Beneath the glare of the work lamps, three men in matching nylon vests were guiding a portable gas-powered hoist across the concrete apron. Bolted to the hoist's chain sling hung a massive, freshly painted iron assembly: six four-inch high-pressure blind flanges, their bright red primer unmistakable under the halogen glare. Each flange had a white barcoded inventory tag wired to its bolt flange—the identical tags I had stamped in our Harrisburg warehouse at two o'clock that afternoon.
Standing at the top of the concrete stairs, his yellow rain slicker unbuttoned over a gray municipal windbreaker, was District Supervisor Harold Vance.
Vance was fifty-eight, with broad, heavy shoulders, thick gray hair matted by the rain, and a radio handset pressed tight against his ear. Even from thirty yards out in the brush, his raspy voice carried over the roar of the river churning through the intake grates below.
"I don't give a damn what the conductor said," Vance was shouting into the handset. "The train already cleared Columbia siding. If David isn't on the Perryville platform when it stops, he's on foot in the marsh. Call the county road patrol and tell them we have an escaped mental subject heading toward the waterworks. Tell them he's erratic, hostile, and carrying tools."
Vance clicked the radio off, shoved it into his pocket, and turned toward the men on the apron. "Get those blind flanges into the pit. Bolt them straight onto the bypass manifold before the automated twelve-o'clock pressure cycle initiates. Once the secondary telemetry loop locks in, the entire system records this line as decommissioned."
"Supervisor Vance," one of the mechanics called up, wiping grease from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. "The auxiliary bypass line is still pressurized. If we pull the spool piece while the raw line is live, the backpressure will flood the lower mechanical room in under ninety seconds."
"The bypass isn't live," Vance snapped, descending the stairs two at a time, his boots ringing against the iron tread. "Mark Miller failed to open the river gate on his shift. The intake line is dry."
"The intake line is running at ninety pounds per square inch," David called out.
He stepped from the reed grass onto the edge of the poured concrete apron. His voice did not shake. He held his bare hands out from his sides, rain washing the soot from his knuckles, the torn red vinyl band on his left wrist standing out stark and vivid against the dark cloth of his jacket.
Vance froze on the bottom step. His hand went immediately to the heavy Maglite strapped to his utility belt, raising the beam directly into David's eyes. Behind him, the two mechanics dropped the hoist chains with a harsh iron clank that echoed off the wet limestone walls.
"David," Vance said, his voice dropping into a tight, measured register that tried to sound reasonable. "You shouldn't be out here in the wet. The clinic staff called me two hours ago. You had an episode at the annex. You broke out of a transport unit."
"I broke out of the van your contract crew parked across my bumper," David said, taking two slow, deliberate steps toward the apron. "The transport driver didn't have county sheriff credentials. He had a badge for Delaware Chemical Maintenance. And you didn't call the clinic because I had an episode. You called them because Mark called me from the control room at three-thirty and told me what was inside the storage shed."
Vance did not glance toward the shed, but his jaw set hard. "Your brother isn't well, David. He hasn't been well for months. He walked off his post this afternoon without turning over the supervisory console. He left the intake station completely unattended."
"Mark didn't walk off," I said, stepping onto the concrete behind David, my heavy clipboard held chest-high.
The beam of Vance’s Maglite swung violently toward me, catching the brass corners of the delivery manifests and the laminated Mid-State employee badge pinned to my storm flap. Vance squinted through the rain, his eyes darting to the clipboard, then to my work boots, searching for a face he recognized from the supplier terminal.
"Who the hell are you?" Vance demanded. "This is a restricted municipal facility. Get off the apron or I'll have the deputies run you in for felony interference with a public utility."
"My name is Thomas Vance—no relation," I said, keeping my voice level, the tone of a clerk confirming an invoice discrepancy. "I'm the senior inventory agent for Mid-State Industrial Supply. At two-forty-five today, you countersigned Order 8841-A for six four-inch high-pressure blind flanges under billing code PA-DWR-Columbia. You claimed they were emergency replacement fittings for the lower reservoir gate."
I stepped forward until the beam of his flashlight hit the yellow carbon sheets clipped to my board.