Fallout

20

Katherine listened to the radio all the way to Reno but had learned no new information. There’d been some speculation about a “school” of some sort in Nevada that could account for the presence of the MiGs and the F-16s, but no one could really explain it yet. Katherine drove as fast as she could to the airport to catch the next Southwest flight to San Diego. She made it to the gate ten minutes before takeoff and had been given a yellow plastic boarding pass, numbered 130. She was in the fourth boarding group. She stood on her swollen feet in the closely packed crowd and tried to hear the television that was hanging from the ceiling fifty feet away as a child next to her played with a Game Boy and refused to turn off the sound.

Katherine recognized Carl Allen as the CNN reporter anchoring the coverage, but she also noticed that his demeanor was much less comforting than it had been. Like most of the other passengers in the line, she strained to hear what he was saying.

“We feel it our duty to report that Leslie Monteneri, who had been reporting for us live from the scene earlier this morning, has been taken to the hospital, as have the two helicopter pilots with whom she was flying. At this point we are not sure of the cause of her illness, but we’ve been told it is most likely radiation sickness. The helicopter that brought you those compelling images live this morning from San Onofre was apparently being bombarded with radiation from the damage inflicted on San Onofre by the Pakistani pilots flying American jets. The exact source of the radiation is unclear.

“We have another helicopter airborne now at the scene, with CNN’s nuclear expert, Dr. Alfred Boyer, aboard. He has detection equipment on board to make sure they’re safe.” The image changed to a shot of the helicopter in the bright California sunshine. “Dr. Boyer, can you hear us?”

“Yes, I can.”

The image of Dr. Boyer was horrifying to the passengers waiting to get on the Southwest plane. All conversation stopped. The mother next to Katherine reached down, took her son’s Game Boy, and turned it off.

Boyer and the single pilot in the helicopter wore radiation-protection suits that made them look like the evil scientists from E.T. Boyer’s bearded face was visible through the plastic faceplate, distorted just enough to make him look odd. He was surrounded by a bank of equipment that seemed out of place in the helicopter.

“What can you tell us about reports of radiation?”

“There’s definitely radiation coming from the site, Carl. It’s almost certain that Leslie and the other crew members are suffering from radiation sickness. I must report that we are very high over the site and using a very large lens to bring you the recent pictures you have before you. As you can see, there are several bodies of firefighters and emergency-response people lying on the ground in the San Onofre compound. They were apparently there to respond to the fire and the damage, and although we shouldn’t speculate, were almost certainly overcome by radiation. The speed with which it worked on them and the fact that others have not gone to their rescue indicates to me very high-level, very deadly, radiation. I won’t speculate on the cause, but it is clearly not from the reactors themselves.”

“That accounts for your appearance in special suits.”

Boyer seemed unsure about whether to show the concern he felt or try to be chipper to make the situation seem better than he actually believed it to be. “Um, that’s right, Carl. To be abundantly cautious, we’ve put these suits on.” He looked at the baffling array of electronic gear behind him. “We have a lot of detection equipment with us. It’s about as sensitive as there is, and we’re able to detect radiation in the atmosphere around us. We’ve been detecting several kinds—”

“You’re detecting radiation right now? Right where you are?”

“Yes we are. As you can see”—Boyer pointed—“we have indications of several types of radioactive material—cesium, plutonium, even uranium.”

“From a nuclear warhead? Did they drop a nuclear bomb that did not explode but is just slowly melting down?”

“That’s unlikely, Carl. Based on what I’ve seen so far, and without saying too much, it is my belief that the nuclear waste of San Onofre has been compromised. You must keep in mind, Carl, that the radioactive inventory of a spent nuclear rod is about equivalent to that of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.”

Carl was staggered. “Where would they find spent nuclear rods, Dr. Boyer? Where would they get nuclear waste?”

“I didn’t mean to imply that they brought nuclear waste. I would expect we’re dealing with the waste that is stored at San Onofre, on site, as at all the other nuclear plants in the country, but that is speculation on my part.”

“How much waste was stored at San Onofre?”

“I’m not sure about that, Carl. I think we’ll wait to hear from San Onofre at their press conference on that one.”

“Do you expect them to evacuate?”

“There is an evacuation plan, and I’m sure that San Onofre and the local authorities are considering putting that in place. The sirens have been going off for some time now, and the local residents took it as an actual signal of radioactivity, which it turned out to be. They’ve begun fleeing from the area, but the local freeways are so crowded that we’ve seen people driving through fences to get to Camp Pendleton on dirt roads to avoid the jammed freeways and city streets of San Clemente.”

“Thank you, Dr. Boyer.” Carl turned his attention to the camera. “We will keep getting updates from Dr. Boyer. In just a few minutes we expect representatives from the San Onofre plant to hold their first press conference. We’ll be carrying it live.”

Katherine was jarred back to Reno by the PA announcement. “Southwest flight 1285 to San Diego is ready for immediate boarding. We will accept boarding passes numbered one to thirty at this time.”

Nobody moved. Everyone had been listening to the broadcast and realized there was radioactivity in southern Orange County. A burgeoning Chernobyl. They stared at each other. Finally one of the passengers peeled away from the front of the group. “I don’t need to glow in the dark. I’m not going anywhere.”

Another followed her, then another. Before she knew it, Katherine was standing among a group of perhaps two dozen people who were still intent on boarding the plane. She walked down the ramp and stepped onto the airplane. She hesitated, then turned toward the cockpit. The two pilots were in their seats. “Have you heard anything about San Onofre?” she asked the captain.

He looked back at her. “Sure. What in particular?”

“Is the FAA saying anything about whether it’s dangerous to go near to it?”

“There’s a large radioactive cloud forming. They’re not sure what’s going to happen to it, but they’re going to vector us around it. San Diego is okay, but they’ve stopped all flights into John Wayne Airport in Orange County.”

“What do you think?”

The co-pilot answered. “We’re going to drop you off, then fly to Las Vegas, where we’re based. And that’s where I’m going to stay until they know what the hell is going to happen. Whatever it is, it’s not a good thing.”

Katherine thanked them and made her way back to her seat. She had her choice of a hundred or so in the previously sold-out airplane.

“Well, Cindy,” Morrissey said, not needing to say anything else.

She nodded. The entire building in Langley, Virginia, was in shock. No one had ever attacked the United States more effectively. One could say that the attack on Pearl Harbor had done more physical damage, but that was done by hundreds, thousands of Japanese on dozens of ships and hundreds of airplanes. Four men had created the damage at San Onofre, or a couple dozen if you counted their maintenance personnel. And the effects of the attack were now expected to last not just days or weeks, but centuries. “I don’t know if it makes it better or worse that we were looking into them. Even active fieldwork. We didn’t get to the end of the road in time.”

Bill Morrissey closed his eyes. He knew this was it. He would be fired for this. Without a doubt. Pakistan was his area. He was supposed to know everything that was going on, even though that was impossible. There’d been an attempt to smuggle a nuclear warhead into Pakistan. He’d made no progress on that whatsoever. It continued to baffle him. Then there’d been an attack on a Pakistani weapons depot, where something had been stolen, but no one knew what. They knew only that the bombs designed to carry nuclear warheads hadn’t been touched. Then there’d been this concern about Major Riaz Khan at the school in Nevada. Kevin’s little brother had alerted them. But they’d had nothing to go on. Just suspicion. Could have been racism, for all he knew. But now it appeared it was all related somehow—and he’d missed it. The Director had relied on him.

“There’ll be plenty of time for them to discover all the reasons I should be fired,” he said. “But for now our job is to track this guy down. No stone unturned. No idea unexplored. He snuck into our tent and set the whole thing on fire.”

Cindy nodded. Her computer screen was playing streaming video of the San Onofre plant in the California sunshine with the growing cloud of death clearly visible against the blue ocean. “What can I do?”

“We have to figure how he got here, how he got bombs, and who picked him up in the ocean. Way I see it, it’s Pakistan until they can convince us it isn’t. I just heard that Congress is convening in special session today to determine whether to declare war against Pakistan.”

“Seriously?” Cindy asked. “Seriously? War?”

“Very seriously. This attack was by members of their military. It was a brilliantly executed military attack, with an escape planned to include a submarine. That means some country was involved. If not Pakistan, who the hell would be prearranged to pick up Pakistani Air Force pilots and help them escape from an attack on the United States?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Exactly.”

“And the fact you claim no responsibility for an act of war by your military is interesting, but it doesn’t get you out of the box. We clearly have enough to declare war against them. And frankly, I don’t know which way Congress will want to go with this.”

Katherine sat across from Luke. Between them was a set of thin metal bars. Her face showed much of the stress she felt, but she was trying to be calm and supportive. She could tell that Luke was at the end of his rope. She replied softly, “It is radioactive.”

His one oasis of good news, that they hadn’t hit the nuclear plant, was quickly eroding. “The plants were completely intact!”

“I don’t know,” Katherine said, also amazed. “Apparently it was radioactive waste. It was stored on site.”

“Waste?” Luke asked, mystified. “Waste? What waste?”

“I don’t know. All I know is the experts are totally hysterical. They’re saying all kinds of things. On my way here from the airport, I heard that the big issue they’re trying to decide now is whether to evacuate Los Angeles.”

“Los Angeles? Are you kidding me?”

“No. The cloud is being pushed northwest by the Santa Ana winds. The President has declared an emergency. The Governor has declared an emergency. They’re comparing this to Chernobyl. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is running around in circles, the Navy is searching for an invisible submarine, and the Air Force is looking for anybody in the air who’s unauthorized. But the lead story on CNN isn’t the attack, it’s the fact that the government stopped funding antiterrorism efforts at nuclear plants about three years ago. Too expensive. Everybody screamed how stupid it was at the time. You know how good the press is at ‘I told you so.’ ”

Luke was disgusted. “They didn’t find the sub?”

“The Navy isn’t saying much, but based on what I’ve heard, I think the nearest U.S. submarine was about two hundred miles away from where the F-16 went in. They sent out helicopters and P-3s, but nobody has found anything that I’ve heard about.”

“They’re long gone. It was a diesel. They’re too quiet. If they got even a couple hours’ head start, there’ll be no catching them.” Luke cradled his head in his hands. “I’m really sorry about this, Katherine. You think this was their plan all along?”

“Sure looks like it. Down to the last detail. I’ll bet the original plan was to go to TOPGUN. We just walked into it.”

Luke was speechless. He didn’t know what to do next. “Are we getting hammered in the news?”

“They finally know about the school, the four Pakistani students, the whole thing, but they’re not quite sure what to make of us. There’s a lot of amazement that a school was allowed to operate in Nevada with Russian fighters and that Pakistanis were allowed to come and operate supersonic fighters in the U.S. Oh, and Pakistan claims to know nothing about the attack. They claim to be equally outraged—”

“Right.”

“I’m just telling you what they’ve been saying. They know the pilots, but say they had no prior history of terrorist or radical activity. They think they might have affiliated with some other group, like the Taliban from Afghanistan, or the Iranians—a lot of possibilities. But nobody knows.”

“Can you see the cloud?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “It must be ten miles across now and really high, maybe fifty thousand feet. You can see it from here.”

Luke leaned back in his wooden chair and closed his eyes. He was unable to clear his head of the shame and anger. He looked at Katherine. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. You did everything you could to to stop him.”

“I didn’t listen to Brian as much as I should have. He had the scent of these guys. I didn’t listen. I looked right by. ‘But their security clearances were guaranteed by the United States government. The Undersecretary will look out for—‘ “

“Yeah, except the Undersecretary disappeared. I heard it on the news.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yeah. Vanished. No trace of him.”

“We’re dead.”

“Well, we’ll see where all this leads. My first job is to get you out of here. I’ll have to hire a lawyer.”

“Tell the other guys at the squadron to keep flying. Finish the class.”

Katherine braced herself for getting up out of her chair. “They can’t.”

“Why not?”

She’d hoped not to have to tell him. “The FBI padlocked the gate. The school’s been shut down.”

“Kevin,” Brian said breathlessly, sick from the developments of the last twenty-four hours and blaming himself, “you’ve got to help—”

“Where the hell are you?”

“The Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah.”

“Brian, I can’t even talk to you! Everybody involved in that school is a leper!”

“You’ve got to help,” Brian repeated, trying not to sound desperate.

“People a lot bigger than me are looking hard, Brian. You can be sure of that. People are looking under every rock. FBI, everybody. Trust me. This is way out of my hands. I can’t do anything.”

“Yes you can. Call Renee.”

Kevin was furious. “Don’t ever mention her name again! Ever.”

“You’ve got to get back to her. Find out what she knows!”

“Do you really think that with four Pakistani pilots attacking the United States we’re not going to be exercising our intelligence assets in Pakistan? How friggin’ stupid do you think we are?”

“And the Undersecretary. Find out who his contact was.”

“We already know!”

“What? Who? I haven’t heard anything on the news.”

“We don’t typically do news releases here.”

“So who was the contact?”

“Guy in the Pakistani embassy. His name was Yushaf.”

“Is somebody having a chat with him?”

“Seems he anticipated there might be a reaction to his pilots bombing our nuclear power plant. He was on an airplane when the attack was still under way.”

“He left before it was in the news?” Brian said, thinking.

“What?”

“He must have been in on it. How else could he have known to get on an airplane?”

“I’m not sure,” Kevin replied.

“That shows it was Pakistan’s plan all along. They pulled their guy from Washington before the shit hit the fan!”

Kevin pondered the implications. “Maybe. Maybe he’s just like this pilot. Maybe they’re all working against their country’s interests. Plus, Yushaf didn’t go back to Pakistan. He vanished.”

“Meaning what? He was working for somebody else?”

“We don’t know.”

“Where’d they get the bombs? Those have to have come from Pakistan.”

“They did. An armory near Islamabad was broken into a couple of months ago. That’s probably when they took the bombs.”

“You’ve got to work this, Kevin. There’s a radioactive cloud hovering off Southern California, the school has been shut down, and Luke is in jail. Can’t you do anything?”

Kevin said, “I’ll be in touch.”