The vet twisted the palms of his hand toward the sky. “I don’t know. I’m sorry I don’t really have anything more to tell you. I’m saying it’s more likely whoever owned Caliburn had another reason for keeping him without a microchip. A dog of his class might have come from overseas — possibly even somewhere we don’t accept dogs from, through the regular emigration channels.”
Guinevere asked, “What about the weight of the collar tag. It seems awfully heavy for a nametag, don’t you think?”
The vet picked it up again, and twisted it in his hand.
His lips, previously set in a firm line, turned upward. He unclipped the dog collar, slid something out of the nametag, and handed it to her. “Would you look at that, the thing’s a hidden USB flash drive.”
Guinevere asked, “Do you have a computer we could use?”
The vet crossed his arms. “I don’t know. There might be something bad on it.”
“Aren’t you curious?” Guinevere persisted.
The vet relented. “Yeah, I won’t say that I’m not at least a little bit curious.” He pulled a chair back behind his work computer and said, “All right. Help yourself.”
Guinevere inserted the USB flash drive into the side of the computer.
It asked for a password.
She sighed. “Anyone have any ideas.”
Sam said, “Elise, a computer whiz who works for me would probably make pretty short work of it. But I’d love to know what’s on here.”
The vet reached around and said, “It looks like you’re going to have to wait. No one’s getting through there in a hurry.”
“We might get lucky,” Sam replied. “I’ll give my friend a call and see if she has any suggestions.”
“There’s no way that will help.” The vet’s voice was emphatic. “That’s a 256-bit military grade encryption right there.”
“Really? How do you know? I mean, that might just be a paranoid owner with a long password, right?”
“No. I’m afraid not.” The vet leveled his eyes at Sam and Guinevere. “See that emblem there in the top right hand corner?”
Sam glanced at the security seal. “Yeah?”
“That’s a code. It means the password is 256-bit encrypted to military standards. I know, I have a brother in Special Forces, and it’s the same as he uses…”
“What are you saying, Caliburn belongs to the military?”
The vet frowned. “Not necessarily. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Caliburn was purposely genetically designed to be some sort of ultra-intelligent dog.”
“For what purpose?” Sam asked.
The vet sighed. “Beats the hell out of me.”
Chapter Thirty
Sam walked out of the veterinarian clinic. It overlooked Cannon Beach. Sam’s gaze traced the line of the beach, the Hay Stack and Needles rising out of the water, before settling on the Hoshi Maru wrecked in between the two.
The faint lines across his face hardened.
He pursed his lips.
What the hell is going on here?
Guinevere glanced at him, almost reading his thoughts. “What do you make of all of this?”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
He picked up his cell phone and called Elise.
She picked up immediately. Without preamble, she said, “I heard you had some car trouble?”
Sam stepped to the edge of the beach, staring out at the gentle swell of the Pacific Ocean. “That, among other things. Look. It’s a long story, but I need you to break a 256-bit encrypted USB flash drive. Can you do that?”
“Do you really have to ask me?”
Sam grinned. “That’s what I thought. How long would it take you to break it?”
“That depends. When can you get it to me?”
“My T-Bird should be repaired by this afternoon. I’ll drive up the 84 by tonight.”
“All right.” Elise paused. “Sam…”
“Yeah?”
“What’s on the flash drive?”
Sam said, “I have no idea, but I’m dying to find out!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll have the answer for you soon after you get here tonight.”
“Thanks.” Sam asked, “Do you know how the Hanford Project cleanup is going?”
“Bad so far. Emergency crews haven’t started to plug the leak yet.”
“Really? Why not?”
“They can’t find it.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? I heard that the alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays flowing into the Columbia were off the chart!”
Elise said, “They are, but we haven’t reached the accident site, yet.”
In the background, Sam heard Tom ask, “Is that Sam?”
Tom took the phone. “Sam, is that you?”
“Hi Tom. Elise tells me you’re having some problems?”
“Well, it’s not good.”
“That bad?”
“Something nearby is leaking large amounts of uranium and plutonium into the upper Columbia River, so I’d say no matter what the outcome, it’s bad.”
“So, it is the old Hanford Nuclear Site that’s leaking?”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Really?” Sam asked. “Where else could that amount of uranium be coming from?”
“I don’t know,” Tom agreed. “But one thing’s for certain… we’ve been all along the stretch of river that meets the Hanford Nuclear Site — and that’s definitely not the source.”
“There’s nothing there?”
“No. The radiation is coming from farther upstream.”
“How much farther?”
“We don’t know yet. A long way by the looks of things. We’re still working our way upward. We have clean-up teams in place, but no one knows where it’s coming from. I have a theory, but we won’t know until we get there, and I’m guessing no one’s going to like hearing it when I do.”
“What’s your theory?”
Tom said, “Two theories to be exact, and both are bad.”
Sam said, “Go on.”
“One is that there’s an unaccounted-for subterranean river system that’s flowing beneath the known water basin at the Hanford Site. Something’s changed recently, and thus, the toxic water is now flowing into the Columbia.”
Sam considered that, mentally picturing the topography of the river and nearby landscape, trying to piece together some sort of logical explanation. Having found nothing, he tried to jam in some illogical ones. But it was all the same. Like trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. Subterranean rivers took years to alter course. It seemed highly unlikely that it would suddenly shift now. There were no known seismic activities within the area. But it might be possible.
“What’s option two?” Sam asked.
“They lied to us about the size of the Hanford Site all these years!”
Sam thought about that. It would be an enormous betrayal against the people, but in a location that was set up to produce the first nuclear bomb in secret, there really was no telling what truths had been allowed to fully surface. “Have you asked the Secretary of Defense?”
“Yeah.”
“What did she say?”
Tom said, “That she hadn’t been briefed on any nuclear storage facilities near the Hanford Site that hadn’t yet been acknowledged publicly.”
“She hasn’t been briefed on it?”
Tom expelled a breath. “Yeah, her words. She was quite specific about the wording.”
“It might be a habit of hers,” Sam mused. “After years of juggling politics and reporters she withholds things like that just in case she doesn’t like what you find when you locate the leak. But…”
Tom finished what he was thinking. As Tom spoke, Sam could hear the incredulity in Tom’s voice over the phone.
“If I’m right, it’s one hell of an admission.”