Page 54 of Jonas

“The China Syndrome,” Zane grunted. “Fun fact, the United States likes to condemn Russia for the Chernobyl coverup when we perpetrated the first nuclear near-disaster coverup. If it wasn’t for Rick Parks, more than likely we would’ve been wiped off the map.”

“What’s the China syndrome?” Nebraska asked.

“It’s a movie that came out a few months before the meltdown that turned out to be prolific,” Zane elucidated. “The plot of the movie is a nuclear meltdown. It theorizes what would happen if the core melted through the containment structure and penetrated the earth all the way to China—not that, that couldn’t literally happen—but the premise of the meltdown can and did happen at Three Mile Island. It scared the fuck out of everyone and for good reason. The clusterfuck that was the cleanup was a disaster waiting to happen. Money and corruption never go out of style.”

“Are you saying China is targeting Three Mile Island?” Easton blew out his question like it pained him to do so.

“I’m telling you that everything is a diversion. The endgame isn’t taking out our power grid, our bridges, ports, or hacking the Pentagon—all of that is icing. It’s the disruption to keep us occupied while they carry out the real mission.”

After that lead in, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know what the real mission was and I was back to thinking we might be too late to stop whatever they had planned.

“And that is?” Theo snapped, sounding as if he’d lost patience.

“To kill POTUS, the VP, and the Speaker of the House. The Chinese want the senior ranking member of the Senate in the Oval Office.”

“I’m sorry, say fucking what again?” Zane snarled. “And they’re planning on doing this how exactly?”

“By using Three Mile Island. Reactor one went offline about six years ago, but the powerplant is owned by Union Power. The reactor is due to go back online in a few years. Union signed a twenty-year lease with a software company to power their data center, which is dedicated to AI programs. Right now, there’s testing being done. One of those tests will be falsified to show a temperature spike. That spike will be used to evacuate the president, the VP, and the Speaker. At the same time the power plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming will look like it is nearing meltdown. The bunker won’t be an option but Air Force One will be. As soon as they’re on that plane they’re dead. And by the way, Karen White’s husband is the vice president of operations at Union.” Lore paused and glanced at me. “I saw you yesterday talking with Seth Hackett.”

“You saw me?”

Instead of answering me she asked her own question. “Anson Sutton, Lou Peterson, Karen White?”

“What about them?”

“All three are on the take. Kent Rapport, bless his whistleblower heart, tipped Anson off that the shit going on at Delcon hadn’t gone unnoticed. Anson’s answer to this was to hire you and work with Treasury to take out Bolin Chen and be kept in the loop about how much the government knew.”

“How do you know all of this?” Jonas asked the fifty-million-dollar question.

“A little birdy helped me.”

“Are you kidding me?” Nebraska seethed.

My attention shot to the woman standing next to the wall. Her face was a mask of fury, her hand holding her coffee was shaking—so much so Easton pulled it from her hand.

“Pigeon’s been helping you?” Zane inquired in a much less angry tone but still there were threads of annoyance I didn’t get.

“Yes, Anna and Charlie have been hard at work,” Lore confirmed.

“Who’s Anna and Charlie?”

“My parents,” Nebraska growled. “The ones who are supposed to be retired, keeping their noses clean.”

“They’re clean,” Lore shot back. “Who better than Maddon Judd’s best friend to help stop whatever plan he sold? But it was Pigeon who uncovered the nuclear strategy.”

“Do I want to know how she uncovered that or did she honeypot someone?”

Lore’s laugh filled the room. The sound was so startling in the ominous space I nearly jumped out of my seat.

“She spoke to Austin Wentworth and as far as I know she didn’t have to use her feminine wiles on him. Though I don’t believe he’ll be speaking to anyone else.”

It didn’t take a cryptanalyst to read between Lore’s coded lines.

“So she killed him,” Nebraska nonchalantly said, not asked.

Lore shrugged. “There might’ve been torture involved.”

“I always liked that woman,” Zane muttered.