Shell Shocked (14 page)

“I don't understand. Why isn't there snow here?”

“It
will
settle once it snows more.”

“But why not now?” I asked.

“Underground pipes carrying steam. The entire facility is heated by steam,” he said. “There are pipes that lead from the steam plant to every building. Look, you can see where they are.”

He was right, I
could
see them. Each building was joined to the next by a thin strip, a path of clear ground that could now be seen as it stood out against the snow. The whole plant was designed so that the buildings were
all separate—that was for safety reasons—but really, they weren't separate. They were all connected.

“And this steam plant … where is it?” I asked.

“It's back there,” he said, waving a hand in the direction we'd come from.

“Where? Where, exactly, is it?”

“On the edge of the property,” he said without looking back.

I grabbed him by the arm. “Where?”

He looked surprised and annoyed. I let go of his arm.

“See those smokestacks?” he said.

I looked through the snow. I could see two stacks in the distance.

“Okay … thanks.” I started walking toward them.

“Kid!” he called after me. “Kid!”

I turned around and waved to him. I couldn't tell him why, but I needed to see the steam plant up close.

THE SNOW WAS FALLING
fast and thick, but not so fast or so thick that it could cover up the telltale signs that there were heated pipes running underneath the ground. They'd been there all the time, of course, but I'd never been able to notice them before. Now they were so obvious. Here at the munitions plant—where they made a point of spreading things out, of making sure that there were many separate and separated buildings—there was this one connection to
all
of the buildings!

As I got closer to the steam plant I started to wonder how I'd never really noticed it before. It was big, grey, solid and topped by two large chimneys, from which thick smoke rose up and disappeared into the snowy sky. I circled around the building, looking for a way in. At the side there were two large trucks parked. The big garage doors were closed but there was a little door beside
them. I turned the knob and the door opened and I walked in.

The garage was cavernous—big, with the ceiling high above—and with the exception of another two trucks it was empty. It felt good to get out of the snow, but it really wasn't that much warmer in here. I could still see my breath, which was coming in puffs. I needed to slow down, both my breath and my pounding heart.

I walked between the trucks and looked around. I couldn't see anybody.

“Hello?” I tentatively called out. There was no answer except for my voice echoing back to me.

I walked to the end where I saw a door. That had to lead somewhere. I pushed it open and was instantly hit by a wave of heat and a rush of sound—loud machinery rhythmically pounding and pumping. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. It was incredibly hot. It was as if I'd stepped from one season to another, going from bitter winter to tropical summer on opposite sides of the door. The only similarity was that there was nobody here, either. This was perfect—perfect if I wanted to break in and destroy the building.

There was a long corridor that seemed to run around the perimeter of the building, with doors leading off it. I started to check them as I passed. Each one was locked. At least that was some form of security. I kept checking
them, though, like I was some sort of unofficial watchman. Passing by the tenth or eleventh door I turned the knob and found an unlocked door! I hesitated for a few seconds and then pulled it open.

I walked in and found myself face to face with four men, sitting around a table playing cards. They all looked up at me, and they seemed as surprised to see me as I felt to find them. I had to fight the urge to wave, close the door and run away.

One of them got up from the table and walked toward me. He didn't look happy. And I realized how little he was—he was shorter than me.

“You should not be here!” he stated loudly. He had a foreign accent of some kind. “Why are you here?”

“I'm allowed to be anywhere.” I pulled out the permission letter from my pocket. “I'm a reporter with
The Commando
.”

He practically ripped the letter from my hands and started to read it. Another of the men got up and came over—he was much bigger than either the first man or me. He began reading the letter over the first man's shoulder.

“You're a reporter?” the second man asked. “You don't look old enough to know all of your alphabet yet.”

The two men still seated laughed, while the first continued to study the letter. Finally he looked up. “It is
true … it says he is a reporter and he can go to all areas of the plant.”

“Wait a second,” the second man said. “I think I read an article you wrote. Isn't your father a pilot?”

“Yes, he is,” I said, keeping my cover story alive. I was getting pretty good at lying without a hint of hesitation.

“And you wrote about how all of us back here are just as important because without us the soldiers and sailors and fliers can't do their jobs.”

“I wrote that.”

“That was a good article. You're a good writer, kid.”

“Thanks. And I was thinking that I could write a story about the steam plant.”

“There is nothing for you to write about here,” the little man said. “You should go.”

“Hold your horses there, Case, and let the lad explain himself.”

“I thought that I would write about how the steam plant is the heart of the whole facility.”

“The heart?” the bigger man asked.

“Yes, the same way the heart pumps blood to keep the body alive, the steam plant pumps out heat to keep the facility alive,” I explained.

“Well, I like that,” the bigger man said. He turned to the other two, who were sitting. “How do you like that, boys? We're the heart!”

They both smiled and nodded.

“It's about time we got a little recognition. It seems the only time people notice we exist is when something goes wrong,” the bigger man said. “What would you like to know?”

“Everything about the—”

“We don't have time for any of this!” the first man, Case, snapped. “We have too much work to do!”

The other three looked at him with a combination of surprise and amusement.

“Come on, Case, I think we can take a few minutes away from our card game to tell him some things about—”

“I think he should leave,
immediately
, and we should get back to our work!”

“And I think that you're not my boss and you should stop trying to be one!” the big man said. He took a step forward until he was standing almost over top of the smaller man.

“Then maybe I should find the foreman and inform him that you three are playing cards.”

“You do that, and you be sure to tell him who was sitting in that fourth chair playing along with us. Now, either quiet down or push off!”

Case snorted and then turned and stomped off, pushing past me to get through the door.

“I'm … I'm sorry,” I stammered. “I didn't mean to cause any trouble.”

“You didn't, kid. Case got a burr under his saddle for some reason. Those Norwegians can be like that … stubborn people. Now, what do you want to know?”

“But what about the foreman?”

“I can tell you more than he can.”

“No, I mean, aren't you worried about him coming here and finding you playing cards?”

“No worries. It's not like they're going to be firing any of us. We're three of the engineers who keep this place going. Come on, I'll give you a tour and answer your questions at the same time. My name is Frank,” he said, and he offered me his hand.

“I'm George.”

“I know that,” he said. “It says so in the letter.”

I followed him out of the little room and back into the corridor. Almost immediately he began explaining how the plant worked. He was using a lot of technical terms and big words, and while I didn't really understand I nodded my head enthusiastically.

We walked along the corridor and through a door that led us into an enormous room, in the middle of which was a gigantic tank sort of thing that looked like my mother's pressure cooker—except it was as big as a barn.

“This here is the central boiler,” he said. “If the steam plant is the heart of the whole facility, then you're looking at the
actual
heart.”

He went on explaining in detail how it worked. Again, too many big and technical words for me to understand, but I was getting the information I wanted to find out.

“I was wondering, if this boiler were damaged, what would happen?”

“Simple. The pressure would drop and the whole facility would lose steam and thereby lose heat.”

“And would that be dangerous?”

“Dangerous?”

“Would anything explode or anything?”

He laughed. “It would only get cold, here and everywhere else.”

“I guess that isn't so dangerous.”

“Not that there isn't some danger from other things,” he said.

“What sort of other things?”

“Well, you put anything under enough pressure and an explosion is possible.” He thumped the boiler and there was a deep, echoing sound. “Tens of thousands of gallons of water, superheated to create steam. If this shell were ruptured, then scalding water and steam would shoot out, along with chunks of metal from the shattered boiler itself. It would kill anybody in this building who was standing too close.”

Involuntarily I stepped back, and he laughed.

“You'd have to get a lot farther away than that! But no worries, it's as safe as houses in here. First sign of any trouble and the pressure would be released through valves—no chance of anything bad happening.”

I felt relieved. I looked up to the top of the boiler. Leading out of it were gigantic pipes. It looked like a big mechanical octopus.

“And those are the pipes that lead to the other buildings, right?”

“Every building on the whole complex.”

“What would happen if the pipes in one of the other buildings were damaged or broken?”

“That building would lose heat.”

“But it wouldn't explode or anything, would it?”

“No explosion. They'd call us and we'd be over there lickety-split to repair it.”

“And what if it didn't break in one of the buildings but underground, leading to the building?”

“That would be more difficult,” he said.

“Because you'd have to dig all around to try to find the spot?”

“Because I'd have to go and find Case and apologize,” he said.

“I don't understand.”

“Come on and I'll show you.”

I wasn't crazy about going to find Case, but I followed. We left the boiler behind and walked through a series of doors until we were standing in the corridor by the outside wall. Through the windows at the top I could see that the snow was now falling more heavily.

Frank bent down and lifted up a metal trap door.

“This is one of the places where pipes lead out of the building.”

I bent down to look. I could see four thick pipes, white and wrapped in what almost looked like bandages, leading away and into the distance, finally disappearing into the darkness.

“Do you see the service corridor?”

I peered down into the hole. There, beneath the pipes, was an opening, not much more than a little crawl space. I couldn't help but think back to Camp 30, to the tunnel that led out of the camp and across the road … the tunnel that the prisoners had dug to escape … the tunnel that Jack and I had been forced to crawl through … the tunnel that still haunted my sleep. I leaned back and away.

“The pipes are held in service corridors. If there are any problems we would have to go down through these to find it.”

“You couldn't fit through that,” I said, shaking my head.

“It's unbelievably tight for me, and I don't like closed-in places, but I have gone through these … not this one, but
some of them. That's why I'd be apologizing to Case. He can fit down there. He's a moody sort of fella, but lately he's been doing all the work in the service corridors.”

“Have there been a lot of leaks?”

“Not leaks. Maintenance and inspections. Each pipe needs to be inspected each month, and Case has volunteered to do
all
the inspections.”

“These corridors lead to every building, right?”

“Every building. He's been crawling through
miles
of corridor. Nasty work. Dark, with only a flashlight, tight spaces, damp, even wet, dirty and full of unexpected surprises.”

“What sort of surprises?”

“Mainly rats.”

I shuddered. I didn't like rats.

“They don't seem to bother Case.”

Actually, he kind of looked like a rat—a rat that had access to every building in the facility.

“I should be going,” I said. “Thanks for the tour.”

“Do you have enough information for your story?”

“I have everything I need.”

“So when should I expect it?” he asked.

“Expect what?”

“The story. When will it be in the paper?”

“Oh, yeah, probably next week … or the week after that. Thanks for your time, and I'm sorry I disturbed your card game.”

“No worry. There'll be lots of time for us to play Skat.”

“You were playing Skat?” I exclaimed before I could stop myself.

“You've heard of it?” He sounded equally surprised.

“Yes … from my grandparents,” I lied.

“Are your grandparents Norwegian?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. Why would he think that?