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“That’s right.”
When they got back to the hotel Jamison pulled the SUV to the curb and said, “What now?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to take a shower. Maybe none of that stuff got out of the pipe, but maybe some of it did. Who knows? I’m going to call Stan and tell him to do the same thing.”
Jamison’s eyes widened. “Right. I think I’m going to take a shower, too. And go through a couple bars of soap.”
They were about to climb out of the SUV when Jessica Reel appeared at the driver’s-side glass and said, “You need to come with me.”
“Why?”
“Decontamination.”
“Do you know what was down there?” said Jamison anxiously.
“Not definitively, but the speculation mandates that you two go in for decon and testing.”
“My brother-in-law—” began Decker.
“We’ve already picked him up. And the men from the pumper truck.” She pointed down the street. “We have a van over there. Get in the back and put on the suits that are in there.”
“Wait a minute—are you saying we’re contagious?”
“I’m saying we don’t know. We’ll take charge of your SUV. It needs to be tested, too. So leave the keys.” She moved back and pointed to the van.
They climbed into the back of the van and put on the hazmat suits that had been laid out for them. They even had their own closed-loop air pack systems.
“Okay, this is scary,” said Jamison, through her face mask. “Do you really think we’re contaminated?”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” said Decker. “But we better not be.”
“Well, yeah, duh.”
“No, I mean we have murders to solve.”
IT WAS THE NEXT DAYand every known test had been run on them, Baker, and the other men and their vehicles before they’d finally been given the all clear. Whatever was in the pipe, first the water and then the concrete had stopped it from escaping. A federal hazmat response team was currently at the site, walling it off and using sophisticated detection technology to assess the situation.
Jamison and Decker were in a small conference room at their hotel. Robie, Reel, and Blue Man sat across from them.
Blue Man said, “You are to be commended. What you did saved a lot of lives.”
“The target had to be the oil and gas,” said Decker.
“Which explains the chatter we were getting from the Middle East,” said Blue Man.
“Meaning the threat came from there,” said Jamison.
“We believe so, and it would make sense from a geoeconomic perspective. Fracking in North Dakota helped in a very large way to make this country mostly energy independent,” stated Blue Man. “That is good for us, and that is very bad for every other petroleum-producing nation, including those who are members of OPEC, especially the Saudis. We still import oil from them, just not nearly as much as we used to.”
“So what exactly was down there in the ground?” asked Jamison. “No one’s told us.”
“That’s because we don’t know for certain. But since I learned of your discovery, I have been in touch with some high-level contacts from the DoD and informed them of the situation here. With some prodding from my superiors, they, in turn, did some deep digging within certain old records.”
“With what result?” asked Jamison.
“It seems that decades ago certain elements within the Air Force community might not have followed the presidential directive to discontinue all work on such weapons and destroy the stockpiles that did exist. Work on one project may have continued. The results of that work may well have been what ended up in that bunker.”
“There’s no maybe about it,” said Decker. “It did.”
