P Deutermann - The Moonpool

The moonpool had looked just the way Ari had described it: a large, deep concrete structure filled with ethereal blue-green water. There were detachable glass partition walls along the sides, and steel railings at the base of those walls. The dim shapes glimmering down at the bottom were the spent fuel, encased in gleaming metal tubes and arranged in a geometric shape that prevented fission from restarting in the pool.

“This is the area that worries Snake Trask,” Ari had told us. “In the other type of power plant, the pools are below-ground. As you can see, this one is mostly aboveground. A commercial airplane crash here could theoretically split the walls and dump the water.”

“And that would be bad?”

“Yes, because we’d probably get a fire or a hydrogen explosion and a big radiation release. There are systems in place to refill the pool; that’s one of the reasons these BWR plants are positioned near big bodies of water. But still, the moonpool is probably the most fragile part of a boiling water reactor plant.”

It was Colonel Trask himself who was waiting for us, or rather Ari, when we got back to Ari’s office following our atomic walkabout. He did not appear to be a happy camper. He demanded to speak to Dr. Quartermain in private, but the closed door didn’t afford them much privacy. As we stood around in the reception area trying not to stare at the lovely Samantha, we could hear Trask detonating on the subject of issuing clearance and physical access to people like us. I couldn’t hear what Ari was saying in reply, but, whatever it was, it wasn’t mollifying Trask very much. It was also clear from all the racket that the security chief and his people intended to make our stay on the plant grounds difficult.

I quietly told Pardee and Tony to go on back to the beach house and wait for me there, and meanwhile to see what they could do about getting us a boat.

“What kind of boat?” Tony asked.

“Twenty-footer or thereabouts, shallow draft, inboard engine, with a radar set if possible. Not for the open ocean. Strictly for river work. Try the marinas around Southport, or maybe Oak Island.”

“We drive, or they drive?” Pardee asked.

“We drive,” I said.

It sounded like the choleric colonel was winding down in there, so I asked Samantha if she could escort my people to the egress. I sat down in one corner of the reception area with Frick parked next to me on her leash. Trask glared at the two of us as he stalked out of Quartermain’s office. He was wearing green Army utilities this time and a large sidearm. A moment later, Ari appeared in his doorway and motioned for me to come in.

“Was that fun?” I asked, shutting his door behind me. If he was perturbed, he didn’t show it. He waved me to a chair.

“It’s all he knows how to do,” he said. “Shout and bluster. You know, asses will be kicked, hides flayed, things will be turned every which way but loose-all the standard Army bullshit.”

“He works for you-why don’t you indulge in some of the standard bullshit right back at him?”

“Because he’s useful,” he said. “He’s got a perpetual red-ass, and he is completely unpredictable. Since nobody knows where he’s going to turn up next, he tends to keep his and my people on their toes.”

“I can’t imagine nuclear engineers putting up with verbal abuse like that,” I said.

“Yeah, the hoo-ah stuff doesn’t play in technical security, because the assumption there is that we’re all focused on the same thing: keeping the dragon in its cave. Physical security assumes the good guys are in here, while everyone out there is a bad guy until proven otherwise.”

“Why the perpetual red-ass?”

Ari ran a hand over his gleaming scalp. “He’s convinced the country’s gone soft, especially on this war on terrorism. America has lost its manhood, is embracing appeasement, throwing away good soldiers’ lives in shitholes like Iraq and Afghanistan, paying court to billionaire Hollywood marshmallows, stuff like that.”

“He may have a point there,” I said.

“Yeah, well, it’s a democracy, isn’t it. Personally, I think it’s more of a classic case of a man confusing the deterioration of his own aging faculties with the rest of the nation. You know, grumpy old men. Old guys are always saying everything’s going to hell. Not like it used to be in my day, by God, when I had to walk three miles to school through ten feet of snow, et cetera.”

“How old is Trask?”

“Mid-sixties, actually.” He saw my surprise. “I know-he doesn’t look it.”

“Where’d he get the nickname?”

“He apparently likes snakes. You know, some kind of offbeat hobby.”

We talked contract and agreed on the broad provisions of a statement of work. “I have a request,” I said when we were done with that.

“Shoot.”

“I’ve sent my people home, but right now I’d like to take a little outside tour with my vehicle. Drive around the plant perimeter. Outside the protected area, but inside the corporate zone. Get the lay of the public land.”

“A lot of it’s swamp,” he said. “About twelve hundred acres in all, including farmland and designated wetlands. Stay on the roads, and don’t mess with any protected area fences-they’re wired six ways from Sunday. If you do run into the security people, show those badges. The worst they can do is escort you back to the main gate. You work for me, not them.”

“Gosh, you think I’ll run into Trask?”

“Isn’t that why you want to go out there?” he asked with a grin.

By sundown I was parked along the banks of the inlet canal, a man-made baby river that branched off the much larger Cape Fear River. It had been built to provide cooling water for the turbine steam condensers in the generator hall. I’d driven around the fields and ponds and swamps for about forty minutes before finding the spot I wanted. It was getting dark when Trask’s people finally showed themselves. I picked up a distant tail about halfway through my excursion. It looked like a Bronco or similarly boxy SUV, but they kept far enough back that I couldn’t tell how many people were in the vehicle. Ari had given me a road map of the so-called corporate area, and I’d meandered over most of it.

I was out of my vehicle, taking pictures of the power plant in the distance, when they finally made their move. The complex was now blurring into a twinkling cluster of sodium vapor lights silhouetting the big buildings in the center when the Bronco came in, skidding to a stop from an unnecessarily high-speed approach. Three doors popped open, and three security guys piled out, all decked out in partial SWAT costumes and brandishing stubby assault rifles of some kind. I waited for the Freeze, motherfucker! but instead two of them spread out into covering positions behind the headlights while the third approached me. His clear plastic faceplate revealed white bandages on his nose and forehead, and I recognized Billy the Kid. I didn’t see Trask, and I didn’t recognize the other two guys.

“Let’s see some identification,” he said, keeping his rifle at port arms and pretending we’d never met.

I wanted to point out that I was in the public domain area of the complex, but instead I just lifted the chain with my plant ID cards over my head and handed them over. He pocketed them with one hand while keeping his weapon ready.

“Those are not valid,” he announced. He hadn’t even so much as glanced at them.

“How would you know?” I asked. “Or can’t you read?”

“Because our office didn’t issue them,” he said with a hint of triumph in his voice. “You’ll have to come with us.”

“Where we going, Billy?” I asked, just so the other two guys would know I’d recognized him. “And by the way, isn’t this the public area?”