“I want to scan for that downlink setup routine,” Jason said.
“No prob, J,” Ari said. “I’ll find out where she lives, set up the Cockroach to monitor, capture the authentication codes, and have it broken in a day or two. Maybe less, if it’s a standard satellite encryption routine.” Jason nodded.
“Where they sending you?”
“Clovis, New Mexico.”
“Bring sunscreen.”
“Anything else on GAMMA?”
“From Brazil—no. But Kingman City, yes. TransGlobal headquarters in San Francisco received a tape, supposedly from GAMMA, warning them to evacuate Kingman City. The tape was never listened to—never even left the fucking mailroom.”
“Oh, shit. Thousands of people might…might have died for nothing.”
“The voice was in English but electronically altered—we might not be able to voiceprint, but we should be able to pick up speech patterns and nuances that can help us build a profile.”
“Did GAMMA leave warnings in Brazil?”
“Yep. Every time. Other places in South America too—other TransGlobal targets too. The latter messages were electronically altered too. We should be able to detect the frequency of the device that alters the voice and come up with a manufacturer.”
“I tell you, Rudy, this task force shit better not be a waste of our time, because I think GAMMA is in Brazil plotting another attack, and we need to break them up and get them behind bars before they bring another nuke into the U.S.”
“Amen.”
“Hey, didn’t Chamberlain used to be an exec with TransGlobal Energy?”
“I think so.”
“That could explain why he wants this task force and robot thing chasing after these terrorists. Maybe he still has an interest in TransGlobal.”
“Aren’t these guys supposed to divest themselves of any financial interest in public companies before they take public office?”
“Yeah. Let’s get someone to check on that.”
“Sure. Well, I better get busy. Talk at you later, Kel.”
“Thanks, Rudy. Later.”
Jason sat back in complete surprise. “Holy shit, the FBI might be on their trail already,” he said. “We have to find out where in Brazil they’re talking about, and we have to get down there as fast as we can.”
“As soon as I break that encryption routine, J, I should be able to look in her files and find out what she has on this GAMMA,” Ari said. “Or maybe once she sets up in New Mexico, she’ll let you look at her goodies…and then maybe she lets you look at her files.”
“Slim chance of either happening, Doc,” Jason said. “Have your guys break her satellite downlink as quickly as they can.”
“You got it. Uh…dude, is there any chance we’ll get in deep shit by crashin’ into the FBI’s computer system?”
“Maybe. But as far as I know, this is what I was told to do—by the fucking National Security Adviser himself.”
“Sweet,” Ari said excitedly. “I’m in but I’m in, man.”
Cascavel, Paraná State, Brazil
A short time later
Originating in the lushly forested highlands of western Paraná near the Paraguay border, the Piquir River was the last of the “living” rivers of Brazil, untouched and unspoiled, once nourishing millions of acres of rain forests and providing food, drinking water, transportation, and a livelihood for thousands who lived along its banks. Some of the towns and villages there had existed for centuries, and its people lived much as they had for the past four generations. As unbelievable as it sounded, it was said that some of the inhabitants who lived along the river had no implements or devices built before the turn of the twentieth century, and some had never before even seen a light-skinned man or woman.
That changed with a single vote of the Third District Regional Federal Tribunal of the Brazilian Federal Court in São Paulo, when it overturned a protective order by a lower court and allowed the construction of the Cascavel Nuclear Power Project. Despite protests by a number of environmental and natives’ rights groups—and, it was said, bolstered by lavish gifts and bribes—the court gave the final go-ahead, and within minutes of the decision the first trees were being bulldozed.
Cascavel was actually planned to include seven state-of-theart reactor facilities; each of the seven plants was larger than any nuclear power plant in the United States—1,500 megawatts each, for a total of 10,500 megawatts capacity. Designed to serve not just Brazil but many of Brazil’s neighboring countries—Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, and even Chile—it was by far the largest nuclear power project in South America and one of the largest in the world. Once completed, each facility was to employ five hundred workers, although only a fraction would be from the state of Paraná—engineers, technicians, and security would mostly be from outside the country.
In order to provide cooling water for the facility as well as power to serve the new towns begun during construction until the plants came online, a hydroelectric dam was built on the Piquir River, which took just over two years to complete. Six hundred meters wide and two hundred meters tall, the plant had four turbines and produced over four hundred megawatts of power. Thousands of natives were employed—some human rights groups charged they were “shanghaied”—to build the dam, and many perished under the difficult, “round-the-clock” working conditions. Then, to add insult to injury, when the dam was completed, the Piquir River ceased to exist…along with hundreds of villages within fifteen kilometers of its banks, some that had existed for centuries. Almost overnight, thousands of inhabitants lost their homes, and millions of acres of rain forests were destroyed.
The newly formed lake was called Repressa Kingman, named for the president of the American company, TransGlobal Energy Corporation, which built the dam and was working on the nearby nuclear power plant as prime contractor for the Brazilian Ministry of Energy. At the dam’s activation, Harold Chester Kingman himself was on hand, and was hailed by energy and commerce ministers from four nations as the benefactor—no, as the savior—of the entire region.
As they stood there atop the gleaming concrete and steel monstrosity, the corrupt politicians and indifferent, unfeeling, uncaring builder could—if they bothered to look—see where the villages, graveyards, churches, schools, and lands of the natives once were. They were covered by twenty meters of water now. In the winter, when the rains slowed and the river’s level went down, it was possible for some families to visit the graveyards of their ancestors and to actually search for their possessions.
The next year the natives again made their way to the bare banks of Repressa Kingman to mourn their loss and try to recover anything of value they could find, but a riot broke out and several private security officers employed by TransGlobal Energy were killed, along with dozens of natives. Days later, the same district courts that opened the way for construction of this facility ordered a halt to the annual procession, and they authorized the state military police, the Polícia Militar do Estado, or PME, to enforce the ban.
The atmosphere in the area surrounding the Cascavel nuclear power plant project today was just as tense as it was that first day. “It looks like they’ve deployed another two hundred PME troops around Unit One,” Jorge Ruiz, Ph.D., said, peering at the Cascavel construction site through a pair of brand-new high-tech binoculars. “And I see more armored cars too—perhaps another dozen surrounding unit one alone. There might be another hundred troops in them.”
“Unit One is scheduled to be powered up soon,” Manuel Pereira, Ruiz’s student and friend, said as he looked through his own binoculars. “Second anniversary of the Repressa riot, Unit One’s activation—I would say that is reason enough for more jack-booted storm troopers, no?”