When Mike and Lee got to their hotel room after their buffet supper, they realized that they were both super tired and that bed and immediate sleep was needed. Their usual hour or so talking was forgone in favor of the extra sleep they would get as the next day could prove to be another interesting and busy day, but would still provide them the opportunity for hours of talk about the mission while sitting and watching the mine area.
Mike tossed and turned for a bit and then fell into a deep slumber. It was Lee that had the troubled sleep this night as she had so much on her mind with the investigation and her growing feelings towards Mike. She had never in her life experienced anything like these kinds of feelings before and it scared her on one level and excited her on several others. She did not know what to do and had no one to talk to as she never had a sister and her mother had died four years ago of cancer so she felt alone and with the walls closing in on her sometimes. Maybe Mike's secretary could be of some help to her as she was just a little older than Lee and married with two children, so she had evidently had some of these same types of feelings before. She would have to ask her to lunch when they finished this job up and went home for a bit. She knew she did not want to rush into anything with anybody, but Michael was growing on her. More so every day it seemed. Then sleep overtook her.
The next morning both of them were up early and dressed and arrived in the sitting area about the same time and Mike gave her a light hug and said "Good Morning, Lee, I hope you slept well." He opened the door for her and then stopped suddenly and said "DAMMIT!!! We were so tired last night we forgot to download those photos. Let's take a minute to do it now so we can see how our camera works."
He returned to the sitting area and sat at the table and pulled his laptop out and turned it on to warm up as he retrieved the camera and pulled the memory card out of it and put it into his laptop. It did not take but a few seconds to down load the few photos that they had taken yesterday afternoon and when he pulled them up he was surprised at the clarity of them. These new high mega pixel cameras and lenses coupled with an ultra-fast SD card gave awesome results. When he looked at the images on the laptop carefully, he saw a man that he had seen before, he just could not remember where or when. Interesting to say the least.
He did not have a printer available, but that could be rectified quickly or he could just take his SD card to any one of the one-hour photo places to have the shots developed. He also decided that in the interest of security he should stop and buy several more SD memory cards just to be on the safe side and always keep a fresh one in the camera with spares on hand. The used one would need to be secured until they could transfer the information to a secure storage point. Mike also thought to check out the battery charger for the camera, which was also supposed to work in the car, as he would need fully charged batteries at all times. He thought he should also buy a spare set and keep one on the charger as long as the investigation was ongoing.
Lee had seen the look of both recognition and perplexity on Mike's face and asked, "Mike, do you recognize that man in the photo? Do you know him? I can see in your face that something is bothering you. What is it or do you want to talk about it?"
"Lee, he looks familiar and I know I have seen him somewhere before, but I just cannot place him. Not just yet, but it will happen. It will either come to me or Davis. If not someone else at the home office can maybe identify him." Mike had downloaded the photos to his laptop so he could quickly send the photo of the man as an attachment in his email to Davis to see what they might find out in the home office. He would do that this evening after supper and things were settling down and he had more time to compose his report and inquiry about the man in the photo. They locked the computers away and took the SD card with them and left for breakfast at the truck stop before going back to their mountaintop lookout.
While they were waiting for their order, Lee looked at Mike and said, "The food here is so good that I am going to be glad when we finish this investigation and go home. If we don't hurry and leave I am going to have to buy some new clothes to replace all these I have outgrown. So, how much longer are we going to go up to the mountain and watch. We have evidently found out how things are leaving and apparently who is taking them so why are we still sitting up there? We need to get down to the office and start in on the inventory issues, don't you think?"
"Yes and no. First, the one incident we saw today is enough to arouse suspicions and provide a possible path to follow, but not enough, as yet, to take much action. We need more proof and see where the materials are going so we know who all may be involved. Yes, we do need to accomplish the inventory. We need to get the shipping and receiving records and compare them and the as-built drawings, and see where we stand. Also, right now we have no proof even if we found a pile of fittings that we suspect were ours. In a day or so, we will get the receiving records and they will have a heat number recorded for each fitting and every joint of pipe received on this site."
"What in the world is a heat number?" Lee asked.
"Every piece of forging has to come from a furnace full of melted raw components and ores. Every time the furnace makes a batch of molten metal that will become a fitting or a joint of pipe or anything along that line like plate steel that comes under the authority of the ASME Code must have a complete record of every component in that batch of molten metal. That batch of melted metal is called a heat and it has a number dedicated to that particular batch called a heat number and that number is stamped on all fittings and painted on all pipe and plate. In the records for each batch it lists every particle of everything that was in that batch to include the country of origin, the supplier of the ores, the mines the ores came from, the amount of each component, and any other information needed. That heat number must be recorded on documents to satisfy the requirements of ASME, or the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, which is the governing body for all pressure vessels and their associated piping and components. That includes the testing to be done before a vessel or system can be put into use. There are a couple of other groups that have similar tasks and responsibilities such as the American Petroleum Institute, or API, which deals mostly with the pipelines and pump stations that run all over the US. The other is AWWA or American Water Works Association which deals with water treatment facilities. However, all the materials those entities use still fall under the rules outlined by the ASME.
Lee looked sort of astonished and smiled and said "Wow, so much knowledge for one so young." And laughed teasingly.
