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He sorted through the loose sheets of paper before shuffling a few pages and tossing them onto the coffee table.

“What do you make of these?” he asked.

There were dozens of pages. Stegmeyer picked up a sheet, as did Bellum. Lily grabbed a sheet and shared it with Jason. She pointed at the title at the top of the page: Energy Output - US Nuclear Power Plants.

A table had been printed on the paper, with the names of each nuclear installation down one side. Years were listed across the top to allow for comparisons over time. Several of the locations had multiple reactors, with the output of each reactor shown in the table.

“I don’t get it,” Bellum said. “What am I looking for?”

“Anything out of the ordinary,” Jason replied, his mind in sync with Lachlan’s. He was already skimming over the output results, thinking about where the nuclear power plants were located, how much energy they were producing and which electrical grid they contributed towards.

“You think they’ve hidden the craft in a nuclear power plant?” Stegmeyer asked.

“Makes sense,” Lachlan replied as Jason continued scanning the figures. “They need somewhere big enough to house this thing, somewhere they can limit access and ensure tight security.”

“So, not out at Area 51?” Bellum asked in his gruff voice.

“No,” Lachlan replied with a soft laugh.

“I think I’ve got it,” Jason said confidently. “North Bend, Oregon. My guess would be that it’s in reactor one.”

Stegmeyer dropped the sheet of paper to her lap, slapping it on her thigh. She turned slightly, looking to Lachlan for confirmation. Lachlan smiled.

“How did you know?” Stegmeyer asked, sitting forward and looking at Jason.

Jason kept his finger on the page, saying, “There are three reactors. The original reactor with a capacity of two hundred megawatts, the other two are newer and capable of almost nine hundred megawatts each.”

“And?” Lachlan asked. His pride in Jason was unmistakable.

“Well,” Jason said. “According to these tables, all three reactors are on line, but reactors two and three are consistently low over the past two decades, only ever producing between five and six hundred megawatts each. All the other reactors around the country are hitting around 90% efficiency, but these reactors are at around 60%.”

No one said anything.

Jason continued.

“They’re covering for the lack of power coming from reactor one. Lowering their output so it looks like all three reactors are running when in reality, reactor one is offline. Reactor one may not even be there anymore. They’re faking it.”

Lachlan nodded, smiling as he said, “That’s what we thought too, so we conducted some aerial surveillance.”

He handed around some more photos.

Jason looked at the color images of the nuclear power plant from a variety of angles. Unlike the archetype nuclear plant with large cooling towers, North Bend was surrounded by cooling lakes. Large, artificial ponds dominated the landscape to the east, with roads running between them on raised embankments. A series of canals ran between the ponds and the power station.

“It’s situated on the banks of the Coos river,” Lachlan said. “We think that’s how they got the craft there. It’s an estuary system, with large mud flats. They must have floated the UFO in under wraps at high tide. Probably on a barge.”

“I thought the craft crashed in the sea off North Korea?” Jason asked.

“It did,” Lachlan said. “They spent twenty-two months raising the craft with submersibles, inching it away from North Korea while keeping it underwater. It took another year to tow the craft across the Pacific, all under the guise of ostensibly conducting naval training exercises. I’ve spoken to sailors on those exercises. They thought they were towing a crippled Chinese submarine. We think the sub was the cover story for the craft.

“From what we can tell, they towed the craft starting in late spring and went through most of the summer. There are public records of naval exercises off the coast of Washington and Oregon that coincide with power outages blanketing the North Bend area.”

“They wanted to move under cover of darkness,” Bellum said.

“Exactly,” Lachlan said. “And get this, the training exercises coincided with a new moon, and culminated with a Marine landing at Cape Arago, not more than 10 miles from North Bend.”

“So,” Stegmeyer said, “there’s no question that there were Navy ships in the area.”

“And look at this,” Lachlan added, holding up a photo of a barge. “They spent three months dredging the channel prior to the exercises. By this time, we think the craft was out of the water. They must have brought it in on barges similar to this one.

Lachlan held up another photograph, saying, “See that large, elongated building right here in the complex? That’s roughly twenty stories high and it houses reactors two and three. But it’s this one over here, with the old circular dome that houses reactor one. That’s where we think the craft is located.”