“Certainly,” Alexander said, his face very red.
“Well, take another one right now. Shut down the whole lousy boiler factory if you have to, but I want every slug of U-metal and every cubic inch of slush accounted for.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Alexander said. “All of greater St. Louis is using our heat and power. You can’t just turn off a power plant the way you cut a station off the air.”
“Look, Major,” Bahr grated. “There’s been a U-metal theft. It’s slipped past your security system. I want to know how much metal has been taken. Now are you going to order the inventory, or am I?”
“You have no authority inside that compound,” Alexander insisted.
Bahr looked at him. Then he turned and walked to the ’copter. He grabbed up the radio mouthpiece. “Get me Unit C,” he said.
The radioman spun the dial rapidly. “Listen,” Alexander burst out. “I warn you . . . .”
“This is Bahr,” the big man said into the mouthpiece. “Bahr talking. There is a change of plan for Unit C. I want all personnel to land inside the compound at the Wildwood Plant. I said inside. I want a complete inventory on the U-metal in that plant. I want to know how much has been stolen, and I don’t care how you find out.”
“If your ’copters are fired on, it’ll be your own responsibility,” Alexander said. “My men have orders . . . .”
“They won’t be fired on,” Bahr cut him off. “Nobody fires on DIA ’copters.”
Overhead, six fiery red circles made by jet-tipped ’copter blades were moving across the field toward a patch of woods, buzzing just over the treetops, hanging motionless for a moment as Geigers were dropped through the trees and then reeled up again, then moving on.
Alexander turned to the radioman, bristling with rage. “I want to send a message,” he said. “Crash priority.”
“Sorry, sir. This unit is busy now.”
“This is crash priority,” Alexander snapped.
“You heard him,” Bahr said without turning. “Use your own radio.”
Alexander scuffed back through the mud to his Volta, turned on the sending unit, and contacted the relay back at the plant. “This is Alexander. I want a crash priority through to Washington. Urgent, personal, to John McEwen, Director, DIA. Reference Wildwood Power Plant: Your assistant, Bahr, orders shutdown of entire project for investigation—stop—exceeding authority—stop—request you direct him rescind this order pending further study and evidence—stop. Harvey Alexander, Major, nine-two-three Security. Reply immediately. Out.”
He dropped the mike back in the slot and sank back in the Volta. Suddenly he realized that his hands were trembling. Unless he had a quick response from Washington he was in trouble, bad trouble. He groaned inwardly. As if there hadn’t been enough trouble in the past six weeksl He knew enough about how the DIA worked . . . why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut, co-operated, and then struck back through the proper channels later? Why couldn’t he have had that much sense, instead of acting like a bumbling fool?
But still, he was stunned at the ruthless disregard Bahr had shown for military authority. The man was out of line, unless there was far more involved here than he could see.
Alexander gnawed the inside of his mouth, listening to the pelting rain on the plexiglass roof. The ground trucks had moved out in a wide circle now, with the ’copters preceding them overhead. Alexander scowled. What was so imperative about some radioactives passing a Geiger alarm? Bahr had no evidence whatsoever that the hot stuff had come from the plant. And Alexander was virtually certain that it had not.
He knew the security system at the plant because he had personally organized it from top to bottom. After his downgrading from BURINF, when they had ordered him to the military limbo of this antique power pile in the Illinois flatlands, Harvey Alexander had realized that his only hope for reinstatement would be a record of exemplary execution of his new job—the security protection of the plant. Within a week he had studied and thrown out the old, ineffective security system and installed the system he had so carefully and painstakingly devised to meet any imaginable emergency situation.
It was as perfect a system as Alexander knew how to devise, and he was singularly expert on the matter of security systems . . . though only God and BRINT knew that, besides himself. And he was sure that no U-metal could have left that plant without his knowing it.
But even if it had, he could see no cause for panic. Who would try to steal U-metal? It was as useless as gold bullion. There were no markets for it. It was worthless outside a power pile. Besides, the Wildwood Plant was one of the oldest piles in existence, built back in the Twentieth Century with all the incredible engineering inefficiencies that the early 1960’s had produced. The U-metal slugs it used would only fit that particular pile.
It simply didn’t make sense. The complete irrationality of anybody stealing U-metal caught in Alexander’s orderly mind like a barbed hook. And this DIA investigation . . . he winced.
What could there be about a U-metal theft . . . the most impractical of all crimes . . . that attracted the DIA?
From somewhere to the West, two more squads of ’copters slid into the sky, fanning out in a huge circle radiating from the thick patch of woodland and brush surrounding the area of the strike point.
Somewhere out there, something radioactive had tripped a road monitor and centered an alarm. Whatever it was, it was still out there. But even as he watched, Alexander could see the huge circle growing tighter. Men shouted and trucks moved. ’Copter blades fanned the sky. In the gloom he could see the DIA men moving efficiently and quickly, following the maneuver from the headquarters of Bahr’s ’copter.
It was like a huge, well-oiled machine, and he had no part of it. There was nothing for him to do, no orders for him to give, because Bahr had done it all.
The crackle of the radio jerked Alexander to alertness. “Major Alexander. ASPX nine-two-three calling Major Alexander.”
He picked up the speaker, held the switch down. “Alexander here.”
“Washington refers us to Lowrie Field, Denver, sir. McEwen is on vacation there.”
“Then resend the message,” Alexander said. “Plain-language heading: ‘Personal McEwen’, and put it on a Q priority.”
“Yes, sir.” Over the speaker Alexander could hear the click-click of the cipher-typer as the new message was made up. “Hold it a minute, sir . . . the OD wants to talk to you.”
The OD’s voice rasped in the speaker. “There are six DIA ’copters just landed in the compound, sir. The investigators want to stop production and hold a U-metal inventory right now. What should I do?”
A number of suggestions, all of them obscene, came immediately to Alexander’s mind, but he stifled them and thought carefully for a moment. He’d hoped for an answer from McEwen by this time, but now everything was sitting in his lap. He knew the DIA had no authority in the compound without special orders from DEPOP, but that was a legal technicality, not a practical consideration. Obviously Bahr was going to force through an inventory if he had to hold off the compound guards with stunners. And the chance of Alexander’s OD putting up any resistance to a determined DIA squad was less than epsilon for any epsilon chosen. Bahr was not going to be stopped.
“Do nothing whatever,” he said to the OD. “Don’t co-operate, don’t interfere. They’re exceeding authority.”
“Very well, Major.” The squawker went dead.
Alexander leaned back, sweat pouring down his sides. Everything now depended on McEwen backing him up, even if it were too late to stop the inventory. It would be Bahr’s neck, not his, as long as McEwen stuck to the letter of the law.