When the door closed behind him, he felt the world closing in around him as if he were claustrophobic. He wasn’t claustrophobic, not the least, but something continued chewing at his nerves and his spin an electrical line generating between his brain and tail bone and sometimes down his legs. His senses had never been so alert.
“Just kick it in the butt Braydon and pretend that it is static in the air of the elevator, after all, you’re enclosed and you’re in one of the most powerful generators in America.”
Now if he were out in the wilds he would have paid more attention, in the wilds his body was a sensitive antennae, but here, he was surrounded by people and he could see them and could see that nothing unusual was happening.
“These people are just fine, what’s wrong with me?” He kept asking himself.
Reaching the bottom the doors slide open silently, they had arrived at the dragon’s belly. They all disembarked and waited for the tour guide who was there out of the shadows. It startled Braydon, but again his nerves we were riding piggy back on the static that was effecting his emotions.
“Gather around me and we’ll start the tour.”
The temperature was cool. Braydon should have been relieved but he wasn’t, the gut gnawing still persisted. The only thing he could figure out was it was the heavy air and the hum of the turbines were the machinery that supplied enormous amounts of power to the western U S and the chilly dog he had for breakfast in Glendale, Nevada. His eating habits were funereally at best, he could eat anything at any time, so a chilly dog for breakfast wasn’t abnormal for him. Say what you may, his gut feelings were tried and true, even if layered with a chili dog, if there was danger he would know it. But as he looked around he could see no reason for his precursor to danger.
The group of eleven followed the guide. The five women and five men, plus him, were the standard tourist type, two Chinese, a couple from Germany and some local tourists. They all had their cameras, of all sizes and shapes. The most popular being Nikon! The security check had been thorough so there was no need to worry about terrorist doing their deadly deeds. Still, the gnawing feeling grated at his guts.
The tour guide was interesting as he explained that 90,000 gallons of water per minute came through the dam and drove the turbines and how great it was since it was a non- pollutant type of reusable energy resource.
Braydon hadn’t paid much attention to any of his traveling partners. They were normal as normal can be. A German husband and wife walked hand in hand behind him, she with her purse, which he knew had been searched well, and the man with his wooden walking cane with the head of a duck, giving the man an appearance of having a bad leg and needing the cane to walk. He knew his suspicions were unfounded here, what could the wife do, beat him to death with her purse and the man had the cane because he was an invalid? His gut still hurt, besides that they appeared to be in their late sixties. He was certain he could out run them. “I’m hungry, that’s all it is.” He said to himself.
The couple from China only had small cameras and they talked to no one but kept to themselves. They might be a logical source of a problem but they were in front of him, he would know instantly if they were a terrorist or whatever they might be and he would take care of it fast.
The two American couples, who appeared to be friends, were jabbering and not paying any attention to the guide, which Braydon assumed he could care less, he had had these kinds before. The Nikon’s were the only weapons they toted. He didn’t think they were loaded and they have been checked. There was really nothing to put him on full alert, but his senses were loaded and ready to go, they kept biting at him. Everything was calm and quiet, why shouldn’t he be?
The tour group was about half way down the path when Braydon shot a glance over his shoulder; the German couple had disappeared. It seemed impossible to just disappear unless you didn’t want to be seen and there were a lot of places to hide. You just have to evaporate before a worker spots you and that wouldn’t be hard, there were few workers and lots of space and tons of equipment to hide behind.
His gut yelled at him again, “something’s wrong”, but then again he knew security had checked everyone thoroughly so there was no chance for anyone to do anything. But the gnawing continued, “Something’s wrong” he yelled at himself, and his nerves began to explode again. He felt this way when he was alone in the desert and danger was near. The fear, or whatever it was, had never been this strong before even when a mountain lion was near and the nerves were never wrong.
He thought about telling the guide about it but didn’t want to look foolish and besides the group had moved forward fifty feet. His nature was act first and ask questions later. Backtracking he checked all the nooks and crannies on the fronts of the turbines where someone could hide. Then he found a door across from one of the turbines he had not noticed before. There was nothing visible anywhere else that would afford them a quick disappearance. Reaching out slowly and gripping the knob lightly he tried to turn it. It was locked but someone had put a piece of tape over the striker and the door pulled open.
“That makes no sense since this was a secure area and everything was supposed to be locked.” He looked in and there were two stacks of clothing. One he recognized as the male German and the other the Female German. “Where the heck could they disappear to” he queried himself; now he was worried. He closed the door slowly and quietly and moved stealth fully along the turbines until he came back to the wood walk way and steps to the upper level. The control panel for the whole operation was here and visible as was the entire layout of the turbines. There was no one here so he looked along the back side of the turbines and there were two workmen doing something to one of the turbines. It seemed perfectly sensible after all they have a daily routine to follow and he didn’t want to interfere or cause problems. Then something caught his eye, something unusual about the workmen; one had long blond hair like the German lady who had been in his group and disappeared, and the other carried a duck headed cane.
The climate turned dark and he floundered in terrified thoughts of terrorism. His action plan jelled fast as he slid down the stairs silently, moving from turbine to turbine, shielding himself from their view until he was in front of turbine four were the two were hiding. Sidling cautiously alongside the turbine with the stealth of a Coyote he felt that he could smell his prey.
Visibility was blocked by the huge turbine and visibility was hampered by the width and length of the turbine flanged base, but he had a bead on them anyway. There was no escape for the victims as he closed in fast. Braydon was on them before they could yell Geronimo. The woman had her purse slipped into a small crevice around the electrical control panel on the back of the turbine and Mr. Duck cane was headless, it had been separated from the rest of the cane…
Before the perpetrators could react, Braydon rounded the corner and chopped the man down with one swift blow to the throat. The lady was caught off guard and couldn’t react before Braydon yanked the purse off of the turbine and flung it over toward the other turbine. In an instant guards were there, guns dead panned at all three.
“Everyone down and hands on your heads.” Moving fearsomely fast, the guards bound them with nylon binders and left them lying on the concrete floor. Another guard looked at the purse and was going to pick it up but backed off fast, “Captain, there is something not right with this purse. It looks like it is lined with clay.”
“Everyone back,” the Captain yelled, “It’s probably a bomb. Get the bomb experts down here.”
Suddenly from nowhere men in blast suits show up. The Captain points at the purse and duck head.
“It looks like C-4 lining the purse, that’s