"It's still not very much. We have a former subaltern, now in the striped-pants brigade, who didn't like being in Northern Ireland; he happens to buy rare books from a chap who grew up there and now runs a completely legitimate business in central London. You know what any solicitor would say: pure coincidence. We don't have one single thing that can remotely be called evidence. The background of each man is pure enough to qualify him for sainthood."
"These are the people we've been looking for," Ashley insisted.
"I know that." Owens almost surprised himself when he said it for the first time. His professionalism told him that this was a mistake, but his instincts told him otherwise. It wasn't a new feeling for the Commander of C-13, but one that always made him uneasy. If his instincts were wrong, he was looking in the wrong place, at the wrong people. But his instincts were almost never wrong. "You know the rules of the game, and by those rules, I don't even have enough to go to the Commissioner. He'd boot me out of the office, and be right to do so. We have nothing but unsupported suspicions." The two men stared at each other for several seconds.
"I never wanted to be a policeman." Ashley smiled and shook his head.
"I didn't get my wish, either. I wanted to be an engine driver when I was six, but my father said there were enough railway people in the family. So I became a copper." Both men laughed. There wasn't anything else to do.
"I'll increase the surveillance on Cooley's trips abroad. I don't think there's much more to be done on your side," Ashley said finally.
"We have to wait for them to make a mistake. Sooner or later they all do, you know."
"But soon enough?" That was the question.
"Here we are," Alex said.
"How did you get these?" Miller asked in amazement.
"Routine, man. Power companies shoot aerial photographs of their territory all the time. They help us plan the surveys we have to do. And here" — he reached into his briefcase—"is a topographic map. There's your target, boy." Alex handed him a magnifying glass borrowed from his company. It was a color shot, taken on a bright sunny day. You could tell the makes of the cars. It must have been done the previous summer—the grass had just been cut…
"How tall is the cliff?"
"Enough that you don't want to fall off it. Tricky, too. I forget what it's made of, sandstone or something crumbly, but you want to be careful with it. See that fence here? The man knows to keep away from the edge. We have the same problem at our reactor plant at Calvert Cliff. It's the same geological structure, and a lot of work went into giving the plant a solid foundation."
"Only one road in," Miller noted.
"Dead end, too. That is a problem. We have these gullies here and here. Notice that the power line comes in cross-country, from this road over here. It looks like there was an old farm road that connected with this one, but they let it go to seed. That's going to be helpful."
"How? No one can use it."
"I'll tell you later. Friday, you and me are going fishing."
"What?" Miller looked up in surprise.
"You want to eyeball the cliff, right? Besides, the blues are running. I love bluefish."
Breckenridge had silhouette targets up, finally. Jack's trips to the range were less frequent now, mainly in the mornings before class. If nothing else, the incident outside the gate had told the Marine and civilian guards that their jobs were valuable. Two Marines and one of the civilians were also firing their service pieces. They didn't just shoot to qualify now. They were all shooting for scores. Jack hit the button to reel his target in. His rounds were all clustered in the center of the target.
"Pretty good, Doc." The Sergeant Major was standing behind him. "If you want, we can run a competition string. I figure you'll qualify for a medal now."
Ryan shook his head. He still had to shower after his morning jog. "I'm not doing this for score, Gunny."
"When does the little girl come home?"
"Next Wednesday, I hope."
"That's good, sir. Who's going to look after her?"
"Cathy's taking a few weeks off."
"My wife asked if y'all might need any help," Breckenridge said.
Jack turned in surprise. "Sissy—Commander Jackson's wife—will be over most of the time. Please thank your wife for us, Gunny, that's damned nice of her."
"No big deal. Any luck finding the bastards?" Ryan's day-hops to CIA were not much of a secret.
"Not yet."
"Good morning, Alex," the field superintendent said. "You're staying in a little late. What can I do for you?" Bert Griffin was always in early, but he rarely saw Dobbens before he went home at seven every morning.
"I've been looking over the specifications on that new Westinghouse transformer."
"Getting dull working nights?" Griffin asked with a smile. This was a fairly easy time of year for the utility company. In the summer, with all the air conditioners up and running, things would be different, of course. Spring was the time of year for new ideas.
"I think we're ready to give it a try."
"Have they ironed the bugs out?"
"Pretty much, enough for a field test, I think."
"Okay." Griffin sat back in his chair. "Tell me about it."
"Mainly, sir. I'm worried about the old ones. The problem's only going to get worse as we start retiring the old units. We had that chemical spill last month—"
"Oh, yeah." Griffin rolled his eyes. Most of the units in use contained PBBs, polybrominated biphenyls, as a cooling element within the power transformer. These were dangerous to the linemen, who were supposed to wear protective clothing when working on them, but, despite company rules, often didn't bother. PBBs were a serious health hazard to the men. Even worse, the company had to dispose of the toxic liquid periodically. It was expensive and ran the risk of spills, the paperwork for which was rapidly becoming as time-consuming as that associated with the company's nuclear reactor plant. Westinghouse was experimenting with a transformer that used a completely inert chemical in place of the PBBs. Though expensive, it held great promise for long-term economies—and would help get the environmentalists off their backs, which was even more attractive than the monetary savings. "Alex, if you can get those babies up and working, I will personally get you a new company car!"
"Well, I want to try one out. Westinghouse will lend us one for free."
"This is really starting to sound good," Griffin noted. "But have they really ironed the bugs out yet?"
"They say so, except for some occasional voltage fluctuations. They're not sure what causes that, and they want to do some field tests."
"How bad are the fluctuations?"
"Marginal." Alex pulled out a pad and read off the numbers. "It seems to be an environmental problem. Looks like it only happens when the ambient air temperature changes rapidly. If that's the real cause, it shouldn't be too hard to beat."
Griffin considered that for a few seconds. "Okay, where do you want to set it up?"
"I have a spot picked out down in Anne Arundel County, south of Annapolis."
"That's a long ways away. Why there?"
"It's a dead-end line. If the transformer goes bad, it won't hurt many houses. The other thing is, one of my crews is only twenty miles away, and I've been training them on the new unit. We'll set up the test instrumentation, and I can have them check it every day for the first few months. If it works out, we can make our purchase order in the fall and start setting them up next spring."
"Okay. Where exactly is this?"
Dobbens unfolded his map on Griffin's table. "Right here."
"Expensive neighborhood," the field superintendent said dubiously.