Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39)

by Robert J. Crane

  “I'm not saying there's not a way forward,” Augustus said. “I'm saying the fear-mongers are selling this thing like it's the end of the world tomorrow. You have kids literally scared to death that they're going to die of climate change. That's how you get these lunatics doing this shit.” He made a loud scoffing noise. “And for some reason they ignore all discussion of ways to mitigate damage, or even take us closer to zero emissions. How is it that we've been cranked up our use of natural gas, which has allowed us to go lower on emissions, and they hate that? And they really hate nuclear power. France was all in on nuclear, then they listened to Germany and decided to try wind and solar, and their emissions went up. So tell me how serious these politicians are about solving the problem when they scream ZERO EMISSIONS! but don't talk about the ways we could crabwalk our way down to them. Makes me think they're lying.”

  “Politicians lying? Finally, a point on which we can all agree,” Scott said, laughing weakly.

  “Tell 'em your conspiracy theory,” Jamal said, and he caught a hot look from Augustus. “Come on. You blow off all your steam or what? You been burning my ears off with it for days. Don't stop now.”

  “Nah,” Augustus said after a long moment. “Naw, I don't need to do that.” He looked away.

  The chopper bumped, and lurched lightly. I could feel us starting to descend.

  “Saved by the bell,” Jamal said, and we started to come down.

  The skies had turned grayer and darker somewhere in the middle of our descent, and there were several bumps on the way down. The air conditioning system of the helicopter was doing a bang-up job of blowing right in my face, filling my nasal passages with the residual smell of the smoky stink that had hung over the city for days since the refinery explosions and the ship's detonation.

  We landed with a last bump, and the ground crew threw the door open forcefully as a heavy wind blew through. I shut my eyes against the force of it as I tossed my headset aside and jumped off the chopper first. I started across the tarmac to where an SUV was waiting to ferry us to the terminal, but the ground crewman grabbed my sleeve and shook it.

  I turned around, surprised by the move, half-expecting an attack, but he motioned toward my lower body. Surprised, I looked down like there was something waiting there, but he waved a hand in front of my face and I looked back up to find him mouthing something at me over the blade noise.

  “CHECK...YOUR...PHONE!” he shouted, and I heard him fine because I was a meta. And also not deaf.

  Pulling my phone from my pocket, I looked at it, and instantly felt the air rush out of me.

  SUSPECTED ECO-TERRORIST ATTACK AT JERSEY CITY NUCLEAR PLANT. STORY DEVELOPING.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  The FBI had brought a Gulfstream IV out for our use and we loaded onto it quickly. Reed followed me to the back of the plane as I went to use the restroom. When I came out he was standing there, glaring, though not necessarily at me. “Oh boy,” I said, without enthusiasm.

  “What?” he asked darkly.

  “Clearly, you've got something on your mind that you're about to inflict on me,” I said. “Since you followed me back here and you're wearing a look that'd go well with a funeral suit.”

  That did not improve his disposition. “Tell me you're not thinking about it.”

  “You're going to have to be a little more specific.”

  There was a hubbub at the front of the plane, and I could see the flight crew had arrived.

  Reed leaned in. “Flying yourself to New Jersey.”

  I straightened, bearing up under the weight of his accusation. “Well, I wasn't until you mentioned it. I am now.”

  His own tension subsided just a little, and his dark, suspicious look faded a few degrees. “Sorry. I was thinking about it, so I thought maybe you...” He shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “Look,” I said, watching carefully because a flight attendant was making her way down the aisle toward us with a roller bag behind her, “I'm sort of reconciled to how I have to play this. 'Sort of' being the operative part of the phrase. Besides, what's your max cruising speed in the air?”

  He drew a long breath, looking sideways to check the progress of the flight attendant, then dropped his voice to meta-low. “Around six hundred miles an hour. If I really push it.”

  I raised my eyebrows inadvertently. “Wow. You're supersonic and I didn't even know it.”

  “It takes a lot out of me.”

  I smiled as the flight attendant pushed through us to get to the rear galley, and beckoned for him to join me moving up to our seats. “This is the price we pay, for now, to let people feel safer around us. To keep things...simmering, instead of increasing the boil.”

  “You won't be able to keep it secret forever,” Reed said, rather ominously. “It's going to come out sooner or later, and at least if it came out now and you used it for good, you might...save lives.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But I doubt it. We'll make it to New Jersey a couple hours before I could make it on my own, or you could.” I glanced at my phone as the engines started to heat up. “Not fast enough to make a difference.” I smiled weakly. “But...that doesn't mean someone can't do something right away...”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  Olivia Brackett

  Jersey City, New Jersey

  Morobishi Nuclear Power Station was stuck out on a promontory in the Hackensack River just north of the Newark Bay Bridge. It was a squat, dumpy-looking place that had been around since the 1980's according to the fed who gave us a ride from Manhattan through the highrises and slums of the Jersey City freeways and deposited us here, in the middle of a containment zone populated by police uniforms and plainclothes law enforcement officers, with a sprinkling of the occasional politician, though they were mostly over by the news cameras.

  “Smells like trouble,” Angel Gutierrez said as the two of us ducked under the police cordon, ignoring the flurry of questions belted at us from the press scrum across the way. We tended to leave the talking to the politicians. Reed's orders.

  “Well, it's not exactly ham and eggs,” I agreed.

  The FBI had plucked us out of our midtown hotel and screamed across the Hudson River at top speed, sirens blaring. That they were now allowing us to wend our own way toward the incident command center at a leisurely pace suggested to me that they kinda thought their job was done in just getting us here fast. Like high speed Uber.

  Which was a little silly, because with permission from the FAA, I could have gotten us here a lot faster.

  “So, what are we dealing with?” Angel asked the moment we got to the command vehicle. I let her take the lead because I didn't like to talk much.

  A spattering of different law enforcement personnel were present, from local to governmental agencies to the ever-present FBI. Who we were nominally working for – though it was possible Jersey was now paying us as well. I didn't know and didn't think it was my place to ask.

  “Thirty minutes ago an armed group wearing masks forced their way into the control center of the Morobishi nuclear power plant,” said an Asian FBI agent. He had his ID clipped to the front of the FBI jacket; it read Li. “Somehow they subdued the guards, caused an alarm to ring and since then they've proceeded to lock everything down, creating a hostage situation.”

  Angel and I exchanged a look. It was not subtle.

  “This...does not sound like the MO of the eco-terrorists we've been dealing with,” Angel said.

  “No,” Agent Li said. “And given there was an attack in Arkansas an hour ago by what appears to be another band of eco-terrorists more closely resembling that MO...” He shrugged. “This may be a copycat incident.”

  “Oh, man,” I said, unable to contain myself.

  Angel sagged, too. “Okay,” she said after taking a moment to compose herself. “I need a map of the control room, the hostage situation – all that.” She waved a hand in front of her. “Do we have any idea how many of them there are?”

  “Hard to be
certain,” Li said, “but it looks like there was a gunfight near one of the entry doors. A couple security guards are down over there, and maybe a suspect.” He pointed at the map, past the perimeter, toward one of the cooling towers and a building there. “They're in here.”

  Angel didn't ask, and I felt that gnawing sense of worry bubbling up, so I confirmed: “This is a nuclear plant, right?”

  Agent Li stared at me, nearly inscrutable. “Yes.”

  “Okay,” I said. “And they're in the control room?”

  Li's lips became a thin line for a second before he answered. “Yes.”

  It was mildly vexing that I kept having to drag these answers out of him, ones that seemed obvious and practically begged for answers. “Do we think they're trying to cause a meltdown?”

  Li's eyes shifted around the room, and he finally shrugged. “Seems likely, doesn't it?”

  “Oh,” I said, now that it was out there. “Okay.”

  But in my mind, I had a very different thought:

  Oh, shit.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  Sienna

  “Olivia and Angel are on scene in Jersey,” Reed said. The Gulfstream's engines were thrumming, pushing us through the skies at high speed. I wasn't positive, but I had a feeling we were operating with a prodigious tailwind, too, my brother's own contribution toward getting us there a little faster. He looked up from his phone. “It's bad.”

  “Define...'bad,'” I said.

  “It's a nuclear station,” Reed said, reading off the text, “they've taken hostages, and they're dealing with the man in charge, this Agent Li,” he frowned, looking up at me, “You don't think...?”

  “Yeah, it's him,” I said. “I looked him up when I was with the Bureau. He's SAC of a field office out in Jersey. Thankfully I never ran across him while I was working for them. Can we leave behind that blast from the past and get back to the crisis for a second? Our villains have taken a nuclear power station?”

  “Olivia doesn't think it's the same villains,” Reed said, staring at the phone. “The FBI suspects copycats.”

  “They should expect more,” Jamal piped up from behind us.

  I spun around in my chair, which, fantastically, did that. Such lux. “Crazy says what?”

  “Not falling for that,” Jamal said, eyes closed, fingers zapping his laptop gently as he browsed the 'net. “But you heard me. There's an online groundswell of approval for this crew we're after.” He opened his eyes. “People are buying in to what they're doing.”

  “Aw, shit,” I said.

  “Crazy inspires crazy,” Lethe offered, oh-so-helpfully, from across the Gulfstream's aisle. “We saw the same things in the seventies movements.”

  “Who's 'we'?” Reed asked suspiciously.

  “I was a cop back then,” Lethe said, meeting his gaze very neutrally, apparently seeking to avoid conflict. “'We' meaning law enforcement. Like you.”

  “You and I are nothing alike,” Reed said darkly.

  “So these are bad guys,” Scott said, “but they're not our bad guys?”

  “Great, I like our clowns even less,” Augustus said. “Now they're causing us even more of a ruckus.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked, watching Reed staring at his screen. “Tell them to hold and wait for us?”

  My brother was deep in thought, then slowly he shook his head. “It's a nuclear station and they've taken the control room. I don't think they can wait for us.” He looked up at me, and I saw the deep worry embedded in his eyes. “I'm going to tell them to go in.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  Olivia

  “Reed says we're good to go in.” I whispered the words to Angel, meta-low, and caught a sharp look back.

  “Good to know we've got permission,” she fired back, the emphasis telling me what she thought of that.

  “Were you going to go anyway?” I asked.

  “If I felt like they were going to cause a nuclear meltdown? You bet your ass,” Angel said.

  “You know your lip is moving funny?” Agent Li asked. I looked up to find him peering at me.

  “I...chew it sometimes,” I said, pocketing my phone. The subtle vibration from it told me Reed had more to say, but I didn't need to read it right now. “You haven't heard anything from inside the plant?”

  Li shook his head. “They're not answering our calls. It's most likely they're busy trying to cause a meltdown.”

  “Can they do that?” Angel asked. “I mean, aren't there safeguards or something?”

  “There should be,” Li said, “ones that would allow us access to shut down the reactor safely even from outside the plant, but...”

  “But what?” I asked, feeling that rising dread.

  “But apparently...” Li said, “...they're not working.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  Scout

  Francine's whoop from the other room surprised Scout, jarring her out of what had been a pleasant, post-attack nap. She'd hoped that Isaac would join her, but he'd demurred without saying why.

  Scout had her suspicions, though. And they all hinged on the trash that Sienna Nealon had showed her in their dreamwalk.

  Don't let her get to you, AJ said. She's just trying to mess with your head.

  “I know,” Scout whispered, pushing herself up off the mattress.

  Their safe house in Kentucky wasn't much. Three rooms and a living area/kitchen, with mattresses on the floor and a barely-stocked pantry. Still, it was quiet, and it was safe, an old farmhouse deep in the woods. Plus, it had a pump for water and no electricity, so it was carbon neutral.

  She did miss hot water, though. A warm shower would have been nice right now.

  “You guys ain't gonna believe this!” Francine shouted.

  Better go see what she's on about, AJ said.

  Francine was dancing arrhythmically, phone in hand, when she came in. Isaac was looking at her from the room he'd staked his claim to, though he looked quite awake. She stopped, flashed the screen at each of them in turn, grinning widely. “We've got imitators.”

  Isaac cocked his head. “Say what?”

  “A group just forced their way into a nuclear plant in Jersey City,” Francine said, still grinning. “No motive announced. Nothing. Just barged in and took over the plant.”

  “They're trying to be like us,” Scout whispered.

  “We don't know that,” Isaac said, and his face was all dark caution and suspicion.

  Francine shook her head, still grinning. “I took over the security from inside the plant.” She waggled the phone. “I'm watching them, keeping everyone else out. They're trying to cause a meltdown. And,” she singsonged, pulling the phone back to her, “with my help...they're going to succeed.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  Olivia

  “Okay,” Agent Li said, re-entering the command trailer, “the engineers say if we can't get a plant technician in there to re-establish manual control, the whole place is going to enter a phased meltdown over the next several hours.” He looked a little green around the gills. “Something about this being an older model reactor and not set to automatically douse the rods – whatever that means.”

  “It means in new model reactors the heating rods submerge in the cooling reservoir automatically in the event of a catastrophic failure,” Angel said softly. “Gravity does it. Older models had the rods facing up, and you had to – never mind.” She shook her head in vague annoyance. “Point is, your electronic safeguards aren't working, right?”

  Li nodded.

  I tapped out a quick message to Reed on my phone: Power station electronics shut out. Thor type at work???

  “I don't mean to belabor the point,” Li said as I finished typing out my text and hit send, “but we're on a tight timeframe.”

  “We're on it,” Angel said, jerking her head toward the door.

  “No guns!” Li called after us. “It's a delicate–”

  “Yeah, thanks, we're not idiots,” Angel call
ed back.

  I gave her a sidelong look. “Is it my imagination or are you getting sassier over time?”

  “I'm starting to lose patience with pendejos like Li,” Angel said. We were standing in what had been some sort of green space surrounding the power station before necessity had turned it into an assembly/safe zone for the reaction to this attack. Angel was scanning the ground, and paused when she came upon a good, fist-sized rock, stooping to pick it up. “And maybe Reed, though to a much lesser extent.” She flipped the rock in her hand.

  “Why's that?”

  She beckoned toward the caution tape that some enterprising cop had wrapped around the perimeter of the power station to keep anyone from approaching into the parking lot. “Because we're here, and we can see plain as day what needs to be done – the bad guys gotta get taken out. If there was time to wait, would you and I be charging in right now?”

  “No,” I said, after a moment's thought. “I don't think so...?”

  “Well, I know I wouldn't, cowgirl,” she said, giving me a half-serious appraising look. “Maybe you'd do it differently now that you've gone through your own personality shift.”

  “It's not – I didn't shift, per se–”

  “Whatever,” Angel said, as we strolled through the parking lot. She paused next to a minivan, then she smashed the back window.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in alarm.

  “You heard the man,” she said, popping the hatchback, “no guns.”

  “I did. Not sure what connection that has to auto burglary...?”

  She ripped the back flooring off, exposing the spare tire. Flipping that up, she set it against the back bumper and grabbed the tire iron beneath. She held onto it for a second, gauging the weight, then nodded, apparently satisfied. Tire iron in one hand and fist-sized rock in the other, she resumed her movement toward the nuclear power station, and I scampered to keep up.