Kill Zone

40

In the midst of the emergency, with Hydra Mountain’s systems still rebooting, actions that would have seemed preposterous under normal circumstances now seemed possible. Van Dyckman knew it was time to act.

As he observed Rob Harris through the air ventilation screen, the site manager seemed overwhelmed by indecisiveness, waiting for some superior to give him instructions, not to mention political cover. Regulation Rob had no playbook for this situation, and he never took his own initiative, never colored outside the lines. Now that van Dyckman knew about the Velvet Hammer SAP, he understood why Harris had tied himself in dithering knots: the man just didn’t have the balls or the imagination to bend the rules and find a solution.

He watched as Harris frowned at the touchscreen, wavering his extended finger over the facility map. His standard emergency checklist probably didn’t tell him what to do. Time for van Dyckman to exert his authority and take advantage of Harris’s character flaw. He could get the matter taken care of, right now, start working on damage control to offset this lackluster flunky and prevent him from doing further harm.

Valiant Locksmith was an unacknowledged, waived Special Access Program, and with the right finesse van Dyckman could salvage it, blame the right people, make the right excuses. But it had to be done carefully, and it was all predicated on Harris.

Because of his plodding attention to detail, the site manager no doubt had documentation and justification for all his actions, and that might be problematic. But politically, Rob Harris was deaf as a post, so he would make a good scapegoat.

In contrast, as the national program manager, van Dyckman often left the specifics to others while he concentrated on the big picture. And he always knew exactly what he had to do.

Huddled in the air duct above the Eagle’s Nest, he made his final plans, going over every last detail. He began to convince himself, without a flicker of doubt, that Rob Harris was responsible for the whole mess. The site manager had not only caused it, in fact, but was actively trying to cover it up!

Bad enough that Harris would abandon the high-level review team just before the initial lockdown, but a small plane crash, really? How contrived! And now five people were dead because of the man’s gross incompetence. If Dr. Garibaldi was correct about the potential for catastrophic interaction between the two SAPs, then they were all at risk of a massive nuclear detonation.

Yes, Harris must have known about this danger all along! And he had hidden behind red tape to prevent anyone from knowing about it? He couldn’t find a way to communicate his concerns, even via classified channels? If Harris had mentioned it to his superior, van Dyckman would have pulled strings himself and taken care of the issue before it ever became a problem. Too late now, and all because of the man’s incompetence and cowardice.

Assistant Secretary Stanley L. van Dyckman was the national program manager for Valiant Locksmith, and Rob Harris was just a tired old retread dragged out of retirement. By hiding behind a veil of red tape, Harris had put the entire nation in danger. And he should be held liable for his mistakes.

It was time.

Van Dyckman squirmed inside the rectangular duct until he lay on his back, knees bent, feet against the metal ventilation screen. He kicked as hard as he could. The loud banging sound reverberated, and the metal barrier mesh rattled, bent, but remained stubbornly attached.

From his desk, Harris lurched out of his chair, looked up at the ceiling, and cried out.

With greater force, van Dyckman kicked again and again until two corners broke and the screen bent down. His feet dangled out of the air duct, and he finally managed to slide out and drop to the office floor. The maneuver was clumsy and undignified, and he looked a disheveled mess, but he brushed himself off and regained his composure.

Harris ran from his desk, gaping in disbelief and surprise. “Mr. van Dyckman! How… how did you get out? Thank goodness you’re all right.” He tried to help him, but van Dyckman pushed his assistance aside. Harris asked, “Did anyone else escape? Are the others okay?”

Instead of answering, van Dyckman lashed out with the accusations that were building inside him. “Dammit, Harris — your actions could kill everyone in the Mountain!” As the man recoiled, taken aback by this vehemence, van Dyckman continued, “The others are dead. You let us all go in there without telling us about the deadly countermeasures, without telling us what Victoria Doyle was storing right next to my cooling pools! Do you realize the danger that poses?”

“But, sir… I was not allowed—”

Van Dyckman’s eyes darted to the phone in the center of the desk, and he strode over, grabbing it like a hawk seizing a rabbit. Harris spluttered, hurrying after him. Van Dyckman grabbed the phone and shouted into it. “This is Assistant Secretary van Dyckman. Get Protective Services to the site manager’s office, ASAP.”

The voice sounded startled. “Sir, may I ask—”

“You heard me! Security, here — now! And scramble an emergency nuclear response team to the lower levels the moment the reboot is finished and the lockdown is lifted. We are in full crisis.” Harris stared at him with wide eyes, panicked and also cowed. As the voice on the phone acknowledged the instructions, van Dyckman also demanded, “And get me the Incident Commander. Understand?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. van Dyckman. Right away.” The phone clicked off.

Reeling next to the table in the spacious office, Harris looked as though he’d been hit by a baseball bat. “Sir, what do you mean they’re all dead? How did you get past the lockdown? And… and why did you just call Protective Services? Is there a new security threat I need to know about?”

“You’re the security threat, Harris.” He thrust a finger in the other man’s face. “Do you know what you’ve done? There’s a nuclear disaster waiting to happen because you failed to take proper Class One safety precautions down in the lower vault. You knew about Velvet Hammer and the danger it posed, but you neglected to inform me about it.”

Harris stepped back. “I… I was not legally allowed, sir. Both SAPs are unacknowledged programs—”

But van Dyckman was on a roll. “Your actions, or inactions, created a dangerous situation with extreme consequences for the entire nation. Your inattention to both safety and security, not to mention common sense, has put Hydra Mountain at great risk, as well as the future of Valiant Locksmith itself.”

Heavy footfalls crashed up the stairs outside, and a sharp knock came at the office door. Van Dyckman snapped, “Enter!”

Two DOE Protective Services officers wearing short-sleeved black uniforms prowled into Harris’s office, both wearing sidearms, both looking on edge. The older officer, with buzz-cut hair and a chiseled face, frowned as he looked from van Dyckman to Harris. “Is there a situation here?”

Though he looked a mess from crawling through the filthy ducts, van Dyckman took control. He drew himself up and pointed at Harris. “Arrest this man for violating DOE Order 471.5, Special Access Programs, and hold him in strict isolation. He has committed a SAP security breach and must not be allowed to speak to anyone until he has been debriefed by the proper authorities.”

Unable to believe what he heard, Harris could barely find the words. “I followed the regulations to the letter. I am not culpable—”

Van Dyckman raised his voice, adding a firm undertone of command. “Furthermore, his inactions have put this facility and the local population in great danger. If we can’t get a handle on this crisis immediately, we may have to begin a full-scale evacuation of Kirtland Air Force Base and the greater Albuquerque area.”

Stunned for only a moment, the security guards swept forward to the astonished Harris. When they had seized the site manager by the arms, van Dyckman turned to face him. “Mr. Harris, as Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, and your immediate supervisor in your chain of command, I hereby relieve you of all authority as site manager of Hydra Mountain.”

Harris opened his mouth to speak, but he lowered his eyes, unable to respond to the barrage. He shook his head, and his shoulders slumped, as if he realized the inevitable. He mumbled, “You… do have the authority to do that, Mr. van Dyckman. Yes… I understand.”

The Protective Services officers turned Harris around, and even though he cooperated fully, they applied handcuffs and marched him out of the office.

Standing next to the conference table in the Eagle’s Nest, looking through the broad windows to the busy operations center floor, van Dyckman felt a flush of satisfaction. At last something had gone right. The person truly responsible for this disaster would pay for it. Van Dyckman had been dealt a lousy hand, but if he played his cards right he just might salvage his career.

He reached for the site-wide intercom. He’d make an announcement of Rob Harris’s arrest, ensure that everyone knew he was in charge and that he had the dire situation under control. Composing the words in his mind, he spun the volume and channel dials, but discovered to his consternation that the intercom wouldn’t work.

As the guards escorted Harris away, one of the ops center techs poked her head through the door. She watched Harris being led off and looked questioningly at the unkempt van Dyckman. Impatient, he barked, “Yes? I am now acting site manager for Hydra Mountain. What is it?”

The woman frowned, but regained her composure as van Dyckman took his place behind Harris’s desk. She issued her report. “Sir, Ms. Jennings, the nuclear response incident commander, is on the red line, as you requested.”

“Thank you.” He placed the intercom mike down on the table. “And get this intercom fixed. High priority. I need to make a facility-wide announcement. Connect me to all the loudspeakers.” Van Dyckman reached for the red phone, and when the young tech hesitated at the door, he motioned with his head. “Did you hear me? Get this intercom working — now!”

“Yes, sir.” She backed out and closed the door of the upper office.

Van Dyckman picked up the red STE handset, and a curt female voice responded. “Incident Commander Jennings. May I have the situation, sir?”

“Are you cleared for Valiant Locksmith?”

“I have all the tickets for everything inside, sir, but my team is not cognizant of any of the SAPs.”

“Well, then,” he said, pulling Harris’s chair up to the desk. He felt so filthy, his hair clotted with dried dust, his clothes and skin flecked with remnants of sticky foam. “There will be security implications, Jennings, but first things first — once you get inside, you have to mitigate the danger. You’ll need full protective gear.” He briefed her on the halothane gas, the toppled spent fuel rods in the pool, the open vault that left nuclear devices exposed to the increased neutron flux, and the sticky foam barriers both in the inclined tunnel and the lower vault.

Without hesitating, the commander recited her prioritized actions for when she had access inside the facility. Wearing gas masks and protective clothing, her team would enter the lower level with the appropriate solvents and tools to remove the extensive blockage of hardened sticky foam at the guard portal. Once past that obstacle, they could get to the lower cavern and similarly clear the foam from the Velvet Hammer vault, after which they would seal the door and secure the clandestine nuclear warheads. Finally, in a more involved procedure, divers would rig up robotic lifts to restore the disrupted fuel rod array in the temporary pool, while industrial ventilation pumps would force any remnants of halothane up into the Mountain’s vertical exhaust shaft. Once exposed to the UV radiation in sunlight, the gas would quickly break down into harmless constituents.

The team’s last priority was to sweep for survivors.

As van Dyckman hung up the red phone, he settled back in the site manager’s chair. Once her team broke into the lower cavern, Commander Jennings would shoot a video feed to the office. That would let him watch the response in real time.

But he wasn’t through managing the crisis — this was only the beginning. He still had to prevent the existence of both SAPs from being revealed to the public. It was the only way to salvage Valiant Locksmith. If either unacknowledged program was revealed, the uproar would shut down Hydra Mountain, and he couldn’t allow that.

Once the nuclear response team mitigated the highest-priority dangers, special workers could perform a full cleanup, and no one would know any better. Harris would be locked away, held incommunicado, and no one could contradict van Dyckman… so long as there were no survivors in the lower cavern.

He couldn’t imagine how any of them might still be alive, but he had to close the loop, tie up the loose ends, and make sure nothing else went wrong.

That was what made him such an outstanding leader.