morning, the furnace that would burn the methane, the boilers that would produce the superheated steam that would turn the small three-stage turbine generating nearly one megawatt that would then be sent to the transformer and distribution yard, rose up from the prairie a couple of hundred yards away from a cluster of mobile homes housing the barracks, dining hall, and rec centerâa safe enough distance if there was an accident.
The power generated led to an impressive-looking array of transmission towers that supposedly would send messages to any military unit anywhere on the planet, even to submarines a thousand or more feet beneath the surface. Donna Marie would guarantee that in case of an all-out war vital communicationsâespecially data transfers to military unitsâwould not be interrupted even if our satellites were knocked out.
In actuality Donna Marie was nothing more than a methane-powered electrical-generating station. No big deal in Eganâs estimation. But heâd studied the blueprints, and heâd been given the list of the nine personnelâfour engineers, including Tim Snow who was in overall charge here, plus five tool pushers, and each personâs probable location at any given moment, and even though he didnât fully understand the importance of the mission, he did understand the fabulous money he and his people would be paid, and their need to strike back at the fat cats getting rich on the back of the working man.
Moose crawled up beside him. âHowâs it look, boss?â
âNobody knows weâre here,â Barry said without lowering the binoculars. Someone had just come out of the main turbine building. âBase one,â he spoke softly into his comms unit.
âOne, base,â Gordy responded.
âWeâre in position. Are we secure?â
âWe own the place. Ninety-minute window.â
Ninety minutes, itâs all Barry had asked for. After an hour and a half Gordyâs system would begin to deteriorate, primarily because of overloadâthe computers in the motor home could only hold a finite amount of data. Sooner or later information flowing to and from the facility to ARPA-E and a half-dozen other governmental facilities, including NOAA, NASA, the CIA, NSA and, of course, Homeland Security, would have to be dumped. Links would be broken. Questions would be asked.
But in ninety minutes the entire operation would be mounted and conducted, leaving a good margin for an orderly retreat when they could again become ordinary elk hunters.
So long as there were no witnessesâelectronic or human.
âThe clock starts now,â he radioed.
âThe operation is at plus one, eighty-nine remaining,â Gordy said.
The man in white coveralls, whoâd come out of the turbine building, drove a golf cart across to the trailers, and there was no further activity that Barry could see and he started to lower the binoculars when Moose nudged him.
âForty-five right.â
Barry scanned right along Donna Marieâs west inner fence and around the corner to the front gate on the south side as two vehicles, one of them a gray Hummer with government plates, followed by a blue pickup, approached the unmanned gate as it slowly swung inward. The logo on the side of the pickup was for the Bismarck Tribune .
When the gate was fully opened, the two vehicles went into the power station yard and directly over to the turbine building, where a man in civilian clothes got out of the Hummer and a young woman with short hair got out of the pickup before they went inside.
âTrouble?â Moose asked.
Barry lowered his binoculars. âTwo extra bodies in the turbine building,â he said. âBut no trouble.â And his mind was suddenly abuzz. He liked the pressâthe power of the media. And he started spinning out scenarios of how the death of a Bismarck Tribune reporterâif thatâs what she wasâcould advance
Marion Chesney, M.C. Beaton