“Some of the fallen rods are touching,” Garibaldi explained. “No telling how much radiation we’ve already received. We should get as far away as possible.”
Adonia said, “The gas is building up, so we’ve got to find some way to stay above it while we wait out the lockdown.”
Shawn stared at the huge crane in the middle of the cavern. Its boom extended far above the temporary pool and reached nearly to the rock ceiling. “We could get to the crane, lower the trestle, and lift ourselves up to the catwalk.”
“Does anyone have experience operating a large crane?” Garibaldi said. “We know rocket science and nuclear physics, but this is heavy machinery.”
A pall of silence dropped over the group. Adonia had depended on numerous technical experts to run operations at Granite Bay, from radiation workers to health and safety professionals, and she’d always made an effort to understand the basics of their jobs. But running the large Manitowoc crane? She had taken the blue-collar construction jobs for granted, not thinking about the skills of crane operators who were just as important to the success of her nuclear site. She doubted anyone in the review team had that basic expertise.
She turned hopefully to Shawn, but he shook his head. “I can figure out the controls of any kind of aircraft, but running a big crane is out of my wheelhouse. One mistake, and I could send the boom crashing into a catwalk, and then who knows what debris would tumble into the pools.”
“We’ve had enough disasters for one day,” Victoria said.
Garibaldi stood on the narrow platform that ringed the pool. “Let’s run through the options, then, shall we? We have to get far from this pool, but we can’t stay on the cavern floor for long, because the gas is building up. Even though we can’t operate the crane, we can climb up the boom, hand over hand, and get ourselves high above the floor, and wait out the lockdown.”
Adonia peered up to the cavern ceiling high overhead where the air ducts converged. “Worst case, if the gas doesn’t stop rising, we could always climb through those air shafts, where the catwalks intersect. They must vent the crane’s diesel fumes outside.”
Victoria said slowly, “That would be one way out of Hydra Mountain, but it seems awfully risky.”
Van Dyckman pointed well past the crane to the far wall of the grotto. “Even at a walk, we can still move faster than the gas, but the cavern floor is a dead end. What about those vaults? Harris kept saying how safe Mrs. Garcia is in her chamber in the upper level. Why can’t we hide out in one of those? They’re old relics.”
Adonia looked to the row of large metal doors embedded in the distant granite wall. “We could shelter in place, like we should have done in the guard portal.”
As a pilot, Shawn had the best eyesight of all of them. “They do look like the sealed storage vaults in the upper level. Dr. van Dyckman’s right. Typical vaults are airtight and have their own environmental controls with constantly monitored conditions.”
Adonia nodded. “It would be a lot safer than climbing up the crane’s boom. But how would we even get inside the vault?”
Van Dyckman had a smug smile on his face. “With my override code. I control the Mountain, remember. I can use it one time. We’ll hide out until the danger’s passed.”
Looking like a bedraggled cat, Victoria gaped at the group in disbelief. “You’re all insane! We need to move higher, get above the gas, not lock ourselves in some chamber. You don’t even know what’s in there.”
“Hiding there is a hell of a lot easier than climbing up an airshaft,” van Dyckman said. “Even if it means being confined in a chamber with you.”
Catching a whiff of the sweet-smelling gas wafting over the pool, Adonia made up her mind. “If Stanley’s override code can get us inside there, we’ll hole up.”
From the narrow platform, Shawn looked down to the concrete floor more than twenty feet below. “There’s a set of portable stairs over by that pile of construction material. I’ll climb down and push the stairs here so everyone can get down.”
But the curling strands of gas were pooling higher on the cavern floor, and Adonia knew they wouldn’t have much time to cross the quarter mile to the far wall. “That’ll take too long, Shawn. We can shimmy down these metal struts and get moving. Go ahead, lead the way.” Though she was still sickened by the Senator’s death, she realized the big man would not have been able to make the climb, which would have forced them into another ordeal to save him. “Once we reach the floor, we’ll have to run to stay ahead of the halothane.”
Shawn walked gingerly along the narrow metal mesh to where one of the metal cross pipes intersected with the base of the platform. Swinging his legs over the side, he found a footing and lowered himself. Besides being in the best physical shape of anyone in the group, Shawn had done enough rock climbing that he could show them the way.
Holding the metal edge, he lowered his body and extended his leg until he found a foothold on a crossbar. Before he dropped out of sight, he looked up at the rest of them. “Everyone, get on your butts so we can do this quickly. Slide over. There are plenty of footholds.”
He clambered down the metal scaffolding and quickly reached the floor, where he looked in dismay at the yellow smoke that had begun to swirl around his feet. “Hurry up. The gas is still faint, but it’s building. We’ve got to move.”
30
Once they all climbed down the side of the pool to the floor, the five surviving team members appeared shaken. Sodden, Adonia breathed hard, exhausted from swimming and struggling in the water. But she couldn’t rest, not now.
“When will the lockdown be over?” van Dyckman asked. He sounded lost. “How much more time do we have to wait?”
“Whenever the system is finished rebooting,” Adonia said, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “Probably several more hours. We have to wait it out.”
“At least Pulaski’s done causing us problems,” Victoria grumbled. Still shaken by the Senator’s death, Adonia was shocked by her glib comment.
Shawn was more businesslike as he got them moving. “We’d know for sure if we had some way to contact Rob Harris. Maybe there’s another intercom down in the lower level.”
“Or even a working hardline phone,” Garibaldi said.
“No landlines,” Victoria said. “Only intercoms — they were scared telephone lines might mistakenly be connected to the outside, and then they could be tapped. This was built in the fifties, remember?”
Adonia rallied the people to move. The expansive floor of the cavern seemed to go on forever. “Let’s make our way to those vaults. Come on, the smell is getting stronger.”
Holding her breath against the drifting tendrils of gas, Victoria paused next to a pile of leftover construction material. She rubbed a thick slab of black carbon fiber reinforced plastic between her fingers. When she glanced up, Adonia saw that the Undersecretary seemed more frightened than at any other point since the first lockdown. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
Without a word, the Undersecretary straightened primly and hurried to join the rest of the group. Because of her petite size, Victoria would probably be the first one affected by the gas. “None of us is all right, Ms. Rojas. And it’s still a mistake to go to those vaults.”
Staying ahead of the creeping gas, they hurried across the open floor toward the holes still under excavation, then past the looming crane. In the crane cab high above the monstrous treads, the door to the operator’s console was open, even though the work crew would not be in for their shift until Monday.
Tracer smoke swirled across the floor like a poisonous mist. Even though they made good time, Adonia smelled the sweet scent that followed them. In the far corner, bags of cement, bundles of metal rebar, and piles of steel beams to support the large pools were stacked high. Shovels and brooms rested against the wall near a parked yellow forklift.