Global B-82 represented a new breed of covert communications posts, completely visible but absolutely unseen by the public eye. Befitting the ravenous appetites of the military and the oil industry for computer hardware, B-82 was both a proving ground and showcase for technological innovation. While it continued to labor tirelessly, producing 120,000 barrels of crude per day for Global Oil, the facility’s surveillance activities also continued unabated, routing satellite transmissions to and from National Reconnaissance Office satellites, the National Security Agency, and U.S. military operations throughout the Arctic Circle. B-82 had indisputably become a major component in the new era of “networked warfare.”
“While we haven’t yet found anything of note,” Krail was saying, “that doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem. We are now receiving hourly reports from a polar-orbit NRO intelligence satellite and have been monitoring the communications of a civilian icebreaker the Phoenix enroute to this location. What this information collectively suggests is that there is a waste spill up here. A big one. The fact that this meeting is necessary should tell you that we don’t know why.”
If Krail had expected to shock anyone in Charon’s group with this confessed ignorance, he failed.
“My orders are to use you men and the facilities of the Hawkbill to locate the source and stem it before this matter draws any more attention.”
Teller was the first to interrupt.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “But if the plug was leaking, we would be the first to know about it, not some civilian vessel or a spy bird. Our own instruments down there are supposed to let us know if the levels go up even a trace.”
“Assuming they’re operating,” said Groves, the Hawkbill’s executive officer.
“Well, if they’re not operating, then what the hell are we all doing here?” Stimson retorted. “Pumping gas for you boys in Arlington?”
“I realize that, Lieutenant Teller,” Krail said, ignoring Groves and Stimson’s outburst. “Frankly, I am a little surprised that no one aboard this rig is showing signs of exposure to radiation. If what we think is going on is going on, you all should be sitting at ground zero.”
“I thought that’s what the shielding was for,” Rieger said. “To protect us from leakage effects.” The tank was not the only portion of the rig that had been fortified. The base of the entire topsides had been specially modified with reactor-grade radiation shielding. Clay and sand mixed in with the concrete of the GBS’s ice wall were intended to further absorb any radionuclides that might eventually leach their way from the pit to the seafloor and beyond.
“You may be shielded, but that doesn’t account for what we’re reading from the water column,” Krail said. “And they’re finding severe contamination downstream. But straight down, where a leak from the plug should be, the Hawkbill’s instruments are finding nothing.”
“Then how can you say the plug is leaking?” Rieger asked again. No one from Charon’s crew was about to take lightly the suggestion that they were somehow negligent in their monitoring activities.
“I can say it because nothing else between here and Oak Ridge is capable of producing the kind of debris the Phoenix has been reporting,” Krail said. “Nothing else, known or unknown, plausible or implausible. Period.”
“Is it possible that the drilling somehow damaged the plug?” asked one of the Hawkbill’s lieutenants. Drilling from a platform such as B-82 was directed not only straight down but also snaked outward and down from the GBS for thousands of meters according to the viability of the oil deposits and the accommodation of the rock.
“No,” Wigner said. “We regularly conduct seismic surveys to check the integrity of the plug. Even if we missed something, which we haven’t, that still doesn’t explain the lack of radionuclides below us.”
“The base pad of the GBS is solid,” Teller agreed. “And we haven’t recorded any landslide activity inside the canyon for at least a month.”
“What do you want us to do?” Stimson asked.
“I want you to help us locate the leak,” Krail replied. “We’ll continue to survey the canyon wall with the Hawkbill and check any recent landslide areas for elevated levels of radiation.”
“If you don’t want to believe our regular status reports,” Stimson said, “then what more could we possibly do for you?”
“You can give us a credible cover for the operation and the benefit of your experience,” said Snow, the Hawkbill’s commander. “Even our sonar arrays lack the detailed resolution to check the plug itself or look for newly opened fissures. We need something more hands-on, like sending someone down to check the plug welds up close.”
“We’ve got cameras down there already,” Stimson said. “We’ve got seismic probes and radiometers within fifteen feet of the plug and they aren’t telling us shit about a rad leak.”
“I said hands-on,” Krail replied.
“Hands-on,” Stimson repeated. “You’re talking about a depth of three hundred meters in places.”
“Use your JIM suits,” Krail countered. The pressurized deep-diving suits used on the rig allowed divers to work comfortably at depths of up to six hundred meters. B-82 was equipped with two such suits for routine maintenance, but their regular use was only to the rig’s base pad at one hundred meters’ depth. Tripling the dive depth, while still within the suit’s capacity, increased the potential for accidents and was far more psychologically taxing on the diver.
“We also have a one-man submersible that will take an operator down to one thousand meters,” said Snow, the Hawkbill’s commander. An eighteen-foot Sea Sprite DSV deep-submergence vehicle was piggybacked onto the Hawkbill.
“It’s small, it’s fast, it’s available, and the transit time to the surface is a lot less. It’ll also give us another set of eyes down there.” Snow nodded at Krail. “His.”
“As far as anyone on the Global crew needs to know,” Krail said, “the Navy will be helping you to conduct a structural inspection of the gravity base structure and the base pad. The Hawkbill is just here to loan you the DSV for a few days, then we’ll be on our way. As a precaution I’d also like Mr. Charon here to oversee the offloading of all the oil in the GBS.”
“You said a civilian icebreaker was ‘enroute’?” Wigner asked Krail.
“The Phoenix, a research ship out of Seattle operated by the Nolan Group,” Krail said. “They picked up the trail of the radionuclides in Foxe Basin and have been following it north.”
“Following it how?” asked Rieger, Charon’s second-watch foreman.
“They’ve got radiometers in the water and are following the isotope debris upstream,” Krail replied. “They’ve got our scent.”
“There’s your security breach, right there,” Teller said.
“It gets worse,” Krail continued. “They also found the Sverdrup Explorer with all hands dead, apparently from acute radiation poisoning. Two of the Phoenix’s crew also died of exposure.”