Kill Zone

46

Another alarm rang in the Eagle’s Nest and alerts lit up the ops center screens — but this was not the alarm van Dyckman was expecting. Not at all. This had nothing to do with the cleanup or the Special Response Team.

It was an exterior breach alarm! What the hell?

Light-headed and enraged at the same time, he rose from behind Harris’s desk. One of the few access points to Hydra Mountain had been compromised. How could anyone possibly break in with security teams everywhere? He felt a chill, suddenly wondering if that blundering small aircraft really had been part of some wild conspiracy, a distraction to drop in an intruder. Someone was using the chaos of the multiple lockdowns to break into the facility!

Frantically, he swept his eyes across the tall screens in the operations center below. Drexler and his tech teams scrambled to their stations in a sudden flurry, struggling to pinpoint the new alarm.

The young exec pointed at the upper right corner of the screen, which showed a schematic of Hydra Mountain’s two underground levels. A small, innocuous red square glowed at the top of a long narrow air duct that ran from the lower cavern through the rock ceiling to the outside. Somebody had compromised an emergency exit at the top of the shaft.

Van Dyckman felt sick, panicked. Did someone else know about Velvet Hammer and Victoria’s hidden warheads? There might be a full assault team trying to work their way in.

But he still couldn’t believe it. Four fences surrounded the Mountain. All were heavily alarmed and covered with sensors, ranging from motion detectors to thermal cameras, so sensitive that they were frequently triggered by prairie dogs and jackrabbits. The inner two fences were electrified.

That breach was on the very summit, and no person or team could have slipped so far inside the heavily fortified perimeter without being detected. And the outside of Hydra Mountain was swarming with security and safety personnel. No one could have climbed all the way up there unseen!

According to the schematics he was studying, the only mechanism to open the vent was a crash bar, accessible only from the inside.

Then he actually gasped as he realized someone wasn’t attempting to break in. Someone was trying to get out!

Van Dyckman found it hard to breathe, and his stomach twisted. The red encrypted phone on Harris’s desk started ringing, and the small screen identified the caller as Secretary Nitta, but he let it ring. The bitch was probably in micromanagement mode, and she would only screw things up.

This couldn’t be a coincidence. Impossible as it seemed, someone from the inside was still alive. The SRT had not found the bodies of Colonel Whalen, Dr. Garibaldi, or Adonia Rojas. Fifteen minutes earlier, circuit breakers in the ventilation system had been tripped, signaling that an old piece of equipment had burned out, but he’d assumed that the nuclear response team or the cleanup team had overloaded the antique grid. Pumps and some lighting on the lower floor near the temporary storage pools had gone down.

Now he knew otherwise.

The phone fell silent, then instantly started to ring once more. This time it was someone from security, but he ignored it again.

Studying the diagram of the Mountain, looking at the location of the compromised access, he confirmed his suspicions. An old ventilation duct led directly up from the catwalks, and if the three survivors had somehow climbed the crane, gotten above the halothane mists, made their way to the catwalks… they could have worked their way out, just as he had. He had called out to them through the loudspeaker, but he’d never believed they were listening. That was all just for show, so he could demonstrate his concern in full view of everyone in the ops center.

But they were really still alive, and now they had gotten out. This was turning out to be his worst nightmare.

He had to develop yet another emergency plan to bottle up those three before they compromised Valiant Locksmith. Who knew what they might say? He had already neatly taken care of Rob Harris, and now he had to keep these three from talking. He would order Incident Commander Jennings and her team to round them up before they got any farther. Surely they would want to be rescued, and then he could deal with them.

He forced himself to be calm, slowing his breathing. Van Dyckman would quickly put a lid on this, snuff out any problem. Yes, it could still be done.

The office door burst open, and Drexler ran into the room, frantically pointing at the phone on the desk. “Sir, both the Secretary and the DOE Incident Commander have been trying to reach you. Commander Jennings says it’s urgent and she is still on the line.”

Jumpy, he punched at the encrypted phone, listened as Jennings spoke in a rush. “Mr. van Dyckman, there’s been a breach at the top of the Mountain—”

“I know. I know!” He squeezed his eyes tight. “Get your people there as soon as possible. We may have some intruders trying to get away. Intercept them, take them into custody, and don’t let them talk to anyone. I’ll debrief them myself.”

“Already taken care of, sir. Our air surveillance has spotted three individuals outside of an emergency egress hatch near the summit. They appear to be unarmed. But it may be good news, sir — they’re quite likely the missing team members. They survived somehow.”

He could not let her treat this lightly. “Exercise extreme caution until you’re sure, and even then don’t let down your guard. It’s quite possible that one or more of those people intentionally caused the lockdown inside the facility and may even be attempting sabotage. Take them into custody.” His thoughts raced. He had to keep them quiet, at least until he could make Adonia and Colonel Whalen see reason. With their high-level connections to the President, the military, and the Department of Energy, those two might be manageable. They might do what was best for the program, if he could explain the dire consequences facing them if they didn’t.

But if Simon Garibaldi got word out to his large network of protesters at Sanergy, that would be a public relations disaster. They might even close Hydra Mountain and send all the high-level waste back to dangerous temporary storage areas across the country. Worse yet, the public outcry might force the closure of all nuclear plants — it had happened in Japan after Fukushima. Could it happen here?

Sick to his stomach, van Dyckman knew he couldn’t afford to take any chances. “We have to… contain this.”

The Incident Commander was in her element now, reacting swiftly and professionally. “Don’t worry, sir. Even with the rugged terrain, I estimate my team arriving on scene in less than fifteen minutes. Backup air support can be called, if needed.”

Van Dyckman found himself nodding. “They must be held and questioned. After everything that’s happened today, we can’t be too careful.”

“Maybe we should call in medical rescue, too,” she suggested.

He had to say it. “As a precaution, yes.” Another thought struck him, and he quickly smiled with relief. “But operate under the assumption that these people may be contaminated. It’s possible they may have radioactive material in their possession.” That’s it! “For safety’s sake, treat them as dangerous. Keep them away from as many people as possible.”

He would have to start making calls to the DOE, the Department of Defense, the State Department. Everyone had a stake here. They all had a common goal to keep the waived, unacknowledged programs under wraps at any cost. All three departments would support him and take whatever actions were necessary.

“Yes, sir, I understand. My team is prepared to deal with any possibility. Our decontamination procedures are quite effective—”

“And they may also have possession of highly classified material, which if revealed, could cause grave and permanent danger to national security.” Van Dyckman could feel the pieces fall into place.

Jennings responded, although she didn’t sound pleased with his directive. “Yes, sir. I… understand completely. We’ll take care of it.”

Van Dyckman hung up, relieved that he had a little bit of breathing room.

Fortunately, the three escapees were still deep inside the security fences, so they would not be seen in public. They had no way to communicate with the outside, and Jennings would keep them contained, at least for now.

He slumped into the site manager’s chair and leaned back, considering his next step.

That was the beauty of operating under an unacknowledged program. As the national program manager, he controlled all access and information. With the loss of Senator Pulaski, Valiant Locksmith no longer had its most important advocate or political high cover. The man’s death would bring down far more scrutiny than van Dyckman would have liked, but congressional oversight would be temporarily absent.

With Victoria Doyle also dead, and Harris, Adonia, Whalen, and Garibaldi out of the picture, he would be able to cover his tracks.

He put his hands behind his head and glanced at the clock. Soon, the Incident Commander would apprehend the three, and then van Dyckman could tie up that final loose end.