Т Паркер - The Last Good Guy

“Worse. How’s the girl?”

“I think everything’s all right. I think.”

He glanced at me, then gunned his shot-up Suburban toward the compound. Even from a distance I could see that the barnyard was crammed with vehicles that weren’t there just a few hours ago. I saw new people, too — futuristic clomping men and women in white hazmat suits, helmets, masks, and breathing gear. Geiger-Müller counters, dosimeters, particle detectors, radiation meters, from wands to wheeled. A team of two push-pulled an explosives containment vessel toward the wide-open metal hangar.

Lark reintroduced me to FBI’s Western Region director, Frank Salvano, whom I’d worked with under comparably violent circumstances less than a year ago. Older, gaunt, with short silver hair and round wire-rimmed glasses.

“Not you again,” he said, with a wrinkle of a smile.

“In fact.”

Followed by a moment of silence for the agents he had lost in those dark and terrifying days we had spent together. A shadow drifted across Lark’s good young face, Joan Taucher reaching out from whatever lockdown he’d assigned her to. I know the tricks that memory plays. How it can surprise you.

“Don’t touch anything,” said Salvano.

“I won’t even breathe.”

“We need to suit up,” Lark said. “We’re still not sure what we’re up against.”

After being scanned by an Agent Fromm — who noted our pre-exposure levels in her notebook — Lark and I encased ourselves in antiexplosion and antiradiation bulk, tightened the boots, pulled on heavy breathing helmets, and checked our oxygen flows and communications. Last up, gloves.

Lark led me into the hangar, past the clutter of ATVs and tool-strewn work benches I’d seen on the wasp-cam video, all the way to the back of the big building, where the security doors stood closed. An explosion-and-radiation-proofed agent let us in.

“This is the heart of it,” Lark said. His voice came through the tiny speaker in the helmet, clear and bright. “You remember the big glove box. We speculated that those coffin-shaped crates would fit perfectly into this baby. Look.”

Through the curved, clear window I could see one of the wooden crates from the San Onofre power plant lying open in the glove box. The wooden lid lay beside it, with loosened steel bands encircling it like ribs. In the middle of the glove box was a long, shiny steel tube with three black, metallic-looking pellets that had either spilled from the tube or been shaken loose from it. Fuel pellets, I was all but certain. Also, a battery-operated Sawzall with what looked like a diamond blade. Two locking wrenches.

“Here’s what Washington has kicked loose so far,” said Lark. “Seven years ago, Marie Knippermeir’s American Agriculture Enterprises bought Paradise Date Farm from Imperial Farm and Mine. Cheap — two million six, plus the debt. Paradise was still productive but running in the red. Poor management. Their main account was Eid-al-Mawlid Co., specializing in Muslim events and holidays — birthdays, weddings, the breaking of the fast of Ramadan. A thriving company. They need plenty of dates, a centuries-old Middle Eastern staple. Fresh, frozen, dried, preserved — packaged in mail-order gift baskets for Muslims all across the United States. Eid-al-Mawlid is kind of like Harry and David, but they specifically market to Muslims.”

In the dimmer caves of my imagination I saw the truth beginning to take on its terrible form. I studied the strange tableau inside the curving clear dome of the glove box: the clumsy hands suspended on their robotic sleeves, awaiting their next deployment, diamond-bladed saw, a small electric grinder like a jeweler might use, the wooden crate with its sprung lid, the shining zirconium tube, and the three black uranium pellets either spilled or shaken loose so they could be...

Behind his mask, Lark’s face was impossible to read; his voice was dry but urgent. “Fast-forward to 2016. SNR gets the San Onofre contract to guard the plant during the actual physical decommissioning. Decommissioning will take a decade. First, they have to cool the spent fuel rods in wet storage for five years before they can even weld them into steel-and-concrete casks. That’s how hot they are, both thermally and radioactively. Battle offered San Diego Gas and Electric a sweet deal for SNR. He had good men — most with military or law enforcement experience. At a good price, too, because Battle and SNR weren’t guarding the spent rods at San Onofre just to make money.”

“They wanted the pellets.”

“And they’ve got four freezers of them out there in that storage building. Each freezer holds one crate. The crates are fitted with concrete molds that surround one fuel rod, which contains fifty-six pellets. The concrete keeps the radiation shielded, and the freezers keep the pellets cool enough to be worked on in the glove box. Specifically, to be ground. Note the diamond saw for getting through the concrete and titanium, and the jewelers’ grinder, and the locking wrenches to hold the pellets to the wheel. The end product is ground fuel pellets the consistency of beach sand. They’ve got this whole process on video in the farmhouse library. And more. Adam Revell got talkative when I told him a conspiracy to kill people with radiation could get him a death penalty.”

“Radioactive dust,” I said. “To be sprinkled on the dates before they ship to Eid-al-Mawlid, which will wrap the fruit up real pretty and ship the baskets out to their Muslim customers.”

A moment of silence as I considered the consequences of such a thing. I could hear Lark’s breathing through my speaker.

“Thousands of innocent people,” said Lark. “Women and children. Anyone who ingests the smallest amount, touches it, breathes it. The Eid-al-Mawlid employees would be the first to report symptoms. A matter of days, depending on dose equivalent and Gray levels. Then, acute radiation syndrome — blistering skin, convulsions, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding from the eyes, nose, and ears. Death within two days to two weeks. Agony itself. It would have taken days for us to even figure out what was happening. This is one of the most depraved and disgusting things I’ve ever seen attempted. The bosses are still arguing whether or not to even acknowledge it publicly.”

It took a long moment for that depravity and disgust to really settle in.

“In Arabic, the words Eid-al-Mawlid mean ‘birth of the prophet,’” said Lark. “It’s one of Islam’s holiest days and biggest celebrations. This year it’s November ninth. The big Paradise shipments were set to commence two weeks from now — in time to be made into gift baskets for the Sunni Mawlid on November ninth. We beat SNR to the punch, Roland. Barely. Thanks to you and Daley Rideout and those wasp-cams.”

My moment of glory came and went and I enjoyed it briefly, but all the way to my bones.

For the rest of that day and the next, I accompanied Penelope and Daley on their several missions. Penelope wanted me on the clock for my time, which was fine with me. She wondered out loud how long she could afford my services before she went broke. I noted that Daley seemed exasperated at times like that, as if Penelope were her little sister.

I enjoyed their company, especially when they seemed to forget that I was there. I listened to them as you might to a pleasant mountain stream or the sound of waves. I was pleased to know I could stand between them and most wickedness that might come. In spite of being pounded senseless by six men, I felt needed and capable. Stitches out, hitting the bags again. I thought of Connor toting his machine gun and Reggie Atlas his lust.

I took them to their family doctor so Daley could be examined. Everything was fine. Then to a conference with Chancellor Stahl and attorneys for the Monarch Academy, followed by visits to Alanis Tervalua and Carrie Calhoun, and a sad few minutes with the parents of Nick Moreno.