Kill Zone

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Much younger at the time, idealistic, and determined to make a difference, Adonia had kept her head down and focused on her job. For her own part, she had been enamored with then–Lieutenant Colonel Shawn Whalen during their days at the National War College.

  But when the President had commended Stanley for his role in “saving” Granite Bay after the extremist attack, his affair with Victoria Doyle had flared out and fizzled. He was rumored to have tested his connections with the President, and had overreached in an attempt to get himself appointed as the next Secretary of Energy. Instead, that position had been given to a high-profile young public defender. And, adept at the high-stakes game of political maneuvering herself, Victoria had blocked Stanley’s other ambitions, landing him a mere assistant secretary job as a consolation prize.

  Now, another piece fell into place for Adonia. Unbeknownst to anyone due to SAP security, he must have been offered that role because it included the covert and vital responsibilities of being the Valiant Locksmith national program manager. Not a consolation prize at all.

  In effect, it appeared that Stanley had won that battle. If Valiant Locksmith succeeded in mitigating the nuclear storage crisis, then his coveted position of Energy Secretary was well within his grasp. But in order to achieve his triumph, he still had to move a hundred thousand tons of high-level waste into the decommissioned weapons facility—safely, securely, and under the public’s radar.

  No wonder van Dyckman was on edge as this celebratory inspection tour turned into a debacle at every turn. His entire career hinged on the success of this review.

  Now it all made sense to Adonia. Judging from the Undersecretary’s body language, she realized that Victoria Doyle hadn’t had any idea what Stanley was up to here in the Mountain. After their affair, she must have thought she had trounced van Dyckman, relegating him to political Siberia. Now she would have realized that the importance of Valiant Locksmith placed him in day-to-day contact with the President and the White House.

  And if he did indeed become the next DOE Secretary, then he would be Victoria Doyle’s boss. Adonia supposed a political Siberia would be very chilly this time of year.… No wonder Victoria gave him such a cold shoulder.

  Stanley van Dyckman was arrogant, and Adonia was thankful she no longer had to work with him on a daily basis. Ever since he’d been appointed Assistant Secretary, she couldn’t understand how he had survived politically. Valiant Locksmith explained everything.

  And the crowd goes wild! Adonia thought.

  After today, Undersecretary Doyle wouldn’t be singing the praises of the program for the Senator’s classified congressional review, nor would Simon Garibaldi. While Adonia herself recognized that Hydra Mountain was a better answer than sweeping the nuclear waste under the rug, how could she give this facility a thumbs-up, after what they’d been through?

  On the other hand, if the program did shut down in a debacle, it might take decades before another solution was even proposed.… How could she allow that either? There was too much at stake! She didn’t dare let it fail. Despite the overlapping safety and security systems, the operational concept here was a reasonable one. Adonia knew damned well that something needed to be done about the high-level waste and spent fuel rods piling up at Granite Bay and the sixty-one other nuclear power plants across the country. How she wanted it to work! If Hydra Mountain failed without any other alternative on the table, then the crisis would only be exacerbated.

  Adonia kept pace with Doyle, seeing lights ahead down the corridor, reflections from metal walls and glass windows. “It’s the guard portal,” Victoria said, and the relief was clear in her shaky voice. “Just like I said.”

  Ahead, a giant vault door large enough to admit machinery, such as cargo crawlers carrying warheads or nuclear waste transportation casks, blocked most of the tunnel. To the left of the vault door was a smaller, person-sized metal door with a mesh-embedded safety window. On a normal workday, a guard sitting behind the safety window could see anyone approaching, even if cameras and motion sensors had been disabled, such as now.

  Pulling up the rear of the group, Senator Pulaski let out a sigh of relief as he slumped against the wall. “We can get inside and just wait there. Maybe there’ll be a phone. I’ve got to contact my staff.”

  “There weren’t any phones originally installed inside the Mountain, Senator, except for Mr. Harris’s operations center,” Shawn said. “Blame it on Cold War security about calling out.”

  “I think we’ll keep you away from any phones we find, just to make sure,” Doyle said.

  Taking charge, Adonia stepped up to the smaller doorway, beside an LED control panel identical to what they had seen in the storage chambers above. She pressed her face against the mesh-reinforced observation window, but the guard station was empty.

  “Looks like nobody’s home,” Garibaldi said.

  With Hydra Mountain’s skeleton crew, the portal was unattended, the door closed. If Rob Harris were present, as planned, he would have had access to the controls, but now they were on their own.

  Victoria placed her hands on her narrow hips. “This is a shelter in place, but we need a combination to gain access.” She looked at van Dyckman. “All right, Stanley, you said this was your facility. You must have the code, so make yourself useful.”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Site Manager Harris has the facility-wide codes.”

  “Thank goodness there’s still some security left down here. But this doesn’t help us much if we can’t get inside.” Victoria turned her back to him, as if he had proved himself worthless.

  Adonia spotted the bulky intercom box near the door controls. She pressed the black Call button and spoke into the mesh speaker. “Hello?” Please work, she thought. “Anybody there?”

  “Operations center—ah, Ms. Rojas?” said a female voice.

  The team members crowded around her and let out a round of cheers. Adonia smiled. “Yes, we’re all here. Please connect me with Mr. Harris.”

  “And shut down those damned countermeasures! We’re not intruders,” Pulaski shouted in a hoarse voice. “Get us out of here!”

  “Rest assured we’re working on it, sir. Please hang tight—there’s less than five hours remaining on the facility reboot.”

  The Senator looked incredulous. “Five hours!”

  “I’ll have the site manager for you momentarily. Stand by, one.”

  Soon, Harris’s familiar voice came from the speaker, sounding ragged. “Adonia! What a relief to be back in touch. Is anybody hurt? Our cameras shut down, but our IR sensors saw that someone triggered the active-denial countermeasures.”

  “We’re all right, except for a few scrapes and bruises,” she said. “Senator Pulaski turned his ankle, but I think it’s just a minor sprain.”

  As if the site manager’s voice gave him confidence again, van Dyckman stepped up. “Harris, what the hell is going on? The safety and security systems are pushing us deeper into the Mountain rather than to the nearest exit. And what’s this about five more hours on the lockdown? Override it! Shut down the damned system and send a party to retrieve us.” Anger was clear on his face, especially now that he had a target to blame.

  “Our hands are tied while we’re still recycling, sir,” Harris said. “We’re experiencing nonlinear interactions between the old DoD systems and the new DOE ones. We had to reboot the entire system to resolve some fundamental conflicts.”

  “Well, that’s a complicated way of saying the shit has hit the fan,” Garibaldi said with wry amusement.

  Harris sounded patient and professional. “The countermeasures are working, but the systems logics are competing for control. They’ll continue to do so until the full system is back up. I’m just glad to hear that you weren’t harmed. Frankly, I’m … surprised—pleasantly surprised, that you don’t have any serious injuries. The millimeter waves are one of our newest countermeasures, and they’ve proven quite effective in human protocol testing, but, uh, it appears they also d
isrupt our legacy electronics.”

  Adonia said, “We shielded ourselves with sheets of foil-backed fiberglass insulation. That protected us from the worst of the bombardment.”

  Harris sounded surprised. “That was clever. Glad it was available.”

  Victoria interrupted with an edge in her voice, “What construction is still under way down here? I thought Hydra Mountain was a fully operational facility.” She raised her voice. “What are you building in the lower level?”

  “You’ll have to ask Mr. van Dyckman,” Harris said with a clear chill in his voice. “He can explain the rationale much better than I.”

  Van Dyckman squirmed away from Doyle. “We intended to show you during the inspection tour, but I’m afraid our schedule has gone out the window.”

  Adonia got down to business. “Rob, we’re at the guard portal, but it’s unoccupied and sealed. Can you let us in? We need a place to wait out the system reboot before the countermeasures activate again.”

  Harris was glad to change the subject. “Mr. van Dyckman, you have the emergency override code. It’s only good for onetime use, but you could have easily gained access—”

  Van Dyckman reddened. “I’d remember it if I tried long enough, but just open the door from your end.”

  “Yes, sir,” Harris said. “But as a reminder, the mnemonic for the override code is—”

  “Open the damned door, Harris!”

  “Yes, sir. Please step back from the portal door.”

  Adonia noticed that Victoria Doyle crossed her arms and frowned at her ex-lover. Now what was that all about? Why couldn’t van Dyckman remember something as important as an override code, and why should Victoria be reacting with such obvious disapproval?

  Painted on the concrete floor, a yellow arc marked the path of the heavy metal door. Adonia and the others stepped out of the way as a sharp alert buzz rang out, echoing in the tunnel. The door rotated open.

  The interior of the portal contained controls to open the much larger vault door, two desks with high-backed chairs on wheels, a small table, a sink, coffeemaker, a file cabinet, and even a one-person bathroom. An identical mesh-embedded door on the far side of the enclosed guardroom led to the opposite side of the tunnel, and the lower level of Hydra Mountain. Although not spacious, the portal was sufficient for them to shelter in place for several hours. Adonia relaxed slightly.

  Harris’s voice now came from an intercom inside the portal. “Is everyone inside? I can’t shut the door until everyone has entered.”

  As Adonia began to usher them into the cramped room, Garibaldi paused. His brow furrowed as he looked up at the obvious cameras in the ceiling. “Why do you need to ask? Aren’t you watching us?”

  “The cameras stopped functioning. All we have are IR and other nontraditional sensors. You’re lucky the intercom runs through the backup system with the lights.”

  “I’ll bet your toilets leak, too,” Garibaldi grumbled.

  “We can discuss it later, when we’re out of here.” Adonia crowded the team members into the shielded portal. “Come on, everybody inside.”

  “Just don’t let anyone retreat up the tunnel,” Harris warned. “If motion sensors see you going the wrong direction, the defensive systems will reengage—and now that you’re deeper in the facility, more serious legacy countermeasures will take priority.”

  Garibaldi lifted an eyebrow as he crowded up against the file cabinet. “More serious than getting fried by microwaves?”

  “Exponentially more serious,” Harris answered. “The millimeter active denial is our newest nonlethal system. Kinder and gentler. The old DoD weapons countermeasures expressly allow the use of deadly force.”

  20

  Deadly force.

  Adonia felt a chill, although the revelation made sense. Back in the day, lethal countermeasures would be justified against anyone trying to steal nuclear warheads, but no one could run off with a giant concrete cask of hazardous waste. And why would they want to? She couldn’t imagine how some bad actor would even attempt it. Deadly force was no longer warranted, by any means.

  But lethal legacy countermeasures were apparently still in place in Hydra Mountain. What was van Dyckman thinking? Even worse, the defensive systems couldn’t tell the difference between a genuine threat and a few people who happened to be trapped through no fault of their own.

  After the insanity that had already occurred, Adonia had little confidence in anything working as it should. “Everybody, crowd together and let’s get this door closed. Quick.” She urged the last of them into the small room designed to accommodate two people. “Now sit tight. We can tell stories around the campfire until the reboot is over.” Seeing them all safe, she let out an unconscious sigh of relief.

  Shawn spoke to her quietly enough that the others didn’t hear, but he sounded deeply disturbed. She had seen that contemplative look on his face many times. He said, “There should never be an automated system that uses deadly force.”

  “The defenses were put in place to protect live nukes,” she pointed out. “Harsh language wouldn’t be a sufficient deterrent.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t have a problem with a professionally trained armed guard who is authorized to shoot to kill under extreme circumstances. DoD countermeasures always have a human in the loop, a person on the trigger. Is Valiant Locksmith so important that it justifies lethal automated systems with no oversight? The military doesn’t kill without human oversight. It’s a fail-safe: someone has to make the call. Deadly force shouldn’t be on autopilot, especially not for spent fuel rods.”

  He frowned back down the tunnel. “As we’ve noticed, automated systems aren’t always reliable.”

  Adonia knew he was right. From the National War College she remembered that the military was authorized to use deadly force under Title 10 of the U.S. Code. Even drones weren’t completely autonomous, especially those carrying Hellfire missiles; someone had to operate them. “Land mines are the closest I can think of to automated killing machines.”

  “And land mines are now forbidden by international law,” Shawn said. “But Hydra Mountain has even more deadly systems in place to protect nuclear waste?”

  Victoria interrupted, showing clear impatience as she pulled on the handle, trying to draw the heavy guard chamber door closed, but it wouldn’t budge. “We need to seal the portal and hunker down. Right now we could all use a safe spot.”

  Pulaski took a few careful steps on his twisted ankle, then slumped into one of the two swivel chairs. “I’m much better now, thank you.”

  Harris’s voice came over the tinny intercom speaker. “IR has all six of you in the portal. Stand back, we’re closing the door from here.” Seconds later the metal door slowly rotated shut, humming on its pistons until it seated into the jamb. “You’ll be safe there until the systems have recycled and the lockdown is lifted. Four hours and twenty-four minutes while we bring up the various components one at a time.”

  “Anybody have a deck of cards?” Garibaldi asked.

  “I have a solitaire game on my cell phone,” the Senator said, grinning slyly.

  Adonia depressed the black intercom button. “Rob, what other kinds of defensive measures might be activated out there?”

  “None, so long as you don’t leave the safety of the portal.” The intercom remained silent for a long moment. “Hydra Mountain is set up to employ escalating degrees of force, from nonlethal to near-lethal to lethal.”

  “Near-lethal?” Garibaldi asked. “Well, that sounds just as delightful as lethal!”

  “Near-lethal defenses are designed to thoroughly incapacitate, but they may be lethal under certain circumstances. Take knockout gas, for example. The same dose that renders a linebacker unconscious may kill a petite cheerleader. In high enough doses, the same gas may be deadly to everyone.”

  Van Dyckman interrupted, “There’s nothing to worry about, as long as we just stay here.”

  Harris’s voice continued through the speaker. “When ac
tivating Valiant Locksmith, we added the nonlethal systems because high-level waste is obviously not as dangerous as active warheads.”

  Garibaldi frowned at the speaker. “If Hydra Mountain was decommissioned as a nuclear weapons storage facility and is only storing waste, then why haven’t you deactivated and removed the deadly countermeasures? That should have been your first order of business.”

  Harris avoided the answer. “Once you’re out of there, we can discuss everything in the briefing room, under normal circumstances. For now, the simplest answer is for you just to shelter in place. I’m trying to take care of the emergency on this end, still hoping we can find a way to accelerate the reboot. The small plane crash was apparently no security threat, so we can get back to normal.”

  Adonia’s main priority was to keep the group together and stay in the shelter, as instructed, but Harris’s convoluted explanation for the spectrum of lethality in Hydra Mountain just didn’t add up. She glanced at Shawn, and he seemed to be thinking the same thing. Something was going on here beyond storing nuclear waste.…

  “We all understand, Rob.” Adonia looked around her group. “But your systems haven’t exactly functioned the way they should, and you’re talking about automatically triggered lethal weapons. What if there’s another crossover, another glitch?”

  Harris’s voice was surprisingly crisp. “Ask Mr. van Dyckman if the system is working as intended. He’s right beside you. And ask him about any other cascading problems that might occur with his fuel rods.”

  Garibaldi swung a glare at van Dyckman. “He means the disassembled rods in dry storage, right? Not any still-hot fuel rods.”