Kill Zone

4

Armed military police. Razor wire. Fences. Locked gates.

Adonia was surprised to encounter so many defenses, even though she was already well inside the security perimeter of Kirtland Air Force Base. A nice welcoming way to start the day.

She wished she knew why she’d been called here.

One of the MPs came forward from the security gate and opened the back door of the escort car. The uniformed man peered inside, squinting. His face looked very sunburned, which was not surprising, considering the New Mexico heat. “This way, Ms. Rojas. You’ll be processed into the Mountain through the intake office over there. Lieutenant Peters will meet you momentarily.”

Mystified, Adonia swung out of the backseat, taking her briefcase and purse. Her heels crunched against gravel as she stepped out into the brilliant sunlight; a gust of hot wind blew dust into her eyes. Judging from the scenery around here, she had overdressed for the occasion. Her black pumps and red business suit were more appropriate for her usual meetings in Washington, D.C., than the desert Southwest.

Out of habit before rushing to catch the red-eye out of LaGuardia, she had dressed for a formal meeting, but it was now apparent that Hydra Mountain was no typical government office building — and quite different from Granite Bay back in New York.

Only eight hours ago she’d received a phone call requesting her immediate presence in New Mexico for a vital, high-level review. Nothing like planning ahead, she thought. Her old boss, Assistant Secretary van Dyckman, had made it clear the invitation was mandatory, and as a contractor, Adonia didn’t want to burn any bridges.

She raised a hand to her forehead against the glare and desert wind as she surveyed the area. She’d left her sunglasses at home, expecting to be confined in a typical conference room under banks of fluorescent lights, not deep inside a huge Air Force base.

Standing beside the blue government escort car, she faced the tall security gate and four sequential barricades of chain-link fence, each topped with razor wire. Behind the fences loomed the imposing mountain — a scrub-covered mound rising five hundred feet from the desert and spreading three miles wide. Hydra Mountain. Not many people got a chance to see this rugged and ominous place up close. Who would want to?

Official blue-and-white government signs identified electrical fences and warned that trespassers would be met with deadly force. Granite Bay had similar warnings, as did the entire nuclear industry, and she was perfectly familiar with them. But this security exceeded anything she normally saw. Adonia felt a chill, despite the heat. The terrain around her was unwelcoming enough, but the mountain was downright ominous.

According to publicly available sources, Hydra Mountain had been a secure nuclear weapons storage depot back in Cold War days, decommissioned at least two decades ago. In its heyday, this place must have bustled with activity, military personnel working in and around the complex as nuclear warheads were stealthily transferred into the storage tunnels from Safe Secure Transports. Now, the rocky buttress seemed quiet and empty, a ghost town. Hydra Mountain should be shut down.

So why had she been called here, of all places? And on such short notice?

She turned to the MP who walked her toward the fence. “I was expecting to be taken to DOE’s Albuquerque Field Office. This is an odd place for an official meeting.” She tucked her long brunette hair behind her ear, already suspecting the man wouldn’t give her any useful answer.

The sunburned guard nodded. “They’re expecting you inside the facility, ma’am. Mr. van Dyckman’s orders were very clear.”

As clear as welder’s goggles, she thought, but it was on par with the rest of the obtuse information that van Dyckman had provided, other than his demand that she travel to Albuquerque for the high-priority Sunday review. “High priority” and “Sunday” didn’t usually mesh in the government, especially since she normally reserved the weekend for catching up on her own work at the power plant, but her old boss often had a flair for the dramatic.

She’d forgotten about van Dyckman’s priorities, which were more often based on his own sense of importance than actual emergencies. She secretly called them “Stanley-isms.” For Adonia, the best defense was to agree only as much as necessary and get the work done, either with him, or around him. That was one reason she’d left government service and gone to Granite Bay, but now damage control after the plane crash disaster had occupied her for more than a year.

At least she’d managed to finish some unclassified paperwork on the plane, four blessedly uninterrupted hours in the air, wedged in a middle seat two rows up from the rear lavatory, while two heavyset brothers snored away on either side of her. She had a lot of important work to do managing Granite Bay, which still hadn’t entirely recovered from the incident but was still producing significant power for the Northeast. More eyes than ever were watching over everything she did, though.

Forced to rely on stopgap safety upgrades, even after the attack, Adonia constantly worried about compliance, operations, logistics, finance, security, personnel, and a hundred other concerns. She didn’t have time to waste taking a tour of some long-mothballed nuclear weapons storage facility, but she tried to convince herself that Stanley’s last-minute request might result in future contracts. Still, she hoped this meeting would wrap up in time for her to catch a red-eye flight back home so she could go to work on Monday morning. She hadn’t brought an overnight bag, made no hotel reservation in Albuquerque.

Adonia followed the MP up to the first fence gate, while the driver pulled the blue staff car around, leaving her behind. Stranded in the desert… a wonderful way to spend a Sunday. Just inside the innermost fence, she could see a squat brown corrugated structure abutting the stony slope, a small administrative outbuilding that gave no hint as to what might be inside the Mountain.

The first main security gate led into a large sally port, but she could see a smaller pedestrian sally port that led through the sequential fences to the ugly admin building.

The inner gate opened, and a dark-skinned woman in U.S. Air Force battle fatigues strode toward her. Adonia shaded her eyes, able to make out that an ID dangled around the young woman’s neck.

The Air Force officer gave an uncertain salute as she exited the second gate and came forward. “General Rojas? I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Lieutenant Peters.”

Adonia realized that by shading her eyes she must have given the impression she was saluting. With an embarrassed laugh, she dropped her hand. “Terribly sorry, Lieutenant. I’m just a civilian. It’s so bright out here, I couldn’t see with the glare.”

The officer’s shoulders relaxed as they exchanged handshakes. “My mistake, ma’am. The paperwork was rushed through, and the local DOE protocol office relayed that you’re a general officer. Sometimes our high-ranking visitors don’t wear their uniforms for operational security reasons.”

Adonia was amused by the mix-up, but Shawn Whalen would have been floored that anyone could mistake her for military! The two of them would have had a good laugh about it. She paused. Now where had that stray thought come from? Even though they had parted as close friends, she hadn’t thought of Shawn in almost two years, since he’d been assigned as the President’s military aide. Maybe just being on an Air Force base had started the wheels turning in her mind.…

Thinking of him was a lot more enjoyable than worrying about her overcrowded fuel rod storage at Granite Bay. At least he wasn’t a problem that needed to be solved.

She followed Peters through the first fenced gate. “Rest easy around me, Lieutenant. The DOE used to consider me a general officer equivalent when I was still in civil service, but it’s only a protocol rank. That’s far different from being a real general, trust me, and I’m not a hard-ass in disguise. Just treat me as a civilian.”

Lieutenant Peters nodded formally and closed the first gate behind them. “No worries, ma’am. We’re still getting used to transitioning Hydra Mountain to the Department of Energy, away from military control. Some of the protocols are a little contradictory.”

Adonia couldn’t hide her surprise. “Transitioning to the DOE? That’s news to me. When did that happen?” Maybe that was why she had been brought here in such a rush. As site manager of Granite Bay, she was much more involved with the Department of Energy than with the military.

Peters stiffened. “I… shouldn’t have said that. You’ll be briefed at the proper time and place.” She lowered her voice. “Please don’t mention it once you get inside. Regulation Rob wouldn’t take it very well. He’s a real stickler.”

Regulation Rob? That was strange. “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to act surprised. My ex-boss already has plenty of questions to answer. Has Assistant Secretary van Dyckman shown up?”

“Yes, ma’am. I believe all the others have arrived as well.”

“Good, I look forward to catching up with him.” Her comment sounded breezy, but she wanted to strangle Stanley for keeping her in the dark. Oh, how different it was being a contractor!

While she was here, Adonia hoped for some quality time alone with him for a no-nonsense debriefing. As Assistant Secretary, van Dyckman knew full well the pressure she was under at Granite Bay. Overseeing the nation’s nuclear waste was his primary responsibility, and the inadequate temporary spent fuel storage area at her site was a problem that wouldn’t solve itself. She was swamped, far behind schedule, and she needed to oversee the additional holding pools being built after the plane crash. In the meantime, she had to monitor the crowded reconfiguration of the immersed fuel rods.

She had no interest in joining in some blue-ribbon review committee. Stanley must be in showoff mode, especially after his promotion to Assistant Secretary. Why couldn’t he just hold a videoconference like everyone else?

As she followed the officer to the pedestrian gate, Adonia saw two flatbed eighteen-wheelers, side by side near an enormous metal vault door set into the mountainside. Gray canvas covered both flatbeds, disguising the huge load, which was twice as high as each tractor unit.

Adonia frowned. After being decommissioned back in the post-Reagan era, Hydra Mountain should be empty, so why were the big trucks delivering a substantial cargo load? Something was definitely going on here.…

Adonia presented her ID to the guard stationed at the next sally port gate. It was a bad photo, par for the course in government-issued identification, showing her long dark hair, large brown eyes, naturally thick lashes, generous lips, and a startled-looking goofy expression. Years ago Shawn had teased her about the picture, not that his Air Force photo ID was any better.

The sergeant at the gate inserted the common access card into a reader that verified her identity. “Are you carrying any cell phones or other electronic devices, Ms. Rojas?”

“Just my NRC cell. I need it to keep in touch with my facility back in New York—”

The guard didn’t flinch. “You’re not allowed to bring it inside, government cell phone or not.”

Adonia couldn’t afford to be cut off from her Granite Bay team, not even on a Sunday. “It’s an operational necessity, Sergeant. Nuclear power plants don’t take care of themselves. I have the necessary clearances, and I have to be available on a moment’s notice.”

With the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s urgent orders to reconfigure Granite Bay’s overcrowded storage array of fuel rods, she needed to oversee the high-risk activity. They were pointedly aware that her spent fuel rods were packed to capacity — beyond capacity, for her own comfort level — and even repacking the array would buy only a little time. Nuclear waste couldn’t just sit there, swept under a rug, yet Granite Bay wasn’t legally allowed to move the rods anywhere else. Even after the near disaster at her site, no one seemed in a hurry to pick up the political hot potato.

Adonia started to insist on keeping her phone when Lieutenant Peters intervened. “Sorry, Ms. Rojas. It really is a classification issue. In addition, strict protocols prohibit electromagnetic transmissions inside the Mountain, as it may affect the sensors. No exceptions. Brand-new safety and security systems are being installed throughout the facility and the integration has been… problematic at times. If you accidentally trigger a lockdown, you’ll have to cool your heels for six hours while the systems recycle.” Peters gave her an understanding look. “Better safe than sorry, ma’am.”

The guard pointed to a metal cabinet set in concrete at the side of the sally port, which held two dozen lockboxes. Keys dangled from the locks of the few available ones. “Pick an empty box, lock your phone inside, and take the key. You can pick it up when you leave, ma’am. Nobody will touch it.”

Adonia sighed. Knowing that further argument would solve nothing, she powered down her cell, stowed it in an empty lockbox, and placed the key in her purse. “I’ll look on the bright side. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I could be away from the phone.”

The sergeant waved them through the port, and the gate behind them rolled shut, closing them in an arched tunnel of barbed wire under the hot sun.