P Deutermann - The Moonpool

“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. Again, 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.