Kill Zone

by Kevin J. Anderson

  So what if skipping that one small review just happened to be illegal? His program had already reduced the amount of waste inadequately stored across the country by over 15 percent!

  Now, without powerful Senator Pulaski flying high cover for him, he knew that his ass would be fried—by the President, the DOE Secretary, the Secretary of State, the SECDEF, the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee, the Justice Department, the FBI … hell, maybe even the American Humane Society.

  His career would be over, just like that.

  An influential senator was also dead, drowned in a cooling pool for radioactive waste—the tabloids would love that! And Valiant Locksmith was on the doorstep of another outrageous program of stockpiling undocumented nuclear devices. Oh, and by the way, a DOE Undersecretary was also dead.

  Only yesterday, he had been so confident that he would quickly and efficiently wrap up this high-level review. Senator Pulaski should have obtained the go-ahead to continue Valiant Locksmith. And when the program was complete and all the nation’s nuclear waste safely stored inside the Mountain, he himself would have been a shoo-in for the next Secretary of Energy.

  Now, he faced the real possibility of being indicted and serving time in Federal prison. His spirits sank as he crawled along. What could he do? How quickly would the hammer come down? Would he even have time to fly back to Washington, D.C., so he could start damage control, spin the narrative? There were a lot of bodies to explain away.

  He couldn’t do anything about it until he got out of here. As soon as he reached the ops center, he would demand that Harris send the Nuclear Emergency Support Team in to close up Victoria’s vault and shield the warheads from the increased background radiation in the grotto. Second priority would be to send divers in protective suits to rearrange the toppled fuel rods and restore the array.

  Maybe if he played his cards right, he could shift all the blame onto Victoria for her malicious carelessness. If given the chance, he would demand the immediate shutdown of Velvet Hammer. If that failed, Senator Pulaski would also make an excellent scapegoat. The Senator had indeed been the cause of this debacle, and everyone in the industry knew that despite his position, the man knew absolutely nothing about the programs he oversaw.

  Van Dyckman crawled past another storage tunnel intersection, where the overhead vent took a right turn. This ventilation duct wouldn’t connect with the main interior corridor—too much of a security risk. Even the DOE Health and Safety people wouldn’t be permitted to run a vent from the interior Special Access Program area out to the receiving space.

  But he had to get out of here somehow.

  Squirming forward, using his elbows and knees, he realized that the duct did end directly next to the operations center, which was still within the security envelope. Though his bloody hands ached and his elbows and knees were raw, he crawled forward with greater speed. He could see the light at the end of the tunnel—literally!

  He pressed his face against a metal screen that overlooked the operations center, far below. People stood together in clumps, pointing at their monitors, speaking animatedly, clearly on an emergency footing.

  At this height above the bustling floor, he couldn’t hear them, but maybe he could bang on the ventilation screen, dislodge it. The drop was much too far for him to fall, but a screen crashing down among the techs would certainly get their attention. Somebody would see him, rescue him.

  And then a second catapult of shit would hit the fan. What other choice did he have?

  Farther along the duct, though, he glimpsed a second mesh screen, another opening. He needed to look at his options before he did anything. Breathing hard and fast, he choked on a spray of disturbed dust. He scooted down the duct and peered through the second screen. This vent opened into Harris’s private Eagle’s Nest overlooking the ops center! The site manager was alone inside the office, deep in concentration as he pondered a screen, moving his finger to trace a detailed map of the tunnel complex.

  Van Dyckman was about to hammer on the duct and shout for help, but he caught himself, suddenly having reservations. How was he going to explain this to Harris? What story would he tell?

  A lie would be exposed quickly enough, and the site manager would certainly know, so it was best for van Dyckman to tell as much of the truth as possible. But the truth could be viewed through many different filters and alternative facts. He had to figure out what to say, how to perform damage control … whom to blame.

  With the exception of Rob Harris, they were the only ones who even knew about the potential deadly interaction of the two SAPs. Every other member of the review team was dead or unconscious. If van Dyckman could find a way to secure Victoria’s vault and protect the illicit devices, then he could order the warheads moved to an appropriate DoD location, quickly and without a fuss. From what he could tell, the State Department also had the incentive to take care of the problem cleanly, keep this as quiet as possible. Maybe van Dyckman could fix the mess and keep Valiant Locksmith alive.

  Because of the highly classified nature of both SAPs, these problems were designed to be kept in the dark, away from public scrutiny. So long as everyone cooperated.

  Rob Harris, “Regulation Rob,” was the only complicating piece left. The Hydra Mountain site manager knew about both SAPs, but had chosen not to reveal the hazard to anyone who could do something about it. The moron had tied himself up in so much red tape that he refused to tell the right hand what the left hand was doing. He had almost caused this terrible disaster!

  Harris had hand-picked the members of the inspection team to observe and to ask questions. Several of the people had seemed odd choices, so maybe Harris had set them up on purpose, hoping one of them would blow the whistle on a problem that he didn’t have the balls to reveal himself.

  The pieces began to fall into place for van Dyckman. Yes, Harris must have assembled this team so he could keep his hands clean and follow the damned rules. The site manager was playing a clumsy game of political checkers in a world of complex chess.

  Van Dyckman knew that he had to form the narrative. Harris didn’t have the political savvy to wiggle out of this. Van Dyckman counted on that. He needed to make the man keep his mouth shut.

  He realized how he could blame the disaster on Harris. The site manager’s poor, unqualified choices for the review team were at the root of the problem. And then Harris had conveniently separated himself from the others just before the alarms went off.

  No, that would not look good for Regulation Rob at all.

  Van Dyckman just needed to get through the next few hours. It was his best-case scenario. If Adonia, Whalen, and Garibaldi were indeed dead, along with Victoria and the Senator, then he could easily concoct a cover story that used Harris as a scapegoat, and the man would be prevented from talking for security reasons. Rob Harris would never again see the light of day after being buried deep in a Federal prison.

  39

  Still holding her smashed nose, Adonia watched Garibaldi shimmy down the rope. He slipped, trying to keep his grip, then finally, halfway down, he let go and dropped like a stone the remaining twenty feet to the pool. The water level had dropped noticeably, leaving less than six feet of water above the tall radioactive rods.

  For an agonizing moment as she clung to the boom high above, Adonia thought he was going to hit one of the upright rods as he fell in the pool. Garibaldi struck feetfirst, his toes pointed down, and a geyser of water shot up as he plunged deep. Adonia wiped dripping blood from her face as she struggled to see.

  A few seconds later, Garibaldi splashed back to the surface and began stroking over to where the toppled rods had fallen against the fiber-reinforced plastic wall. Water still sprayed from the breach, but at least the shock wave from his impact hadn’t made the damage worse.

  Shawn swung down the boom and climbed next to her. He was angry and worried. “What the hell does he think he’s doing?” He reached out to touch her throbbing face, and his fingers came away wet w
ith red. “He hit you!”

  “I wasn’t going to let him go.” Pinching her smashed nose, she looked down as blood dripped onto her fingers and then fell into the open air. “He took me by surprise, made sure I wouldn’t be able to stop him.” Her voice sounded strange in her ears.

  “He’s down there now. It is what it is.” Shawn watched Garibaldi swim into position. “Now we’ve got to help him raise the rod.” He started pulling down on the rope to give them enough slack to serve as a counterweight. “I can’t say I’m not glad that it wasn’t you.”

  She sniffled, coughed blood. “He told us to head up the ventilation shaft. If we can alert Rob Harris, we could really help the nuclear response team take care of this before it gets worse.”

  “We can’t leave Garibaldi here, no matter what he says. He still needs our help.” Shawn looped the slack around a horizontal strut to serve as a pulley and handed a portion of the rope to Adonia. “Pull down when he’s ready—I’ll get below you and help.”

  Down in the pool, Garibaldi swam to the other end of the rope. Adonia leaned over and called down, “Take the rope and loop it around the fuel rod. Let us know when it’s secure and we’ll lever it up.”

  He gave a brisk nod, grabbed the end of the line, and plunged underwater. Adonia’s heart felt heavy, knowing what the scientist was doing to himself as he stroked down to the highly radioactive rods. But she also knew what was at stake; they all did.

  Focusing on the task at hand, she and Shawn positioned themselves on the sturdy boom, getting ready to use their body weight to pull their end of the line and haul up the end of the rod. She was just below the horizontal strut they would use as a pulley; Shawn was two struts below her.

  Garibaldi’s wavering form went deeper, pulling the rope with him as he worked his way down to the fallen fuel rod that trapped the body. He seemed to be struggling.

  Adonia felt a lump in her throat. She knew how hard it was to dive that deep, even for a championship swimmer like herself, especially holding a rope in one hand.

  “He thought it would be easy,” she said, looking down at Shawn. “The rods are about twenty feet down, and that would be a challenge under normal circumstances.” By now, she knew his lungs must be ready to explode as he ran out of air.

  “I should have been the one to do it, Shawn.” If Garibaldi failed, she would have to jump down to save him anyway, and then both of them would receive a lethal exposure. She felt sick at the thought.

  Bubbles rose from the ripples where Garibaldi had submerged. She and Shawn could still see him working among the fallen rods. He would be looping the end of the rope around the top of the fuel rod, near Pulaski’s trapped body. The temperature would be much warmer in the pool now, and Garibaldi would severely burn his hands just by handling the long radioactive cylinder. He wouldn’t even see the flood of neutrons pouring through his body.

  He seemed to stay down forever.

  Finally, Garibaldi stroked upward, moving urgently, and burst to the surface again, gasping and coughing. Treading water, he finally called up at them. “Go ahead … pull it up! I’ll go back down and free the body.” He heaved deep breaths, getting ready to dive again.

  Two struts below, Shawn tugged on the rope looped around the horizontal strut above her, taking in the excess slack until it was taut. He looked up at Adonia. “On your count, pull down on the rope as hard as you can. With the two of us throwing our weight into it, we should be able to raise the end of the rod enough for Garibaldi to pull the body free.” He hesitated. “How’s your nose?”

  She wiped her face, but by now the bleeding had slowed. “Still hurts. Let’s do this.”

  Grasping the rope with both hands, Shawn leaned back at an angle on the lattice boom, using the rope for balance. Adonia wrapped a leg around one of the diagonal struts, also bracing herself. She called down to Garibaldi. “Ready!”

  The older scientist gulped one more deep breath and dove. He stroked down, heading toward the bottom. Just before he reached the Senator’s body, she shouted to Shawn, “Pull!” They both threw their weight onto the rope, helping Garibaldi. As she exerted herself, blood dripped from her nose again, and she felt dizzy.

  The rope barely moved.

  “Again!”

  The rope moved a few inches.

  Hand over hand, Adonia and Shawn pulled down, serving as a counterweight for the heavy fallen rod. She wished she had gloves for a better grip on the line.

  They had pulled no more than a foot when Shawn spoke in a strained voice: “Hold it there—that might be enough.”

  Throwing their weight against the rope, they watched Garibaldi’s uncertain form struggle to free the dead man from the fallen rod, finally dragging the figure loose. Pulling his burden, he swam, kicking toward the lower wall of the pool.

  The Senator’s drowned body would be close to neutral buoyancy, easily maneuverable. Once Garibaldi positioned the corpse to cover the breach in the inside wall, the force of the water pressure would hold the plug firmly in place.

  Holding her breath, Adonia watched the gushing water from the breach in the wall slow to a trickle, then stop. “He plugged the leak!” she said.

  “There’s that at least,” Shawn said. “The water level will stay stable for now.”

  Seconds later, Garibaldi’s head broke the surface, his gray-white hair plastered to his skull. He gasped for breath. “Got to get the rope free.” Without waiting for a response, he dove back down.

  “Give the rope some slack so he can untie the knot,” Shawn said.

  They slowly loosened the line, letting the fuel rod settle back against the adjacent rod. Garibaldi didn’t stay down long, and soon popped back to the surface, gasping and exhausted.

  Adonia knew that with the halothane still thick on the floor of the cavern, the scientist could never climb down the side of the pool and make his way back to the crane and climb up again. “We’ll have to haul him up with the rope,” she said.

  Utterly weary, Garibaldi grabbed the rope still dangling from the crane boom high above. After Adonia shouted instructions, he tied the end in a loop around his chest and waved up. His voice was rough and weak. “You don’t expect me to spend the rest of the day in this hot tub, do you?”

  With her hands sore and her nose still bleeding, she didn’t know how they would pull up two hundred pounds of dead weight, but it was obvious he would never be able to scale the rope himself.

  “He weighs a lot less than a fuel rod,” Shawn said, and again positioned himself below her, determined to try. “Again, if we pull together, we’ll haul him up, one foot at a time. Piece of cake.” He gave her a wan smile. “Just don’t let go of the rope.”

  “Right. Let’s do it.” Adonia adjusted herself for stability on the struts. “Ready, ready, now.” She yanked down as hard as she could.

  She felt the rope move, this time much more than when they were pulling up the rod. Shawn had used his legs to push back, raising Garibaldi up a few feet with a lurch, then readied himself for another short gain.

  She gritted her teeth and they pulled again—two feet, and then another two feet. He rose out of the water, swaying above the pool. Adonia disengaged her thoughts, trying not to think of how long it would take. They methodically heaved the rope and moved the dangling man closer to the crane, foot by foot. Garibaldi just hung there, and water dripped from his clothes back into the pool like widely spaced raindrops.

  “When he gets closer, I’ll reach out and bring him in if you can secure the line.”

  “Copy.”

  After an eternity, they pulled the older scientist high above the pool, almost to their height, but with the angle of the boom, he slowly twisted on the rope a few yards away. “A little more!” Adonia said. “He’s just about here.”

  Garibaldi reached out to grab the metal lattice, but missed. His jerky movement made him swing and spin as he dangled, and the rope slipped.

  “Hold it! Hold!” Adonia braced herself hard as the dead weight
slammed against the framework.

  Shawn grunted as he stabilized Garibaldi high above the water. “Stop moving! Let us pull you in.”

  “Just trying to help!”

  “You’ve done more than enough to save us all.” Adonia still felt the heavy weight of guilt as she tugged on the rope again. Though Garibaldi wouldn’t feel any internal effects of the radiation yet, he must know that he had suffered a fatal exposure. Finally, he swung close enough that she could reach out to grab his outstretched hand as Shawn secured the line around the metal lattice.

  Garibaldi’s skin was wet and clammy, but his grip was firm. He clasped her wrist, and she swung him in. His hands were already an angry red, severely burned. His feet hit the boom, and he pulled himself onto a strut. When he was balanced again, he wrapped his arms around the lattice and shuddered.

  Adonia broke the tense, awkward silence. “Saying thanks doesn’t come close to acknowledging what you just did. The nation owes you a debt of gratitude, even if they never find out what happened.”

  Garibaldi glanced at her, embarrassed. “Sorry about hitting you in the nose. I couldn’t think of any other way to convince you.”

  “You didn’t convince me anyway.” She touched her face, felt the sticky blood there. “I’ll get over it.”

  Shawn was quiet for a moment before he asked, “How long were you in direct contact with the rod? How much—”

  Garibaldi looked at his red and blistered hands. “Don’t dance around it, Colonel. I received a lethal dose, probably many times over. I could see some of the cladding had been scraped off as well.”

  “I’m sorry,” Adonia said in a soft voice.

  Garibaldi lifted his chin. “Don’t get maudlin. Now, we need to climb out of here, find some way to communicate with Harris. I don’t know how much time is left on the lockdown, or how long the emergency team will take to get in here, or even how long the Senator’s body will plug that leak. Remember that even though I sealed the breach temporarily, there are plenty of stray neutrons that could hit one of Victoria’s warhead cores and trigger a reaction.”