P Deutermann - The Moonpool

Then I asked him to contact Pardee’s wife and offer whatever help she needed, including a charter plane ticket if she wanted to fly down. If mystery-man Trask, with all his security toys, exotic pets, and fanatical ideas, had turned Pardee Bell into a vegetable with a handkerchief of diesel starter fluid, I intended to return the favor. Alicia was the kind of woman who would want to help with that.

The plant director was a tall, spare man in his early forties who looked to be of Scandinavian descent. Ari introduced him as Dr. Johannsen, and his demeanor was all business. He was obviously unaware of who I was or what I’d been doing down there, so Ari filled him in. Then I told an abbreviated story of the night’s events and why I’d recommended they shut down the plant.

“You did not actually see Colonel Trask during all this?” Johannsen asked.

“I did not,” I said. “Nor did I see him the night we got run over out in the Cape Fear River.”

He raised his hands, palms up, as if asking the obvious question.

“It’s what you don’t know, Dr. Johannsen,” I said. It had been a really long night. “Consider everything that’s happened in the past week or so. The death by radiation poisoning of one of my associates, an unidentified body in your spent fuel storage pool, your physical security director’s gone missing, oh, and did I forget to mention the radiation incident over in the container port?”

“Only one of those incidents connects directly to Helios,” he said. “Admittedly, Colonel Trask’s whereabouts are something of a mystery, but he’s done unusual things like this before. I could make the reverse argument: Most of this has happened since you showed up.”

The look on my face must have concerned him, because he immediately tried to make amends. “Look, Mr. Richter, I’m not accusing you of anything. It’s just that shutting down the plant the way it was done tonight is going to cause industry and public comment. The nuclear industry lives under a magnifying glass. Everyone will assume we had a reactor problem. What do we tell them?”

“The truth?” I said. “That way it at least looks like you care as much about the security of your operation here as you do about your image.”

I saw Ari look away. The director stared at me for a moment and then settled his face into a polite mask. “All right, Mr. Richter. I think you’re really tired after your, um, experiences tonight. We’ll excuse you now. Dr. Quartermain and I need to talk privately. Thank you for your services.”

That sounded like a great idea to me, so I left. Once in the Suburban, I put my head back on the headrest and told the shepherds that I needed them to eat someone. They seemed amenable. All I had to do was come up with the name.

I had to assume the plant’s technical people were on high alert by now, which should make it a whole lot harder for anyone inside or out to pull some shit. On the walk out to the hospital parking lot, I’d asked Ari what “scram” meant. He said it was slang for shutting a reactor down quickly by inserting all the control rods, thereby killing off the chain reaction. A scram was something the reactor usually did to itself if it detected a safety problem. Of course, even if the reactors were no longer critical, there was still plenty of heat and radiation present for duty, so it wasn’t as if they were cold and dark, and therefore not dangerous. And there’d be intense NRC interest in why it had happened. I told him it was a good thing they were already here, then. He had not been amused. It was obviously time for me to get some sleep and then to regroup.

Tony called at about 10:00 A.M. from Triboro. He reported that Pardee’s wife was in touch with the hospital and en route by car, and that he’d have his hands on Allie’s archived personnel file sometime today. He wanted to know if he should still come down to the Wilmington area. I told him to get the file and then come down; I also asked him to bring some tactical equipment from our collection.

“We going colonel-hunting?” he asked.

“Something like that.”

He said he’d be down by late afternoon.

The next phone call was from Ari Quartermain. His voice was strained and he sounded as if he hadn’t slept all night.

“We’ve finally heard from Trask,” he announced.

“Good deal,” I said. “Now we know it wasn’t him in the moonpool. The question is: Where is he?”

“On his boat, or so he says,” Ari replied. “Says he’s uncovered a security problem that turned out to be much bigger than he thought it was originally. Says he’ll come in tonight after getting some sleep. I told him we were shut down, and why.”

“The ‘why’ being my suggestion?”

“Yep. He said as long as we kept you and your people away from the plant, there was no need to be shut down. He said you are part of the problem.”

“I’ll bet he did-I tumbled to him and whatever shit he’s got planned.”

Ari sighed. “Well, I briefed the director. He knows Trask, and he doesn’t know you. He said we’d stay offline until Trask shows up and explains all this shit. In the meantime…”

“In the meantime, you want me to stay the hell away from Helios, right?”

“Pretty please?” he said.

“I can do that,” I said. “But I’m going to file a police report charging Trask with the assault on Pardee Bell. When he’s done with whatever fanciful tale he’s going to spin for you guys, the Wilmington cops are going to want a word with him. And the Coast Guard wants to examine that boat.”

“Funny you should use those words,” Ari said. “Fanciful tale. That’s how the director characterized your story from last night. Who else should I be watching?”

“Watch the moonpool engineering crew,” I said. “My measure of Trask is that he won’t give up. Your shutting the plant down may have complicated that, but at least everyone’s alerted, right?”

“They certainly are,” Ari said. “Anna Petrowska is somewhat skeptical, as you might imagine. She told the director that she thought you were delusional.”

“She would, if she’s part of Trask’s plan.”

“Cam, what’s her motive? What’s anyone’s motive to fuck around with the moonpool, for that matter?”

“I don’t know, Ari, and I can’t help you anymore. But here’s a suggestion: Fill in Petrowska’s timeline for the past three or four days. Account for her every waking moment, because the tie-in might be between her and the guy in the moonpool, not Trask. Especially now that you are pretty sure it’s not Trask in your lead-lined cask.”

Ari didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then he told me to keep in touch, and that he’d let me know when they actually sat down with Trask. I was being dismissed, and possibly so was the threat to Helios.

“Ari?” I said.

“Yes, Cam?”

“Remember what happened the third time the kid cried wolf.”

I hung up. I recalled what Sergeant McMichaels had said about Ari. If the technical security officer at a nuclear plant had a loan shark on his tail, would he take money to let a terrorist cell in the back door? I didn’t want to think about that. I made one more call.

“Federal Bureau of Investigation, Wilmington resident agent’s office,” the voice recited.

I identified myself and told the robot I needed to speak to Special Agent Caswell. As usual, he was not available, and could they take a message. Standard routine. I was tempted to tell them there was a bomb in the office, but I didn’t. Tony would have.

“Tell him I called, and that I have information on the upcoming meltdown at the Helios power plant.”

“Say again?”

“You heard me,” I said, “and you’re taping, I presume.” I gave him my number and hung up.