by Tim Washburn
The graphic transitions to a dark-haired woman sitting in a studio. “As if this day couldn’t get any worse—we’re receiving word from our affiliate in Seattle that there are multiple fatalities at a local water park after some type of industrial explosion in the area. In addition to those killed, area hospitals are swamped with people who are reportedly having difficulty breathing. Nothing has been confirmed about the nature of the accident, but eyewitnesses reported smelling chlorine shortly after the explosion. We have crews on the way and will have further details when they become available.”
CHAPTER 23
McAlester, Oklahoma
The town of McAlester is famous for one thing: it’s the home of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary—the only supermax prison in the state with a death chamber and a long line of prisoners awaiting its use. But there’s another facility in the area that deals in death yet remains unknown to most residents outside the McAlester area. In addition to making bombs, the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant is also one of the largest ammunition storage depots in the world. From 7.62-mm rifle rounds to five-thousand-pound bombs, the folks working at the plant can ship, when required, four hundred large containers of ordnance every day. And if that’s not enough to get the job done, the manufacturing side builds the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, or, as it’s known by its other moniker, the Mother of All Bombs. The MOAB bomb is the most powerful nonnuclear weapon in America’s arsenal. Clocking in at over twenty-one thousand pounds, the bomb’s blast yield is equal to eleven tons of TNT, only three tons less than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of WWII. The weapon can be guided to a precise target using GPS and, due to its size, must be deployed via drag chute from a C-130 Hercules aircraft.
Those who live around McAlester are very aware of the facility’s existence. It’s hard not to be when the personnel that work there detonate bombs on a daily basis, destroying obsolete ordnance. The locals get a kick out of watching a newcomer’s reaction when the first bomb of the day blows. The high school principal even swears he’s had salespeople try to climb under his desk when it happens. For the local residents, the bomb blasts are part of everyday life and most will tell you they don’t even notice them anymore, much like those residents who live near a hospital and claim they no longer hear the sirens.
The employees not blowing up bombs at the McAlester facility are busy building them. The workers on the production line inside the large warehouse can build twenty different types of ordnance, everything from missiles to mortar rounds. Today, they’re constructing their favorite weapon to build, the MOAB bomb. For Darlene Watkins, it’s a strange feeling to be working on a weapon whose only purpose is to kill or maim other human beings. It’s something she tries not to think about too often, but she has added incentive to make sure the job is done correctly—her son is currently deployed in Afghanistan. And she’s not the only one working at the plant with loved ones serving overseas. When her son’s National Guard unit was activated, a good number of people from the McAlester area were pressed into service. Several of the fourteen hundred employees at the facility have sons or daughters, husbands or wives, or brothers or sisters who are now in harm’s way. The feeling among most of them is the more bombs they build, the quicker their loved ones can return home.
Today, Darlene, a rail-thin woman in her late fifties with a two-pack-a-day habit, is working at the end of the line in the final assembly area. Her job is to test the bomb’s inertial guidance components, a critical job to ensure the bomb arrives at the specified target. She attaches two leads to the guidance system’s testing terminals and steps over to her old, yellowed computer. The damn thing is nearly as old as I am, Darlene thinks as she clicks the grimy mouse, initiating a program that will activate the sensors and gyroscopes to diagnose the components for errors or defective parts. As she waits for the computer to finish, she glances at the clock in the upper-right corner of the screen to calculate her next smoke break. Darlene groans. She’ll have to wait another hour and a half. The program finishes and she studies the results. According to the computer the bomb is good to go.
Darlene walks back over to disconnect the leads and hears a clicking noise. It’s a noise she doesn’t remember hearing before, but they build so few of these particular bombs—maybe three or four a year—and she can’t recall if it’s normal activity or an anomaly. She steps away and scans the surrounding area for her supervisor and spots him talking to another employee farther down the line. Darlene cups her hands around her mouth and shouts, “Bobby!”
Bob Davidson looks up and Darlene waves him over. Bob, in his early forties and nearly as wide as he is tall, waddles over. “What’s up, Darlene?”
“Hopefully nothing. I have a piece of ordnance making a strange sound.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Darlene? They’re bombs. They don’t make noises.”
“Come here, then,” Darlene says, walking back over to the finished bomb.
Bob shuffles along behind her, and when he’s close enough to hear the clicking sound, the blood drains from his face. “Oh shi—”
Before Bob can finish his statement, the massive bomb detonates, killing everyone within a mile of the plant.
CHAPTER 24
Chicago
Peyton Lynch is still parked in the lobby of her workplace building, silently cursing Eric’s boss. There has been a steady stream of people leaving, including most of the big wheels from Brown, Wright, Zuker, Tomlinson & Qualls. Even the seventy-six-year-old J. Michael Zuker, the agency’s founder, made it down seventeen flights of stairs without keeling over. Thrice divorced—the latest a young blond bombshell in her early thirties—the lecherous old bastard had offered Peyton a ride, which she kindly declined. The last place she would want to be is in a private, confined space with that handsy old fart and, with traffic gridlocked, he’ll be lucky to get out of the parking garage.
Peyton lights the screen on her cell phone to check if she has service yet and finds she doesn’t. No big surprise there. God, she’d kill for ten minutes of Wi-Fi time, just to send Eric an e-mail to hurry his ass along. She stands and walks to the closest window, the symphony of car horns growing louder. The streets are jammed with cars going nowhere and the sidewalks are jammed with people trying to get home. Peyton turns and paces to the other side of the lobby, still barefoot and still sporting blisters on both heels. The thought of walking home in her new heels makes her nauseous, but the thought of walking home barefoot makes her doubly nauseous.
There’s a shoe store down the street and Peyton spends a moment fantasizing about breaking in to steal a pair of flats. She sighs and turns her mind, instead, to what may lie ahead.
The small parcel of groceries she purchased might last them three or four days, but then what? What are we going to eat after that? Peyton returns to her chair with that thought weighing heavy on her mind. Hunt for game? With what? She and Eric don’t have any type of weapon at home and probably wouldn’t know how to use a gun if they happened to stumble upon one. Okay, no weapon and no game. What, then? All the heavy thinking makes Peyton want to pee. She stands, looks down at her pitiful pile of belongings, and wonders if she can afford to leave them unattended for even a minute or two. A few hours ago it wouldn’t have mattered. They could have stopped at the grocery store on the way home. But now their very survival may depend upon those oh so few cans of food and the lonely case of water.
What to do? What is it—thirty, maybe forty steps to the lobby restrooms? Peyton squats down and empties everything out of her overstuffed bag. Looking at it now, am I really going to need the extra makeup or the shampoo and conditioner I’d pilfered from the goody closet? Of course not. What was I thinking? Peyton reloads the bag with the flashlights, extra batteries, a pair of scissors, and the canned goods. The bag is not large enough to hold the case of water, so Peyton scoots it close to the chair and pops open one of the umbrellas to hide it.
Hurrying down the corridor, her need to pe
e is no longer an urge but an absolute necessity. Rounding the corner she finds the restrooms cordoned off, OUT OF ORDER signs stuck on the doors. Peyton mutters a few unkind words as she slips the strap from the stanchion and tries to open the door. It’s locked. She steps over to the door for the men’s restroom and finds the same. Muttering another string of unkind words, Peyton turns and scans the lobby. Holding it is no longer an option. She spots the door to the stairs and walks over. Stepping inside, Peyton squats on the first step down to the basement, pulls down her underwear, and empties her bladder. The relief is instantaneous, but it does little to tamp down the humiliation Peyton feels. She stands, pulls her panties up and her skirt down, and exits, her face still burning with embarrassment.
That embarrassment quickly transitions to anger when she returns to find the case of water and the umbrella gone. Usually one to avoid conflict at all costs, Peyton is now fighting mad. She hurries to the exit and steps outside, looking up one side of the sidewalk then the other. The sidewalks remain packed with pedestrians, and Peyton is not tall enough to see over the crowd. She turns left and walks down to the intersection, searching for the culprit. In her mind she’s mentally calculating how long she was away. Three, maybe four minutes? How far can a person walk in four minutes? There are too many variables. If Peyton knew the direction the thief traveled, she might have a chance. Without that, it’s a crapshoot. Dejected, she trudges back to the lobby, her mind spinning.
How long can we go without water?
CHAPTER 25
On final approach to LaGuardia Airport
Hank shuts down his laptop and closes the lid as Paige Randall disconnects the call to Natalie Lambert and passes the phone back to Hank.
“Jeez, I hope you didn’t kill my battery.”
“You have a charger,” Paige says. “We had some catching up to do.”
Hank, scowling, lights the screen to see the phone still has a decent charge. “She goin’ to send us some software goodies?”
Paige points at the ceiling then her ear, miming the question of whether someone is eavesdropping or recording their conversations.
“Plane’s clean. It gets swept for listenin’ devices and cameras before and after every flight.”
“Good. I didn’t want to implicate Natalie if this turns into a shitstorm. Yes, she’s going to send me the latest and greatest software she has.”
“I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s already a shitstorm. Did Natalie say anythin’ to you about a possible insider bein’ involved?”
“She’s going to send me an e-mail from home when she gets off work.”
“Do you think the NSA monitors her home computer?”
“They might try, but Natalie is one of the sharpest programmers I know. There’s zero chance the agency has penetrated her network. Hell, she creates or has a hand in creating most of the software the NSA uses to infiltrate other networks.”
“She’s that good?”
The jet wobbles slightly before touching down and the cabin fills with the roar of the dual engine thrust reversers. As the plane slows, the pilot triggers the reverse thrusters off and the noise level in the cabin returns to normal. “Yes, Natalie’s that good,” Paige says. “What’s the deal with you two?”
“We went out a couple of times, but it withered on the vine because our schedules never synced.”
“Was this recent?”
“Last spring.”
“So I take it there’s not a Mrs. Goodnight waiting for you at home?”
Hank slips his laptop into his bag. “Nope. What about you? Is there a Mr. Randall?”
“As a matter of fact, there is.”
Hank feels a . . . hell, he doesn’t know what he feels . . . maybe a tad bit of something. He tries to wrap his mind around why because they’d just met for the first time early this morning.
Paige smiles. “He was my father. Other than that, no.”
“Ever been married?” Hank asks.
“No. You?”
“Nope.” When the jet comes to a stop, both Hank and Paige unbuckle their seat belts and stand.
“What’s the game plan now?” Paige asks.
“Hopefully, Elaine has called the New York field office to arrange our pickup. Then I guess it’s on to Wall Street.”
“What about hotel rooms?”
Hank shrugs. “I assume we’ll have a couple.”
“But you don’t know where?”
Hank looks at Paige. “Are you one of those people who needs a precise plan? Everythin’ laid out in order—do this, then that?”
“Maybe. I like to know what lies ahead and I like having some idea of when it might occur.”
“Well, that’s not goin’ to happen here. We go where the evidence tells us to go and we do it after examinin’ said evidence and reachin’ some type of conclusion on the best path forward. We’ll eat and we’ll sleep, but I can’t tell you when or where.”
“Thank you for the lecture, Hank,” Paige says, her words laced with anger. “Are you finished?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Fuck you.” Paige grabs her suitcase and rolls it toward the front of the plane, where the pilot is opening the door. She stomps down the steps, her suitcase bouncing along behind her. Hank grabs his two bags and follows.
“I think you pissed her off, Hank,” Donnie Davis says.
“I’m bettin’ it won’t be the last time.” Hank ducks his head in the cockpit. “Safe travels, Theresa.”
“It better be safe or we won’t be around to pick you up. How long you staying?”
“Undetermined. I’ll have the boss call ya.” Hank ducks back out. He and Donnie fist-bump. “See you on the rebound, buddy.”
Donnie glances out at Paige, who’s standing impatiently on the tarmac, a stern expression on her face. “Good luck. I think you’re going to need it.”
“Hell, I might need somethin’ more than luck.” Hank walks down the stairs and pauses to survey the area. He spots an idling black Tahoe near the entrance to the private flight terminal. “Ride’s here,” he tells Paige, pointing out the black SUV.
Paige glances over her shoulder, turns, and begins walking toward the truck without saying a word. When they reach the vehicle the driver pushes a button that opens the rear hatch and Hank piles his stuff in. Paige is struggling to lift her suitcase and Hank grabs it and tosses it in. Paige brushes past, a scowl on her face.
“You’re welcome,” Hank says to her backside. He closes the hatch and opens the passenger-side door and looks at the driver. “Well, hell. When the hell did they make assistant directors in charge taxi drivers?”
“Hi, Hank, climb in. We’re burning daylight,” Assistant Director Tomás Morales says.
Hank climbs in and shuts the door. “How ya doin’, Tomás?”
“Busy. Very, very, busy,” Morales says, dropping the shifter into drive and punching the gas. He glances at the rearview. “I’m sorry you got paired with Hank.”
“Me, too,” Paige says. “I’m Paige Randall, a computer programmer at headquarters.”
“I know. I read your file. I must say you have a very impressive résumé. I’m Tomás Morales. Nice to meet you, Ms. Randall.”
“Paige will do. And nice to meet you, also, sir.”
“No sirs around here. It’s Tomás.”
Paige nods as Morales exits out of the airport and picks up the Grand Central Parkway for a mile before exiting onto Interstate 278 south.
“I don’t suppose you’ve found out who the hackers are?” Hank asks.
Morales sighs. “No. Not even a whiff. I’ve got agents scouring the stock exchanges, agents out at their data centers in New Jersey, and more agents working with the Wall Street banks. And we still don’t have a damn thing. You hear the latest?”
“No. What?” Hank asks.
Paige leans forward in her seat so she can hear.
“We don’t have all the details yet,” Morales says, “but apparently they somehow triggered the d
etonation of a very large bomb at an army ammunition depot. I think it was one of those MOAB bombs.”
“Damn,” Hank says, balling his hands into fists. “It had to be the plant in McAlester.”
“It was,” Morales says, “now that you say that.”
“When we find these bastards, I’m goin’ to stomp a mudhole in their asses and walk it dry.”
“Where is McAlester in relation to Ada?” Paige asks.
“The plant is forty-nine miles east of Ada.” Hank pauses, trying to keep his composure in check. After a moment or two he says, “There’re a lot of people around town who work at the plant, includin’ some people I’ve known since kindergarten.” Hank turns and stares out the side window for a few moments, his mind clicking through images of friends who might have been at the plant. He eventually turns to look at his friend. “The death toll had to be staggerin’, Tomás.”
“It was, Hank. The blast radius extended out to a mile or more. It could be days before they have a final tally.”
Hank nods and takes another deep breath. “Any idea how they detonated it?”
“No,” Morales says. “The plant is still burning and there’s extreme concern the other ordnance will cook off. They’ve cordoned off a wide area around the plant. I guess they’re going to wait and let the fire burn out.”
“That’s the only choice they have.” Hank says. He pauses another moment before continuing, “That place has enough ammo to not only start a war, but end it, too.” Hank, knowing there’s nothing he can do for his friends, tries to refocus his mind. “Do we know if their computer network was interfaced with the Department of Defense network?”
“I don’t know, but we can damn sure find out.”
