Ari introduced us, explaining that I was a professional investigator, and that I’d been contracted to help him with an internal problem. She gave him a quizzical look, and me a condescending smile. Then recognition dawned in those polar eyes.
“Ah, yes, the policeman with the Alsatian dogs,” she said, extending a gloved hand.
We shook hands clumsily through all the protective gear. Her grip was firm, and, based on the mildly amused look on her face, she’d overheard my sentiments regarding the presence of a Russian on the staff in the vital area of the plant. I mumbled something polite, which she ignored. She turned back to Ari to ask what more he had heard about the incident last night. He demurred and said he hadn’t any further data at the moment. She smoothed her hair one more time and then looked back at me.
“Are you a technical person, Mr. Richter?” she asked. “An engineer, perhaps?”
“Afraid not,” I said. “Just run-of-the-mill police.”
“Oh,” she said with a distinctly dismissive smile. “And you don’t care much for Russians, do you?”
“That’s right,” I said. “I think they belong in Russia.”
“But America is the land of opportunity, yes?”
“As a policeman, all the Russians I’ve ever met were savages, whose idea of opportunity in America was to rape, maim, steal, and kill. Seeing as you’re a Ph. D. and working here, I guess I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Well, my goodness,” she exclaimed, stepping back away from me. “You are beginning to remind me of the police back in my birth country. I thought your job as a policeman was to protect and defend.”
“To protect and defend Americans,” I said.
“I’m an American citizen, you ignorant oaf!”
“Anna,” Ari said.
She glared at me again, relayed some technical information in nuke-speak to Ari, and then stomped off to rejoin her team. Or tried to-it’s hard to stomp in paper boots.
Ari was grinning at me. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “She has a temper, and you did step on her toes just a wee bit.”
“Do I look sad?” I asked.
“You look like every other normal male who meets her for the first time,” he said, still smiling. “She’s hardcore about her job and her science, though. She just fired one of her senior techs for breaking protocol on an emergency procedure exercise. When it comes to the moonpool, she’s serious as a heart attack.”
“Then how did some of this evil shit get loose?” I asked, pointing with my chin at the glowing pool.
“Good question, Mr. Investigator,” he replied evenly.
In other words, There’s your mission impossible, Mr. Phelps, should you choose to accept it. I told him about my guys’ reservations after last night’s circus on the pier, and that I’d told them they could back out if they wanted to. He actually thought that might simplify things. One stranger wandering around the complex ought to attract less attention than three.
“I’ll need their badges back,” he reminded me.
“Does Comrade Martin know that the stuff on the truck might have come from here?” I asked.
“She will as soon as I file the NRC report,” he said. “She will feature prominently in the resulting internal investigation.”
“Is that control room over there manned 24/7?”
“No,” he said. “Just when they’re running tests or some other evolution. Otherwise, there’s no one up here.”
I hesitated before asking the next question, but there was no way around it. “If the NRC is going to investigate this from the outside, and the company’s going to be turning over rocks from the inside, and the Bureau is going to be watching both, tell me again what you want me to do?”
He glanced around the steel deck once more. Dr. Martin and her techs had disappeared, and we were alone with the moonpool and its unearthly glow. It looked like some Northern Lights had drowned down there.
“Do you know what a Red Team is?” he asked.
I did not.
“It’s a government expression, normally used in war gaming. When the government conducts a war game, it postulates a hypothetical crisis scenario, and then pits a group of actual government officials against the crisis. These are real officials, but they’re role-playing. Someone from the White House staff will play the president. Another person, say from the Defense Department, will play the role of secretary of defense.”
“Yeah, I’ve read about those.”
“Right. The game directors gather them into a room and throw a tabletop crisis situation at them. They work the problem until they either solve it or it beats them. The good guys are called the Blue Team.”
“I believe.”
“Good. The Red Team sits in another room and reacts to what the Blue Team does, typically by throwing complications into the game. The idea is to make the war game truly dynamic, and to test how well the Blue Team can handle an evolving crisis situation when all their nicely preplanned contingency plans go off the tracks. Plus, the Red Team is privy to the Blue Team’s assumptions and contingency plans before the game starts. They hit those assumptions, and the Blue Team now has to deal with a changing crisis situation.”
“So the Red Team people are the bad guys.”
“Exactly. The Blue Team assumes their simulated Katrina relief convoys can get to New Orleans on the interstates. The Red Team knocks out all the bridges.”
“So you want me to act like a bad guy? See if I can get through the perimeter, break in here and swipe some radioactive water or some spent fuel rods, then go package it and, what? Sell it?”
“Not exactly,” he said patiently. “Unless you have a death wish. But here’s the problem: The NRC’s going to come in here this time and try to prove that radioactive water got loose from Helios, either from the moonpool or somewhere else in the reactor system.”
“Reasonable reaction,” I said.
“PrimEnergy has to defend itself, and the company is going to take the position that it not only didn’t happen but couldn’t happen. Now: Unless some unhappy camper stands up and confesses to a crime that would jail him for about ten successive life sentences, it’s going to end in a Mexican standoff.”
“Which would suit the company, right?”
“Frankly, I think that would suit the government, as well. They don’t even want to hear that there’s been a clandestine radiological release from an operating plant, because that would probably lead to an industry-wide shutdown of this type of nuclear power plant.”
“Why all of them?”
“Because the security system here is common to all of them. It would be a very big deal. Nobody at the NRC or in the industry wants to do that.”
“You’re telling me the NRC would cover it up?”
“No, no, not if they find something concrete, some glowing gun, so to speak. But if it turns into a stone-cold mystery, they’ll ‘study’ it. They might keep probing, but, basically, they’ll keep all the BWR plants turning and burning.”
“And you want me to do what, specifically?”
“I want you to Red-Team it. Not actually do it, mind you, but see if you can figure out a way to get radioactive water out of this plant and into Wilmington. I want you to do this independently, without the official, approved assistance of anybody at this plant, including me.”
“But if the experts can’t prove it, how can I?”
“You weren’t listening-the experts on both sides of this equation don’t want to prove it. So, absent some glaring, oh-shit technical hole in the system, the books are probably going to close on the demise of Ms. Gardner and the hot truck chassis across the river.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you,” I said.
“It’s got to be a people problem, not a technical problem. The NRC’s going to send in nukes. PrimEnergy is going to defend with the likes of Anna P. They’re literally going to be looking at piping systems for leaks. There aren’t any. I need someone to probe the people side. Ag
ain, without inside help.”
“Ah.”
He smiled grimly. “Yeah. Operative words: inside help. Everybody else has a stake in this. You wouldn’t. If I’ve got a sleeper, I think it’ll take an outsider to find him.”
This could be a very dangerous game, I thought, given those stakes he was talking about. “What about Trask and his people-you going to cut them in?”
“No, but I’ll let you develop a working relationship with them as you want to. Your current access extends only to the protected area, not the vital area. You’re in this building only because Trask let you in and I’m escorting you.”
“I wouldn’t have access here?”
“Would you know what do to in here? How it even works? I don’t need a technical investigator-I need someone who can uncover a human weakness here, not an engineering defect. I believe that’s what you guys do.”
His argument made sense. Unless, of course, he was the bad guy. “How would we communicate?”
“Can we keep that computer link we have now?” he asked.
“Yes, until the feds tumble to it. I mean, they’ll look at everyone’s computer once your investigation starts, especially the Bureau people. Yours included.”
“The NRC won’t bring the Bureau in immediately, not until they find that smoking gun or a suspect.”
“The Bureau may have its own thoughts about that,” I said. “Listening to Special Agent Caswell, they’re already in.”
“The NRC will be in charge of this investigation,” he said impatiently. “They find a person of interest, they’ll turn the Bureau on. Look: You said you wanted to find out how and why Ms. Gardner got killed. I need a neutral outsider to test my system. And, what the hell, this beats watching lawyers fornicate, doesn’t it? You said you were bored.”
“It was Allie Gardner who was bored,” I said. I felt like I’d been talking to a car salesman. But Ari was walking over to the control room to talk to Dr. Anna Petrowska Martin, Ph. D. Frick was sitting against the main steel wall of the moonpool room, giving me one of those shepherd looks that says, Don’t do it, dummy.
“What are you looking at, dog?” I said. “Aren’t you up for a little adventure? I mean, what could possibly go wrong, hunh?”
That afternoon, I carefully nosed my new water toy into the entrance of the plant’s inlet canal. I’d owned my lake boat for about four years, and, while this one was longer and heavier, driving a boat is like riding a bicycle-once you learn, you’ve pretty much got it. River navigation was quite different from lake driving, but Tony had laid out a perfectly clear track, and if the sixty-thousand-tonners could manage it, so could I. The 290 handled nicely and had plenty of power, and the raised cockpit provided excellent visibility. The shepherds seemed comfortable enough, especially since we were driving around in perfectly still waters. I’d stayed out in the ship channel coming up the Cape Fear River, which was serious overkill in terms of water depth for my little craft-the Corps of Engineers kept the channel dredged to forty-two feet to accommodate the huge container ships, and the 290 drew twenty inches. Between the GPS and the river buoys, even I could find my way to the inlet canal.
There were a couple of fishermen in smaller boats hanging around at the entrance to the inlet canal, and they waved as I turned in. I cut the big Hondas down to idle so as not to throw up too big a wake. As I approached the power plant, I saw a small tug and cargo barge parked at a bulkhead pier. There didn’t seem to be anyone working or guarding the barge, so I had to assume it was carrying routine, non-nuclear supplies for the plant. From a security standpoint, a barge probably presented less of a threat than a truck, but it, too, was nowhere near close to the main buildings.
I’d reluctantly sent Pardee and Tony back to Triboro, after they confirmed that they’d just as soon not get involved in this one. Pardee reiterated his willingness to stay and help, but I’d finally decided I’d work this one myself. I asked him to continue to manage the comms support for our supposedly secure channel to Quartermain’s computer. Tony wanted to make sure I didn’t think he was leaving me in the lurch, and I reassured him that was not the case since what I needed down here was competent help. That got the usual snort out of him. I received one e-mail message from Ari just after noon, which said simply that the fun and games had begun. I decided that it would be a great afternoon for a boat ride.
The marina people had briefed me on the rules concerning both the container port and the power plant canals. While the access to both was nominally public, Notices to Mariners had been published that security considerations could and would take immediate precedence if circumstances so dictated, meaning they could run your ass out of those so-called public access areas whenever they chose to do so. If you argued, they could confiscate your boat. If you really argued, they could sink your boat. They also explained that most of the real fishermen liked to go into the discharge canal over on the other side, because the heated water attracted more fish.
The container port was approachable, but there, too, the Coast Guard had some hard-and-fast rules. You had to stay at least a hundred yards away from any ships at the pier, and that no-go line expanded to two hundred yards at night. Any boat operating in the main channel or the approaches to the pier had to give way to any ship maneuvering in that area. That was kind of a no-brainer, with the informal but implacable law of gross tonnage being the enforcement mechanism. Sixty thousand tons versus four thousand pounds was how boats, even unsinkable boats, became debris. The bottom line was clear: The port authorities were nervous, and this was probably a good time to avoid the container port and all its works.
My objective in making this trip was to do it once in daylight before I tried it again at night. The inlet canal provided river water for the steam turbines’ condensers. It ended at a huge grated concrete blockhouse assembly where the cold water was drawn into the maws of the big steam condensers under the power house, some four hundred yards distant. A line of buoys prevented boats from getting close to the actual inlet, more for their own safety than the plant’s. There was visible turbulence around the inlet grates and a baby logjam of river debris plastered against the screens. I saw tinted hemispherical television camera pods on telephone poles around the inlet.
I was wearing jeans, sneakers, a baggy sweatshirt under a light windbreaker, a floppy hat, and oversized sunglasses. The shepherds should have been out of sight of the cameras unless there were some I hadn’t seen yet, and there probably were. But as I made a slow turn at the business end of the canal and headed back toward the river, there didn’t seem to be any reaction from plant security. Nighttime might be a different story. I was careful not to spend too much time staring at the two big green buildings of Helios, where the atomic dragons soaked in their elemental fires. And then my cell phone chirped.
“Richter,” I answered.
“Yes, we know,” a voice replied. It was my new best friend, Colonel Trask.
“So where are you, Colonel?” I asked, as I nudged the boat’s throttle up one notch, heading for the egress.
“I’m in central control,” he said. “My eyes are in that little green fishing boat on your starboard bow.”
I looked, and there was the “fisherman” who’d waved. He was holding binoculars on me, and behind him I saw the TV camera, mounted backward on his windscreen, pointed in my direction as I approached the river.
“I feel safer already,” I said.
“There you go, making assumptions again, Mr. Richter,” he said. “What were you doing at the moonpool this morning?”
“Dr. Quartermain wanted to show me something,” I said, “and I got to meet one of your Russians. Gotta admit, that was a surprise.”
“I’m with you on that one,” he said. “Omnia Russians de-lenda sunt.”
“How’s the visitation going with the NRC?”
“The way it always goes when they get their black hats on, Mr. Richter. Lots of noise and motion, but not much movement. Everyone’s really serious, of course, an
d very important. I understand you got to watch the wetback marathon last night over across the way.”
“Sure did,” I said. “Lots of noise and all kinds of movement. Including Dr. Quartermain. In fact, one of my mutts helped fish him out of the river.”
“So we heard,” he said. “A good German shepherd is hard to beat. Look-you take a drink of whiskey from time to time?”
“No more than once a day,” I said. I was abeam of the “fisherman,” who was no longer covering me with his binocs. His TV camera, on the other hand, was swiveling just fine, probably under the control of whatever room Trask was in. Only then did I notice that the boat was anchored at both ends.
“There’s a pleasant little watering hole down in Southport, called Harry’s,” he said.
“How original,” I said. I felt the main river current grab the boat’s bow and begin to slide us toward the south bank of the canal. I kicked up the power and veered out toward the main channel.
“Yeah, well, it’s kind of a hangout for various stripes of Helios people. How’s about I buy you a drink, say, around eight thirty or so?”
“I never say no to a free drink,” I said. “Do I have to be on the lookout for Billy the Kid anymore?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Richter,” he said. “But bring your shepherds.”
“Count on it, Colonel.”
I put a call in to Mary Ellen Goode when I got back to the beach house. This time she answered. She sounded as warm and friendly as ever, but at the same time, a bit reserved.
“Cam,” she said. “I got your message. You’re back?”
“I am indeed,” I said. “Can we get together?”
“Um,” she began. Surprised, I let a small band of silence build.
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