Blowout (12 page)

“Bullshit,” Ashley said. She glanced at Whitney, at Cameron, and then at the incoming choppers. “I won't give you my phone, but I promise not to use it in connection with this story.”

“Or write about it when you get back to Bismarck.”

“I won't, I promise you that much, too, but I'm going to lean on some people—starting with my dad—to find out what's going on. I was shot at tonight, and I don't very much like that.”

“Nobody does, especially Pete Maglianao.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean it that way.”

“I expect you didn't,” Osborne said. “But I'm going to hold you to your promise.”

“Okay.”

“And you have dirt on your chin.”

Ashley laughed and pocketed her cell phone as Osborne walked over to Cameron and Whitney.

“How do you guys want to play this?” he asked. “I've probably seen and heard too much tonight.”

“You had the briefing in Washington, and I expect after tonight you'll probably be given the whole thing. At least that's what Whitney and I are going to recommend, but it'll be up to General Forester.”

“He's in charge?”

“Yeah,” Cameron said. “Which makes his daughter a problem.”

“She's promised to hold off until she talks to him.”

“Do you trust her?” Whitney asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Fair enough, Nate,” Cameron said. He had a lot of blood on his jacket and he was pale. “But for now let me do most of the talking. You were on a routine patrol cruising for illegal elk hunters, saw the back gate open, and drove down.”

“Wasn't for you we'd all be dead,” Whitney said, glancing toward the rec center and the other trailers.

“What about your scientists over at the control center?”

“I'll tell them we had an accident. But one thing's for sure, we sure as hell won't run the experiment in the morning. Maybe not for months, even a year.”

The four helicopters, two of them MH-60 Black Hawk combat choppers, the other two heavy lifters, circled the power station then came around, flared, and touched down in a row in a field about twenty yards away. Immediately a half-dozen medics jumped out and came over on a run, some of them carrying back boards and others with medical equipment; twelve or fifteen others were armed and immediately set up a loose perimeter. A medium-height man with a dark mustache dressed in a flight suit, captain's bars sewn on his collars, and a pistol holstered across his chest, strode across to where Cameron climbed painfully out of the Hummer.

The captain, whose name tag read
NETTLES
, saluted even as he was eyeing Cameron and the others. “You've been hit,” he said. “Medic!”

“Glad you could make it, Glenn, but the situation is contained so far as I can tell,” Cameron said.

“This facility is under lockdown as of this moment. How much damage have you sustained inside the plant?”

“A lot, but there isn't much flammable if the wellhead wasn't damaged, we'll be back up in business within a month or six weeks. But we need more on-site security here, and you know damned well we do.”

But this was rural North Dakota, and the U.S. wasn't in a global war, so ARPA-E had decided on the low-key route. And tonight was a direct result of something that could have been prevented, and Cameron was bitter at the same time. As head of Initiative Security this was his fault, and yet it had been beyond his control.

“Not your fault, Jim.”

“Tell that to Pete Magliano's family, and the families of the two guys up in the control center and the others over at the rec center. It was a bloodbath. They didn't have a chance.”

A medic came over and made a quick examination of Cameron who leaned against the Hummer. “Looks like you got lucky,” he said, swabbing the shoulder and leg wounds and placing field dressings over them. “We're setting up a MASH unit, but this should hold you for the time being.”

Ashley had come over and the medic checked her out, placing another field dressing over the crease in her hip.

Four people were erecting a tent about fifty feet away, and even as it was going up others were off-loading medical equipment from the choppers.

“We have casualties over at the double-wide,” Cameron said. “I think they're all dead, but check it out please.”

“I'm on it,” the medic said, and looked at Osborne. “You're wounded, sir,” he said.

“It'll hold,” Osborne said. “Did any of your people see anything on the way in?”

“We saw nothing,” Nettles said. “But we weren't looking especially hard. Our mission is to secure this facility; we leave criminal apprehension to the civilian authorities. In any event, what are you doing here, sir?” Nettles demanded.

“Saving our asses,” Cameron said, and he explained the situation beginning with the sudden attack on the party at the double-wide, the bodies of the engineers in the power station control, Lieutenant Magliano's body on the main floor, and the planted plastique charges, some of which he and Ashley Borden had managed to disarm, and the confrontation after Osborne had arrived through the open back gate.

“Then the project owes you a thanks, Sheriff,” Nettles said. “But if you don't require any medical treatment I'd ask that you leave this facility, but make yourself available within the next twenty-four hours for debriefing. The same goes for you, Ms. Borden.”

“No,” Whitney said. “Sheriff Osborne saved some lives here tonight, and although the situation looks bad he probably prevented a lot more damage. This is a civilian facility and I am the principal scientist in charge. He will be briefed here and now.”

“That include newspaper reporters?”

“At this moment, I'd say yes.”

“You're going to have a crowd out here within the next few hours, Captain, whether you like it or not,” Ashley said. “You'll need a rep who knows the requirements of the service as well as the media.”

The Rapid Response Team was air force because Ellsworth was the nearest military base that could field such a C
3
I plus medical mission that included Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence, plus medics, but the Initiative was under the DoE, and even though on-site security was provided by the army, Dr. Lipton was in charge.

“On your orders, ma'am,” Nettles told Whitney. “But in the meantime all the casualties will be treated here, or medivaced to Ellsworth. No one is going to a civilian hospital.” He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers, and a sergeant carrying a military-hardened laptop came forward.

“Comms have been restored, Captain,” the sergeant, whose name tape read
IVERSON
, said.

“Get me General Forester.”

Iverson set up the laptop on the lowered tailgate of Ashley's pickup truck, and got online.

“This is your part of the universe, Sheriff,” Nettles said. “Didn't you notice anything or anyone unusual around here?”

“Elk hunters,” Osborne said. “But they knew the codes for the back gate, and apparently they did something to wipe out communications, including cell phones. Until just now. A little more sophisticated than the average hunter or Dickinson rancher could manage.”

“Not my brief, sir,” Nettles snapped, his dislike obvious.

“And what is your brief, Captain?”

“Securing the facility after an incursion.”

“Doesn't seem to me like you're doing a very good job of it. You haven't even determined if any of the perps are still here.”

“I have General Forester, sir,” the communications tech announced.

“This facility, along with the control center, has been secured. And that, sir, is my only brief for the moment.”

 

17

OSBORNE WALKED OVER
to his SUV and got on the radio to State. “Sally, you still awake?”

“Nate, thank goodness. I've been trying to reach you for the past half hour. The nine-one-one lines have been going crazy. We've already had three calls. Something about an explosion and a fire down at the ELF facility. Have you seen anything?”

“Right in the middle of it. Listen, call Burt Lance over in Bismarck and tell him that I have a developing situation that involves a possible terrorist attack on the facility. Lots of damage, lots of casualties.” Lance was the commandant of the North Dakota State Highway Patrol. “Then wake up the governor, I think we might have to coordinate this with the National Guard, but that part will have to be worked out with the folks in charge here. You still with me?”

“I'm on it, what else?” Sally was a retired high school math teacher and as sharp as they came.

“Call Tommy over in Bismarck, tell him I want a fly-over out here at first light.” Tommy Seagram ran Bismarck Air Charters, and had been a chopper pilot in the first Iraq war. He had an old refurbished Huey and a newer Bell Jet Ranger. Best of all he knew western North Dakota's hunting grounds, federal parklands, and scenic areas like the palm of his hand.

“What's he supposed to be looking for?”

“Have him call me ASAP, I'm riding with him.”

“Just a minute, I have an incoming,” Sally said.

Osborne looked over to where Nettles and Cameron and the others were gathered around the laptop on the tailgate of Ashley's pickup. Nettles was using a handset for the audio. But then he put it aside.

Sally was back. “I just talked to a Captain Nettles, says he's on site. He's ordered a communications blackout. I'm not supposed to say anything to anybody.”

“Just do as I asked, would you? He's standing ten feet away from me. I'll take care of it.”

“He's from South Dakota, what does he know?” Sally said, and she was gone.

Osborne walked over to where Nettles was giving his preliminary briefing to General Forester whose image was on the screen. The general was in a tuxedo, the bow tie undone, seated behind a desk in what could have been a library with book-lined shelves or more likely the study in someone's private home.

“You say there are casualties?” Forester demanded. He was hopping mad.

“They're all dead on this side, Bob,” Whitney told him. “They were having a party in the rec room when someone shot through the side of the trailer. Tom Snow and Mike Ridder were in Donna Marie's control center and Jim said both of them were shot to death.”

“Jesus,” Forester said softly. “What about the research center?”

“They just hit the power station and got out. My people are okay.”

“How extensive is the damage?”

“I'll need a structural engineer out here as soon as possible, but I think the wellhead and turbine have come out of it okay. As far as the experiment goes we were lucky. Twenty-four hours from now it would have been a completely different story.”

“Don't say anymore,” Forester said. “I'll have someone from MIT on the ground within twelve hours. In the meantime who else is involved? Captain Nettles said Nate Osborne got through the fence.”

Osborne stepped into camera range. “Good evening, General.”

“What's the situation as you see it?”

“Looks like a military operation to me. They apparently had the proper codes for the back gate and they came down on what I'm guessing were several ATVs—two of which they left behind—split into two teams, one taking out whoever was in the trailers and the second to take out the personnel in the power plant, and set a lot of plastique to take out some serious-looking machinery.”

Cameron stepped into camera range and briefed the general on what he'd seen and done. “This was sophisticated, General. They somehow took down all of our communications channels, including cell phones, landlines, and probably satellite links. They definitely knew what they were doing, and exactly what they were after.”

“What are we doing to catch up with them? They couldn't have gotten that far.”

“It's dark and these are the Badlands,” Osborne said.

“I'll have a KeyHole satellite tasked to take a look for heart signatures.”

“They'll be long gone by the time you could convince someone over at the NSA to move a bird,” Osborne said. “But I'm going to do a flyover first thing in the morning. We'll pick up something. And besides we have two of their people here. One stuck it out inside the plant, but it looks as if there was some sort of a fall out and the second one was shot to death just outside the back door.”

Forester looked away for a long moment and when he came back he seemed resolved, while at first he had seemed nonplussed as if he'd received a nasty, totally unexpected shock—which in fact he had. “Priority one is getting back up and running. The experiment must be carried out as soon as possible.”

“I'm going to have to explain this to my people, and we'll need to bring in replacements for Snow and Ridder, and the generator crew,” Whitney said.

“I'll see to it tonight,” Forester said. “The second priority is finding the bastards who did this to us, and why—though I have a fair idea as to the latter.”

“Care to fill me in, sir?” Osborne asked.

“Not tonight, but I'm going to fly out first thing in the morning. We need to get some things on the table. In the meantime I'll have the FBI send people to you, but, Nate, it's your territory. You know it better than any outsider, so these guys will be working for you, not the other way around.”

“I appreciate it.”

“And our third priority is containing the leaks,” Forester said. “No leaks. Your PA Pete Magliano will have to hold down the fort until I can get someone out there to lend a hand. But this has got to be low-key. And I mean
low
-key.”

“Pete is dead,” Cameron said. “But we have another problem, sir. He was shot to death by the terrorists inside the plant while escorting your daughter on a tour.”

Ashley stepped into camera range. “Hi, Daddy,” she said.