Quake (22 page)

Jasper's heart felt like it was trying to drop into his stomach.
I should have warned them about the terrorists!
He had no idea why they were outside. Did the aftershock scare them out? Were they seeking new ways into the containment structures?

Sam picked what was probably a convenient moment to adjust some controls on the pumping station, leaving Jasper to reply to Mendoza. He'd gotten him into this mess, after all, so he had to get him out. He squeezed the pistol he still carried in his right hand and wished there was a way outside.

“Frank, we're being attacked by terrorists. Are any of you armed?”

When Mendoza came back on the air, Jasper was alarmed to hear the sounds of gunfire, some of it extremely loud.

“Jesus. I was hoping they were overzealous security for the plant. I've got a Glock pistol,” Mendoza said, “but I'm almost out of ammo thanks to a bunch of dogs in Central Park. Don't ask. I think one of our convoy drivers has a handgun, also. But what do these guys want?”

“Good question, but I think they want to cause damage to the plant, create a meltdown. Whatever the worst is that they can inflict. They shot and killed three of our employees in here earlier today.”

“They're not wearing protective suits,” Mendoza noted.

“Allah is their hazmat suit, I'm afraid,” Jasper said.

Then he heard another volley of gunfire erupt.

“Can you get truck number four connected?” Sam asked. “Pool's just starting to stabilize. Hate to stop now.”

They heard Mendoza shout “Cover me!” and then more firearms discharging, followed by, “He's hit! One down! The other guy's taking cover. Bill! Move into position.”

Sam wordlessly nodded his approval. Jasper remained silent also, not wanting to distract Mendoza in the middle of a gun battle.

“Truck four's hooking up now,” Mendoza said. “We've got one armed man with the truck at the pumping station, and another—that's me—watching the other guy run away, in case he decides to fake us out and come back this way.”

“Which way is he running?” Jasper asked.

“Toward the river and north.”

Jasper swallowed. That was toward the Reactor Number 2 containment building, where they were now.

“He's probably heading back to the reactor building complex they accessed earlier.”

“Truck four connected!” Mendoza announced. “Never thought I'd be part of an armed water delivery service, but here I am.”

“Just be careful,” Jasper warned. He didn't want to see any more dying.

“Pump's activated,” Sam said.

“Go, I'll cover you!” they heard Mendoza yell.

“What now?” Jasper asked.

“Going for the dead guy's weapon,” Mendoza said matter-of-factly. To Jasper, it seemed like he was awfully calm in light of having driven completely unexpectedly into an armed terror skirmish.

“What did you say your job was, again?”

“I didn't. But I'm FBI. Not on duty at the moment, but some would say we're never off duty.”

That explains it,
Jasper thought. “Wow. Can you call for backup?” he asked.

Mendoza chortled. “This convoy
is
my backup, Jasper. Only they're not my fellow agents, but we've got somebody from NYFD—in a fire truck, by the way, because they hold some water—a couple of long-haul truckers, a mechanic who volunteered to drive a tanker that he fixed quick enough to get on the road with us. The FBI is preoccupied at the moment with preventing looting and riots and rounding up escaped criminals. You haven't been outside in a while, so you don't understand how bad it is in the city.”

Jasper silently agreed with that statement. He'd been in a nuclear bubble all day.

“It's
bad
, Jasper—dire. The very, very last thing New York needs at this point is some nuclear meltdown on top of all that's already gone on.”

“Fourth truck is pumped out, but it only had 3,000 gallons,” Sam informed them.

“Affirmative, that one was only half full when we found it and no way to fill it on such short notice so we brought it along anyway,” Mendoza said. “But Big Five, we call it, is up next. Get ready to pump it up!”

“Copy that,” Sam replied, ever vigilant on the control panel in front of him.

“We've got the dead terrorist's weapon,” Mendoza reported. “Mother! Semi-automatic. I think the other one just has a pistol. Glad we got this one first. Big knife on him, too.”

As perilous as the radiation dangers here inside the containment facility were, Jasper was grateful that this same building also afforded him protection from the animals outside. Animal, he corrected himself. He was pretty sure there was only one left. And if he was to get out of this building, sooner or later he'd have to face him. Unless Mendoza and his merry band of water tankers got to him first.
Thank God for Mendoza
, was all he could think.

Jasper glanced down into the pool. It didn't look much different to him. Still fizzing and bubbling. Mr. White (
call me Alex!
) still adrift on his nuclear sea.

Sam collected the water from Big Five and Mendoza's team cued up the final truck.

“Water level's nice and high now. I no longer feel like I'm about to stare down onto bare fuel rods. Temperature dropped, too!” Sam rejoiced.

“Yeah, buddy! One more coming up,” Mendoza said.

They transferred the water from the remaining tanker without incident while Sam monitored the spent fuel pool water temperature. “Still warmer than optimal, but there's enough water in there now that we're no longer in danger of it boiling off. Doesn't look like we have any cracks in the pool either, even after that last shock. Great job, people!”

“I can't thank you enough, Frank. You and all your guys. Make sure you tell them thanks from us, too, okay?” Jasper added.

“Hey,” Mendoza said, “you can tell 'em yourself over a round of brews and pizza when things get back to normal. We'll get 'em to make us a ‘radioactive special' with a lotta hot sauce and some green glowing beers. Sound good?”

“Now you're speaking my language. Sam, is there anything else we need to get done in here?”

Sam looked up from his controls. “Nothing critical, no. We should quit while we're ahead.”

Jasper eyed the level high above them that led to the stairway they'd taken down with Jeffries.

“Great. So all we have to do now is figure out how to get the hell out of here.”

Frank Mendoza watched as his water crew gave each other pats on the back and high-fives. He was feeling pretty good about things, himself, too. Saving the nuclear plant from a radiation disaster? He couldn't wait to tell Jana. But right now, it seemed like the problems just kept coming from this place. Jasper and Sam were still trapped inside the containment area, and the surviving terrorist was roving around loose somewhere, no doubt mad as all hell at the death of his associates.

He brought his handheld radio to his mouth. “Let's see what we can do about getting you and Sam out, Jasper. So you said you needed a ladder to get across something and it fell out of position?”

Jasper filled him in on the details of their catwalk crossing, the collapsed exit doors, and the details of taking the stairs down past Jeffries's control room to the containment area doors. Mendoza picked his brain for information about other possible exits, but it always led back to the missing ladder over the spent fuel pool.

“One of our water trucks is a fire company engine. It's got a pretty big ladder on it, but I'm not sure if it's attached to the truck or what. Let me go talk to Pete—the NYFD man driving it—and we'll see what we can do. Stand by.”

Mendoza knew that there was a gigantic crane atop the fire truck for tall building access, but he was pretty sure it was fixed, and even if it wasn't, it was far too heavy and cumbersome to get inside a building. He strode up to Pete, who was dramatically rehashing the details of his water pump action, and waved the radio, indicating he needed to inform Jasper and Sam about something.

“What's up?” Pete asked.

Mendoza pointed to the fire truck. “We need a very long but portable ladder. Have anything like that?”

Pete answered him without even looking at the truck. “We've got the fifty-foot, but normally it's got a trained crew of six or eight guys to handle it.”

“The two nuclear employees who've been communicating with me are trapped inside. Say they need a ladder to get across a space where a catwalk fell. Got to get it down some steps. Might be tricky, but can we try it?”

“You bet.” He put two fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill round-up whistle. “Let's go, boys! It's volunteer firefighter day! Ladder detail.”

Mendoza raised Jasper on the radio again and got him to give precise directions down to the containment overlook area once he was inside the building. He decided it would be beneficial to scout out the route ahead of the ladder crew, to root out any surprises. Including ones with guns. He trotted back to Pete, who already had a huddle going to instruct the men on how to carry and use the ladder. He informed him of the plan, saying he'd go on ahead alone and then in a few minutes come back up to guide them down and assist if necessary.

Then Mendoza was running across the open yard space of the nuclear property toward the containment building for Reactor Number 2. He called Jasper on the radio while he moved.

“Coming up on the entrance, I think. Brown door, got a sign over it . . .” Mendoza described what he saw.

“That's it,” Jasper confirmed. “Not sure if it'll be open.”

Mendoza saw that it was already ajar, wedged open by a small trash can. In the can was what appeared to be a bloody rag.

“I'm in,” Mendoza said, slipping inside to the same hallway Jasper had passed through earlier that day. The alarm that had blared when Jasper passed through was now silent, however, imparting an eerie silence to the deserted nuclear facility. Jasper had seen documentaries on Chernobyl in the decades following the mega-disaster there, the Russian facilities abandoned exactly as they had been, entire towns on the way to being patiently reclaimed by nature. This vast empty complex reminded him of the beginnings of that.

Jasper directed him over the radio to Jeffries's office. “Two reasons I want you to go in there,” he explained. “One, check on Jeffries, in case he's still alive. Two, see how many hazmat suits are in there and put one on. Have your guys put 'em on, too.”

Mendoza flew down some stairs, but then had to stop himself on the landing before turning the corner. Never knew who could be waiting there. His Glock was at the ready, but he had precious few bullets left now, after his entire first clip had literally gone to the dogs, and a few more to the water pump skirmish. His ammo consumption concerned him enough that he paused to open his weapon.

Two rounds remaining!

Better than nothing. But he cursed himself for not taking the terrorist gun they'd recovered from his lifeless body. At least one of the ladder crew had it, but still, he should have asked for it since he was the point man on this crazy sortie.

He reached a door with a sign marked
OPERATIONS ROOM
and Jasper told him that was it. Like the outer door, this one was also ajar. Glock held at the ready in a two-handed grip, Mendoza kicked it open.

He instinctively swept his pistol back and forth across the room, an innate motion bred into him from years of FBI field service. He stepped into the room.

There was only one man in here, and he was dead. Not only that, but Mendoza could see that his wasn't an easy death. He hadn't merely been shot, as Jasper had implied.

He'd been tortured.

Stephen Jeffries was trussed to his workstation swivel chair, bound with frayed electrical cords. His shirt had been removed and placed over his head. One of his ears lay nearby on the floor in a bloody smear. The thumb of his right hand was missing, and Mendoza quickly glanced around but didn't see it. He flashed on the possibility that perhaps it had been taken for the purpose of defeating biometric security devices—door locks with thumbprint scanners.

But that wasn't the worst of it. Mendoza could see that the shots which had incapacitated him would not have been fatal. Jeffries's body had been thoroughly mutilated, and even though he was a seasoned special agent who'd been exposed to all manner of human depravity and desperation in the face of illicit circumstances, he turned away from the bloody corpse and fell to his knees. He vomited onto the floor while holding his Glock out blindly in front of him in case someone should storm the room during this moment of vulnerability.

He was all too aware that, as a field agent, this was exactly the type of situation he'd been trained to avoid at all costs—alone and facing an armed and dangerous suspect. He did have backup of sorts, he told himself by way of consolation, but his group of ragtag convoy truckers was far from a highly trained special agent by his side and the full resources of the bureau on call.

But he was in it now, and it was sink or swim.

“Is he alive?” Jasper queried, the radio vibrating faintly in his hand with his transmission.

Mendoza struggled to his feet as he responded.

“No, he's not.” He opted to leave out the details of Jeffries's grisly demise for now. It wouldn't do any good to scare the living crap out of them down there.

“Look over on the wall—how many suits are hanging on the rack there?”

Mendoza looked over and saw a whole row of blue vinyl hazmat suits. He quickly counted them. “Eight,” he said, pleased. More than enough for himself and the whole ladder team.

“Great, go ahead and put one on, please,” Jasper said. “It's pretty straightforward except for the headgear, but I'll talk you through—”

“Crap!” Mendoza said, enough disappointment creeping into that single syllable to let Jasper know that seriously bad news was forthcoming.

“What is it?”

“All of these suits have been slashed up. Completely ripped apart with a knife or something,” Mendoza said, running a hand through the shredded rubber. He walked down the line, inspecting each one. All had been sabotaged.

The dead silence over the radio frequency said it all.

“There are no other suits I can get access to, are there?”

This time it was Sam's voice that answered. “Negative.”

A long pause ensued.

“Talk to me, people. Believe me when I tell you that I don't fancy hanging out in here one second longer than I absolutely have to.” He glanced over at Jeffries's disfigured body and then averted his gaze to the open doorway. He made sure he had a good grip on his Glock and the two bullets it could offer him.

“I'm looking at my dosimeter now,” Sam began, “and while the background radiation levels have dropped significantly since the new water was introduced into the fuel pool system, they are still levels that normally would require a suit. Especially in this situation where much of the equipment and system controls have been compromised and could fail at any minute.”

There was another beat as Mendoza digested this.

“That said,” Sam continued, “those are OSHA and NRC type regs. The levels aren't dangerously high for a one-time exposure. In fact, if it were possible I'd gladly take my suit off and throw it over to you so that you could wear it, if you wanted, in order to effect our rescue.”

“Can you do that?” Mendoza asked.

“No. Gap's way too wide.”

Mendoza thought for another moment, acutely aware that every additional second he stood around was increasing the chance that an AK-47-toting fanatic would blaze in here and cut him down before he could even get one of his two rounds off. He took a deep breath.

“Look, I don't know what my guys are going to say—I think you two would be the first to admit that they've already gone way above and beyond, but I'll present the situation to them and let them make up their own minds.”

“Hold on, there's one more thing you can do,” Sam said. He told him about the potassium iodide pills Jasper had taken earlier.

“Where are they?”

“Should be in a drawer on the workstation, left side. Blister pack of brown capsules.”

Mendoza went to the drawer, situated beneath an array of flashing LEDs, and removed the pills.

“Got 'em.”

“Take two. However many are left, distribute them to your team. Anybody who comes down here.”

Mendoza popped the pills from the pack and dry swallowed them.
Jana will be happy I took these.

“Since I'm all the way down here already, maybe I should just run down and look at the space where we're going to need to work with the ladder. If there's corners it won't fit around, what's the point? Might have to go back outside the plant and find more help.”

“Understood,” Sam said. He gave him directions on how to get down to the containment overlook area where the catwalk had been.

Mendoza carefully looked left and right before exiting and jogged down the staircase. He took his time at each turn or landing, reaching the barrel of his gun around first and then charging ahead. He paused when he reached the oversized metal doors that led to the containment area proper.

Radiation, here I come. Sure you want to do this?

But the decades of service to the FBI wherein it was his job to rescue those in peril even at the potential expense to his own personal safety could not easily be overcome. It was just a few minutes; they said it wasn't really all that much, he told himself.

His resolve steeled, Mendoza kicked open the double doors and stared into the containment area.

He was not prepared for what he saw.

First of all, the space was so dim. He waited for his eyes to adjust. And what he could make out was less than comforting. Rivulets of liquid rained down from the ceiling in various places. Massive installations of machinery had been overturned or crushed. Huge chunks of concrete lay everywhere. Loose wires sparked deep inside the cavernous space.

Good God. I've got to get these guys out of here.

Seeing the destruction firsthand gave him a new appreciation for the patience and courage that those two plant employees must have to remain so calm in the face of such destruction. Then he realized that a lot of men would put on some level of airs that everything was okay, but it didn't mean they weren't scared shitless on the inside.

In addition to what he could see, his ears told him things weren't perfect either.

“Jasper, Sam, can you read me. Gonna be hard to hear with all these alarms.”

“Oh, most of them have stopped by now. This isn't bad,” Sam informed him.

Jesus
.

“Okay. I'm walking out onto this large concrete area now. Anything I should watch out for?”

“Just watch your step. There's all kinds of debris everywhere.”

Mendoza picked his way out to the edge of the platform. He could just make out some water that seemed incredibly bright blue to him. He recognized that it must be the spent fuel pool they had told him about.

He had nearly made it to the edge of the concrete landing and was taking in the distinctive sight of the SFP below when he saw something off to his right.

There!

A lone figure, standing by the edge of the platform.

He was looking over into the pool, and he had a grenade clutched in each hand.