Red North!

by Mark Lemke

CHAPTER 51

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  RED NORTH!

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  Rob's secure phone rang.? It was Jansen.

  "I'm coming in.? I'll go to your office.? Meet me there in five."

  "You're what?? Are you crazy? What about . . ." but the phone line was already dead.? Rob's throat tightened.? This wasn't going according to plan.? Why the hell had he gotten mixed up in this in the first place?? What had he been thinking?? Yeah, the money looked good and he had some legitimate grievances.? It all looked so easy before.? But things kept changing.? If Jansen was coming in, something had gone wrong.? This was a contingency plan, and he knew it.? Jansen and Stone had even been into the plant once before to scout some of this out and to make sure their ID badges presented no problems to getting in.? But now that Jansen was coming in, Rob was beginning to have serious doubts about coming out of this in one piece.? Regret and recrimination coursed through his mind.? His blood pressure and respiration went up.? He was scared.

  He closed the blinds so nobody could see in.? He was on the ground level and people could walk by his office windows, even at that time of night.?

  A few minutes later, Jansen walked into his office and closed the door.? Rob thought to himself, this guy has balls of steel!? He's trying to hold up this nuclear power plant and he just walks through security and into the protected area as if he worked there!? Rob couldn't imagine doing some of these things himself.?

  "What the hell happened?" he asked, not waiting for Jansen to say anything first.

  Jansen could see Rob was agitated.? It was written all over his face, which was tense and hard.? His skin had a deathly pallor to it.? He was pacing his office like a caged animal, first looking down, and then looking up.?

  "Calm down," Jansen said.? "I lost contact with my team in the field.? It could be a comm problem, though I doubt it.? If something happened to them, then I needed to be in here.? We talked about that, remember?"

  "Of course I remember!? I just didn't think it would happen!? What could possibly have happened to them?"

  "I don't know, but they were only a distraction anyway.?Our main force is inside the perimeter and should have things in place any time now.? None of them have been detected, have they?"

  Rob replied, "No.? Of course not!? I'd have told you, don't you think?"? Then Rob looked down and fingered some papers on his desk, trying to look casual, though feeling anything but.? "Prichard met with the shift manager earlier tonight.? They met out in the plant."

  Jansen tightened his jaw and leaned forward, hands on Rob's desk.? "Why the hell didn't you tell me about this earlier?"

  Rob was momentarily taken aback by Jansen's menacing posture.? He was a big guy and as he leaned in, he towered over Rob.

  "Hey, I just found out about it myself," Rob said defensively.? "The guys like Street.??The idea of keeping him under surveillance didn't make much sense to them.? So the guy who saw him, didn't report it right away."

  Jansen eased off a bit.? He knew he was intimidating Rob,?understood that he needed him, and needed him at his best, not afraid he was going to be beat to within an inch of his life with the ashtray on his desk.? He knew he was a bit on edge, too.? But this wasn't the end of the world, so he relaxed his posture, looked around, and found a chair to sit in.

  Rob went on.? "Street said he was checking out a leak in the component cooling water system, but he and Prichard stopped talking as soon as my officer showed up."

  Jansen leaned back in his chair, which was almost more intimidating than when he was leaning on the desk.? "Is there anything else you haven't told me about?"

  Rob wasn't sure how Jansen would take the next bit of news either.? He was reluctant to tell him, but he needed to get it all out there.? Even though he was the security manager, he felt like a subordinate when Jansen was around.?

  "As it turns out, the NRC resident is on site as well."? Rob paused, but only briefly.? Then, as if to justify this news, he rushed on.? "That's not particularly unusual either, but again, it's awfully coincidental.? I've been having her watched.? Seems she went out in the plant earlier, too.? One of my guys bumped into her by the main transformers.? Looked suspicious, but she didn't meet with anyone . . . as far as we could tell."

  Jansen was doing a slow boil.? He couldn't believe what he was hearing. ?He was starting to have serious doubts about Rob. "You're telling me it's normal for her to be out walking the plant in the middle of the night?? And on this night in particular?? Didn't that strike you as a bit strange?"

  He was past the point of showing his anger.? He'd keep the rest of that inside for now.? He still believed he had the upper hand.? He was on the inside, in a defensible position, with security now protecting him-even though they didn't know it-and all the 'good guys' were on the outside.? It wouldn't be as clean as he'd wanted, but it'd still work.?

  "What about the FBI?" Jansen asked, not really expecting Rob to respond to his previous challenge as to the NRC's senior residents whereabouts.? "Are they still on track to shut down the place in the morning?"

  "As far as I know.? They're trying to keep it very quiet, but they'll be here about 0600 to make sure the graveyard shift goes home and nobody else comes in.? After that, they take control and plan to begin a search of the place."

  Jansen smiled to himself.? Some things were very predictable, and this was one of them.? He and his team would walk out with the other graveyard workers and detonate the explosives remotely.? Rob didn't know that though.? Rob thought they were going to stay on site and negotiate the terms of the ransom.? Part of that was to include safe passage out of there.? But what Rob didn't know was that he was going to be left inside, alone, and holding the bag.? Jansen knew what Rob apparently did not, that there would be no negotiating with the FBI.? Rob would spend the rest of his life in prison.? It wouldn't matter what he told the FBI about him.? He'd be long gone and untouchable.? Jansen already had his exit strategy out of the country, set up through Atlanta.?

  "How are my boys doing?" Jansen asked, referring to his men inside the plant.

  "I've been tracking their whereabouts on the security computer.? Based on where they are, I'd say they're not done yet.? They're still working on it.? They have to be careful so as not to attract attention."

  Jansen smiled to himself.? It was all so easy.