by Mark Lemke
CHAPTER 26
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I dialed the number for Prichard, who picked up on the second ring.
"I've been waiting for your call," he said.? I detected some excitement in his voice.? "I have some news.? Are you in a place where you can talk?"
I was sitting alone in the Old Man's kitchen.? It was about as secure as it was gonna get.? "Go ahead."
"We weren't able to get hold of Brenda William's husband, Bob.? He's been off work since he got news of his wife.? He's probably devastated and holed up somewhere with his family shielding him from calls and so forth.? But I did find out what he's working on.? Turns out he's working on a modification to the containment ventilation system."
"What exactly does that mean?"? I asked.
"It means he has some test equipment in place that can remotely open the containment vent system to the outside.? It's part of his design modification process."
I felt my brow furrowing.? This made sense; especially in light of the discussion I'd just had with the Old Man.? If you're going to try to damage a nuclear plant for terrorism purposes, you need to be able to release contamination from the massive containment dome.? The ventilation system is designed to fail-safe and have all the dampers close on loss of power.? So the terrorists needed to have a way to override the fail-safe signals and open the dampers, which was generally the worst situation you could have.? Of course, they'd also need a way to get inside containment and cause a release of fission products.? I had to assume that was where Jansen came in.? And that's where the NeXus report came in.? My report provided insights on just how to do that.? The only good news was that knowing what the report contained, I was in a good position to anticipate Jansen's moves, intercede, and prevent him from succeeding. ?But something told me this wouldn't be that easy.? Whoever put all this together knew what they were doing and had already demonstrated that they're willing to do most anything to achieve their goal.? And they knew I was in town.? So they must have planned for that, too.
"Okay. Keep trying to get in touch with Williams and see what he knows about all of this, but I suspect you won't have much luck.? In any event, we need to assume the worst and that he's already told them whatever they need to know.?Based on the fact that his wife has been dead now for some time, they've had several days to get that information from him."
"We'll keep working on trying to find him," Prichard assured me.? "The entire plant staff is shaken up by Brenda's death.? More than that, there are rumors about how she'd died.? It's ugly around here."
"I imagine.? By the way, don't you have another engineer on site who's good with the containment vent system?? In other words, doesn't Williams have a backup or a partner?? We may need his expertise."
"He has a supervisor, though I don't know how much he knows.? Our best bet is the Unit 2 ventilation system engineer.? Unit 2 is a mirror image of Unit 1, so he should know how it all works.? By the way, where are you right now?"
"I'm meeting with the Old Man."
"Really?? Is this the same guy I'm thinking of?"
"Yup."
"Well now, that's interesting.? I'm sure you know I worked with him quite a few years ago.? I didn't know that he was a resource to you.? It makes sense, though, when I think about it.? That helps explain how you seem to know so much about my power plant."
"Let's keep that to ourselves, okay?" I said.? "He's a valuable resource that, hopefully, the bad guys don't know about.? What we have going for us is that we're smarter than they are when it comes to understanding the plant and how it works.? Let's just keep it that way."
Prichard was a smart guy and was getting used to working with me, and not having all the information he'd like to have.? As I'd hoped, he appeared to pick up on the fact that I'd mentioned the Old Man to him for a reason.? He handled the revelation about the Old Man well.? All he said was, "Okay".
"I'll be back in the morning," I continued.? "We're working on some things here right now.? In the meantime, see if you can find out if there's anything unusual going on with the operations staff.? Anyone call in sick or anything else that's out of the ordinary."
Prichard went quiet for a moment, as if processing the ramifications.? "I'll look.? I'll let you know when I have something."
"Okay.? Thanks.? We'll talk later."? And with that, I hung up.? I immediately dialed the number for Marti that I had pre-programmed into my phone.?
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