by Mark Lemke
CHAPTER 7
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Rob looked at Hector and with a tone of admonition in his voice, said, "You need to calm down.? That won't play well with Prichard tomorrow."? He wanted to let that settle.? He was tired too and wanted to defuse the hot tempers standing in front of him.? "Prichard is going to want a good write-up on this, so make sure your guys capture what went well and what didn't.? He's going to want to know if you did all you could.? Be honest about both.? He's spending a lot of money on this evaluation, so let's make sure we do our homework on this, too."
And although he didn't really believe it would alter the outcome of the meeting tomorrow, he added, "Note the areas where Nick was out of bounds."
"Just so you know, we had 'em, right up to the point of the helo coming in," said Hector.? "Of course, we might have even intercepted it earlier if all our equipment were up to spec and working as designed."
Rob knew Hector was right about that.? He'd make sure Prichard knew it, too. ?But it was getting late, and tomorrow would no doubt be a long day and this was not the time to argue with Hector about it.
"Let's get things cleaned up and get our guys out of here.? I want them here tomorrow just in case Prichard wants to talk with any of them," he said with a dismissive air, looking down to some paperwork on his desk.? Hector and Lynn got up and left the office.
Rob knew he'd have to document the cause of the failure to protect the plant.? That meant paperwork now, and a lot more later.? This was far from over.? There would be a lot of fallout over this, and he had to be ready to deal with it.
He didn't like that Prichard brought in Nick to do this evaluation.? He took pride in his security force and what he believed they could do.? As far as he was concerned, this was his power plant to protect and defend.? He knew how to best do that and didn't need some outsider coming in and making him look bad.
He let out a weary sigh.? He was getting too old for this shit.