At this point I was attempting to think like the intruders. If I broke into a nuclear power station wanting to do as much damage as possible, what would my target be? What would hurt the most? Even in my scientific naivety, I easily worked out the answer, and it sent a chill down my already cold spine.
Chapter 6
I opened the door gently, trying not to make a sound. I had no idea what was on the other side.
A few seconds later I found myself in a narrow space between two sections of the complex. I knew what I was looking for, and I figured it wouldn’t be too far away from the plant’s turbine room.
A short walk and a couple of precious minutes more and I was staring at a red wall painted with white stripes. Next to a door was a large blue sign:
NUCLEAR SAFETY
THIS DOOR FORMS PART OF A HAZARD-SEGREGATION BOUNDARY AND MUST REMAIN CLOSED AND LATCHED
The door was open.
Moving into the room, I found myself in a space that dwarfed even the turbine area. Again, machinery and piping filled my view. As I moved, I pressed myself along the outer wall.
No matter what I’d read about the safety of nuclear energy, I was now acutely aware that I was standing in the middle of a state-of-the-art gas-cooled nuclear reactor.
I was also almost certain that someone intended to destroy this reactor, tonight.
Only six minutes until I was to surrender my freedom.
I thought through the mechanics of the situation. A well-placed explosive or two in this environment would at the very least stop the cooling process. My military training had taught me to understand that the uranium dioxide fuel used in the reactor would then cause untold damage if it was unleashed. Not too long ago a tsunami had caused a similar incident in Japan.
The question now was where the explosives would be placed for maximum impact.
I heard voices. Two men talking, workers.
“When you’re done, can you get someone over to Reactor Two to check it as well?”
“Sure thing, Boss,” came the reply.
Reactor Number Two. I hadn’t even thought about that. How many were there in total? What if the explosives had been set in another reactor?
Five minutes left. Goodbye freedom.
I saw one of the men descend the stairs above me and leave though the doorway I had just used to enter. The other man was directly above me. As his boots stomped the steel grating above me, I felt like a caged animal. I couldn’t move without fear of discovery. Surely he would see me.
Another precious minute later, the second man descended the stairs and left the reactor area. I had four minutes. I felt certain the intruders would only need to plant explosives in one reactor, but if I was in the wrong reactor, it was all over.
I looked around the room; the technology was beyond me. I couldn’t begin to hazard a guess at the deadliest spot to place the charge. Then I heard a sound. Movement on the edge of my vison. Something black. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one waiting for the plant workers to leave.
I crept around the bottom of the stairwell, keeping the structure between me and where I had noticed the movement. My senses were charged, but I had to move silently. Ahead of me a large man stood clad in a familiar dark outfit, complete with black balaclava.
I saw this as a blessing. I could have looked for hours for the explosives, but if I did this right, this guy would lead me right to them. I watched.
He moved carefully and efficiently. He must have only entered the reactor shortly before me because he carried his bag as though it was heavy. His work was yet to be done. Pulling a package out of the bag, he placed it against a pipe, then took out a smaller object wrapped in tape. As a marine I had been trained in how to place C4 plastic explosive and attach a detonator. I recognized the process.
I now had to decide whether to confront him now or wait, let him plant the explosives, and leave. It was better to wait. His associate had been a professional. If we fought and I lost, which was entirely possible, the intruders’ plan would continue unhindered. Many could die.
Definitely better to wait.
But my plan failed immediately. The figure in black glanced up from his work just as I ducked back to my hiding spot behind the stairs. He saw me. This man was also a professional and didn’t falter for a second. As he dropped the bag, he took from it a Desert Eagle Magnum. Damn these people and their guns.
His plan was obviously better than mine. It was simpler too. He was just going to shoot me.
All I could do was lunge for the cover of the nearest bit of solid-looking machinery. I reached a large yellow metal container when the first bullet hit. The gun was suppressed, but suppressors are overrated. The shot still echoed through the cavernous room and then cracked like a whip when it ricocheted on the metal casing inches from my head.
This was not a good place for bullets to be flying around.
I decided to keep moving. He decided to keep shooting. I dodged and weaved my way from one piece of equipment to the next in a bid to close the distance between us. I wasn’t making much ground and was crouching behind a section of white square metal piping when suddenly the shooting stopped.
I had a brief opportunity. If he was reloading his gun, I would have a few seconds to reach him. If I was wrong—I’d be dead wrong.
It turned out I was right.
As I left my flimsy cover, the man in black stooped and reached into his bag—for ammunition. I had a chance.
I moved quickly. The man’s eyes widened when he realized I was on him and it was too late to use his weapon. He ditched the pistol and grabbed at my clothes as he feverishly clawed his way upright. I felt myself being pulled off balance, so I followed the motion. Together we hit the floor hard. I was desperate to make my first punch count. As I connected awkwardly with the side of his jaw, my opponent grunted. Yet it wasn’t enough to stop him landing an open-palmed blow to the side of my head, its power dazing me.
My brief stupor allowed my opponent a window. Before I could react, he’d staggered to his feet and, with desperate ferocity, unleashed a series of forceful kicks to my head and body. I was still down and struggling as each blow further numbed my consciousness. I was all but out when, unexpectedly, he stopped.
His reason for stopping became clear as he reached into his belt and unsheathed a knife large enough to decapitate a man. As he pulled it back to strike down at me, I dug deep, searching for the strength and presence of mind to respond. Using my last ounce of will, I kicked up at his groin with both feet. It worked.
My attacker maintained his forward motion with the knife, but he hesitated for a second. That was all it took. I slid right and reached above me to grab the wrist of his knife arm. Using the body weight he had already invested in his thrust, I pulled him to the floor. He kicked frantically but made no substantive contact. Still holding his wrist down, I struggled to raise myself up onto one elbow. The masked face below me faded in and out of focus as I wrestled with my own consciousness. Instinct and training took over: I headbutted his face. It wasn’t enough. I could still feel his attempts to escape my grip and bring the knife back into play. I headbutted him again, hard. He went slack.
In close-quarters combat, victory very often goes to the combatant with the quickest recovery time. For less than two seconds, we both lay winded on the power station floor. I knew we were both desperate to be the first man up.
Despite my need to close my eyes and fade away, I was the first to my feet.
Without hesitating, I stomped on the back of his head with all the force I could muster. Then I did it again. There was an anguished groan, and the man in black was out for the count.
Relief engulfed me as I bent over his prone body and tried to catch my breath. If the intruder had had more friends in the area, they would have come out when they heard the shots. For that matter, so would any plant workers. No one came. I was alone in the reactor.
My path forward was now clear. Take the detonator out of the C4, look for any othe
r explosives the intruder may have managed to plant before I arrived, grab his bag, and make a swift exit.
I had been right about most of the bag’s contents: several taped bundles of C4 and a pile of detonators, plus spare ammunition for my assailant’s Desert Eagle. No surprise there. What worried me was the last item in the bag. It was some sort of enclosed explosive device, a little like a very sophisticated pipe bomb. It was welded closed at each end, so I couldn’t get inside it to disarm it even if I knew how, which I didn’t. I assumed this must have been their backup device if the C4 failed.
In the center of the device was an LED readout. It looked a bit like a radio microphone, something with which I was very familiar. But the readout here was very different to a microphone’s. It took me several seconds to realize what the figures on the readout meant. Then it hit me like a truck that I’d just thrown away several valuable seconds. The figures were a time stamp.
From what I was seeing, I had exactly three minutes and twenty-two seconds to get the explosive device away from the reactor and the power station. I’d slowed them down, but that wasn’t enough.
No plan required. I gripped the device tightly, picked up the bag, turned, and ran. I ran for my life, and for the lives of the untold thousands who would die if I was too slow.
I didn’t think, I didn’t stop, I didn’t yell out, I didn’t do anything, except run.
The only way out I knew was the way I had entered the complex, so that was the route I took. Back through the turbine room, back along the maze of corridors, through the floodlit courtyard, back into the outbuildings, and out the other side. No one tried to stop me, no one tried to arrest me, no one tried to question me. No one saw me at all.
When I reached the fence, I still hadn’t thought about what I planned to do with the device or the bag. I looked at the readout on the device: forty-seven seconds to detonation. Then the answer was staring me in the face. I ran down to the foreshore and sprinted across the beach. The sand felt sluggish, but I just pushed harder. I glanced at the timer: twenty-three seconds.
I wasn’t going to make it.
I sprinted straight into the water and kept running until I could go no further. Standing there in the ice-cold water with foam lapping all around me, I heaved the device and then the bag as far as I could into the sea. I seemed to find some sort of adrenaline-based super-strength, because I had never thrown anything of that weight that far before in my life.
As I stood there, the sea erupted as though an active volcano lay submerged fifteen yards out. I wasn’t sure whether it was just the explosive device or the C4 as well. I stood there drenched in a spray of freezing brine, fighting to keep my balance as the underwater blast pushed against me like a tsunami.
Behind me, a siren blasted and security lights all around the complex turned night into day. At last someone on the power station’s nightshift had noticed that not all was well.
It was time to go.
I stayed in the water and half waded, half swam parallel to the shoreline until I was level with my car. All attention seemed to be on the power station complex, not the area around it. Every part of me hurt, and every part of me was exhausted as I ran from the sea, struggled across the sand, and crossed the foreshore to my car. Flinging the driver’s door open, I climbed in and took off like the proverbial bat out of hell.
Of course, although I didn’t realize it, I wasn’t leaving hell at all. I was stumbling toward its gates, demanding sanctuary.
Chapter 7
The wide waters of the Thames meandered into the distance. On the river’s left, the London Eye stood as a beacon for contemporary tourism and engineering. A long line of people queued for the experience. On the right bank stood the houses of parliament and Big Ben, representing all that was traditional in British life. The river itself was a frenzy of activity. Large barges plowed through the chop toward the southern docks, and numerous roof-decked ferries carried excited tourists along the river, even on this cold but clear winter’s day.
The view was as breathtaking as it was expensive. From the window of my suite at the Savoy Hotel, I could be forgiven for feeling like I owned the world. I didn’t. I wasn’t even paying for this room. Although the tour couldn’t really afford accommodation of this kind, Antonio Ascardi had insisted that we stay here as his guest. The Savoy was where his friends stayed, so his artists should stay here as well. It was a very generous gesture.
I had driven hard through the night to get here after the events at the Cinaed power station. Where possible I had avoided main roads and motorways, figuring the less CCTV that caught an image of my car the better. It meant that the drive had taken longer. I pulled into the Savoy at dawn, exhausted.
After a sleep and a shower, I felt only marginally better. My body ached like my muscles and joints were being torn apart on a medieval rack. The events of the previous evening looped in my head. There was just so much that wasn’t right. I couldn’t seem to make any sense of it, nor could I make sense of the fact that I had somehow landed in the middle of some terrorist plot. Nicholas Sharp, wrong place, wrong time … again.
The one thing that kept hammering my mind was Elena’s appearance. Was it a coincidence running into her again? I thought not. Why had she left the power station almost as quickly as she had arrived? I had no idea. And the big question: what was the nature of Elena’s relationship with Antonio Ascardi? I had no clue.
It was just after 1 p.m., and I was tired, and my head pulsed with pain.
As I contemplated a small scotch to clear my mind and dull the ache, a knock at the door rang in time with the throb in my head. I moved away from my spot by the window. Before I got halfway across the room, Greatrex had let himself in. I’d left him a keycard at reception.
“You certainly are living the life,” he said.
“And this is only one room; you should see the rest. How’s your accommodation?” I asked.
“Fine, but it’s not like this for us humble crew members.”
I knew he had a single room on a lower floor. This was the Savoy, one of London’s finest hotels, so he wouldn’t be too hard done by. Greatrex moved over to the window and took in the view.
“I heard you got in quite late last night. What held you up?” He asked.
“Before I answer that, you better sit down.” I moved over to the drinks trolley. “Scotch?”
Greatrex looked at his watch, a questioning frown on his face. “Really?”
“Trust me,” I responded. “When you hear what I have to tell you, you’ll be begging for another.”
I poured us both a drink, gave him his, and eased myself into an elegant Chesterfield chair, the crumpling sound of its maroon leather relaxing me. Greatrex sat opposite me on the couch.
“Shoot,” said my friend.
“Bad choice of words,” I said. Then I told him everything.
Thirty minutes later we sat in silence.
“Shit,” said Greatrex.
“That just about sums it up. I’ve got nothing.” Nicolas Sharp, font of all wisdom.
“You know what I like about touring with you, Nicholas?”
I wasn’t sure that he was expecting an answer, but I gave it a shot. “My inquisitive nature?”
“Not so much. Probably it’s your ability to take something perfectly normal, like a drive through the Scottish countryside, and turn it into a life and death battle for survival.”
“As I said, my inquisitive nature.”
Greatrex let out an amused sigh.
“All right, let’s unpack this one more time,” he said as I poured our second scotches. “It seems to me that this all revolves around one thing: this Elena’s knack of appearing in your life at the most inopportune moments.”
“I’ve been thinking about that all night. I just don’t get it,” I said.
“It’s almost like she’s some sort of emotional tease—provocateur, if you like. She provokes you into a situation, you react, and then she does the vanishing bit.”
“I know. It happened in L.A. and it happened again last night, but why? What does she have to gain?”
“Maybe it’s not her but rather somebody else who’s getting something out of all this,” said my friend.
“Possibly, but I can’t see any relationship between what happened in L.A. over a year ago and what happened last night.”
“Nor can I.”
“The other key thing here is Elena’s relationship with Antonio Ascardi. What’s that all about?” It was like an eternal question, never to be answered.
“You know my feelings about Ascardi,” said Greatrex.
“Yes,” I responded, “but I just can’t see Antonio Ascardi having some deep sinister involvement in blowing up a nuclear power station. It just doesn’t ring true for a man in his position.”
“You’re a convoluted man, Nicholas Sharp. You easily see the best in others, but never in yourself.”
We both let that little pearl of wisdom hang in the air.
“Maybe I just don’t want Elena do be on the wrong side of all of this.”
Greatrex raised an eyebrow to that but said nothing. “Has there been anything on the news about the power station break-in?”
“I haven’t looked since you got here,” I said, reaching over for the television remote to turn it on. I flicked through a few stations until I got to a 24-hour news network. We didn’t have to wait very long.
A young reporter, obviously out in the field, came into view with the front gate of the Cinaed Nuclear Power Station as his backdrop. “We have just been issued a statement saying, and I quote, ‘The Cinaed power station was broken into last night. There appears to be no significant damage, and the station’s operations were unaffected.’” The reporter then looked directly down the camera’s lens. “There are reports an antinuclear group was responsible for the break-in, and that it was staged as a peaceful protest against the use of nuclear power rather than to cause any disruption to the station.” He then signed off.
LETHAL SCORE Page 3
