I finally made it down to the fence itself, near the tailrace. The whole time the siren had been going, the two big jets of cooling water had never stopped. I remembered what Ari had said: The moonpool was separate. It had nothing to do with the reactors, and Helios was firmly on the grid. I kept looking for the shepherds, hoping against hope that I’d see two bounding, sharp-eared friends coming to join me in the next adventure, but there was no sign of them anywhere. I tried not to think of that insidious rotor at the base of the cooling jets’ impact area. I squeezed away images of my two loyal companions rolling around in that for eternity.
Where was Trask? Running to his boat? Had Billy moved the boat around to the inlet canal for easier access? Not possible-that would take too long. So where was Billy? He’s busy, Trask had said. Busy doing what?
Behind me I sensed lights. When I turned to look, I saw two security vehicles coming full tilt in my direction. Okay, someone in the control room had pulsed the system about one of their people down at the tailrace. What people? We don’t have anyone down at the tailrace. It’s them.
I hit that hole in the fence and struggled to get through. It was easier without my vest. Once through, I ran as fast as I could as the two vehicles came screeching to a halt inside the fence. I was into the trees before they had a chance to climb out and position their weapons. Just in case, I hit the deck as soon as I was out of sight, and a good thing, too, because some eager beaver cut loose with a burst, which showered bits of trees all over me. I was tempted to shoot back, but these were still just security guys doing their jobs. I crawled diagonally through the weeds until I was pretty sure they’d lost interest. Hopefully they hadn’t brought any dogs, and would now be asking Control if they had authority to go outside the fence.
I trotted through the woods, which were getting darker the farther I got from all the lights at Helios. I swerved to my left to regain the towpath along the canal, swatting branches out of my face, and unlimbering that Colt as I went. After five minutes, I stopped to regain my breath and check out the gun. It was an M4 6920, a law enforcement model, and a beauty of an assault weapon. I made sure it was ready to work, and then resumed my advance through the woods to where we’d left Trask’s boat. I wondered if it was smart to be running out here in the open area of the path. About the time I thought maybe I should divert back into the woods, Billy the Kid stood up in the path, pointed some kind of short-shoulder weapon at me, and told me to stop right there. One of his eyes was swollen shut, but the other one radiated true rage.
If that guard hadn’t said something about Billy shooting my dogs, I might have reacted properly and stopped in my tracks. Instead I looked at him and then said, “Hi there, short-eyes, fucked any little boys lately?” As his one working eye widened, I screamed to further distract him and then ran full tilt into him, the butt of the Colt held at face level. I stabbed the stock into his forehead before he could even think about pulling his own trigger, and then, as he staggered backward, a waterfall of blood blinding him, I kicked him in the crotch. Hard. Fourth-down punt hard.
He gave a mortal grunt of pain and pitched forward to his knees with a gagging sound, and then I struck down with the butt of the Colt and put his evil young ass firmly on the ground. It was all I could do not to shoot him. Instead, I took some deep breaths, and then I delivered four precise kicks to the so-called charley-horse points on his arms and legs. That would ensure limb paralysis when and if he came to.
I took his weapon and pitched it into the canal.
Trask, I reminded myself. Find Trask. You can’t know what this is really all about until you take Trask.
I started trotting down the towpath, into increasing darkness, now that Billy had been neutralized.
Big mistake. What had Trask said when I asked him where Billy was?
Busy.
I hit the tripwire at full tilt and went flying, legs ensnared in something wiry and my body arcing through the air until I was hanging upside down from a tree limb above the towpath. As I twirled in the air, I looked around frantically to see who’d come to gloat.
Nobody came. I could see the lights of Helios from over the treetops, but the ground spinning below remained dark and silent.
I unlimbered the M4, got it into shooting position, even though I was upside down. Come on out, sumbitches, and see what happens. But nobody came out of the woods to declare victory.
Okay, I thought. Engage brain and get your ass down.
It was harder than getting under that fence. The blood was pooling into my head, and my brain resisted doing anything useful.
I took another look around, still saw no one in the dark woods, and started bending myself into a U-shape. I finally got ahold of the wire, which had been thoughtfully greased for my climbing enjoyment. Busy Billy, indeed. But where was Trask? Watching from the woods? I didn’t think so. And the fact that Billy was lurking on the trail leading back to the boat told me that the boat might still be there.
Get down, get to the boat, and wait for Mr. Trask.
Sounded like a plan to me.
A wire noose had my right foot in a tight vise. I was bent double, holding on to my right foot, since the wire was slipperier than owl shit. I couldn’t climb the wire.
Swing. Swing until you can grab the branch, I thought.
And that’s what I did-I induced a broad swing, doubled up in the shape of a climber’s carabiner, until I could reach out and grab the branch from which the wire was suspended. After that, I could release the noose, and then use the noose to swing myself back down and drop to the ground.
My arm hurt, and now my ankle hurt. My pride hurt. I was no closer to Trask. That big siren was still wailing at Helios, and I had a fleeting vision of Tony facing off with the cast of thousands dealing with the moonpool. I think I was the one better off.
I tried to remember where Trask’s boat had been anchored, how far down the outlet canal. I decided to walk, not run, and this time stay inside the woods line instead of on the path. I became more careful of what else might be waiting for me. Trask had thought ahead of me all the way here, and it probably wasn’t over.
Twenty minutes later, I caught a glimpse of the Keeper, still anchored out in the outlet canal. There was a bow wave visible at her stem as the current from the condenser jets pushed downstream toward the Cape Fear estuary. I’d forgotten to check to see if that partially deflated dinghy was still in its tree.
No matter. There was the boat. Still no lights. Still no signs of life, and no Trask. Okay, then: What’s the plan? Billy wasn’t going to be able to come out and play anytime soon, so: Swim out there? Or play AT amp;T, and reach out and touch someone?
I settled down on the dark bank of the canal. It was cold now. That was good. Evil reptiles were still dying upcountry. I unslung the M4, leaned against a tree trunk, and waited. The siren was not as loud down here in the woods. Surely they’d found a way to refill that pool by now. So why was the siren still going?
It was late and I was one cold, weary bastard.
What in the world had Trask been thinking? That he was going to get away with this? Cause chaos at a nuclear power plant and then casually stroll into work the next day, see what was shaking? Hi, guys, I need to make a statement?
Technically, it didn’t make sense to me, even if I was technically ignorant when it came to nuke power plants. On the other hand, he’d rolled a terroristic bowling ball into a clutch of bureaucratic tenpins: the NRC bureaucrats, who loved nuclear power but had to live a split-personality life in their regulatory personae; the power company, providing the only source of totally nonpolluting electricity, except when something went wrong; the FBI, suspicious of everybody, painfully aware of past failures in intelligence and counter-terrorism, and now seeing wild-eyed, virgin-obsessed rag-heads under every truck; Homeland Security, at war with the terrorists, the flying public, and the FBI; and don’t forget the benighted local cops-state, county, city-trying hard to live right while the federal host maneuvered all around them, often creating as much chaos as they were untangling.