After how she’d been snarling at him, unappreciative, toying with his affections, Claude had decided, as of now, he was 100 percent doing this for himself. It would be Claude Sellers walking away as the white knight who saved Miami from nuclear disaster. The kind of press he’d get after this, he could write his own ticket.
He spent those two days cramming with his guys, a handpicked team. Two days stressing the countermeasures they would take to each of Nicole’s attack methods. The ATVs, the multiple attack points. Laying out each one, then asking the guys what their response would be. Even inviting the numbnut plant supervisor, Ronald Silbert, to sit in for a while, so he could duly note Claude’s professionalism.
Monday morning crack of dawn, Claude parked the van with the magnetic AT&T logo in the huge lot of a condo next to the Silver Sands Motel. Pulled on his jumpsuit, his insulated boots, his hard hat, then a pair of safety goggles for the sake of the security videos that were lurking around the vicinity.
He got out, worked his way onto the property of the Silver Sands Motel, found a thick hibiscus hedge with a good view, and started surveilling room 106. At just after eight that morning, Sheffield came outside in gym shorts and a T-shirt, looking groggy, hair disheveled. He drank a mug of coffee at the concrete picnic table, stared through the palms at the water, then went back inside. Half hour after that, all showered and shaved and dressed in street clothes, he locked the front door, got in his Chevy, and drove off.
Claude came out of the bushes and swung into action. Pulled on his work gloves. Jiggered the lock, pushed the door open, and stepped into the room. Before he got to work, he took out his tube of electro gel and glopped some on the outside aluminum doorknob. Smeared it thick, then closed the door but didn’t let it latch. He carried his work bag over to a rattan table in front of the TV.
He spotted the closest wall plug to the front door, took the microwave capacitor out of his bag, and wired it to the exposed leads of a heavy-duty extension cord, then screwed on the yellow junction caps. Now the 120 volts coming out of that wall socket would flow into the capacitor and exit as 4,000 volts, so hot it would approximate direct current.
He attached the heavy cable exiting the other side of the capacitor to the copper mount he’d fashioned in his workshop at the plant. It clamped tight to the knob on the inside of the door of 106. He stretched the cord out, made sure there was enough slack to reach the plug. Which there was. A foot extra.
He drew open the door. Walked over to the socket, plugged the sucker in, listened to its pleasant, deep-throated hum. Then went back to the door. Nudged it open, his glove on the wood frame. Stepped outside with his tool bag, then with one finger, he tugged the door until it was nearly closed.
Given the bleary state he was in when he left this morning, Sheffield would think he’d forgotten to close the damn thing. He’d grip the knob, and, bam, you’d have yourself a special asshole-in-charge smoke bomb.
THIRTY-FOUR
FRANK SPENT THE REST OF Monday morning sitting in the waiting room outside his own office, in a chair across from Marta’s desk that was usually reserved for the next agent in line desiring to have a word with Sheffield.
He’d been ordered to do so by the official presiding over the internal investigation, a guy named Banks, sent down by the attorney general.
Inside Frank’s office, along with Banks, there were a couple of guys Frank knew vaguely from DC seminars, one woman he’d had drinks with years ago. All of them taking regular smoke or pee breaks, walking out of Frank’s office and coming back a few minutes later without comment or eye contact.
As he’d predicted, the full range of federal officialdom had descended overnight. Eager beavers couldn’t wait, took the breakfast flight from Reagan. The forensic specialists went directly to Prince Key, while the debriefing group settled into Frank’s office.
Two in matching suits and crisp white shirts from the Office of Professional Responsibility worked under Director Mansfield himself. They were the disciplinary crew who would listen to the stories of all involved, and after careful consideration they’d dole out whatever punishment was decided.
The woman, Gayle Holly, was from the Office of Integrity and Compliance. Doing the right things, the right way. That was their credo. Sheffield was pretty sure neither he nor Magnuson would be charged with doing much, if anything, right. Processes and procedures, violations of laws, regulations, and policies, misconduct, staying within the letter and spirit of all applicable rules. The barf beamer, the faulty radios, the flawed chain of command, and vague rules of engagement. Sheffield was confident that the letter and spirit of lots of applicable rules had been violated and re-violated.