Kill Zone

19

As they approached the guard portal, the passageway was cluttered with even more piled materials, which they had to dodge. Adonia was surprised to see how much construction was still taking place inside the Mountain.

The facility had been mothballed for years, and when the DOE took over the site and reconfigured the storage chambers for Valiant Locksmith, she knew that substantial modifications would have been necessary. But according to Stanley, the Mountain had been reopened for over a year. If a steady flow of nuclear waste had been arriving for secure storage, the facility should have been finished and approved for operations. Even if Valiant Locksmith was deeply classified, no program was too important for DOE lawyers to waive safety regulations.

So what was van Dyckman still building down here?

She imagined that even as he helped the agitated Senator along, van Dyckman was brainstorming how they could salvage the review.

Victoria Doyle shot a dissatisfied scowl back at them, and Adonia didn’t know how to read the increasing tension. She could tell the Undersecretary had some deep animus toward Stanley, which was more than scientific or political rivalry. This was personal.

As she caught up to Doyle, she remembered hearing the rumors during her own short stint at DOE Headquarters, of the poorly concealed affair between the two energetic rising stars. Supposedly, their relationship had begun back when van Dyckman was still Pulaski’s congressional Chief of Staff and before Doyle received her appointment as Undersecretary to administer the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Both of them were ambitious and could use each other’s connections. Victoria gained influence and incomparable access to a powerful senator, while Stanley received unique insider information about one of the executive branch’s most important agencies, responsible for nuclear weapon development. It wasn’t a starry-eyed romance, but more of a high-level, mutual partnership with benefits.

Much younger at the time, idealistic, and determined to make a difference, Adonia had kept her head down and focused on her job. For her own part, she had been enamored with then — Lieutenant Colonel Shawn Whalen during their days at the National War College.

But when the President had commended Stanley for his role in “saving” Granite Bay after the extremist attack, his affair with Victoria Doyle had flared out and fizzled. He was rumored to have tested his connections with the President, and had overreached in an attempt to get himself appointed as the next Secretary of Energy. Instead, that position had been given to a high-profile young public defender. And, adept at the high-stakes game of political maneuvering herself, Victoria had blocked Stanley’s other ambitions, landing him a mere assistant secretary job as a consolation prize.

Now, another piece fell into place for Adonia. Unbeknownst to anyone due to SAP security, he must have been offered that role because it included the covert and vital responsibilities of being the Valiant Locksmith national program manager. Not a consolation prize at all.

In effect, it appeared that Stanley had won that battle. If Valiant Locksmith succeeded in mitigating the nuclear storage crisis, then his coveted position of Energy Secretary was well within his grasp. But in order to achieve his triumph, he still had to move a hundred thousand tons of high-level waste into the decommissioned weapons facility — safely, securely, and under the public’s radar.

No wonder van Dyckman was on edge as this celebratory inspection tour turned into a debacle at every turn. His entire career hinged on the success of this review.

Now it all made sense to Adonia. Judging from the Undersecretary’s body language, she realized that Victoria Doyle hadn’t had any idea what Stanley was up to here in the Mountain. After their affair, she must have thought she had trounced van Dyckman, relegating him to political Siberia. Now she would have realized that the importance of Valiant Locksmith placed him in day-to-day contact with the President and the White House.

And if he did indeed become the next DOE Secretary, then he would be Victoria Doyle’s boss. Adonia supposed a political Siberia would be very chilly this time of year.… No wonder Victoria gave him such a cold shoulder.

Stanley van Dyckman was arrogant, and Adonia was thankful she no longer had to work with him on a daily basis. Ever since he’d been appointed Assistant Secretary, she couldn’t understand how he had survived politically. Valiant Locksmith explained everything.

And the crowd goes wild! Adonia thought.

After today, Undersecretary Doyle wouldn’t be singing the praises of the program for the Senator’s classified congressional review, nor would Simon Garibaldi. While Adonia herself recognized that Hydra Mountain was a better answer than sweeping the nuclear waste under the rug, how could she give this facility a thumbs-up, after what they’d been through?

On the other hand, if the program did shut down in a debacle, it might take decades before another solution was even proposed.… How could she allow that either? There was too much at stake! She didn’t dare let it fail. Despite the overlapping safety and security systems, the operational concept here was a reasonable one. Adonia knew damned well that something needed to be done about the high-level waste and spent fuel rods piling up at Granite Bay and the sixty-one other nuclear power plants across the country. How she wanted it to work! If Hydra Mountain failed without any other alternative on the table, then the crisis would only be exacerbated.

Adonia kept pace with Doyle, seeing lights ahead down the corridor, reflections from metal walls and glass windows. “It’s the guard portal,” Victoria said, and the relief was clear in her shaky voice. “Just like I said.”

Ahead, a giant vault door large enough to admit machinery, such as cargo crawlers carrying warheads or nuclear waste transportation casks, blocked most of the tunnel. To the left of the vault door was a smaller, person-sized metal door with a mesh-embedded safety window. On a normal workday, a guard sitting behind the safety window could see anyone approaching, even if cameras and motion sensors had been disabled, such as now.

Pulling up the rear of the group, Senator Pulaski let out a sigh of relief as he slumped against the wall. “We can get inside and just wait there. Maybe there’ll be a phone. I’ve got to contact my staff.”

“There weren’t any phones originally installed inside the Mountain, Senator, except for Mr. Harris’s operations center,” Shawn said. “Blame it on Cold War security about calling out.”

“I think we’ll keep you away from any phones we find, just to make sure,” Doyle said.

Taking charge, Adonia stepped up to the smaller doorway, beside an LED control panel identical to what they had seen in the storage chambers above. She pressed her face against the mesh-reinforced observation window, but the guard station was empty.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” Garibaldi said.

With Hydra Mountain’s skeleton crew, the portal was unattended, the door closed. If Rob Harris were present, as planned, he would have had access to the controls, but now they were on their own.

Victoria placed her hands on her narrow hips. “This is a shelter in place, but we need a combination to gain access.” She looked at van Dyckman. “All right, Stanley, you said this was your facility. You must have the code, so make yourself useful.”

He looked uncomfortable. “Site Manager Harris has the facility-wide codes.”

“Thank goodness there’s still some security left down here. But this doesn’t help us much if we can’t get inside.” Victoria turned her back to him, as if he had proved himself worthless.

Adonia spotted the bulky intercom box near the door controls. She pressed the black Call button and spoke into the mesh speaker. “Hello?” Please work, she thought. “Anybody there?”

“Operations center — ah, Ms. Rojas?” said a female voice.

The team members crowded around her and let out a round of cheers. Adonia smiled. “Yes, we’re all here. Please connect me with Mr. Harris.”

“And shut down those damned countermeasures! We’re not intruders,” Pulaski shouted in a hoarse voice. “Get us out of here!”

“Rest assured we’re working on it, sir. Please hang tight — there’s less than five hours remaining on the facility reboot.”

The Senator looked incredulous. “Five hours!”

“I’ll have the site manager for you momentarily. Stand by, one.”

Soon, Harris’s familiar voice came from the speaker, sounding ragged. “Adonia! What a relief to be back in touch. Is anybody hurt? Our cameras shut down, but our IR sensors saw that someone triggered the active-denial countermeasures.”

“We’re all right, except for a few scrapes and bruises,” she said. “Senator Pulaski turned his ankle, but I think it’s just a minor sprain.”

As if the site manager’s voice gave him confidence again, van Dyckman stepped up. “Harris, what the hell is going on? The safety and security systems are pushing us deeper into the Mountain rather than to the nearest exit. And what’s this about five more hours on the lockdown? Override it! Shut down the damned system and send a party to retrieve us.” Anger was clear on his face, especially now that he had a target to blame.

“Our hands are tied while we’re still recycling, sir,” Harris said. “We’re experiencing nonlinear interactions between the old DoD systems and the new DOE ones. We had to reboot the entire system to resolve some fundamental conflicts.”

“Well, that’s a complicated way of saying the shit has hit the fan,” Garibaldi said with wry amusement.

Harris sounded patient and professional. “The countermeasures are working, but the systems logics are competing for control. They’ll continue to do so until the full system is back up. I’m just glad to hear that you weren’t harmed. Frankly, I’m… surprised—pleasantly surprised, that you don’t have any serious injuries. The millimeter waves are one of our newest countermeasures, and they’ve proven quite effective in human protocol testing, but, uh, it appears they also disrupt our legacy electronics.”

Adonia said, “We shielded ourselves with sheets of foil-backed fiberglass insulation. That protected us from the worst of the bombardment.”

Harris sounded surprised. “That was clever. Glad it was available.”

Victoria interrupted with an edge in her voice, “What construction is still under way down here? I thought Hydra Mountain was a fully operational facility.” She raised her voice. “What are you building in the lower level?”

“You’ll have to ask Mr. van Dyckman,” Harris said with a clear chill in his voice. “He can explain the rationale much better than I.”

Van Dyckman squirmed away from Doyle. “We intended to show you during the inspection tour, but I’m afraid our schedule has gone out the window.”

Adonia got down to business. “Rob, we’re at the guard portal, but it’s unoccupied and sealed. Can you let us in? We need a place to wait out the system reboot before the countermeasures activate again.”

Harris was glad to change the subject. “Mr. van Dyckman, you have the emergency override code. It’s only good for onetime use, but you could have easily gained access—”

Van Dyckman reddened. “I’d remember it if I tried long enough, but just open the door from your end.”

“Yes, sir,” Harris said. “But as a reminder, the mnemonic for the override code is—”

“Open the damned door, Harris!”

“Yes, sir. Please step back from the portal door.”

Adonia noticed that Victoria Doyle crossed her arms and frowned at her ex-lover. Now what was that all about? Why couldn’t van Dyckman remember something as important as an override code, and why should Victoria be reacting with such obvious disapproval?

Painted on the concrete floor, a yellow arc marked the path of the heavy metal door. Adonia and the others stepped out of the way as a sharp alert buzz rang out, echoing in the tunnel. The door rotated open.

The interior of the portal contained controls to open the much larger vault door, two desks with high-backed chairs on wheels, a small table, a sink, coffeemaker, a file cabinet, and even a one-person bathroom. An identical mesh-embedded door on the far side of the enclosed guardroom led to the opposite side of the tunnel, and the lower level of Hydra Mountain. Although not spacious, the portal was sufficient for them to shelter in place for several hours. Adonia relaxed slightly.

Harris’s voice now came from an intercom inside the portal. “Is everyone inside? I can’t shut the door until everyone has entered.”

As Adonia began to usher them into the cramped room, Garibaldi paused. His brow furrowed as he looked up at the obvious cameras in the ceiling. “Why do you need to ask? Aren’t you watching us?”

“The cameras stopped functioning. All we have are IR and other nontraditional sensors. You’re lucky the intercom runs through the backup system with the lights.”

“I’ll bet your toilets leak, too,” Garibaldi grumbled.

“We can discuss it later, when we’re out of here.” Adonia crowded the team members into the shielded portal. “Come on, everybody inside.”

“Just don’t let anyone retreat up the tunnel,” Harris warned. “If motion sensors see you going the wrong direction, the defensive systems will reengage — and now that you’re deeper in the facility, more serious legacy countermeasures will take priority.”

Garibaldi lifted an eyebrow as he crowded up against the file cabinet. “More serious than getting fried by microwaves?”

“Exponentially more serious,” Harris answered. “The millimeter active denial is our newest nonlethal system. Kinder and gentler. The old DoD weapons countermeasures expressly allow the use of deadly force.”