That afternoon, I carefully nosed my new water toy into the entrance of the plant’s inlet canal. I’d owned my lake boat for about four years, and, while this one was longer and heavier, driving a boat is like riding a bicycle—once you learn, you’ve pretty much got it. River navigation was quite different from lake driving, but Tony had laid out a perfectly clear track, and if the sixty-thousand-tonners could manage it, so could I. The 290 handled nicely and had plenty of power, and the raised cockpit provided excellent visibility. The shepherds seemed comfortable enough, especially since we were driving around in perfectly still waters. I’d stayed out in the ship channel coming up the Cape Fear River, which was serious overkill in terms of water depth for my little craft—the Corps of Engineers kept the channel dredged to forty-two feet to accommodate the huge container ships, and the 290 drew twenty inches. Between the GPS and the river buoys, even I could find my way to the inlet canal.
There were a couple of fishermen in smaller boats hanging around at the entrance to the inlet canal, and they waved as I turned in. I cut the big Hondas down to idle so as not to throw up too big a wake. As I approached the power plant, I saw a small tug and cargo barge parked at a bulkhead pier. There didn’t seem to be anyone working or guarding the barge, so I had to assume it was carrying routine, non-nuclear supplies for the plant. From a security standpoint, a barge probably presented less of a threat than a truck, but it, too, was nowhere near close to the main buildings.
I’d reluctantly sent Pardee and Tony back to Triboro, after they confirmed that they’d just as soon not get involved in this one. Pardee reiterated his willingness to stay and help, but I’d finally decided I’d work this one myself. I asked him to continue to manage the comms support for our supposedly secure channel to Quartermain’s computer. Tony wanted to make sure I didn’t think he was leaving me in the lurch, and I reassured him that was not the case since what I needed down here was competent help. That got the usual snort out of him. I received one e-mail message from Ari just after noon, which said simply that the fun and games had begun. I decided that it would be a great afternoon for a boat ride.
The marina people had briefed me on the rules concerning both the container port and the power plant canals. While the access to both was nominally public, Notices to Mariners had been published that security considerations could and would take immediate precedence if circumstances so dictated, meaning they could run your ass out of those so-called public access areas whenever they chose to do so. If you argued, they could confiscate your boat. If you really argued, they could sink your boat. They also explained that most of the real fishermen liked to go into the discharge canal over on the other side, because the heated water attracted more fish.
The container port was approachable, but there, too, the Coast Guard had some hard-and-fast rules. You had to stay at least a hundred yards away from any ships at the pier, and that no-go line expanded to two hundred yards at night. Any boat operating in the main channel or the approaches to the pier had to give way to any ship maneuvering in that area. That was kind of a no-brainer, with the informal but implacable law of gross tonnage being the enforcement mechanism. Sixty thousand tons versus four thousand pounds was how boats, even unsinkable boats, became debris. The bottom line was clear: The port authorities were nervous, and this was probably a good time to avoid the container port and all its works.
My objective in making this trip was to do it once in daylight before I tried it again at night. The inlet canal provided river water for the steam turbines’ condensers. It ended at a huge grated concrete blockhouse assembly where the cold water was drawn into the maws of the big steam condensers under the power house, some four hundred yards distant. A line of buoys prevented boats from getting close to the actual inlet, more for their own safety than the plant’s. There was visible turbulence around the inlet grates and a baby logjam of river debris plastered against the screens. I saw tinted hemispherical television camera pods on telephone poles around the inlet.
I was wearing jeans, sneakers, a baggy sweatshirt under a light windbreaker, a floppy hat, and oversized sunglasses. The shepherds should have been out of sight of the cameras unless there were some I hadn’t seen yet, and there probably were. But as I made a slow turn at the business end of the canal and headed back toward the river, there didn’t seem to be any reaction from plant security. Nighttime might be a different story. I was careful not to spend too much time staring at the two big green buildings of Helios, where the atomic dragons soaked in their elemental fires. And then my cell phone chirped.
“Richter,” I answered.
“Yes, we know,” a voice replied. It was my new best friend, Colonel Trask.
“So where are you, Colonel?” I asked, as I nudged the boat’s throttle up one notch, heading for the egress.
“I’m in central control,” he said. “My eyes are in that little green fishing boat on your starboard bow.”
I looked, and there was the “fisherman” who’d waved. He was holding binoculars on me, and behind him I saw the TV camera, mounted backward on his windscreen, pointed in my direction as I approached the river.
“I feel safer already,” I said.
“There you go, making assumptions again, Mr. Richter,” he said. “What were you doing at the moonpool this morning?”
“Dr. Quartermain wanted to show me something,” I said, “and I got to meet one of your Russians. Gotta admit, that was a surprise.”
“I’m with you on that one,” he said. “Omnia Russians de-lenda sunt.”
“How’s the visitation going with the NRC?”
“The way it always goes when they get their black hats on, Mr. Richter. Lots of noise and motion, but not much movement. Everyone’s really serious, of course, and very important. I understand you got to watch the wetback marathon last night over across the way.”
“Sure did,” I said. “Lots of noise and all kinds of movement. Including Dr. Quartermain. In fact, one of my mutts helped fish him out of the river.”
“So we heard,” he said. “A good German shepherd is hard to beat. Look—you take a drink of whiskey from time to time?”
“No more than once a day,” I said. I was abeam of the “fisherman,” who was no longer covering me with his binocs. His TV camera, on the other hand, was swiveling just fine, probably under the control of whatever room Trask was in. Only then did I notice that the boat was anchored at both ends.
“There’s a pleasant little watering hole down in Southport, called Harry’s,” he said.
“How original,” I said. I felt the main river current grab the boat’s bow and begin to slide us toward the south bank of the canal. I kicked up the power and veered out toward the main channel.
“Yeah, well, it’s kind of a hangout for various stripes of Helios people. How’s about I buy you a drink, say, around eight thirty or so?”
“I never say no to a free drink,” I said. “Do I have to be on the lookout for Billy the Kid anymore?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Richter,” he said. “But bring your shepherds.”
“Count on it, Colonel.”
I put a call in to Mary Ellen Goode when I got back to the beach house. This time she answered. She sounded as warm and friendly as ever, but at the same time, a bit reserved.
“Cam,” she said. “I got your message. You’re back?”
“I am indeed,” I said. “Can we get together?”
“Um,” she began. Surprised, I let a small band of silence build.
“The thing is,” she said, “I don’t think that’d be, what’s the word I’m looking for—appropriate?”
“Seemed pretty appropriate the other night at the Hilton,” I said. “Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed about that, are you?”
“A little,” she said. “I have to confess to using you, in a manner of speaking.”
“Well, damn, woman,” I said, trying to keep it light while hiding my confusion. “If that was using me, you can use me and even abuse
me any time you want. C’mon, Mary Ellen, what’s going on?”
“The thing is, I’m getting married in a month.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said.
“And, lemme see: You were getting married in a month and a week when you came out to see your old buddy from upstate.”
A slight hesitation. “Yes.”
“So what was all that—your bachelorette party?”
“In a way. Well, no, that’s not fair. I just, well, I just wanted to know what it would be like. Edward is a nice guy, but he’s nothing like you. I had to know.”
I couldn’t decide if I should be mad or disappointed. “Know exactly what, Mary Ellen?”
“Cam, that night was incredibly exciting and eminently satisfying. What I had to know was whether or not I was in love with you, and you with me, or just turned on by the fact that you are so very different from all the men I work with and see every day.”
That sounded a bit lame to me. “As in, get it on with the pool boy one last time?”
“No, no, no. Please, don’t be angry, even though you have every right to be. But let me ask you something: Are you in love with me?”
“I hold you in great affection, Mary Ellen,” I said, suddenly the weasel. “You know that.”
“Yes, I do, but do you want to marry me? You want a family? A house in the academic suburbs and some kind of normal, nine-to-five life, one that doesn’t involve gunfights in the dark?”
I sighed. We both knew the answer to that question.
“Right,” she said, and I felt my heart sink, even though I knew she was absolutely right. I’d been married, and I was way past my sell-by date to go there again, even with this lovely woman.
“We smoked some mirrors that night, Mary Ellen,” I said. “You gotta admit, when we were good, we were very good.”
“Stop reminding me, Cam. But the truth is, I want all of those things, and it’s kind of now or never as I see it.”
“I guess I wasn’t really calling about having a drink, was I,” I admitted.
She giggled. “And I appreciate the sentiment,” she said. “Shit. This is hard. I thought all I’d have to do is send you a Dear John and go on with my life. Tell me one more thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked. I thought I knew what she’d want to know, and she did not disappoint.
“Are the shepherds with you?”
Bingo, I thought. “They are. And, yes, I am. You didn’t buy the admin story, did you?”
“Wanted to,” she said. “Really wanted to. But . . .”
“This mean I can’t call from time to time? Just to see how you’re doing?”
“You might get Edward.”
“Aaarrgh,” I said.
“Cam: It’s been more than great. But now . . .”
“Got it, babe. All the very best in the next chapter, and I mean that most sincerely. I do have to say, just for the record, mind you, that I’m sorely disappointed in missing out on some more use and abuse.”
I could almost see the smile I could hear in her voice. “Good-bye, Cam.”
Okay, I thought. A clean shoot-down if there ever was one. Let’s go see what kind of a date Carl Trask is.
Harry’s Bar was located in the second-to-last block before the Southport municipal beach and fishing pier. It was a traditional layout—a long, dimly lit, and smoky rectangular room, mirrored bar and stools on one side, a single row of tables on the other. At the back was a jukebox, a worn-looking dance floor, and a stairway with a sign that said POOL, with an arrow pointing up the stairs. I didn’t think they meant swimming. There was a neon Budweiser sign in the window, along with a dusty and somewhat tattered liquor license taped to the glass near the door. A dozen-plus metal stools decorated the bar, all occupied by what looked like workers from the plant, based on all the badges and TLDs. Not a particularly rough-looking crowd, but it was definitely hard hat country. Some of the tables near the dance floor were occupied by small groups of women who were making a giggling reconnaissance of the bar until I showed up with a large German shepherd in tow.
The tables up front were empty, so I chose one in the front corner near the door and sat down with my back to the wall. I had Frick on a harness with me, and I put her under the table with her back to the wall. Some of the guys at the bar noted the shepherd, but most were busy drinking and talking, in that order, and paid us no mind. The women started giggling again. The bartender tried to protest about the dog, but Frick showed her teeth and he elected to retire with his dignity and his ankles intact.
I ordered Scotch and was enjoying my drink as much as I could having just been dumped by the prettiest woman I knew. A polite, even complimentary dumping, but still. Then Ari’s assistant, the lovely Samantha Young, came through the door. This time the giggling really stopped, and was replaced by some frustrated stares from the Southport debutante conga line huddled over their exotic drinks along the back wall. Samantha was wearing what I think are called designer jeans, a light jacket over a heartbreaker sweater, and slightly more war paint than I’d noticed at the office. She carried a small, businesslike leather purse under her left arm.
She closed the door, shucked the jacket, and inhaled. I think most of the guys at the bar inhaled, too. Some of them even whimpered. She gave them a casual once-over, ignored all the daggers coming down the line from the back tables, and then chose the table next to mine. I tipped my glass at her when she sat down, and she gave me a friendly nod, scoring many points for me at the bar. The tables were close enough that we could talk without moving into each other’s space. I asked her how things were going in the head shed at Helios.
“Lots of new faces and interesting questions,” she said. “Which one is that under your table?”
I told her, and then had to explain the genesis of their names. A couple of the more lubricated members of the stool staff were starting to cast lustful if bleary eyes at Samantha while making the usual delicate anatomical observations. She ignored the boozy chatter and accepted a glass of white wine from the bartender. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I nodded.
“Ari said one of your shepherds pulled him out of the river?”
“Yeah, that was Frack—he’s out in the Suburban. Frick here doesn’t much like water. They get everything cleaned up over there in the port?”
She shrugged, indicating she didn’t know. Then she looked over my shoulder at the front door. “Achtung,” she said quietly.
Colonel Trask stood in the doorway, examining the crowd at the bar like a cop about to make a general roust. There was a tightening of shoulders and turning of faces among the regulars. Then he saw me sitting next to Samantha and walked over. He, too, had changed out of work clothes and was wearing khakis, running shoes, a red and black lumberjack shirt, and an ancient Marine utility cap, complete with a faded eagle embossed above the brim. I was a bit surprised to see what looked like a holstered .357 Mag strapped onto his right hip. He saw me looking.
“Never leave home without it,” he said, ignoring Samantha. Then he noticed Frick. “May I sit down?” he asked the dog politely.
Frick looked at him as if he were crazy, and I said it was okay, that she’d been fed. He grinned and sat down, but he kept his feet well under his chair. Frick, too, had noticed the hand cannon, and the sight of guns in the open made her alert.
“You’re ahead of me,” he observed and motioned for the bartender to bring him a Bud by pointing at the neon sign. The bartender nodded.
“You’re a single-malt man?” Trask asked. He sat with his back to Samantha, and was probably the only man in the bar who hadn’t looked at her twice.
“It’s Scotch weather,” I said. “The NRC found any smoking neutrons yet?’
“Early days, Lieutenant,” he said. “Most of them are scientists, and they take a while to organize a proper cluster-fuck.”
So now I was a lieutenant again. Coming up in the world? But then I realized he was calling me lieutenant because he expe
cted me to call him colonel. Well, hell, I could do that.
“They’ll be looking at your operation, too?” I asked.
“Oh, shit, yes. But I have a standard answer for that line of questioning—I offer to give any or all of them a can of chicken soup, and then challenge them to get it through my perimeter.”
“Chicken soup.”
“Yup.”
“Radioactive chicken soup?”
“Nope. But it does come in a metal can, as would any radionuclides that decided to go walkabout with human assistance.”
“Are there other ways for radionuclides to get loose?”
“Surely you jest,” he replied.
“Actually, I don’t.”
“Then go online sometime and Google for a site called RADNET plus the word ‘an-thro-po-genic.’ Familiarize yourself with the term Accident in Progress. See what our government’s been co-facilitating in the field of nuclear safety. Have your lunch first, though.”
“You biting the hand that feeds you?”
“You bet. But back to the chicken soup: I’m talking about someone trying to smuggle radioactive water out of Helios. They wouldn’t put it in a Ziploc bag, no matter what the TV ads say.”
“Unless, of course, you’re dealing with a prospective Muslim martyr,” I said. I thought Samantha might be listening to everything we were saying, but the jukebox started up, and then she had to fend off some prospective dance partners. She looked a tad annoyed; maybe she was put off by all the drooling.
Trask nodded. “But then we should have had a second incandescent DOA,” he said, “and that didn’t happen.”
“Or they haven’t found him in the Dumpster behind the mosque,” I said. “Those guys are fucking serious.”
“You’re right as rain about that,” he said. “Problem is, we Americans aren’t. Islam has declared a religious war and we’ve declared democracy back at them. Imagine, democracy in the twelfth century!”
“Probably seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said, but he wasn’t listening. I sensed a rant coming, and sat back to let him vent.
Cam - 03 - The Moonpool Page 11