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“Come on!” yelled Baker.
They all ran back outside and Baker started searching the work-site area.
“What are we looking for?” cried out Jamison.
“Something to cap that pipe.”
“Can’t we just bang the shit out of the end of the pipe and close it up that way?” said Decker.
“It’s twelve feet off the ground, Amos, and do you see anything here to bang it with? And if you’re right about the crap down there it has to be airtight.”
“A piece of metal,” suggested Jamison.
“You’re talking a lot of pressure in that pipe, including all the air that’s been trapped in that bunker. Unless it’s welded on we can’t count on a metal cap holding, and we don’t have time to weld it or thread it.”
They all looked frantically around.
“There!” shouted Baker.
It was a hose attached to a thousand-gallon barrel of water.
He grabbed the hose and ran the end of it over to the vent pipe. He flipped a box over and stood on it. “Alex, take the hose and get on my shoulders. Amos, there’s a hand crank on that water tank. Once Alex gets the hose in the pipe, pump like your life depends on it.”
“Well, it does,” Decker muttered, getting in position.
Alex took the hose. Baker bent down, and she climbed onto his broad shoulders. She settled in as he stood up straight. The top of the pipe was still a foot above her outstretched hands, but she worked the hose up and then managed to get the end pointed into the wide pipe.
“Go, Amos!” shouted Baker unnecessarily, because Decker was already pumping like mad. A few seconds later water started coursing through the hose and into the pipe.
“Are you sure this will work?” said Jamison.
“Water is heavier than air. So it should buy us some time until the concrete pumper truck gets here.”
“How will we know if it’s worked?” Jamison called out.
“We won’t be dead,” retorted Decker, breathing hard and furiously turning the hand crank.
And it did apparently work, because they didn’t die.
The pumper truck showed up a few minutes later, and Baker directed the stunned men to fill the pipe with concrete.
After that, Decker, Jamison, and Baker slumped to the ground.
Decker looked at his brother-in-law. “You’re a genius, Stan. You should get a medal.”
Jamison put a shaky hand on Baker’s shoulder. “I second that. A really big one.”
Decker let out a long breath. “Well, we stopped the time bomb. Now we just have to figure out who set it off and why.”
“SO YOU FIGURED ALL THAT OUTfrom Cramer’s comment about not eating stuff grown on that land?” said Jamison.
They were driving back to town.
Decker had called Robie and brought him up to speed. Robie had told him they were calling in the DoD and the Department of Homeland Security to take over the situation.
“Not just that. It was also something that Brad Daniels said,” said Decker.
“Which was what?”
