Kill Zone

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Adonia swam down, trying to reach him as the heavy rod dragged him toward the bottom. The Senator’s struggles weakened as he sank, trapped. A last gush of air bubbles spewed from his mouth. He twitched and jerked convulsively.

  Adonia swam harder, knowing that if she could somehow disentangle him, then lift him to the surface, she would still have to pull him out of the pool and perform CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She might be able to save him—

  A hand grabbed her shoulder and yanked her up. She twisted wildly to see who was trying to stop her. She was still far from the fallen rod, and now the Senator’s motionless body was lodged against the side of the pool at an angle, deep under water.

  Shawn was dragging her back up. He shook his head and mouthed No!, pointing with his free hand to the surface.

  She tried jerking away, but Shawn gripped her with both hands and hauled them both upward with powerful kicks. She resisted, still desperate to get to the Senator, to rescue him before it was too late, but the toppled fuel rod had pinned him down to the bottom of the twenty-foot pool.

  Pulaski no longer moved, no longer showed any sign of life. She knew it was already too late.

  29

  Splashing and gasping, Adonia and Shawn broke the surface of the hot water. She pulled in deep breaths of air and felt the sharp sting of pain from where Pulaski had bit her arm, but the sick sadness inside ran deeper. The two of them swam in grim, exhausted silence to the side wall where Stanley, Victoria, and Garibaldi waited, still clinging to the mesh of the metal walkway. Adonia could not shake the image of the Senator pinned underwater, trapped by the fallen fuel rods he himself had dislodged. “He’s gone,” she said.

  Victoria looked stunned and disgusted at what she had seen. “Why didn’t he tell us he couldn’t swim? How much more could he screw things up?” She did not sound sympathetic.

  Holding the wall, van Dyckman stared in disbelief. “And … and he dislodged part of the array! Those rods were widely separated.”

  “Obviously not widely enough.” Garibaldi’s face was gray. “We can mourn the Senator later, but it would be a very good idea for us to get out of this pool. Now that some of the rods have toppled out of their support structure, possibly with damaged zirconium alloy cladding, I have no idea how close to critical they are.”

  Victoria struggled to get on the metal grid platform that encircled the pool, but it was too high above the water for her to pull herself out. Moving behind her, Shawn grasped her waist and helped boost her up. The older woman hauled herself onto the top, then turned to help the others. One by one they scrambled up onto the platform, dripping and gasping, relieved to be out of the unnaturally hot water.

  The last one still in the pool, Shawn looked grim and hardened, ready to do what was necessary. “I can swim down there and try to push the rods back upright by brute force.” He squinted up at Adonia, favoring his injured eye. “Put them back in their support structure.”

  She reacted with alarm. “No! If you touched the rods with your bare hands, you’d be giving yourself a death sentence. You’d need gloves, protective clothing. And you’d still get a near-lethal dose.” Though she was still sickened from being unable to rescue Pulaski, she realized that from his direct exposure to the rods during his struggles, he had probably received a deadly exposure even if he did get out of the water. The Senator would have perished in weeks anyway, a long, slow, painful decline from radiation poisoning. “He’s already dead. We’re not.”

  “Unless we stay here,” Garibaldi said. Crawling to the edge, he stuck his hand over the side, reaching down for Shawn, who grasped his arm. He pulled him up onto the platform with the others.

  From above, wispy tendrils of yellow-marked gas continued pouring over the high ledge, but Victoria looked across to the far end of the cavern, seemingly more concerned about some other danger. “We have to get in touch with Harris. Forget the alarms and the lockdown. He needs to send a nuclear response team in here as soon as possible. We have to remove these rods from the grotto and dismantle this pool.”

  “Damn right he does,” Garibaldi said, dripping as he stood on the metal grid platform above the pool. “But if he could get here, then all our problems would have been solved from the beginning.”

  Van Dyckman looked at Adonia with bloodshot eyes, defeated. “So what now?”

  Adonia was surprised that he would even ask such a question. “We find a way to stay safe until the lockdown is over. No more disasters.”

  Van Dyckman shook his head. “The Senator’s dead. Shouldn’t we stay here until we’re rescued?”

  Sitting on the metal grid platform with her knees drawn up to her chest, Adonia pointed up at the ledge above and the turbulent, falling gas. “Can’t stay here, Stanley. The gas is still coming, and the system was designed to flood the entire grotto floor. We have to keep moving.”

  Even here, Adonia could smell the sickly sweet halothane and felt an even heavier dread in her heart. The edge of the pool was several feet from where the smoky waterfall flowed over the ledge, but wisps of the knockout gas tumbled down onto the surface of the water and started to spread out over the pool.

  “We’ll have to keep above it, or we’ll succumb,” Shawn said.

  “But we’re high enough here, and if the water is moderating the fuel rods, we’re reasonably protected from the radiation.” Van Dyckman wanted just to huddle in place and not move.

  “Some of the fallen rods are touching,” Garibaldi explained. “No telling how much radiation we’ve already received. We should get as far away as possible.”

  Adonia said, “The gas is building up, so we’ve got to find some way to stay above it while we wait out the lockdown.”

  Shawn stared at the huge crane in the middle of the cavern. Its boom extended far above the temporary pool and reached nearly to the rock ceiling. “We could get to the crane, lower the trestle, and lift ourselves up to the catwalk.”

  “Does anyone have experience operating a large crane?” Garibaldi said. “We know rocket science and nuclear physics, but this is heavy machinery.”

  A pall of silence dropped over the group. Adonia had depended on numerous technical experts to run operations at Granite Bay, from radiation workers to health and safety professionals, and she’d always made an effort to understand the basics of their jobs. But running the large Manitowoc crane? She had taken the blue-collar construction jobs for granted, not thinking about the skills of crane operators who were just as important to the success of her nuclear site. She doubted anyone in the review team had that basic expertise.

  She turned hopefully to Shawn, but he shook his head. “I can figure out the controls of any kind of aircraft, but running a big crane is out of my wheelhouse. One mistake, and I could send the boom crashing into a catwalk, and then who knows what debris would tumble into the pools.”

  “We’ve had enough disasters for one day,” Victoria said.

  Garibaldi stood on the narrow platform that ringed the pool. “Let’s run through the options, then, shall we? We have to get far from this pool, but we can’t stay on the cavern floor for long, because the gas is building up. Even though we can’t operate the crane, we can climb up the boom, hand over hand, and get ourselves high above the floor, and wait out the lockdown.”

  Adonia peered up to the cavern ceiling high overhead where the air ducts converged. “Worst case, if the gas doesn’t stop rising, we could always climb through those air shafts, where the catwalks intersect. They must vent the crane’s diesel fumes outside.”

  Victoria said slowly, “That would be one way out of Hydra Mountain, but it seems awfully risky.”

  Van Dyckman pointed well past the crane to the far wall of the grotto. “Even at a walk, we can still move faster than the gas, but the cavern floor is a dead end. What about those vaults? Harris kept saying how safe Mrs. Garcia is in her chamber in the upper level. Why can’t we hide out in one of those? They’re old relics.”

  Adonia looked to the ro
w of large metal doors embedded in the distant granite wall. “We could shelter in place, like we should have done in the guard portal.”

  As a pilot, Shawn had the best eyesight of all of them. “They do look like the sealed storage vaults in the upper level. Dr. van Dyckman’s right. Typical vaults are airtight and have their own environmental controls with constantly monitored conditions.”

  Adonia nodded. “It would be a lot safer than climbing up the crane’s boom. But how would we even get inside the vault?”

  Van Dyckman had a smug smile on his face. “With my override code. I control the Mountain, remember. I can use it one time. We’ll hide out until the danger’s passed.”

  Looking like a bedraggled cat, Victoria gaped at the group in disbelief. “You’re all insane! We need to move higher, get above the gas, not lock ourselves in some chamber. You don’t even know what’s in there.”

  “Hiding there is a hell of a lot easier than climbing up an airshaft,” van Dyckman said. “Even if it means being confined in a chamber with you.”

  Catching a whiff of the sweet-smelling gas wafting over the pool, Adonia made up her mind. “If Stanley’s override code can get us inside there, we’ll hole up.”

  From the narrow platform, Shawn looked down to the concrete floor more than twenty feet below. “There’s a set of portable stairs over by that pile of construction material. I’ll climb down and push the stairs here so everyone can get down.”

  But the curling strands of gas were pooling higher on the cavern floor, and Adonia knew they wouldn’t have much time to cross the quarter mile to the far wall. “That’ll take too long, Shawn. We can shimmy down these metal struts and get moving. Go ahead, lead the way.” Though she was still sickened by the Senator’s death, she realized the big man would not have been able to make the climb, which would have forced them into another ordeal to save him. “Once we reach the floor, we’ll have to run to stay ahead of the halothane.”

  Shawn walked gingerly along the narrow metal mesh to where one of the metal cross pipes intersected with the base of the platform. Swinging his legs over the side, he found a footing and lowered himself. Besides being in the best physical shape of anyone in the group, Shawn had done enough rock climbing that he could show them the way.

  Holding the metal edge, he lowered his body and extended his leg until he found a foothold on a crossbar. Before he dropped out of sight, he looked up at the rest of them. “Everyone, get on your butts so we can do this quickly. Slide over. There are plenty of footholds.”

  He clambered down the metal scaffolding and quickly reached the floor, where he looked in dismay at the yellow smoke that had begun to swirl around his feet. “Hurry up. The gas is still faint, but it’s building. We’ve got to move.”

  30

  Once they all climbed down the side of the pool to the floor, the five surviving team members appeared shaken. Sodden, Adonia breathed hard, exhausted from swimming and struggling in the water. But she couldn’t rest, not now.

  “When will the lockdown be over?” van Dyckman asked. He sounded lost. “How much more time do we have to wait?”

  “Whenever the system is finished rebooting,” Adonia said, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “Probably several more hours. We have to wait it out.”

  “At least Pulaski’s done causing us problems,” Victoria grumbled. Still shaken by the Senator’s death, Adonia was shocked by her glib comment.

  Shawn was more businesslike as he got them moving. “We’d know for sure if we had some way to contact Rob Harris. Maybe there’s another intercom down in the lower level.”

  “Or even a working hardline phone,” Garibaldi said.

  “No landlines,” Victoria said. “Only intercoms—they were scared telephone lines might mistakenly be connected to the outside, and then they could be tapped. This was built in the fifties, remember?”

  Adonia rallied the people to move. The expansive floor of the cavern seemed to go on forever. “Let’s make our way to those vaults. Come on, the smell is getting stronger.”

  Holding her breath against the drifting tendrils of gas, Victoria paused next to a pile of leftover construction material. She rubbed a thick slab of black carbon fiber reinforced plastic between her fingers. When she glanced up, Adonia saw that the Undersecretary seemed more frightened than at any other point since the first lockdown. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

  Without a word, the Undersecretary straightened primly and hurried to join the rest of the group. Because of her petite size, Victoria would probably be the first one affected by the gas. “None of us is all right, Ms. Rojas. And it’s still a mistake to go to those vaults.”

  Staying ahead of the creeping gas, they hurried across the open floor toward the holes still under excavation, then past the looming crane. In the crane cab high above the monstrous treads, the door to the operator’s console was open, even though the work crew would not be in for their shift until Monday.

  Tracer smoke swirled across the floor like a poisonous mist. Even though they made good time, Adonia smelled the sweet scent that followed them. In the far corner, bags of cement, bundles of metal rebar, and piles of steel beams to support the large pools were stacked high. Shovels and brooms rested against the wall near a parked yellow forklift.

  Adonia winced as her bare foot stepped on a chunk of concrete debris among the mess strewn around the construction area. She watched her step more carefully, afraid she would step on a nail or cut her foot on broken cement as they reached the uncompleted in-ground pools. She already had enough problems.

  Seeing the empty holes dug in the floor and the rebar set in the wooden frames, Garibaldi remarked, “These pools are months away from being finished, Stanley! If you keep receiving shipments, your plastic tank will be at capacity long before the in-ground ones are completed and ready. It’s mostly at capacity right now!”

  Van Dyckman’s expression soured. “Construction delays and red tape. Not my fault. The contractor has been fined for not meeting the schedule. What else do you want me to do?”

  Adonia thought his comment was absurd. “What else do we want you to do? Stop bringing in more radioactive rods until you have a safe, permanent place to store them!”

  “After we get out of this place, I will personally ensure that no water or rods are stored down here,” Victoria said. “Ever.”

  Adonia knew that after all the disasters they had encountered today, especially the death of a powerful senator, Valiant Locksmith would surely be put on hold, if not shut down. Undersecretary Doyle might even have enough clout to ensure that Hydra Mountain never stored any more radioactive waste. There would be classified reviews, programmatic shutdowns, and intensive investigations. It would go on forever. When called on the carpet, van Dyckman would vehemently insist that he was only doing what he was ordered to do. He would argue that the problems could be fixed—but Pulaski’s death could never be covered up.

  Which meant the real problem would remain unsolved. Because of van Dyckman’s cutting corners and missteps, this relatively viable solution for storing nuclear waste would probably be shelved. And there would be no hope in sight.

  Van Dyckman had already shipped large amounts of waste into the Mountain. The plastic-walled cooling pool was an unwise idea on basic principles, and if the concrete pools remained unfinished, what would happen to the submerged fuel rods already in their support structure? Pulaski had dislodged and possibly damaged several of them in his frantic struggles. If the above-ground pool sprang a leak, the cavern floor would be flooded with a few million gallons of water, and the standing fuel rods would be exposed to the air and release radiation throughout the facility.

  The Fukushima Daiichi reactor cores in Japan had been in a similar situation. When the devastating tsunami damaged the containment and allowed the coolant to drain away, the rods in the reactor core melted, with disastrous consequences. Although the spent fuel rods in Stanley’s temporary pool weren’t nearly as enriched or as
closely packed as the active Fukushima reactor cores had been, that catastrophe had shut down every nuclear facility in Japan.…

  Victoria spoke through clenched teeth as they hurried to the far vaults. “I will demand that all rods are moved out of here immediately, back to their original site—every one of them, even the rods in the concrete pools. It’s not safe to store them down here. The stray radiation … the consequences!”

  “I’m inclined to agree,” Adonia said. “Whenever we can reestablish communication, we’ll inform not only Rob Harris of the situation but also the DOE Secretary.”

  “What?” Victoria stopped. The team formed an uneasy semicircle around her. “You don’t think Secretary Nitta knows about this already? She approved the SAP, so she has to know about the fuel rods. Right, Stanley?” Victoria glared, but van Dyckman only reddened.

  Victoria pulled up. “Wait, you … didn’t tell her about the fuel rods and the cooling pools down here?” She looked around. “Does anyone else know?”

  “I’m not sure about the President,” Shawn said.

  “You were there at the meeting, Colonel!” van Dyckman snapped. “Of course he knows!”

  “Not about these pools!”

  Van Dyckman looked around the group, but no one offered support. He took a few quick breaths. “Okay … I didn’t tell him every detail. Would you want to tell him to be patient, take it slow?”

  Still wet from the pool, Victoria looked even more shaken. “You’re all missing the point! The Department of Energy isn’t the only agency using the Mountain. We have to get the rods out, the pools drained. Immediately!”

  Adonia urged them to keep moving toward the vaults in the back. “I’ll back you up in our report, ma’am. But if these cooling pools have been here for months, no outside facility is going to accept the spent fuel back into their holding areas. If you pull them out of the Mountain, where will they go?”

  Van Dyckman strode off ahead, and Victoria bustled after him. “I may not have been inside the Mountain in over two years, Stanley, but I didn’t expect such an idiotic change. Long-term, stable programs tend to remain safe, so there was no need for me to babysit every month. But your grandiose program screwed up everything.”