Blowout Read Online Free PDF Page B

been curious and she’d Googled the woman, finding out that she was a hell of a lot more than a CDC egghead; in fact she was one of the leading minds on microbe biology and the genetic manipulation of bacteria, and yet there was almost nothing in any of the search engines that Ashley used that connected Dr. Lipton with the president’s Clean Coal Research initiative her dad was working on, or any hint that she was doing work for the Pentagon.
    And that might have been the end of it, except that Ashley had started a file on the Dakota District ELF project that she and a number of journalists had been allowed to visit three years ago, because a lot of things out there didn’t make sense to her. For starters she was just about 100 percent certain that most of the people were military, yet none of them wore uniforms. None of the construction crews working on the power-generating station—which they were not allowed to tour because of the danger—thirty-six hundred yards away from the headquarters compound were local. And they’d been asked to not concentrate their stories on what was happening out there, because the actual details were a military secret.
    â€œWe don’t want to start a panic like what happened with the ELF station up in Wisconsin when people thought they were all going to die of radiation poisoning,” the Army Public Information officer had told them. “But if you’re going to write about us, we’d be happy to fact-check you.”
    â€œYeah, right,” one of the reporters said.
    â€œI said fact-check, not censor.”
    A few stories had been published, but the project was in North Dakota—out in the boonies—and even the locals didn’t much care and interest quickly died.
    Except for Ashley, who by happenstance was at the Bismarck Airport three days ago to interview North Dakota’s junior senator William Frey, a decorated war hero just returning from an ABC Good Morning America segment. But standing on the tarmac next to the senator’s car and driver the first person off the plane was Dr. Lipton, who was met by her own car and driver that took off across the airport to the general aviation terminal.
    A few minutes later as the senator was finally getting off the plane, Ashley watched the doctor get out of her car and board a helicopter, which immediately took off and headed to the west.
    It had taken her two days to find out that no flight plan had been filed for the helicopter that had, according to the dispatcher, taken a pair of elk hunters on a tour around the Teddy Roosevelt Elkhorn Ranch. An outright lie.
    So what the hell was a leading microbe biologist on assignment for the president, a woman who knew her father who was a Pentagon general working for the newly formed ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, doing at the Dakota District ELF facility?
    â€œWell, call her and tell her that I’m here,” Ashley told the AP a little more sharply than she meant to. It was cold with the window down, it was late, and she would have to stay in Medora or maybe Dickinson for the night.
    â€œSorry—”
    â€œShe knows me, goddamnit. Just pick up your phone and tell her that I’m General Forester’s daughter. We met at my dad’s house a couple of years ago and I just saw her at the Bismarck Airport a few days ago.”
    The AP smiled tightly. “Ma’am, you need to turn around now and leave or I will have to place you under arrest.”
    â€œGood!” Ashley practically shouted. “We’re making progress. Call someone and get them out here with the cuffs before I freeze my ass off.”
    â€œMay I have your driver’s license?”
    Ashley handed it over, and the AP went back to the gatehouse. She could see him on the phone, looking at her through the window, and looking at her ID. After several minutes, he put the phone down and came out.
    â€œMa’am, it’ll be