He slipped the nylon backpack off his shoulders and kneeled in front of the door to open it. A few seconds later, he wrestled the gray saw out of the backpack and attached the power cord to a customized battery that had been guaranteed to provide fifteen minutes of continuous operation. He examined the door again and decided to start with the most logical point near the door handle. He inserted the thin blade into the door crack a few inches above the handle, and felt no resistance as he placed the saw flush against the door and frame. He depressed the black trigger and the saw roared to life, emitting a high pitched squeal that made him nervous. No way to turn back now, he thought and moved the saw slowly down the crack.
The blade met with brief resistance at handle level, but continued to move effortlessly with Anatoly's hand. He felt no resistance a few inches past the handle and stopped the blade. Could it have been that easy? He pulled the saw blade out of the crack and placed it on the grate before standing up. He grasped the handle and pulled, surprised when the door gave no resistance and swung open. He examined the door for a few seconds and determined that the blade had done no obvious damage to the door, besides cutting the locking bolt. When closed, he doubted anyone would be able to tell it had been cut. Anyone approaching the door would punch in their code and open the door, unaware that it would have opened regardless of the numbers punched into the keypad. Not wanting to waste another moment, he dragged everything through the doorway and closed the door, noting the time on his watch.
The first thing he noticed was the industrial grade humming sound of the pump. He had expected the noise inside to be louder. The pump station descended one additional story below the entrance level and housed two massive centrifugal pumps, one of which pumped water to the city's storage sites at any given moment. The other served as a backup, in case of a maintenance issue. The active pump was rotated weekly, to increase the longevity of the incredibly expensive system. He would need to identify the active pump and then locate the water sample collection/testing node, located somewhere forward of the pump.
The only consistent activity he had noted at the plant yesterday had been an hourly visit to the pump station. A technician dressed in gray overalls, carrying a black plastic case by its handle, had ambled down from the control station and entered the station through the door on the other side, reemerging a few minutes later. He used the same door, which was closest to the control station, each time. He presumed the man had taken a required hourly sample of the water for analysis. The sample collection node would take water directly from the system and would represent his best opportunity to introduce his product into Monchegorsk's water supply.
He descended the metal grate staircase, able to see both pumps through the porous metal flooring. They were aligned in parallel, separated by a raised grated catwalk, but joined by various metal pipes and mechanical structures. The staircase emptied onto the end of the catwalk nearest to the intake from the disinfectant tank field. The station’s humming grew louder as he approached the catwalk, but remained within tolerable limits. He saw a pair of blue noise protection headphones on a hook at the bottom of the stairs and noted how times had certainly changed in Monchegorsk. It didn't take him long to figure out which pump was active. He only had to lay his hands on one side, and then the other, to determine that the right side pump was active.
The catwalk was installed halfway up the side of the pump, which put him in a position to examine the top of the pump and all of the attachments leading into it. The pump itself was taller than Reznikov and extended the length of two SUV's. The catwalk design made it easy for him to examine all of the components, and within seconds he had located the sample collection node. Located to the rear of the pump, near the stairs, he had momentarily overlooked it. Like everything in the plant, it was labeled, making this easy beyond his wildest dreams. The node had four latches, which ensured a tight seal. Reznikov had some trouble opening the latches and looked around for a tool that might be designed for the purpose. He didn't see anything useful and cursed as it took him nearly a minute to get two of the latches open.
The latches were designed to seal tightly, but this wasn't the problem and Reznikov knew it. As he struggled with the third latch, he started to tremble in anger. He hadn't escaped completely unscathed from Norval Nickel's legacy. He had suffered neuromuscular damage that mainly affected his hands and feet, resembling peripheral neuropathy at its worst and slight tingling at best. It had plagued him as a biochemist and rendered certain routine tasks unpredictable. He had developed an angry patience for his condition, but this was not the time for him to have a problem with his hands. The third latch opened, and he stopped. His hands felt like they had been squeezing a metal bar for hours, cramped and shaky. Ignoring the pain, he wrenched at the fourth latch, opening it in a fit of rage. Now sweating in the forty degree room, Reznikov better resembled a depraved madman with the intention of poisoning an entire city's water supply.
He placed the backpack next to him and removed a thermos-sized metallic container, setting it down on the grating. He paused and looked at the pump again, his composure returning. The pump was bigger than he’d expected, which meant that his original calculations for water supply contamination might be inaccurate. He examined the pump from front to back, taking it all in. This was definitely a higher capacity pump. He didn't want to use all of the product in his possession, but this was not the time to make a mistake. He decided to pour both containers into the water system.
He had hidden enough core samples of the virus to create other batches and knew exactly where he could find a few more containers. The Arab traitors had spoken of several specific locations and timelines, so he could always "meet" them for a surprise visit. He'd finish up here and hide out in St. Petersburg until he was sure that the virus had done its job. Once he was satisfied that Monchegorsk was ruined, he'd head to Sweden. His eavesdropping had provided him with an address in Stockholm. After that, a quick trip to Copenhagen could bring him to another address, if he felt ambitious.
Once he possessed more virus, he might provide an anonymous tip to Interpol regarding the other addresses and planned attack locations, or maybe not. He truly couldn't decide, and it never occurred to him that this ambiguity indicated a dangerous deterioration of his mental state. Though he wasn’t aware of it, Anatoly had suffered more than neuromuscular damage during the ten years spent in Monchegorsk. The long term mental impact of accumulating lead, cadmium, nickel and copper in his brain had been significant, gradually leaving him obsessed and unable to sustain empathy. He only vaguely processed the cruelty of his actions and how it would affect thousands of innocent people. These blurry thoughts were swept aside by his obsession with both delivering a damaging blow to Norval Nickel and teaching the Russian government a lesson. He had convinced himself that this was the right thing to do, so with no hesitation, he released the pressure fitting on the cylinder sitting on the catwalk.
There was a brief hiss, and he was able to twist the top free, exposing thousands of transparent tablets. He poured the contents of the cylinder into the six-inch diameter opening and repeated the process with the second cylinder. Thousands of tablets sat in the one foot deep miniature dry well, waiting to be introduced into the water system. Anatoly shut the sample node's lid and refastened the four latches, which turned out to be infinitely easier than opening them. Once closed, he activated the dry well and heard the mechanism working. A red light turned to green and the mechanism stopped. He activated the mechanism one more time just to be sure and waited twenty seconds for the cycle to complete. Once the light turned green again, he endured the pain of opening the latches to inspect the chamber. The chamber was dry, and the tablets were gone, on their way to infect the city's water supply. He quickly resealed it.