She had heard of such experimental casks being developed for storing and transporting highly enriched fuel rods removed from a nuclear reactor — the very type of high-level waste that needed to cool in deep pools for up to five years until they could be safely handled in dry storage. But those experimental casks were only meant for limited, temporary storage, as they could be extremely dangerous if the heavy-water coolant ever leaked, stopped circulating, or even heated up.
Every nuclear power reactor produced spent fuel rods much faster than the rods could cool to manageable radiation levels, which meant that power plants like Granite Bay needed to build increasingly more temporary pools just to store the rods in the interim. And with no acceptable place to build more pools, rods were crammed more and more densely in the existing pools, packed closer and closer together — often to dangerous levels, where the radiation could build up to a deadly criticality.
She understood Stanley’s desperation, and Hydra Mountain might indeed be a pressure-release valve, but Adonia feared that Valiant Locksmith wasn’t qualified to handle still-hot spent fuel rods. Had Harris known about this? How in the world could “Regulation Rob” allow this to happen? Was there some reason why he hadn’t simply reported it up the chain?
A new thought occurred to her. Was that why he had wanted this inspection tour, so the broad-based, objective team of experts could see for themselves?
Victoria stood by the aluminum catwalk stairs with her hands on her hips in her familiar stern posture, showing clear astonishment. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Stanley? Ms. Rojas is quite right — if those are liquid-cooling containers, still-hot fuel rods do not belong here under any circumstances.”
“We interpreted NRC guidelines, and Senator Pulaski approved it.” Van Dyckman sounded defensive. “It is well within our funding mandate.”
The Senator looked embarrassed. Adonia knew full well Pulaski would have agreed to whatever Stanley suggested, since he understood little of the underlying science — or implications.
Garibaldi swallowed several times, struggling to breathe. “Have you lost your mind? This is insane. The risks in transporting such highly radioactive casks…”
Van Dyckman was annoyed, expecting to receive accolades rather than criticisms. “Nonsense. Safe Secure Transports carry nuclear warheads across the country, and this grotto was designed for storage and assembly of plutonium pits. Cooling fuel rods are far less problematic. Your concerns are baseless, just like Harris’s.”
Adonia motioned toward the casks behind her. “Don’t quote me studies saying these new storage containers are safe. The technology is too immature. The safest option is to keep the spent fuel rods in wet-storage pools near the power plant. You shouldn’t transport rods inside those containers, no matter how much coolant they have, or steel and concrete you wrap around them — much less store them here.”
Garibaldi gave a firm nod. “She’s right. I understand, and even guardedly approve, of the vaults in the upper level — provided poor Mrs. Garcia gets safely out. Those sealed chambers seem to be an adequate system for holding dry waste in isolation.” He shook his head. “But Hydra Mountain is no place to store still-hot fuel rods, especially after what we’ve been through today.”
Angry and sickened, Victoria Doyle stood back from the edge and stared across the giant grotto. “Those rods shouldn’t be in here at all.” She turned a heated glance toward van Dyckman. “At all, Stanley. You don’t know what you’re doing.” She insistently pointed across the cavern, where the far granite wall a quarter mile away had a row of embedded vault doors, their tops barely visible; the main lower floor sloped down to the vaults. “Do you even know what’s down here? What’s in those vaults?”
Van Dyckman lifted his chin. “Those are relics, owned by some other agency. I have plenty of space on the floor for our purposes, and I don’t go knocking on old, locked doors.”
Adonia turned around and suddenly caught a stronger smell, a sickly sweet odor. No denying it — the halothane was drifting toward them, getting stronger. “Do you smell that? The knockout gas is still coming toward us.”
Pulaski suddenly paled. “And we’re trapped on this ledge.”
“If the gas is still pumping out, it will keep drifting downhill,” Shawn said. “But look at all the volume in here. If we get down into the cavern, the gas should diffuse enough to be harmless.”
Garibaldi walked to the guard chain at the ledge, peering over the drop-off in search of a way down. He was startled by what he saw. “Oh. I didn’t expect that.”
When Victoria joined him, her expression turned ashen. “What the hell is this?”
Though van Dyckman stubbornly refused to step beyond the red safety line, Adonia hurried to join them and peered directly down at what had previously been out of view because of the sharp drop-off. Shawn stepped up next to her.
Now the pieces fit together — the thick black plastic panels piled on the tunnel floor, the rebar and concrete mix, and especially the large open excavations being dug in the middle of the grotto. Stanley wasn’t worried about keeping the highly radioactive fuel rods in the experimental concrete and steel casks for long.
“You see,” van Dyckman said smugly, finally joining them. His face was filled with pride as he looked down. “We have it all taken care of.”
Valiant Locksmith wasn’t just storing the safer, dry nuclear waste or a few liquid-cooled transportation containers. Not at all.
Van Dyckman’s plan was of a much greater scope.
24
Hot with nervous sweat, Harris shifted the classified STE phone against his right shoulder, fighting a cramp as he waited on hold for the Secretary of Energy. Again. His hand was slick around the red handset, but he squeezed harder. His neck ached; his head pounded. Too much tension.
Too many disasters.
With these crises at hand, he would have preferred to use the speakerphone so he could multitask and watch his crew inside the ops center, but speakerphones were strictly prohibited for SAP conversations. It didn’t matter that his office, the operations center, and the entire interior of Hydra Mountain were cleared for Valiant Locksmith. DOE SAP regulations and policy covered by U.S. Code Title 50 were not suggestions.
He was horrified by cocky administrators who didn’t adhere to procedures, glibly claiming it was better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. Harris had worked for years at Oakridge in Tennessee, and DOE Headquarters in Washington, earning a solid, reliable reputation. He was not going to throw his career out the window.
He couldn’t help but worry about team members cut off from communication, stranded even longer because of yet another systems reboot, with all safety and security systems activated, especially the extreme countermeasures in the lower levels.
And he couldn’t help them at all.
The secure line remained quiet for an impossibly long time, and Harris felt a bead of sweat run down his temple. His last report to Secretary Nitta had not been particularly well received, and she had left him waiting, stewing, pacing. Now he had to tell her even more bad news.
Even as the youngest Cabinet official, the DOE Secretary wasn’t used to anyone disobeying hard-and-fast regulations, and especially not her specific directives. But someone on the review team had violated the shelter-in-place orders, blundered back up the tunnel, and triggered the sticky foam defense. Now the rest of the team members had breached the other side of the portal, which had dumped enough knockout gas to flood the lower cavern and incapacitate a hostile commando team. The gas reservoir tank was two meters in diameter and filled with cooled liquid halothane ready to be volatilized into a truly significant volume of the anesthetic gas.