Chapter 31

We made it out of the cave ok, but I noticed that Bob was still talking on his cell to someone. I followed Preacher out the front door. I handed the blocks of explosive off to one of his men, and went to my unit. I immediately locked the folder and book up in the lockbox in the back of my unit. I went over to Mark and the man standing beside him and introduced myself.

"I am Steve Johnson from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. From what the sheriff has told me you are in charge here."

"Yes I am unless you decide to over-rule me. Here is what we have."

I spent the next ten minutes explaining it all to him and what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. To my surprise he totally agreed with what I wanted to do with a few stipulations.

"Harry, if we don't find any more hot spots I don't see any reason to destroy the casino. We will remove the two slugs and the safe, and then scan the whole area for any further readings. If we don't find any, we will turn the whole works back over to your department to handle. Will our truck fit into the opening to remove the slugs or will we have to cart them out?"

"You should be able to drive right to the corner where we found them. Your people should look around, but I don't think there's any more than the two. The safe is behind the bar and it is on wheels so you can load it for disposal easily. There is another safe in an office off the casino. We haven't had a chance to check it yet so I will leave it up to your people to do that. If we can help you in any way just yell."

"Thanks, Harry, we will try to be quick, but thorough. By the way, good job on the news this morning. Thanks to you and your Governor, we now have a new Director of the INS and I hope this one does his job."

He walked away from us and when he was out of earshot I turned to Mark.

"I got a whole file of records and a code book. Preacher helped me get them out. Mark, we need to call a meeting tomorrow about a personnel matter. I think we have a spy in our ranks."

I went on to tell him about Bob and what I had seen and observed. He was as disappointed as I was, and said that personnel was my job and he would back me all the way in any changes. He also asked me if we had got enough money out to pay these people off this evening. I went on to tell him about Beau and what he had done at my request. He said good deal and then walked away, dialing a number on his cell. I turned around and there was that same lieutenant from the State Troopers waiting on me by my unit.

"Harry, I was sent over to help you with our people. What do you need that isn't here already?"

"I think your guys have got it pretty well covered, Lieutenant. What the hell is your name anyway? I'm tired of calling you by your rank."

"All my guys call me by my nickname, which is Butch. My full name is a real doozey to pronounce so that's what everyone calls me. Since I call you by your first name, it's only right that you call me what everyone else does."

"Well, Butch, NRC is taking over for right now so I want you to help me with another little job I have to do."

I went on to explain about paying the money to the people that worked in the casino and the circumstances behind it. To my surprise he fully agreed with me on the whole thing. We headed over to where Beau was sitting in his unit, guarding the money and other stuff we had recovered. I wanted to ask him about the contents of the third safe and see what had been in it.

"Hey, Harry, I see you're out of a job for a little while. When do we start the payout to the employees?"

"Just as soon as they gather around your unit. I have an itemized list I found in the cave of all their money amounts. We will match it to their little books and see whose is closest. I think the one I have is actual but you can never tell for sure. Butch is going to help us with the payout and watching the money. He is going to take all the jewelry and with the list I have found, and hopefully the State Troopers will be able to return about all of it to their rightful owners or their families."

"What the hell was in that third safe, Beau? You never said a word about it to me."

"Harry, I think most of the paperwork you have been looking for is in it. I didn't let anyone know what was in it. I told everyone it was empty. I hope you are able to get us back in there to get it out. Damn, will you look at that, they must have radar or something?"

I looked the way he was looking and there was a long line of people in front of the unit with little books in their hands. I went back to my unit and got the list of names and amounts out. I walked back to Beau's unit with it in my hand.

"Open the trunk and have one person at a time come around and we will pay them that way. I want to see every one of them as we pay them off."

I didn't know what I was looking for but that little itch was bugging me again. I watched as Beau matched the book they each had to the list I had. So far they both matched perfectly so I knew the one I had was on the money and was the right one. We went through about thirty people when my little itch really started acting up. I started looking around but couldn't figure out what was bothering me. I motioned Butch over to me and whispered to him.

"Get on your radio and have two or three of your men check out the town and the roof tops where they can see them. Tell them to be careful."

He looked at me with raised eyebrows but got on his radio and did exactly what I said. He put six men in different patterns patrolling the area around where we were at.

"Ok Harry, they are moving. Mind telling me what's going on now?"

"I don't know, Butch, but I have this little itch telling me to be alert. Something isn't right but I don't know what it is."

"I guess we'll have to wait and see won't we?"

I looked around again and still had that little itch.

"Butch, keep an eye on Beau here while I look around, will you?"

"Sure Harry, but watch your ass will you? I don't want to have to come see you in the hospital again."

I left him with Beau and headed for the dock to see why Bob wasn't out front with us. When I walked into the casino, everyone I saw was wearing white, light weight, haz-mat suits. The radiation level couldn't be very high, or they would have the heavy weight ones on with the oxygen tanks. I went out through the kitchen and on the dock and didn't see Bob anywhere. I went back into the casino and found my way to the office Beau had told me about. When I walked in, there was someone in one of the suits trying to open the safe. Now this picture didn't look right to me. I pulled my weapon and shouted out for him to stand up and identify himself. He stood up slowly and whirled around to face me, and he had a gun in his hand. I saw it in the split second it took for my eyes to tell my brain I was in danger. I already had my gun pointed at him so I fired immediately, shooting him in the upper part of his chest on the right side. He raised his gun up fighting the shock and tried to align it with me. I stepped to the side and fired again. He went down on his knees and then fell face down on the floor. I heard someone behind me and whirled around bringing my gun to bear, when the figure threw his hands up.

"Don't shoot, I don't have a gun or anything. Who is that? Is it one of my people? Why does he have a gun? Who are you and what are you doing in here?"