ever got here and was put into service, would be led to the transformer yard, and from there connected to the grid. That side of the plant had been saved any radiation damage so the linemen and engineers were able to work without hazmat suits.
The decontamination tent was up and running, empty of personnel just now, and Gail stopped a moment to look toward the south down the highway where Schlagel’s followers by the thousands had begun showing up early that morning. Some of them had set up tents, while others had parked their motor homes or travel trailers just off the side of the road within a few feet of the National Guardsmen manning the barriers. A1A was supposed to open for normal traffic within the week, but for now only people essential to the decontamination and rebuilding programs were being allowed through.
Yesterday was Sunday and Schlagel had been in Washington, making all the morning news shows including
“You can laugh at the coming Armageddon or the apocalypse if you want — and at your own peril — but the seed of our destruction is at this moment making its way to Florida!” Schlagel had preached. “It must be stopped at all costs. Save your lives, save America’s life, believe in God, and your salvation will be assured. Turn your back on His holy will at your peril!”
And they were coming. The last estimates Gail had gotten from Eric was that 100,000 or more people were on the move across the U.S., all of them converging on Florida’s east coast. Fox was calling it the greatest mass exodus in the history of the United States, and one of Schlagel’s SOS network commentators said that “God’s hammer was poised to strike, so sinners beware.”
The reverend himself flitted here and there, showing up with a lot of fanfare to talk to members of his “flock” as he called them in Kansas, then Ohio, in Michigan and Missouri, Tennessee, and Georgia, and last night in Orlando, Florida. His people were on the move and so was he.
Eve was at the north end of the plant working with the engineers, and now that she was back at it Gail thought the lady scientist was happy again. They’d gotten a suite at the Hotel Indigo up in Vero Beach but in the two days they’d been down there neither of them had watched television, Eve because she only came back to the suite to shower and sleep, and Gail because she was getting the real news from Eric. So to this point Eve was all but unaware of the true size and seriousness of the gathering storm.
She turned and looked back toward the South Service Building, wondering why she had bothered to suit up and go inside, because very little was left. The control room, along with all the offices on the second floor had been gutted, the slightly radioactive debris bagged and taken away. Even the walls had been stripped bare, the floor tiles taken up, and the engineers were working out ways to seal the concrete that would cost the company less money than tearing the building down and starting from scratch.
The facility’s chief engineer, Chris Strasser, had confided in her yesterday that he thought the power plant would never reopen. “It won’t be safe to tear down reactor two for a thousand years,” he’d said. “And there’s the problem with South Service.”
“The mood of the country is against nukes right now, so you might have a tough time getting the necessary permits anyway,” she’d told him, but he’d given her a blank look. He was a nuclear engineer, after all, not a politician.
“It’s the only reason the company’s giving Dr. Larsen a shot. If her project works, and if the security concerns are taken care of, it could save us a considerable amount of money. In the tens of millions.”
Money. Everything was about money, and right now some of the major players were beginning to step up to the plate to take their shots; either to protect big oil for as long as possible by delaying nuclear permitting and stopping Eve, or by positioning themselves to look as if they were supporting her. Because if her final experiment actually worked, and electricity began flowing into the Eastern Interconnect, which supplied power to the eastern third of the country, the full project would be worth somewhere in the range of fifty trillion dollars, and possibly more by the time it was finished. Bigger than the Panama Canal by some order of magnitude. And that was some serious money.
Inside the tent Gail went through the automatic showers, foam baths and showers again, before stripping off her hazmat suit and placing it in one of the barrels, then she went through another series of showers, taking special care to clean under her fingernails and toenails.
When she was done she padded naked, except for a towel around her neck, into the locker room, and McGarvey was there smiling at her. And his being there took her breath away.
“Hi,” he said.
“Oh, shit,” she said, and she began to shiver, though it wasn’t cold, not realizing until just that moment how much she had missed him. She went to him and he held her until she began to calm down.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Now I am,” she told him honestly. “Where have you been? Otto wouldn’t tell me.”
“I came down from Atlanta last night in a convoy with some of Schalgel’s people, trying to find out what was coming and how soon it was going to happen. I figured that you and Eve were safe as long as you stuck it out here.”
“Eve is at the north end of the plant.”
“I know,” McGarvey said. “But you need to get dressed because we have a lot to do and only a couple of hours to get it done.”
“Is it going to happen tonight?”
“The word in the mob is that Schlagel will be showing up around six, and his people are being told to get ready for action.”
“Shit,” Gail said, pulling her clothes out of a locker. “What about the National Guard and the Bureau guys?”
“The Bureau will stay out of sight, and Colonel Scofield’s people are going to fire some guns into the air, but when crunch time comes they’re going to back off and let the crowd through.”
“To where?”
“All the way to the main gate in front of the South Service Building.”
Gail was slipping on her sneakers and tying the laces, but she stopped and looked up at McGarvey. “You figured out a way to stop him?”
McGarvey nodded. “He’s going to do it to himself.”
SEVENTY-SEVEN
It was ten minutes past two in the morning when DeCamp arrived at the Marina Tower apartments in Dubai and entered the six-digit security code at the entrance to the underground parking ramp. During the day an attendant was on duty, but after midnight a hardened steel link gate dropped down from the ceiling. Security codes were changed on a random basis, texted to tenants an hour before they went into effect.
This was to be the first test of the sergeant’s sources, and when the gate rose DeCamp’s skepticism was dampened somewhat. The problem had been the fantastical and dangerous nature of the sergeant’s informant.
“Money is a powerful motivator, Colonel,” Marks had offered as an explanation. “For some, the most powerful. And in this instance I had a hunch the woman’s position could be compromised by the very nature of her business dealings. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission considers her a person of extreme interest. Something the UAE government became indifferent to once they had received help with civilian nuclear technology from the States. I thought that since she is all but a fugitive from her own country, perhaps she has stepped on other toes.”
“Devious,” DeCamp had said with admiration, and Marks had smiled.
