Going Dark(41)

“Certified by who?”

“They’ve had training from the best. Constantly upgrading their skills.”

“That’s good, that’s good. Certified by who, Claude?”

“Private-sector professionals. We don’t need Big Brother looking over our shoulder all the time.”

“Let me guess. You took them to Peak Performance Tech, up in Aventura? Or somebody like that.”

Claude was silent, glaring at Frank.

“Peak Performance,” Frank said, remembering their slogan. “‘When the best isn’t good enough.’”

“Damn right,” Claude said. “They’re top-notch.”

Frank looked at Nicole, then at Sheen. Keeping his voice businesslike. No snark, no pettiness. “What Mr. Sellers is referring to is a weekend seminar. Eight hundred bucks a head gets you three days of lectures, some fieldwork playing soldier out in the Glades. They throw in a little Xbox video gaming, let you shoot at cartoon bad guys, then award spiffy diplomas at the end. The folks that teach the courses for Peak Performance, every one of them washed out of Quantico or got tossed from Miami SWAT. I know them. They’re losers, all of them.”

“Fuck you, Sheffield.”

“As tempting as it sounds, I’ll have to decline.”

“There’s no need for this,” Emily Sheen said. “We’re on the same side.”

“Are we?” Frank said. “Which side is that? Team Incompetent?”

“Fuck you twice,” Claude said, “coming and going.”

“Mr. Sellers, please. We’re all professionals here.”

A professional doofus, Frank was about to say when Claude straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat.

“Okay,” he said, “just so you don’t go home mad, let’s pretend your guys penetrate the fences. What then? Where do you go, what do you do?”

Nicole looked to Frank for help but he gestured for her to take it.

“All right,” she said. “Shut down the plant’s internal power source. Take the reactors off-line. Isn’t that the point? ELF’s dream would be to get into the control room, press the red button. Cause a few hours of panic on the streets of South Florida.”

Emily Sheen was quiet, blank-faced, nodding her encouragement.

“Can’t be done. There’s a flicker in the plant’s internal power grid, a dozen diesel backup generators kick in,” Claude said. “Shut down the main electric terminal, the diesels keep the reactors glowing. The control rods are magnetically linked to the lifters, so the power goes off, the rods release, drop into the tank, automatically cool the whole reaction down. On top of the Westinghouse AP1000 there’s a tank that holds around eight hundred thousand gallons of water. Enough to control reactor heat for three days. Cut the power, that tank releases its water, gravity fixes the problem. Simple as that.”

“Okay, then one member of the four-man assault team peels off and incapacitates the generators, takes out the water tank.”

“Soon as there’s an intrusion alert, a defense team is dispatched to guard the diesels and tanks,” Claude said. “You got to do better than that.”

“That leaves you thin. You’ve got two guys occupied at the main gate. Two more at the containment-building entrances. One guy roaming, now some unspecified number at the generators.”

“We’ll manage.”

“And you’re okay with this, Ms. Sheen? No specific countermeasure offered by the plant’s head of security?” Frank smiled at Sheen.

“I’m here as a neutral observer.”

“Lame,” Sheffield said. “Jesus Christ, I could pick up a carload of day laborers in the Home Depot parking lot and knock this place over.”

Claude’s cheeks were flushed, but Sheffield was relaxed now. With all the dog sniffing out of the way, his blood pressure was easing. He’d spent the last thirty years dealing with the likes of Sellers, guys with advanced degrees in assholery. Sometimes they were on the wrong side of the law, but just as often they were his own damn colleagues. Assholery was an equal-opportunity affliction.

Sheffield was focused on the cooling canals on the tabletop mock-up. Thirty canals running perfectly parallel for five miles south of the reactors; the one farthest east was only a few hundred yards off Biscayne Bay. Prince Key wasn’t shown on the tabletop replica, but if the plywood were a few inches wider, it would have been sitting right there, due east of the plant.

If this truly was Cameron Prince’s play, that’s how his people would come. By water from Prince Key. Across that four- or five-mile stretch of shallows, then portage the kayaks to the first cooling canal and paddle straight up to the backside of the plant. Come at night when the video cameras were minimally effective.