We’re reaching out to the other facilities. We’re shutting everything off. We’ll talk about how we profile when you get here.”

  “Now is when they’ll run,” said Savoy.

  “Or maybe it’s even past time,” said Jessica. “I hear you.”

  “I don’t think you do. We don’t have time to talk about profiling. You need to do it, take the suspects in, and ask questions later.”

  “We can’t do that. We have a little thing called the Constitution you may have heard about.”

  “Don’t use that crap on me. They attacked us. Don’t let them use our laws to protect themselves. What’s the first right listed in the Constitution? Life.”

  “We’ll work the profile,” said Jessica. “We’ll discuss what to do with them when you get here. End of discussion.”

  “Has anyone notified Marks?” asked Savoy.

  “We’ve been trying to reach him,” said Spinale. “He’s in Aspen. There’s something wrong with his phone.”

  “I can send someone from Denver,” offered Jessica.

  “I’ve got Aspen police going up there,” said Spinale.

  “When you get him on we should reconvene,” said Savoy. “We’ll need to brief him. The Anson people too. I’m assuming you’ll handle the folks in Washington.”

  “We already have an interagency task force set up: FBI, NSA, Energy, DOD, the White House, CIA, et cetera.”

  “Okay.”

  “I have to drop off,” said Jessica.

  “Let’s regroup in thirty minutes,” said Savoy. “I’m on Kimball’s satellite. You have the number?”

  “I have it,” said Spinale.
r />   The line went dead. Savoy leaned back in his seat. His head was spinning. He stared at the liquor cabinet on the Gulfstream. He pulled out a bottle of scotch, Talisker, which Marks had made sure every KKB jet had in stock. Savoy poured a small amount into a glass, two fingers, sniffed the scotch, and took a large sip. The warmth rushed through him like a gentle wave. He tossed down the rest of the glass.

  Savoy stood up and walked to the cabin.

  “What’s our ETA?” asked Savoy.

  “Two and a half hours away,” said Kimball. “Crossing into the U.S. in forty minutes.”

  “Take it into Andrews. I’m getting a ride into town.”

  Savoy walked back to the leather sofa in the cabin and sat down. The children were asleep. The satellite phone rang.

  “Savoy.”

  “It’s Spin. I’ve got Jessica. Hold on.”

  The phone clicked.

  “Hi, guys,” said Jessica. “How close are you?”

  “Two and a half hours. Anything more on Capitana?” asked Savoy.

  “We have approximately a hundred survivors. Apparently there was a hostage-taking before the explosion. There may have been some sort of battle before the explosion. It appears the Montana, one of Anson’s oil tankers, was also destroyed in the blast.”

  “Christ,” breathed Savoy. “How did anyone get away? Did the bombers—”

  “Whoa,” said Jessica. “That we don’t know. We’ve barely begun rescuing the survivors much less starting to interview them. I have to run, the director’s on hold. I’ll see you in a few hours. Fly safe.”

  Jessica’s phone clicked out.

  “I have something, Terry,” said Spinale.

  “What?”

  “I spoke with the head of security at Anson. The gang chief on the rig, one Dewey Andreas, filed a report yesterday; three men died this week aboard the rig. He blamed it on ethnic tensions. I’m getting a copy of the memo and I’ll forward it to you.”

  “Okay.”

  Savoy hung up and returned to the cockpit. “I’m going to try and shut my eyes for a moment or two.”

  “Got it.”

  He walked back to the cabin and sat down in one of the big leather chairs. He shut his eyes.

  The next thing he felt was the wheels of the Gulfstream touching down in Maryland. He walked to the back and went into the bathroom, splashed water on his face, brushed his teeth. The kids had slept through the landing. In the cockpit, he picked up the blueprints.

  “Nice job,” Savoy told Kimball. “Sorry you had to fly it alone. He’s probably perfectly innocent. But we couldn’t take any chances. They’ll want to debrief you. Make sure the children are taken care of before you leave.”

  16

  J. EDGAR HOOVER FBI BUILDING

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The chopper flight to FBI headquarters took fifteen minutes. Savoy followed the agents across the roof of the building to a doorway held open by a uniformed guard, HK MP7 machine gun at his side. They took an elevator to a floor below ground, then a hallway to another doorway guarded by another uniformed guard with a machine gun.

  Savoy entered the room.

  In its middle stood a long, rectangular table surrounded by a dozen people. On the walls a series of large flat screens showed a variety of scenes. One Savoy recognized as satellite images of Capitana Territory, the rig now only a red and black plume above dark ocean. Another pair of screens displayed satellite photos of Savage Island Project, first before the explosion, with a thin man-made line across the image that Savoy knew to be the dam, then a live-feed shot of the bombing’s aftermath.

  A clock on the wall read the time: 4:48 A.M.

  “Hi, Terry,” said Jessica Tanzer, walking across the room toward him.

  Savoy hadn’t seen Jessica in at least a year, and the sight of her walking across the conference room gave him the first calm feeling he’d had all night. She was a true pro and projected a sense of self-confidence, despite her young age.

  Savoy had always liked her, found her to be smart and honest. It didn’t hurt, at least in Savoy’s mind, that she was also beautiful. Now, at almost 5:00 A.M., she looked as beautiful as he remembered her, even more so. Long auburn hair, a stern expression on her face, but with a hint of her Irish grin plainly visible beneath the icy demeanor. She took Savoy’s hand, shook it, then patted the back of it with her other hand. “Thanks for coming. Let me introduce you to the team assigned to the investigation.”

  “Before you do that, can you update me on the rescue efforts in Canada?”

  “The Mounties are en route. The first plane had mechanical problems and had to land in Nova Scotia. They sent another C-130 up.”

  “Can DOD send one, just to be sure?” asked Savoy. “It’s below zero up there and they have limited kerosene. Can we really rely on the Canadians?”

  “I’m with you. In fact, we asked the Mounties to send two planes this time, which they agreed to. They’ll be okay.”

  Savoy nodded and took a seat. He looked around the table at the dozen other people seated around the big mahogany table, ten men and two women.

  “You want some coffee?” asked Jessica.

  “Sure. Black.”

  “Introduce yourselves,” said Jessica.

  “Vic Buck, CIA,” said a bald man with a friendly face.

  “Antonia Stebbens, Department of Energy,” said a tall women with red hair and glasses.

  “Louis Conner, FBI,” said another bald man with a beard and glasses.

  “Reuben McCarthy, FBI,” said a tall man with blond hair and a mustache.

  “John Scalia, White House,” said a young African American.

  “Rick Ennis, National Security Agency,” said a gray-haired man.

  “Jane Epstein, Defense Department,” said the other woman, a brunette with short, cropped hair.

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” said Savoy, interrupting and looking around the room. “But I don’t need to know who you all are, do I? Just tell me what you need from me.”

  Everyone looked around the table, their gazes finally setting on the young female head of counterterrorism.

  “I guess what I mean,” Savoy continued, “is who’s in charge? How do you make decisions? For example, I think you should take every single Middle Easterner who works at either KKB or Anson, or at any nuclear power plant in the United States, into custody. Who decides something like that?”

  The room sat in silence until John Scalia, from the White House, cleared his throat. “We’ll have to work out the proper protocols for decision making. Something like that would, I believe, have to go up through FBI with White House clearance, probably involving the president.”

  “Time is passing,” said Savoy. “Either they’re getting ready to strike again or they’re not. If not, you will have been safe and you can apologize later. But if you wait, there’s a chance they’ll do more damage than they’ve already done.”

  The room sat in silence again.

  “Let’s review where we are,” said Jessica. She nodded to the blond-haired man, Reuben McCarthy.

  “Sure,” said McCarthy, standing up. “Savage Island was destroyed by a synthetic explosive called octanitrocubane. This is serious stuff, designed by a professor at the University of Chicago less than a decade ago but never operationalized in any real quantities.”

  “Until now,” said Jessica.

  “Until now, that’s right,” continued McCarthy. “It’s almost twice as powerful as octogen, the state-of-the-art compound used by U.S. military.”

  Savoy nodded, pulling out the blueprints and passing them to Jessica.

  “Theoretically, octanitrocubane is the most powerful nonnuclear explosive on earth,” added Rick Ennis from the NSA. “But it’s hard and expensive to make; even DOD has had a difficult time synthesizing it. NSA was certainly unaware of any rogue able to synthesize it in attack quantities.”

  “What about Marks and Anson?” asked Scalia.

  “We’re trying to contact them
in Aspen,” Jessica replied. “No answer yet.”

  “Still no answer?” said Savoy.

  “Apparently the whole area’s in a brutal blizzard. Power out. Roads closed. It’s on their to-do list.”

  Savoy shook his head and bit back a curse. His blueprints were making the circuit around the table.

  “These are hand-drawn,” said Conner of the FBI. “But they’re good. Look at the detail.”

  “Three years working maintenance,” said Savoy. “They knew the place.”

  “Where were these found?” asked Epstein.

  “In the home of the terrorists.”

  “What were you doing in their home?” asked McCarthy.

  “Some time yesterday, the man who ran Savage Island, Jake White, died in what appeared to be an accident. I flew up to investigate. I found a secret file on an employee that White had had a problem with.”

  “What was the complaint?”

  “We call it a blue file. White hadn’t put any specific info in it, so all we know is he had a concern with this employee. Unfortunately, White also didn’t tell anyone, not even the head of the security at Savage Island.”

  “So you went over after seeing the blue file?”

  “That’s right. I had nothing else, so I went to talk with the guy. There was nobody home. I looked around, found these hidden underneath a mattress and ordered an immediate evacuation of the facility. Five minutes later, the dam exploded.”

  “Why didn’t you order the evacuation earlier?” McCarthy asked.

  “Like when?”

  “Like when you found out White had suspicions. Like when he was killed.”

  Savoy paused and smiled.

  “Go fuck yourself. Why didn’t you find out about the plot?” Savoy looked around the table. “Why didn’t any of you find out? You’re the ones who are supposed to be looking for these people. You fucked up 9/11 and now this? And you blame me?” Savoy let his stare settle on the blond-haired FBI man. “When was the last time you ventured out of the comforts of this goddamned building? Finding terrorists is your job, not mine.”

  “Let’s cool off,” said Scalia. “We’re all on the same team.”

  “Team?” asked Savoy. “I’m not on your ‘team.’ I’m a citizen of the United States, looking to you all to protect me and my children. You’re the team. Look at what you all missed. This asshole tries to blame me? And now that they’ve hit us no one’s got the guts to use the profile to screen the people who are working at this country’s nukes? And why? Because of the Constitution? The men who wrote that document would puke if they saw you hiding behind it like that.”