by Peter Telep
Grim frowned. “But how does that involve us?”
“I’ll tell you how,” Caldwell interjected. “We just struck a deal to sell our current stockpiles of thorium to Europe, along with moving out some material belonging to France and India. The buyers were lining up.”
“Yes, I know all about that,” said Kasperov. “And I know that oligarchs are not happy about sale.”
“Exactly how unhappy are they?” asked Fisher, sensing where this was going.
Kasperov hesitated. “Unhappy enough to make sure your thorium never reaches destination.”
Grim’s tone grew urgent. “Madame President, you said we just struck a deal. What’s the status of the thorium?”
“Final approval on the sales occurred last week. I assume it’s being prepared for shipment.”
Grim bolted out of her chair and went charging across the room, toward the hatch.
Fisher glanced to Kasperov. “Come with me!”
26
CHARLIE was calling out to Grim as Fisher and Kasperov arrived in the control center:
“Just got a huge hit on our old friend Rahmani from Bolivia.”
“It has to wait, Charlie!”
“All right, but—”
“Listen, right now we need to get into hazmat transport out of Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Ghost truck fleet. We need direct access to their command center in Albuquerque. I need to know if they’re currently shipping any thorium.”
“Did you say thorium?” Charlie looked at her for a moment, letting that sink in.
“Charlie!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it!”
“I’ll help him get access,” said President Caldwell, her image coming up on one of the control center’s big screens.
“I’ll assist,” said Briggs, rushing into the room and dropping into a computer station.
In the meantime, Grim stared determinedly at the SMI’s screen. She brought up a 378-page Oak Ridge National Lab report on the thorium stockpile in Nevada, and Fisher scanned a bar graph over her shoulder.
There were 3,500 tons of thorium stored in 21,585 metal drums. Each drum weighed an average of 330 pounds. The United States owned 18,924 drums of monolithic material, India had 760 of granulated pebbles, and France had 1,901 of dry powder all stored at the same site, buried in the side of a mountain.
Not a second after reading that, Grim typed in a request, and a wireframe representation of a tractor trailer began rotating on the screen, with data scrolling beside it:
A twenty-foot-long truck could hold approximately 120 drums. This was assuming no pallets, the drums packed into shipping containers. A tri-axel slider chassis could carry up to 44,000 pounds on U.S. roads. The 120 drums would have a total weight of approximately 40,000 pounds.
Over 800,000 hazmat shipments hit the roads every day, and all were highly regulated by the government. There were even classified routes across the United States for the transfer of such materials, with attempts made to keep them away from large population centers, but that was often impossible. The most recent map glowed beside Grim’s truck; however, when the government wanted to ship something highly classified such as nuclear materials, weapons, or other such top secret military technology, there was no map to be found, no record of the shipment. They’d call upon a “black” or “ghost fleet” of trucks whose drivers would not answer to their civilian employers but be directed by the government operators themselves. No other entities save for the government could track them or communicate with them. The dispatchers at their respective companies would be aware that drivers were on the road and transporting “something,” but no other information would be available.
Ghost fleet cabs were fitted with custom composite armor and lightweight armored glass, as well as redundant communications systems with dashboard panic buttons. The comms were part of a Qualcomm-like fleet management computer wired directly into the truck’s data bus. The command centers could monitor and track a vehicle’s GPS coordinates, get readings from the dashboard instrumentation, and engage in encrypted communications directly with the driver via an in-cab keyboard. Drivers or command center managers had the ability to disable the truck via traditional means such as shutting off the fuel supply and by the recent adoption of flux compression generators so the vehicle could not be moved or opened, its electronics permanently disabled by a localized electromagnetic pulse wave. Drivers had nicknamed that switch the “PON-R,” pronounced “pone-ar” and meaning “point of no return,” a familiar term also used by aviators to reference a point where their fuel level would no longer allow them to return to the airfield.
In addition to the sophisticated kill switches, the trucks were designed to defend themselves with concealable Metal Storm robotic 40mm guns that could quickly deliver massive barrages of suppressing fire over a large area.
From the outside, though, you’d never know they were anything but your run-of-the-mill haulers, with standard diamond-shaped warning placards and labels, and painted with their company logos. Even the small comm domes atop their cabs were a common sight on such tractors.
And as expected, sensitive materials were not left in the hands of apprentices. Ghost fleet drivers comprised some of the most experienced haulers on the road, many with over two million miles of hazmat transports under their belts.
The data Fisher continued scanning was merely a refresher course. It was his business to know about the ghost fleet and their operations since hazmat materials were likely targets for terrorist attacks.
“Okay, got it,” said Charlie. “TSMT’s in charge of the shipment. President Caldwell just got me access to the ghost fleet’s network.”
Tri-State Motor Transit was one of a handful of companies that specialized in moving hazardous materials for both civilian clients and government contractors. They had a reputation for having some of the most adept and skillful drivers in the industry—but if their shipments had been compromised, then all the safety training and experience in the world could still fail them.
“Okay, patching through,” Charlie said.
The SMI flashed as a map of the United States blossomed to life, outlines of states glowing in brilliant green with an overlay of cargo routes shimmering in red.
Grim began pointing to the flashing blue dots on the major highways. “Here they are. I count eight, Charlie.”
“Confirm. Eight trucks. They’ve left Nevada and are en route to the Port of Jacksonville, Florida. They’ve scattered the loads, though. Each truck is about eight hours behind the one in front of it, with a few of them taking a more northern route you can see there.”
“Do these trucks have escorts?” Kasperov asked from behind them. “Department of Homeland Security teams or something?”
“No, they don’t travel with escorts,” said Fisher. “Draws too much attention.”
“Mr. Kasperov, you said the oligarchs might attack these shipments,” Grim began. “Do you have anything more specific?”
Kasperov flinched and could not meet Grim’s gaze.
“If they want to take out the entire shipment, they’ll wait until all the trucks reach the port,” said Charlie. “They could blow the cargo ship or even launch an air attack from the shipping yard. Hell, they could already have the shipping yard rigged to blow.”
Grim raised her voice, her tone twice as emphatic. “Mr. Kasperov? Do you know something? If you do, you have to tell us. You realize what’s at stake here, don’t you?”
Fisher stepped over to the man. “We rescued your daughter. You do this for her. You talk.”
Kasperov nodded. “As I said, their plan has three stages. I was to be first. They never told me about other stages. One of my best employees spied on one of them, hacked his computers, and told me about it.”
“Are you talking about Kannonball?” Charlie asked.
“Yes, Patrik Ruggov, Kannonball. He learned about shadow war oligarchs have against your nation. The president was trying to put an end, but they kept on. He learned abo
ut teams of Iranians they hired who were smuggled into United States across Mexican border and purchases of large quantities of C-4 explosives from cartels. He told me about many trips to Nevada. He learned that stage two of attack was to be terror and contamination. But again, I never thought they would go through with it. Always a deterrent, a way to threaten Treskayev, manipulate him.”
“Where’s the lead truck now?” asked Fisher.
Grim pointed to the map. “Topeka, Kansas. Looks like it’s nearing exit 361B just south of the North Kansas Avenue Bridge, rolling at sixty-eight miles per hour.”
“So we’ve got some time before all the trucks reach Jacksonville,” said Fisher.
“Maybe not,” said Grim. “I’ll have the SMI generate a blast scenario—because if you think about it, multiple hits on multiple trucks would spread the most terror and contamination. That’s what they’re after.”
“So you think the C-4’s already on board the trucks?” asked Fisher. “They won’t blow them all in Jacksonville?”
“Not enough bang for their buck. I think the shipping containers were rigged before the drums were ever loaded. An inside job with security at the site. Launching an attack along the route requires them to know the route beforehand. Rigging the bombs on a simple timer or via remote detonation’s a lot easier.”
“Jesus, I hope you’re wrong,” said Fisher.
“Me, too,” said Grim. “Because look at this.”
The SMI had generated a flashing blip with concentric circles to illustrate the explosion of the lead truck on the I-70 off-ramp at Exit 361B near the bridge.
The shipping containers enclosing the barrels of thorium could withstand external temperatures as high as 1,400 degrees, but they were never designed to contain the overpressure and the chemically generated heat produced by an internal detonation of an estimated two hundred pounds of C-4 needed to fully destroy the shipment.
Windows of data opened up alongside the neighborhood map of ground zero. These boxes detailed the devastation in the immediacy of present tense:
Twenty-seven vehicles are demolished, their occupants killed outright. I-70’s overpass collapses onto N. Kansas Avenue directly below, producing an additional thirty-eight traffic fatalities.
While there is no actual nuclear yield, there is widespread window, roof, and negligible structural blast damage in residential West Meade, north across the Kansas River to Veteran’s Park. There are shattered high-rise windows as far south as SE Sixth Avenue in downtown Topeka, and all the way out to Ripley Park in the east. Flash fires erupt seemingly everywhere, initiated by falling white-hot debris.
“In powder form thorium nitrate acts as an accelerant in the presence of heat or explosive devices when detonated,” Grim said. “The same way secondary explosions of accumulated dust in air vents spread fire through ships and buildings. Check it out. It’s those secondary explosions that extend the blast area to nearly three miles in diameter.”
Fisher’s mouth began to fall open as he continued reading the data.
Topeka’s first responders are initially overwhelmed, and it will be hours before significant outside assistance can reach the city.
“What about the contamination?” he asked.
“I mentioned this earlier, but here are the technical facts: Thorium nitrate emits radioactive particles that can be breathed in or swallowed or can penetrate the skin. Most of the initial responders won’t be aware that they’re being exposed to ash and dust from a highly toxic chemical.” Grim checked another data window. “If the stuff’s ingested it can reduce the ability of the bone marrow to make blood cells and, in bone, it has a biological half-life of twenty-two years. In all other organs and tissue the biological half-life is about two years. While it’s not as bad as plutonium, it’ll kill you just the same.”
Fisher continued scanning the medical report near the edge of the screen: Acute potential health effects included irritated skin causing a rash or a burning feeling on contact. Ingestion caused nausea, vomiting, dizziness, abdominal cramps, ulceration, and bleeding from the small intestine, as well as bloody diarrhea, weakness, general depression, headache, and mental impairment. Prolonged exposure could affect the liver, kidneys, lungs, and bone marrow, as Grim had mentioned. The stuff was a recognized cancer hazard and could damage the male reproductive glands.
And yet another window illustrated through a powdery white overlay how the blast would spread a fine layer of radioactive particles and debris onto exposed individuals, homes, vehicles, plants, animals, sidewalks, and highways, while a significant amount would fall into the nearby Kansas River, whose waters flowed eastward.
Fisher realized that such a blast near any river system could cause a catastrophe for future cleanup crews. In this case it’d be a civil nightmare for Lawrence and Kansas City, both downstream of the blast. The terrorists would be contaminating the air and the water.
But there was more . . .
According to the SMI, at the time of the blast the prevailing winds would be out of the south, meaning the contamination would not just be confined to a rough circle with a three-mile diameter. That was the initial zone.
In the minutes following the detonation, an ever-expanding radioactive dust cloud more than two thousand feet high would be depositing psychological terror and physical illness along a twenty-mile swath, five miles wide.
In all, 97,000 of Topeka’s 250,000 citizens would be contaminated in varying degrees.
Many would die in a city that President Caldwell called her hometown.
“Madame President, all eight of those trucks need to be stopped immediately,” said Grim.
“I concur,” said Fisher. “If they’re rigged to blow, EMP’s the only way to take them out.”
“You need to be sure of this,” Caldwell said.
Fisher turned to Kasperov, his voice never more steely. “Are we sure?”
The man nodded nervously. “Stop those trucks.”
27
FISHER caught himself holding his breath as Charlie brought up the I-70 traffic cams from Topeka. They watched as the lead thorium truck was directed off the highway and toward a dirt lot behind a row of warehouses. From there, Charlie switched to the ghost truck’s dash cam, where the driver tapped a command into his keyboard, hit the panic button, then hopped out of the cab.
The SMI next lit up with similar traffic cam footage from the other trucks scattered across the United States, all seven being directed to areas away from the highway to disable their vehicles. Fisher watched one driver in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the SMI noted that a detonation there would have effectively closed the I-24, I-75, and I-59 interchange, where three hazmat trucking routes converged. Chattanooga’s 180,000 citizens would’ve been thrust into a radioactive hell, even as the Tennessee River carried contamination southwest into Alabama and Mississippi. He could barely imagine what would happen if all eight had gone up simultaneously.
“Madame President, we need a thorough investigation into the Yucca Mountain site security,” said Grim. “Hazmat and EOD teams need to search every one of the trucks. The thorium needs to be removed and transferred to secondary trailers.”
“We’ll be on that immediately,” said Caldwell. “And, Mr. Kasperov, if we do find explosives aboard any of those trucks, then you realize that what you did today saved thousand of lives.”
“Thank you, Madame President. But you must understand that oligarchs have little tolerance for failure.”
“What do you mean?”
Kasperov frowned, glanced at the team, then spoke evenly, “I mean it’s not over. I believe they sent one man to oversee operation, triggerman if you will. He would locate one or more of trucks using spotters along route. He would wait until best moment to destroy them.”
“What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying I know this man, and right now, he’s calling his bosses in Moscow for instructions.”
“What instructions?”
Kasperov’s expression t
urned grave. “Mr. Fisher, there is always plan B.”
Fisher lost his breath. “We need to find this guy—right now!”
“The NSA’s got tabs on all the big players in Russia,” said Grim. She faced Kasperov. “I need to pursue those names you gave us.”
Kasperov closed his eyes. “Some of these men were once my friends.”
“Not anymore,” said Fisher.
“Can I borrow a computer?” he asked resignedly. “I will help you.”
Briggs rose from his station and escorted Kasperov to his chair, where the man sat and began typing in the names he’d given them: Perov, the arms manufacturer; Yanayev, the aerospace mogul; and Kargin, the investment banker. Charlie and Grim were already patched into his screen, and Grim directed the SMI to access the NSA’s databases and began searching the phone records of those three men, keying in on calls placed within the hour between Moscow and anywhere in the United States. Charlie was monitoring the same feed.
“Got something,” he said. “Gotta be it. It’s the only one. Call coming in to a dacha outside Moscow, one of Kargin’s lines. Well, this is strange. Call was placed from the Omni Houston Hotel at Westside. But it’s not a smartphone. Long distance using the room phone.”
“Why the hell would he do that?” asked Grim.
“Maybe he thinks he’s been compromised already,” said Fisher. “Didn’t want to use his own phone. Maybe that phone was the trigger.”
“Either way we would’ve traced him, so it doesn’t matter,” said Charlie. “I’m already in the hotel, bringing up the security cameras.”
“Flight deck, change course. Get us to Houston,” said Fisher.
“Roger that,” said the pilot. “Any plans to land or just recon?”
“I’ll let you know. What’s our ETA?”
“We’re already in the gulf with a significant tailwind. You want me to crank it up, I’ll get you there in less than twenty minutes.”
“Roger that. Top speed.” Fisher swung around to regard Grim. “Any of the trucks near Houston?”