I went still and looked at the Old Man. “What did Brenda do again?” I knew I’d been missing something… something obvious.
“You told me she was in Health Physics.” Then the Old Man looked up in stunned silence. The hair must have been standing up on the back of his neck, as it was mine. He turned to Hector and growled, “Get me the number to Access Control. Hurry!”
I said, “What do you have, Old Man?”
“Hector said it. Open the door and walk right in! I’m betting the keys to the containment airlock are missing. That’s a high radiation area and those keys are controlled by HP, not Security!”
“Here it is,” Hector said as he held out a yellow-sticky with a four-digit plant number on it.
“Dial it, tell them who you are, and ask them to do an immediate inventory of their high rad area keys!”
As Hector dialed the number the Old Man looked at me. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong! They weren’t trying to get to the husband. They were trying to get to her — probably through the husband. If they have the keys, we need to get up there before they do. If they get in, we’re screwed!”
“What’s the worst case scenario we’re looking at?” I asked with a deepening sense of foreboding.
“It could be a number of things. But given that they can’t have much in the way of explosives, it’s got to be something small. The most likely possibility is to destroy the seal package on one or more reactor coolant pumps. Those seals keep the reactor coolant from leaking past the pump shaft and out into the containment.”
“Okay. But from what you’ve told me, that coolant water isn’t a significant problem. Bad, yes, but not the end of the world.”
“It’s not the water leaking into containment that worries me. If they destroy the seal package with the reactor at power like it is now and the reactor coolant pumps running like they are, it’ll immediately depressurize the reactor coolant system. The water will come out so fast and flash to steam, you wouldn’t be able to get out of containment before being parboiled, and that’s if you’re already standing by the door.”
“Won’t the reactor shut down when it senses that happening? Isn’t protection built in for this kind of thing?”
“A leak, yes, but not for a complete failure of the seal package. The water being released will come out with incredible velocity due to the pressure behind it. It’ll be over 500 degrees and will flash to steam instantaneously, so it’ll act like a superheated steam torch. With the reactor losing water and losing it so fast, the fuel will overheat with little or no water to cool it and get to a point where the zirconium metal encasing the fuel rods will literally start to burn. When the zirconium reaches about 2,500 degrees, game over. It’ll be generating it’s own heat and it’ll be impossible to stop.”
The Old Man took a breath, during which I assumed he was done. But then he went on.
“With all the water flashing to steam, the pressure in containment will go up to its maximum design pressure within minutes. While it’s doing this, the burning fuel rods will release hydrogen. That’ll combine with hydrogen that comes out of the water as the water molecules break down, as well as the hydrogen that’s normally injected into the reactor coolant system for chemistry control. The hydrogen concentration in containment will reach explosive limits, which is only about six percent in air. When it does, the hydrogen will spontaneously burn, causing an explosion that will generate a shock wave that will rip the containment dome apart, allowing the damaged nuclear fuel and the resulting highly contaminated fission products that are now leaving the confines of the reactor vessel to be released into containment, and then out into the environment.”
I knew terrorism events could be bad, but I never knew the technical reasons why. With the Old Man laying it out this way, my sense of dread increased.
“This’ll create a dead zone around the plant that’ll extend at least twenty miles in all directions and last for tens of thousands of years,” the Old Man said solemnly. “Nothing will be able to live inside that perimeter.”
The Old Man’s look of concern from a minute ago turned to something akin to fear as he related the possible scenario to me. I didn’t know if I was becoming angry or afraid, but my stomach was starting to knot up.
“And they can do this with the limited amount of explosives we think they have?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Easily,” he said, “but only if they get inside containment.”
A moment later, Hector put the phone down. He was ashen-faced. “The spare keys to Unit 1 high rad areas are missing. That includes the key to the containment emergency airlock!”
Just then, Jerry, who was looking for where the perpetrators might have gone, said, “Guys, we have a problem!”
CHAPTER 54
Marti put the phone down after talking with Nick. She just couldn’t stop thinking about him. It was all happening so fast, though, and under unusual conditions, but she wasn’t sure she cared about the reasons for the attraction. All she knew was that she was drawn to this man and would very much like to see where it could go.
She shook her head to clear it. She had to focus. Maybe things were starting to go their way. She hoped so, anyway. They still had some hurdles in front of them, but Nick was here, and that gave her a lot of confidence.
She grabbed her hardhat and safety goggles and headed out to the control room to talk to Dave. She frequently went there, so her appearance shouldn’t arouse suspicion — although almost anything tonight would seem unusual. It depended on who was watching.
It only took her a few minutes to cross the huge turbine deck and get to the control room. Once there, she followed the process for entry and pushed the heavy door open. Inside, she gave a cursory nod of her head to the control room operators who turned to see who was coming in at this time of night, then headed for the shift manager’s office located off to one side of the room.
She was all smiles as she entered the office and saw Dave sitting there, sullen and looking wrung out. She knew the news she carried would lighten his mood considerably. She fairly burst into his office, startled to see an armed responder sitting in a chair opposite Dave. The man’s posture, looked casual to her, and he looked like he was there to provide some extra security for the control room. His presence took her aback for a moment, but on reflection, seemed reasonable to her, given that the plant was under a verified security threat.
Dave looked up at her, and said, “Ms. Callahan, you shouldn’t be in here. Perhaps I can call you later?” It wasn't really a question.
Marti looked at him and said, “But I have some great news you’re going to want to hear.”
Suddenly something about the armed responder bothered her. It was the same feeling she’d had when she saw those six men coming down from the warehouse earlier tonight. It wasn’t that she recognized him, but she felt something akin to a cold shiver when she looked at him more closely. Something wasn’t right. It put her on guard, and she wasn’t sure she should speak in front of him. It also occurred to her that she had never seen an armed responder in the control room before. She wasn’t even sure it was authorized to bring weapons in there, security force or not.
“Could I speak to you in private for a moment?” she said to Dave, no longer smiling.
Dave looked at the armed responder and then back at Marti. “I’m afraid I’m busy right now. Perhaps you could come back later?” he said, with insistence in his voice this time.
Despite her misgivings, Marti pressed on for a second time. “What I need to discuss with you will only take a moment. It’s important.”
“I understand you’re the NRC, but I told you I’m busy. Now please leave the control room!” Dave commanded.