Drone Threat

42

All eyes in the Situation Room were focused on a crudely shot cell phone video flashing on the screen. The sound was off.

“And this Garcia guy is credible?” Chandler asked.

“He’s the operations manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. He’s in charge of delivering water to nearly twenty million people in the L.A. basin, so, yes, I’d say he’s credible,” Peguero said. She fast-forwarded to a large portable pump, steel pipes, and a fifty-five-gallon plastic drum. They were all connected to the larger water pipes in the bathroom wall, torn away, along with the sink. The toilet had been removed to make room for the equipment. Yellow-suited HAZMAT workers crowded in the frame. Pearce saw one of them wanding the plastic drum with a handheld Geiger counter.

“And Garcia just happened to find this rig?”

“The details of how he managed to find it are still a little sketchy. The FBI ran a quick background check. He’s not on any watch list and he doesn’t have any felony convictions. I’d say he’s above suspicion. Otherwise, why call it in?”

Peguero described how Garcia had called his number two at the MWDSC, who then alerted the head of the security team. The water district had a plan in place for just such an emergency. The FBI was immediately contacted, along with an L.A. County HAZMAT team.

“And we’re sure the water district is safe?” Chandler said.

“Not at all,” Peguero said. “What Garcia and the water people tell us is that the device found in that home hadn’t been activated. That fifty-five-gallon drum contains plutonium-239, at least according to the letter they left behind.” She froze the image and pointed to a small metal box with an antenna located on top of the pump. “We believe this is a remote-control unit designed to activate the pump on a cell phone signal.”

“How could one drum of contaminated water affect the entire water system? Aren’t there controls in place for something like this? Wouldn’t water treatment have caught it?” Grafton asked.

“This is our worst-case scenario come to life,” Eaton said, her face darkening. The former army general looked like she hadn’t slept in days. “It’s a system designed to induce a backflow contamination event into the main water supply — the water that has already passed through the treatment process and is made available for public consumption. It’s extremely simple and effective. The pump you see in the video is used to overcome the water-pressure gradient coming into the house, effectively stopping the water flow long enough to dump the contaminant in. Then the pump is shut off and the main water system itself siphons and circulates the contaminant throughout the network. In some computer simulations we’ve run, the right induction point can contaminate whole neighborhoods and even the main trunk lines before the contaminant is even detected. If this device had been activated, we think as many as ten thousand homes could have been affected.”

The room was stunned into incredulous silence. Pearce could see the gears behind everyone’s eyes as they processed the magnitude of Eaton’s words.

Pia cleared his throat. “Aren’t there backflow prevention devices looped into these networks to avoid this exact scenario? Water system attacks have occurred all over the world. I thought our people were on top of this.”

“Yes. Prevention devices are in place,” Eaton said. “But they weren’t designed for terrorist attacks. Backflow incidents are usually accidents. So the backflow devices aren’t considered strategically important. They’re often out in public and not guarded. In fact, the nearest backflow device to this house was just a half mile away. No fencing or protection of any kind. That might even be why this particular location was selected. Apparently that backflow prevention device was disabled with a low-yield remote-controlled explosion just thirty minutes before the house was discovered.”

Pearce saw the frustration in the president’s face.

“I thought the EPA’s Water Security Initiative was supposed to prevent this kind of thing.”

“The WSI has been very effective, but no system is perfect and it hasn’t been fully implemented across the board. And just like with the electric grid, it’s really up to the local authorities to bear the brunt of security. The overall problem we face is that there are nearly one hundred seventy thousand public water systems, many of them serving fewer than a hundred people. The biggest vulnerability is that only fifteen percent of all public water systems provide seventy-five percent of all potable water. Attack those fifteen percent and you’ve got a national problem on your hands. The other challenge is this: If this attack had been initiated, the Water Sector Initiative alarms would’ve likely sounded — after the distribution of the plutonium — and the MWDSC would’ve alerted the general population, according to protocols. That would’ve led to mass panic on top of the contamination even if we could’ve stopped or neutralized the contaminant.”

“And we’re confident the device as constructed would’ve led to widespread contamination?” Chandler asked.

“No question,” Eaton said. “But it isn’t only a matter of this single device and location. You can see on your tablets that the terrorists left behind a schematic of the entire MWDSC. We’ve already discovered two more disabled backflow devices, and the water district is checking all of the others. Worse, the terrorists claim there are five more introduction points in the MWDSC ready to be activated. Where they are is anybody’s guess. These people knew exactly what they were doing and how to do it.”

The room exchanged nervous glances.

“By the look on your face I take it there’s more bad news,” Lane said.

Eaton nodded grimly. “They also listed threats to ten other metropolitan water districts, including Nashville, Dallas, Salt Lake City, and New Orleans. We’ve issued a private security bulletin to every water district in the country, alerting them to potential contamination threats. This could be a mass attack on an unprecedented scale. We’re talking millions of casualties. Utterly catastrophic. And I don’t use that word lightly.”

Pearce felt the rising anxiety in the room, rushing in like a morning tide.

“Please God, tell me that this is all being kept out of the press,” Abbott said. The White House press secretary had been fighting tooth and nail to squash the terrorism rumors flying around D.C. for the last twenty-four hours.

Peguero frowned. “While I agree that we wouldn’t want to cause a mass panic over the mere threat of a water-contamination event, at some point we owe the public an explanation and the opportunity to prepare accordingly.”

Garza shook his head in disgust. “And when would that be? You let this story out, the only ‘preparation’ anyone will take is rioting.”

Peguero shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

“Any chance of finding the other automated introduction points in L.A. or around the country?” Lane asked.

Peguero shook her head. “You’d have to kick down every door inside of every building all over the county, and then you’d still have to contend with at least six million fire hydrants and thousands of water towers, both of which are also points of access. And that would be the easy stuff to find.”

Pearce felt the iWatch tap his wrist — a phone call. If it was important, the caller would leave a voice mail. He hoped it wasn’t Margaret. But the call reminded him of his earlier conversation with Moshe.

“The letter said the water was loaded with plutonium-239,” Garza said. “If I recall, it has a half-life of twenty-four thousand years.”

Chandler paled. “Oh, Lord.”

Garza turned to the vice president. “It’s really, really nasty shit. What I want to know is, where’d they get it from?”

“No telling,” Eaton said. “Most likely stolen from one of our own stockpiles. It’s fissile material used in either nuclear bombs or nuclear reactors. There are hundreds of tons of it in storage, a lot of it being converted to MOX to burn in civilian nuclear power plants.”

“That stuff is under lock and key. Hard to steal,” Pearce said. “It’s more likely a country with plutonium-239 stockpiles provided it directly.”

“You have someone particular in mind?” Lane asked.

“Who would benefit from the transaction? Wouldn’t be the French or the Japanese,” Chandler said.

“How about North Korea?” Pia asked.

“They don’t produce very much of it, and whatever they produce they keep for their own nuclear weapons program,” Pia said.

“India, Pakistan, China—” Onstot threw in.

“Don’t see the advantage, especially China with the upcoming security summit. And China fears ISIS influence as much as we do among their ethnic Uighurs.”

“Unless there’s a rogue element in the PLA behind this,” Pia said.

Pearce leaned forward on the desk, folding his hands and shaking his head.

“Come on, Troy,” Chandler said, rolling his eyes. “You obviously have your own answer.”

Pearce turned to Chandler. “What about the Russians?”