Now, he tugged her toward the conference room. “Please just wait until we’ve finished this meeting. You’ll see what I’m doing, and believe me, you’ll thank me for it.” He seemed more intense than she had ever seen him.
She lowered her voice. “One week, Stanley. I’ll take a tour of this place if it makes some senator happy, but you’ve got one week to hold off the NRC and come up with the funding for Granite Bay’s permanent wet storage. It can’t wait.”
“After you enter the Mountain, I guarantee you’ll change your mind.” His smile brightened. “Now, ready to meet the rest of the committee?”
Adonia held his gaze, but didn’t return the smile. “One week.”
He took her elbow and finally steered her into the conference room.
6
Despite all the fences, gates, and guards on the outside, the bland conference room could have been in any government or military facility: outdated motivational posters and a picture of the President adorned the walls; workhorse plastic chairs with metal legs surrounded a faux-wood table with a laminate finish. A metal cylinder coffee dispenser sat on a blocky credenza in the corner.
Two men and an older woman chatted as they clustered around picked-over pastries next to the coffee urn. The larger of the two men wore a light gray suit; he held himself erect and kept his chin raised, as though to elevate himself. The other man had wild gray hair and wore a black corduroy jacket, tan button-down shirt, and blue jeans. The woman was short and petite, and her brown pants suit with matching flats were in contrast to Adonia’s red power suit and heels. Again, she felt overdressed.
The woman finished her cherry Danish and wiped her fingers on a napkin, and Adonia recognized her as the Undersecretary of Energy. Victoria Doyle was a powerful, no-nonsense woman in a very influential position in the DOE… but Doyle was responsible for nuclear weapons, not nuclear energy, which made her a square peg here. In the Department of Energy bureaucracy, Weapons and Energy were not only physically and administratively separated, but each area had its own culture, not to mention significant rivalry.
Adonia whispered to Stanley, “What’s Undersecretary Doyle doing here? She isn’t even in your chain of command.” As soon as she asked, she remembered the rumors that Stanley had once had an affair with Victoria Doyle. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned anything.…
His voice held a touch of annoyance. “Good question. You’ll have to ask Rob Harris — he’s the one who assigned her to the committee, though this was supposed to be my show.”
“Then how did her name get on the list? Why was she invited?”
He tightened his jaw. “I asked Harris to pull together the best senior experts for this team, but I should have vetted it first. I thought I could trust my own site manager to make the call.”
Your site manager? “I don’t understand what Rob is doing here. I know he retired—”
Ignoring her, van Dyckman raised his voice to get the others’ attention. “Everyone! Ms. Rojas has arrived, and Mr. Harris is on his way in from the operations center, so let me introduce you all.” He rubbed his hands briskly together, more comfortable now that he had taken charge. “This is Adonia Rojas, site manager of the Granite Bay nuclear power plant in New York. I like to think of her as my protégée, especially after the unfortunate events of a year and a half ago. Her position at Granite Bay gives her a real hands-on, boots-on-the-ground perspective for our review. That’s why I wanted her here.”
Though she bristled, Adonia forced herself to smile and nod at the other committee members as Stanley continued his introductions. “I’m sure you recognize my old boss, Senator Pulaski. He’s here in his official capacity as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Senator Pulaski is the reason we called all of you together so quickly. On Wednesday back in Washington he has a vital meeting about the future of Hydra Mountain, and he needs us to conduct an objective and broad-based review.”
The big man in the light gray suit vigorously shook Adonia’s hand. “Glad to meet you, young lady.” He held her hand for an uncomfortably long moment until she pulled away.
Van Dyckman said in a stage whisper, “Be nice to him, Adonia — he still controls the purse strings to the entire nuclear complex.” He brightened and made his tone artificially upbeat as he turned to the man with the unruly hair. “If you watch the news or any of the talk shows, you’ve seen Dr. Simon Garibaldi, the ‘loyal opposition’ from Sanergy.”
No one laughed, and Adonia felt her stomach sour. What the hell is he doing here? She knew the nutcase who had crashed the small plane into her site had been a fringe member — vehemently disavowed — of the Sanergy protest group.
“More like devil’s advocate,” Senator Pulaski muttered, not afraid to show his dislike for the man.
The tall, casually dressed Garibaldi responded with a distant smile. “Objective and open-minded. And willing to consider alternatives.” He sounded professorial.
Because of his technical background and his quick wit, Simon Garibaldi was a favorite of talk-show hosts, an outspoken, erudite critic of nuclear power despite having previously worked for DOE. As a gadfly in the media, Garibaldi felt it was his mission to make nuclear power obsolete by transitioning to cleaner, sustainable options… none of which were sufficient in the near future, though. Nevertheless, Garibaldi wanted to stall plant operations, claiming that his actions were a catalyst to force a change.
Coolly, she reached out to shake Garibaldi’s hand, in part to cover her uncomfortable reaction. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Doctor. You’re still President of Sanergy?”
“Sane energy for the masses,” he said with a brief nod. “It’s not a radical group, as some try to paint us, especially after that obviously misguided man crashed his plane into your facility. He was clearly disturbed.” He glanced at the Senator. “Sanergy is a watchdog organization, that’s all. My chief role is to serve as spokesman for alternatives.”
He looked from Victoria Doyle to Stanley van Dyckman, who stiffly exchanged glances. Garibaldi’s tone was biting as he added, “Who would have thought I’d finally meet DOE’s head of nuclear energy and the head of nuclear weapons together in the same room, along with the moneybags who funds them? And here we are, alone without any referees.” He chuckled with an icy humor. “This was worth all the cloak-and-dagger routine getting me here.”
Pulaski growled, “We’re well aware of your antinuclear bias, Dr. Garibaldi. But I hope we can convince you differently. Your blessing on this project will go a long way with the Congressional Oversight Committee. We’re doing the right thing here for the nation, you’ll see.”
Garibaldi seemed intrigued. “There’s a difference between wanting to do the right thing, and having a self-serving agenda, Senator.”
Annoyed, Pulaski stiffened. Garibaldi was tall, over six feet, and his unruly hair stuck out in all directions. The Senator was even taller, and outweighed him by fifty or sixty pounds, but he seemed outmatched nevertheless.
Van Dyckman glided between them. “Now, Senator, Mr. Harris specifically asked for Dr. Garibaldi because of his broad knowledge and unique perspective. I suppose he’ll keep us on our toes, and one can’t question his credentials.” He looked around the group. “I ask you all to keep an open mind. We’re doing great things here in Hydra Mountain, solving a national crisis. We’ve needed something like this for a very long time, and it’s finally operational.”