I said, disruption in power could be severe. Hundreds of thousands of homes are fed by that gas. No telling when they could get it up and running again, especially with a forest fire raging around it.”
“That sounds bad, but like you said, not very sexy for a terrorist. Then what’s the primary target?” Puller said again. “By definition that has to be worse than the diversionary target.”
“Forty miles from that pipeline is a light water nuclear reactor that feeds power right to the national grid.”
Puller drew a long breath. “You think that’s what they’re after?”
“It’s the only asset we can see in the area worth their while.”
“How would they attack the plant?”
“Right now security seems tight. But we can’t afford to find out later it wasn’t good enough. But if they can pierce that place, and somehow blow the reactors, it would be devastating. A radiation cloud could cover multiple states within a few days. And with all emergency crews fighting a gas pipeline eruption and potential fire, together it would be catastrophic.”
“So beef the security the hell up at the nuke plant.”
“We think they have folks on the inside there. That was the separate piece of intelligence I was telling you about, Puller.”
“Can you find out who?”
“In three days, probably not. And if we change security in any way there…”
Puller finished the thought for him. “The insider will easily find out, tell his people, and they go early and try to blow it anyway. And the same for the pipeline.”
“Right. At some point we have to make that decision, Puller. We have to beef up security at both places. But ideally we nail these bastards before that becomes necessary.”
“Necessary? Joe, it’s three days.”
“I told you it was bad.”
“I haven’t seen one Middle Easterner in Drake while I’ve been here.”
“Well, I have to believe they’re keeping a pretty low profile.”
“What do you want me to do? I’m just one more.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing. Find these guys, Puller.”
“And if I don’t, in time?”
“Then I have to pull the trigger.”
“And they’ll pull the trigger too.”
“Way it goes. Keep me in the loop, and I’ll do the same to you.” He paused. “I wish I could send you some assets, but the brass here thinks that might tip our hand.”
“Yeah, I know. I do have one local asset.”
“Right, Cole the cop.”
“No, guy named Dickie Strauss.” Puller filled Mason in on what he gotten Dickie to do. “At the very least it gives me another pair of eyes on the ground here. He was a former soldier.”
“I’m not thrilled you engaged this guy, Puller. We know nothing about him.”
“I didn’t have a lot of options,” Puller replied.
He could hear Mason sigh. “When are you meeting with him? We don’t have much time.”
“I can meet with him tonight.”
“You got a safe place to do that?”
Puller thought for a moment. “Yeah, I do. Place called Xanadu.”
CHAPTER
66
PULLER CLIMBED OUT of his car and walked into the Drake County library. It was a one-story orange brick structure that was architecturally tasteless and had not worn well. He went inside, asked a librarian at the front desk a few questions, and was shown what he needed. While there were a few computers in the library, Puller found himself using the old-fashioned method of looking through newspapers by hand. He covered the time period that seemed relevant to him. What he discovered was nothing, which in itself was significant.
As he was leaving his phone rang. It was Kristen Craig, the forensic tech from USACIL in Georgia.
“Got some preliminaries for you, Puller.”
He sat in his car with the air running and wrote down what she told him.
“We did a super-fast rush on the DNA samples you sent. Looking at the exclusions list we found one set unaccounted for. We uploaded it to the FBI’s Combined DNA Indexing System. We might get a hit.”
“What else?”
“We identified the wadding in Colonel Reynolds’s body. It was a twelve-gauge.”
“Anything else. Manufacturer?”
“Nope, sorry.”
“Okay, keep going.”
“Anything else?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Kristen said.
“You haven’t given me any answers.”
“I only provide facts. You have to come up with the answers, my friend.”
She clicked off and Puller slowly put his phone away.