But the trickiest area of all was the question of Sheryl’s desire to save her daughter. Parole boards are not there to judge guilt or innocence, in the minds of the system the jury has done that long ago. They are there to judge worthiness for early release, and they weigh two factors in doing that.
One of them is the convict’s behavior and comportment while imprisoned. We’re fine in that regard; Sheryl has by all accounts been a model prisoner.
The other consideration was far more problematic for us. The board is supposed to consider most carefully whether the petitioner will be a danger to society once released, whether or not he or she can be expected to repeat criminal behavior.
There was no secret as to what Sheryl wanted to do. It would be a huge stretch to argue that taking her own life could be considered a danger to society, but it would be equally hard for us to argue that it was not criminal behavior.
My plan was to spend the night preparing, and then go over all these factors with Sheryl the next morning.
But if we didn’t have Novack, none of it would matter.
It was a dinner that Stanley Breslin was not looking forward to. And it certainly was not the kind of situation he was expecting when he took the job as commissioner of the New Jersey State Board of Parole.
Breslin only got the job in the first place because his brother Alan was the finance chairman of Governor Scott Patterson’s campaign committee. Not that Breslin wasn’t qualified; he spent thirty years as a prosecutor and then defense attorney, and was highly regarded. He was capable of doing the parole board job in his sleep, and for eighteen months, that was pretty much how he did it.
Not that the operation that he headed was a small one, far from it. They conducted more than twenty thousand hearings a year, and supervised well over a hundred thousand already paroled felons. But Breslin had many trained professionals under him who actually did all that work, while he concentrated on the political and social end of things.
Breslin had spent considerable time with Governor Patterson, but it was only at campaign events with hundreds of people, all of whom were there to write checks. In fact, Breslin wondered with some amusement if Patterson would even recognize him without a check in his hand.
But this particular dinner was going to be different. Breslin was invited to the governor’s mansion for dinner. His wife was not part of the invitation, since it was to be a “working dinner.” Breslin knew all too well that he was the one that was going to be “worked,” and the working topic was going to be Sheryl Harrison’s parole hearing.
Patterson welcomed him graciously, and the two had a very pleasant dinner. Breslin had always found him to be an affable guy, tough but fair, and the dinner did nothing to change that opinion. Both men shared a love for sports, the New York Giants in particular, and they spent a lot of time analyzing their roster and coaching staff.
After dinner they went into the den for coffee, at which point Patterson said, “Big day, Thursday.”
“How do you mean, Governor?” Breslin asked, though he knew damn well what Patterson meant.
“You know damn well what I mean,” Patterson said, smiling. “The Harrison parole hearing is Thursday.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I want you there,” Patterson said.
“We conduct two-person panels,” Breslin said, already not pleased with the way this was going. “The two people have already been assigned. And I have not sat on a panel all year.”
“The number is up to you; there’s no law that you have to follow. And you being part of it shows the importance with which we are viewing it.” Then, “It’s important to me, Stanley.”
“What else is important to you?” Breslin said, cutting straight to the chase.
“You mean how do I want it to come out? That depends on the case that they make.”
“Suppose it’s a strong one.”
Patterson thought for a moment. “Well, let me tell you the situation I find myself in. I’ve received a prepetition requesting a commutation of her sentence. The evidentiary brief is going to follow, simultaneous with the presentation to you and your panel.”
Breslin didn’t say anything, though he noticed that Patterson had already assumed Breslin would cave and be part of the hearing.
Patterson continued, “I don’t want to have to rule on it, one way or the other. There’s no upside for me. Whichever way I go, a whole bunch of people will hate me for it.”
“That’s why you get to live in this big house,” Breslin said.
Patterson shook his head. “No, it isn’t. I get to live in this big house because I’ve managed to not get a lot of people hating me. And I’m comfortable here; I want to stay awhile.”
“You need to spell this out for me, Governor.”
“Okay. I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to rule. Certainly, if they don’t make a compelling case, you have to turn her down. But here’s the thing: If you parole her, then I don’t have to make a decision. If you turn her down, then it comes to me.”
Breslin finally understood; the governor wanted to get out of sticking his neck out by having Breslin parole Sheryl Harrison.
“Here’s the problem as I see it,” Breslin said. “We are not there to decide if she committed the murder. We are there to decide if she deserves to be paroled. The main factor to consider is whether she will commit crimes in the future, and she already has said she will. She’ll kill herself. That gives her a steep hill to climb in a parole setting.”
“Hills are there to be climbed.”
“Forget the politics of it for a second,” Breslin said. “If you were not involved, not the governor … how would you want it to come out?”
“I’d want her to be allowed to save her daughter.”
Breslin nodded. “Me too.”
“Give her a fair hearing; that’s all I ask,” said Patterson, though both men knew he was asking much more.
“That I can promise. But I’m sorry, Governor, you can’t count on me to provide your way out of this.”
Livan Figueroa did not want to be at work. A computer technician at the Limerick nuclear power plant, Figueroa had put in for that week as a vacation week months ago, and his supervisor had approved it. He and the family were going to drive to Ocean City; they had wanted to go to Disneyland, but Figueroa’s wife was too freaked out by what had happened on that ride in California.
But if someone wanted to take a vacation at that time, it was not a good idea to be a computer technician at an installation that was considered a prime terrorist target. The word came down immediately; all vacations were off, and all employees should be ready to work overtime hours if called upon to do so.
Figueroa had told his wife to take the kids and drive down to their rented house, and he would try and join them on the weekend. The fact that she was willing to do so eased his guilt somewhat, and also it would allow him to head to the bar with his buddies after work to drink beer and watch sports.
Work itself had been uneventful, as always. It was basically Figueroa’s job to monitor the computer systems, and troubleshoot if anything minor went wrong. If a major problem should arise, he had only to make one phone call, really just press one button, and an army of technicians would descend on the place. Nuclear power plants were prepared for all eventualities.
Of course, Figueroa had been there for eleven years, and the next serious thing to go wrong would be the first. In the year and a half since the new computer system had been put in, there hadn’t even been a minor glitch. The thing could pretty much run itself, as Figueroa’s supervisor mentioned every time he went in to ask for a raise.
But Figueroa was buttoned down on his job, and he dutifully checked the computer systems every twenty minutes. He paid special attention to the systems controlling the fuel rods, since this was the area of greatest danger in a nuclear plant.
The fuel rods generated the heat, and that heat had to be controlled, since that was the key to averting a meltdown. The rods wer
e in a large containment area, and the heat was controlled by lowering covers onto the rods. Lifting the covers meant that the heat would build up, lowering them reduced the heat.
The entire containment area that the rods and covers were in was kept from overheating by a coolant, which was fed into the tank and surrounded them. The coolant then came out the other side as steam, was recooled, and circulated back in. All of this was done to keep the temperature down.
But on this day, as on every day, all systems were checking out fine, and Figueroa’s mind wandered to how much traffic he might hit driving to Ocean City on Friday evening.
Combining resources didn’t get them any closer to Nolan Murray. Novack and his team basically had no idea where Murray was or what he looked like, and Janssen had little to add. The fact that their separate investigations each led to Murray was a comfort in that it made them more confident they had their sights set on the right guy, but it didn’t constitute any real progress toward catching him.
They met in the morning to map out their strategies, though their operations would remain separate. Janssen was there with two members of his team, while Novack was there with Donovan, Emerson, and Andrew Garrett.
Janssen and Novack were clearly the two decision makers, while Donovan seemed to recognize the reality of their respective abilities and mostly deferred to Novack.
“We’re still going after him through ITC,” Janssen said. “It will come as no surprise that he covered his tracks very effectively. But we still believe that’s how he connected to the attacked computer systems, so we’ve got a bunch of agents and an army of nerds going after it.”
Novack nodded, though Janssen was not looking for any kind of assent or permission. “Our best lead is still through Charlie Harrison,” he said. “It’s obvious that Murray was directing those financial frauds, before he worked his way up to mass murderer.”
Novack continued, “Emerson, using his knowledge and connections in the local hacking community, will investigate the Laufer killing, trying to find people who knew something about the circumstances under which Laufer died. Garrett will man the inside computer operation while Emerson is out in the field, but will venture out if there is a need for him to do so.”
Both Emerson and Garrett nodded; their roles had been established before the meeting.
“Okay, good,” Janssen said. “The key thing is that we communicate. I don’t think there’s any doubt that Murray is the guy we’ve both been after. Something might come up that seems inconsequential to you, but could fit neatly into something we’ve been developing.”
“And vice versa,” Novack pointed out.
Janssen nodded. “Absolutely.”
Everybody left the room, leaving just Novack and Janssen. They agreed to meet briefly every half hour to consult.
“Garrett gave you an internal department e-mail address,” Novack said. “I’ll have him go over it with you. You can communicate through that to any of us.”
Novack left the office to get back to work, but took the time to call Jamie Wagner. “Sorry about not coming by last night,” Novack said. “It couldn’t be helped.”
Jamie, who was relying heavily on Novack, wasn’t quite satisfied with that. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“Let’s just say that things took a surprising turn.”
“No, let’s say more than that.”
“Okay. Things took a very surprising turn,” Novack said.
“I need you at that hearing.”
“I’ll do my best,” Novack said. “But if something happens and I’m not there, you can be sure there’s a damn good reason.”
“No reason could be good enough.”
“I’ll keep you posted,” Novack said, and extricated himself from the call. He and Wagner had a deal, he knew that and intended to keep it, but there was no telling what events might transpire in the next twenty-four hours.
Emerson called in to say that he had found someone who knew Laufer, and was with him at a bar the night he died. He said that Laufer got a phone call that upset him, and he left the bar moments later. Novack told him to get Laufer’s cell phone records, in the hope of finding out who made that call.
Novack went into Janssen’s office to update him on this news, and waited a few moments because Janssen was on the phone.
“Yes, I understand. Of course I will,” Janssen said, and then hung up.
“I just heard from Emerson. He said—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, because Janssen interrupted him. “We got another call,” he said.
The look on his face told Novack what he meant. “Another attack?” Novack asked.
“Most likely. They called with the little girl’s voice to get right through, then dropped that. The caller said that playtime was over, and that the price has gone up to five billion.”
“What’s the target?” Novack asked.
“He wouldn’t say; he insisted on talking only to me. They couldn’t convince him otherwise.”
“So he hung up?”
“Yes, when they told him I was out of town. He said he’d call back in a half hour, and that if he didn’t get through to me immediately, he would teach us another lesson.”
“Any idea why he would he insist on talking to you?” Novack asked.
Janssen shook his head. “No, and it surprises me. This didn’t feel like a one-on-one thing; there was no special relationship established. But I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Janssen spent the next twenty minutes making sure that the FBI techs could trace and monitor the call from where he was. He was assured that it would be no problem, since the call was going to come into the Bureau and be patched into Janssen.
In the interim, Homeland Security was notified and put on alert, but that was a basically empty gesture. The attack could be anywhere in the country, at any kind of facility, and all preparations that could be made had already taken place.
Now they could only wait.
“Here’s the problem as I see it, Mike.” Those were Murray’s first words to Janssen as soon as the call was connected. Then, “It took me a half hour to get through to you, which gives you a half hour less to give me what I want.”
“What is it you want?”
“I’m thinking five billion,” he said, and then laughed. “That way if I invest it in four percent treasury bonds, or CDs, it will give me fifty million a year, which should provide me with a decent lifestyle, without having to dig into my savings.”
“You’re pretty funny, for an asshole.”
Murray laughed again; he was clearly having a great time. “Whoa, a new approach. Trying to get me angry, maybe goad me into a mistake. Pathetic, but understandable. Anyway, clearly our relationship is deteriorating, so I suggest we get to it.”
“I’m ready.”
“I own something, and I want the United States government to buy it from me. I’ve already quoted you my nonnegotiable price.”
“What are you selling?” Janssen asked.
“The Limerick nuclear power plant. I’ve owned it for about a year now, but I think the market is right to sell.”
Janssen knew two things. One, that the Bureau and Homeland Security people had just sprung into action, and were reaching out to the plant management immediately. And two, that this was a nightmare.
“How is it you own it?”
“First, let me tell you where things stand. I control the computer systems at the plant, which means I am running the entire facility. For the last six hours, I have been slowly draining the coolant from the fuel rod containment area. You may not know what that means, but I’ll bet a lot of the other people listening in on this call do.”
“I know what it means,” Janssen said.
“Good, then you know that I’ve already triggered the first stage of a meltdown. At the current pace, it’s about twelve hours until catastrophe. And the problem is, I’m the only one who can start putting the coolant back in.”
“In fact,” Murray said, “you’ve got thirty minutes to determine that everything I said is true, and then I want everyone out of the plant. No exceptions. And remember, I control the cameras in there, so I can see everything that goes on. Call you back in thirty.”
As soon as Janssen hung up, he was immediately patched into a call with FBI director Barone and the head of Homeland Security. They were joined after maybe a minute by the chief of security and the executive director of the Limerick plant.
The Limerick officials said that immediate steps were being taken to determine the veracity of all that Murray had said, but Janssen already knew that the worst would be shown to be true. Murray had previously and repeatedly demonstrated his power and ruthlessness, and there was no reason to think he’d be bluffing now.
The executive director quickly laid out the facts, and they were daunting. The plant was twenty-eight miles from Philadelphia, and the population living within fifty miles of the plant numbered in excess of eight million. He used the fifty-mile figure because that was the radius the U.S. government suggested should be evacuated during the Japanese nuclear plant crisis.
Within five minutes the report they were waiting for came in. The fuel rods in the plant were in fact already heated to unsafe levels due to a lack of coolant in the tanks. It took a manual inspection to determine that, since the computer systems were still showing no problem whatsoever.
Obviously the computers were no longer reliable, because they were compromised and being controlled from the outside.
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