Red North!

by Mark Lemke

CHAPTER 53

  ?

  I dialed Marti's office number.? After a couple of rings, she answered.?

  "I'm so glad to hear your voice!? Did Hector meet up with you?" she said anxiously.? She sounded surprisingly alert, given that she probably hadn't had any sleep in a long time.? "He didn't sound happy when I gave him your message.? I wasn't sure if he would go or not.? And then it occurred to me that I had no way to get back in touch with you.? I wasn't about to go back down there."? I could almost here her shiver at the thought.

  "We're with him now.? Thanks for getting to him, by the way.? He almost shot us, but he came around," I said with a wink at Hector.? "I'll tell him you said hello!? What else do you have for me?"

  "I've been in touch with the FBI and sheriff, trying to get as much information about what they're planning to do as I can."? There was a short pause, as if she was deciding whether or not to proceed with her next question.? Then she dropped her voice a bit and asked, "How are you doing?? Are you okay?"

  I found that I liked her asking about me.? This had all the earmarks of going somewhere, but I just didn't know where yet.? Thinking about her provided a pleasant, momentary distraction . . . but only for a moment.

  "I'm good. ?I need you to do something for me.? You're gonna like this one."?

  "I am?? It'll be the first thing I've enjoyed in the last few days.? What do you need?"?

  "I need you to get to Dave Street and tell him his family is safe.? We got his wife and kids and they're on a plane heading home right now."

  "Oh, Nick . . . " she said with genuine emotion in her voice.?

  "Can you make some kind of excuse to go to the control room and tell him?? I don't want you to call him or e-mail him.? Those might be monitored.? The message needs to be delivered in person."

  "Absolutely!" Marti said, now fully awake and alert.? "I'll do it right away.? Anything else?"

  I thought about it for a minute.? "Probably, but do that first and then give me a call.? We're in SAS right now, developing some intel, and formulating a plan.? I may need your help with it, but I need to think it through first."

  "I'll call you back in about fifteen minutes," Marti said.

  I wished her luck, and then hung up.

  While I was on the phone, the Old Man apparently had been thinking.? "Hector, is there any way you can pay particular attention to the containment emergency air lock on both units?? It would be good if, at a minimum, we don't let them get inside."

  "Yes, I can.? But to do that, I'll have to re-deploy some assets.? CAS will know and then Rob will surely find out."

  The Old Man looked at me.? "We may not have a choice. ?Sooner or later they're going to know we're here.? All we can do is to get as far out in front of them as we can.? We may need to chance it.? I don't know if they're going to make a play for containment or not.? But we need to protect those assets . . . at all costs."

  "I hear you," I said.? "But it doesn't make sense.? If they have guys on the inside, the odds are they're using tactical charges and don't have enough with them to blow open the doors to containment.? They may have been relying on the outside assault force to bring in the amount of explosives they would need.??They're out of the picture now and Jansen would have taken that into account.? Is there any other way to get into containment?"

  The Old Man put his hand to his chin, looked down and away as if deep in thought.? "Well, you could possibly crawl through the ventilation system," he said more to himself than to me. "But that would be difficult to do unnoticed.? And it would be a tough crawl.? There are screens and dampers in place, and the ductwork isn't particularly big around."

  I looked at him with recognition in my eyes.? "Brenda's husband is the containment ventilation engineer.? Is that what they wanted him for?"

  "Possibly, but if they did, why kill Brenda?? They must have had something else in mind.? We're overlooking something.? They must have another plan."

  Hector said in a sarcastic tone, "It's not that hard if you have the keys.? Just go open the door."? He wasn't being serious.

  I went still and looked at the Old Man. "What did Brenda do again?"? I knew I'd been missing something . . . something obvious.?

  "You told me she was in Health Physics."? Then the Old Man looked up in stunned silence. ?The hair must have been standing up on the back of his neck, as it was mine.? He turned to Hector and growled, "Get me the number to Access Control.? Hurry!"

  I said, "What do you have, Old Man?"

  "Hector said it.? Open the door and walk right in!? I'm betting the keys to the containment airlock are missing.? That's a high radiation area and those keys are controlled by HP, not Security!"

  "Here it is," Hector said as he held out a yellow-sticky with a four-digit plant number on it.

  "Dial it, tell them who you are, and ask them to do an immediate inventory of their high rad area keys!"

  As Hector dialed the number the Old Man looked at me.? "We've been looking at this all wrong!? They weren't trying to get to the husband.? They were trying to get to her-probably through the husband.? If they have the keys, we need to get up there before they do.? If they get in, we're screwed!"

  "What's the worst case scenario we're looking at?" I asked with a deepening sense of foreboding.

  "It could be a number of things.? But given that they can't have much in the way of explosives, it's got to be something small.? The most likely possibility is to destroy the seal package on one or more reactor coolant pumps.? Those seals keep the reactor coolant from leaking past the pump shaft and out into the containment."

  "Okay.? But from what you've told me, that coolant water isn't a significant problem.? Bad, yes, but not the end of the world."

  "It's not the water leaking into containment that worries me.? If they destroy the seal package with the reactor at power like it is now and the reactor coolant pumps running like they are, it'll immediately depressurize the reactor coolant system.? The water will come out so fast and flash to steam, you wouldn't be able to get out of containment before being parboiled, and that's if you're already standing by the door."

  "Won't the reactor shut down when it senses that happening?? Isn't protection built in for this kind of thing?"

  "A leak, yes, but not for a complete failure of the seal package.? The water being released will come out with incredible velocity due to the pressure behind it.? It'll be over 500 degrees and will flash to steam instantaneously, so it'll act like a superheated steam torch.? With the reactor losing water and losing it so fast, the fuel will overheat with little or no water to cool it and get to a point where the zirconium metal encasing the fuel rods will literally start to burn.? When the zirconium reaches about 2,500 degrees, game over.? It'll be generating it's own heat and it'll be impossible to stop."?

  The Old Man took a breath, during which I assumed he was done.? But then he went on.

  "With all the water flashing to steam, the pressure in containment will go up to its maximum design pressure within minutes.? While it's doing this, the burning fuel rods will release hydrogen.? That'll combine with hydrogen that comes out of the water as the water molecules break down, as well as the hydrogen that's normally injected into the reactor coolant system for chemistry control.? The hydrogen concentration in containment will reach explosive limits, which is only about six percent in air.? When it does, the hydrogen will spontaneously burn, causing an explosion that will generate a shock wave that will rip the containment dome apart, allowing the damaged nuclear fuel and the resulting highly contaminated fission products that are now leaving the confines of the reactor vessel to be released into containment, and then out into the environment."?

  I knew terrorism events could be bad, but I never knew the technical reasons why.? With the Old Man laying it out this way, my sense of dread increased.?

  "This'll create a dead zone around the plant that'll extend at least twenty miles in all directions and last for tens of thousands of years," the Old Man said solemnly.? "Nothing will be able to live ins
ide that perimeter."

  The Old Man's look of concern from a minute ago turned to something akin to fear as he related the possible scenario to me.? I didn't know if I was becoming angry or afraid, but my stomach was starting to knot up.?

  "And they can do this with the limited amount of explosives we think they have?" I asked, knowing the answer.

  "Easily," he said, "but only if they get inside containment."

  A moment later, Hector put the phone down.? He was ashen-faced.? "The spare keys to Unit 1 high rad areas are missing.? That includes the key to the containment emergency airlock!"

  Just then, Jerry, who was looking for where the perpetrators might have gone, said, "Guys, we have a problem!"