Waterworks Read online

  Bret ran through just a little summary of the system for his guests. Then he got more to the point. “All the water from the network that comes to Los Angeles eventually reaches a huge filtration and treatment center at the north end of the Valley, at the town of Sylmar.” He presumed the agents knew the area well enough to know this meant the San Fernando Valley. The two nodded their understanding. “Anyway, the plant workers up there noticed something strange this morning. Dead birds and other small animals around the treatment tanks. Later, they saw dead fish as well. Never happened before, not in this quantity, even after some big storms.” He paused to see if he was getting his point across.

  “I can see your concern,” Uri said. Then after a brief pause, he added, “Did the water testing show any abnormality?” He was certain this would be the first thing that had been done.

  “That’s the strange part,” Bret said, clearly expecting the question. “The water tested fine. They checked everything: chemicals, dissolved gases, bugs—that is, bacteria—viruses and so on. Nothing showed up. The water’s clean and pure; no odor, no color, no taste—nothing.”

  Lara was puzzled. “Sounds scary, all right. But why send for us? Neither of us knows anything about water chemistry.” She glanced quickly at her husband for confirmation. He gave Bret a brief nod.

  Bret had been waiting for this; he was well acquainted with their capabilities. “Well, here’s the thing. We know how you’ve been dealing with Iranian terrorists these past few years, and . . .” He paused before continuing. His audience was spellbound; they had not the faintest idea where this was headed.

  “Early this morning, one of the workers whose job it is to check for foreign matter in the aqueduct—he works in an area about an hour north of the plant—saw something white stuck on one of the screens. He got out of his vehicle and retrieved it with a grabber they all carry around. It turned out to be a sock . . .”

  Lara and Uri were on the edge of their chairs. Where in the world was this going? “He reported it in to the plant director, who didn’t think much about it at the time,” Bret said. “But when the upset was reported—that’s what we call anything unusual that might affect the water—he asked the worker if there were any identifying markers on the sock. The guy said it looked like an ordinary athletic sock, pretty new-looking, actually.”

  “But . . . he reported it. Did it have some manufacturer’s info on it?” Uri asked.

  “The plant director checked it out on the web and . . .”

  “Iran!” Lara practically shouted.

  “Right,” Bret replied immediately. “It was made in a city named Andimeshk, by a company called Merooj. Didn’t look like it had ever been worn.”

  “Do we import socks from Iran?”

  Williams was ready for this. “We don’t allow imports of anything from those guys. Not even pistachio nuts, I don’t think.”

  “Somebody could have bought socks there, worn them home . . .” Lara was checking every possible angle.

  “Possible, but not likely. And how would it get in the aqueduct?”

  “Some kid could have tossed it in, you know, like they throw old tennis shoes onto phone lines, just to be, well, kids. Who knows why they do anything?” Uri was also at a loss. This looked more and more like a threat. “Have they checked the sock for traces of poison?”

  “They did at the plant, yes. But most anything would have been washed out. That water flows at quite a clip. And if it was just a prank, why bother to drive all the way up there past Mojave, just to throw a sock in the aqueduct? No Iranians live up there anywhere.”

  “So, you think there was something in that sock, something an Iranian wanted to get into the drinking water?” Uri got right to the point.

  “We’ve got our analytical team examining the sock fabric in every detail, mechanical and chemical. There’s even some faculty at UCLA looking at a piece of it with electron microscopes and lots of other instruments that I can’t even pronounce. If there’s anything on the fibers, somebody will find it.”

  “Has anyone found anything at all so far? Anything unusual?” Lara asked.

  Bret looked dejected. “No, not yet. In fact, the only thing remarkable so far is the lack of anything.”

  Lara shook her head. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, with clothing, there is almost always some sign of human contact. Hair, oil, flecks of skin, dander, something. Even scrubbing with water won’t remove absolutely everything.”

  “So, you’re saying there was no human contact before it was found?”

  “The guy who picked it out of the water used a long pole with a pincer on it. He also had gloves on. You never know what you’re going to run into. He put the sock in a kind of plastic evidence bag they use out there, just in case it may be evidence from a crime scene.”

  “Why is that?” Uri asked.

  “The police taught the workers to do that after we had a homicide at one of the reservoirs; drug-related,” Bret explained.

  Lara exchanged a quick look with Uri. These folks were not amateurs. “And that lack of human contact is unusual?”

  “Absolutely. That sock had never been worn, not even tried on.”

  “So, someone bought a pair of Iranian socks just to throw one into the canal, I mean, aqueduct?” Lara was intrigued.

  “There were some minute flecks of dead skin on the outside of the sock. Could have arrived during manufacture. Not enough to do any sort of analysis; we tried.”

  “So, someone at least handled the sock at some point, even if they didn’t wear it,” Lara concluded. “What about the inside? Any trace of liquid or solid chemicals?”

  Bret shook his head. “No, just some of the powder they put in during packing. Totally harmless.”

  Uri was disappointed. “So,” he said, “the sock is probably unrelated to the upset at the plant.”

  At that moment, the phone on Bret’s desk rang, accompanied by a flashing light. Something urgent, the agents concluded. Bret grabbed the phone, answering tersely, “Williams.” He then turned his back on his visitors as he had a brief, anxious conversation. He hung up within a few minutes. When he turned back to his visitors, his face had become clouded with worry. It was clear he’d heard some disturbing news; he was trying to decide if he could share it with the agents.

  After a few seconds, he said gravely, “That was police headquarters. Right after the news of the dead birds around the treatment tanks, there was a proclamation from the city. I don’t know if you saw it or heard about it.”

  Lara and Uri both shook their heads; they had not been watching any news.

  “The word got out about the water, and the chief thought it best to have everyone use only bottled water for consumption until the problem was resolved. It seemed the prudent thing to do; we at the FBI agreed with the decision.”

  Lara and Uri nodded their agreement, waiting for the bad news they were sure was coming.

  “There was a news conference early this morning out at the plant, and the head scientist there, a Dr. Regis Trombley, got up and drank a glass of tap water in front of everyone. ‘There’s nothing wrong with this water,’ he said, and sat there for them to watch. He was fine. Later this morning, he appeared on live television to show everyone that he was, indeed, perfectly all right.”

  Once again, the agents waited for the coming bad news. They weren’t disappointed.

  “We just got news: Regis Trombley is sick,” Bret concluded.

  “What about the people in the city!?” Lara was justifiably terrified.

  Bret ruminated, running his hands through his hair, his mind racing a mile a minute. “The water Trombley drank came directly from the tanks that receive the water from the aqueducts. The city doesn’t get that water for a day or so, until after it’s treated and mixed with the water already in the reservoir.”

  “So, it’s possible the poison, or whatever it is, will be taken out before it hits the city pipes,” Lara asked hopefully.

  Bret
looked at them with fear in his eyes. “Not likely. If it’s what we’re afraid it is, the medical treatment we give it won’t touch it.”

  “What are you talking about!?” Uri was up out of his chair.

  “We don’t have conclusive evidence yet, but preliminary analysis of the dead birds around the tanks shows the kind of damage to their internal organs that comes from intense neutron radiation.”

  “But don’t you test the water for radiation poisoning?” Uri was incredulous.

  “Of course, but this particular kind of poison is especially insidious.” He gestured for the two agents, who had risen in alarm, to sit back in their chairs. They could sense some sort of lecture coming. “I talked in detail with our chemistry guys here. If the analysis from the birds is accurate, that water may be tainted with the kind of poison that killed the Ukrainian, Litvinenko, a few years ago. You remember, the Russians didn’t like his politics, so they poisoned his tea one day in London. Another unlucky dissenter got it with a poisoned umbrella tip. Sometimes people get the two incidents confused, but the poison was the same stuff: polonium.”

  There was a pause as the two agents searched their memories for details of the two infamous assassinations. Williams went on: “Polonium-210 is virtually nonexistent in nature; it can be made only in a specially designed nuclear reactor. Russia has the only one known in the world. They bombard elemental bismuth with a high flux of neutrons; that turns the bismuth into polonium.”

  The agents seemed somewhat bewildered, but he continued anyway, hoping to at least give them the necessary information.

  “That polonium is deceptively dangerous to life, human or otherwise. You see, it gives off a kind of radiation called alpha rays. These rays don’t travel very far in nature; they’re stopped by a piece of paper or even skin. They’re actually a mix of particles, neutrons and protons, not the gamma radiation that can be so destructive even years after a nuclear blast. But once inside a living being, these particles are like a neutron bomb. They destroy the vital organs quickly and irreversibly. The stuff is almost undetectable yet deadly once inside you—like when you drink water contaminated with it.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Uri exclaimed. “How much of this plutonium do you have to drink . . . ?”

  “Polonium,” Williams replied gently. It was only hours ago that he became aware of the terrible details. “And you’re not going to believe how small a dose is deadly.” He paused to watch their faces. The agents were transfixed. “The stuff is deadlier than cyanide. More than a trillion times deadlier.”

  Lara had turned pale as she slowly grasped the impact of what they were hearing.

  “You can’t detect it, but just . . . what? Micrograms of it are deadly?” Uri was well beyond astonishment.

  Williams paused for effect. “Not micrograms,” he said quietly. “Nanograms or even less.”

  Lara couldn’t help it—her mouth fell open.

  “A billionth of a gram! How can such a small amount kill a person? Why isn’t everyone in the world dead!?”

  “Polonium is somehow concentrated by the body, once in gets into the bloodstream, and deposited specifically in the most thin, sensitive membranes of the vital organs: kidneys, liver, pancreas, and so on. There, the alpha rays wreak havoc on those delicate but essential tissues. And as for why we’re not all dead already, the only reason,” Bret explained, “is that the stuff is not found in nature. It has a half-life of merely days. It’s only made in a specially designed nuclear reactor, like I told you . . . and there’s only one reactor in the world known to produce it. In Russia. And they just make a couple kilograms a year, under strict international control.”

  His guests were understandably speechless. Uri finally asked the obvious question. “If Russia has the only reactor that can make this stuff, and it’s controlled, how . . . ?”

  Bret held up his hand. “I said the only known reactor.” He waited a second as they absorbed that information.

  “Well,” Lara blurted out, “who else in the world would even want to make this terrible poison, let alone have the money and know-how, raw materials, and . . . oh shit!”

  Even Uri was taken aback by this display of crude language from his wife, of all people. But Williams knew what had suddenly hit her like a slap in the face. The mullahs of Iran would do anything within their power to obliterate the nation of Israel, and all the Jews in the world as well. Starting with Los Angeles.

  “What can we do?” Uri asked Bret, but it was a desperate question addressed to no one in particular.

  “We’re doing what we can. Bottled water is being flown in from every military base in the area. Distribution stands are being set up in all the neighborhoods. The dirty water is being diverted to unused reservoirs, where it can be held for months, long enough for the polonium to decay. Then it will be safe enough to dispose of in the ocean. Meanwhile, the water coming from the aqueducts will be tested by very new sophisticated analytical instruments to make sure it’s safe. Then we’ll feed it to single-cell creatures, like amoebas, for final testing.

  “What we’re hoping you two can do, since you’ve dealt with these guys before, is help figure out where their reactor is, so . . .” He paused.

  “So, our Special Ops can take it out?” Lara had been waiting for that shoe to drop. This kind of chemical attack on civilian water supplies was nothing less than an act of war.

  “Right. But we have to be damn sure of what we’re doing first. And be able to prove it.”

  Chapter 6

  Jafar Madani was entering his second year of graduate work in the esteemed laboratories of the chemistry department at UCLA. The tall, lean, unassuming young man was understandably delighted to have been accepted, having shown his aptitude with his bachelor’s degree at one of Iran’s most illustrious and well-known universities. Of course, it helped that he had received a glowing letter of recommendation from one of his professors, a graduate of UCLA himself some ten years earlier.

  Analytical chemistry hadn’t been his first choice for graduate work; he had been hoping for something a little more glamorous, like biochemistry. But he had been offered a fellowship in analytical, and it paid for his room and board as well as tuition. Things were going well; he was into the final year of the master’s degree program, and his advisor had asked him to stay on for his doctorate. Imagine, he thought. Doctor Madani. How he would rise within the glorious realm of the Islamic Republic! He kept these dreams to himself. The Americans were not fond of Iran; they viewed the nation as an enemy. In any event, he didn’t want to get ahead of himself. He had work to do.

  Today he had a special task given to him by the department chairman. His research advisor was out of town at a meeting, something he was frequently, and there was an immediate need for forensic analysis of some fabric. A police officer had come to the department, hoping to reach his professor. Due to the researcher’s absence, the chairman had directed the officer to Jafar, who was working with an advanced electron microscope that was ideal for the problem at hand.

  The officer politely showed Jafar his credentials, saying that he heard that this laboratory was uniquely capable for this work. He showed Jafar the piece of cloth and asked if he could analyze it for trace contaminants. The piece of synthetic white material was from an athletic sock, he told Jafar, and they were hoping to identify what substances might have been in contact with it. Jafar nodded his understanding of the problem and offered to do what he could. He looked at the cloth and immediately recognized the name Merooj. How odd, he thought. This sock had been made by the famous Iranian athletic-wear company. But how would it have come to a police analysis in the United States?

  He asked as casually as possible, “Where did this come from, do you know?”

  The officer mumbled something about a scare in the water supply, probably nothing.

  “Sure, have a seat, I have to go into this secure area for the testing. It will only be a minute.” Jafar went into the microscopy lab and pretended to analyz
e the bit of cloth for about thirty minutes. He came back with a two-foot length of strip-chart paper from a previous analysis; it had come out of the electron microscope’s printer, very official-looking. He handed the multicolored printout to the officer. “I’m afraid,” he said with a straight face, “that there’s not a bit of foreign substance on the material. I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s all right, buddy. We just have to check out everything. Thanks for your help.” The officer took back the piece of cloth, politely shook Jafar’s hand, and quietly left the building.

  On seeing the policeman leave, Jafar went out the back door of the building to use his cell phone. It was one of those burner types available at many convenience stores in the United States. He had been told to use these whenever he had information that might be critical for the Islamic Republic. He had no real idea what was going on, but he knew of the sudden ban on the use of city water. If there was Iranian cloth involved in this activity, his handler must be told. He dialed the number, conveyed the brief message, then took the phone to the dumpster. After removing the SIM card and crushing it as instructed, he tossed the remains in the garbage bin.

  * * *

  Ali Mansoor, working in the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the Pakistan embassy in Washington, DC, picked up the phone message from a Los Angeles area code. He read it over twice, trying to make sense of it. It apparently came from a disposable cell phone. However, it carried the correct code that was used by unofficial sources to convey information to the government of Iran. They had no official embassy in the United States, not since the glorious revolution. Iranian students and other visitors were urged to let the Revolutionary Government know of anything at all that may be of interest. Each Iranian citizen travelling to the United States was given a secret numerical code to attach to any message.