Out of Time

by David Klass

  “We were searching for any mention of Paul Sayers,” Grant said.

  It was the security officer’s turn to look a little confused. “If you thought this guy died twenty years ago, why were you looking so hard for him?”

  There was a silence in the small office. Different security-camera views of the oil field flashed on overhead viewing screens. A window was open, and someone outside was playing a car radio. Merengue music throbbed faintly on the night air.

  “We think Paul Sayers is Green Man,” Grant told him.

  “We think Paul Sayers has become Green Man,” Tom tried to clarify.

  Mathis looked from one of them to the other. “You’re shitting me?”

  “Wish I was,” Grant said. “By the way, what we just told you is confidential.”

  “The Green Man who blows up factories and yachts and dams?”

  “And possibly oil fields,” Tom added softly.

  Ray Mathis sat in a chair and crossed himself. He thought it over for a few silent seconds. “How sure are you about this?”

  “There’s no doubt,” Tom answered. “He plans his attacks incredibly carefully, and we’re almost certain that he scouts the sites he’s going to attack—probably close to the time he intends to hit them. So that’s what might have brought him to your oil field, and that’s why we’re here.”

  “I get it,” Mathis said. “But he could have been checking out a bunch of fields in this area, right?”

  “Sure,” Grant said. “That would make sense given that there are several large oil fields grouped closely together at the Permian Basin.”

  “No,” Tom said. “He came to Texas to see this one field.”

  “Who is this guy?” Mathis asked Grant, studying Tom, “and how does he fit in?”

  “He’s an irritating rookie who happens to be able to think like Green Man.”

  Mathis scrutinized Tom carefully. “You think he only came to see Hanson?”

  “He doesn’t waste time or take needless risks. If he came here, it was because he’s planning to strike here. Did he know you recognized him?”

  “Yeah, I said it out loud and drew my gun.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot him?” Grant asked.

  “He hadn’t done anything wrong. He just turned his back and walked away.” Mathis looked at Tom. “You’re so sure where he’ll attack. Do you happen to know when he will attack?”

  “There’s no way to tell that,” Grant said. “He picks his moments, and I’m sure the manhunt and what’s happened to his family have thrown him off. The pressure might’ve sped up his timeframe or it could’ve pushed it back. . . .”

  “Do you have a computer that I can use to search the Internet?” Tom asked.

  “Right over there.” Mathis pointed. “The password is ‘FUCKTHEPASSWORD,’ all in caps.”

  Tom walked over and started typing.

  “What are you searching for?” Grant asked.

  “The Östersund Clock.”

  “What the hell’s that?” The old security guard sounded nervous.

  “It’s an environmental doomsday clock, run by a group in Sweden. Two weeks ago, they moved the clock hand to eleven fifty-five P.M. Just five more minutes to doomsday.”

  “What does that have to do with Green Man?” Mathis wanted to know.

  Tom found what he was looking for. “Last night they announced that after studying the latest satellite information, as of tomorrow at eight A.M., their doomsday clock would be moved the final five minutes. They say doomsday has arrived. The earth has just become unsavable. There’s going to be a public funeral for the earth in Östersund. A youth choir is going to sing Nena’s ‘99 Luftballons,’ and at the last note of the song they’re going to stop their clock and announce that it’s over forever, and they’re encouraging everyone in Europe and around the world to stop all watches and clocks. That’s when Green Man will strike.”

  “At eight A.M. tomorrow?” Mathis asked. He glanced at the clock in the security office, which read twelve seventeen. “So we’ve got plenty of time.”

  “They’re seven hours ahead of us,” Tom said. “Eight A.M. there will be in forty-three minutes here.”

  Mathis bolted out of the chair. “Where would he strike if he hit this field?”

  “He likes exploiting existing weaknesses,” Tom said. “He’d use what’s here to bring it off. He wants to teach the world a lesson, so he’d try to use something that’s already on this oil field to cause the most possible damage.”

  “The tanks,” Mathis said with dread. “There’s enough oil stored in the tanks here at Hanson to blow us all to fucking Sweden and back.” He ran to a radio, clicked it on, and began issuing frantic orders.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  Green Man had just mounted the second drybox onto his diver propulsion vehicle when he heard the siren. He had heard it before, on his scouting trip, and he knew instantly what it was. He froze, shocked and momentarily terrified, and then he slowly stood and waited. Just like the last time he had heard the shrill warning wail, it was immediately followed by the switching on of powerful searchlights along the perimeter fence and by a fleet of security vehicles that roared to life and sped toward the front gate.

  He was very close to the oil field, in a diving suit, with equipment unpacked. Even if he left everything behind and fled in the van, there was a good chance he would not be able to get away in time. He watched the security presence inside the field and saw how it was concentrating on the oil tanks. They were on the far end of the vast field from the flowback tanks. In a way, the fact that they were expecting him to hit the stored oil might be just the misdirection he needed. They would have electrified their fence, but he was planning to go in under it, through the river, to a target they couldn’t anticipate. If he set off a tremendous explosion, there would be such damage and confusion that he might still be able to get away down the river to the far side of the field, where he had hidden his motorcycle.

  Green Man made his decision. It was too late to turn back. He had come this far, and he would blow up the Hanson field right under the noses of their alerted security, and he would show the world the grave dangers that fracking posed. And then he would try to get away and rejoin his family, and if God willed it, so it would be. But he would not run from them. He would attack.

  He had been weary, but suddenly he was flooded with strength. This was the greatest challenge he had ever faced, and he would meet it. Green Man had been willing to die for his cause since he was twenty-three years old, and now that that moment might be at hand, the flash of terror he’d felt when he’d first heard the siren was replaced by a grim determination. He had securely mounted both dryboxes on the DPV. He pulled his rebreather apparatus onto his back and adjusted the hoses and mask, and lowered himself into the cold Kildeer.

  He had learned scuba with heavy air tanks on his back, but they would never do for this mission. A month earlier, he’d purchased a rebreather online for ten thousand dollars. The high-tech apparatus that was now strapped to his back could remove carbon dioxide from the breathing loop while adding the necessary amount of oxygen. It allowed him to rebreathe his own breaths and had two advantages for an attack like this. First, there were no bulky air canisters so it gave him a sleeker profile in the water. And since he would be rebreathing his own breaths again and again, there would be no telltale bubbles for guards to spot.

  He switched on the motor, and the DPV’s two plastic propellers began to turn. He grasped the twin handles and the water scooter he had built from parts in his shed tugged him out into the Kildeer. There was no rudder, so he had to steer it with his body. He had practiced in a similar-size river in Michigan, and the key was finding the central channel. If he went in too shallow, he might be seen, and if he went in too deep, he could collide with the bottom, kick up mud, and possibly injure himself and his equ
ipment. Soon he was gliding swiftly along five feet beneath the surface, a nearly invisible dark shadow against the black rocks of the riverbed.

  He could see the spotlights on the fence as he got close to it. The wire mesh did not extend to the river bottom. They had probably wanted to avoid constant clogs as the current carried small and large debris downstream. As he dove underneath the fence, he pressed a button on his watch to start a countdown. Then he was skimming through the center of the oil field and could see the bright lights on all sides of him and sense the throbbing machines and frenzied pace.

  Getting the distance right was absolutely crucial. The flowback tanks were a little less than a half mile inside the field. He was traveling at three hundred feet per minute, so he had calculated how long he needed to stay submerged. His watch alarm would vibrate after eight minutes and fifteen seconds. He gripped the twin handles and sped forward in the center channel, and every ten seconds seemed an eternity.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  “He wouldn’t hit the oil tanks,” Tom said. He and Grant were alone in the security office, watching as views from different security cameras flashed on the screens.

  “Why not?” Grant asked. “That’s the best way to blow up an oil field.”

  “Because it would significantly damage the environment. And it would be predictable.”

  “So what would he hit?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The door opened, and Mathis hurried in. “Local and state police are on the way. Meanwhile, my guys just found a van by the river, a half mile from the fence.”

  “A black van?” Grant asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s him.”

  “I’ve posted men where the river flows under the fence.”

  “Too late,” Tom said. “He’s already inside your field.”

  “We don’t know that. Anyway, it won’t do him any good. The river doesn’t go anywhere near the oil tanks,” Mathis said. “To do any damage, he’s gonna have to get out of the water and cross a mile of exposed field. I’ve deployed every guard I have to watch the tanks or patrol the field. Whatever he has in mind, he’ll never make it.”

  “He’s not gonna hit the oil tanks,” Tom said.

  Mathis looked back at him. “The hell he’s not. That’s his best target.”

  “If I were you,” Grant told the security officer, “I would listen to this guy. He’s been right every step of the way.”

  Mathis got pinged and read a message on his cell. He looked alarmed and angry and fished his gun out of its holster with his right hand.

  “Did your guys spot him?” Grant asked, excited. “Did he hurt somebody?”

  “I ran your names by the FBI when you first showed up,” Mathis told them, “because I always cross all the T’s. I just heard back from the Department of Homeland Security. They said you have no authority, you’re breaking regulations, and I should detain you. I don’t have any time to waste right now. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m going to lock you in a room just down the hall, and I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Go ahead and detain us,” Grant said. “You’ve got a world-class terrorist inside your oil field, and there’s one person on earth who can tell you where to find him.”

  Mathis’s eyes flicked to the screens that were flashing different views of the oil tanks. Security officers with guns were in many of the camera angles. “The Department of Homeland Security says I shouldn’t trust you.”

  “That black van you found had a Michigan plate,” Grant said, and it wasn’t a question.

  Mathis nodded slightly, studying their faces.

  “This is the guy who first tied Green Man to Michigan,” Grant told him. “He’s done more to break this case than anyone else, and that’s what got him frozen out of the investigation. You’ve been around high-level security and government bureaucracy a long time, so I guess you probably know how that works.”

  “He won’t come back to the van afterward, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Tom said softly. “He’s got another way out, downriver. Probably a motorcycle, because that’s what he’s used before. He knows we know about the van, and he’s left it for us as a souvenir. He’s going to blow up your oil field, and it won’t be by igniting the oil tanks, and then he’s gonna swim out downriver and disappear, and you’ve got about two minutes to make the right decision.”

  There was a calm certainty in Tom’s voice that seemed to convince Mathis.

  He glanced at the screens one last time and then asked, “Okay, hotshot, where do you think he’d hit?”

  “It would be something near the river,” Tom said. “Besides oil tanks, what else can blow up an oil field?”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  Green Man’s watch vibrated, and he switched off the motor and used his body to steer toward the bank. He reached the shallows, set an anchor that would keep the diver propulsion vehicle moored safely there, and lifted his head out of the water. The cluster of giant lime-green flowback tanks was less than a hundred feet away.

  He peeled off the rebreather and his flippers and stashed them on the gravel near the anchored DPV. Then he dragged the dryboxes up onto the bank. Soon they were both open and he was methodically setting time fuses, using only a razor-thin beam from a penlight held in his teeth. He had practiced setting the fuses in his hunting shed in darkness, but to do such precise work in the middle of an oil field, when he knew security was looking for him and every second could mean the difference between getting safely away and being shot, was a very different thing.

  From one of the dryboxes he took a lightweight collapsible pole and extended it till it was thirty feet long—the height of the vents on the flowback storage tanks. He fastened a time fuse into an electromagnet bedding and then mounted the magnet on top of the pole.

  Minutes later he was walking among the flowback tanks. The hulking cylinders cast monstrous night shadows that helped conceal him. He could smell the acrid chemical stench from the vents high above him. The water in each tank had settled to the bottom, but the volatile and highly combustible chemicals were floating near the top. He started with a tank far from the river, to give him the best chance to escape. After the first tank blew, there would be a fast-building conflagration, and if he didn’t make it back into the river in time, he would be roasted alive.

  Green Man paused for a quick prayer. Once he set the first time fuse atop a tank, nothing could stop the firestorm to come. He thought of the roughnecks and roustabouts the explosion would kill instantly and those workers who might inhale poisonous fumes from the smoke and battle health problems for the rest of their lives. They were not bad people, and he knew he had no right to harm them. “God forgive me,” he whispered.

  He carefully lifted the pole so that the magnet at its top brushed the vent of the flowback tank. He clicked the current on from below, and the electromagnet was drawn to the nearby iron vent with such force that it audibly clinked against it. He retracted the pole and started walking quickly to another tank, this one closer to the river. He glanced at his watch. The time fuse he had just set atop the tank would blow in five minutes, and counting.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  In the town hall in Östersund, the youth choir had almost finished. A young boy and girl stepped forward and with sweet, innocent voices sang the last haunting refrain of “99 Luftballons.” When their final note faded to silence, the founder of the radical environmental group walked onto the stage. He was a balding, middle-aged man, pushing a much older man in a wheelchair, who, at 103, was the oldest living resident of Östersund—a man well-known and much loved by the townspeople in the audience. In his teens, he had fought the Nazis. The old man slowly stood out of his chair to face a large clock that had been mounted on the wall. The centenarian reached out with his shaking right hand and pressed a button, and
the big clock stopped, and the town hall was utterly silent.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  “Those are the flowback tanks,” Mathis explained, hurrying along the riverbank with his gun in his hand. “Five of my guards are heading over here on the run.”

  “How quick can they get here?” Grant asked, his own Glock out.

  “A couple of minutes.”

  “They won’t arrive in time,” Tom said.

  “Do you ever say anything positive?” Mathis asked. “We don’t even know if he made it into the field before I posted guards.”

  “He’s here,” Tom said. He had walked to the point where the river flowed closest to the flowback storage tanks and spotted two dark shapes half buried in the mud-and-gravel bank. The two dryboxes were side by side. Tom opened one of them. It was empty except for a few spare time fuses and some tools.

  The three men looked at the drybox’s contents and then at one another. There could be no doubt. He was here, and it was really happening. “Fuck,” Mathis said, and then he turned toward the hulking cylindrical tanks in the near distance.

  “The river was his way in, and it’s got to be his way out,” Tom cautioned. “If we wait here for him, we can surprise him when he comes back. If you try to walk up to those tanks, you’ll have to cross open ground. I guarantee he’s got a gun and night-vision goggles.”

  “I can’t wait,” Mathis said, and started up the hill toward the cluster of tanks.

  Tom was left alone with Grant. “The hell of it is he’s right,” Grant said grimly, and took a step after the security officer.

  “It’s suicide to walk up there,” Tom told him. “He’ll just pick you off.”