Atom Bomb Angel

25

The newspaper vendor put a boiled sweet into his mouth and shuffled it around his toothless gums. He sorted out an itch on his cheek, checked for wax in his ears, and then put a hand up to see if it was raining.

The startling information of today, that appeared behind the mesh grill at the side of his news stand, printed to give the appearance of urgent handwriting was: Volcanoes Kill Hundreds. Thousands Flee Two Eruptions. I had not needed to pay money to this wrinkled purveyor of vegetable-rack liners and fly-swatters in order to slake my curiosity about his two eruptions. A customer, either of his, or of one of his eight thousand look-alikes had kindly left me a Telegraph in the back of the cab. The light changed to green, and with a menacing rattle of the diesel, we forged forward again down Knightsbridge.

One volcano was on an island called Coguana des Tyq in the South Atlantic Ocean, part of the same group of islands to which Tristan da Cunha, which had been devastated by a volcanic eruption twenty years before, belonged. The seismic readings and earthquakes resulting from the Coguana des Tyq activity made it the worst volcanic eruption of the twentieth century. A second volcano, Mount St Helens in washington State, which had erupted previously in 1980, had now begun to erupt again, and the reason was being blamed on Coguana des Tyq. The prophets were having a field day, and dusty scrolls portending that two volcanoes simultaneously erupting signalled the end of the world were being pulled from a million doom-mongers’ closets. For once, for many people, there was a damn sight more than a mere grain of truth in their prophesies. In a strange way, I found it comforting to remember that in a world full of sick people lusting for destruction, Mother Nature could rear her head in any way she liked, at any time she liked, and create acts of havoc that could make all human acts of destruction pale into insignificance.

The volcano in Fifeshire’s mouth glowed a vivid red at the tip, and then the red faded away, leaving the tip a silvery grey colour; he opened his mouth and shot a plume of smoke out into the room.

The only other person in Fifeshire’s office, apart from myself and Fifeshire, was Sir Isaac Quoit. It was eleven o’clock Saturday morning, 2 January. In two days’ time, provided that England was still standing, Quoit would be permitted to come out of hiding. In spite of that, he didn’t look particularly cheerful, and still continued to eye me with a mixture of fear and contempt. It was Fifeshire who spoke first.

‘Seventy-two fuel bundles were shipped from Hamburg to Shoreham in Sussex on a small freighter, the Jan Marie, on 28 December, concealed in a consignment of kitchen equipment. The Jan Marie is at sea again at the moment, so the crew have not yet been questioned, but it is unlikely they would know much about what happened to their cargo once it went ashore. The consignment cleared UK customs on 30 December, and was in the forwarding agents’ warehouse at Shoreham awaiting delivery to the customer — an East London discount retailing group. On the night of 31 December, the warehouse was broken into, and four crates were stolen. According to a check on the inventory list, these four crates contained spare elements for microwave oven units — a clever description, because, to someone unfamiliar, as most people are, with the inside of microwave ovens, they could easily be forgiven for thinking that’s what the bundles were. Seventy-two bundles is two day’s fresh fuel for one reactor, or one day’s fresh fuel for two. Is that not right, Isaac?’

Quoit nodded.

‘The rogue elements are probably concealed among these. If we can find these bundles, then our problems are over, wouldn’t you agree?’ He looked at Quoit.

‘I would hope so.’

‘At least, provided everyone else can find theirs too. I have here a report from Admiralty House. Naturally they know nothing of what is going on. This is a standard weekly intelligence report. The NATO fleet has observed that the Russians have been clearing all their shipping, both military and commercial, from the Atlantic Ocean, English Channel and North Sea. It’s apparently causing some concern.’

‘Submarines too?’ I asked.

‘No, only surface vessels.’

‘Because they’re worried about fall-out?’

‘It must be. I can’t think of any other reason — and the Admiralty can’t think of any reason at all. If it was just military shipping, one might perhaps think there was a different reason, but civilian shipping as well — it all fits. Would you not agree, Isaac?’

‘Ships are as vulnerable to fall-out as anything else. Most modern warships do have air-tight hatches and a system for washing down their decks automatically in the event of being subjected to fall-out, but no commercial shipping does to my knowledge.’

‘Who have you informed of what we know, so far, sir?’ I asked Fifeshire.

‘Only the heads of the Atomic Energy authorities in the four countries. They are all instigating searches for B-marked fuel — I hope we’re right about it.’

‘So do I.’

‘They have all promised to let me know the moment they find anything — or the moment anything happens,’ he added ominously.

‘What about this country?’

Fifeshire shook his head. ‘If I tell the Home Secretary, he’ll get in one almighty flap, and rush off and tell the PM. The PM will get in a bigger flap still, summon an emergency cabinet meeting and discuss the matter for three hours. Having done that, they will then telephone me, and ask me to come and discuss it with them. I will tell them what I am doing, that in my opinion it is the only thing to do, and they will agree and tell me to continue; so there is not a lot of point in telling them in the first place. I did put everyone formally on notice back in October. You were both present at the meeting. Now I am getting on with the job. There is nothing further to tell them that will be of any use either to them or to us.’

‘If by Monday morning,’ said Quoit, ‘nothing has turned up, and there’s a westerly blowing, what are you going to do?’

‘Couldn’t all the power stations be shut down?’ I asked.

Quoit shook his head. ‘In summer, perhaps, but not in winter. Nineteen per cent of the country’s electricity comes from nuclear power. Take that away, and the conventional generating stations would not be able to cope. The whole country would be without electricity for days. Thousands of people, sick and old, would die.’

‘Even more than that would die if the country were contaminated by fall-out.’

‘I don’t think shutting down the stations would make any difference,’ said Quoit. ‘If these people have got this far, I’m certain they would have a contingency plan against the stations being shut down. If they cannot be stopped, then the only way you are going to protect the people of this country is to evacuate them.’

‘Evacuate the entire country?’ said Fifeshire. ‘Excellent idea, I’m sure, Isaac. How do you propose getting fifty-five million people off this island by Monday morning? And where exactly would you put them if we did so?’

Quoit looked at him and said nothing.

‘It’s not going to be much use shoving them into empty hotels on the Costa Brava,’ he went on, ‘if the ruddy Spaniards are going to have their reactors blown up too.’ He paused for some moments. ‘And if we did evacuate, how long before everyone could come back? It wouldn’t be a few days would it? It would be a year for the lucky ones, ten years for some less lucky, and several centuries for the less luckier still.’

‘I agree with you, it’s a major problem.’ said Quoit. ‘We’ve always been aware of it. We have plans for minor accidents — and major accidents — but not for a sabotage of this nature. This comes under the category of war — nuclear war, if you like, if they’re going to use nuclear explosives. That’s a different ball-game entirely. You’ve either got to get the people into fall-out shelters, or out of the downwind path. Until you know which are the target power stations, almost any area in the country could be in jeopardy, and by the time the reactors blow, it will be too late for evacuation.’

‘Evacuation is impossible,’ said Fifeshire, ‘completely impossible. It’s been discussed many times.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘You cannot see radioactive fall-out, you cannot smell it, you cannot feel it; unless you have a Geiger counter, you wouldn’t know it was present, neither in massive doses, nor in tiny doses. Correct?’

Quoit nodded.

‘So how would the public know if they were subjected to a massive dose?’

‘How would they know? It depends how the reactor is blown up, and how close they are. If a nuclear device is used, the people up to about fifty miles downwind would be dropping dead like flies, that’s how they’d know.’

‘Literally dropping dead? Maybe the ones very close to the power station would die immediately or very quickly, but further downwind — say fifty to one hundred miles — surely not? If a power station blows up fifty miles from London and the wind blows the stuff over London, the Londoners aren’t all going to drop dead on the spot are they?’

‘No. A few would die fairly quickly — within a couple of weeks probably — the rest, during the next five to fifteen years. And of course there would be a horrendous incidence of deformed children born.’

‘Would everyone in London be affected?’

‘No — probably about fifty per cent.’

‘No one would be able to prove anything would they? Not conclusively? A high incidence of deformed children, and of cancer five years later. That’s a long time; people forget. What could the people do anyway?’

Quoit stared at Fifeshire. A look of horror was on his face. ‘Do you mean, Charles, that you are suggesting nothing would be done to protect the public should these power stations be blown up?’

‘Yes, I am. There isn’t anything we could do, and if we tried to do anything at all, let the cat out of the bag about what had happened, it would cause blind nationwide panic. We would have to put the country onto full nuclear alert and stop all movement throughout the country. No one would be any the better off for knowing.’

There was a silence in the room while Fifeshire’s words sank in.

‘What about protecting the services?’ said Quoit.

‘Yes, of course we would do that. We would mount Operation Midwicket — which is what we call the soft nuclear alert, as opposed to Operation Longstop, which is the full-scale nuclear alert. In Midwicket, certain key ministers and military personnel and civil servants quietly move into nuclear shelters — without their families. The whole operation is carried out as if it were an exercise only, to avoid panic, and these people would never know it was anything more than an exercise. The Atomic Energy Authority, if questioned about its detonated reactors, would categorically deny any leak of radiation whatsoever.’

‘Well, I think it’s disgraceful,’ said Quoit.

‘Let’s hope we can find our elements,’ said Fifeshire, ‘and maybe it won’t come to that.’

‘They would need a truck,’ said Quoit suddenly. ‘They would have rented it. They must have had one to transport the bundles from Shoreham! Surely there can’t be many people who have rented trucks at this time of year? What if you called all the truck-hire people and asked them for descriptions of all the people who had hired trucks during the last week?’

As a nuclear energy expert, Quoit might have been brilliant. As a fledgling detective, he wasn’t quite so hot.

‘Assuming that we did that, Sir Isaac — and I am sure you are right that not many people hire vans at this time of year, even so I am sure you would find it runs into several thousands; it would take us months to get around to everyone. It is Saturday today, and half of the van hire firms in England are probably shut. Even if we got a description — say of Whalley or of Tsenong — what would that tell us that we don’t already know?’

Quoit thought for some moments. Fifeshire put his hand to his mouth to hide a smirk.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Sherlock Holmes. ‘It wouldn’t tell us much.’

‘I think our only chance,’ I said, ‘is to search the fuel stores of every power station. As we cannot tell or trust anyone, I’ll do it myself. I’ve got the rest of today and the whole of tomorrow. I’ll make an order of priority and work through the power stations one by one.’

‘An order of priority?’ queried Quoit.

‘Yes. I’ll assume first that London is the target. I’ll go to all the stations that, if blown up in a westerly wind, could contaminate London. If those don’t pan out, I’ll move northward.’

‘You’ll never get round them all in time.’

‘Yes, I will — I’ll use a helicopter. It can’t take that long to check the fuel stores, surely? I’ll inform them I’m doing a spot inventory check; they’re used to spot checks. Unless you can think of something better?’

Quoit couldn’t.

At half past three on the following afternoon, the first of the B-marked fuel bundles turned up in the stacking line at the fuel store at Trawsfynydd in Wales; behind it sat another thirty-five. Either Ogomo had lied about the wind, or London was not the target — a westerly from here would have blown the stuff over Liverpool and Manchester.

At a quarter to two in the morning, with my eyeballs hanging out on their stalks from tiredness, I found the second thirty-six, stacked and ready to go in the morning into the reactor at Calder Hall. If this one had blown, it would have taken out Newcastle.

For the second time in twelve hours, I instructed an army CO to place a nuclear power station under arrest. I instructed warrants to be issued for the arrest of Whalley, Tsenong and Patrick Cleary, whoever he was. Then I telephoned London and left a message for Fifeshire. Then the jet lag, and the three nights without any real sleep finally caught up with me, and feeling not a little pleased with myself, I leaned my head forward onto the desk in front of me, and was about to fall into a deep sleep, when the phone rang. It was Fifeshire, and he was not a happy man.