“Your FPF?”
“On station.”
“Very well,” Hannah said. “Continue to update me.”
She cut the connection and looked across her desk at Dr. Golden. “I hope our best is good enough.”
CHAPTER 11
Burns stared at the Tellico Dam while information on it poured into him from Neeley’s cell phone.
He shook his head at the human insanity the dam represented: people fighting to keep it from being built to save a tiny fish; sacred Indian land being submerged; land grabs by those in the know.
And it generated no power.
Not directly. Water from the Little Tennessee River was blocked by the dam, which had been built just above where the river had originally joined the Tennessee River. To get to the Tennessee, water flowed through a canal from Tellico Reservoir to Loudoun Lake and then went through the turbines of the Loudoun Dam, adding 23 megawatts of power.
Thus opening the gates of Tellico would reduce the water flow to Loudoun, thus reducing the power outage, which was barely enough at overpeak for what Burns needed.
Not acceptable.
Of course, the gates of Tellico Dam were opened only once a year for maintenance, but it was a loose end.
And one thing Burns had learned as a Nightstalker was to make sure there were no loose ends.
Plus, he still had some time for congruence at the Loudoun Dam to occur.
He looked around and picked up two brick-sized stones. He put them in his backpack. Then he threw the free end of the rope he had tied off down the face of the dam. He clipped the rope through the carabiner tied off to his harness and then launched himself down the dam.
Frasier was humming “I Wear My Sunglasses at Night” as he got off the elevator and walked down the corridor to the Can. His partner ignored him, as he always did when Frasier hummed the song en route to an interview. As he always did. Frasier, being schooled in psychology, knew it was OCD on his part, but he figured it was harmless, other than irritating his partner. Of course, his partner carried a big gun in his shoulder holster, and one day he might get irritated beyond the point of no return, but Frasier figured he had a ways to go before that particular incident occurred.
The man and woman who’d been in the Can when the power went out were seated away from the control consoles, looking decidedly unhappy. And well they should be, Frasier thought as he signaled for the single guard (they were scientists, one guard was all that was needed) to move away.
A new team was at the consoles, while several Support crews were going over every inch of the cavern, searching it. There were even two specially trained dive teams inside the stainless steel tank, working in relays, coming out of the water every five minutes to allow a muonic scan to be done, just in case another Rift occurred.
The two popped to their feet as Frasier and his partner approached.
“Sit,” Frasier ordered as he grabbed a folding chair, turned it around, interrogation style, and straddled it. His partner just stood there, looming.
He was a good loomer, which was why Frasier kept him around.
Frasier pulled his sunglasses off, his partner doing it in sync, like a dance team in step.
The two scientists did a double take, staring at Frasier’s left eye and then purposely forcing themselves not to stare at his left eye.
It was the usual reaction and the normal one.
Frasier had a solid black left eye. He’d never had the scar tissue around the socket fixed, since he figured that was like polishing the silver around the bullet hole. Or something like that. Of course, most assumed it was just a space filler, but the eye was actually a ridiculously expensive camera and microprocessor. Not Six Million Dollar Man stuff, where he could actually see, but rather a device that functioned as a sort of lie detector, tracking pulses in a person’s neck, perspiration, respiration rate, and so on.
The bottom line was it worked. Coupling the data from the eye with his own experience, his training in micro-expressions, and a natural ability, Frasier was pretty damn confident he could tell when someone was lying.
“It’s tough work in the field,” Frasier began. He reached across his body with his right hand and tapped his left arm, producing a metallic sound. “I got a deal on the prosthetics. Black was all they had in stock for the discounted eyes in the package deal.”
Was that a sigh he heard from the side and behind? Was his partner actually growing tired of his shtick? But he was doing his job, pulling out a notepad to ostensibly take notes, but the real purpose was to reveal the very large pistol resting in his shoulder holster, impressing on these two screen-watchers that this was a no-bullshit visit.
“It’s even tougher to work in the field when those we rely on for our data sabotage it.”
The woman responded first. “We didn’t sabotage the Can! The power went out!”
They didn’t exchange glances — one didn’t look at the other suspiciously — and his eye told him she wasn’t lying.
He shifted his gaze to the man. “And?”
“Hey, dude, I don’t know what happened. Some kind of power surge maybe? Talk to engineering. They’re the ones who run the power grid. Maybe the reactor burped?”
Unfortunately, he, too, was telling the truth. Frasier wished he wasn’t so he could turn him over to his partner; he hated being called dude. Frasier rubbed his scar tissue above the black eye with his artificial hand. He often got migraines, because no matter how good the gear was, his body was not intact and the body yearned for its missing pieces sometimes.
Sometimes Frasier missed them too.
Frasier stood. “All right. You can go.”
The two exchanged a glance now, shock and relief fighting for supremacy. They didn’t question their good fortune as they scurried toward the tunnel for the elevator.
This time his partner’s sigh was audible. “What now?”
“We—” Frasier didn’t finish his answer as a diver popped to the surface with a shout, hand held high. A black orb rested in it. “Check that thing for prints. It’ll have either Doc’s or Ivar’s.”
Scout had the right bank while Kirk took the left on their Sea-Doos. At Moms’s insistence, they stayed parallel to her Zodiac. Ivar was in the bow, the wand for his improvised detection device held over the water. Roland was next to him, M240 at the ready. Moms drove as she peered ahead through her night vision goggles.
Scout was not impressed with Ivar or his machine. She had a feeling whatever was going to happen wasn’t going to be subtle or require a special device. The gun Roland had given her seemed rather undersized considering what everyone else, except for Doc and Ivar, was packing. A pistol. With two extra magazines.
She felt totally inadequate, but the look in Moms’s eyes had indicated she should be happy to get anything lethal at all. The gun was stuck on a vest Nada had wrapped her in. It was not fashionable, was very heavy, and, according to Nada, helped stop bullets. Then he’d strapped a life vest on top of the bulletproof vest and Scout felt like she was auditioning for the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. There was also a radio tucked in one of the many pockets on the vest and an earpiece stuffed in her right ear.
She didn’t feel as cool as those Secret Service guys with their dark sunglasses. But then again, how cool could they be? If they were so secret, why did everyone know about them? Sort of like why did the Lone Ranger have Tonto? What part of Lone didn’t he get? Scout shook these random but irritating thoughts out of her head and focused on the task at hand.
Literally.
Given the bulk surrounding her, she had to work to keep her hands in tight enough to her body to control the Sea-Doo. She scanned the dark shoreline as she drove along. They’d cleared Keller Bend a little while ago and the river turn left ahead. Scout spared a glance up, but there was no sign of Eagle and the Snake and the attack helicopters with him.