by Wil Mara
To All Employees—
This is Marla Hollis, reporter for our local paper. She has my permission to chronicle today’s tragic events in whatever manner she sees fit and is to be given full access to all areas of our facility. She is not to be restrained in any way and anyone who attempts to do so will be subject to disciplinary action.
If you have any questions, contact me immediately.
Andrew M. Corwin
Salt-and-pepper mustache opened his mouth to lodge some kind of protest—Marla knew the wounded-pride look all too well—so she spoke again before he had the chance.
“You’ll notice this is written on Corwin’s personal stationery,” she said, tapping the letterhead, “and I’m sure you recognize his handwriting. But if you still have any doubts, you’re welcome to call him right now. I’ll wait.”
He looked at her murderously, glanced at the note once more, then stalked off. She didn’t catch every word he mumbled as he went, but the few that she heard were unrepeatable in polite company. Under other circumstances, she might have been amused. Instead, she refolded the note and put it away, then sat down on the steps and wrote another blog entry:
I have now been stopped by a ninth person telling me I’m not allowed to take pictures, and once again the note from Corwin saved the day. The photo I was taking at the time is attached here. The shape in the image appears to be a giant chunk of the damaged reactor.
She sent the post into cyberspace, then ran up to the top floor—the twelfth—and pulled back the reinforced steel door, revealing a narrow corridor, dimly lit by caged bulbs. Pipes ran along the ceiling, but there were no signs of any kind, not even the WARNING or DANGER cards that seemed to be posted everywhere else in the facility. A buzzy, high-pitched hum came from all around.
Taking a quick photo, Marla entered the hallway. She passed several doors labeled in black press-on letters—ELECTRICAL and CUSTODIAL and, in one case, the cryptic AG-144E. Although curiosity danced along every track of her nervous system—a curiosity that, she believed, was programmed into every decent journalist’s DNA—she didn’t bother with any of them, as the probability of finding something worthwhile seemed low. When she reached the door at the other end, she opened it without hesitation.
The shriek that came from her immediately thereafter echoed symphonically throughout the corridor.
* * *
The security guard facing her had to be at least six-five or six-six. His monstrously large arms hung from a massive torso, his short-sleeved shirt straining to contain biceps that bulged like balloons. His mouth was disproportionately tiny, as if it hadn’t grown with the rest of him. Bright green eyes bore malevolently into Marla’s while a muscle in his cheekbone twitched—his only visible movement.
His polyester guard’s uniform, navy blue below and sky blue on top, was flawlessly pressed, the matching navy cap affixed in perfect symmetry. But it was the weapon that held Marla’s gaze—a nine-millimeter short in a nylon holster. The strap was Velcroed in place, but that didn’t provide much comfort since the man’s hand, which was large enough to palm a dinner plate, hung next to it.
The name tag above his shirt pocket read T. ELLERTON, and she found a tiny measure of reassurance in that he wasn’t trying to hide his identity. It could just be a pseudonym, her petrified mind pointed out.
“Excuse me, please,” she said, taking a small step forward, hoping he would give way. “I need to—”
He blocked her path. “Ms. Hollis, would you please come with me?”
Like the tiny mouth that spoke these words, the voice didn’t seem to match its owner. A little high, it was soft and gentle.
“I’m sorry?”
“Would you please follow me?”
Marla’s hand plunged into her pants pocket.
“Here, look at this. Just look.” She unfolded Corwin’s note. The guard didn’t even glance at it. “Nine other people have tried to stop me today,” she went on. “Nine. And I’ve told them all to go blow. Now I’m telling you. You cannot—”
“Ma’am, please.”
“Who are you, anyway? Part of some secret police they’ve got around here?”
“My name is Ted Ellerton.”
Taking two steps back, Marla put the note away and pulled out her phone. “Okay, Ted Ellerton, mind if I take a picture of you and write an entry in my blog about how you’re refusing to let me do my job? Maybe we can call Corwin and mention it to him, too.”
Ellerton’s superhero-sized hand came up to block the camera.
“Don’t, please,” he said.
“Oh? And why not?”
“Just don’t.”
As she lowered the phone, he took it from her with a gentleness that was surprising from someone so large. It reminded Marla of the way she used to remove books from her grandmother’s hands after the woman had fallen asleep in her easy chair.
“I want that back now!”
“Ms. Hollis.…”
“There are millions of people waiting for my next blog entry. If I don’t post one, they’ll know something’s up. I’ve already prepped them for that possibility.”
“You were looking into the NRC audit from 2012,” Ellerton said, raising his voice a bit. “Is that correct?”
Marla’s mouth snapped shut, then dropped open again.
“What did you say?”
“The NRC audit from 2012. You thought there was something suspicious and you were going to write about it in one of your columns but had to let it go because you couldn’t dig up enough verifiable information.”
“How do you know that?”
Ellerton looked at her phone, comically toylike between his giant fingers, then back at her face.
“Just please follow me.…”
He turned and walked away, through the open doorway and down a flight of steel-grated steps.
When he was almost out of view, she started after him.
* * *
Ellerton led Marla through a section of the plant she’d never seen before and did not recognize from any of the floor plans she’d studied. It was yet another warehouse-sized space used mostly for storage, judging by the varied containers, the passive lighting, and the lack of live machinery. When they reached the bottom of the stairs—Marla realized they were back at ground level—Ellerton took her to a recessed, unmarked door. He had to use two keys from a ring of dozens, plus a magnetic card, in order to open it.
Beyond were another set of steps that terminated in an unpainted concrete passageway with numerous breaker boxes mounted on the left side. The laser-printer smell that had been lingering through the air since the explosion was completely absent here; Marla only detected the scents of dust and dryness and the suspension of time. The distant buzzing that was previously omnipresent had also vanished, creating a powerful feeling of isolation and detachment. It was as if the carnage outside was now galaxies away. This feeling was further compounded when she noticed that the tiny security cameras, perched high along the wall in regular intervals, had all been turned off. Her heart began pounding as a squirming unease coiled inside.
The hallway ended in a large open area lit by low-wattage fluorescents that cast a subtle, nightclub glow over what looked like another storage space. Marla moved reluctantly into the dimly lit room. Unless the guy was the worst shot in the world, he could bring her down easily enough if she tried to run. She looked around, trying to spot something she could use as a bludgeon—a length of pipe, a large wrench or hammer—but there was nothing.
Ellerton stopped outside a chain-link cage and pulled out a jingling key ring. The tin sign next to the door said CLEANING SUPPLIES and the plastic shelves inside held bottles of bleach, neatly folded towels, boxes of detergent, and spray bottles containing liquids of various colors. A rolling mop bucket, the mop leaning against the wall next to it, sat in one corner.
Opening the chain-link door, Ellerton stepped in and gestured for Marla to join him.
He’s going to kill me with his bar
e hands and leave my body down here, she thought, freezing in her tracks. Somehow she was able to keep her voice even when she said, “I want to know what this is about.”
“For God’s sake, Ms. Hollis, please come in here so I can show you what this is about.”
With her heart pounding, Marla stepped into the tiny space, feeling crowded by Ellerton, especially when he reached past her to close the door. She sucked in a quick breath, but he did not touch her. Then he turned his attention to a support pole for one of the sets of shelving.
Wrapping his giant hands around the pole, he twisted, producing a distinct mechanical click. Grasping the shelving, he swung them as one unit to the left; Marla realized immediately that the shelves were actually a kind of gateway. Moving with a slow and graceful ease, like the door of a bank vault, it revealed only darkness.
Ellerton reached in and flicked several switches.
The lights came on.
Marla gasped.
* * *
She moved forward slowly, her body numbed by disbelief.
Before her was what she recognized as a small decontamination chamber—the doors, made of some heavy transparent material, were pressure-sealed and riveted into titanium frames. What was stored in the cavernous chamber beyond startled her into wordlessness: rows of weather-stained concrete canisters, each at least fifteen feet high. A few had split at the seams; the material oozing out looked like soft ice cream that had turned to iron.
She looked at Ellerton, “Is that what I think it is?”
He nodded. “Dry casks for spent-fuel storage.”
“The missing ones? All twenty?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine? That’s impossible!”
“Not if you know how to hide them.”
Marla shook her head. “Even if you did, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency would still have a list.”
“Accountants aren’t the only people who cook books, Ms. Hollis. Finance isn’t the only area where numbers are massaged and manipulated.”
She labored to get her mind around the idea. “How many fuel assemblies are in each cask?”
“On average, around twenty.”
Marla’s brain raced through her research. “There are about two hundred rods in each assembly, and maybe twenty-five uranium pellets in each rod.”
“Right.”
“That’s certain death in there. If I walked in unprotected.…”
“You wouldn’t make it to tomorrow,” Ellerton finished her thought.
“How did the Corwins keep this hidden?”
“Not ‘the Corwins.’ It was Leo, the father. Andrew didn’t have anything to do with it,” Ellerton said. “Leo made it happen a little at a time, starting in the early nineties, I think. I wasn’t here back then, and neither was Andrew.
“The NRC suspected something was going on, but they couldn’t prove it, not even during the 2012 audit. But the audit scared the old man into playing it straight—sort of. After that, he accounted for everything, paid for all spent fuel to be transported away and stored properly. It was expensive, though, and he screamed about it.” Ellerton gestured toward the casks with his chin. “He saved a fortune by hiding all this here. Millions.”
“In spite of the fact that it was illegal beyond description,” Marla pointed out, “not to mention unbelievably dangerous to his employees and the surrounding community.”
“Yes, in spite of all that.”
“What about the workers who did this? I’m assuming he didn’t carry these down here by himself.”
“Simple,” Ellerton said with a shrug, and Marla’s fear of him began to recede slightly. “He lied and told them the spent fuel was only going to be put here temporarily. They’d signed confidentiality agreements when they were hired, on the basis of public safety and security, so they couldn’t talk about it. Plus, once they did the work, they could be held liable if there was any investigation because they’d helped out willingly. I suspect Corwin paid them off, too. He had them trapped—bribery, conspiracy, criminal liability.…”
“God Almighty,” Marla said.
Disgusted, fascinated, and even a little excited, she took a step forward. One good photo would shut this place down and put the Corwins behind bars for a long time. One blog entry would turn the media world on its ear and send the Feds charging in.
“Andrew has to know about this,” she said.
“He didn’t at first,” Ellerton said. “But shortly after he took over, his father told him.”
“He didn’t report it, so he’s just as guilty.”
Ellerton took Marla’s iPhone from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Do what you came here to do,” he said.
“What, just like that?”
“Just like that.”
She was good at reading people, had a natural gift for it that had became sharper and more refined with experience. But this guy was a clean slate.
“And then, what, you shoot me while my back is turned?”
Ellerton undid the Velcro flap on the holster and removed the weapon with the same leisurely tempo he did everything else. For just a moment, Marla was sure he was going to aim it at her and fire. She would hear only the roar of the barrel before free-falling into darkness.
Instead, he turned the gun on its side, thumbed a button on the grip, and caught the magazine as it fell free.
“It’s not even loaded now, okay? I couldn’t shoot if I wanted to.”
He walked to one of the other shelves and set the magazine down, then walked to a shelf on the opposite side and put the weapon there.
“Now they’re not even near one another. You’ve got your phone back, and I’m unarmed. How’s that?”
She tried to calculate again; it was the mental life-preserver she always reached for whenever a situation didn’t add up. This guy works here. He’s paid by the Corwins. I see a wedding ring, so he at least has a wife. Probably children, too. And there’s no doubt he’s signed all sorts of nondisclosure forms. So he’s putting not just his job but his financial future and maybe even his personal freedom on the line by showing all this to me. He’s essentially cutting his employer’s throat—and most likely his own, as well.
“Let me ask you something,” she said.
“Sure.”
“Why are you letting me see all this? Why me, and why now? How come you aren’t—”
Then it struck her, like a rocket out of a clear summer sky.
“Oh, my God,” she said, “you’re my source.”
Ellerton stood ramrod straight, his face as blank as a freshly washed chalkboard. Then he nodded.
“But … why?” she asked.
“Is that important?”
“In an age when right is wrong and wrong is right, when there are countless examples of people being punished for doing good and rewarded for doing bad, yes, I think it’s important to understand why certain people do what they do.”
Ellerton reflected on this for a moment, then said, “My Uncle Butch used to work here. He was a systems engineer until 2002, when he died of throat cancer.”
“And you think he got it because of his job?”
“He was certain he did, but we could never prove it. There was no family history, but none of his coworkers got it. Butch thought there was some leaking radioactivity that Corwin never told anyone about. But even if my uncle tried to sue, Corwin was a pro at suits like that. Dozens have been thrown at him over the years, and he successfully deflected all of them. If he couldn’t beat you on the facts, he’d simply outspend you or wear you down until you didn’t have any fight left.”
“Bastard.”
“Yes, he was. My uncle gave the best years of his professional life to this company and in the end, Corwin tossed him like trash. Threatened to sue him if he didn’t sign a waiver protecting Corwin Energies from legal action. My uncle had no choice—he needed every penny for treatment.”
“I guess the two of you were close.”
Ellerton nodded. “My parents divorced when I was two and my mother couldn’t hold a job to save her life. So I spent all my time at Uncle Butch and Aunt Margaret’s house. When I was in high school, my mom followed a boyfriend out to San Diego, and I heard from her about twice a year after that. My uncle paid for me to get my associate’s degree and helped me land this job. That was about a year before he got sick.
“After he died, all I could think about were the things he said he wanted to do when he retired. He wanted to visit Paris and London, and he wanted to go back to Hawaii, where he and my aunt had their honeymoon. He used to talk about that all the time.”
“So you’re seeking vengeance,” she said.
“No, not vengeance. My uncle wouldn’t want that. Even when he was sick, he didn’t want to get even with Corwin. He wasn’t an angry person.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
Ellerton looked straight at her, and the conviction in his eyes left no room for doubt.
“Because people need to know about things like this. Not everyone in the nuke industry is as corrupt as Leo Corwin, but a few are. Things get hidden all the time, get exaggerated, minimized, forgotten about, altered, spun. In some businesses, there’s room for that. If someone lies to the government about how much bread they bake or how many dresses they knit, no one’s any the worse. Society won’t collapse if a guy paints a house the wrong color or the mailman delivers the Sears catalog to the wrong box. But with nuclear power, there’s just no room for the kind of fraudulence that often comes from privatization and profiteering. Look at what’s happening out there right now. People are going to die, and that won’t be the end of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found out later on that today’s accident could be traced back to something Leo Corwin did, some cost-cutting thing or whatever.”
“So you want the world to know.”
Ellerton nodded, his eyes red-rimmed with anger.
Marla went to the entrance to the cask repository, raised her phone, and began clicking away. Then she launched the keyboard. Just as she was about to begin typing, she looked back to Ellerton.
“We’ll be past the point of no return once I send this.”
“Send it,” he said.