It was inappropriate to treat the NRC resident that way. He knew that, and was sure she did too. Under normal conditions, he’d get in a lot of trouble for doing that, but he was trying to get her out of there, and fast.
Marti hesitated, turned and looked again at the armed responder. He wasn’t smiling; he was staring at Dave. She suddenly had a sinking feeling in the hollow of her stomach and wanted to leave immediately, feeling an overwhelming urge to get out of there.
“I’ll come back later then.” She dropped her head, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone, as if doing so would give away her suspicions.
As she turned to leave, the armed responder got up, moved in front of her, and gently closed the door to Dave’s office. He looked at Marti and said, “sit down.” It wasn’t a request.
Immediately on the defensive, and frightened, she said, “I will not! I’m the senior resident here and I will be leaving now!”
The armed responder reached out and grabbed her by the arm, led her to a chair, and pulled her arm down roughly until she was seated.
“You'll be quiet and do as you are told,” he said as he moved in closer to her. In almost a whisper, he said, “Do you understand?”
Marti’s eyes were wide open, as was her mouth. She looked at Dave — who had a resigned look on his face — perhaps for comfort or support. She received none.
He looked back at her dejectedly. “I suggest you do as you’re told. This man is not who he appears to be.”
It was very early in the morning, and Marti had been awake for a very long time, so her ability to process information was somewhat impaired, but she put the pieces together quickly. The man was not a member of plant security, which meant he was one of the terrorists. And if that was the case, the security of the control room had been compromised. My God, she thought to herself! The control room has just been taken over by a hostile force! What’s more, it had been done very quietly. It didn’t appear as if any of the control room watch-standers were even aware of it. To them, it probably looked like it did to Marti initially — that he was there to protect them. He certainly looked the part, being dressed the way the station security staff dressed.
All the elation Marti felt ten minutes ago vanished. The plant was technically in a General Emergency, the highest of the four categories of emergencies at nuclear power plants. The plant was under siege and nobody but Dave. And now she knew it.
CHAPTER 55
Hector turned to Jerry and said impatiently, “What do you mean, we have a problem?”
Without turning around, Jerry replied, “I’ve found some doors being accessed to vital areas. On any other night I probably wouldn’t have paid much attention, but given what’s going on tonight, I looked a bit deeper. I pulled up the key cards of who was entering those areas. It seems that we have six guys in the plant who are going in and out of sensitive areas.”
“What makes that so unusual? We’re prepping for an outage.”
“Yes, but their key cards are tagged to security. And they’re definitely not our guys.”
The Old Man said, “This is actually good news. Now at least we know who we’re looking for and can trace where they’ve been and where they are.”
“Good work, Jerry,” I said with genuine appreciation. “We’re going to need to know where those guys went in the last six hours.”
“Guys, you don’t get it yet,” Jerry warned. “Whoever made their key cards for them gave them access to everywhere on site. Even the operators don’t have that kind of access.”
With a sense of mounting dread, I looked at Jerry. “Go on.”
“One of these guys entered the control room an hour ago and, according to the computer, is still in there.”
A wave of dread hit me like a jolt, as the reality of that news settled in.
Hector virtually exploded. “Rob! That son of a bitch!”
The Old Man and I shared a quick, knowing look. “Marti!” was all I could say.
The Old Man nodded his head. “She should have called you back by now. My guess is she’s in the shift manager office, and whoever’s in there, shouldn’t be, and isn’t going to let her go.”
This bothered me more than I imagined it would. Probably more than with other hostage situations I’d faced. I didn’t want these newfound feelings for this woman to interfere with my judgment. I had to look at this logically and pragmatically. Yeah, right! I couldn’t ignore Marti, and I instantly knew I wasn’t going to waste time trying to. Perhaps equally as important, I couldn’t ignore the situation in the control room. The dynamics of the situation just changed.
“Jerry, we need a printout of everywhere those guys have been.” Turning to the Old Man I said, “I need you to look over that list and see where you think they put any charges. Prioritize the list. Hector, I need you to put together a team of guys you can count on and go find the explosives these guys planted once the Old Man comes up with the list. Can you do that?”
Hector didn’t hesitate. “I’ve got at least five guys I’d stake my life on. The rest, maybe but I’m not so sure. How deep do you think this goes?”
“Rob couldn’t have done everything himself. He’s probably had some help, though the odds are, that person is just a grunt who needed some money. Rob probably knows that if too many people are involved there’s too much of a chance for a leak. My guess is that whoever helped him is probably in a dumpster by now. Rob won’t want to leave any loose ends lying around.”
“Then we’re going to have to chance it,” Hector said. “I’ll round up my guys and brief them.”
“Just remember,” I said, “that the terrorists are still out there, and probably armed.”
“My guys are good, but we could use some help.”
“I’ve got a team standing by outside. I can get them inside, but it would be nice if you didn’t shoot them.”
“I’ll do my best,” Hector said. “Go ahead and get them in here as fast as you can. If you can, get them to take up defensive positions outside the containment airlocks to start with. I’ll have my guys do the internal search. We know the plant better and can cover more ground than your guys.”
“I agree,” I said. “I’ll get my guys moving.”
“One more thing,” Hector said before we split up. “It’ll help if I know where your team is coming in from.”
“They’ll come in on the north side, just behind the Unit 1 transformers.”
“Won’t this cause Jansen to blow the charges he’s planted already?” Hector asked.
“We’re going to have to chance it. If we advance his timetable, it may throw him off balance, which would benefit us more than him. You just need to find those explosives. No matter where they are, they represent a very real danger to the plant. We get those, and we’re almost home.”
The Old Man looked at me with a question he already knew the answer to. “And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to pay a visit to the control room. Hector, I’m going to need a key card that’ll get me into the control room. Tell me the control room has a back door…?”
Hector said, “Yes, it does. Nobody uses it but the operators and occasionally some instrument control techs.”
“Perfect! How do I get there?”
“When you leave here, there’s a stairwell just outside the main control room door. Take it down one flight to the door into the cable spreading room. You’ll need a key card to get in there. Once in, go straight across and you’ll come to another door, leading to the stairwell up to the back door.”
I looked at the Old Man; once again glad he was there. “Where’s the shift manager’s office relative to that door?”