“Not hardly,” the man shook his head, then blinked. “Oh hell, I’m Angus Keller. This here is Montgomery Koons and the short black guy there is Pete.”
“Pete That’s it”
The remarkably black man smiled and for a moment, Anselm had the foolish image of being blinded by the flash of white enamel. “Don’t need nothing more, mate. Pete’s who I am.”
“I can.uh.see that,” Anselm said, then gestured to the evidence room. “Was that the stuff from last night”
“Too bloody right. We got our tech out of bed this morning to mirror it for ya,” Angus said. “And I hope that you’re properly grateful, cause that boy, he don’t like being woken up before noon.”
“He’s a bloody vampire, I’m telling you,” Pete grinned.
“You’re daft,” Montgomery grinned in response. “No vampire would hide out in a solar power plant.”
The men chuckled, but Anselm only smiled. “Look, I’ve got to go check in with Gwen.”
“Gwen is it” they grinned, all of them. “Took us four months to be allowed to call her that. Inspector Dougal likes her title.”
Anselm just smiled and shrugged as he headed for the office.
“Seems like an okay guy,” Angus shrugged.
“He’s bringing lots of trouble with him, boys. Trust me,” Pete replied.
“Don’t you start that Aborigine voodoo, Petey boy,” Montgomery smirked. “Ain’t none of us here can’t see that.”
A pair of soft knocks at the door brought Gwendolyn Dougal out of her focused fugue, and she smiled as she recognized Anselm at the door.
“Come on in,” she said, motioning to the chair that was propped up against her desk. “I’m just checking out this box from the crash.”
Anselm slid into the chair and rolled it across the floor until he could look over to see what she was looking at. “You figure it out”
Gwen nodded, “Yeah.it looks like it’s a pretty standard weather package.”
“Pardon”
“It’s a sensor package,” She explained, “They throw them up all the time, usually tied to big balloons. It reads the airflow and currents, temperatures, things like that. Meteorologists use them to predict the weather.”
Anselm frowned, “Are you sure this came down with Ron”
She shook her head, “No.though it would be quite the coincidence, don’t you think”
He had to agree, “Yeah.I guess.”
“Besides, we found six more of them in Kamir’s home last night.”
Anselm let out a long, low, whistle as he frowned and shook his head. “What the hell is going on Kamir doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who would be interested in meteorology.”
Gwen snorted, chuffing slightly in laughter, “probably not, but you never know. He is a thermie.”
“Huh”
“The thermies are big into weather systems,” she told him. “They follow the weather networks religiously, and most of them run their own local weather stations.”
“Alright.I guess I get that makes sense.” Anselm grudgingly allowed, “But still.this is a little extreme.isn’t it”
“Like using a twelve pound sledge to put in a finishing nail.” Gwen confirmed, nodding.
“Alright, so what have we got” Anselm asked, shaking his head. “A nuclear terrorist.maybe connected with a small time thrill seeker turned murderer, who appears to have an extremely odd fascination with weather patterns.”
“Specifically the Jetstream,” Gwen said, frowning. “He seems to have geared this little box specifically to record wind data and other things from that.”
“Alright, the Jet stream.” Anselm blinked, then lifted his hands in supplication, “I’ll bite.what the hell is the jet stream I mean, I know of it, I kinda think I know what it is.but.what is it”
Gwen laughed, “The Jetstream is a wind current that runs west to east, between ten and twenty kilometers up. Wind speed reaches speeds in excess of four hundred kilometers per hour. It’s a major cause of many weather systems around the world.”
“Alright.so it circumnavigates the planet”
“More or less, yeah,” Gwen said. “I did some research when the first Thermie caught a ride in it.Got curious. It snakes around a bit, branches off sometimes, joins back up other times. There are actually four major Jetstream currents.Two in each hemisphere.”
Anselm nodded, frowning. “Ok.Here’s a stretch, what about a dirty bomb”
“What”
“Abdallah was trying that in the States, a few years back, but the Americans tracked him down with overhead radiation sweeps.What if he started pumping radiation up the tower” Anselm asked, “Would it ride the Jetstream across the pacific”
Gwen stared at him in a dazed kind of shock, slowly shaking her head, “You just blew way past my research.I don’t know. Could radiation travel like that On the thermal pillar I mean”
Anselm shrugged, “Don’t see why not. Oh, he couldn’t send actual radiation.that’s energy after all, but radioactive particles.Sure, why not There are bound to be some particles light enough to use.Make the jet stream rain it down on the States”
“No,” Gwen held up her hand. “No, that wouldn’t work.”
“Why not”
“Wrong hemisphere,” Gwen told him simply. “If it worked, he’d irradiate South America.and maybe Africa.The Jetstream doesn’t climb that high. If the tower were in China or India maybe.That’s if your idea works, and I don’t know for sure that it would. Would Abdallah want to irradiate South America”
“He doesn’t like the Americans much, but I think it’s mostly the States,” Anselm said dryly, shaking his head.
“Then I doubt that he’s trying that.”
Anselm frowned, shaking his head. “Well he’s up to something.”
Gwen didn’t know what to say to that, but was prevented from saying anything when Inspector `Pete’ rushed in.
“Christ, Gwen! What is this guy you picked up yesterday Some kind of bad luck charm!”
Gwen frowned, “What are you talking about, Pete”
“We just found Kamir,” Pete said, shaking his head. “He’s had an `accident’.”
“I’m going to be sick,” Gwen groaned, turning away from the mess that was all around them.
Anselm sympathized, but his own stomach had long ago reached the point where he could manage almost anything the darker side of humanity could throw at him. He had to admit that this was pretty bad, though. The blood mist had coated a section of the tower interior, and the pools of blood on the floor were already beginning to stink up the area, despite the constant wind.
“Can we stop this damn wind!” Anselm growled, turning around.
“It doesn’t work like that.” A man in a white coat said, coming up to him.
“And who are you, Sir”
“Director Jacob.” The large man said evenly. “I’m in charge of the Tower Project.”
“Alright, what doesn’t work like that”
“The tower,” Jacob told him. “It doesn’t just `shut down’. The entire process is fueled by the sun, and we can’t just shut that off, because you want it to happen. Besides, even if we did, it would take several days for the airflow to stop.”
Anselm looked around in irritation, “this wind is screwing up the scene.”
“That is out of our hands, I’m afraid, Inspector,” Jacob said.
“Agent,” Anselm corrected, flashing his ID. “Agent Gunnar, Interpol. Does anyone know what happened here”
Jacob snorted, “Obviously one of those foolish `Thermies’ decided to try and ride the tower from the `ground floor’.”
Anselm looked at him as if he were insane, but Gwen broke in, nodding.
“It’s possible, Anselm,” she said, still a little green. “They talk about it a lot.joking mostly.”