Chuck Logan - After the Rain

He ran past a deep trough and a pile of heaped dirt and saw two 644Cs. One was parked parallel in a rough line with other equipment, some of it still on trailers. But the other loader sat next to the wall of a building between the two reactor towers.

Jesus, just sitting there, perfectly perpendicular to the wall. Like it had been positioned. His stomach tightened as he ran to the machine. When he got within fifty yards he stopped and looked up. The honeycomb image returned with a vengeance, and now the gray domes towered above him like enormous hives. He imagined them buzzing with radioactive killer bees. Aggressive, swarming the containment, insane to get out.

Holly, Yeager, and Fuller came jogging behind him. The guards and the manager followed, somewhat reluctantly.

“I need a big wrench or a hammer,” Broker yelled. He sniffed and looked under the loader. “There’s a big puddle of gas under here.”

Fuller signaled to a workman who was hesitantly approaching, part curious, part nervous. “We need some tools here, fast.”

The worker put down his cooler, jogged to a shed next to the construction trailer. Broker pointed to the card around the manager’s neck. “What that?”

“Dosimeter. Measures radiation.”

Broker smiled tightly, “Might be a good idea to walk around this machine, see if you get a reading.”

“You serious?”

Just then the worker returned, panting, with a heavy toolbox. Broker opened it, selected a heavy claw hammer, and immediately began tapping the counterweights on the back of the machine. Broker’s first and second hammer blows gave off a dull solid clang. The third strike rebounded hollow, twanging.

The manager, the security guard, and Fuller looked at each other.

“Why is this machine sitting here?” Broker asked.

Fuller said, “Dale put it here. He wanted to see how it ran.”

Holly grabbed a wrench from the toolbox, and he and Broker carefully attacked the end of the rearmost counterweight.

“Oh my God,” gasped the manager as a crack appeared in the cast-iron weight. Using the open wrench and the hammer claw, Holly and Broker carefully peeled back the thin, milled-out iron. It dropped off in flakes.

Nobody said a word.

They were too busy trying to interpret the shapes Holly and Broker had revealed. Lumps of red clay connected by wires. A flat, dark plastic wafer in a taped plastic bag.

Holly gently scraped at the clay with a fingernail, brought it to his nose, sniffed, then put it to his tongue. He said, “Semtex. Military-grade blasting cap wired to a telephone pager.” He turned to the manager.

“Wait a minute…” the plant official said. His face was going dreamy and dissociative. His eyes seemed to recede into his head.

“There’s another hole like this on the other side. They’re angled,” Yeager said. “We talked to the guy who milled out the channels for Dale.”

“What’s on the other side of that wall?” Holly demanded in a steely voice.

“That wall’s five feet of steel-reinforced concrete,” the manager said, drawing himself up.

“Are there tunnels, subterranean rooms? Goddamn it, how much of the pool is below ground?” Holly shouted.

“Most of it,” the manager said, starting to tremble.

“Yeah, right! There’s water on the other side of that wall. Fucking water. Get it out of here,” Holly yelled. “Get the ass end pointed in the river, anywhere, just get it away from this wall.”

Fuller scrambled up the step into the cab, sat down, leaned into the controls. Nothing happened. He stuck his head out and yelled, “She’s dead.”

One of the workmen started checking the engine. He yelled, “Irv, battery wires cut. And the gas line.”

Fuller jumped down from the cab, visibly shaken. “This is a fucking boat anchor. Without power the hydraulics are dead, no steering.”

“It’s a bomb,” the security guard said under his breath. He started backing up. The sudden way he moved reminded Broker of something. Then he placed it. The movie Jaws, when people in the water thought they saw the shark and started backpedaling, in panic, trampling people. As he backed up, he started talking with barely controlled panic into his mobile radio:

“We have a level-one event. Activate the Emergency Notification System. Yes, goddammit. Now! Call the city of Red Wing, Goodhue County, the State Office of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and the governor. And call the St. Paul bomb squad. We may have a bomb next to the spent-fuel pool. Evacuate all nonessential personnel. We have to shut down.”

“Shut down?” the manager yelled. “You idiot! WE CAN’T SHUT DOWN THE COOLING POOL!” His knees buckled.

It was starting.

“IT’S A BOMB!” yelled the nearest construction worker, as he started to walk rapidly toward the gate. Broker and Holly stared at each other.

“We gotta move this thing,” they both said at the same time.

Fuller gritted his teeth. “Dale was here to check this machine because the wheels felt a little stiff…”

“Shit,” Holly said. He and Broker stared at each other. “The wheels…”

They went to one of the wheel wells and struck at the twist valve cover with a hammer and a wrench. After several strikes it loosened. Straining, manic, they forced the cover to turn on its threads and removed it. The wheel was filled with congealed vinyl-like material. Broker fumbled in the toolbox, found a heavy screwdriver, and probed into the opening.

“Something in here,” he said, grimacing, fumbling. Blood ran as he skinned his hand. But he managed to snag a loop of…hose. Embedded in the hardened foam. Pulled it out. He peeled away the gunk.

Very lightweight garden hose wrapped in tape. Yeager snapped open a Buck knife and handed it to Broker. He slit the tape and peeled open the bulge of hose. Broker reflexively stood up and backed away-a phobic, reflex firing of muscles. The hose was packed with red Semtex.

“Christ, could be all four wheels.” Holly’s voice sounded like a dead bolt sliding into place. “That could be…”

“A ton,” Broker said in a controlled, hollow voice.

“Right,” Holly said. He spun on the manager. “You ain’t gonna have a hole in your pool, buddy. You ain’t gonna have a pool. ”

The plant manager started to tremble. Broker watched his face turn clammy, then he ceased to sweat. His eyeballs enlarged and his pupils contracted. “Wait a minute. What are you saying?” he whispered. “How could that get in here?”

Holly shook his head. “I’m sure you vetted the construction crew, And you checked the bottoms of the trucks these machines came in on. But you didn’t disassemble the machines themselves. And even trained sniffer dogs miss Semtex-that’s how good those smart Czech bastards made it.

“So basically what we got here is a directional charge of the world’s best explosives, maybe four hundred pounds of it aimed directly at the foundation of your cooling pool.” Holly clicked his teeth, looked around. “Plus the wheels. This fucker will crater big enough to hold a couple three Olympic pools. And it’s rigged for remote detonation with pagers…”

“One phone call,” Broker said, barely recognizing his own voice.

“Yeah,” Holly said. “Question is, how big is his comfort zone? How far upwind is he going to travel before he punches in the numbers?”

“We’ll…just…take it apart,” the manager said carefully. “We’ll disconnect the wires.”

“That call is beyond my training,” Holly said. “And we can’t wait for the bomb squad.”

“This can’t happen.” Slowly the manager lowered himself to the ground as his knees failed. He put his hands in his lap, swallowed, and recited, “An attack on the cooling pool is not a credible event.”