My tired brain continued to wake up but my eyelids were not cooperating. They were too heavy to hoist. I saw a sliver of light through my struggling lashes. A few more blinks and a taupe airplane cabin came into focus. Well, I thought, at least it wasn’t a psych ward.
I glanced at my hand to see what was causing the dull ache and saw a Heparin Lock attached to a catheter taped into place. My eyes followed the IV line to the clear plastic bag hanging on a metal pole.
My tongue felt thick and dry in my mouth. I took a deep breath and smelled the taint of recycled air and Reid’s woodsy scent. I already felt he was here, but I was relieved to confirm it.
The plane’s steady hum filled my ears and I tried to listen to the muffled conversation from the back of the cabin. The white noise blocked the words.
I cleared my throat. I could see Reid walking toward me and he called for Dr. West. Reid’s brow was furrowed. He was evaluating me with his swirling coffee-colored eyes. I hoped I didn’t look as bad as I felt. Dr. West smiled at me and was unperturbed. I could smell his Aqua Velva as he surpassed Reid with his rapid gait and quickly propped up the gurney. I tried harder to pull out of my daze.
“There she is! How do you feel?” Dr. West brightly asked. He produced a small ginger ale can with a straw. I took a grateful sip.
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” I croaked. My eyes looked down at the straps. Dr. West laughed at my joke and loosened them for me.
“See Reid? She’s fine. Well, she does have a brilliant physician if I do say so myself, although I don’t like having to prove it to you. I know you heard me when I told you your nut allergy could kill you—were you trying to verify my lab results?” Dr. West quipped. My mouth curled upward into a smirk but Reid was not laughing. He was standing next to the bed with his arms crossed. Was he angry? I rubbed the part of my hand where the needle was going into my vein. It was black and blue.
“Sorry about the Hep Lock. Your veins are terrible and we were in a bit of a rush. Some IV therapy to correct your electrolyte imbalance and dehydration. Thankfully, Reid was quick on the EpiPen draw and you were fairly stable but unconscious by the time you got to the hospital. He saved your life.”
I blinked slowly. It was all coming back to me. Reid running out of the kitchen was the last thing I remembered. He must have gone to his car to get one of his EpiPens. I had eaten a cookie from the basket my field hockey team had sent. Unlike Reid, I had not checked the ingredient list and it must have contained macadamia nuts and set off my food allergy I just learned I had. I would never make that mistake again.
“Can I take this out now?” I asked, already peeling off the translucent tape from my hand. The tape was itchy and it throbbed where the needle poked under my skin.
“Nope. Not yet. As you are probably aware, we are flying and that is dehydrating. Prior to arriving at the hospital, you had an epinephrine injection, a ton of antihistamine, and then steroids. All of which was dehydrating. The reason your mouth feels like a cotton ball is because you are dehydrated and I am not dropping you off in Vienna the best shape possible. Like I said, you have an excellent physician.” Dr. West was at least undoing all my straps and I didn’t feel so confined.
“Vienna? As in Austria?” I managed. Reid’s strange expression made more sense to me now. He was wondering if I had figured out we were on a plane to Chernobyl. To tell the truth, when I woke up I didn’t know where I was or that I was flying over the Atlantic Ocean, but the timing of our mission made instant sense. My dad would call this capitalizing on a distraction. I could see the pieces moving in my head as I jumped through Dr. West’s thought process.
“My dad is still at the hospital?” I questioned aloud, confirming his location and that he would be a decoy.
“Yes. Coming together, is it? I even called Blair for you—not to worry.” Dr. West nodded in affirmation. Unfortunately, yes. Being hospitalized gave me an ideal cover to be out of school for a few days. It also gave Reid a plausible excuse to be missing.
“We have some others in Clarion taking the place of you and Reid and, of course, we have the cooperation of some of my colleagues at the hospital who moved you to the critical care unit. That limits your access and means there is a team of people around your body doubles day and night. To quietly infiltrate the CCU, Carson would have to scramble a bit. I would wager she will sit tight and hope you don’t make it before deciding to intervene. She thinks you are neutralized on a ventilator and she has plenty of other problems to deal with—I’ve seen to that.”
The one piece of the puzzle that was missing was the cookie. “Was it intentional?” I asked Dr. West as I skipped up to speed. The grave look on his face answered before he spoke.
“I think we have to assume that it was sent to harm you. The fact that someone saw a threat on your life ahead of time means it was premeditated. We have a lot of people trying to investigate where there might be a leak. The trail starts in Charlottesville since that is where I ran your blood work. I didn’t use your real name, which is especially disconcerting. The questioning will start with my office staff. The basket arrived before I even had told you about the allergy. I’m glad Reid knew about it as well and that he was with you…”
“Yeah. Thanks, Reid. I owe you one,” I said quietly. There was no way I would have survived without someone to help me. Even if I had had an EpiPen with me, I didn’t realize what was happening to me until I was blacking out. The severity of this condition was significant.
“How about we call it even and you agree not to do that to me again?” Reid asked. He sat down next to me. His body relaxed more, now that I was cognizant.
“Relax. I’m a panther. Cats have nine lives,” I joked. “Granted, not as cool as being a phoenix who can perpetually burn and rejuvenate, but it cuts me some slack.”
Reid shook his head in disapproval at my freewheeling attitude. “Whatever. Just read the labels from now on. Got it?”
I nodded. I didn’t like to learn anything the hard way but I did this time. My mind circled back to Dr. West and I realized he was thinking of Vlad Dune. He walked over to fiddle with my IV drip but it was too late. I already glimpsed who he thought sent the basket.
“Vlad Dune? Why do you think he is behind this?” I asked aloud. I didn’t want Reid to feel totally shut out of the conversation and I didn’t want to keep jumping into Dr. West’s thoughts. It made me feel like I was intruding and I knew I hated it when Reid excluded me with Mr. Parks.
“Nothing has been traced to him so at this point it is only an assumption. It does, however, reek of his malicious and hands-off approach. The real question is not who—but how that person got the information. That is what bothers me the most,” Dr. West answered in his calm and matter-of-fact tone.
That made two of us. Dr. West highlighted to me what I had known all along. The threat on my life had always been there; we were all just paying more attention to it. I sighed in frustration.
“Cheer up. I brought you something,” Reid said, bringing me over my duffel bag and setting it down on the foot of the bed. He held up a bag of Rold Gold pretzels.
I smiled and said sarcastically, “You are such a romantic.” He grinned and tossed me the bag.
“Wait, there’s more. How about some real clothes?” Reid kidded as he pulled out a teal cashmere sweater and light gray wool pants. A welcome sight. I did want to discard my flimsy hospital gown. “Helga is having a field day shopping for you. I’m sure she wished I was a girl.”
“She probably should stop! How is she paying for all this?” I asked nervously. I didn’t need to touch the fabric to know the quality of the clothing.
“Don’t worry. Sunrise is well funded. It gives new meaning to insider trading when you have psychic abilities that let you play the stock market better than anyone else,” Reid answered while Dr. West took my pulse. Reid looked down at my wrist and said, “That means you can’t say no to this either. It’s for your own protection.”
&
nbsp; Reid pulled out a bracelet with a heart-shaped charm from Tiffany’s from his jean pocket. On one side was the universally recognized medic alert symbol, the Staff of Asclepius, with the words “Nut Allergy Call 911” in elegant script. I raised an eyebrow at Reid but before I could say anything he held up his wrist.
I hadn’t noticed he was wearing a new watch. “Is that a Breitling?” I asked as I scrutinized the watch. I had never seen one like it before. I knew he was impressed by the Swiss Breitling my dad wore but that was not for status—it was for the radio transmitter inside it that could broadcast to a distress frequency in case he disappeared.
“Yeah, it’s a custom job. They are calling it The Survivor watch. It has many of the features of your dad’s Breitling Emergency, with a few extras. I thought you would like this addition in particular.” Reid handed me the watch with the stainless steel band. I saw the same distinctive medical staff engraved on one of the links. Next to it, it said, “Peanut Allergy.” It was classy and clever. This way, his medical alert identifier couldn’t get tangled on anything.
“I had this in the works after you pointed out I was taking an unnecessary risk months ago. If I have to wear something, it might as well be something with style. Don’t you agree?”
“You truly are extraordinary.” I smiled and slipped on the bracelet without a protest. I would not argue a fair compromise that made us both a little safer. Especially when it looked good. I could already hear Blair and Shannon raving about the bracelet in my mind.
“Very James Bond. I like that the watch is called The Survivor. Let’s keep it that way, OK?”
Reid grinned. “Better safe than sorry, right?”
“So I’ve been told.” I looked around the plane. The interior was plush and the leather chairs looked like recliners. I noticed the polished wood, light brown carpet, and oval windows. “This is a nice ride. Does this plane belong to Sunrise?” I asked.
“Nope. We prefer to keep a low profile as much as we can, Whitney. Admiral Bennett has a meeting in Austria and we are hitching along. Here, let me disconnect you for a minute and then you can get changed and meet us in the other room. We need to go over the plan. There are some maps that you need to familiarize yourself with and a Geiger counter that is about to become your new best friend,” Dr. West said as he unhooked the IV. “I’m going to move the bag into the other room. Take five minutes to get dressed but then I want you back on the drip. Reid, will you bring my briefcase? It is there on the seat.”
Dr. West waited for Reid to walk out with him and I shakily slipped out of the paper-thin fabric of my hospital gown into the clothes. I found my brush and cosmetic bag. I pulled my hair up into a twist and cut my pallor with a light dusting of face powder and blush. A soothing stroke of lipstick made my reflection look like someone I recognized instead of a ghost. Vlad Dune’s face flashed into my mind again. Was it a warning or was I only thinking about him because my skin had looked as pale as his?
I had my eyes closed in the sedan as we traveled on the next leg of the journey, reviewing what Admiral Bennett had explained in the briefing. Two years ago, Chernobyl set a new standard for the world’s worst disaster during the course of a safety test. The irony was as astounding as the stupidity—the workers actually disconnected the automatic safety systems so it would not interfere with an experiment they were conducting.
The fact that the experiment would trigger safety controls should have been the first warning sign that this “experiment” was about to start a chain of fatal mishaps, but the reactor operators either dismissed or rationalized this critical information. They proceeded. They wanted to determine how long the turbine generators would continue to operate if a reactor shut down in a dangerous situation. An oversight?
Apparently it was. They didn’t see the meltdown coming when the poorly designed reactor was pushed to the brink by the technicians. I could only imagine the chief engineer’s face when he realized the emergency core cooling system to prevent the impending catastrophe was turned off ON PURPOSE. The negligence of putting safety second was enormous. Perhaps he realized it after the thousand-ton concrete reactor lid flipped into the air.
When the lid flipped and the air rushed into the reactor, it connected with the white-hot core and raging neutrons. This did not cool it off. The oxygen in the air created a chemical explosion that ignited an inferno of radioactive material that spewed into the atmosphere across the Soviet Union and Europe for more than a week. Admiral Bennett put it into perspective by explaining the number four Chernobyl reactor released thirty to forty times the radioactivity of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was 400 times more potent.
Soviet citizens, with no protective gear, were sent to extinguish or “liquidate” the reactor. The population from the surrounding area was also not told and were left sitting in a nuclear cloud for days before being evacuated. They were all given the parting gift of radiation poisoning. Soviet officials patted themselves on the back for not causing a panic, as that was the main concern. Yes, a nice and orderly poisoning was so much better.
While all this was going on, the Soviet Union kept quiet. The world learned of the accident from Sweden, where abnormally high radiation levels were registered at one of its nuclear facilities. I guess we couldn’t take it personally at the lack of a nuclear disaster update since they were treating their own citizens so much worse.
My mind weighed on humanity’s handling of power sources. We couldn’t seem to get it right. It was obvious we needed an alternative. Nuclear energy was supposed to be the wave of the fuel future. After what I had just learned from Admiral Bennett, humanity did not seem judicious enough to use nuclear energy. Our errors cost a great number of lives and threatened the longevity of all life on the planet. Mr. Parks said there were no mistakes, only lessons. What happened when the students weren’t paying attention?
I thought about Admiral Bennett’s unsettling response when I asked if the Soviet Union’s dozens of other reactors, identical to Chernobyl’s reactor number four, were being dismantled and corrected. He grimly shook his head no. He simply said that nuclear facility inspectors seemed to have a way of overlooking building flaws. The Soviet reactors, and reactors around the world, put everyone at risk but they were not inspected by an international authority. Another big accident like Chernobyl would put the nuclear power bid as a future fuel in serious jeopardy and risked making life on Earth uninhabitable. The hunt for a power source like pure energy was becoming more and more desperate.
The car slowed down and I opened my eyes. We were driving to the safe house in Vienna to meet Helga and Mr. Parks. The houses in Vienna looked surprisingly modern for such an old city. We stopped in front of a sleek contemporary building. It had a lot of glass to be a safe house. I had expected something sturdier with fewer windows. Then again, I weighed, it really didn’t matter since we weren’t staying long.
From here, we would continue to the Soviet master-planned “science city” of Pripyat, a town designed for Chernobyl workers and their families. Pripyat was evacuated thirty-six hours after the reactor accident but residents were told they would be able to come back for their belongings in three days. The satellite photos Admiral Bennett provided of the post-apocalyptic town were creepy. It was as if life vanished but all evidence of it remained: books were left on tables, apartment windows were open, bikes were abandoned in the streets, and carnival rides were set up for the town’s upcoming May Day celebration. In one of the photos, I saw the sign “Welcome to Chernobyl” in Russian. A welcome and a warning sign in any language, I thought.
About twenty miles surrounding Chernobyl’s reactor four was a prohibited area called the exclusion zone. This uninhabited wasteland was the most deserted place on Earth. The lethal watchdog of radioactive death patrolled the grounds and kept all living things at bay. At its center was the epicenter of toxic danger: reactor four.
It looked like an ugly industrial warehouse encased in a concrete sarcophagus. The conc
rete job was quickly constructed to stop the release of any more radiation. Incredibly, only three percent of the original nuclear material was expelled in the explosion two years ago. I had not realized that the explosion was not over—it had only just begun.
There was so much uranium and plutonium within the reactor, if the sarcophagus ever collapsed, there would be an even greater release of radioactivity than the initial accident. The pit of the structure contained a soup of radioactive lava that made this the ideal location to deposit the carbon and tungsten alloy tube that contained the vial of pure energy. It would boil and dissolve the pure energy into a gas and allow it to leak safely back into the atmosphere before the alloy tube was melted and destroyed.
That was the theory anyway. Hopefully, it would hold up as well as Dr. West’s theory that our evolved IgE isotope in our blood caused certain food allergies but provided immunity to radionuclides. We were all taking potassium iodide pills as a precaution. There was plenty of the radioactive isotope cesium-137 to go around in the exclusion zone.
Admiral Bennett explained that everyone is exposed to very small amounts of cesium-137 in soil and water as a result of atmospheric fallout, but if exposure is high from radiation it can result in burns, increased risk of cancer, and death. That is why we would be wearing protective gear and using a personal Geiger counter. Safety first seemed to be the lesson of the day and unlike other students of the world—I had been paying attention.
“Come, come! It’s cold and you have to get something to eat,” Helga said as we all shuffled toward the door. It was the middle of the night but she was dressed and waiting for us. Fortunately, so was a feast of food in kitchen.
Mr. Parks was waiting politely for us by the table. He bowed in greeting and Reid and I returned it. Dr. West grabbed Mr. Parks by the shoulder and gave him one of the sideways hugs he was fond of while Admiral Bennett clapped him on the back. Mr. Parks laughed.
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