James Huston - Fallout

“We have another helicopter airborne now at the scene, with CNN’s nuclear expert, Dr. Alfred Boyer, aboard. He has detection equipment on board to make sure they’re safe.” The image changed to a shot of the helicopter in the bright California sunshine. “Dr. Boyer, can you hear us?”

“Yes, I can.”

The image of Dr. Boyer was horrifying to the passengers waiting to get on the Southwest plane. All conversation stopped. The mother next to Katherine reached down, took her son’s Game Boy, and turned it off.

Boyer and the single pilot in the helicopter wore radiation-protection suits that made them look like the evil scientists from E.T. Boyer’s bearded face was visible through the plastic faceplate, distorted just enough to make him look odd. He was surrounded by a bank of equipment that seemed out of place in the helicopter.

“What can you tell us about reports of radiation?”

“There’s definitely radiation coming from the site, Carl. It’s almost certain that Leslie and the other crew members are suffering from radiation sickness. I must report that we are very high over the site and using a very large lens to bring you the recent pictures you have before you. As you can see, there are several bodies of firefighters and emergency-response people lying on the ground in the San Onofre compound. They were apparently there to respond to the fire and the damage, and although we shouldn’t speculate, were almost certainly overcome by radiation. The speed with which it worked on them and the fact that others have not gone to their rescue indicates to me very high-level, very deadly, radiation. I won’t speculate on the cause, but it is clearly not from the reactors themselves.”

“That accounts for your appearance in special suits.”

Boyer seemed unsure about whether to show the concern he felt or try to be chipper to make the situation seem better than he actually believed it to be. “Um, that’s right, Carl. To be abundantly cautious, we’ve put these suits on.” He looked at the baffling array of electronic gear behind him. “We have a lot of detection equipment with us. It’s about as sensitive as there is, and we’re able to detect radiation in the atmosphere around us. We’ve been detecting several kinds—”

“You’re detecting radiation right now? Right where you are?”

“Yes we are. As you can see”—Boyer pointed—“we have indications of several types of radioactive material—cesium, plutonium, even uranium.”

“From a nuclear warhead? Did they drop a nuclear bomb that did not explode but is just slowly melting down?”

“That’s unlikely, Carl. Based on what I’ve seen so far, and without saying too much, it is my belief that the nuclear waste of San Onofre has been compromised. You must keep in mind, Carl, that the radioactive inventory of a spent nuclear rod is about equivalent to that of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.”

Carl was staggered. “Where would they find spent nuclear rods, Dr. Boyer? Where would they get nuclear waste?”

“I didn’t mean to imply that they brought nuclear waste. I would expect we’re dealing with the waste that is stored at San Onofre, on site, as at all the other nuclear plants in the country, but that is speculation on my part.”

“How much waste was stored at San Onofre?”

“I’m not sure about that, Carl. I think we’ll wait to hear from San Onofre at their press conference on that one.”

“Do you expect them to evacuate?”

“There is an evacuation plan, and I’m sure that San Onofre and the local authorities are considering putting that in place. The sirens have been going off for some time now, and the local residents took it as an actual signal of radioactivity, which it turned out to be. They’ve begun fleeing from the area, but the local freeways are so crowded that we’ve seen people driving through fences to get to Camp Pendleton on dirt roads to avoid the jammed freeways and city streets of San Clemente.”

“Thank you, Dr. Boyer.” Carl turned his attention to the camera. “We will keep getting updates from Dr. Boyer. In just a few minutes we expect representatives from the San Onofre plant to hold their first press conference. We’ll be carrying it live.”

Katherine was jarred back to Reno by the PA announcement. “Southwest flight 1285 to San Diego is ready for immediate boarding. We will accept boarding passes numbered one to thirty at this time.”

Nobody moved. Everyone had been listening to the broadcast and realized there was radioactivity in southern Orange County. A burgeoning Chernobyl. They stared at each other. Finally one of the passengers peeled away from the front of the group. “I don’t need to glow in the dark. I’m not going anywhere.”

Another followed her, then another. Before she knew it, Katherine was standing among a group of perhaps two dozen people who were still intent on boarding the plane. She walked down the ramp and stepped onto the airplane. She hesitated, then turned toward the cockpit. The two pilots were in their seats. “Have you heard anything about San Onofre?” she asked the captain.

He looked back at her. “Sure. What in particular?”

“Is the FAA saying anything about whether it’s dangerous to go near to it?”

“There’s a large radioactive cloud forming. They’re not sure what’s going to happen to it, but they’re going to vector us around it. San Diego is okay, but they’ve stopped all flights into John Wayne Airport in Orange County.”

“What do you think?”

The co-pilot answered. “We’re going to drop you off, then fly to Las Vegas, where we’re based. And that’s where I’m going to stay until they know what the hell is going to happen. Whatever it is, it’s not a good thing.”

Katherine thanked them and made her way back to her seat. She had her choice of a hundred or so in the previously sold-out airplane.

“Well, Cindy,” Morrissey said, not needing to say anything else.

She nodded. The entire building in Langley, Virginia, was in shock. No one had ever attacked the United States more effectively. One could say that the attack on Pearl Harbor had done more physical damage, but that was done by hundreds, thousands of Japanese on dozens of ships and hundreds of airplanes. Four men had created the damage at San Onofre, or a couple dozen if you counted their maintenance personnel. And the effects of the attack were now expected to last not just days or weeks, but centuries. “I don’t know if it makes it better or worse that we were looking into them. Even active fieldwork. We didn’t get to the end of the road in time.”

Bill Morrissey closed his eyes. He knew this was it. He would be fired for this. Without a doubt. Pakistan was his area. He was supposed to know everything that was going on, even though that was impossible. There’d been an attempt to smuggle a nuclear warhead into Pakistan. He’d made no progress on that whatsoever. It continued to baffle him. Then there’d been an attack on a Pakistani weapons depot, where something had been stolen, but no one knew what. They knew only that the bombs designed to carry nuclear warheads hadn’t been touched. Then there’d been this concern about Major Riaz Khan at the school in Nevada. Kevin’s little brother had alerted them. But they’d had nothing to go on. Just suspicion. Could have been racism, for all he knew. But now it appeared it was all related somehow—and he’d missed it. The Director had relied on him.

“There’ll be plenty of time for them to discover all the reasons I should be fired,” he said. “But for now our job is to track this guy down. No stone unturned. No idea unexplored. He snuck into our tent and set the whole thing on fire.”

Cindy nodded. Her computer screen was playing streaming video of the San Onofre plant in the California sunshine with the growing cloud of death clearly visible against the blue ocean. “What can I do?”