Walking out into the main room he yelled to Wendel, “It’s looking good.”
Wendel just smiled and continued what he was doing. The room was emptying out nicely – a lot of debris remained but that wouldn’t matter. It was all flammable – especially at a couple of thousand degrees.
Curtis was working with Jerry in the center of the room. They were leaning over a fifty-five-gallon steel barrel.
Curtis looked up as Seth approached.
“How’s it going?” Seth asked.
“Great,” Curtis replied. Jerry grunted something, his head inside the drum.
“Good,” Seth said. “Bert Nadeau’s going to be here soon. You guys just keep on doing what you’re doing. Okay?”
Jerry pulled out his head and pounded the lid onto the drum, his lazy eye drifted to Seth as he said, “This stuff makes me nervous.”
Seth nodded. The drum held an accelerant mixture that was essentially identical to solid rocket fuel. In a matter of seconds, it would go from room temperature to just over two-thousand degrees before erupting in a volcano of flames and heat incinerating anything in this building – even bones would be reduced to ashes.
“Just make sure you stay away from the detonator,” Seth said. “Keep working.”
He walked out of the lab and looked up at the brilliantly cloudless sky that was dominated by the Milky Way’s myriad of twinkling stars – the kind of profound beauty that made any thinking being feel insignificant. As he stood appreciating that fact, the phone in the lodge started ringing and the beauty of the moment vanished.
He ran inside and snatched up the receiver, “Hello?”
“Seth?” Sarah said. “I’m glad I finally got you.”
“You made it out there all right?” Seth asked.
“Everything was fine.”
“So you met the…,” Seth paused as he searched for the right word, “Benefactors?”
“Look, Seth, I don’t have time to chit-chat. How’d you make out today?”
He paused for a bit too long before saying, “Not too good, Sarah.”
He told her about his trip to Bangor and the chase of Chris Foster and the FBI agent.
“What were you thinking?” She exclaimed.
“It seemed—”
“So you’re shutting down the base, right?”
“It’s being done as we speak – just like we planned. Bert Nadeau’s on his way down. Once I get done with him, things will be looking a lot better.”
“When will you be out of there?” She asked.
“At the latest it’ll be noon tomorrow.”
“Camilla is not happy about this. I just hope she doesn’t feel compelled to tell the others. This is not anything they would want to hear. Hell, I just got done telling them the great news about the results and how we’re ready to go into release phase. And here we are, having to bring our exit forward.”
“Screw Camilla. She’s not the one doing all of the work. I know how close we are, and I know how big a problem this is. All I can tell you is that I’m on top of it. Things won’t get worse.”
“Seth, this is Camilla Haywood.” Her normally perky voice was suddenly excruciatingly business-like.
He cleared his throat and said, “Hi, Camilla. I didn’t know you were on the phone.”
“Obviously,” she replied. “Sarah told me what happened with David.”
“None of us saw it coming.”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’ve invested a lot of money and we expect results. Understand? I don’t care what you do or how you do it, but you better fix it. I’m not going to think about what we’ll have to do if things go sour at this point. You can be certain it’s nothing you’ll like.”
“I think that it’s a little premature to be talking about failure,” Sarah interjected. “There’s still a long way to go from where we are now to complete failure. Our schedule for getting out of Maine has just been bumped up by a few weeks. When are you going to be able to give us an update?”
He glanced at his watch and said, “Six hours.”
Sarah and Camilla both said, “Good.”
“You’ll call us?” Sarah asked.
“Of course.”
Sarah hung up and looked at Camilla.
“He’s very competent.”
Camilla didn’t look convinced.
“Are you going to tell them … him … about this?” Sarah asked, pointing toward the great room.
Camilla sat down on the bed. “You truly believe that they’re going to be able to straighten this out?”
“Have I ever lied to you, Camilla? We planned contingencies. This is just a change in the schedule. We’re prepared.”
Camilla smiled and said, “Okay, he’s got six hours, but after that, I’m going to have to let him in on this. I don’t have a choice. Can you imagine if somehow the FBI was able to tie me and Phillip to this? It would be such a scandal.”
True. If Sarah could get out of the country, she would be able to disappear. Over the years she had squirreled away a little more than a million dollars in a Cayman Islands account. A little pilfering from the generous grants was no big deal. She deserved it.
She sat down on the bed next to Camilla and put her arm around her shoulder. “It’ll all work out. I promise.” Involuntarily, she leaned forward and kissed Camilla’s cheek.
“So what’s up with Mike?” Sarah asked.
Camilla pushed a loose strand of hair behind Sarah’s ear and said, “We connect really well – kind of a rarity for me. Each time we’ve gotten serious, we’ve each pulled back. I don’t know where it’s going but he’s a good guy and he chipped in some cash.”
Sarah nodded. “Does he know about us? I mean, about how we used to be.”
“Used to be?”
“You know what I’m saying.”
Camilla laughed. “I know what you’re saying and he does.”
“You trust him?”
“Absolutely.”
11:15 pm FBI Field Office, Bangor, Maine
“He’s a civilian who’s providing me with the information. His name isn’t important,” Pell said.
“Agent Pelletier, there is a reason this communication channel is secure and encrypted, as you well know. You should not have non-identified third parties in the room with you there. I’m going to need to take a name and full details,” Operator 275 ordered.
Pell rolled his eyes at Chris. “Okay, his name is Chris Foster and he was the one who first brought this to my attention.” He explained, then he gave the operator the details she needed.
“I will need to detail this on my report,” she said. “This could look bad for you for not revealing you had a third party in the room. Keep the connection up and I’ll be back.”
The speaker fell silent as they were placed on hold.
“Whatever,” Pell sighed under his breath. “This could take a while, why don’t you try and grab some sleep on the couch.”
The combination of the alcohol and not sleeping for two days finally caught up with him and Chris was asleep as soon as he lay down.
Pell leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table. He loosened his tie and put his hands behind his head, which filled with thoughts of personal and professional redemption as he drifted into a fitful sleep.
He dreamed he was at a Bruins game with Allen Jenkins’ son. They were sitting in the corner directly behind the glass, and it was a great game against the hated Canadiens. Ricky Jenkins turned and asked, “When’s my dad gonna get here, Mr. Pelletier?”
Pell didn’t know what to say. He had killed the boy’s father, but for some reason Ricky didn’t know it. “I don’t know, Ricky. I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”