“You’re going to have company in about three minutes.”
McGarvey keyed the National Guard walkie-talkie. “Schalgel already?”
It was nearly five thirty, a half hour early, but already the crowd outside was huge at both the north and south barriers, and was growing exponentially by the minute, already stretching for miles in both directions. Widescreen hi-def video monitors and loudspeakers had been set up along the side of A1A at intervals of a couple hundred feet so the faithful would be able to see and hear the reverend’s sermon, as Fox called it: “Not from the Mount but from Ground Zero.” The media had shown up several hours ago, positioning their vans, bristling with microwave antennas and satellite dishes, at the south barrier, which apparently was where Schlagel would speak.
“Negative, it’s one of our birds from Miami transporting some of your people. Where do you want them?”
“I didn’t ask for any help,” McGarvey said, but he knew who it was and why he and his team were coming here. The problem was who had ordered it. “Have them set down on the road in front of the gate. But I want the chopper to stand by, I’m sending them back.”
“They said that they had orders.”
“I don’t care. Just make sure the pilot holds here.”
“Roger that,” Colonel Scofield replied.
And then they could hear the noise of the incoming helicopter over the growing sounds of the mob. “Is that who I think it is?” Gail asked.
“Unless I miss my guess it’s Carlos coming up from Miami, the question is who sent him here and why, because he sure as hell didn’t make that kind of a decision on his own.”
“It wasn’t Admiral French.”
“Someone higher up,” McGarvey said. “Probably Caldwell at DOE. Guy’s a grandstander.”
The helicopter was settling in for a landing, the rotor wash buffeting the decontamination tent, and McGarvey had to shout for Gail to hear him.
“Put on your hazmat suit, and go get him. Tell his team to stand by, and I don’t give a shit what objections he gives you. Tell him that someone from Washington wants to have a word before he sets up shop.”
Gail was almost laughing now, but she quickly donned the suit, and went outside. And less than three minutes later she was back with a fuming Carlos Gruen, who pulled up short when he saw McGarvey.
“I was told A1A was clean!” he shouted. “And what the fuck are you doing here in my situation site?”
“What situation is that, Carlos?” McGarvey asked.
Gruen looked nervously to Gail who’d taken off her hood. “Is this place clean or not?”
“It’s clean for now,” McGarvey said. “What are you doing here?”
“Preventing another attack.”
“On whose orders?”
Gruen puffed up self-importantly. “Deputy Secretary Caldwell asked that I personally take charge.”
McGarvey nodded. “Glad to have you,” he said. “But would you mind telling us how you plan to stop one hundred thousand people from marching into the plant and causing a lot of damage, but mostly to themselves when they start taking radiation?”
“Not my concern,” Gruen said. “All I’m interested in is the presence of radiological devices.”
“Do you actually think that Schlagel’s followers will try to smuggle a nuclear device into a wrecked nuclear power station?” Gail asked.
Gruen looked smug. “You could hide an entire platoon of saboteurs in plain sight inside a crowd that big, and the only way to tell who’s who and neutralize the threat is with our equipment. You of all people should know the drill, Ms. Newby,” the last said with sarcasm.
And Gail reacted, but McGarvey held her back. “What happens afterwards, when the rest of the crowd decides to tear you and your team apart?”
“Won’t happen.”
They were running out of time. Schlagel was due soon, and there was no telling how he might react, seeing a National Guard helicopter parked in the middle of the road. “Go back to Miami,” McGarvey told him. “Or at least go out to the perimeter of the crowd and stand by in case the situation gets out of hand.”
“Not a chance in hell. You two bungled the first attack on this facility, and I’m here to see that there isn’t a repeat.”
“You pompous ass,” Gail said angrily, and McGarvey waved her back, but she wouldn’t be silenced. “All you’re trying to do here is make a name for yourself.” She gestured toward the tent flap. “Have the media take notice, get your picture in the
“Screw you, Newby, you’re fired,” Gruen said and he pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, but before he could press the speed dial button McGarvey snatched it out of his hand.
“You can fire both of us later. But right now I want you to get the hell out of here.”
“This is my incident site, goddamnit!”
“I don’t have time,” McGarvey said and he pulled out his pistol.
Gruen’s eyes went wide and he stepped back a pace. “You’re a fucking maniac.”
“Absolutely unhinged.”
“No way in hell you’ll shoot me.”
“Are you sure?” McGarvey said, advancing but keeping his aim down and away.
“Kill me and you’ll go to jail for the rest of your life.”
“Makes you wonder what I’d get for a kneecap.”
Gruen looked to Gail but she shrugged, and he stepped back another pace.
McGarvey handed back the cell phone. “I want you to get the hell out of here right now. I just need one hour.”
“It could be all over by then,” Gruen said, almost plaintively.
And McGarvey almost laughed, because the man might be a jerk, but he was a jerk who was sincere in his desire to do good deeds and to get the recognition he figured he so richly deserved; he saw himself as the dedicated public servant. “I hope it is,” McGarvey said. “But if things go south here, you can come back and straighten out my mess. And I’ll even apologize, in public.”
“Me, too,” Gail said.
“We’ll see about that,” Gruen said and he left the tent and walked back to the helicopter and climbed aboard. Moments later the chopper lifted off and headed north along A1A, finally turning west over the Intracoastal Waterway to the mainland.
“He’ll probably have my job,” Gail said.
“Not if we pull this off,” McGarvey told her, but she grinned.
“And I meant to say, he’s welcome to it.”
McGarvey called Otto on the encrypted Nokia. “Where’s Schlagel?”
“In the back of a pickup truck about a hundred yards south of you on A1A,” Otto said. “I have a Keyhole bird on him. Louise is giving me the feed. Looks like Moses parting the Red Sea. Who was in the chopper that just left?”
“Gruen.”
“Surprise, surprise. What did you have to do to make him leave? Threaten to shoot him?”
“Something like that. How’s my feed?”
“Up and ready to roll. If you can get Schlagel to take the bait, everything he does and says inside the South Service lobby will connect not only to his public address system and hi-def screens, but to the satellite uplinks of every major television and radio network. The good reverend wants an audience, we’ll give him one.”
“Will he know what’s happening?”
“Depends on the volume of his speaker system. But if you can get him inside and keep him there it’s not likely he’ll hear that what he’s saying to you is being broadcast to his faithful. Knowing about last night in Orlando and having the video to prove it is gonna blow him away big-time.”
“No chance he suspected the setup?”
