04 Washington DC, October 28, 0904 Hrs (1304Z)

Washington DC, October 28, 0904 Hrs (1304Z)

Analyst Rachel Upton lifted the wire frame glasses that she wore and rubbed her eyes. She had just arrived to her office in the headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security. It was a misribile morning in DC, It was cold and windy with rain forecast later that day. That had led the twenty four year old to wear pants and a sweater rather than a skirt like she normally wore. She clicked a few things and looked at the monitor. One of the lower level analysts had found a few things that they thought were suspicious and linked. In one part of the data, there were reports and security camera footage from a number of power plants in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Kentucky that all showed a very similar dark minivan. Lucky for her, the images were date and time stamped. There were no daytime shots of the van, and the license plates were not visible due either to to the distance or the vehicle not having a license plate light. She mulled this over and then stood, walking over to a large filing cabinet. She opened the top drawer and flipped through the folders, finally finding a map of the state of Ohio. She did the same for Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky.

In her office she had requested that one wall was nothing but cork board, the opposing wall was a white board material. Her desk sat facing the white board but there was enough space between her desk and the cork board so she could spin and look at whatever was on the cork board. The desk was set up so she sit on either side and turn the monitor toward her if she needed to stare at the cork board instead. She started with hanging up the map of the State of Ohio. After getting that hung up, she hung the State of Pennsylvania, lining the latitude and interstates up to create a single large map covering both states. She was in the middle of doing the same with the map of Indiana when there was a knock at the door. It was open so she just turned her head to look at it, a thumb tack held between her lips.

"I'm Joe Macintyre," the tall thin man with blond hair and freckles said. "I sent some data up to you and wanted to talk about it." Rachel stopped hanging the map of Indiana and it hung on the single thumb tack that had been inserted in the corner; it covered the southwestern quadrant of Ohio.

"I'm Rachel," she replied walking over to the desk and moving her mouse. "Come in and have a seat." She sat at her desk and turned the monitor so they both could see it. Joe walked over and sat in one of the chairs. Joe looked vaguely uncomfortable.

"Okay, so," Joe licked his lips and then consulted a notepad that he pulled out of a pocket. "Sheriff's Deputies in Seneca and Medina counties received reports of a dark colored small van basically just traveling around and looking at the power lines." Rachel spun and looked at the map of Ohio.

"Seneca and Medina..." She said aloud. She wasn't sure where the two counties were so she turned back to the computer and did a quick Google search to find a map of Ohio with counties outlined. Once she had an idea of where the counties were, she stuck push pins in the map. "Was there any more information other than a dark colored van?"

"No," Joe replied, consulting the notepad again. "Just a small dark colored van. No lights or people visible inside. Possibly tinted windows..." He looked at the map. Rachel finished hanging the map of Indiana. She examined the maps hanging on the wall for a few moments and then grabbed two red push pins and placed them in two spots by the lake. "What're those?"

"There's two nuclear plants up that way. I wanted them marked for easy visuals." Rachel replied, looking at the map. She picked a ruler up off of her desk and consulted the legend at the bottom of the map. All of the maps were set to a scale of one inch was equal to one hundred miles with a few exceptions. (Namely Alaska and Texas.) The map of Ohio was a standard one inch to one hundred mile scale. The two push pins were only around three quarters of an inch apart. Seventy five miles. That was all that separated the locations of the van from the two nuclear power plants in northern Ohio.