Chapter Twenty-Two
Fire
I could see the flames shooting over the treetops from a mile away. I goosed Bucket Duex (new Beemer Z4 – thank you Elwood for increasing our bonuses) way over the legal limit and kept repeating to myself, “No, no, no.” The Asheville Fire Department pumper and crew were about a minute behind me with sirens blazing and lights tearing through the once serene North Carolina evening. As I fishtailed into the parking lot, I could see that the X-400 reactor had blown its top off and thick smoke was pouring out. The flames had died down some as the fire suppression systems were doing their duty. Anyone thinking logically runs away and upwind of a fiery explosion. So, of course, I jumped out of the car and started running right towards it. Luckily, Diddy stepped out of his guard shack at the plant entrance and steered me clear before I could get too far.
“Hold up there, hoss. Let’s let those dudes with the hoses right behind you handle this. Everyone’s accounted for and nobody got hurt.”
As those words flooded me with relief, my knees got wobbly and I sat down right there in the grass. Diddy plopped down beside me. His uniform was torn and his hat sat cock-eyed on his head. He still had on his sunglasses but the lens was missing from one side. I didn’t have the energy to tell him.
“Listen, I had just come on my security shift when all heck broke loose. I think I may need to go home and change my drawers. And my vision seems a bit off.”
You gotta love a guy that can make you smile at a time like that.
“From what I could gather, the damage is pretty much limited to the X-400 reactor, the administration building and that lousy trailer you used to live in. Mick, I may have gotten my bell rung. I could swear I saw a few hot naked women running around the parking lot.”
“Easy there, big guy. Be sure the paramedics give you a good going over.”
“Anyway, the guys onsite got everything shut down pretty quickly and…”
Diddy and I both instantly jumped to our feet and threw ourselves at an enormous elk charging toward the gate. It took everything we had to wrestle it to the ground.
“Down, Earl. Asheville’s finest will get it under control.”
“Joseph Q. Public, Mick, what the heck happened?”
“I don’t know, Earl. But neither one of us are going to get any beauty rest until we find out.” Truer words were never spoken.
The next day, The Circle convened in a conference room in our mostly intact trailer complex. Luckily, it was located far enough away from and upwind of the X-400 reactor. It suffered no significant damage. Our former former offices were not so lucky. A rather large chunk of the reactor had slammed into the side of the building where my previous office had been located. It now gave a whole new meaning to the concept of “open” office space. Good thing we were no longer the occupants. Score another one for Elwood. The trailer I once called home had gone the Wizard of Oz route and was blown somewhere over the rainbow. It was also a good thing I had moved or I might have lost my prized autographed Dog Vomit Live at Red Rocks album and closet full of fire retardant overalls.
“This is not a happy day for Woodland Enterprises. I don’t know what happened, but, by God, it will never happen again! I’m furious, The Shareholder’s furious and every one of you better be furious. This plant does not blow up on its own. Something went terribly wrong. We will leave no stone unturned until we find out what. Got it?”
Chuck really truly was angery. A vein on his forehead the size of the Mississippi was throbbing like Tommy Lee’s drum kit. I think the only person more upset than Chuck was me.
“Ok, I am going to bring in some outside process and safety auditors to help in the investigation. We are all a bit emotional now. If we are going to resolve this quickly, we need calm heads and a methodical process. What I want each of you to do is go over your areas of responsibility and see if anything was out of the norm leading up to this. Give all your data to the auditors and cooperate with them fully. Mick, you need to work on trying to secure product for our customers until we can get up and running. Since that was our only X-400 reactor, we aren’t going to be able to make it for some time. Thank God we stockpiled some inventory in advance of our upcoming turnaround. Guess we won’t be doing that now. Elwood, I need some financial projections of the daily impact to the bottom line if we run out of X-400. Someone’s gonna pay.” Chuck stood and threw his notebook across the room narrowly missing Dan Fallan.
Normally I would make a crack about how good it was to see Chuck maintain a calm head, but, for once, I demurred. I do have some minor survival instincts.
I made my way back to my cubicle and started working the phones. I could hear Elwood scorching through spreadsheets in the cubicle next door. I could also hear Chuck cussing up a storm and kicking various innocent pieces of small furniture and supply paraphernalia up and down the hallway. I hit the number 3 on my speed dialer with a vicious jab. It was time for the Mickster to swing into action. My call was answered by Fred Horshley, our third party Asheville based raw material supplier.
“Hey Fred, we have a problem.”
“Yeah, Mick, I heard it blow. Darn near knocked my Bud right outta my hand.”
“That would have been tragic. Listen, we need to change around our supply orders. We…”
“It was a dang good thing that your X-400 reactor was shut down. Otherwise, it might have blown up too. Now that would have been tragic.”
“Shut down? It wasn’t shut down. We weren’t shutting down for another few weeks for turnaround maintenance. We were running full out. And that is what blew. And it is tragic. C’mon, Fred, this is really not the time to joke around.”
“God, you don’t have to shout at me, Mick. I thought for sure you were shut down. Y’all asked us to ship the raw materials for X-100 in those X-400 barrels. Why the heck would you do that if X-400 was up and running? I gotta tell ya, with that X-100 stuff being so much cheaper than that X-400 raw mix, we have had a tough month.”
“What? Who in the heck told you to ship us X-100 raw materials? And what’s this about shipping in X-400 barrels?”
“That’s what your revised purchase order said.”
“What revised purchase order?” I screamed.
“Whoa. Watch that blood pressure, Mick. I’m looking at it right here on my screen. It says, ‘Until further notice, ship X-100 mix only. You are instructed to use X-400 barrels for shipping the X-100.’”
“What the hey?”
Suddenly, three words began tumbling wildly through my head.
Authorities
Costs
Elwood
These combined with the sudden silence from Elwood’s cubicle made for one angry Buckeye. I dropped the phone and sprinted down the hall.
“Charles, grab your jacket and follow me. We can still catch him. I’ll explain on the way.”
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