Black Flagged Redux

Chapter 7





2:24 PM

Monchegorsk Water Treatment Plant (A District)

Monchegorsk, Murmansk Oblast, Russia





Anatoly Reznikov was both surprised and relieved to find the water treatment plant nearly deserted. Construction on the modern, mostly automated facility had been completed two years ago, ushering in a new era of clean drinking water for the residents of Monchegorsk. Three decades too late in his view. The previous plant, which had stood guard over the city water supply for as long as anyone could remember, relied upon a disinfection process to purify the water, but did little to prevent the flow of heavy metals into the citizens' blood streams, including his own.

The Norval Nickel plant had been the main source of industry in Monchegorsk since the early 1930s, resulting in an ever-growing population boom that served the needs of Norval Nickel, further expanding the company's lucrative nickel and copper mining enterprise. For all that the residents of Monchegorsk did for Norval Nickel, the multinational corporation gave little in return, aside from poor wages and a harsh work environment that would have made Joseph Stalin cringe. More than seventy percent of Monchegorsk's population worked in some capacity for Norval, with the vast majority performing hazardous mining jobs or unregulated, unskilled jobs in the processing plants. Reznikov's uncle worked the mines, and when Anatoly joined the family in late 1978, not much had changed in terms of work conditions from the early days of Norval Nickel.

The corporation had invested little money in the city's infrastructure, despite the efforts of environmental activists and the few citizens that dared to defy Norval's stranglehold on both the city and the local communist party. The effects of the smelting plant's pollution on the population's health was no secret, but asking the wrong questions in the wrong place came with serious risks.

The best case scenario involved employment termination and immediate eviction from company subsidized housing, which could put a family on the streets in the middle of the night in harsh winter conditions. The worst case scenario varied by level of activism. A one-way train ride to Siberia was reserved for persistent, unorganized agitators. Sometimes these were family trips, which added to the deterrence factor. Organizers or nosy environmentalists either disappeared suddenly or slowly bobbed to the surface in the polluted Moncha Lake, which fed into the ineffective water treatment plant. Despite the growing voice of concern about the effects of heavy metal poisoning, the Norval Corporation continued to deny the mounting body of evidence, and instead produced more dead bodies. Norval was finally called to task by the Russian government in 2001, on behalf of Norway, Sweden and Finland, who had been the unwilling recipients of several million tons of sulfur dioxide (acid rain) over the past several decades. Permission was "granted" for NEFCO (Nordic Environmental Finance Corporation) to provide regional loans that would be used to improve several offending industrial plants near the Kola Peninsula and provide funding for localized environmental improvement projects.

The Monchegorsk water treatment plant made the top of the list, which was probably influenced by the fact that senior Norval officials held influential positions on the Murmansk Oblast's Natural Resources Agency executive board. The Natural Resources Agency had replaced the State Committee for Environment Protection in 2000, when President Vladimir Putin abolished the organization, which resembled the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Natural Resources Agency was the organization responsible for managing the commercialization of Russia's natural resources, and the move was seen as a direct measure to ensure that most environmental decisions favored the major corporations. Due to the overwhelming international pressure of the Kola Peninsula's pollution problem, Putin's government decided on a work-around. They leaned on Norval Nickel to accept NEFCO's low interest loans to clean up Monchegorsk.

By that time, the Monchegorsk plant had launched nearly one million tons of heavy metals into the air each year, including nickel, copper, cobalt, lead, selenium, platinum and palladium. The ground concentrations of platinum and palladium in the soil near the plant were so severe that mining of surface soil for these metals had become economically feasible in the past five years. Add decades of concentrated acid rain to the mix, and the health effects on the Monchegorsk population were devastating.

Anatoly grew up in a poverty level neighborhood wracked with stunted growth, pediatric and early adult cancers, severe mental disabilities among adults and children, neurological disorders resembling early onset of Alzheimer’s, and frequent unexplained seizures. The local hospital was owned and administered by Norval Nickel, which only served to compartmentalize and minimize the problem.

Reznikov had been lucky to join his aunt and uncle well past his early developmental years. He had been spared eight years of toxic exposure, and the results were dramatic. In the ten years he spent with his new family, he watched everyone in the filthy, cramped apartment suffer from Norval Nickel's irresponsibility. His aunt died of pancreatic cancer five years after he arrived, and he experienced the daily sadness and brutality of his uncle slowly losing all semblance of mental function. Less than one year after his aunt's death, his uncle had been banished to a local mental hospital.

His three cousins, two boys and one girl, all younger than him by a few years, never grew at the same rate as Anatoly and barely progressed in school past a fifth grade level. They had all been remanded to state care when his uncle had been institutionalized. When Anatoly graduated from secondary school and left for Moscow University, his cousins resembled drones: void of personality, intelligence and drive. Ten years earlier, they had been drastically different, similar to him in so many ways. He had painfully watched them suffer under Norval Nickel's reign of terror in Monchegorsk, transformed into empty shells, unfit for employment outside of Norval Nickel's mines.

That was the cruel irony of life in Monchegorsk. They had been placed into the custody of mother Russia to live in a state sponsored orphanage, but the orphanage was funded by Norval Nickel, and the children were funneled back into the very jobs that put them there in the first place. Anatoly's case had been different. He showed strong academic promise in science and math, so he was awarded a place at Moscow University to study biological engineering and chemistry, compliments of Norval Nickel, with the understanding that he would return to the corporation to work as an engineer. Reznikov never fulfilled his obligation, though he was seconds away from observing a promise he had silently made to his cousins and his own parents.

By honoring his father's legacy, Anatoly Reznikov had discovered the perfect way to exact revenge upon a corporation that had slowly destroyed his adopted family and a government that had brutally murdered his parents. He would also make a fortune. If everything went according to plan, his payment from Al Qaeda would look insignificant compared to the series of increasingly larger payments he could demand for his services or his product.

He walked briskly across the long, grated catwalk toward a sizable brick building on the other side of a vast sea of light green, flattened metal domes. The domes capped immense underground tanks, which housed the disinfectant side of the Monchegorsk plant's treatment process. The other side, located uphill, utilized a rapid sand filtration system, combined with a state of the art membrane filter. The combination of the two ensured the removal of any suspended particulate matter, including heavy metals, before the water was finally transferred to the field of tanks he now crossed, for the final step of the treatment process.

From these tanks, the clean water was pumped to the city's reservoirs through a massive pump station, which could be accessed from the building he rapidly approached. He glanced around furtively as the building loomed closer, painfully aware that there was no way to soften the loud clanging of his boots on the metal grating. Maybe the sound didn't matter. He had breached the treatment plant's fence line where it ambled too close to the edge of one of the city's forest preserves. Wearing a suit and a long winter jacket that showcased fake city credentials, he had approached the complex's buildings from an angle that would conceal his approach until he could find a way to access the pump station building.

He had watched the station for a full day, noting the number of personnel and their patterns. For the most part, there hadn't been any. The automated facility was monitored by a control station toward the front of the complex, which he would avoid altogether, though he didn't think he could completely dodge all of the cameras. He just needed to get into the pump station, where he could effectively and quietly deal with anyone that came to investigate his presence. He assumed that an alarm would sound when he broke into the pump station and had prepared accordingly.

He walked up to the door at the end of the catwalk and stared at the covered button pad to the right of the door. Not a problem. He had anticipated the possibility that every door at the new facility would utilize new technology and had researched methods to breach similar systems. Several black market electronic devices had been available, but each device was specific to certain systems, and he didn't have room in his backpack to bring along one of each device. Even if he had, there was no guarantee that any of them would work on this door. A better solution had been offered by his black market contact. A compact circular saw, specially designed to cut through door locks. The saw featured a five inch metal cutting saw blade, which would give the blade enough depth to cut through dead bolts or locking mechanisms when placed flush against the crack between the door and frame.

He slipped the nylon backpack off his shoulders and kneeled in front of the door to open it. A few seconds later, he wrestled the gray saw out of the backpack and attached the power cord to a customized battery that had been guaranteed to provide fifteen minutes of continuous operation. He examined the door again and decided to start with the most logical point near the door handle. He inserted the thin blade into the door crack a few inches above the handle, and felt no resistance as he placed the saw flush against the door and frame. He depressed the black trigger and the saw roared to life, emitting a high pitched squeal that made him nervous. No way to turn back now, he thought and moved the saw slowly down the crack.

The blade met with brief resistance at handle level, but continued to move effortlessly with Anatoly's hand. He felt no resistance a few inches past the handle and stopped the blade. Could it have been that easy? He pulled the saw blade out of the crack and placed it on the grate before standing up. He grasped the handle and pulled, surprised when the door gave no resistance and swung open. He examined the door for a few seconds and determined that the blade had done no obvious damage to the door, besides cutting the locking bolt. When closed, he doubted anyone would be able to tell it had been cut. Anyone approaching the door would punch in their code and open the door, unaware that it would have opened regardless of the numbers punched into the keypad. Not wanting to waste another moment, he dragged everything through the doorway and closed the door, noting the time on his watch.

The first thing he noticed was the industrial grade humming sound of the pump. He had expected the noise inside to be louder. The pump station descended one additional story below the entrance level and housed two massive centrifugal pumps, one of which pumped water to the city's storage sites at any given moment. The other served as a backup, in case of a maintenance issue. The active pump was rotated weekly, to increase the longevity of the incredibly expensive system. He would need to identify the active pump and then locate the water sample collection/testing node, located somewhere forward of the pump.

The only consistent activity he had noted at the plant yesterday had been an hourly visit to the pump station. A technician dressed in gray overalls, carrying a black plastic case by its handle, had ambled down from the control station and entered the station through the door on the other side, reemerging a few minutes later. He used the same door, which was closest to the control station, each time. He presumed the man had taken a required hourly sample of the water for analysis. The sample collection node would take water directly from the system and would represent his best opportunity to introduce his product into Monchegorsk's water supply.

He descended the metal grate staircase, able to see both pumps through the porous metal flooring. They were aligned in parallel, separated by a raised grated catwalk, but joined by various metal pipes and mechanical structures. The staircase emptied onto the end of the catwalk nearest to the intake from the disinfectant tank field. The station’s humming grew louder as he approached the catwalk, but remained within tolerable limits. He saw a pair of blue noise protection headphones on a hook at the bottom of the stairs and noted how times had certainly changed in Monchegorsk. It didn't take him long to figure out which pump was active. He only had to lay his hands on one side, and then the other, to determine that the right side pump was active.

The catwalk was installed halfway up the side of the pump, which put him in a position to examine the top of the pump and all of the attachments leading into it. The pump itself was taller than Reznikov and extended the length of two SUV's. The catwalk design made it easy for him to examine all of the components, and within seconds he had located the sample collection node. Located to the rear of the pump, near the stairs, he had momentarily overlooked it. Like everything in the plant, it was labeled, making this easy beyond his wildest dreams. The node had four latches, which ensured a tight seal. Reznikov had some trouble opening the latches and looked around for a tool that might be designed for the purpose. He didn't see anything useful and cursed as it took him nearly a minute to get two of the latches open.

The latches were designed to seal tightly, but this wasn't the problem and Reznikov knew it. As he struggled with the third latch, he started to tremble in anger. He hadn't escaped completely unscathed from Norval Nickel's legacy. He had suffered neuromuscular damage that mainly affected his hands and feet, resembling peripheral neuropathy at its worst and slight tingling at best. It had plagued him as a biochemist and rendered certain routine tasks unpredictable. He had developed an angry patience for his condition, but this was not the time for him to have a problem with his hands. The third latch opened, and he stopped. His hands felt like they had been squeezing a metal bar for hours, cramped and shaky. Ignoring the pain, he wrenched at the fourth latch, opening it in a fit of rage. Now sweating in the forty degree room, Reznikov better resembled a depraved madman with the intention of poisoning an entire city's water supply.

He placed the backpack next to him and removed a thermos-sized metallic container, setting it down on the grating. He paused and looked at the pump again, his composure returning. The pump was bigger than he’d expected, which meant that his original calculations for water supply contamination might be inaccurate. He examined the pump from front to back, taking it all in. This was definitely a higher capacity pump. He didn't want to use all of the product in his possession, but this was not the time to make a mistake. He decided to pour both containers into the water system.

He had hidden enough core samples of the virus to create other batches and knew exactly where he could find a few more containers. The Arab traitors had spoken of several specific locations and timelines, so he could always "meet" them for a surprise visit. He'd finish up here and hide out in St. Petersburg until he was sure that the virus had done its job. Once he was satisfied that Monchegorsk was ruined, he'd head to Sweden. His eavesdropping had provided him with an address in Stockholm. After that, a quick trip to Copenhagen could bring him to another address, if he felt ambitious.

Once he possessed more virus, he might provide an anonymous tip to Interpol regarding the other addresses and planned attack locations, or maybe not. He truly couldn't decide, and it never occurred to him that this ambiguity indicated a dangerous deterioration of his mental state. Though he wasn’t aware of it, Anatoly had suffered more than neuromuscular damage during the ten years spent in Monchegorsk. The long term mental impact of accumulating lead, cadmium, nickel and copper in his brain had been significant, gradually leaving him obsessed and unable to sustain empathy. He only vaguely processed the cruelty of his actions and how it would affect thousands of innocent people. These blurry thoughts were swept aside by his obsession with both delivering a damaging blow to Norval Nickel and teaching the Russian government a lesson. He had convinced himself that this was the right thing to do, so with no hesitation, he released the pressure fitting on the cylinder sitting on the catwalk.

There was a brief hiss, and he was able to twist the top free, exposing thousands of transparent tablets. He poured the contents of the cylinder into the six-inch diameter opening and repeated the process with the second cylinder. Thousands of tablets sat in the one foot deep miniature dry well, waiting to be introduced into the water system. Anatoly shut the sample node's lid and refastened the four latches, which turned out to be infinitely easier than opening them. Once closed, he activated the dry well and heard the mechanism working. A red light turned to green and the mechanism stopped. He activated the mechanism one more time just to be sure and waited twenty seconds for the cycle to complete. Once the light turned green again, he endured the pain of opening the latches to inspect the chamber. The chamber was dry, and the tablets were gone, on their way to infect the city's water supply. He quickly resealed it.

Each tablet contained concentrated, weaponized encephalitis virus, surrounded by a thin gel coating. The virus within the clear gel coat had been given a dark red color in the lab, so each tablet looked like a menacing eye, which underscored the virus's potential. The gel coating was designed to last roughly thirty minutes before releasing the virus into the water. He knew that water leaving the plant would end up in a massive storage tank that constantly filled and emptied into the city. The concentration of virus would be more than adequate to infect the entire supply and continue to infect it for several hours. The charcoal filters installed between the disinfectant tanks and the pump station would ensure that any remaining chlorination would not be enough to kill the hardened virus Reznikov had developed. Only a strong anti-viral water treatment course could accomplish this, and these were nearly nonexistent in public water treatment plants.

The virus tablets would reach the main storage tanks partially dissolved and remain at the top of the tank for a few minutes, until they released their payload, which would sink and spread throughout the tank. Later that day, pipes in every household and business within Monchegorsk would contain contaminated water. Within three to five days, the city's hospital and medical clinics would be overwhelmed by patients complaining of severe headaches and rapidly progressing flu-like symptoms. A few days after that, the city of Monchegorsk would descend into chaos, taking Norval Nickel along with it.

The Russian government would face one of its biggest challenges in recent history. How does mother Russia contain the news that a city of 54,327 people had imploded, with no plausible explanation? He couldn't wait to see how they'd try to contain the news. Based on Russia's notoriously poor human rights track record, he felt confident that it would be a disaster for the Putin government.

The virus combined several of the nastiest viral encephalitis traits he could genetically manipulate. He had started with a particularly virulent and highly infectious strain of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis (VEE) and had gone to work modifying its structure. He enhanced the virus's focus on the limbic system, specifically targeting the temporal lobes, which caused victims to exhibit rabies-like behavior. The recurrent hallmark behaviors he had observed through human experimentation included: severe aggression, marked destructiveness, primitive impulses, and transient disorientation or catatonia, often followed by hyperactive episodes. Brain damage had been severe in most of the cases they examined, and nearly seventy percent died within a week of showing symptoms.

The remaining thirty percent deteriorated at different rates, with varying degrees of brain damage. Like every disease, some got lucky, though they were usually the first to fall victim to the madness that descended on the others. Once the virus had been tweaked to his own desired specifications, they had conducted a practical test. Twenty "volunteers" each drank a glass of water spiked with the same concentration of virus that he calculated would be present in every sip of water throughout the city. Roughly eighty percent contracted the virus, though he took steps to ensure all of his test subjects were infected. The eighty percent statistic had made him smile. He relished the complications this would present to the Russians.

Now that the virus was in the water, his next task was to get out of here undetected. He jammed the cylinders back into the backpack, along with the mechanical saw, and withdrew a silenced semi-automatic pistol from one of the other pouches. He debated whether to head up the stairs, or hide in the station and wait. He couldn't imagine that the station didn't have an alarm rigged to the doors. Yesterday, he had timed the technician's journey from the central station to the pump station and averaged it to six minutes, if he didn't stop for a cigarette. His watch showed six minutes and thirty seconds, which he blamed on his damn fumbling hands. Glancing around the station, he chose to stay and hide.

The pump itself was massive, providing numerous hiding places, and he saw another staircase at the end of the catwalk. He might be able to squeeze underneath the end of the pump or the wide outflow pipes on either side. If the technician decided to walk down to the catwalk and poke around, he would be forced to use the pistol. It would be his last resort and buy him enough time to get out of town, but depending on the city's response, it could jeopardize the entire plan. He would walk the technician out of the building at gunpoint and push him over the catwalk onto the domed tanks. He hoped it didn't come to that because his hands were trembling from the latches, and he could barely hold the gun straight. He might need every round in the pistol's magazine.

Just as he tucked himself under one of the huge outflow pipes on the right side of the station, he heard the door above him open. The technician entered through the front door and shut it behind him, pausing on the grating above. The man walked around for a minute, presumably checking some of the diagnostic gauges above, and started to descend the stairs. Anatoly's pistol hand was shaking, and he was afraid that he might fire the pistol accidentally. He depressed the safety lever to prevent an unintended discharge. He further squeezed himself under the pipe and along the outside of the pump. He would be undetectable if the man stayed on the catwalk.

He had a hard time hearing the man's footsteps over the vibration and hum of the pump, but knew he was drawing closer along the catwalk. The sound of the metal grating increased and suddenly stopped, indicating that the man was at the top of the second set of stairs. He could picture the man leaning over and determining if it was worth his effort to take a further look. He jammed himself further back, willing himself to be invisible to the man. A few moments later, he heard footsteps heading back down the catwalk, followed by the stairs. Less than a minute later, Anatoly was alone in the pump station.

He decided not to press his luck. He replaced the pistol, keeping the pouch unzipped, and left the station through the back door. He knew it would trigger another alarm, but figured the duty crew would consider it to be a glitch. They'd watch the sensor from their comfortable seats all day, and when it didn't happen again, it would be forgotten. He wondered if anyone would have the presence of mind one week later to make the connection. Based on the human testing results in Kazakhstan, he sort of doubted it.