“What idiot would do such a thing?” the Secretary demanded. “Was it Stanley? I wouldn’t put it past the man.”
“We shot DOE intelligence a copy of the waveform picked up by our sensors, and at the classified level, NSA was able to confirm the cell phone owner.” He swallowed awkwardly. “It was Senator Pulaski, ma’am. Though he was asked to relinquish all electronics at the entry gate and again inside the tunnels, he apparently failed to do so.”
There was a long pause, and he imagined her strangling the Senator in effigy. She heaved a deep breath and asked, “And the inspection team — where are they now?”
“They’re being herded by a succession of countermeasures, but they should be approaching a guard station. They can shelter in place there. Right now we have our hands tied until the full system recycles.” He looked at the clocks. “Five hours and twenty-seven minutes more. There’s simply nothing I can do. It’s like being locked in a bank vault with a timer.”
“But are they safe?”
“They are if they shelter in place, and don’t trigger any more sensors.” Harris glanced out of the office at the operations center monitor. “I won’t deny that some of the countermeasures they faced are aggressive and unpleasant, but they’re all nonlethal.”
“Such as?” she asked.
“Initially, tear gas up in the storage tunnels. Next, they encountered sonic, optical, and infrared defenses, designed to disorient them. But now that they’re near the empty guard station above the lower level, they can just hunker down.” He hesitated. “They’ll be fine if they just stay there, but if they turn back at all, motion sensors will detect it, and the systems will respond. They’ll trigger other countermeasures.”
“Can’t you just shut down power and cut off the countermeasures? We know they’re not intruders.”
“My team is trying every possible option, ma’am. The emergency backup is buried in the Mountain’s interior from Cold War days, and it immediately kicks in when the system reboots — exactly as it was designed to do. The interior infrastructure is totally independent from outside influence.
“Plus, there are hundreds of old systems hardwired into the controls. We just didn’t have the budget to remove them. We even have antiquated 16-bit, PDP-11 computers programmed in assembly language that still control critical functions, and that all adds to the time it takes to recycle.” He realized he was probably talking over her head, and he didn’t want to explain how much it would cost to bring Hydra Mountain into the twenty-first century. Stanley van Dyckman had insisted on getting the facility up and running with all due speed, using every resource available while still controlling costs. Harris couldn’t blame headquarters for not wanting to spend exorbitant money on what was just a “temporary” storage facility.
Secretary Nitta remained silent for a long moment. “Once they reach the guard portal, is someone there to intercept them? Is it manned?”
“Normally, yes, but we have only a skeleton crew today. Hazardous operations were curtailed in order to make the lower level available for the inspection team, and I was expecting to guide them myself. No one else is down there.” He steeled himself, tried to sound confident. “But the guard station is meant to be a safe holding area. Adonia Rojas is in charge, provisionally. I’m sure she will keep them there. She knows what she’s doing.”
“That’s a relief. Have you been in direct contact with her?”
“Not recently. Our… intercoms are shut down.”
The young Energy Secretary let out an exaggerated groan. “What a cluster!”
The red phone sounded muffled as Secretary Nitta covered her end and spoke to someone. In the interim, Harris heard a knock at the office door. He saw his exec and buzzed him in. Drexler slid a sheet of paper across his desk before ducking out.
What else could go wrong? Harris scanned the note and caught his breath.
When the Secretary came back, she sounded as though she was trying to make the best of the situation. “At the very least, I suppose we’ll have to read Senator Pulaski out of all our DOE SAPs, whether or not he’s the oversight committee head. This breach is too serious to ignore. I’ll be putting out fires behind the scenes for the next month.” Then she sighed. “Thanks, Rob. I know your people are doing everything they can. At least it can’t get any worse. Let me know as soon as you have them back out, safe and sound.”
Harris’s throat seemed more dry than usual. “Actually, ma’am… it does get worse.” He glanced at the new sheet of paper on his desk. “If the team doesn’t shelter in place, they may face more severe countermeasures than the safety and security systems established for Valiant Locksmith.”
He had to choose his words carefully, because he wasn’t cleared to speak with the DOE Secretary about Doyle’s State Department SAP. “A final defensive system is still active in the guard portal from the Cold War era, a last-ditch protection mechanism against intrusion into the lower level. If the shelter in place experiences an unauthorized breach, the last level of countermeasures will activate in order to protect the other… activities in the lower level.”
The Secretary asked slowly, “Other activities…?”
He swallowed hard. “Things that were well under way before the DoD decommissioned Hydra Mountain and DOE took possession, ma’am.” He tried to shift her focus. “Lethal force will automatically be employed if both doors of the guard portal are simultaneously opened during a lockdown. If more than one door is open, the system’s logic will assume that intruders have defeated all our nonlethal defenses, and will therefore employ more severe countermeasures.”
“Oh… my God. Lethal force? And we won’t be able to reach the team members for more than five hours? You cannot allow them past that last security portal. Period!”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine, ma’am,” Rob said, but his tone of voice said the exact opposite. “Once they get to the guard station, all they have to do is wait it out.”
He imagined how impatient, angry, and frustrated the committee members were. Cut off from communication, they might not be willing to sit still.
18
Adonia moved to catch up with van Dyckman and Doyle, but the two hurried down the tunnel as if it were a race. Silent, successive circles of white light continued to pulse past them to disappear down the tunnel walls like aircraft landing lights directing them deeper into the Mountain.
“All it needs is a whooshing sound,” Adonia muttered, feeling less threatened now that the group was moving in the correct direction. The scene reminded her of an old space ride in a theme park.
She realized that the effect was caused by strands of intense LED lights embedded in the tunnel walls, strobing and pulsing past in a closely timed sequence. An effective and unambiguous way to force intruders — or hapless inspection team members — out of the huge underground complex.
But they were being driven deeper instead, downhill to the lower levels. She hoped the guard portal up ahead would serve as a safe haven, maybe even with a landline phone she could use to call the ops center.
Garibaldi followed close, and she could hear Senator Pulaski grumbling to Shawn from the rear. She turned to see that the Senator had stopped in his tracks, bent at the waist and retching. Though by now she was frustrated and annoyed with the Senator, Adonia tried to retain her professional demeanor. Once they got out of here, though, she intended to document and report Pulaski’s reckless behavior and disregard for security. He had no business being involved in such vital matters. He was an absolute liability.