by Jan Coffey
“Neighbor…neighbor. What’s her name?” She couldn’t remember the young woman’s name.
She considered not going down. But she recalled this neighbor was the one who took care of the cat whenever Cynthia was away.
“Cat? Where is the cat?” Helen looked around the kitchen, remembering that she hadn’t seen the cat since coming in. She’d never liked cats. She couldn’t understand why Cynthia kept one.
A thought occurred to her. Maybe the neighbors were watching the sulky animal. Helen started down the stairs, holding tight to the railing. She should tell them to continue to watch the animal until Cynthia was released from the hospital. Her daughter cared for the nasty creature too much, and Helen didn’t want the responsibility of anything happening to it.
Helen cast a cursory glance at her reflection in the mirror downstairs. Her hair was flat. She should have taken a shower when she first came in. There were mascara blotches under her eyes. She grabbed a tissue out of a box, wet it with the tip of her tongue, and used it to wipe away the black marks.
The narrow windows running up and down either side of the front door showed her that the neighbor was still there waiting.
Helen opened the door.
“Hi. I’m Karen Newman, a friend of Cynthia. I live two doors down.”
“Yes…yes…I think we’ve met before. I’m Helen Adrian, Cynthia’s mother.” She leaned against the open doorway, needing something solid to support her. At the same time, Helen had no intention of inviting the other woman in.
“Yes, I know. My condolences about your husband, Mrs. Adrian.”
Helen waved a hand. She was tired of lying about how hard it was. She didn’t want to talk about Fred at all. “That’s behind us. I have other problems on my plate right now.”
“I heard the news. How’s Cynthia doing?”
Helen shook her head. “Not too well. The doctors are hopeful, though.”
“Do they allow her to have any visitors?” Karen wanted to know.
“Only immediate family. She’s still in intensive care and unconscious.” Helen straightened up. “I need to get some sleep right now and get back to the hospital, so if you don’t mind...”
“I won’t keep you.” Karen immediately put a hand out. “Just a couple of things. We have Shadow. She showed up at our door last night.”
“The cat was outside?” Helen asked, surprised. “I thought Cynthia always keeps her in the house.”
“She does. I don’t know how she got out. We’d already heard about Cynthia’s accident last night. Anyway, when she showed up, I sent my husband over to check the condo and make sure no doors were left open. He couldn’t find any. I don’t know how the cat got out.”
Helen remembered when the animal had been de-clawed. Such trauma. She didn’t think there was any chance Cynthia would let the cat out.
“Well, however it happened, would you mind holding onto her for now?” she asked. “I know my daughter would appreciate it.”
“Sure. No problem.” Karen Newman reached inside a canvas bag she had over one shoulder and took out a thick folder. “Also, this morning I went to put our outgoing mail in our mailbox and this was there. I believe it belongs to Cynthia.”
Helen took the folder without even looking at it.
A car went slowly by on the street. Helen’s gaze was drawn to the dark gray sedan. The dark windows hid the occupants.
“Thank you, Miss…”
“Newman. But call me Karen. And if there’s anything I can do—”
“Thanks, I’ll let you know.” Helen was tired. She knew she should take a nap. But she wanted a drink first. She waved to the younger woman and stepped back, closing the door.
At the last minute, Helen turned around and slid the security chain into the slotted track. Cynthia always bragged about the safety of this neighborhood. Still, Helen felt exposed. With the exception of this neighbor, she didn’t know anyone else here.
The folder slipped from under her arm and fell with a thud to the floor. Pages scattered everywhere on the tiled entry.
“I don’t need this,” Helen grumbled under her breath, crouching down to pick up the pages. She quickly put a hand out against the wall to steady herself.
More of Fred’s things, she could tell. The New Mexico Power Company heading was on all the pages. Some of the pages were stamped at the bottom ‘Company Classified.’ Naturally, those were the pages that Helen’s attention was drawn to.
Fred always considered her stupid. Maybe Helen didn’t have a 165 IQ and maybe she hadn’t gone to graduate school and maybe she didn’t have some advanced egghead degree. Still, Helen always thought she could hold her own when it counted…or when he gave her the chance.
Picking the pages up off the floor and trying to put them back in order, she found herself reading some of the text. The scientific gibberish didn’t discourage her. She’d lived with technical journals and publications lying around the house for too long.
Page 10 of the report had a listing of names. Helen’s gaze was drawn down the page as she realized she knew some of these names.
She slid down onto her knees and looked back up to the top of the page. She wasn’t brain dead, after all. And the phone calls she’d received from the newspaper people was another reminder. The names belonged to the scientists who’d recently died in the explosion on the platform on the Gulf of Mexico.
She understood why this information would be classified, considering the project was an experimental one. Or at least that’s how the media kept describing it. Below the names were the transportation arrangements. The destination was another curiosity. Fred or someone else had underlined in red the acronym WIPP a couple of times.
Helen searched on the floor until she found the next page in the document.
The facility they were taken to…Helen stopped and checked page 10 of the document again. The group was being transported to Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, WIPP, in the Chihuahuan Desert outside of Roswell, New Mexico.
“New Mexico?” she asked aloud. “Not Texas?”
This didn’t make sense. The fire was still burning on the platform in the Gulf. That was where the news said the scientists were.
Suddenly, it was essential for her to know what it was exactly that she had in her hands.
Helen reached for the pages that were still scattered on the floor. She hurriedly tried to put them in order, trying to find the first couple of pages. She found a note from Fred to Cynthia. She scanned it quickly.
You’re smart. You know what to do with what’s inside if you need to.
She pushed past the note and glanced at the first page of document.
…testing a small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor…
Helen pushed past that page, too. There were scientific explanations about the project duration and costs on the next couple of sheets. Certain words on page 7 were marked in red. Helen focused on those words.
Dual facility…use of live radioactive material…
The next page had Fred’s handwriting on the margin. Helen tilted the page to make out what he’d written down.
Board approved project without knowledge of end run around NRC. Except Martin Durr, Dir came up with WIPP.
Helen knew NRC stood for Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She didn’t know who Durr was. But she guessed he or she had to be someone on the Board of Directors.
A movement through the glass windows adjacent to the door caught her attention. A car had pulled into the driveway.
She leaned forward for a better view and saw the dark gray sedan. It was the one that she’d seen drive by before.
Events shifted, prioritized, focused in her mind, and suddenly Helen was sober beyond she’d thought possible.
The news had been packed with lies for days. They were reporting people dead in a place that they hadn’t been. Also, Fred’s death. And the plane crash of the company R & D directors. Cynthia’s accident. And this file being stuffed in a neighbor’s mailbox.
<
br /> It was all related.
Someone was standing at the door. Helen’s gaze moved to the glass. They weren’t ringing the bell.
The taste of bile rose in her throat. Her legs wouldn’t move. She looked around frantically her for the phone. She couldn’t see one.
She tried to stand up, but lost her balance and fell forward. Still on her knees, she grabbed up the loose pages left. Struggling to her feet, she staggered toward the stairs.
Helen was on the second step when she heard the lock click in the front door. They had keys. The chain stopped the door from opening.
She ran up one flight. When she reached the kitchen, she dropped the pages on the counter and searched frantically for the phone handset again. It was on the kitchen table.
She heard the sound of the chain snap downstairs as she snatched up the phone. Fighting back her panic as she tried to focus on the numbers, Helen wracked her mind who to call. She sure as hell didn’t know the phone number for the police out here.
911. It dawned on her with brilliant clarity. 911.
But as she tried desperately to find the three numbers on the keypad, she heard the footsteps on the stairs and realized she was too late.
CHAPTER 51
Waterbury Long-Term Care Facility
Connecticut
“I’m hitching a ride on a military transport. I should be in Roswell, New Mexico, by early afternoon,” Mark explained to Sid after getting off his cell phone and walking back into the room.
“That’s a long way to go without having…what do they call it on TV…substantiated evidence,” Sid told him, looking over his shoulder at Amelia.
She had been lost in a world of her own for a couple of hours now, not paying attention to anyone else in the room. Mark could tell that Sid was already concerned about it. The young doctor had told him that he couldn’t wait until she was transferred to a more equipped facility where they could keep a closer eye on her.
“Maybe that’s not substantiated for everyone else, but it’s good enough for me. She’s given us the same information twice. Once with the manual and another time writing down the letters. That’s the first thing she’s written in…how long? No, I’m going with it.”
The neurologist nodded. “I’m just thinking that you might not get any cooperation from anyone once you get there.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take. But I do have a couple of things in the works that might help me.”
“You mean…about this WIPP facility?”
Mark nodded. “I found out the name of the company that manages the site. TMC Corporation. Detective Ricci was able to get information from the FBI on them. They’re a half-billion dollar company that manages and operates a number of remote nuclear laboratory and disposal sites for the Department of Energy…and for a handful of power companies.”
“The New Mexico Power Company one of their clients?” Sid asked.
“You got it. That’s why I am flying out there this morning,” Mark said quietly. “Interestingly enough, the facility that’s burning on the Gulf of Mexico was also one of their managed sites.”
“Have you been able to contact anyone inside the company?”
“No…but I don’t know if I want to,” Mark admitted. “Too many things have happened this past week. Too many coincidences. The cop in me is asking a lot of questions. I was talking to my chief in York an hour ago. He’s using his contacts to get someone from the FBI field office in Albuquerque to meet me in Roswell when I get there. He’s trying to stir up some interest at the higher levels.”
Sid looked anxious. “What do you mean, too many things are coincidental?”
“The initial accident in the Gulf. A few days before the incident, the head of Research & Design at New Mexico Power died after a routine test procedure in the hospital. A colonoscopy. This guy, Fred Adrian, was at the helm of this project. Right after the incident, a charter plane goes down, killing a number of people from New Mexico Power…people who worked on this specific project. I find it extremely convenient that everyone who was closely tied to this research project is gone. So does my chief…and so does the FBI Special Agent in Charge in New Mexico. At least, they both agreed that it’s worth checking into.”
Sid looked over at Amelia again. “She’s been giving us her sister’s view of some of the things Marion was involved with. Technical data…even the name of this WIPP location. Do you think…the wrong prescription she almost got last night might have something to do with your theory?”
“At this point, anything’s possible,” Mark told him flatly.
He was relieved when his Chief, Lucas Faber, had seen the connections, Lucas was a bit less enthusiastic about Mark’s source of the location. He knew a little about some of the ‘odd’ connections between twins, but he wasn’t about to commit to anything coming from Amelia. After all, he’d argued, even though she’d been in a minimally conscious state for six years, only to wake up and name a facility twice, there could be an explanation other than the one Mark was suggesting. No one knew where Amelia’s travels had taken her, after all.
Mark hadn’t argued the point, even though the information was more current than the date Amelia had been injured. The important thing was that the FBI was now involved and he was heading to New Mexico.
If Marion was there, he was going to find her.
Chief Faber had also offered to check nationally for any other homicides or incidents involving New Mexico Power personnel or TMC Corp. in the past week. Not everything made the headline news.
“So you’re saying,” Sid said, “Amelia could still be in danger.”
He looked over at the patient. Amelia was watching them. He wondered if she’d heard the last question.
“She could very well be,” Mark said quietly, glad that the Waterbury PD was on board. “She’s revealing things that someone has gone to a lot of trouble to hide. If they tried once to stop her from talking to us, there’s no reason to think they won’t try again.”
CHAPTER 52
Washington, DC
“There is one tried and true way to kill a project, Martin. You make an offer of an enormous amount of money. You buy it and you bury it.”
Martin Durr reined in his anger and remained silent. The caller was breaking two of Martin’s basic rules. First, no one tells Martin Durr what to do. Second, you don’t talk about sensitive business matters on an unsecured line.
Durr sat in the back seat of the limo, staring in disbelief at the granite buildings lining Constitution Avenue. Here he was at the heart of DC on a cell phone, listening to this idiot come very close to exposing them all. He considered the situation extremely uncomfortable.
“When we talk about killing a project, no one is talking about literally—”
“Look, I can’t hear you,” Martin said, cutting him off. “This phone connection is not working.”
“Martin, my clients are concerned about the events of…”
The lawyer continued to talk, and Martin wanted to stuff something down his throat. He was spouting bullshit and they both knew it. Everyone involved knew exactly how he conducted business. Durr made the decisions and executed them. His fellow investors didn’t care about the details. They wanted results…period. Beyond that, they cared for nothing and no one.
Martin said nothing, though. He wasn’t going to give them an inch of solid ground. The lawyer was only a mouthpiece, and a newly hired one at that. He was representing a dozen investors worldwide who had combined their wealth nearly two decades ago for leverage. Now worth over five hundred billion dollars, the group’s investments were primarily focused on oil. And to protect that interest, the group kept track of key figures in the automotive and alternate energy industries to stay on top of developments—or to squash projects if there was a need.
Not that Martin and his group needed to do it all. Those directing the American automobile industry had certainly been doing their part. There was a reason why the fuel efficiency of automobiles had
moved in a snail’s pace for the past several decades. And even directors of the Japanese auto industry, now well entrenched in oil investments, had bought into the plan.
This project, however, was perhaps the most important they’d faced since GM’s EV1. This project promised to be the greatest advance in energy since Edison beat out Tesla. The successful development of the portable small nuclear container system would crush the demand for fossil fuels in a decade, eventually taking over nearly all commercial applications in a twenty to thirty year timeframe. No, they had to kill it.
Martin Durr was an investor, a business man, a political power. Many considered him a genius. He was on the board of directors of half a dozen corporations and universities. Durr would always be the tough son of a tougher West Virginia coal miner. He’d never had time for any bachelor’s degree. He’d been married twice for money…unsuccessfully. His third marriage had been a success, though, and he had two children to show for it. By the time he’d married the third time, he’d been the one with the bank accounts.
Durr had only handful of people he did business with. They had all been with him for many years. There was no beginning or end to projects. One thing rolled into the next. Their goals were the same—to make money. There was no bullshit nitpicking about how something got done. The end result was all that mattered.
Martin couldn’t understand this phone call. There was no reason for it. At first, he figured the lawyer was trying to justify his salary. Then, a suspicion that something else was in play began to creep in.
“My clients want to know how you intend to resolve—”
“Can you hear me?” Martin finally said into the phone, cutting him off again. “Look, we have a bad connection. I didn’t hear a word of what you said.”
“Mr. Durr…”
“If you can hear me, call my office. Make an appointment with my secretary. I’ll assign one of my people to assist you. That is, if we can help you at all.”
“Mr. Durr…my clients…”