After the Rain

by Chuck Logan

  Nina listened, numb. Leaving dread plus one…

  “Dale comes back, confirms the machine is in position, we drive off thirty, forty miles, and then I make a phone call. You got any idea what’s going to happen when a ton of Semtex hits that spent-fuel-pool wall from a range of about six feet?”

  Nina strained against the cords in a spasm of inarticulate fury. So that’s why they’re so wired into the weather reports. The wind direction. They have to get upwind of the explosion.

  George waited for her tantrum to pass, then he smiled. “The people who built these plants are a little shortsighted. They never figured out what to do with all those fuel rods. So they just cram them into these pools. Dumb shits. Prairie Island’s got four, five feet of cinder-block wall. We got a ton of military-grade explosives. No contest.”

  Spent, sweaty, filthy, with Ace Shuster’s dry, caked blood on her chest, Nina could only stare at him.

  George narrowed his eyes and tossed his hands in the air. “Boom. The pool ceases to exist. No more water. The zirconium cladding on the fuel assemblies—about fourteen hundred of them—reacts exothermically. That means they catch fire at about a thousand degrees Celius.”

  George scratched his chin thoughtfully and pointed at her. “Even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission admits that that kinda fire can’t be put out. It would burn for days. We’re talking massive radiation exposures.”

  George stood up, clenched his cigar between his teeth, and said, “So the short answer to what happens is—some people will die fast. On the Arabian Peninsula, we’ll watch a whole lot more of you die slowly on Al-Jazeera. Parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa will be uninhabitable for the next three hundred years. Impressive, no?”

  Then he reached down into the passenger seat again. His hand came up holding one of those damn Epipens. And a roll of duct tape. “Time for your medicine, Nina,” he said.

  She twisted away but he jabbed at her thigh. She caught a break because George wasn’t adept with the pen. Part of the dose dribbled on her skin. Then he tore off a gob of the tape, striped it across her mouth, and said softly, “Sweet dreams.”

  Nina listened to George leave the camper, then she reared against her restraints, calculating how long she had before the drug took effect. She counted seconds, made it past fifty before the leading edge of the fluffy narcotic cloud bumbled into her blood.

  Still, she kept straining. The bedstead jumped on the carpet. Once, twice. A clatter of wood on her right side caught her attention. Weaker now. Drifting. But she had to focus.

  Sonofabitch! The dummies, they had too much faith in the drug. She fought for concentration. Okay. When you strain up off the bed, the motion you feel is the sideboard riding up. No shit. She visualized the bed’s construction, the way the pieces fit together. If you can get your weight up off the bed and rip upward with your bound right hand while you’re in the air, maybe you can yank the sideboard tongue out of the slot in the headboard. Then…

  She blinked sweat, bubbles now. Streaming. Part of her started to float away. The rest of her was turning to cool, dreamy lead. Fight. Think…Woozy, she stared at the inane appliances in the room: the VCR, the camera, the tripod…This is not how I intend to die—the drugged plaything for these creeps.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Who was it said everybody should get fifteen minutes of fame? Dale couldn’t remember. But then he wasn’t saying it, now, was he?

  He was no-shit living it.

  THE PRAIRIE ISLAND MDEWAKANTON DAKOTA COMMUNITY WELCOMES YOU, said the sign. Some dirty-faced Indian kid pointed a plastic water cannon at him as he drove down a street lined with distressed rez housing. Dale gave the kid the finger. Ain’t you a lucky little shit! Got the Treasure Island Casino across the street like a gaudy pink pile of melanoma; got high-tension wires for a sky; and the Great White Father gave you a mountain of nuclear waste for a backyard.

  His heart started to bang in his chest like a trip hammer when the twin gray domes of the nuclear plant appeared over the treetops. It was located on the river, about half a mile off the road, behind a chain-link fence. Barbed wire on the top. Dale eased the Lexus fifty yards from the nearest car in the visitors parking lot. Parked, got out. Just like George said, act natural.

  Two lanes of traffic, one entering, one leaving, motored slowly by a small white guard station. Two guards in brown Wackenhut uniforms monitored the traffic. They wore black Sam Brown belts, sidearms, and one of them had an assault rifle on his shoulder. The other had a mirror on a long pole and was inspecting the underside of an incoming car.

  Dale walked up and was challenged by one of the guards. He called back, “Dale Shuster. I have an appointment to meet Irv Fuller at the gate. I’m suppose to be on some list.”

  “Fuller, the head construction guy?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “We got another construction guy,” the guard with the mirror yelled to the one with the rifle.

  “I sold him some machines for the job. There’s a problem with one of them, so I’m here to take a look. Might have to replace it. Which won’t be cheap,” Dale said.

  The other guard nodded. “My sympathies. Just make sure the badge don’t leave his person. If you don’t watch them, these guys pass them back and forth going out on breaks.”

  The guard with the shouldered rifle waved to his partner, then motioned for Dale to remove the items from his pockets. Dale took out his keys, some change, and put them in a plastic basket and had a metal detector passed over him. Then the guard spoke into his mobile radio.

  This was the touchy part. He assumed that plant security did their background checks early this morning when he gave his Social Security number to Irv. But what if the Cavalier County Sheriff’s office posted a missing-persons bulletin on him? Would this security system monitor such reports after the initial check? Dale and George were betting they would not.

  They bet right. After talking for a minute, the guard checked his clipboard, then asked Dale for ID. Dale handed over his driver’s license and his Social Security card. The guard consulted his clipboard again, removed a numbered clip-on badge, and gave it, along with the ID, back to Dale. Dale breathed a little easier. He’d been preapproved. Then the guard waved Dale beside the guard shack, into the shade, and said, “Put on the badge and wait here, sir. Mr. Fuller will be out in a minute.”

  Dale waited, gazing up into the late-afternoon sun, which was starting to flame out across the Mississippi, setting up a gorgeous golden haze over Wisconsin.

  Five minutes later a blue Jeep Cherokee pulled up. It had a logo on the side: Holtz-Sydney Construction. A tall man in jeans, boots, and a blue denim designer work shirt got out. Irv Fuller in his styled salt-and-pepper hair looked sports-fan tanned and fleshy. Though not exactly porky, he did have a creeping double chin and the good-time rosettes of incipient gout pooling in his ample cheeks.

  “If it’s about the rest of the money…” Irv said, feigning an apology as he shook Dale’s hand.

  Dale laughed and waved the question aside with an aw-pshaw grimace. “Hey, no rush. I’m passing through the area anyway. Might as well take a look at that Deere.”

  Irv cocked his head to the side, grinned. “Just feels stiff, but, you know, it still moves dirt from here to there.”

  Dale jerked his thumb at the reactors. “Probably nothing. And I wanted to see all this in person, to tell Dad when I get down to Florida, about you and the machines you bought. He always said he’d never sell any big iron to a Fuller. But here we are.”

  Irv shrugged. “Hey, I needed to have those loaders listed on my inventory to get bonded for this job. Getting them so quick helped save my ass. What the hell. Let’s look at that machine. Then I can take a few minutes to show you around. How’s that?”

  “Great,” Dale said, following Irv toward the Jeep.

  “And I really appreciate the price you gave me,” Irv said as they got in and he started the truck. “I won’t forget it. You’ll be getting t
he balance I owe soon’s the next quarter starts.”

  “Hey, I trust you, Irv. Always have,” Dale said.

  “Well, okay. Here we go. So you never been in one of these things before?”

  Dale shook his head.

  “Twenty-five percent of the juice in the state comes from nuclear. These two here, and the other one up in Monticello,” Irv said as they drove down a narrow road toward a parking lot. Dale had to squint against the bright afternoon sunlight to make out the reactors. A wall of vapor drifted up to the right.

  “Pretty much like we learned in high school,” Irv said. “Uranium heats primary water in the core. The hot primary water is pumped through steam generators and the heat is transferred to secondary water that flashes into steam. Then the primary water goes back to the core for reheating. Big building on the left is the steam turbines. The smaller building between the reactors is the pool for the spent fuel rods.”

  “Uh-huh,” Dale said. George had made sure he knew the diagram of this puppy by heart.

  “Steam turns the turbines to make the electricity. Less than a third of the energy in the core gets used as electricity. The rest vents out in the air or goes in the river. Over on the right, where all the steam is kicking out—those are the cooling towers, four of them. Our job is to build a berm around the reactors, the turbines, and the cooling pool.”

  “What are they worried about? Some A-rab gonna crash a plane into it?” Dale said it as a joke.

  “Not funny,” Irv said, rolling his eyes, “Hell, the cooling-pool building is just a glorified pole barn on top. Got a corrugated tin roof. I been in there. Fuckin’ sparrows fly in and out. Nah, we’re putting up a barrier more to stop a truck-bomb threat. Like the barrier they got over behind those trees, around the storage casks.”

  “Uh-huh,” Dale said, nodding.

  They passed through the parking lot. Closer in now, in the shadow of the reactors. To Dale they rose against the sky like giant fat stunted silos. The domesticated cousins of the ICBM silo that had been in his dad’s field.

  Driving past the lot, they came to the actual construction site. Dale smiled. It was even better than he’d expected. The area to the right of the reactors was in the process of being cleared; several large Morton-style buildings were being dismantled, the top soil stripped off, and the whole site surrounded by a silt fence and another security fence. The big machines sat mostly idle, grazing in the dirt like a herd of huge yellow oxen. But Dale was focused on the tall, square, blue-and-gray structure between the reactors. That was the cooling-pool building. The target.

  Irv drove into the fenced site and they passed a broad ditch that had been started—maybe thirty feet wide, ten, twelve feet deep, thirty or so yards long. The dirt had been piled in a rough breast-work about eight feet high, parallel to the ditch, and about a hundred yards from the reactors. Dale could see water still standing in the bottom of the trench.

  “What’s this?” Dale asked.

  “That’s the job. The beginning of the barrier.”

  “Looks kinda muddy,” Dale said.

  “Yeah. We had to pull out the heavy stuff.” He parked next to a construction trailer and they got out.

  “We started that excavation before the rain hit. Probably won’t get back in full swing till next week. Plan calls for a moat. Use the dirt to throw up the berm. That way we don’t have to haul it in by truck. Security is such a drag—drivers coming in and out. The more we can do strictly on site, the better.”

  “What goes on top of the berm?” Dale asked, to keep the conversation going.

  “Big rocks, spaced so a truck can’t fit through.”

  They were walking in among the machines now: excavators, compactors, dozers, fuel and water trucks, belly loaders, graders, shovels, off-road dump trucks. Half the big iron was still on trailers. He felt a rush of relief when he saw his loaders sitting on dry ground, parked next to a big D-8 Cat dozer. He spotted the one he wanted, with the black X painted on the corner of the cab door.

  Not very original. But functional.

  “There’s the machines I sold you,” Dale said.

  “Yep. The stiff one’s got the X on the door.”

  “Yeah, okay. The fuckin’ Canadians, they probably overinflated the tires. Let me drive her around a little. See how she runs…house call, no charge.” Nothing but cool.

  “Okay, check it out.” Irv smiled when he said it, but he also checked his wristwatch. “Just don’t go near that plowed-up strip by the trench and get stuck.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll stay right over there”—he pointed to the shadowed area between the pool structure and a utility building—“where it’s shady.” Dale walked toward the loader, detouring to go right up to one of the reactor containment walls. He extended his hand, placed his palm on the smooth gray concrete, shut his eyes, and felt the brooding fire waiting within.

  Waiting for him, like it had been all his life.

  The moment passed. He went over to the front-loader, pulled himself up to the cab, opened the door, sat down, and turned the key. The engine belched black smoke, caught, and ran just fine. He raised the bucket, lowered it, and then drove in a semicircle. Then he backed up to the cooling-pool building wall and stopped so there was about four feet between the wall and the rear counterweights.

  Okay.

  The wheels felt a little hard but the machine operated normally, just as he’d predicted.

  He killed the engine, leaned down, and reached under the seat. The Klein standard NE-type side cutting pliers were still there, exactly where he’d left them. He’d taped another pair under the radiator, just in case. He tucked the cutters in his waistband, under his shirt, swung down from the cab. Then he did a casual walk-around, rubbed the counterweights for good luck—genie in a bottle. When he had the machine between himself and Irv, and was deep in the shadow of the tall pool building, he took out the cutters, leaned into the motor assembly, and quickly cut the battery wires and the fuel line. Then he jammed the cutters up behind the engine, out of sight.

  He came around, completing his circuit, and kicked one of the fat tires. He ran his eyes over the site. Not many men in today. The shift was closing down. Guys parking the machines, picking up their lunch coolers, and heading for the parking lot.

  Dale moved out around the motor, trailing his hand one last time over the sun-warmed chassis. He walked out and said to Irv, “Looks like she’s running just fine. Maybe she rides a little jerky. If it gets worse, let me know.”

  “It’s a deal.” They shook hands. “So now what?” Irv asked.

  Dale shrugged. “Going to take it easy, see some sights, drive down to Florida and see Mom and Dad. Then I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try something totally different.”

  “It’ll be a change,” Irv said. “I still feel hemmed in, not seeing the sky.”

  “Yeah, well, down in Florida I figure I can always get on a boat and go out into the ocean.”

  “That’d do it.”

  “Well, hey, I gotta hit the road. Thanks for letting me drop by. See what’s going on.”

  “No problem,” Irv said and walked him back to the Jeep. As they drove back to the security gate Irv accelerated to beat the trickle of cars that was starting to pull out of the parking lot. Irv pulled over and parked by the security shack. They got out and walked to the side of the shack.

  “You going to be here for a while?” Dale asked.

  “Yeah, I gotta talk to a couple of the managers. Gotta mark some underground cables and tunnels they’re concerned about. And they can’t find the right blueprints. You know how it goes.”

  Dale nodded. “Okay, ah, say hello to your new wife—ah…”

  “Sydney.”

  “That’s some name,” Dale said. He watched Irv carefully. He wanted to remember this moment. All during their visit, Irv had never once mentioned Ginny. The fact that she was reported missing.

  “Yeah, well…” Irv’s voice trailed off as he raked the toe of his Timberland bo
ot through the dust. His attention was already moving off Dale. Irv was cordial but smug. Dale was going out the gate without the balance owed on two front-loaders. The Fullers were sticking it to the Shusters again. “Say hello to your folks for me.”

  “I will.” Dale waved over his shoulder, then he handed his visitor’s badge over to a very tired-looking Wackenhut guard. The guard took the badge, checked something on his clipboard, and waved him through the gate. True, he reflected, Irv was sticking him for about twenty grand. Let him enjoy it, for about the next fifty, sixty minutes—which was all he had left.

  I, on the other hand, am about to earn a million bucks. More, actually, now that Joe’s gone.

  When Dale was out of earshot, Irv Fuller grinned and shook his head. “Good old Needle-Dick,” he said.

  Groggy but awake, Nina heard them celebrate when Dale returned. Jesus. It’s gonna happen.

  Dale hummed as he climbed back behind the wheel after a round of back-slapping and congratulations from George. They proceeded to argue amiably through the open driver’s-side door—how far to drive, where to stop. Then George ran back to his car. Dale started up the camper, wheeled onto the highway.

  The curtain was still open. Nina arched her neck, saw the dull, gray, rounded shapes loom above the trees, then disappear.

  “Dumb,” Dale said happily, “They did it to themselves. They could build a belt of windmills from the Canadian border down to west Texas. They could generate enough power to serve half the Midwest. But nooo…”

  He laughed and pounded the wheel. “You shoulda seen the look on Irv’s face. He thinks he beat me out of a few thousand bucks. Boy is he happy. Well, old Irv is in for a big surprise.” As he spoke he plucked a page from the high school yearbook off the dashboard, took a Sharpie from among the pill bottles piled on the dash, and blacked out the eyes on Irv’s high school picture. Then he came to a red light. He spun in the seat, jumped toward her, and yanked the tape from her mouth. Immediately, he jumped back in the seat, whipped around, and accelerated on the green.