by Mark Lemke
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Marti's heart was pumping as she hung up the phone.?She jumped to her feet, grabbed her gear and headed to the elevators.? Turning a corner on her way down the hall, she glanced out the windows.? Something she saw struck her as strange. She instinctively went closer to the window to get a better look.? She was looking out over the back of the facility toward the warehouse.? It was lit up to dispel the darkness outside, which was perhaps why she could see them so clearly.? Coming down from the warehouse were six men, dressed like security officers, and all carrying rifles and satchels.? They were walking purposefully, not fast and not slow.? It just struck her as odd that six armed responders would all be together at the same time.? She normally saw them one at a time.? And what are they doing at the warehouse?? The hair on her arms stood up. ?Perhaps it was the way they were walking?? More likely she was just edgy because of everything that was going on.? She shook her head as if to clear it, turned, and headed to the elevator to find the package boiler room-and Nick.
As she got on the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor, she suddenly felt trapped. ?There was only one way in and one way out.? She'd never considered that before.? Why would she?? And even though no one was on the elevator with her, she shivered at the thought.?
When she got to the ground floor, she felt relieved to exit the elevator.? God!? Was she up for any of this?? She couldn't believe how all this was affecting her.? She wasn't usually this jumpy.? Get a hold of yourself!
She exited the admin building and headed through the Unit 1 turbine building, out to the transformer area, as instructed.? She looked to the east and found the stairs that Dave had told her about.? She saw the unmarked door near the bottom of the stairs that she assumed was the one she was looking for.? She started for the door when a security officer came up from behind, startling her.
"Excuse me ma'am.? Can I please see your key card?"
She turned with a start and looked at a security officer in a black jump suit, wearing a black turtleneck under his uniform, black highly polished jump boots, with a communications device in his ear, and an M-16 slung over his shoulder.? She felt she must have looked guilty by the way he was studying her before he looked carefully at her badge.?
"Mind if I ask what you're doing out here at this time of night?" he asked.?
Marti froze in place, shrinking from his penetrating gaze, not knowing quite what to say.?
Because she wasn't moving or responding to his inquiries, he reached out to take hold of the badge hanging around her neck, lightly grazing the space between her breasts with his hand as he did so.? He turned the badge over and saw the initials 'NRC' on it.? He looked back at her face for a moment, and then let go of the badge and watched it fall back in place on her chest.?
His touching her, shocked Marti into action.? She pulled back slightly and in a defiant tone, said, "I'm the NRC resident inspector and I'm inspecting the plant!"
The security officer maintained an expressionless face and tone.? "At this time of night?"
"Do you have a problem with that?? Or should we get the vice president and your boss on the line . . . right now?" ?Marti was breathing hard now.
The security officer just looked at her again for what seemed to Marti like a very long time, and then said, "Just doing my job Ms. Callahan.? You have a nice evening."? With that, he turned and walked into the turbine building electrical switchgear room.
Marti's heart was racing and her hands were trembling.? She slunk back into the shadows for a moment so she could get out of sight and collect herself.? Her heart told her she was being watched.? Her intellect said that's absurd!? Nonetheless, she waited another minute, trying to slow her breathing down.?She looked around, and seeing no one else, she took a deep breath and continued to walk toward the unmarked door, feeling exposed under the bright lights flooding the transformer area.??She hurried to the door and walked inside, quickly shutting it behind her.? She saw what must be the boiler Dave had told her about, which was obviously not in service and probably hadn't been in quite some time.? She didn't even know it was here or what it was for.
She stood still for a moment, not seeing anyone inside and not really knowing what to do next.? Maybe she was in the wrong room.? She was flustered by her encounter with the security officer and still breathing hard when Nick came out from behind the boiler.? She felt relieved and moved over to him, just wanting to be close to someone right now and feel safe.
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