CHAPTER 12
THAT NIGHT I WENT HOME BECAUSE I NEEDED clothes, and my passport was in the safe. I packed with nervous hands as I waited for my pager to beep. Fielding had been calling me on the hour to hear updates and air his concerns. The bodies at Old Point remained where the gunmen had left them, as best we knew, and we had no idea how many of the plant’s workers remained imprisoned inside.
I slept restlessly under the watch of a police car parked on my street, and I sat up when the alarm clock startled me awake at five A.m. An hour and a half later, a Learjet awaited me at the Millionaire Terminal in Henrico County, where the area’s wealthiest businessmen parked their helicopters and corporate planes. Wesley and I were polite but guarded as we greeted each other, and I was having trouble believing we were about to fly overseas together. But it had been planned that he would visit the embassy before it was suggested that I should go to London, too, and General Sessions did not know about our history. Or at least this was how I chose to view a situation that was out of my hands.
“I’m not sure I trust your motives,” I said to Wesley as the jet took off like a race car with wings. “And what about this?” I looked around. “Since when does the Bureau use Learjets, or did the Pentagon arrange this, too?”
“We use whatever we need,” he said. “CP&L has made available any resource it has to help us resolve this crisis. The Learjet belongs to them.”
The white jet was sleek, with burlwood and teal green leather seats, but it was loud, so we could not speak softly.
“You don’t have to worry about using something of theirs?” I said.
“They’re just as unhappy about all this as we are. As far as we know, with the exception of one or two bad apples, CP&L is blameless. In fact, it and its employees are clearly the most profoundly victimized.”
He stared ahead at the cockpit and its two well-built pilots dressed in suits. “Besides, the pilots are HRT,- he added. “And we checked every nut and bolt of this thing before we took off. Don’t worry. As for my going with you–he looked at me-“I’ll say it again. What happens now is operational. The ball has been passed to FIRT. I will be needed when terrorists begin to communicate with us, when we can at least identify them. But I don’t think that will be for several days.”
“How can you possibly know that?” I poured coffee.
He took the cup from my hand and our fingers brushed.
“I know because they’re busy. They want those assemblies, and there are only so many they can get per day.”
“Have the reactors been shut down?”
“According to the power company, the terrorists shut down the reactors immediately after storming the plant. So they know what they want, and they are down to business.”
“And there are twenty of them.”
“That’s approximately how many went in for their a] leged seminar in the mock control room. But we really can’t be sure how many are there now.”
“This tour,” I said, “when was it scheduled?”
“The power company said it was originally scheduled in early December for the end of February.”
“Then they moved it up.” I wasn’t surprised in light of what had happened lately.
“Yes,” he said. “It was suddenly rescheduled a couple of days before Eddings was killed.”
“it sounds like they’re desperate, Benton.”
“And probably more reckless and not as prepared,” he said. “And that’s better and worse for us.”
“And what about hostages? Is it likely they will let all of them go, based on your experience?”
“I don’t know about all of them,” he said, staring out the window, his face grim in soft side lights.
“Lord,” I said, “if they try to get the fuel out, we could have a national disaster on our hands. And I don’t see how they think they can pull this off. Those assemblies probably weigh several tons each and are so radioactive they could cause instant death if you got close. And how will they get them away from Old Point?”