Peter Hernon - 8.4

“I’ll use gelatin dynamite, a mixture of nitroglycerin and sodium nitrate,” Booker said. “It’s incredibly dense, highly stable, and water resistant. It makes a hell of an explosion.”

“How do you plan to detonate it?” Atkins asked.

“With fuse tubing and a blaster,” Booker said. “I wouldn’t risk running wire for the weapon, but I don’t see any other alternative for the explosive charges. They’ve got to be connected to a fusing network.” He explained how he’d use a special nonelectrical or “non-1” fuse that consisted of plastic tubing filled with explosives. About the size of the clear tubing used in aquarium tanks, non-1 didn’t emit sparks that could ignite dangerous gases. It had long been a popular detonation device in mines.

“We’ll use a PAL arming system for the bomb,” the physicist went on. The letters, he explained, stood for Permissive Action Link, which consisted of a code that had to be set by punching in the right sequence of numbers before an electromagnetic lock would open, arming the weapon.

“We’ve come a long way with PALs,” said Booker. “The coding can be transmitted automatically once a missile has been launched. On this shot, we’re going to do it the old-fashioned way.”

Booker programmed the weapon with an eight-digit number randomly selected from a coding device a presidential aide carried in the “black box,” actually a battered, black leather briefcase. When they were ready to “arm enable” the weapon underground, Booker would punch in the same sequence of numbers.

For safety redundancy, they also used a fail-safe color coding system. Booker turned a red arming switch on the side of the bomb’s hard case. Later, in the mine, he’d flip a corresponding green switch, which would arm the weapon.

An array of monitoring devices would be set up near ground zero. Electrical cables would be run from the equipment four miles to the red shack, an Army trailer, where Guy Thompson and other seismologists would track the explosion and its seismic effects. Thompson was already there, setting up.

Everyone would be withdrawn from the area two hours before the bomb was detonated. Two helicopters would be kept on standby with their engines running, ready to fly the party to safety as soon as they emerged from the mine.

“I’ll be waiting for you when you get out of there,” Ross promised.

“I beg to differ, Mister President,” said his Secret Service chief, Belleau. “You can’t be anywhere near here once they arm that weapon.”

“I’m afraid I outrank you on this one, Phil,” the president said in a soft, firm voice. He turned to the team that was going to make the descent. He shook hands with each of them, first Elizabeth, then Atkins, and the others.

“I’ll be praying for you all,” he said. He looked right at Belleau. “And when you come out of that mine, I’ll be here.”

DOC Murray laid the equipment out on the ground. Elizabeth, Atkins, and the others had gathered around him. There was time for only one safety session. So Atkins and the others listened to Murray as they’d never listened to anyone in their lives.

Murray picked up an apparatus that looked like a small oxygen tank. It was equipped with a mask.

“We call this a Drag-B,” he said, demonstrating how the tank was strapped over the shoulders. The face piece slipped over the head like a scuba mask. “The full name is a Drager BG-174 Long Duration Closed Circuit Breathing Apparatus. It’s the most important piece of equipment you’re going to carry. The canister holds forty pounds of air, enough for four hours. It’s got a scrubber that takes out the carbon monoxide. If I tell you to put the mask on, get it over your face as fast as you can. Your life will depend on it. You’ve got to know how to do this in the dark. We’ll run a little practice drill once we get down into the mine.”

Murray may have looked country, tall and rawboned with a mountain twang to his voice, but Atkins had found out from Draper that he had a Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Missouri at Rolla School of Mines.

Murray spent several minutes with each of them, demonstrating how to get the face mask on. Atkins had to try twice before he did it properly. Elizabeth got it right the first time.

“The main thing is to put it on as soon as I tell you,” Murray said. “You don’t want to wait for smoke. Carbon monoxide could already be present in the air. You won’t see it or smell it.”

Murray got them outfitted with hard hats and lamps. The five-pound battery for the lamp hung from a web belt. The lamp itself was attached to the helmet. Murray and Atkins would carry state-of-the-art dry foam sprayers in case they had to fight fires. The forty-pound canisters strapped to their backs. Each also would carry a hundred-foot coil of rope.

“Remember that the air shafts and skip shaft are your primary escape routes,” Murray said. “Once we go below ground, you’ll see they’re all marked with green reflectors.”

“What’s the worst thing that can happen down there?” Weston asked.

Murray didn’t hesitate.

“Fire,” he said. “I’ve been in three fires in coal mines. I don’t want to go through another one. I’m all out of luck.”

LAUREN MITCHELL WAS SHOCKED TO SEE HIM. AT first she wasn’t sure it was the same man. He’d aged, but he looked and moved with the easy, fluid grace of someone much younger. The face was creased and heavily lined, but the real difference, the detail that focused her attention, were the eyes. She remembered how his blue, clear eyes had blazed out from his coal-blackened face when he came up out of the mine on that day so many years ago. His eyes were different. They’d lost some of their sparkle.

Lauren approached Murray as he lit an unfiltered Camel.

“You won’t remember me, but I was here twenty-three years ago,” she said. “You helped bring up my husband’s body.”

Murray, who’d been staring at the ground, quickly looked up. He hadn’t mentioned the disaster to the scientists, figuring they probably already knew about it, and if they didn’t, why give them another reason to lose their nerve.

“His name was Bob Mitchell,” Lauren said.

“One of the best foremen in the business,” Murray said, taking off his helmet. “I met Bob once or twice. He was a fine man.”

He didn’t know what else to say to the woman, who stood there smiling at him with her thick hair blowing in the wind. It had been the worst mine disaster he’d ever seen. More than forty men trapped a thousand feet below ground by a methane explosion, sealed off in a tunnel and slowly suffocating as their air gave out. He’d led a rescue team, one of the lucky ones. Three men from another squad had been killed in a cave-in.

“I never thanked you for bringing him out,” Lauren said. “It’s a little late, but I want you to know I’ve never forgotten and never stopped praying for you.”

Murray took her hand and held it. “I wouldn’t mind a few more of those prayers.”

Lauren said, “This is going to be bad, isn’t it?”

Murray hesitated before he said, “These people have no idea what it’s like down there.”

When it was almost time, Lauren watched as Murray helped them slip into their fire-resistant bunker gear—thick leather overcoats, pants, steel-toed boots and gloves, hard hats. They strapped on their air tanks. Each of them also lugged a twenty-pound tank of dry foam for fighting fires. A coil of rope was attached to their web belts.

Booker carried the bomb’s fusing components, capacitors, and timer in a canvas backpack. The remote control for Neutron—about the size of a laptop—was strapped around his neck. He punched a few buttons and worked the joysticks. The robot easily picked up the bomb, cradling it in its special alloy mechanical arms. It rolled onto the steel elevator cage that would take them down the man shaft to the eight-hundred-foot level. A large spool of non-1 fuse was attached to its back.