Disruption: A River Of Secrets And Betrayal
Page 6
"But you..."
"Take time to think. If you decide this is something you want, meet me here tomorrow morning. If not, we will go on as if we never had this conversation; I'll tell you some more of those old fishing stories."
The old man's mouth smiled, but his eyes were far more serious looking. He stood, paused to say something to the barista that resulted in a groan, and walked out the door.
Chapter 19
Elliot and his team made good time getting to the river. Emily and the NRC agent met their truck at the levee.
"Hi Em. Looks like we have an interesting one."
Elliot was one of the few people who dared call Emily ‘Em’. Others had tried it but quickly found that such a level of informality was something that had to be earned.
"Yeah. This is Karla with the NRC. And Karla, this is Elliot, lead of the JTTF."
They filled Elliot in with what they knew. He had already detailed one group to review the videos from bridge traffic, a second group to secure all land traffic around the area, and a third to begin evacuation of anyone near the bridge. Another group was back at their office computers digging through records to identify anyone who might be transporting radioactive materials through the area, and another was arguing with the various agencies responsible for stopping the multi-billion-dollar flow of goods up and down the river. Ultimately, they could have just said, ‘The river is closed!’, but the collaborative way was always the best option...when it is an option at all.
The NRC Search & Secure team was on-site; half of them in a van parked below the levee and half on a boat under the bridge. The boat group was hooking up a submersible robot to locate and identify the object to find out just what the hell they were up against. The darkness was taken care of with bright spotlights, but the current was an issue along with the murky water itself. Locating this thing would not be difficult. Seeing it might be the problem.
Emily, Elliot and the rest of the NRC team were standing on the shore above the bridge, waiting for their teams to do their jobs.
There wasn't anything you would call romantic between Emily and Elliot, but there was some kind of connection. It was partly because they were both so invested in their roles that they couldn't help but respect each other...they were too much alike. One night when they had been out drinking, someone asked if they were a couple. They both stopped cold and stared at each other in a way that clearly said neither of them had even considered that possibility. They decided that it wasn't because they couldn't be with each other, but that neither of them had any interest in being a part of a couple with anyone right now. Work was first, and second, and third. Emily had to put her father in that list somewhere as well. They spent time together but talking about work, or football, or telling stories they didn’t feel they could tell anyone else. It was like being a couple, just without actually being a couple. It didn't make sense to them either, so they just didn’t talk about it. As far as each of them was concerned, what they had was better than romance.
It is Elliot's phone that rang. He listened for a few minutes and then came back to the group.
“The bridge video shows a truck stopped on the bridge around three o'clock this afternoon. It was a rented panel truck stopped near the north end of the bridge for just about one full minute. The driver got out of the cab, walked around to the back of the truck and opened one of the doors. It was parked at a point where the cameras couldn’t see behind it, so they couldn't see just what he was doing, but he then closed the door, got back in the cab and drove on across the bridge. It’s like the driver knew exactly where to stop to avoid being seen. They were able to screengrab the license number and traced it to a rental agency in Thibodaux.”
Emily made the call to Lennie to begin the search. It was just a search at this point. No one was to stop or approach the truck if it was found. Whatever they had dropped in the river may have made the truck just as hot. The stopping and searching part would be left to the experts.
The next sound was the NRC radio informing them that the boat had eyes on the object. It was a cylindrical container with a ring on one end. It was lying on top of a sunken barge, slowly rocking back and forth in the current. The device had apparently been damaged when it hit the barge, and one end of it was cracked and split open, revealing wires inside. The sensors confirmed traces of both Cobalt-60 and Cesium-137. Unfortunately, the sensors also reported pings from about a half-dozen other elements, each one of them nasty.
"It looks like someone wants to get our attention," the NRC leader said.
Emily looked at him for a moment. "It worked."
Chapter 20
It would be about five hours before the boat reached the bridges at Baton Rouge. Charlie thought that if the river was as narrow here as it was up North, this would be one hell of a mess. Just above the Sunshine Bridge, the river turned completely back on itself before bending west again. As he steered the boat around the final curve, Charlie saw a small cabin boat approaching. The pilothouse door opened and the leader and Frank entered.
"How's it going captain?" the leader asked with a smile.
"Business as usual, I guess."
"Excellent. I just wanted to let you know that we have some new crew members coming aboard. I thought you might want to come down and see what was going on so you could, you know, update your crew, so they understand."
"New crew? What the hell's going on now?"
"I'll be happy to explain it all captain, come with me. Frank here can take over for a while."
"You alright with that Frank?" Charlie asked.
"Yeah, no problem Cap. You go check out the party, and I'll take care of things here."
Frank filled the big chair as Charlie walked to the door with the leader and stepped outside.
"You know Captain, this is my first time on one of these tug boats, but I can see how you could fall in love with it. Between the river itself, and the power of the boat, and being on your own and traveling, there is something really special about it for sure."
"It’s a tow boat, not a fucking tug boat. And yeah, one man's paradise is another man's hellhole. Now, what did you want to show me."
They walked the rest of the way to the galley in silence.
There were three strangers standing in the galley unpacking a pile of boxes that made the small room feel even smaller.
"Don't worry captain; we will be moving this equipment into the room next door we cleared out earlier. Your galley will be back to normal soon."
The leader pointed to the boxes.
"This is the equipment that makes our mission foolproof."
Charlie glanced at him with a slight grin on his face.
"I know captain; nothing is really foolproof. But I think you'll see that we've come as close to that as possible. The centerpiece of our equipment here is that computer they are setting up now. It is able to communicate with the devices we're putting in the river. It links them all together."
Charlie's grin had gone away, "So you can push one button to blow them up."
"Well, yes, it could do that of course, but for now, it checks to make sure all of the devices are secure, so nothing happens before we are able to warn everyone to move to safety."
The leader turned to the man with the laptop, "How long before we're functional?"
"Should be just about an hour, then we'll get the GPS-synch running."
"Good, we're on schedule."
The leader turned back to Charlie, "There's more to this of course. But for now, I'll just say that this equipment also provides us with a few extra pieces of, well, protection as we finish our work here."
He smiled.
"Once this is turned on, there is nothing anyone can do to stop us or our boat. Now, why don't you go back upstairs and relieve Frank so he can get some rest before his next shift."
Charlie saw no option but to nod, head back to the pilot house and try to make sense of something that had begun to wander around in his mind. It was the tone of vo
ice when the leader said that nothing can stop them, or the boat. Charlie really hadn't thought about what might happen when people figure out what was going on out here, and what steps they might take to stop them. Or to just stop the boat.
Charlie paused at the foot of the stairway leading to the pilothouse.
"Well, shit!"
Chapter 21
One positive thing about finding the object was that it made it a much simpler task to get river traffic closed. The problem of figuring out what to do with a few hundred ships and boats was in the hands of the Corps of Engineers, while Emily, Elliot and the others focused on removing the device, and finding out who the hell put it there. The NRC boat was sitting in the middle of the river, with the crew staring at small screens as the submersible robot sent images. Their immediate concern was the rocking. The device was already cracked, but nothing appeared to have leaked out; at least nothing visible. The first goal was to stop it from rocking in the current to avoid having it roll off the barge and bury itself in the six feet of mud at the bottom of the river.
The NRC agent's radio came alive, "We're going to lower a couple of sandbags and try to put them on each side of the thing. That ought to secure it enough for us to take a closer look at containing it. Then we have to find out just how much radiation is getting out, and where it’s going."
A second NRC boat had pulled to the shore. There were now five NRC boats, a half-dozen state and local law enforcement agency boats, a collection of harbor patrol craft, and a growing number of boats carrying reporters. Only two media helicopters had arrived, but crowd control was becoming as much of an issue as dealing with the device. Emily spoke with the various agencies to begin forming a secure perimeter. The FAA was called and asked to temporarily designate the area as a no-fly zone. It would raise the hackles of the media, and they would raise seven kinds of hell about it. But, until they had this thing contained, Emily would deal with the PR crap later.
An agent from the new boat walked over and asked if they would like to come onboard to watch the video stream from the submersible. It was a small space, but everyone crowded around the monitors to see the dull gray-green light showing nothing more than specks of mud and gunk floating past the camera. Then, a shape began to form, and the curve of what appeared to be the end of a metal cylinder filled the screen. There was the small ring on the end, and a dark gap, where the end of the device had partially separated from the rest of the body. The camera took a position just above the device, and then a robotic arm appeared, placing a small sandbag on one side of the device, near but not actually touching the cylinder. The device gently rolled in the other direction, and then settled back against the sandbag. The arm returned with a second bag, placed it on the other side of the device, gently nudged it against the canister, avoiding the opened area so it could be more closely examined.
"Device secured," the NRC radio chirped.
Everyone watching the video exhaled a deep breath, immediately following it with a sheepish look as they realized that this was probably the simplest part of the entire task, and it was far too early for anyone to start relaxing.
The device stopped rocking. As the device stopped moving, the camera did not show the vial inside release the acid that ate through the insulating materials, arming the detonation circuitry. The camera did not tell them that all devices were now fully armed and ready to fulfill their mission.
Chapter 22
"Captain, you need to get downstairs!" the deckhand stuck his head in the pilothouse door. "I don't know what the hell is going on, but those guys are yelling at each other, and it sounds like there's trouble."
"Go get Frank and tell him I need him. Wait! You ever drive a boat?"
"What? Me? Drive a boat? Fuck no Captain. I mean, no sir, never done that."
"Well get over here, and pay attention. It’s straight for a while here so if you just keep it pointed in that direction you'll be fine."
The deckhand moved closer but kept one foot outside the door.
"Look, Virgil; you can do this. Hell, you've been telling me that you want to be a pilot someday, so this is as good a time as any to get started. Now get over here."
The young man stood by the chair as the captain quickly explained the basics of keeping ten thousand horses moving in the right direction.
"Hell, the boat pretty much steers itself here, so you just need to keep your eyes open for anything that might get in the way, and just go around it."
The Captain gave Virgil a fatherly smile of encouragement, knowing full well the process is more involved than just going around something. Virgil returned a much weaker smile as Charlie moved away. The young man took a deep breath as he crawled into the seat, put a hand on the primary rudder control, and turned to give the captain a reassuring nod. But the captain was already halfway down the ladder to the main deck, trying to understand the shouts he heard coming from the galley.
The leader was standing in the middle of the room with his hands moving up and down. He was apparently trying to calm the doctor down, standing in front of him with a red face, perspiration on his forehead, shouting with a voice about three octaves above normal.
"But you don't understand!” the doctor shouted. “Now they will come for us! We have to act now, or it will be too late, and all of our work will be wasted."
"Yes, they found a device,” the Leader said, “but they do not know how it got there, or even what it is. They know nothing at all about us, or our mission. You must relax."
"But they will find out. They are not fools. They will find out that it came from a boat and they will track us down, and they will..."
"We always knew this was going to happen. But doctor, by the time they do track us down, our system will be fully functional in a few minutes, and then, even if they do find us there is nothing they can do to us."
The Leader saw Charlie in the doorway.
"Ah Captain, we must apologize for this disruption. But as you can see, my team is highly committed to our mission, and are concerned about having it interrupted. But as I have told the doctor, everything has been taken into consideration and has been planned for.”
Charlie stepped into the room.
"What happened? Did you say someone found one of the devices?"
"Yes, one has been found. Apparently, the device placed under the Grammercy bridge landed on an old sunken barge. Can you believe that? And by some totally random chance, a passing boat was testing one of their sensors and found the canister. It’s almost like a bad movie, who could imagine such a thing?"
"Landed on a barge?"
"Yes. And it was cracked open a bit, allowing radiation to trigger the sensor."
"Wait, how did you find out about it? I've had the radio on and haven't..."
"We have our ways captain, as I have told you. Those of us here on the boat are a small part of the mission and have many friends who are involved in helping us be successful."
Another man entered the galley.
"OK, the GPS-synch is active. Our system is fully operational."
The leader paused, looked to the floor, then slowly walked to the door looking out to the river before turning to the technician.
"How many devices do we have online?"
"Six devices are reporting."
"All six? Excellent."
The leader turned to the others.
"Now gentlemen, our mission is unstoppable. Doctor, put your concerns aside and return to your work. Even if our work is discovered and we are found, no one can touch us. They have no choice but to watch as we complete our work. Our mission will now succeed; it is just a matter of time."
"But wait," the leader turned again to the technician, "are all devices fully armed? All of them?"
"Yes, all six are reporting as armed and ready for use."
Another brief pause.
"Captain, again, I am sorry we have disturbed you here, and I assure you that everything is under control. I'm sure you have other things you need
to be doing."
Virgil! For the first time since leaving the pilothouse, Charlie remembered he had left the boat in the hands of an untrained deckhand. Taking steps three at a time he ran to the pilothouse where he found the young man leaning back in the chair, feet up on the console, looking like an old pro. Best of all, the boat was right where it ought to be. Charlie made a mental note that when this mess is over, he has a man to begin whipping into shape for his pilot's exam.
Chapter 23
With the device now secured, Emily returned to the phone to update everyone and to check on the progress of the various groups at work. Mid-call with her boss, her phone vibrated with the option to ‘End call and answer.’
"Hello, Emily? This is Linda at Torchwood. I'm sorry to bother you again, but is there any way you could come in and help us with your dad? I thought we had him calmed down after you talked with him, but things have gotten a bit more difficult."
"Hi, Linda. It’s, really tough to get away right now. What's going on?" She noticed a different sound in Linda's voice this time.
"Well, he went down to the dining room for a while and was doing just fine, but then he started getting upset again; we're not sure what triggered it. But we had to call security to come and help us get him back to his room. He ended up hitting one of them."
"He hit one of the security guys?"
"Yeah, he may be older, but he's still pretty strong. The guys are both pretty big, but it took both of them to get him back to the bed. He was yelling at them and throwing things at them. He's always gotten along well with Darnell, one of the guards, they talk and joke a lot. But when Darnell tried to talk with him, your dad punched him. And now he's just sitting there getting all worked up and really making himself more upset. Is there any way you could come in and help us?"