MAIN LINE 236.6
THE CALVERT CLIFFS, MARYLAND, U.S.A.
It was not an imposing structure, rather low, as nuclear power plants went, and sprawling across the tops of the great wide cliffs that were filled with the fossil remains of forgotten seas and looked down at the wide Patuxent River as it flowed towards Chesapeake Bay. The whole plant had been white once, but age and weather had taken its toll, and it was now a grimier gray than the sea gulls that continually circled and squawked around the cliffs.
Most nuclear power plants, including this one, were obsolete now, too expensive and dangerous to maintain. The people around the site, for the most part, and those throughout the state continued to believe that this hulking dinosaur, this monument to the misplaced, golden-age optimism of the past, supplied much of their power, but, in fact, it supplied none at all—and had not for years. And yet, so complete was the fiction that families down for a warm weekend to swim and hunt fossils still often wound up going up to the visitor’s center and getting the Gas and Electric Company’s spiel on the wonders and safety of nuclear energy in general and this plant in particular.
He reflected on this as he cleared the gate to the employees’ parking lot and drove through the massive fence that surrounded not only the lot but the true access to the plant. He couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to collect money week after week telling cheery, convincing lies to a gullible public.
The big security system had been put in ostensibly to protect the plant from anti-nuclear protesters, of which there were still legions, and also because a Naval Reserve unit had been set up on a part of the grounds to deal with nuclear power and waste. In point of fact, the whole thing was a cover so good it should not, perhaps, have amazed him that it had lasted this long and was this complete. So complete, in fact, that here he was, pulling into a parking space and preparing for a few weeks of orientation before becoming chief of security for the installation, and, as of right now, he himself hadn’t the slightest idea what they really were doing here.
He knew the problems, though. Only a month earlier a crack Air Force security team had managed to get in and literally take over the place, despite all the elaborate precautions. That had cost the previous security chief his job, and when those whom the National Security Agency’s computers said were best qualified for the job were given complex plans and blueprints and asked to pinpoint holes and suggest better security measures. Within the limits of security, he’d apparently done the best job. A jump to GS-17 came with it, so he’d accepted the post when it was offered even though he had no idea at the time where or what the place really was. When he’d discovered that it was barely two hours south of his current job at the NSA, he’d been delighted.
What would come today was the less than delightful prelude. Today he’d have to meet with Joe Riggs, the man he was replacing, and with Riggs’ very proud staff. It would be an awkward time. He paused a moment to savor the bright, fresh June air off the water, then walked up to the unimposing door simply marked “Employees Only! Warning! Unauthorized Personnel Not Permitted Beyond This Point! Badges and I.D. Required!” That was an understatement.
He opened the unlocked door and stepped into a relatively small chamber that seemed to have no exit. The door closed behind him and he could hear a chunk! As special security bolts shot into place. The chamber was lit with only a small, bare light bulb, but he could see the security cameras and the speaker in the ceiling. Somewhere, perhaps in back of the speaker, would be a canister of knockout gas.
“Name, purpose, and today’s password, please,” came a crisp woman’s voice through the speaker.
“Moosic, Ronald Carlisle, new Security Director. Abalone is no worse than baloney.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, then a section of steel wall slid back far enough for him to pass through. He stepped out of the chamber and the door slid shut again behind him. He was now in a hallway lined with heavy armor plate for six feet up from the floor, then thick security mesh from there to the high ceiling. Cut into the metal plate were three security windows, such as you might find at a drive-in bank. He went up to the first one and saw a man in a Marine uniform sitting behind three-inch thick glass staring back at him. A small drawer slid out: “Place your I.D. and security badge code in the drawer,” he was instructed.
He did as ordered, then waited until the drawer opened again with a small card in it and a tiny inkpad. “Thumbprints where indicated,” the bored Marine told him. Again he did as instructed. The clerk took all of the material, fed it into a computer console, and waited. After a short time, the computer flashed something to him and a tiny drawer opened. The Marine removed a badge, checked it against the thumbprints and checked the photo against the face he was seeing, then fed it back through the drawer.
He looked at the badge, similar to the one he’d used at NSA, with its holographic picture and basic information, then clipped it on. He knew that this badge had a tremendous amount of information encoded within its plastic structure. Computer security would read that card by laser hundreds, perhaps thousands of times as he moved through the complex. Doors would or wouldn’t open, and defenses would or would not be triggered, depending on what the card said in its unique code. None of these badges ever left this building. You picked it up on the way in; you turned it in on the way out. In fact, there would be other areas requiring different badges with different codes, all premanufactured for the authorized wearer alone. Each time you turned in one badge, you picked up the next.
He walked down the rest of the corridor and found that the door at the end slid back for him. He walked through and entered a modern-looking office setup, very military but very familiar to him. He’d worked at NSA for nine years and was used to such things.
A pudgy, gray-haired man in a brown, rumpled-looking suit waited for him, then came up to him and stuck out his hand. “You’re Moosic, I guess. I’m Riggs.”
He took the other’s hand and shook it. “Sorry we have to meet like this,” he responded.
“No, you’re not. Not really,” Riggs responded in a casual tone, without any trace of bitterness. “Not any more than I was when I took over the same way. It’s no big deal. I’ll be bumped to an eighteen, push papers for two years, then retire with over thirty. Short of running for President, it’s about as high as I ever expected to get anyway. Come on—I’ll show you around the place.”
They walked back through the central office area. Three corridors branched off the room, each of which was guarded by a very mean-looking Marine with a semiautomatic rifle. Moosic looked around and noted also the cameras and professionally concealed trap doors in the ceiling. Anyone who made it even this far would still be under constant observation by people able to take action. It was impressive, but it made the Air Force penetration even more so. As they stood near a corridor entry way, each of them inserting his gold photo I.D. into a computer and waiting for the red ones to appear in the slot at the bottom, the newcomer said as much.
“No place is totally securable,” Riggs replied. “You can say they were pros with some inside information, but any enemy trying the same thing will have those advantages as well. The big hole in the end was the centralized control of security within this installation, as I’m sure you know. If you got in, you could get out.”
Moosic nodded. “That’s the first priority now. Central control will have a permanent override elsewhere, connected directly to this place. We received funding for it.” He didn’t mention that it would take ten weeks to install even the basics, six months before it could be fully tested and operational. Riggs no longer had a need to know that sort of thing.