Macadam celebrated the success of his invention as though it was the first, and last, victory of his life. He led the conversation and laughter, generously accepting kudos from anyone who crossed his path.
He had just realized the reward for ten years of independent research and development. It might even make things up with Anne.
“Who knows?” he jabbered to Krail. “Maybe the news of this will be just the publicity I need to bring Plasroc to full-scale production.”
Krail seemed to find the remark pleasantly quaint.
“I’m afraid there won’t be any ‘news’ of what went on up here,” he said. “Not in our lifetime, anyway. It’s my job to ensure this incident is kept confidential in the interest of national security.”
The grin on Macadam’s face froze, his glass paused halfway to his lips.
“Er, I guess I hadn’t thought of that,” he said.
“Sorry, David. I meant to discuss that with you.”
Macadam took a drink, thought another moment, and shrugged it off.
Sure, the security concern made sense, but the military wasn’t above funding technology considered confidential. In fact, entire industries survived on it.
“Well, at least I’ll be able to recover my expenses,” he said hopefully.
“We’ve covered your travel,” Krail agreed. “Both ways.”
“No, I mean for materials,” Macadam argued. “Consultation. The rip-up of my laboratory, and the Plasroc itself of course.”
Krail slung his arm around Macadam and steered him away from the rest of the revelers.
“Sorry again. I meant to discuss that with you too…”
The following morning, the stragglers gathered together on the ice floe where the remaining vessels had moored for the night. The latest dosimeter readings showed minimal to negligible radiation levels in the area and the group gratefully walked around without the need for shielded protection. All of them would have to undergo a thorough medical examination the moment they returned home, but for now it felt wonderful simply to breathe. They all owed Junko Kokura their very survival. The nets, cables, and ropes they had used would have to be decommissioned and properly disposed of, but the overall effect of contamination seemed to be negligible. Most of the ships involved in the operation would likely be cleared for duty after a brief drydocking and chemical scrubbing.
The same could not be said for the Phoenix itself. Nearly every single piece of deck equipment was hung with a red tag, indicating the highest levels of measured contamination.
“It looks like a Christmas tree,” Carol said, looking wistfully at her investment. “The world’s most toxic and expensive Christmas tree.”
Most of what now lay before them would have to be taken to shore and cut into scrap metal for proper disposal. In some places, the radiation had come within millimeters of leaching through the hull.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Zubov said. “Scorpion went down in ‘85, right? Her reactors weren’t the source of the radiation, and neither was the earthquake or explosion that sunk her — if it was, someone would have noticed the leak in the storage well a long time before this. Why now?”
“The pit might not have started leaking then, but as best as we can determine, the disturbance Scorpion created was what first cracked it open,” Krail said. “That’s when the fissure started but it didn’t extend through to the seafloor.”
“It was likely a chimney fissure that grew laterally over a period of years,” Garner speculated. “The crack eventually found its way into the Devil’s Finger, more than five miles away from the original waste cribs. The thin crust of the basin floor that helped the explosives do their job so well is what allowed the seep of radionuclides in the first place.”
“It had help too,” Krail added. “According to the USGS boys, there was some seafloor shaking last summer that might have finally opened the fissure. That means a slow leak increasing over about eight or nine months, tops. Charon’s crew took regular measurements, of course, but the leak was evidently too small to detect.”
“Or maybe he knew about it and hoped the leak would ultimately lead to B-82 being shut down,” Garner said. “That’s the only reason I can think of for the sabotage.”
“You could be right,” Krail agreed. “Either way, his own masterwork took care of it. I see no reason to consider rebuilding B-82.”
Even as he dismissed the notion the others knew it wouldn’t be found outside someone’s strategic consideration.
Carol shivered.
“Doesn’t that mean there could be other cracks? Leaks no one has discovered yet?”
“Possibly, but unlikely. It took a hell of a jolt to crack open the pit the first time, and now the waste is buried under an additional hundred feet of rock.”
“That’s probably what they thought before Scorpion came along,” Carol said dubiously.
“Yes,” Krail agreed. “But billions of dollars in surveillance and two decades of careful monitoring proved them wrong. Add a mother load of C-4 to the argument now. There’s no more environmental risk in Thebes Deep. Scorpion was a freak accident. Nothing should have breached the storage well the first time and we’ve just made sure it won’t ever happen again.”
“That sounds like propaganda lifted from Chernobyl,” Zubov said.
“A different time, a different place.” Krail shrugged. “Besides, they didn’t have Medusa at Chernobyl. Without that fantastic contraption we never would have known where the hell to go.”
“Medusa tells us where to go all the time, doesn’t she, Serg?” Garner gave his friend a wink. “Maybe next spring, in the Southern Ocean?”
“I’ve been thinking about that too,” Krail said. “The last few weeks have generated reams of data on ice movement, Arctic circulation, and polar geology, not to mention what Medusa managed to find out about the plankton response around here.”
“And the proof-of-concept Roland Alvarez suggested for Thiouni,” Garner added.
The amount of undistilled information the operation had collected was indeed amazing.
“There you go,” Krail agreed. “That’s got to be ten dissertations’ worth of research, just waiting for someone to pull it all together. Unlike Macadam, you’re an American citizen and a decorated defender of the state — at least twice now, if my scoring’s correct. I’m sure if you agreed to follow certain, ah, restrictions on public disclosure, we could arrange for you to get it all and write it up for publication any way you want.”
“And you wouldn’t even have to leave home to do it,” Carol added. There was a perceptible hopefulness in her use of the word home.
The offer was tempting to Garner, but it meant scrapping all his efforts to date and following the convenience of data collected under decidedly uncontrolled conditions.
“I’ll have to think about that,” he said. “This one was messy. This one cost all of us a lot and it might be better to forget than to analyze.”
“Without you and Sergei things would have gotten a lot worse,” Carol offered.
Krail agreed. “There’s no other way to look at it. Brock. We saved countless more from a much worse fate.”
Krail scowled melodramatically, feigning a painful stiffness in his limbs.
“Hard work for a desk jockey like me,” he said to Garner. “We could sure use a guy like you full time. You sure you don’t want to come back to naval intelligence?”
“Positive, Scott,” Garner said. “And I hope you don’t have a fulltime need for this kind of thing or we’re all in a lot of trouble.”
Krail knew exactly what Garner meant — the events of the past few weeks could only have further solidified Garner’s decision to leave the intelligence community in the first place.