Fractured State (Fractured State Series Book 1) Read online

  “Is this related to your job at the water authority?”

  “Negative,” said Nathan, purposely changing his vernacular. The police department actively recruited Marines from Camp Pendleton to boost their ranks. The chance of interacting with a former Marine was high, and speaking the lingo often eased the pain of a checkpoint stop.

  “Former service?” asked the officer, taking the bait.

  “Negative. My father retired as a sergeant major. Regiment level. I grew up on Camp Pendleton,” said Nathan, all of which was true.

  The officer nodded. “Got out as a staff sergeant in ’28, right when the county was looking to expand. Couldn’t have timed it better. They cut my battalion next year. Fuckers.”

  “Sounds like you landed in the right place,” said Nathan.

  “The Special Activities Group is a shit ton better than the regular patrol division, that’s for sure,” said the officer. “How long will you be at the beach?”

  “I usually don’t take more than thirty minutes.”

  “All right. You’re good to go,” he said, patting the top of the car. “Make sure you don’t cross the San Dieguito Lagoon. Security is tighter around the plant because of the assassination.”

  “I would hope so. Unbelievable waking up to that tragedy this morning.”

  “It was only a matter of time before someone crossed the line,” the officer said, stepping back from the vehicle and speaking into his helmet microphone.

  The checkpoint lights darkened as Nathan pulled into the empty Del Mar Heights Road intersection and took a left toward the beach. A few minutes later, he nestled his car into a rare, vacant beach parking spot on Ocean Front Road, directly in front of the San Dieguito River beach preserve.

  CHAPTER 6

  Nick Leeds stepped on the brightly lit tarmac at Montgomery Field Airport, taking a moment to test his legs. Flagg’s insistent calls had kept him awake for most of the flight, adding another eight hours to a severe sleep deficit. Personally managing Almeda’s security needs had required him to work consistent eighteen-hour days in DC. He felt borderline combat ineffective standing next to the whining luxury jet.

  His earpiece sounded before he could take a step forward. “Encrypted call from Mason Flagg.”

  “Mother fu—” he began before remembering that Flagg could simply cut into his wireless feed.

  “I hope that wasn’t directed at me,” said Flagg. “Did you manage to grab a nap?”

  “Very funny, and that was definitely directed at you,” said Leeds, spotting one of his men waiting just outside one of the open hangar-bay doors. Looked like his entourage would bypass the airport arrival building for a far more private exit.

  “I sent coffee with your team,” said Flagg. “I need you in Del Mar ten minutes ago.”

  “Del Mar? Don’t we have people working up there right now?”

  “That’s the problem. They’re still working, and Olmos hasn’t received the signal to pick them up.”

  Leeds looked past the sleek jet behind him and examined the eastern horizon. A faint ribbon of blue peaked over the pitch-black hills. “They have about twenty minutes before some asshole decides to go for a sunrise stroll,” he said, starting to jog toward the hangar.

  “Precisely,” said Flagg. “I need you up there running interference.”

  “I presume that means no witnesses?”

  “People drown at the beach, especially after they witness one of my operations. You can access the precise diver pickup coordinates on the Cerebrus server, under current operations. There’s a police checkpoint at the Del Mar Heights exit, so use Carmel Valley Road.”

  Carmel Valley added time to their trip, if he obeyed the speed limits. “ETA?” requested Leeds, picking up the pace.

  “Twenty-eight minutes, and watch your speed. I know Carmel Valley is slower, but it beats rolling the dice at a checkpoint,” said Flagg. “I can replace a dive equipment specialist. You, on the other hand …”

  “Is that a compliment?” asked Leeds, breathing heavy.

  “Depends on how I finish the sentence. Call me when you’ve reached Del Mar.”

  The call disconnected, leaving Leeds in a dead sprint to reach the idling SUV that no doubt waited for him on the other side of the hangar.

  CHAPTER 7

  Nathan’s eyes fluttered, opening slowly to focus on milky bands of star clusters above him. He raised his wrist over his face and squinted at his watch. Shit. He’d fallen asleep in a patch of soft sand behind a thick row of beach scrub. He knew better than to lie down, but the soothing rhythm of the crashing surf provided an all-too-tempting backdrop for stargazing after he’d stowed the water bottles in the car. San Diego County’s strict light-pollution laws had restored vast swaths of the night sky to coastal viewers.

  A low rumbling drew his attention away from the celestial panorama. He turned on his side and had started to push his body off the soft ground when the sound of distant voices froze him in place. Nathan remained still, straining to determine the direction of the new sounds over the steady plunge of Pacific waves. After listening for several seconds, he rose high enough to see through the windblown scrub.

  He didn’t see anything at first. The obsidian canvas beyond the wavering bushes yielded little more than a series of fading gray lines where the continuous onslaught of surf plunged into the water, but he continued to stare into the blackness, convinced that the sounds had come from the ocean. Noise tended to travel much farther over water. His peripheral vision caught movement beyond the breakers.

  Rising a little higher, he spotted the suspected source—too far away to identify details with the naked eye. Nathan opened his backpack and removed a pair of compact binoculars, training them on the early-morning interlopers. Two shadowy, military-style boats bobbed in the water, holding station just beyond the surf zone. He adjusted the focus and searched for markings. Nothing. One of the boats twisted rapidly, pointing its stern toward the beach.

  Behind the boat, a cluster of dark objects emerged, floating in the choppy water. He watched as four heavily laden divers climbed onto the deck of the craft and disappeared through unlit hatches on the starboard side of the low-profile, angular superstructure. A deeper rumbling floated across the beach, indicating a throttle change. By the time Nathan processed this information, the boats had receded into the distance—swallowed by the darkness.

  He lowered his body to the cool sand and lay on his back, contemplating the bizarre scene. What the hell had he just witnessed? Nothing good. There was little doubt about that. Two stealth boats retrieving a covert diving team less than a mile from the Del Mar nuclear desalination plant. Without a doubt, nothing good. He should have trusted his first instinct and stayed home.

  Or, maybe he was being paranoid, and the whole thing was one of dozens of regular exercises conducted by the Marine reconnaissance units or SEALs stationed on the Southern California coast. Camp Pendleton was less than five miles north, and all of the West Coast’s SEAL teams operated out of the Naval Amphibious Base on Coronado Island—twenty miles to the south. A military exercise was well within the realm of possibilities. Right?

  Nathan wasn’t altogether convinced as he took in the fading light show above him—shades of lighter blue from the west creeping into the periphery of his vision. Time to get moving. He liked to get home before his neighbors woke up. The fewer questions he had to field about his trips, the better.

  Nathan shouldered his backpack and took a moment to brush the bulk of the sand from his cold, clammy pants. Keira was going to be pissed about the sand he’d drag through the house—and the time. He should have been home by now with her coffee.

  Three-quarters of the way across the shrub-covered nature preserve, Nathan paused, detecting the sound of an approaching vehicle. Unable to resist his paranoia, he kneeled below the tops of the bushes, peering through the thin wisps. The moment his knees touched the sandy trail, headlights illuminated a pair of expansive palm plants surrounding a white g
arage door on the corner of Ocean Front Road. The palms’ shadows grew on the street as a black Suburban crept into view between the tightly spaced homes at the edge of the preserve.

  Nathan’s eyes darted to his sedan parked thirty feet away, and he grimaced as the SUV’s headlights bathed the silver Toyota. Shit. What were the chances this was unconnected? He lowered his body further, placing the palms of his hands on the sand and crawling into the dense brush. The SUV idled at the corner, giving him second thoughts about staying in place.

  A powerful spotlight swept the tops of the bushes, passing over his head and stopping at the seaward edge of the preserve. The light probed the bushes along the beach and disappeared. Moments later, the SUV’s engine roared, and Nathan heard the oversize tires crackling over the street. He risked a peek through the shrubs, catching the red glow of the SUV’s taillights. It had turned on Twenty-First Street, heading away from the beach. He rose a little higher and watched the SUV turn right onto Coast Boulevard.

  Nathan counted to thirty, watching and listening for the SUV before sprinting the rest of the distance to his car. At the edge of the small public parking lot, he paused in the bushes and scanned the neighborhood, praying the SUV hadn’t returned. Ocean Front Road was deserted as far as he could see, along with the rest of the tight roads leading to the preserve.

  He walked down the passenger side of his car and paused behind the trunk, calculating the angle from the back of his car to the corner. Based on a quick estimate, he didn’t think the occupants of the SUV could have read his license plate from where they stopped. They could have read it on the way out, using a magnified night-vision device, but he doubted they’d bothered. The SUV had departed in a hurry. Thank God he’d loaded the bottles in the trunk before he took a nap. He was in the same hurry to get the hell out of there.

  As Nathan drove away from the beach, he wondered if he should mention the strange encounter to Keira. She had a far more active imagination, not to mention a touch of the conspiracy bug. No. He’d keep it to himself. News of the assassination would be more than enough for her today. Black-ops boats, covert diving teams and suspicious, black Suburban SUVs would push her over the top. The last thing he needed was a full-blown panic at the Fisher household. He felt edgy enough cruising through the abandoned streets—on the constant lookout for a black SUV.

  CHAPTER 8

  Gary Reynolds massaged his temples as he focused on the reactor’s digital seawater-cooling display. He didn’t like the vibrational sensor readings from the primary circulating pump’s housing unit. They were well within normal ranges but had twice strayed beyond baseline readings in the past minute. The system hadn’t registered a vibration out of baseline parameters since they’d started the reactor 849 hours ago. Little things like this drew his attention.

  As the plant’s senior reactor operator, he’d overseen every aspect of the plant’s operational life cycle, from initial testing to commissioning. For the past thirty-five days, he’d spent most of his life in this reactor control room, teasing out irregularities and establishing best practices from the reactor control teams assigned to the plant. He knew more about this system’s behavior than his own children’s. Like any well-designed, newly constructed reactor, Unit One was flawlessly predictable, unlike his preteen son and teenage daughter. An irregularity detected this soon in the life cycle was a sign of trouble.

  “This has happened twice in the past forty-five minutes?” Reynolds asked James MacDonald, the shift’s duty reactor operator.

  “Two series of spikes out of baseline. Uneven spacing. Progressively intensifying.”

  “But still far inside acceptable operating parameters.”

  “Correct, but that pump has purred from the start,” said MacDonald.

  “Yes, it has,” mumbled Reynolds, eyes fixed on the display.

  Before he could air his thoughts, another vibrational spike appeared, registered by several sensors throughout the pump housing. Instead of quickly dropping back under the baseline threshold and remaining there, the vibrations tapered off at a new level.

  “This is not good. Have we seen any unusual vibrations near the seawater filter screens? Maybe an impact that damaged one of the screens?” he asked, knowing the answer.

  Any impact large enough to breach one of those screens would register one hell of a vibration, triggering alarms throughout the control center. The screens were designed to filter ocean debris or any fish unfortunate enough to be snagged by the plant’s intake conduit. Located more than two thousand feet offshore, the submerged conduit employed a velocity cap to discourage fish entrainment, but no system was 100 percent effective. The screens were constantly rotated and power-washed to remove impinged fish and debris.

  “I ran a system check. Nothing unusual,” said MacDonald.

  Reynolds glanced over his shoulder, finding what he expected: the rest of the shift’s reactor control team staring at the main display. He turned back to the screen in time to see the beginning of the end. Pump One registered a vibration at the edge of safe operational parameters, immediately trailed by a persistent reading outside the safe zone. Red lights flashed on multiple panels in his peripheral vision, quickly followed by a high-pitched alarm. Reynolds gave the situation a few more seconds to unfold—for little reason beyond sheer disbelief. Pump One was in the process of tearing itself apart. Worse yet, Pump One was the plant’s only direct seawater-cooling intake pump, a concession made by the San Diego County Water Authority to ease opposition to the plant by California’s vocal eco-lobbyists.

  “Shit,” muttered Reynolds, seeing only one viable option moving forward. “Initiate emergency shutdown procedures. Mr. Macdonald, stop Pump One, and stop the reactor when you have a green light to drop the control rods. Transfer full cooling responsibility for the deactivated reactor to the wet cooling system, and monitor the temperature levels closely. I’ll notify the shift supervisor. We’re in for a long day.”

  “That’s an understatement,” said Macdonald. “Shutting down a few months into operations is unprecedented. State and federal regulatory teams will descend on us within the hour.”

  “Good. They can revisit their decision to approve the accelerated construction timeline of the Del Mar plant, while they help us monitor the yet-unproved emergency cooling system. Should be a grand day for us all.”

  Reynolds considered the implications of running the wet cooling system as the sole source of reactor coolant. When the control rods are inserted during emergency shutdown procedures, reactor power drops immediately but does not completely cease. A small percentage of the reactor’s steady state power remains, thanks to a continuing, low-grade fission decay of neutrons. In other words, the reactor will continue to produce heat that needs to be cooled—for a long time.

  According to the plant’s designers, the wet cooling system could handle it. Reynolds wasn’t one 100 percent convinced, but what did his thirty-plus years of experience in the field matter? Not much, apparently. He just worked here.

  “Ready to SCRAM the reactor,” said Macdonald.

  “Do it,” said Reynolds, after quickly examining the digital displays for any less obvious signs that Macdonald may have missed.

  While reactor power levels plummeted, he took a deep breath and inhaled. Thirty-five days and they already had a key equipment failure. The vast majority of reactor units in service today had gone thirty years without a critical failure. This morning’s pump fiasco didn’t bode well for California’s sustainability efforts. He wouldn’t be surprised if they shut down all the recently built nuclear plants to inspect the pumps. All this on top of Congresswoman Almeda’s assassination? California had hit its first real rough patch in a decade, and he hoped the state didn’t unravel too far.

  CHAPTER 9

  Nathan eased the car onto the Mira Mesa Boulevard exit ramp, slowing for the sharp curve that would deposit him in his authorized district. The moment his car turned east on Mira Mesa, the heads-up display announced his return, proj
ecting basic details of his trip in a light-blue digital readout in the center of the windshield.

  “ENTERING RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT 42. TIME OUT OF AUTHORIZED ZONE: 83 MINUTES. TIME REMAINING FOR OUT-OF-ZONE TRAVEL: 254 MINUTES.”

  A whole four hours left to enjoy with his family on the weekend. Looked like they’d be staying local. Keira wouldn’t be happy to hear this. Eighty-three minutes was a record for him. He’d closed his eyes on the beach before, but never for that long. His Bluetooth system announced a call with a muted klaxon, the customized ringtone he’d jokingly set for Keira. He suspected she would live up to the joke this morning, especially if she’d checked the news before starting her morning routine.

  “Accept call,” he said, pausing until the HUD displayed “CONNECTED.” “I’m about to stop for coffee, honey. I should be home in about ten minutes.”

  “Don’t worry about the coffee. Did you see the news?” she said, clearly too worked up to piece together his extended absence.

  “I caught it right before I left.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I didn’t want to stress you out at four in the morning.”

  She paused before responding. “Please tell me you didn’t go to your usual spot.”

  “‘You didn’t go to your usual spot,’” he said quickly.

  Unsurprisingly, his wife didn’t laugh. “Jesus. You actually went to Del Mar—ground zero for the next attack?”

  He’d definitely hold off mentioning the black-ops boats.

  “Nobody is going to attack a desalination plant. It’s not in either side’s best interest. Plus, it’s a heavily guarded site,” said Nathan. “It’s business as usual out here for ninety-nine point nine nine percent of the population.”

  “California was attacked. Nothing will be business as usual today. Remember what happened last time. That’s why we have that room,” said his wife. “We need to be ready for a quick departure.”