Castle Bravo

by Karna Small Bodman

  “Sure. You told me all that.”

  “Well, the place they destroyed with that bomb was called Bikini Atoll. That’s where they got the name for the bathing suits.”

  “Not much left of it now, right?”

  “It was pulverized,” Pete said. “Not much left of the bathing suits on those girls either. But they’re a damn sight better to look at.”

  Nurlan stopped looking at the girls and turned to Pete. “I want talk about summer.”

  “Yeah. Your job. Sounds cool,” Pete said.

  “Not just my job. I have idea about job for you. Why don’t you come with me?”

  Pete was astonished by the suggestion. What in the world did this guy have in mind? “Come with you? To Kazakhstan? Get a job there? You’ve gotta be kidding.”

  “Why kidding? There’s big reunions of Nevada Semipalatinsk in summer, and we could go together.”

  “Oh, is that the name of the anti-war group you’ve been telling me about?”

  “That’s it. We have offices all over country. You know Greenpeace group? It like that but we work only nuclear things. We very organized. We even have museum.”

  “A museum? What for?”

  “It shows radiation poisoning. We have pictures. People born wrong, some sheep with two heads.”

  “Jesus! That’s awful,” Pete said. “I told you a lot of our people got polio and cancer and a lot of other bad stuff from all the tests. I never saw an animal with two heads though.”

  “We had them. Soviets set off bombs and told sheep herders leave area, but some could no move sheep. They try hide. And then bombs go off. And other people farther away were told government predicting earthquake. That was when they did underground tests, and they knew everything shakes up. At time people surprised that government could predict earthquakes. What crazy things. Now we know what they do, but then, people not know.”

  “So wait a minute,” Pete said. “You want me to come to your country over the summer to go to a reunion of this anti-nuke group?”

  “Sure. We have good time. You see how we get people together and maybe get ideas how you run SAINTS same like we run Semipalatinsk people. We name it because that is where tests go off. We not go that place. We go near Caspian. Marches will be many cities. Where we go, maybe I get you job too.”

  “I’m not a computer expert, I don’t have any money, and I don’t speak your language,” Pete protested.

  “No matter. We get cheap plane tickets. I loan you money. You pay back when you get job. You no speak Kazakh. No matter. Many people speak English. Maybe if my company have no other jobs, you could get job other place. Maybe down at docks. Lots ships there. My sister works boat cruises. Other companies there too.” Nurlan said. “We could have great summer. I’ll send emails.”

  “I gotta think about all this.” Pete turned and stared again at the girls sunbathing nearby and wondered what the women in Kazakhstan looked like. He didn’t really have many plans for the summer. He was going to look for a job near the campus since he couldn’t afford to go home to Hawaii. But he hadn’t noticed many job openings lately. Now this guy was talking about traveling half way around the world. What a crazy idea. Or was it crazy?

  “I serious about summer,” Nurlan said. “We should stay together. As you said, think on it. We both want help our people. We both want stop nuclear weapons. And we both hate governments. Maybe we work together, Nevada Semipalatinsk and SAINTS. If we put all together, think what we do.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  “Good afternoon, Miss Marconi. Miss Reid is waiting for you at her table,” the maitre ‘d of the White House Mess said as he led the assistant to the president for Public Liaison into one of the most exclusive eateries in the world. The tall young woman with dark hair and violet eyes nodded to a friend sitting at the large round staff table in front of the room. If you didn’t have a guest, you could usually find a seat at this table for twelve where no reservation was required. It was often the best place to pick up the latest gossip circulating through the West Wing. But today, she was having lunch with her closest friend, and they had reserved their own table on one side of the richly paneled room.

  “Here we are,” he said, pulling out the wooden chair and handing her a navy blue menu with a piece of gold braid down the center.

  “Hi Angela,” Samantha said, glancing at her watch.

  “Sorry I’m a little late. I just had a rash of phone calls, and I raced over here as fast as I could. If I had an office here in the West Wing, I’d probably be more punctual. But running back and forth to the EEOB all day slows me down a little bit,” she said, referring to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across a short driveway where most of the White House staff was housed.

  “No problem. I wish you had an office here too. Of course, it wouldn’t be nearly as big as the one you’ve got across West Exec.

  “Are you kidding? I’d take a room the size of a confessional to be in the West Wing. Anybody would.”

  “I know. I just wish there was more space here. Anyway, let’s order, and then I want to hear what’s going on in your shop.”

  A Filipino waiter clad in a navy blue blazer hovered nearby and quickly moved up to their table. “May I take your order?”

  “Sure,” Angela said. “How about the chef’s salad and some iced tea?”

  “And for you, Miss Reid?”

  Samantha always marveled at how the waiters all seemed to memorize the names of everyone who worked in the White House. “Let’s see. I think I’d like a tuna sandwich with some fruit on the side. No fries or chips. Oh, and a diet coke please.” He nodded and walked back to the kitchen

  “You should eat the chips,” Angela said. “You look so thin these days.”

  “I know. I feel like the Botswana poster child. But I just don’t seem to have much of an appetite.”

  “Why? What’s the matter? I thought Tripp was back in town.”

  “He is,” Samantha said, the hint of a smile crossing her face. “That’s the one good thing in my life right now.”

  “A pretty darn good thing, my friend, if you ask me. My mom fixed me up with another Italian guy the other night.”

  “Again? What does this one do?”

  “He owns a poppy seed farm.”

  Samantha chuckled. “She never gives up, does she?”

  “Not on your life. And speaking of lives, have you saved any today?” Angela asked with a wide smile.

  “Afraid not. In fact, with so much going on, it’s getting harder and harder to get anyone to focus on threats we’re seeing right now.”

  “So who’s not focusing?”

  “Max Federman for one.”

  “Max? That’s because he’s the political director. All he ever wants to talk about is how he’s going to get Jayson Keller elected president next year. And actually Keller is way ahead in the polls. Remember when he was chosen as VP, people called it the Kangaroo ticket. More power in the hind legs.”

  “I know. But if this country is attacked again, there goes his precious election,” Samantha said with a sigh.

  “So you’d think Mac would pay careful attention to everything that’s going on with Homeland Security. I don’t get it,” Angela said as the waiter brought their drinks.

  “You’d think. But when I went through our priorities at this morning’s senior staff meeting, he tried to shut me up saying that we had to be careful not to unduly scare the American people. It’s like he wants it to appear that this administration has everything under complete control all the time so Keller can coast in on our coat tails or something.”

  “Nobody ever coasts into the Oval Office. He, of all people, knows that,” Angela countered, stirring some sugar into her tea and taking a sip.

  “All I know is that when I try to bring up some truly scary scenarios, he’s the first one to try and shut me up.”

  “Can’t you just keep working with the agencies like you always do and shrug it off
?”

  “It’s hard to shrug it off when you feel like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

  “Wait a minute,” Angela said, “Aren’t you being a little bit dramatic?”

  Samantha leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Look, if you had information that pointed to a possible threat to our entire economy, wouldn’t you want the senior staff to focus on it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I can’t say too much about it because I got it from a classified report.”

  “Everything you do is classified,” Angela said.

  “Well, almost everything. But let me ask you this. If there were a threat, or, say, a type of weapon that could shut down communications, shut down the banking system, shut down the internet, where would we be?”

  “Back to Dixie cups and string?”

  “Get serious!” Samantha said. “I read somewhere that Bill Gates said that while aviation was the key to the twentieth century because it moved people and things around the world, the internet is the key to the twenty-first century because it moves ideas around the world. So it’s just about as important as you can get.”

  “Well, sure there have been a bunch of cyber attacks. But those usually mean they’re stealing identities or injecting viruses and messing some things up. Not closing the whole system down. Sorry, I just don’t see how some terrorist group could pull that off. I mean we’ve had blackouts and stuff like that, but nobody has figured out how to shut everything down.”

  “Let’s just say that there is a way, and it scares me to death.” The waiter brought their entrees and Samantha started to pick at the fruit on her plate. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get all maudlin today. Tell me what you’re working on these days.”

  “Well, let’s see. We’ve got so many groups trying to get the president’s attention, it’s ridiculous. Just this morning I got a request from the city of Stockton. They want the president to attend their Asparagus Festival.”

  “Oh geez! What did you tell them?”

  “Nothing yet. But maybe he could hit that one after he stops by the Garlic Festival in Gilroy,” Angela said with a grin.

  “He’s not going to go to those things, is he?”

  “Probably not. But they send in a request year after year.”

  “Those are pretty silly. What else is going on?” Samantha asked as she finally took a bite of her tuna sandwich.

  “I get a slew of e-mails from every group you could imagine asking for money for weird things. There’s one guy who’s sent maybe a dozen messages. Says he’s got some group called the SAINTS.”

  “Sounds like a basketball team or maybe a jazz group.”

  “Don’t I wish! At least there might be some entertainment value there. With this guy, all he does is complain. It’s gotten so bad, I wouldn’t dream of sending an answer.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN

  The blue turrets and blue dome on top of the Presidential Palace gleamed in the bright sunshine. Roses in the surrounding gardens created a carpet of fragrant red and pink hues as the block long building welcomed government workers, ambassadors, and visitors from around the world. President Viktor Suleimenov marched through the ornate receiving room on the second floor, past large paintings of Kazakh mountains and nomads riding horses across the steppe. He entered his special cabinet room and pushed his bulky frame into the heavy chair at the head of the long blond wood table. The chair was upholstered in red that matched the tie he was wearing to this meeting of his most trusted advisers. Prisms of light from the crystal chandeliers shown down on their notes for the gathering. The president shuffled his papers, adjusted his glasses and began with no preamble at all.

  “I don’t like it! I don’t like their meddling, their threats, their army training programs. It sounds like they’re gearing up for another onslaught on their former territories. Look at Georgia. Look at Ukraine. We thought we would be safe. After all, we were the last of the Soviet Republics to declare independence. And do you think they would be grateful for our support all these years? No. They are not grateful. They talk only about restoring the glory days of the Soviet Union.”

  The ministers laughed nervously at their president’s outburst. They were used to this new president making snide remarks about the current Russian leaders, but in recent meetings he had become more and more belligerent. Where was this going? They all leaned in to hang on his next sentence.

  “I have word that there are going to be massive demonstrations over the summer. The Semipalatinsk people are going to be staging protests all around the country commemorating the terrible acts inflicted on our people during the Soviet nuclear tests years ago. You all know they had hundreds of explosions over our lands and they didn’t stop until 1989. This is going to be a reminder of the callousness of the Soviet military from those days. And I for one don’t see much change in their attitude today. They never did compensate any of our people who are still suffering from radiation sickness today.

  “So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to support those protests or rallies or whatever they turn out to be. We will see to it that they are covered by our radio and TV stations for all the world to see. I want everyone to remember what the Soviets did to us.”

  “If I may ask a question, Mr. President,” one minister asked hesitantly.

  “Yes. Go ahead.”

  “You will pardon my questioning of anything you have said, sir. I simply ask how will this keep the Russians from showing more muscle when it comes to their dealings with us? Won’t this just make them mad and perhaps strengthen their resolve to make a move?”

  There was a murmur around the table as other ministers nodded and raised their eyebrows in anticipation of the president’s answer.

  “I have more plans. Big plans. We have all seen what happens when nations announce programs to develop nuclear power, especially Moslem nations.”

  The ministers nodded and several spoke at once. “They are condemned by the Americans, the Europeans, others …”

  “There are demands that they sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaties …”

  “There are threats to bring in inspectors…”

  “The Israelis bomb them …”

  The president raised his hands to quiet the room. “Of course, we already have four nuclear reactors. No one can criticize those. They have been running for years. But if we announce … one day … that we are starting a larger program to develop more nuclear power and develop our own nuclear weapons, what do you think the reaction will be?”

  “Nuclear weapons?”

  “Outrage.”

  “Fear.”

  “Demands that we stand down.”

  “Yes. Yes. All of that will happen, I am sure,” the president said. “But let me also ask you this. What could we possibly do to protect ourselves any better, to inoculate ourselves so to speak against the Russian fever of conquest and intimidation?”

  The room erupted in questions and cries of protest. “You can’t possibly mean…”

  “The Americans would come down …”

  “Our own people would protest …”

  “The European Union … “

  “NATO might …”

  “All right! Enough!” the president bellowed. “What have the Americans been able to do about India and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons? What has Europe done about Israel’s arsenal? Come now, we all know they have the weapons. Thirty years ago there were about eight countries that had missiles and technology that could be a threat to their neighbors. Today it’s more like thirty countries that have that capacity. Why shouldn’t Kazakhstan be one of them … again?”

  For a moment there was silence in the room as they all processed this information. Finally, one minister spoke up. “But, Mr. President, your predecessor met with the American secretary of State and made an agreement. What was his name?”

  “Baker. James Baker,” another ministered answered.
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  “Yes, him. And then those other senators got involved.” “Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar,” the vice president said. “I met with them when I was appointed to that non-proliferation task force back in the 90’s. That was when everybody was worried about the Iranians.”

  “Yes. Remember, their agents from Tehran were running all over the country trying to make deals to get some of our uranium,” one minister volunteered. “Just because we’re a Moslem country doesn’t mean we want to do a weapons business with Iran though.”

  “Maybe not then,” the president said. “But now, well, they have been good partners when it comes to trade.” He looked around the table at the anxious faces and added. “Yes, I know all about those old agreements. I know about the Nunn-Lugar program. I remember when that other media man with all the money, Ted Turner, was financing some of it. And then all those American scientists came over here, and we let them take our weapons grade uranium back to their country and remake it into nuclear fuel for their reactors. That whole operation was called Project Sapphire, and it was Top Secret. We have declassified it now as many of you know.”

  Several ministers nodded.

  President Suleimenov looked down at his notes and shook his head as if he was disgusted with what he was reading. “Back then do you all realize that we had the fourth largest nuclear arsenal in the world? Bigger than that of Great Britain, France and China combined? We had the uranium. We had the weapons. Fourteen hundred of them. And with multiple warheads. And what did we do? We gave them up.” He sighed and then raised his eyes and his fleshy lips curved up into a slight smile. “However, did you think we gave them all up?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We kept some of them?

  “Where are they?”

  “Are they safe?”

  The president glanced over at his military aide guarding the door. No one else could spy on this meeting. He decided he had to trust these men. After all, they were his hand-picked team. He felt fairly confident that these ministers would ratify his plan once he took them into his confidence. They would have to or they would be out of office and out of favor. Everyone in the room knew that, and so he continued. “You see, I have already begun a secret program. Not to develop a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons. No, that would not be wise. We are simply utilizing a small amount of enriched uranium that we saved to develop a few small nuclear devices. It’s all underway now. The program has already begun.”