Price of Duty

THREE

Cautiously, Brad McLanahan moved into the huge air lock. Ordinarily used to transfer new fuel bundles and other heavy equipment into the containment building, it was just big enough for his CID to stand upright. His radiation and temperature sensors ticked up slightly, but not beyond the expected range. He relaxed a little. The inner containment seals were still holding. For now, anyway.

Behind him, a massive steel door swung slowly shut. It locked into place with a rhythmic, repeated series of solid-sounding CA-CA-CA-CLANKs.

“The outer door is sealed, Wolf One,” a tense voice confirmed through his headphones. Scarcely two hours ago, Vasile Enescu had been at home, comfortably asleep in his own bed. Now, as the senior surviving emergency coordinator, the middle-aged Romanian nuclear engineer found himself neck-deep in a catastrophe no one had ever imagined possible. There were no drills, no intensely rehearsed response plans to fall back on.

The rapid-fire briefing Enescu gave Brad before he entered the air lock quickly made it clear that the Romanians knew next to nothing about conditions inside the containment building or the reactor itself. Without functioning control rooms and computers, they were entirely dependent on readings from a handful of external gauges — readings that seemed to show the unthinkable, a complete failure of both automated shutdown systems and all of the emergency cooling systems.

“I’m ready to open the inner door,” Brad said. “Stand by.”

He moved closer to a keypad set next to the door. Carefully, using his CID’s powerful, articulated metal fingers, he punched in the security code uploaded into his computer — along with all of the nuclear plant’s schematics and operating manuals.

The pad display flashed red: Acces Interzis. Access Denied.

“Swell,” Brad muttered. He tapped the keys again, double-checking the code.

Again, Acces Interzis blinked back at him.

“Either the door motors are on the fritz, or the lock mechanisms are disabled,” he reported. “I’m resetting for manual operation.”

Guided by the CID’s computer, Brad yanked open a wall-mounted panel and quickly pulled several circuit breakers. The security keypad went dark. He moved back to the inner door, gripped the handwheel set in the middle, and spun it counterclockwise.

Slowly, the thick steel door swung away, opening into the containment building.

A blast of hot air roared into the air lock. A graphic flashed across Brad’s display, showing the temperature spiking from a comparatively cool twenty-four degrees centigrade to nearly sixty degrees—140 on the Fahrenheit scale — by the time the door was fully open. At the same time, atmospheric pressure climbed to around 125 kilopascals, a little over 1.2 times the normal air pressure at sea level.

Brad winced. Given the situation, those readings weren’t totally unexpected, but they were still a bad sign. Containment buildings were usually kept at slightly negative pressure, a feature meant to keep stray contaminated particles inside in case of any small leak.

He peered into the interior. It was pitch-black. All of the normal and emergency lights seemed to be dead. His computer compensated instantly, piercing the darkness with its blend of passive and active sensors. He shook his head in dismay, staring at a labyrinth of pipes, pumps, steam generator tanks, electrical conduits, cranes, and other equipment that filled the enormous building almost from floor to ceiling. Steel tracks used to guide new fuel assemblies to the reactor itself ran deeper into the maze.

Warning. Warning. Radiation count rising. Temperature rising. Atmospheric pressure rising. Estimated time to catastrophic suit protection and systems failure: Twenty minutes, the CID reported. A small timer activated at the edge of Brad’s vision, counting down in jumps and skips as the computer continuously reevaluated its original estimate.

No time to waste, he told himself, feeling his heart rate accelerate. His mouth felt dry. He needed to get in, find out what was going on, fix it if possible — and then get the hell out of this deathtrap.

“Entering containment now,” he reported.

“Understood, Wolf One,” Enescu said. He sounded even more worried now. Clearly, the readings echoed from Brad’s CID had him rattled too. “Make for the vault. It is imperative that we discover the reactor’s current status.”

“On my way,” Brad replied. He swung down off the tracks and moved deeper into the labyrinth, heading toward a colossal concrete block at its heart. Twenty meters high and twenty meters deep, this was the vault housing the fission reactor itself. Green arrows lit up on his display, indicating the fastest route to his target, one of the end shields. These steel shields, protruding out of the vault, were the only parts of the reactor not solidly encased in concrete and carbon steel.

He ducked under a set of rails and carriages — part of the machine used to insert fresh uranium fuel bundles and remove spent ones — and came face-to-face with a tall cylindrical shell. Behind this shield lay the calandria, an enormous metal drum containing the intricate assembly of pressure tubes, nozzles, compartments, and control rods that made up the reactor core. Row after row of hundreds of capped metal lattice tubes projected horizontally through the end shield.

Whole sections of pipe fittings and tubes glowed with unearthly intensity. Rivulets of molten steel dripped slowly down the face of the shield, crackling and hissing in the darkness.

Warning. Warning. Rapid temperature increase. Pressure now 200 kPa. Radiation count climbing, his computer reported. The countdown clock blinked bright red and readjusted. Fifteen minutes to protective shielding failure and lethal exposure.

“You seeing what I’m seeing, Vasile?” Brad asked, staring up at the luridly glowing end shield.

“Affirmative,” Enescu said, horrified. “Lisus Hristos! Jesus Christ! The damned thing really is melting down. We are losing whole fuel assemblies!”

“No kidding,” Brad snapped. He swallowed hard, trying to stay calm. “So tell me what I need to do first.”

“The secondary cooling system!” the other man said, after a moment’s thought. “We need to buy time by dumping as much water as we can into the reactor as fast as possible.”

“I thought all your pumps were off-line,” Brad said, puzzled.

“They are,” Enescu told him excitedly. “But there should still be a very large quantity of water left inside a big reserve storage tank at the very top of the containment building. Our high-pressure cooling system is disabled, but we can still use gravity to get water into the reactor!”

Brad’s CID highlighted the water tank the other man was describing. “That’s your dousing tank,” he realized, studying the data flashed by his computer. “Isn’t that supposed to tamp down some of the pressure buildup in here? Before the building blows apart under stress? I mean.”

“Ordinarily, yes,” the Romanian said, almost stumbling over words in his haste to explain. “But with the internal atmospheric pressures your machine is reporting, the dousing system should already be in action. So it must be off-line, too.”

“Along with everything else in this joint,” Brad growled.

“You must make cooling the reactor your top priority,” Enescu said. “Unless you can do that, nothing else ultimately matters.” Keys clicked as he typed furiously on his laptop. “I am transmitting a list of the valves you need to open, and those you need to shut off, now.”

Green and red dots suddenly blossomed on Brad’s display, each matching one of the valves on the list the Romanian had sent by data link directly to the CID’s computer. They were numbered in order of priority — stepping down in a sequence from near the ceiling to a group of valves just above the top of the reactor vault.

“Wolf One copies,” Brad said. He moved fast through the complicated jumble of pumps, generators, and other machinery, dodging and ducking to avoid smashing into pipes and conduits. He came out into a relatively open area near the edge of the huge reactor assembly and looked straight up. Reaching the catwalk leading to the first valves he needed to open meant climbing at least eleven flights of narrow, steep metal stairs.

Warning. Warning. Time to suit breach now ten minutes, thirty-five seconds.

“Screw taking the stairs,” he muttered, shaking his head. Instead, he leaped straight up, grabbed a railing, started swinging back and forth, and then flung himself upward again — just as the railing crumpled and then tore away under the CID’s weight. Up and up he went, twisting and curling from handhold to handhold as though the robot were a circus acrobat rather than a fighting machine.

One last jump took him onto the central catwalk. It shook, swaying under the sudden impact.

Brad bounded over to the first valve, spun it open, and turned away, ready to move on to the next one in the preplotted sequence.

WHIRR.

He whirled back and saw the valve closing again, driven by a power-operated actuator. Frowning, he cranked the valve open again and watched it closely a second time. “What the hell is this, Vasile?” Brad asked.

“That should not be possible,” the Romanian said, stunned.

“Possible or not, it’s damned well happening,” Brad snapped. “What’s the procedure here?”

Enescu hesitated, clearly thinking it through. “If you unscrew the access plate on the left side of the actuator motor, you should be able to uncouple the—”

Warning. Temperature now eighty-five degrees centigrade. Pressure at 225 kilopascals. Radiation rising. Hydraulic system function degrading, now at eighty percent. Sensor function partially impaired. Time to fatal suit breach now seven minutes, forty seconds.

“No way! I don’t have time for anything complicated,” Brad interrupted. He could actually feel the CID growing stiffer and less responsive to his commands. His visual displays flickered slightly, dimming just a bit as some of the robot’s sensors failed.

Sweating inside the cockpit, he grabbed the actuator motor and ripped it off the valve. It sailed away into the darkness in a shower of sparks and torn metal.

“Or you could just do that,” Enescu admitted.

Brad gritted his teeth and swung over the edge of the catwalk. In a blur of motion, he guided the CID downward through the tangle of piping and machinery, opening some valves and closing others. Crumpled actuators were hurled aside, clanging and clattering down to the floor far below.

He reached the last set of valves and cranked them full open. Pipes above him were humming, vibrating, as thousands of gallons of water poured along the path he’d opened into the reactor. He dropped the rest of the way, landing heavily on top of the vault.

WHUMMP. WHUMMP. WHUMMP. WHUMMP.

The massive vault shuddered beneath his feet. Four huge plumes of superheated steam erupted on all sides, hissing and boiling higher and higher. Immediately the CID showed external temperature, radiation, and pressure readings jumping dramatically.

Warning. Warning. Time to suit failure now five minutes, ten seconds. Brad swore under his breath.

“Those are pressure relief ducts,” he heard Enescu babbling. “Temperatures inside the core must be so high that our cooling water is flashing into steam on contact. If the disks sealing those ducts had not ruptured, the calandria itself might have fractured!”

“No, to pięknie,” Brad snarled. “That’s just swell.” He sighed. “What’s next? I’m running out of time real fast in here.”

“You must manually release the SDS-1 rods,” the Romanian said, referring to a group of thirty-two cadmium rods that should have plunged into the core the instant the reactor began running wild — shutting it down automatically. “With so many fuel bundles already damaged or destroyed, some of the rods may not be able to fully deploy. Even so, any rods that reach the core should greatly slow the fission reaction.”

“Okay,” Brad said. He scrambled toward a shallow rectangular gap on the top of the vault. That opened onto a concrete-stiffened steel box called the reactivity mechanism deck. Row after row of shutdown rod drives protruded above the deck.

He crouched down, ordering the CID’s display to zoom in on those drive mechanisms.

“Isus,” Enescu said, seeing the images he sent. “The clutches between each motor and shaft have been de-energized, locking them in position. But this should only happen after a reactor trip, not before. This is—”

“Impossible,” Brad finished for him grimly. “Yeah, I get it. Look, I’m starting to sense a really bad pattern here. How about you?”

“Yes,” the other man said simply.

Suit failure in four minutes, the CID’s computer reported calmly.

“Moving now!” Brad snapped. Hunched over, he scurried across the deck, systematically tearing away cables connecting the shutdown rods to their control units and motors. Freed from the locking mechanisms holding them in place, rod after spring-driven cadmium rod fell away — plunging deep into the steam-clouded jumble of twisted pressure tubes and molten uranium fuel slurry inside the reactor.

Radiation levels decreasing, the CID told him. Containment building temperature and pressure still rising. Hydraulic system function down to sixty percent. Estimated time to catastrophic suit failure now less than two minutes.

“I’m heading for the air lock,” Brad radioed, moving carefully toward the edge of the vault. His eyes narrowed, looking for a clear path through the clouds of superheated steam still billowing off the reactor.

There.

He jumped down. And fell sprawling across the concrete floor when the CID’s right leg refused to flex. “Shit!”

Partial hydraulic failure, the computer reported. Emergency override inoperative. Brad swore again, seeing whole sections of his system schematics wink yellow and then red. He forced the robot upright, hearing damaged servos and actuators whining shrilly in protest.

Dragging his CID’s immobile right leg, he limped awkwardly toward the open air-lock door.

Warning. Warning. Chemical alert.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Brad snarled at his computer. What now? He was right at the edge of the air lock, for Christ’s sake! Exasperated, he swung around.

In his display, the clouds of steam venting off the reactor vault now glowed bright red. The CID’s chemical sniffers were picking up a growing volume of flammable hydrogen gas mixed in with the water vapor, rising higher and higher toward the distant ceiling. His jaw tightened. Too much hydrogen accumulating up there could trigger an explosion powerful enough to blow the containment building apart.

“Tell me this isn’t really a problem, Vasile,” he said quietly.

“It is not a problem,” Enescu said confidently. “We have a network of automated igniters spaced around the top of the containment area. They will burn off the hydrogen before it reaches a dangerous concentration.”

Brad stared up through the maze of pipes and machinery. He shook his head in disgust. “Yeah, that would be great. Unfortunately, your fucking automated igniters aren’t firing.”

For a moment, there was stunned silence over the radio circuit. “O Doamne! Oh my God!”

Catastrophic suit failure in forty-five seconds.

Scowling, Brad took out his autocannon and loaded a single 25mm incendiary round. He backed up to the very edge of the open air lock. “Look,” he told Enescu. “Right now I can probably set off the hydrogen pocket near the roof. But what I need to know and fast is if that’s just going to blow the shit out of this whole place.”

There was another long silence.

Twenty-five seconds. Twenty-four seconds. Twenty-three seconds.

“Our calculations show that any hydrogen flare or explosion now should inflict only minimal damage,” Enescu said at last.

Seventeen seconds. Sixteen seconds.

“How sure of that are you?”

Fourteen seconds. Thirteen seconds.

“Only somewhat sure,” the other man admitted.

Eleven seconds. Ten.

“Works for me,” Brad said simply. He aimed upward, zeroing in on a bare patch of concrete on the containment roof. Then he squeezed the trigger. The autocannon bucked.

WHUUUMMMMP!

A bright orange flash overloaded his vision screens. They went black. In that same instant, a shock wave slammed into the CID. Servos howling, Brad stumbled backward into the air lock.

His displays flickered back online and he breathed out in relief. Both the roof and the intricate, interwoven assembly of pipes and machinery around the reactor appeared intact.

Seven seconds to suit failure. Six seconds.

Reacting fast, Brad dropped the autocannon, grabbed the heavy air-lock door, and hauled it shut. Then he frantically spun the handwheel clockwise. One after another, the door’s locking mechanisms clicked into place — sealing out the lethal radiation and heat still emanating from the crippled reactor core.

Catastrophic suit failure averted, the robot’s computer said coolly.

Wearily, Brad closed his eyes, ignoring the ever-lengthening recitation of the computer’s list of damaged or destroyed components. Slowly and very deliberately, he slid down the side of the air lock. “Never again,” he murmured. “I am never doing anything that crazy again.”

“How much do you want to bet on that?” he heard Charlie Turlock say cheerfully over his headset. “Because you’re a McLanahan, remember, and I’ve got my eye on a brand-new sports car that’s way above my current pay grade.”

Several hundred people milled around the edges of a kilometer-deep “emergency exclusion zone” hastily proclaimed around the damaged reactor. Policemen and some soldiers in riot gear were stationed to keep the onlookers — a mix of news crews and the morbidly curious — from getting any closer. Bright lights and logo-emblazoned vehicles marked the presence of television reporters jabbering away excitedly in half a dozen different languages, urgently relaying a mix of pure speculation, ill-informed guesswork, and wildly inaccurate information to audiences around the globe.

No one paid much attention to the small, three-man team working inside the back of a panel van parked near the outer fringes of the growing crowd. According to their licenses and ID cards, they were employees of EuroSlav News, a tiny, independent news agency whose business was selling content over the Internet and to small local papers across Eastern and central Europe. Behind the façade, however, EuroSlav News was a GRU front used both as a cover for intelligence gathering and as a means of disseminating covert pro-Russian propaganda to unsuspecting audiences.

One of the GRU agents, Captain Konstantin Rusanov, sat hunched over a bank of electronics equipment. Tasked with monitoring radio and computer signals from the plant, the short, dark-haired man was intensely focused. His mouth turned down suddenly as a new flood of signals reached his earphones and displays. He turned toward their team leader. “The Romanians and the Iron Wolf team have successfully prevented a containment breach,” he said glumly, unable to hide his disappointment.

Major Leonid Usenko shrugged and stubbed out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. “That is unfortunate,” he agreed. “But that reactor is still badly damaged, isn’t it?”

Rusanov nodded. “Beyond repair, in all likelihood.” He glanced at the third man, rail thin and balding, sitting next to him, busy watching over his own array of equipment. “Do you concur, Mikheyev?”

“I do,” Captain Artem Mikheyev confirmed. He was a “special technical officer” assigned specifically for this mission. He smiled happily. “Best of all, the voice and video transmissions I’ve recorded should provide Moscow with much useful new data. Now that we’ve seen one in action, further technical analysis should teach us much about the strengths and weaknesses of these supposedly invincible Iron Wolf fighting machines.”