Kill Zone

15

With the screeching, painful noise driving them, everyone rushed to the obvious escape offered by the opening vault door.

“That way!” Doyle yelled. “Straight ahead!”

Van Dyckman was right behind her. “We’ll be protected in there.”

The group stampeded forward, and as they approached the door, the maddening sound dopplered down in intensity, as if to reward them for their cooperation.

From the other side of the metal door, Adonia could see another tunnel perpendicular to the one they were in. This really was like some dungeon role-playing game. The cross passage looked identical to the previous interior tunnel, which was now nearly a half mile behind them.

Shawn pulled the disoriented Senator along. He didn’t seem to realize the noise was abating. They slowed, and suddenly Pulaski straightened and brushed the help aside, embarrassed at having to be carried.

The group stumbled to a halt at the open vault door; Adonia was reluctant to enter what might be a trap. By now the din had decreased to the level of a loud rock concert, and she could start collecting her thoughts.

Peering past the vault door, she spotted construction supplies, tools, and debris piled along the new passage. Apparently this area was still being reconfigured for Hydra Mountain’s new mission. In the wide tunnel, massive sheets of one-inch-thick plastic panels, bags of cement, and disassembled metal scaffolding were stacked among caterpillar-like swaths of foil-backed pink fiberglass insulation that had been removed from the Cold War — era facility construction. Adonia recognized the thick black polymer panels as fiber-reinforced plastic, which were usually associated with… lining water tanks? She frowned. Surely not in these tunnels. The debris and construction material were stacked against the sloping granite walls, leaving a path along the center just wide enough for carts and forklifts.

Holding up a hand to stop anyone else from following him, Shawn stuck his head into the connecting tunnel. Garibaldi frowned. “Checking to make sure there’s no trapdoor into an alligator pit, Colonel?”

Shawn didn’t laugh at the joke. “I don’t want to trigger any more countermeasures. Maybe I should go ahead alone, cautiously.”

“The vault door’s open — that’s obviously where we’re supposed to go,” van Dyckman interrupted. “With the motion sensors, it’s more likely we’ll trigger countermeasures if we stop moving.” He pointed to the left. “Look, this way leads back to the main corridor. We can get out of here.”

Adonia supported Shawn’s decision. “Harris charged me with ensuring our safety, Stanley. It’s my call, and I agree with Colonel Whalen.”

Van Dyckman scowled at her, taken aback. “And I’m the program manager. I don’t need anyone’s approval to head for safety. I’ve been inside the Mountain hundreds of times.”

Shawn blocked the way and refused to move. Adonia knew he always had her back; she’d never doubted that. Shawn was fast on his feet, and he kept himself in great shape, while Stanley was the epitome of an Ivy Leaguer from Brown; his main “athletic” effort was arguing before Senate budget committees.

After seeing the expression on Shawn’s face, van Dyckman backed down. He mumbled, “I wouldn’t want to countermand your authority, Ms. Rojas.”

Garibaldi said, “I don’t suggest we agonize over the decision.”

Senator Pulaski called out, “Somebody better lead the way before those sonic countermeasures start blaring again. Let’s get out of this place!”

Doyle shuddered. “I don’t want to experience anything like that noise again in my life. Lesser of two evils — let’s go forward before the Mountain forces us to move.”

Adonia made up her mind, knowing they couldn’t wait much longer even if they set off more sensors. “All right then, let’s head through. We’ve got to find an intercom so we can let Rob know where we are. I want to find out what triggered those countermeasures.”

Doyle cast a sour glance at Pulaski. “We all know exactly what got us into this mess. His damned phone crashed the systems — which are clearly unstable for such an important facility.”

“Unstable?” van Dyckman piped up. “These are sensitive and thorough security measures, and the systems are working exactly as designed in response to a severe anomaly.” He pointed to the left, through the newly opened vault door. “The main corridor is less than a hundred feet over there. I’m sure of it. If we go the other direction, we’ll walk down a decline to the lower level and the high bay. We were supposed to tour there this afternoon, according to Harris’s schedule.”

In a sharp voice, Pulaski said, “We can finish the review later, after we’re safe.”

Garibaldi muttered, “I don’t think this is what they really wanted us to see. Not getting good marks so far.”

Adonia stepped next to Shawn so she could study the control panel set into the granite just outside the open vault door. The panel looked identical to the other one outside the dry-storage chambers, with the same LED screen and old-fashioned intercom. She pushed the Talk button and leaned closer to the speaker. “Ops center? Are you there?”

Nothing happened. The intercom didn’t function.

While the others watched in consternation, Garibaldi raised his voice to be heard above the continuing racket. “Van Dyckman may be correct in his assessment. If his new and improved defensive systems are working as advertised, we’ve been herded this way for a reason.”

Adonia again visualized the set of tunnels in her head from the diagram, but something about the electronic systems didn’t feel right. Perhaps their safety and security measures, new and old, were working at cross-purposes, thanks to the sequence of errors. The Class A event, the small plane crash, might have stressed the complicated system to its limits, and then Pulaski’s cell phone signal had been the tipping point that caused the logic chain to break down. Back at Granite Bay, her experts would have called it a non-reproducible bifurcation, a manager’s worst fear: different results for identical situations.

Harris had said that Hydra Mountain’s safety and security interfaces had not been tested in all possible permutations before the facility was rushed into operation. Yet Yucca Mountain had endured more than three decades of excruciating design assessments and reviews, and it had still been mothballed. In addition, the Nevada desert facility had been designed to store high-level nuclear waste in the first place. By contrast, reopening Hydra Mountain was a rushed, classified stopgap solution, using antiquated systems appropriate for nuclear weapons in combination with state-of-the-art, digital devices jury-rigged for storing nuclear waste.

What could possibly go wrong?

Adonia would have felt much better right now if at least the old-fashioned push-button intercom worked. Something had to be stable in this topsy-turvy underground site.

She turned away from the wire mesh speaker. “We’re on our own. Everybody, through the door and to the left — as fast as we can. Watch out for all that construction material. Shawn, take the rear and make sure no one falls behind.”

“Copy that.”

She looked at Pulaski. “Need any help, Senator?”

“I’m fine, as long as I can get out of here.” Senator Pulaski took a few uncertain steps and then pushed forward, walking by himself now. The others followed.

Adonia called, “Stay together. Once the sensors detect that we’ve entered this connecting tunnel, we don’t know how long the vault door will stay open.”

“Be prepared to cover your ears,” Shawn added. “We may set off additional sonic countermeasures.”

“I can’t wait,” Garibaldi said.

The Senator stepped ahead, and Adonia heaved a sigh of relief when his footsteps triggered no further alarms. “See? Home free.” She motioned for the rest of them. “All right, let’s go!”

Ahead down the long tunnel, a bright light shone at them like an oncoming freight train. She guessed that from there another vault door should lead back to the main corridor, offering them a way out, but the powerful beam didn’t look like a welcoming light. The beacon grew brighter and brighter as they hurried toward it, like a wall of intense glare.

A dark silhouette in front of her, Pulaski shielded his eyes against the brightness. Behind him, Doyle paused, placing her hands on her narrow hips as she squinted ahead, wary. The light began to pulse, each time growing brighter… and brighter, burning their eyes as if the glare itself intended to push them backward.

Garibaldi said, “Well, what surprise do you have for us now, van Dyckman?”

“These aren’t my security systems.” He sounded rattled. “I’ve never seen this before.”

Shawn came up behind Adonia, peering down the tunnel with its intense throbbing lights. “That looks like a warning to me. I don’t think that’s the way to go.”

“Of course it is!” van Dyckman insisted. “That’s the way out. The exit door can’t be more than twenty or thirty more yards straight ahead. I’ve used that entrance dozens of times. Valiant Locksmith transports high-level waste down to the lower level through this very passageway.”

Adonia’s ears were still ringing from the sonic alarms, and she shook her head. “Common sense tells us to go that direction, but it’s also clear the countermeasures are trying to push us away. It’s another deterrent.” She turned around, dreading what she had to do. “We have to go the opposite direction, or it’ll just get worse.”