Baker snapped his fingers. “But it might if they sent a detonator down there first and blew everything up. That would smash whatever containers they’re in and also create pressure vacuums within that bunker. Once pierced, the stuff, if it is airborne, would seek the point of least resistance to get out. And that would be this pipe. At least we have to assume it would be.”
Baker quickly examined the roughly twelve-foot-tall pipe and then pulled out his phone.
“Rick, this is Stan. I need a concrete pumper at the All-American Energy Company site. Yeah, I know that’s not our job. Just do it and tell them to move their ass. We got a pumper all loaded and ready to go over there. I want it here in ten minutes. Five would be better. Do it!”
“Guys!”
Jamison had gone back into the trailer and now appeared in the doorway.
They ran back inside. She was pointing to the screen. “Isn’t that the pressure indicator you showed us back at your trailer, Stan?”
“Yeah,” said Baker.
“Well it just spiked.”
“What does that mean?” said Decker anxiously.
Baker said, “It means whatever the hell is down there is coming up here. And fast.”
“Oh, shit!” Jamison exclaimed.
“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 OUT from 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?”
“He expressed surprise and maybe fear when we told him about the activity going on at the land the Air Force had sold. He said, ‘They’re drilling on that land?’ ”
“I don’t remember him even saying that,” said Jamison.
“Well, that’s sort of my department, to recall stuff like that. But he lied to us. They didn’t get rid of that stockpile.”
“Maybe he thought they had.”
“No, he wouldn’t have been concerned about them drilling on the land unless he knew that stuff was down there.”
Jamison nodded. “Yeah, I guess that does makes sense. I suppose he didn’t trust us with the information.”
“And then there was an off-color section of wall in the lower level of the radar building. I think there was a door there that was later walled up. And why have a door more than a hundred feet belowground?”
“You’d only do that if there were a tunnel to be accessed through it.”
“Exactly,” said Decker.
“But why in the hell would the government sell off that land with those weapons buried there? That’s what I don’t get.”
“The easiest answer would be the folks in charge today had no idea it was even there.”
“But wouldn’t there be records of it?” said Jamison.
“If so, they might be buried as deep as that crap was. But I think what happened was the Air Force continued to do work on biochem weapons even after the order came down to stop. Or else they didn’t want to destroy what they had worked so long to make. So they, or some rogues working there, decided to bury the shit. Maybe they thought it could come in useful down the road. Or they didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing, or what they had come up with. But they had to put it somewhere that they thought was safe. Back then nobody ever imagined they’d be fracking up here.”
Jamison said, “And Daniels was the only one left who knew the truth? I can understand his telling Purdy. He was in the Air Force and had security clearances and all. But why would he tell Irene Cramer? Hell, he wouldn’t even tell us at first.”
Decker said, “Cramer’s mother was a spy. Maybe the daughter learned some interview techniques from her mother. She could have taken her time, asked innocuous questions at first. Maybe she noticed Daniels’s hat like I did. Maybe she researched him after he let something slip. She was a PT person. He liked her, she probably made him feel comfortable. She could have spent months working on him until she got most of the story from him. But she didn’t get all of it, which led her to come here and start asking questions. The fact that she was trying to meet oil field hands and not people from the military facility should have been a clue. She probably found out it was on the land around the installation, but she just didn’t know exactly where.”
“But still, you would have thought Daniels would have been more careful.”
“He’s an old guy, Alex. I’m not saying he’s not sharp, because he is. But he wasn’t going to be on his guard now to the extent he was all those years ago. And he probably never thought she would ever do anything with that information. He couldn’t have known about Cramer’s past, or who her mother was.”