Kill Zone

28

Even with the blaring alarms and the encroaching yellow gas, Adonia knew the others would balk at the jump — and with good reason. But it was the only way out she could see. She hoped she and Shawn wouldn’t have to throw them over the ledge. If the halothane incapacitated them on the ledge, they would surely die, lying in the lethal concentration for hours before a rescue team could make their way inside.

Before she could defend her crazy suggestion, Garibaldi raised his voice over their growing alarm. “She’s right! This much halothane will kill us if we stay here. We’re going to be incapacitated within minutes, so we have to move now.”

Shawn added, “Any rescue team is still hours away. Jumping in the pool is less hazardous than staying here. Once we’re in the water we can swim to the side and climb down to the floor. We’ve got to jump.”

“Are you insane?” Senator Pulaski stumbled backward in his haste to get away from the edge. “The water and the rods — they’re radioactive!”

Adonia raised her voice over the sirens. “Water moderates the radiation, Senator. You’ll be all right for a short period of time. If you jump in and swim across quickly, your exposure will be minimal. Scuba divers clean out fuel rod storage pools at Granite Bay all the time. Just stay clear of the fuel rods when you’re in the water.”

“Sorry to cut off any further debate, but we’d better jump before we get too weak,” Shawn said. The yellow mist was thickening around them. “The halothane will hit us fast.”

Van Dyckman peered over the drop-off, queasy. “But that’s… that’s like jumping off a three-story building.”

Adonia said, “I know it looks far, but it’s the height of a high-dive board. I’ve done it. You’ll survive if you jump, but the halothane will kill you if you stay here.”

“I can’t jump down there,” Pulaski insisted. “And I can’t swim across the pool—”

“Yet you will have to, Senator,” Garibaldi said.

“Listen up!” Shawn stood by Adonia, using a voice he must have learned when he commanded troops in the Air Force. “Since I’m already feeling the effects of the halothane, I know you can feel them, too.” He went to the edge and looked decidedly unsteady. “I won’t kid you, that jump isn’t going to be easy, but the longer you wait, the more the gas will affect you, and the more you decrease your chances of surviving.”

Pulaski stood frozen. “But if we stay here, what’s the worst that could happen? We’ll fall asleep and lie unconscious until we’re rescued.”

“You’ll never wake up,” Victoria said, climbing down from the rickety metal stairs and back over the lowered gate. “So you’re better off jumping.” She looked grim. “That fall is probably the least dangerous thing Stanley has left for us in this madhouse.”

Van Dyckman looked wobbly, unable to make a decision. Shawn approached the yellow chain, and she could tell he was preparing to jump, to lead by example. He waved them over. “Once we’re in the pool, we’ll boost someone onto the platform, and they can help everyone out. We can climb down that metal side framework to the floor.” He stretched his arms, flexed his torso from side to side. “I’ll jump first. Piece of cake. Easier than rock climbing.”

Adonia interrupted and put a hand on his chest. “No, I’m the better swimmer, Shawn. I’ll go first, show everybody how it’s done. You stay up here and make sure everybody takes the plunge. No stragglers.” She turned to van Dyckman. “Stanley — you jump right after me.”

“It’s so high! I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Yes, you can. Just watch what I do.” Adonia unfastened the yellow chain links and stepped up to the edge.

Behind her, Garibaldi sucked in loud, deep breaths, as if to gather his courage. When he broke out coughing, the older scientist turned to look at the yellow gas flowing out of the tunnel. “Sorry to sound impatient, but if we don’t go soon, we’re not going to make it.”

Pulaski backed away. “I’ll take my chances up here rather than jump into that radioactive cesspool.”

Shawn grabbed the Senator’s arm. “I will not let you stay here and die. We jump in and cross the pool.”

Pulaski struggled to yank away from Shawn’s grip. “I can’t swim across the pool! I can’t do this. You can’t make me jump. The… the radiation!”

Garibaldi joined Shawn and, with apparent glee, grabbed the Senator’s other arm. “Look: the rods are all clustered in the middle of the pool, away from the sides. Just aim for the open area near the edge and you’ll miss them.”

Pulaski dug his feet against the floor, but his heels slipped on the concrete. “The pool is full of them!”

“Hurry, Adonia,” Shawn called over the alarms. “Show them, and you can help once they get in the water. I’ll make sure the Senator goes.” He resolutely grasped Pulaski’s arm. “Don’t worry, sir. I’ve taken water survival courses at the Academy. We had to jump with a buddy off the thirty-foot diving board at the Cadet Fieldhouse, so I know how to jump with another person. It’ll be as easy as skydiving.”

Pulaski did not seem reassured.

Adonia flexed her arms, drew in a deep breath. The fuel rods shimmered in the water thirty feet below. The radioactive cylinders were arranged upright in a matrix in the center of the pool with only ten feet of open water along the sides. The pool was already filled to capacity, and van Dyckman intended to build more temporary pools, just to accommodate all the waste rods he was shipping into Hydra Mountain. Very soon, this slapdash solution would be as bad as the problem he was trying to fix.

But she focused on the problem at hand. Looking down, ready for the plunge, Adonia remembered the exhilarating times when she had used the high dive. “When you jump, be sure to leap forward, but not too much. You’ll only have to clear a few feet on the fall to miss the side of the pool. As soon as you’re in the air, keep your feet down, your head up. Close your eyes and cover your face with your hands before you hit. And aim for the open space away from the rods. There should be plenty of room.” Provided they could fall straight.

Victoria Doyle came close, swallowing hard. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Garibaldi coughed loudly. “That sweet smell’s getting stronger.”

Van Dyckman stepped to the edge, squirming. “What if we miss the water?”

“Then you’ll be a stain on the floor,” Victoria said. “Another mess for someone else to clean up.”

“What she means is, don’t miss,” Shawn said.

Adonia put her feet on the edge, telling herself that this really wasn’t a big deal. She had made many dives from such a height in her swimming competitions, but she had to do this right — not for herself, but to show the others.

No sense in waiting. She took a deep breath, crouched, and pushed out over the edge.

She leaped in an arc and extended her arms to keep her balance. She waved them in small circles to keep herself upright; holding her head straight and level, she watched for the water by just looking down with her eyes. As she plummeted toward the pool’s surface, she pointed her toes and threw her hands up to her face, covering her nose and eyes against the impact.

She tried not to hold her breath when she hit, but the plunge into the pool still jarred her. With the enormous slap of water pressure against her chest, she exhaled a burst of air. It wasn’t like diving into a competition pool at all, but rather like jumping into a hot spring. The water was extremely warm from the fuel rods.

She stroked for the surface. Underwater, she could hear a low hum of water-recirculating pumps, exchanging the heated water with cold, filling the pool and maintaining a constant flow pattern.

Adonia opened her eyes and saw bubbles rising around her. She spotted the rounded tops of the fuel rods like nightmarish metal tree trunks to her left, only a few feet from where she’d entered the water. Seeing how close she had come to striking the tops of the rods, she realized there wasn’t a lot of safety margin.

With a few short, strong scissor kicks, she burst to the surface. Instinctively, she started treading water. The temperature was alarmingly warm and unexpected, like a hot bath. Even though she convinced herself — intellectually — that the radiation would be tolerable, the heat prompted irrational fears. She was concerned about how the already-panicked Senator would react once he hit the water.

If he jumped at all.

She waved urgently up at the group on the high ledge above. They seemed very far away. Victoria Doyle looked surreal, framed against a backdrop of the crane’s metal lattice boom, with Stanley and Garibaldi next to her. “Come on!” she yelled. “Not much time!”

Blessedly, the alarms suddenly stopped, plunging the cavern into relative silence. But that didn’t stop the urgency as yellow-tinged halothane started to spill over the ledge; it flowed down the wall, keeping away from the pool — for now.

Crossing her hands over her chest, Victoria crouched and leaped out, as if she had something to prove in front of van Dyckman. Once airborne, she threw out her arms and tried to keep vertical.

Adonia swam backward as hard as she could to get out of the way. “Cover your face!”

Victoria’s feet hit the surface, and her petite body disappeared beneath the water with a great splash. Adonia stroked to the churning ripples to help the other woman, and within seconds the Undersecretary’s head appeared, her short hair plastered to her face. She sputtered as Adonia reached her. “I’m okay.” She blinked water from her eyes. “The water is… really warm.”

“Can you make it to the edge?” Adonia nudged her toward the plastic wall, and got herself into position again and waited for the next jumper. “Head straight to the side of the pool and keep away from the rods. Six feet of water isn’t much clearance above them.” Each upright fuel rod was secured in a holding cradle, but unlike the fixtures in Granite Bay’s permanent pools, these looked as if they could be dislodged.

Victoria stroked toward the pool’s curved plastic wall, and Adonia waved back up at the ledge. “Stanley! You’re next — jump!”

Swinging his arms back and forth, van Dyckman leaped out, yelling. As he fell, he started kicking his legs and waving his arms, flailing in the air. He began to tumble, rotating forward. If he hit the water headfirst…

“Bend backwards!”

Before van Dyckman could right himself, he struck the surface with his body bent, his knees striking only seconds before his chest and face. He hit the water with a loud smack, and spray erupted in an oval geyser as he disappeared beneath the surface.

Adonia swam toward him, hoping he hadn’t broken any bones. She had to get him out of the way so the others could jump. When she reached van Dyckman, he was trying to claw his way back to the surface. She caught him, pulled him along. “Stanley, are you all right?” At least he hadn’t been knocked unconscious.

Water ran from his nose as he coughed. His voice croaked when he answered. “As long as I don’t have to jump again.” He saw Victoria hanging on the edge of the walkway, three feet above the surface of the water. “If she can make it, so can I.”

“You’re done for today.” She nudged him toward the side. “Keep swimming and stay next to the side — away from the rods.” He started off without answering, and she shouted up at the ledge. “We’re ready!”

Thin curtains of the yellow-marked gas continued to flow, increasing in volume like a waterfall of smoke over the ledge. It drifted down the wall, barely missing the pool and spilling down to the lower level.

Instead of Garibaldi taking the next position, Shawn came up, wrestling the reluctant Senator forward. Garibaldi helped hold him, pushing the big man ahead, but he was struggling. Shawn and Garibaldi seemed to have made their plans together. Shawn turned his back to the edge, grabbed Pulaski’s shirt with both hands, and jumped backward over the brink, pulling the Senator with him. As they plummeted together, Shawn wrapped the larger man in a bear hug, preventing him from flailing.

Up on the ledge, Garibaldi reeled, coughing from the halothane. The yellow vapors swirled around his legs, stirred up in the air. Even as the other two men were falling, Garibaldi staggered forward and followed them over the edge without waiting for them to get clear.

Adonia was already swimming toward the impact point to help as Shawn and the Senator smashed into the water. Garibaldi plunged into the pool less than a second later, only a few feet away. An enormous spray of hot water gushed into the air, accompanied by a wave that sloshed over the side of the pool.

Before Adonia could dive underwater to retrieve the Senator, someone behind her started coughing, retching, and splashing. Already half-stunned from hitting the pool, van Dyckman had not yet made it to the plastic wall, and the wave had caught him full in the face. He groped wildly, thrashing for the access walkway that ran along the pool’s edge.

With Shawn there to help Pulaski, Adonia swam back for van Dyckman. Clinging with an outstretched arm to the walkway, Victoria did not seem to know what she should do to offer assistance.

The Senator’s head had breached the surface, and he thrashed about, gasping for breath, yelling in panic. Shawn reached him and employed all the correct lifeguard procedures, keeping Pulaski’s head above water and moving him to the side.

Garibaldi surfaced, spluttering, steadying himself.

Adonia grabbed van Dyckman’s shoulder, flipped him around, and placed a hand behind his neck to keep his head above water. Kicking hard, she pulled him to the metal mesh platform where Victoria waited. Van Dyckman blinked at her with bleary eyes, obviously still smarting from his initial clumsy impact.

Reaching the wall, Adonia shook her former boss, making sure he was conscious so he wouldn’t slip back under the water. She boosted him partially up until he was able to grab the edge of the metal platform. “Stanley, hold on. We’ll get both of you up there in a minute.” She left him with Victoria. “Watch him, could you?”

“Right.” The Undersecretary made no move to help van Dyckman, but he clung to the platform himself.

Garibaldi started swimming toward them, but Shawn kept having real difficulties with the Senator. Pulaski had become more frantic and violent after the fall, and the unnaturally hot water spooked him further. He twisted back and forth, trying to pull away from Shawn, lashing out at his would-be rescuer. “You’re drowning me! Get away!”

Shawn went under in his attempts to dodge the Senator’s frantic blows. Adonia stroked over to help, but Pulaski was beyond reason.

“I can’t swim — I told you!” He gulped a mouthful of the heated water, which only increased his spiral of panic. “I can’t swim!”

Shawn tried to grapple with him, but the big man fought like a madman. He arched his back and flailed away from the side. Pulaski went under, and then clawed his way back up again. As he sank once more, he kicked, found some purchase underneath, and pushed off of something, but the water was too deep. He struggled to rise to the surface again.

Adonia swam underwater as she tried to reach him in time. With her eyes open, she saw that he had kicked one of the upright spent fuel rods, and he was now trying to stand on it. Despite the heated water, she felt a cold knife of dread. She swam faster.

Pulaski squirmed in panicked convulsions and struck out at Shawn, who tried to wrestle him under control. “Help!” When the Senator yelled, he gulped another mouthful of water.

As a championship swimmer, Adonia had more experience in lifeguarding than Shawn did. Drowning victims often sabotaged their own rescues by fighting back, and sometimes the only solution was to slug them hard and knock them out cold.

Shawn was exhausted from wrestling with the man, and the frantic struggles were putting him at risk, too.

Pulaski went under, kicked, and his long legs again pushed against one of the upright fuel rods set in a support cradle. In the standard configuration of a permanent cooling pool, the rods would be immobile, locked in place — but Stanley’s temporary cradle wasn’t designed to have a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man kick off against them.

As Shawn grappled with him, somehow Pulaski twisted in the water and kicked him hard in the face with his heel. Shawn jerked back in pain as he was hit in the eye.

Adonia surfaced, racing toward them. She knew this was the most dangerous time of the whole rescue. The deadly AVIR syndrome — aquatic victim instead of rescuer — had killed hundreds of would-be helpers. “Back off, Shawn. I’ll handle it.”

Treading water and looking blearily through one eye, Shawn reluctantly let her take over. Pulaski kept rolling around in the water, gasping for breath, and Adonia circled behind him where he couldn’t see her. She had to let him exhaust himself so he wouldn’t pull her down.

She needed life-saving equipment, but this was not a recreational pool. It was a plastic-walled tank for storing spent fuel rods. There would be no buoy, life ring, or other rescue device on the platform that encircled the pool.

Pulaski seemed to stabilize himself, gaining purchase, upright in the water with his head tilted back. She knew his foot was balanced on the fuel rod six feet down, probably pushing on it with his tiptoes or the balls of his feet. Although he was terrified about the radioactivity, his instinctive dread about drowning superseded that. He gaped at the ceiling, the retracted catwalks, and the boom of the giant crane, all of which were far out of reach.

Adonia made her move, lunging in to grab him around the neck and wrap her arm under his chin. She tightened her grip and kept her body far from his as she began stroking with her free arm and kicking for the side of the pool.

With both hands, Pulaski clawed at her forearm. “Stop — I’m… drowning!” He writhed in the water and slipped down in her grip. She fought to pull him back up, but he bit her arm.

She cried out as shards of pain sliced along her forearm. She yanked her arm back, releasing him. His teeth had broken her skin, and blood oozed up.

As soon as she let him go, the Senator sank again, kicking down, as if trying to stand on the fuel rods just out of reach underwater. His head went under, and a gush of air bubbles flooded to the surface.

Adonia ignored the pain in her arm as she dove after him. Shawn swam toward her to help, squeezing his swollen eye shut.

She opened her eyes beneath the surface to find the sinking Senator, and to her horror saw that several of the fuel rods were tilted, bumped off-kilter like dominoes about to fall. Two of the rods closest to the side had rotated out of their cradles and slowly toppled underwater against the thick, fiber-reinforced plastic wall.

As he sank, the bottom of Pulaski’s pant leg had caught on the top of one of the heavy rods. Struggling, he dislodged that rod as well. The heavy metal-clad cylinder began to fall, pulling him down in a gradual collapse, deeper and deeper. In the rippling pool, he looked like a marionette at the end of a stick.

Adonia swam down, trying to reach him as the heavy rod dragged him toward the bottom. The Senator’s struggles weakened as he sank, trapped. A last gush of air bubbles spewed from his mouth. He twitched and jerked convulsively.

Adonia swam harder, knowing that if she could somehow disentangle him, then lift him to the surface, she would still have to pull him out of the pool and perform CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She might be able to save him—

A hand grabbed her shoulder and yanked her up. She twisted wildly to see who was trying to stop her. She was still far from the fallen rod, and now the Senator’s motionless body was lodged against the side of the pool at an angle, deep under water.

Shawn was dragging her back up. He shook his head and mouthed No!, pointing with his free hand to the surface.

She tried jerking away, but Shawn gripped her with both hands and hauled them both upward with powerful kicks. She resisted, still desperate to get to the Senator, to rescue him before it was too late, but the toppled fuel rod had pinned him down to the bottom of the twenty-foot pool.

Pulaski no longer moved, no longer showed any sign of life. She knew it was already too late.