by James Barney
So the sun stood still,
And the moon stopped,
Till the people had revenge
Upon their enemies.
Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the LORD heeded the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel.
HOLY BIBLE, the book of Joshua 10:12–14
1
FIRE CREEK, WEST VIRGINIA
PRESENT DAY
Thelma Scott grimaced as she wiped off the Formica counter of the Fire Creek Diner, known to everyone in town as “Thelma’s.” She stopped for a moment and slowly wiggled all of her fingers, taking note of the increased pain in her joints. “Gonna rain,” she mumbled. She prided herself on being able to predict the weather better than anyone on TV, and it was definitely going to rain today. She could feel it.
Outside, the morning sun was just cresting over Beury’s Ridge, nine miles away. Yet this did virtually nothing to brighten the hardscrabble town of Fire Creek, which was nestled deep in the valley below the ridge. At this hour, the tiny town was still enveloped in an opaque blanket of autumn fog that had filled the New River Gorge Valley overnight. Thelma peered through the diner’s front window and observed the swirling mist outside, thicker than normal for this time of year. Yep, rain within the hour, she predicted.
Instinctively, Thelma glanced at the old clock on the wall, which read 6:05. Then, as she did every morning, she stepped onto a chair and tweaked the big hand forward three minutes. Always three minutes. Every day.
She started a pot of coffee and fired up the diner’s antique O’Keefe & Merritt gas griddle. The morning crowd would be here soon, although “crowd” wasn’t quite the right word. The old codgers Tommy Ellis, Frank Rutter, and Joe McMahon would be here for their buckwheat pancakes, toast and butter, and double-thick sliced bacon. They’d sit in their regular booth and swap war stories, mining stories, and political bluster for hours until one of them would finally stand up, scratch his belly, and say, “Well, someone’s got to get some dang work done around here.” Joe’s wife would sit at the counter the entire time, chain-smoking Marlboro Lights and chatting with Thelma about the latest hardship to befall some member of the McMahon clan. Then, with luck, several of the younger men in town (and there were very few of those) would stop by on their way to Fayetteville or Beckley for their mining jobs. They usually just picked up coffee to go.
That was the extent of the morning crowd at Thelma’s.
It was amazing to her how much things had changed around here. Fire Creek had never been a big town. Even when she was younger and the town was in its heyday in the 1940s, the population was never more than five thousand. But it was bustling back then. The New River Coal Company was still in business in those days, extracting bituminous coal from the Fire Creek vein at full capacity. The massive coke ovens on the outskirts of town burned twenty-four hours a day, converting the sulfur-rich Fire Creek coal into valuable coke for the steel industry. Thelma remembered how the entire town felt such a sense of pride about their contribution to the war effort. The coke from Fire Creek was used to make Pittsburgh steel, which, in turn, was used to make tanks, ships, and guns. Back then, the foursquare houses in town were all freshly painted, and American flags flew from nearly every porch.
That all changed, however, in 1955, when the federal government came to town.
Thelma checked the refrigerator to ensure she had all the supplies she needed for lunch: hamburger patties, hot dogs, cold cuts, potato and macaroni salads, coleslaw, and soft drinks. It was Friday, which meant the “ghost hunters” would soon be arriving.
Thelma had first noticed them about five years ago: small groups of tourists arriving sporadically in cars and vans, mostly on weekends. Apparently, someone on the Internet had popularized the idea of taking self-guided “ghost town” tours along the New River Gorge. And, for some reason, they had included Fire Creek on their map of West Virginia ghost towns, although Thelma could never figure out why. People still lived here. How could it be a ghost town? Granted, the town’s population was less than four hundred and dwindling by the year. But it wasn’t a ghost town.
At least, not yet.
Thelma poured herself a cup of coffee and was just about to click on the TV when there was a loud knock on the front door of the diner. It was a repetitive, insistent knock that rattled the metal OPEN/CLOSED sign hanging on the doorknob. She squinted to make out the features of the person standing in the fog outside the glass door, but all she could tell was that it was a man. He was hunched over slightly and . . . wearing a hat. “We’re closed,” she yelled to him, still puzzling over the hat. It looked like a fedora, and the only person she knew who wore a fedora these days was Frank Rutter. But that wasn’t Frank. . . .
The man knocked again—several loud raps on the glass. “Please,” he said in a muffled voice. “I need help.”
Thelma inched toward the door, her pulse quickening. A few years ago, one of the McMahon boys had come into the diner late at night, brandishing a gun and demanding money. The poor kid was addicted to OxyContin and was desperate for a fix. Thelma would never forget how he apologized and actually cried as he robbed her. He was later arrested for armed robbery and put in jail, where he still was today. That experience had shattered Thelma’s sense of security and made her very hesitant to open her door to strangers, especially in the dark.
The man outside knocked again and pleaded through the glass door, “Please. I need a doctor.”
“Oh my word,” Thelma gasped, rushing to the door. She could now see that it was an elderly, white-bearded man, and he was hunched over, holding his stomach. His white shirt was soaked through with blood. Danger be damned, she thought. She was not going to let this poor old man die outside her front door. She unlocked the door and flung it open.
The wounded man stumbled into the diner and immediately dropped to his knees beside the lunch counter. He had his hands clutched to his bloody stomach, and he was wincing in pain.
“Lord in heaven!” Thelma said. She put her hand on the man’s back, momentarily unsure about what to do. His head was down, so she couldn’t fully see his face. But something about him was familiar. “I’ll call 911,” she said, rushing toward the phone behind the counter.
“Vaht? No.” The bearded man spoke with a heavy German accent. He looked up and seemed genuinely confused. “I need a doctor.”
What the heck does he think I’m doing? Thelma quickly punched 911 into the phone. As she waited for the operator, she tried to place the man’s voice. Where had she heard that accent before? A moment later, the emergency operator picked up, and Thelma explained the situation to him and gave the address of her diner. “Yes,” she repeated before hanging up. “Fire Creek. East of Mount Hope, at the end of Route 26.”
Thelma returned to the diner floor to comfort the injured man, who was now lying in the fetal position, panting in short breaths. “It’s gonna be a while, honey,” she said soothingly. “They’re coming all the way from Beckley. Could be twenty-five minutes or more.”
The old man groaned at that news, and Thelma’s heart sank. What could she do? She didn’t know the first thing about treating wounds. The man was panting in shallow breaths and appeared to be going into shock. Thelma decided the only thing she could do was keep him awake and alert. “What happened to you, sweetie?” she asked.
The man convulsed in pain and said nothing.
Thelma leaned over and got a full view of the man’s bloody abdomen. She quickly recoiled and cupped her mouth with her hands. “My God,” she whispered. It must have been one of those drug gangs. The backwoods in Fayette County were notorious for concealing marijuana farms and trailer-home meth kitchens. Those people were truly crazy.
But this man didn’t seem like the type to be involved with drugs. “You visiting from somewhere?” she asked. It was the only thing she co
uld think of given his foreign accent and odd attire. He wore a white dress shirt—soaked with blood in the front—a black necktie, gray wool pants with suspenders, a matching gray jacket, and black dress shoes, thoroughly caked with mud. His fedora lay on the floor, near his head.
The wounded man did not respond to Thelma’s question. His breathing was getting more sporadic now, almost spastic.
“Oh dear,” Thelma whispered. He ain’t gonna make it. She started off toward the phone again. “I’ll call Hiram Johnson. He was a medic in the army.”
“No,” groaned the man, drawing his knees up closer to his chest. “Call . . . Dr. . . . Reynolds.” He sucked in several shallow breaths before continuing. “Princeton 572.”
Thelma stopped short and turned around slowly. A strange feeling suddenly emerged from the pit of her stomach. “Where’d you say you was from?”
“Thurmond,” the man grunted.
Well, Thelma knew that was a lie. Thurmond really was a ghost town. Nobody has lived there since . . .
Then suddenly it hit her. She now realized where she’d heard this man’s voice before. She stepped slowly toward his contorted body, her eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “Who are you?” she asked.
The man didn’t answer. He was losing consciousness. Thelma stooped down and lightly slapped him on the cheek several times. “C’mon now,” she said. “Don’t go nowhere.” With her thumb and forefinger, she lifted one of the man’s eyelids, revealing a glassy, dilated pupil. She had no idea what she was looking for, but she’d seen people do this on TV. She grabbed the man’s bearded jaw firmly with one hand and gently shook his head back and forth.
The man came to and coughed meekly.
“That’s it, honey,” Thelma said. “Stay with me, now. Help is on the way.”
The man stared up at her blankly.
“Now, tell me where you came from exactly.”
The man whispered something indecipherable.
“Huh?”
“Thurmond . . . National . . . L—” The word “laboratory” never made it past his lips before his eyes rolled back into his head and his body went completely limp.
But Thelma had heard enough. Her eyes widened as she stood and slowly backed away from the bleeding man. “Not possible,” she whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. “Not possible.”
2
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Kill me now,” whispered Mike Califano to the attractive blonde next to him. They were seated in the third row of Training Room D at the Department of Energy’s headquarters on Independence Avenue. The lecturer at the front of the room was droning on for the third straight hour about security breaches at the nation’s sixty-five civilian nuclear power plants. Hypothetical breaches, that is. The type of “what-if” scenarios that only a roomful of pencil-pushing DOE security analysts could manage to dream up and get excited about.
But Califano was not excited. The lecturer at the front of the room was Roger Hutton, an insufferable know-it-all prick who had recently been promoted ahead of him. At the moment, Hutton was talking about the possibility of terrorists tunneling their way into the Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina, and he had dozens of classified diagrams and topographical maps to prove his theory.
Bullshit, Califano thought, shaking his head just as much as he thought he could get away with. He’d seen the real thing enough to know that none of these exotic scenarios was even remotely plausible. The real threat was—and always had been—the risk of an inside job, a saboteur who could be placed inside one of these plants and then wreak havoc upon receiving orders from the outside. Califano knew that once two or three such agents were in place at a nuclear facility, no amount of pencil-pushing analysts or high-tech security measures could stop an enemy intent on creating mayhem. And here was Hutton, blathering on about tunnels.
C’mon, man, Califano thought. He quickly scanned the audience and was surprised to see that nearly everyone was still diligently taking notes. These were men and women from the FBI, the CIA, the DIA, and other government agencies, who had all been sent to the Department of Energy for two days of training about the nation’s energy infrastructure and how to protect it from terrorism and other threats.
Califano crossed his arms and sighed, prompting a disapproving glance from the blonde next to him. She held his gaze for a moment before returning her attention to the lecture. But Califano kept his eyes fixed on her after she looked away. Why doesn’t she have a training booklet? he wondered. And why wasn’t she here this morning? He was still mulling these questions over when his cell phone suddenly buzzed in his pocket, eliciting another scornful look from his blond neighbor. Califano retrieved his phone discreetly and glanced down at the incoming secure text message. It read: SCIF, ASAP.
That could be only one person.
Califano immediately rose, gathered his training materials, and began making his way—disruptively—to the center aisle that led to the exit door at the back of the room. Roger Hutton stopped his lecture in midsentence with a look of disbelief on his face.
After a long, awkward interruption, Califano finally reached the center aisle, where he momentarily paused and met Hutton’s incredulous stare. “Oh, sorry,” he said with a shrug. “Gotta take a leak.”
The room erupted with laughter.
Califano turned to leave but suddenly stopped short, as if he’d forgotten something. “Oh yeah,” he said, turning back to face Hutton. Every eyeball in the room was now on Califano. “You know, there’s an important feature you forgot to mention on that map.” He pointed to the topographical survey map of the Savannah River that was currently being displayed on the large screen at the front of the room.
“What’s that?” asked Hutton with unveiled contempt.
“Got a pen?”
Hutton rolled his eyes and reluctantly retrieved a pen and paper from below the podium.
A moment later, Califano rattled off a long set of lat/long coordinates from memory, without the slightest bit of hesitation or appearance of mental effort. “Take a look at 33.33384 north and 81.73780 west.” He paused to let Hutton scribble down those coordinates. “There’s something important that everyone should see.” Califano gave a perfunctory nod, then turned and headed quickly to the exit.
Once Califano had slipped through the exit door at the back of the room, he immediately spun and caught the door just before it closed. He crouched low and peeked through the remaining crack at Hutton, who was still standing at the podium. “Come on, you tool,” Califano whispered to himself. He knew Hutton wouldn’t be able to resist checking the coordinates he’d just given him, if only to try to show him up. As he watched, he saw Hutton typing the coordinates into his laptop computer at the podium. “That’s it,” Califano whispered.
Seconds later, the large screen at the front of the room suddenly zoomed in on the precise coordinates Califano had just provided. In the center of the screen, large enough for the entire audience to see, were two words that Califano himself had electronically added to the map late last night, after hacking into Hutton’s presentation materials: BITE ME.
The audience roared with laugher.
With that, Califano turned and walked away with a satisfied grin. His work here was done.
The SCIF at the Department of Energy was located deep beneath the iconic James V. Forrestal Building at L’Enfant Plaza, which many considered to be one of the ugliest buildings in Washington, D.C. “An elephant teetering on giraffe legs,” was how the Washington Post had described the building when it opened in 1968. Indeed, the Forrestal Building was a particularly unflattering example of “Brutalist” architecture, a style that had swept through Washington, D.C., in the late sixties and early seventies. The fact that the building was named for a former secretary of defense who committed suicide by jumping from the sixteenth floor of Bethesda Naval Hospital only added to its melancholia.
Califano exited the elevator at the B–3 level and made his way to
a gray metal door marked SCIF, which stood for Special Compartmented Information Facility. He pressed his key fob against a sensor beside the door, and the door clicked open automatically. He entered and allowed the door to swing shut behind him with a clank. “How ya doing?” he said to the guard at the front desk.
The guard nodded without altering his steely expression. “Empty your pockets.”
Califano complied, placing his wallet, cell phone, keys, and loose change in a small plastic bin on the table. The guard put the bin high up on a shelf behind him. “You can pick those up when you leave. If you need to take notes, use the pen and paper provided in the reading room, and leave your notes in the safe.”
“Right,” said Califano. After nearly eight years at the DOE, he knew the SCIF procedures cold.
“Arms up,” said the guard.
Califano spread his arms as the guard waved a metal-detecting wand all around his body. “Admiral Armstrong’s waiting for you in reading room four.”
Califano thanked the guard and made his way down a short hallway to reading room 4. He knocked twice and entered.
The reading room was about ten feet square, with bare white walls and a small table and four chairs in the center. There was a heavy-duty, security-grade filing cabinet pressed against one wall. Sitting at the table was a well-dressed man in his late sixties, with silver hair and a distinguished, weathered face. “Have a seat,” said Vice Admiral Robert Armstrong, deputy director of the National Security Agency.
Califano seated himself at the opposite side of the table.
“Michael,” said Armstrong. “You’ve been at DOE seven years.”
“Almost eight.”
Armstrong nodded. “Right, almost eight. A bit longer than we expected, to be sure. And I know you’re eager to move on to another assignment. But I wanted to let you know you’ve done a terrific job here.”
Califano shrugged. “Just routine stuff.”
“Nonsense. You’ve given us valuable insights into the foreign infiltration of our national labs, scientific espionage, technological intelligence that we simply could not have obtained through . . . normal channels. Nothing routine about it.”