Prichard knew I wasn’t a licensed operator and shouldn’t know this much about how his power plant works, but he also knew I had my sources. Regardless, I assumed he was still taken aback by my direction to him. I simply needed him to do as I’d asked and stop trying to figure out why I wanted it. I didn’t want to explain things to him. I didn’t have the time and I wasn’t sure the phones were secure. But Prichard persisted.
“I’m not taking action like that until I understand why.”
I knew I had to give him something to get him to cooperate. “I’m coming in and it’s the only way I can do it without security seeing me.”
Prichard was silent and then I knew he got it.
“You’re crazy! That can’t be done. You can’t get through the bar racks and the screens. And even if you do, you need to get through the pump impeller. That just isn’t possible.”
The bar racks are huge, long bars of steel in the water at the Intake structure. Stretching from the sea floor to the top of the ocean level, they’re used to stop large objects like logs from floating into the screens and jamming them. The screens are just that — screens that rotate up and over in front of the intake to the huge main circulating water pump. They collect seaweed and other flotsam in the water, to keep it all out of the pump. Even if something — somehow — got through, the next obstacle was the circulating water pump impeller.
“I think it is. I’ve looked at the prints of those pumps. The main seawater tunnels are big enough to drive cement trucks through. And the pump impellers are big enough to pump large fish without tearing them up. Right?”
Prichard knew I was right. The pumps moved 35,000 gallons of water per minute up to the condenser, so they had a huge impeller. Large fish had been found in the condenser water box.
“Yes, but you’re not a fish. Even if you make it past the bar racks and screens, and then somehow move yourself through the pump, how are you going to get out of the condenser water-box?”
The water box collected all the seawater before it was pushed through thousands of small-diameter tubes no bigger than a large finger. Those water boxes had access hatches on them, but nothing you could operate from inside the water-box itself.
“That’s where you come in. They got a guy on the inside, and so will we. I’m counting on you to get someone to un-dog the hatch and let me out. Can you do that?”
I needed to press him now. I could tell from the questions and tone in his voice that he didn’t think this was remotely possible to do. I’d given him enough time to get over the shock of what I’d wanted him to do and for his brain to revert to what it does well — analyze.
“I’m going to have to get someone from operations to do that. They’re the only ones here at this time of night who know how to do what you want done. But never mind whether I can get someone to let you out of the water-box or not. Let me tell you some of the obstacles you are facing. There’s no breathable air in the tunnels. That’s one. The mollusks and seashells on the sides of the tunnel walls will tear you to shreds. There’s no light in the tunnels, and it’s almost a couple of hundred feet up an incline, from the intake to the condenser inside the turbine building. I’m telling you, it just can’t be done.”
I was used to people telling me that things cannot be done. It even happened in the military. I was given jobs that nobody believed could be accomplished; yet I always found a way using will and determination — it was just not that complicated. But it scared most people to think of putting themselves into the types of situations I found myself in frequently. Fear is what keeps most people from accomplishing things in their lives. And it’s that same unnamed fear that caused people to tell me I couldn’t do it either. This was precisely what Prichard was doing right now. Because I knew that, I knew I couldn’t reason with him or convince him. So I didn’t waste my time trying.
“I’m counting on security and Jansen assuming it can’t be done, too. This really isn’t open to discussion. Your job is to get someone to open the hatch. Can you do that or can’t you?”
I envisioned Prichard shaking his head, wanting to believe it could be done, but his engineering experience saying it couldn’t. Still, he knew he had no other options that looked good to him. He had to trust someone. And right now, strange as it seemed even to him, that person was me.
“Yes,” he agreed reluctantly. “I’ll figure it out somehow. But there’s something you need to know first.”
I didn’t like the sound of that already. I didn’t need or want any more curve balls right now.
“The shift manager you met the other day — Dave Street? — it’s likely that his wife and children may have been kidnapped. They were down at Disneyland, and the FBI traced someone on Jansen’s team to Orange County. Dave is the shift manager on watch tonight.”
I just shook my head. It made sense. For Jansen and his team to be successful, he needed to have control of the plant and the best place to do that from was the control room. Unfortunately, I needed the shift manager’s cooperation if I was going to make this happen. If Jansen was successful in coercing him, the odds of my success were going down. But it couldn’t be helped. It was the only way in. I was reasonably sure Jansen had a team in the hills behind the plant ready to come in because that’s what my report said was the plant’s vulnerable spot. So Jansen would probably set up a perimeter and be ready for any kind of ground assault from the FBI or sheriff SWAT team, especially from the dark side behind the plant. That would make my getting in that way unobserved, moot. And with the security manager on Jansen’s team and controlling some aspect of security, then getting in through the front door was out of the question. So going in through the seawater tunnels was the only way.
As calmly as I could, I said, “You need to get to Street. You need to get him on our side. Reassure him. Tell him we’re going to make sure his family is all right. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes. You have until then to talk with him and get this set up.” With that I hung up the phone.
Turning to Pete, I said, “Well, that went about as well as expected.”
Pete just looked at me and nodded. “We knew this wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. Nothing ever goes completely as planned. We know that.”
And I did know that. Didn’t mean I had to like it, though. “Okay,” I said. “Time to saddle up. Let’s go. We need to get on site.”
Prichard put the phone down. “Marti, you’ll have to excuse me now. I have something I need to do.”
“Was that Nick? What’s going on? What did he tell you? What does he want you to do?”
“I’m sorry. There’s really no time for this. Please close the door on your way out.”
Marti could see she was being dismissed. She had little choice but to leave and return to her office, feeling isolated and unsure about what to do next.
CHAPTER 36
Pete slowed our car as we prepared to pass through the security gate to the power plant. In the short line of cars full of employees and contractors, Pete and I were just two more guys heading in to the plant for the graveyard shift just before midnight. Maintenance personnel and contractors work eight-hour shifts instead of twelve-hour shifts like the operators.
Pete pulled out the car pass I’d been issued, put it on the dashboard, and proceeded through the gate into the owner-controlled area. The guard at the gate didn’t check the pass to see if it matched the car or the driver. It was late and there was a line of cars processing in. He looked at the pass to make sure it was the correct color for this quarter and waved us through the gate and onto the access road.
This was only the owner-controlled area. We still had miles of access road to traverse before we got to the parking lots. To get into the plant itself, which is inside the protected area, I would have to go through the security building where I would use the badge I’d been given. Obviously I couldn’t do that now without my presence becoming known.