Quake by Jack Douglas Page B

the plant to remain open. On the one hand, the positive economic impact the plant had on counties like Westchester, Orange, Rockland, Putnam, and Dutchess, were undeniable. Closing the plant would cost thousands of jobs, cost New York State hundreds of millions of dollars.
    On the other hand were the safety concerns. The Indian Point plant had experienced a number of accidents and mishaps since its inception. The plant was once on the federal list of the nation’s worst nuclear power plants. In 2000, a small radioactive leak from a steam tube closed Indian Point for eleven months. New York’s version of the Environmental Protection Agency had repeatedly declared that Indian Point’s spent fuel pools were exposed and unsecured and vulnerable to a terrorist attack. And given New York’s varied seismic past, the plant’s susceptibility to earthquakes was studied. The company that owned the plant stated that Indian Point was built to withstand a magnitude 6.1 quake. But the tragedy resulting from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant was still fresh in everyone’s memory.
    Right now Nick recalled it as vividly as if it were playing out on a television directly in front of him.
    â€œWhoever or whatever is down there,” Nick finally said, “those are bridges I’ll have to cross when I get to them.”
    â€œYou’re not going to do your daughter a whole hell of a lot of good if you’re dead, counselor.”
    â€œI’m not doing anyone much good standing around here waiting for something to happen either. Look, this isn’t something I’m going to be talked out of. With or without you, Frank, I’m heading into the tunnels.”
    Mendoza shook his head even as a smile cracked his lips. “You goddamn lawyers,” he said. Mendoza stepped past Nick and started slowly down the steps into the station. From the pitch blackness, he called out, “Well, counselor? What the hell are you waiting for?”
    Nick took a long, deep breath of dust-ridden air, and then tried to hack it out of his lungs, just as he had as he finally moved away from the World Trade Center twelve years ago.
    Finally, he stood up straight, took one last look around at the destruction aboveground, and took his first step down, into the darkness.

PART TWO
9.0

11
    Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Dykstra and Special Agent Francisco Mendoza of the FBI completely lost track of time during their trek north through the subway tunnel from Chambers Street to Canal. At the point where the J line merged with the R, they could finally see a train stopped cold dead ahead. Nick figured they’d walked no more than half a mile, but it was a half mile along an underground train track littered with fallen pipes and beams of steel, lousy with rats and other vermin. And though neither man knew the intricacies of the New York City subway system, both men had decided to stay well clear of the third rail.
    The train up ahead was dark and, as they came closer, Nick could see that its cars were at an odd angle, indicating that the train had gone off the rails. Despite the searing pain in Nick’s left leg, he hurried his step and heard Mendoza’s footfalls quicken behind him.
    â€œLooks like it just barely made it into Canal Street station,” Nick said. “At least the first half of the train did.”
    Nick garnered some momentum and leapt onto the backside of the last car, grabbing hold of the thick chain to pull himself up. Painfully, he lifted his left leg over the chain, followed by his right. Cupping his fingers around his eyes, he put his face to the rear Plexiglas window and peered inside.
    There was what looked like the body of an elderly homeless man lying lengthwise across the floor, his head propped up against a subway pole in the center of the car. Nick immediately went to work on the door and it unlatched and glided open surprisingly easily. As soon as the door slid open, an awful