“Would you rather we waited until a genuine disaster occurs before we do anything?” van Dyckman asked, looking around the room and focusing on Undersecretary Doyle. “Right, Victoria?” She had remained quiet during the entire interchange, her arms crossed; Adonia thought she was out of her element.
Garibaldi remained calm and professorial. “Well, I would rather we devoted our efforts to emphasizing clean energy, which wouldn’t generate any more hazardous waste.”
The Senator was impatient. “Even if a fairy waved her magic wand and shut down every nuclear power plant today, we still have a hundred thousand tons of high-level nuclear waste piled up right now. Planting daisies and singing ‘Kumbaya’ doesn’t make it disappear.”
Not wanting the meeting to degenerate into a circular argument, Shawn interrupted. “Let’s tour the facility so you can see what we have here. In the debriefing afterward, we can discuss the merits and any shortfalls of Hydra Mountain as an alternative storage area. Agreed? We want your opinions and expertise. That’s why we brought you here.”
Harris faced the group. “Undersecretary Doyle, Dr. Garibaldi, and Ms. Rojas — each one of you will have insights and a unique perspective, and I’m eager to hear your views once you’ve seen the complex. As Colonel Whalen said, we’re pressed for time and have a lot to see.” He motioned to the door. “Please leave your briefcases and purses on the table. They’ll be safe in here. This way, please.”
As everyone followed, Harris stopped at the door and turned to Doyle. “Madam Undersecretary, may I have a word before we go? Alone?”
Victoria opened her mouth to answer when Senator Pulaski took her arm. “You can catch up with him later, Victoria. You’ve really got to see what Stanley has done in here!”
Harris started to protest as the Senator ushered her out of the office before he had a chance to speak. Adonia watched as the site manager shook his head and hurried after them.
9
As van Dyckman and Garibaldi filed down the stairs from the Eagle’s Nest, Adonia was the last to exit with Shawn. She had so much more to talk with him about, but she doggedly stuck to business. “I still can’t believe Harris brought in Garibaldi as part of this team — you know he’ll never agree to any of this, on general principles. And despite what your classified report concluded, some of those Sanergy people are still extremists.” It was hard to stomach the idea that the suicidal pilot had no proven official connection.
“Garibaldi himself isn’t so bad, more willing to listen than you might think,” Shawn said. “Sanergy has been outspoken and skeptical, but their objections have a strong scientific basis, not just paranoia. Remember, Garibaldi does know what he’s talking about. He used to work at DOE Headquarters, and before that he was with Harris at Oakridge.”
“That was way before my time there.”
Shawn allowed a small smile. “He’ll drive van Dyckman nuts, that’s for sure. He may be a devil’s advocate, but he understands the industry and he’s smart.”
Adonia nodded. “But when he was at Oakridge, something happened that turned him against the entire nuclear complex.”
“He’s never said what it was,” Shawn said. “The DOE Secretary wanted him on the team for objectivity; she and Garibaldi seem to have some history. Despite all his grousing, though, Garibaldi must realize we’re at a tipping point with the nuclear waste piling up. If we can just get him to accept Valiant Locksmith…” He lowered his voice even further as they followed the group back down to the ops center floor. “At least he understands a lot more science than Senator Pulaski does. Even though the Senator controls the purse strings, he doesn’t know a thing about nuclear engineering.”
“Wonderful,” Adonia said. “The inmates in charge of the asylum.”
“Congress has a lot in common with an asylum.” When he lightly took her arm and led her toward the rest of the group, Adonia appreciated his touch, and she knew it wasn’t just an accidental courtesy. He left so much unsaid, and she wished they could just have an hour together to clear the air.
Another time they had been in such close quarters, she’d beaten him swimming in the Fort McNair lap pool, and then they had walked hand in hand around the Tidal Basin, enjoying the warm spring night in Washington, D.C., and ended up back at his apartment.
Even with all the opportunities she’d experienced, her relationship with Shawn had been the best part of being a DOE Fellow at the National War College. But thanks to the two of them excelling in their respective fields, their follow-on assignments had made a long-term relationship unrealistic. Adonia was posted to DOE Headquarters before leaving government work for Granite Bay in New York, while Shawn went off to command the 509th B-2 Wing in Missouri before his assignment as military aide to the President. Romance was shunted farther and farther down their list of priorities.
If she had stayed in Washington and continued working in the Forrestal Building at DOE Headquarters, their relationship might have grown instead of fading to the back burner. Who knew where they might be now? But Adonia had never lived her life by shaking a Magic 8 Ball and waiting for answers.
Outcome uncertain.
Catching up to the Senator, Rob Harris led the group out of the control room and back into the main passageway leading deeper into the Mountain. They stopped before a vault door that led into a side tunnel. In staggered intervals down either side of the smaller passageway, Adonia saw seven-foot-tall vault doors embedded in the granite wall, like prison cells.
“This side tunnel extends for a half mile and intersects another main passageway,” Harris said. “In an emergency, you can get out by following this tunnel to the end and taking a left. A right turn slopes down to the lower level.” He motioned to the vault doors that were built flush into the granite walls. “These storage chambers were originally designed to hold nuclear warheads.”
He led them to where an older woman waited for them in front of one of the sealed vaults. The technician wore a white jumpsuit and black work boots; a plastic mask dangled from her neck. Mounted on the wall was an old-fashioned intercom box with a speaker and a black Talk button.
In his bland voice, Harris introduced her. “Mrs. Garcia is a level-three nuclear technician and will be taking us through this dry-storage chamber. It’s a high-hazard area.”
Garibaldi stepped back with exaggerated alarm. “We’re… going inside one of the chambers?” His voice wavered.
“Nothing to worry about.” Mrs. Garcia held up her badge. “Does everyone have a dosimeter? We’ll be opening two of the chambers so you can see the safety and security features, new ones and legacy ones.”
Van Dyckman said in a bright voice, “State of the art. When DOE transitioned Hydra Mountain from military jurisdiction, we enhanced the existing safety and security of the entire facility, ranging from upgrading air ventilation to adding classified security measures.”
“I’ve worked my whole life in the nuclear industry,” the technician said with a grandmotherly smile. “And this is the most sophisticated technology I’ve ever seen. Things certainly have changed.”
Adonia looked to Shawn. “DOE health and safety regulators must have had a field day upgrading Hydra Mountain from Cold War standards to get a present-day certification.”
“The old countermeasures were good enough to guard nuclear warheads, and with our new systems we can certainly protect radioactive waste,” van Dyckman said.
Garibaldi broke in, “Have you tested all possible combinations of the old Department of Defense systems and your new technology? What about unforeseen interactions? Cascading nonlinear effects?”