Hector looked at the Old Man, who indicated they needed to go down yet another level. What they were looking for was not up here. Hector nodded and slowly headed down the next set of stairs. He wasn’t sure if it was getting hotter, but it surely wasn’t getting cooler. It had to be 115 or 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and he was sweating profusely.
They dropped down another level. The stairs and the landings were made of open metal grating. The effect of this was that you could see up and down through it, so there was no good visual reference other than the walls next to them. Hector found that his eyes were constantly trying to refocus, first close in and then on something far away through the grating. Maybe the vibration was getting to him. Whatever, he started to feel a bit nauseous.
As they neared the bottom of the stairs, they exited the stairwell to a concrete floor, which Hector assumed was the bottom of containment. It was, at least, as far down as they could go. That’s when they saw him, about 30 feet away. A man, maybe six-foot-two, 190 pounds, wearing a black security jumpsuit, was coming out from inside the large concrete biological shield that surrounded the reactor, about where the Old Man guessed he would be. The faux security officer saw them about the same time Hector and the Old Man saw him. The man pointed his weapon at them and fired. Even in containment with all the ambient noise, the sound of a shot being fired was very distinct.
Hector grabbed the Old Man and ducked off to one side, more out of instinct than to seek protection, as there really wasn’t any. They knew they were sitting ducks where they were. Fortunately for them, the shot went wide, with the bullet hitting part of the metal support structure for the stairs and ricocheting away harmlessly. Looking back, they saw the guy duck back inside the bio-shield, no doubt to get out of their way as he was sure Hector would return fire if given a chance.
Hector moved ahead, with the Old Man just behind. They positioned themselves on the other side of the opening the guy had popped out of, so they weren’t where they were the last time he’d seen them, in case he came back out. They stood there, slightly bent at the waist, guns up and ready, waiting. Nothing. The man didn’t show himself again. They listened for him but of course couldn’t hear a thing other than the deafening background noise from the machinery.
They waited for a full minute, not knowing what to expect next. They knew they couldn’t stay there just waiting for the guy to show himself. Hector looked at the Old Man and motioned that he was going in, getting a knowing nod in return. Rifle out in front, he moved slowly ahead, into the room the perp had come from. The Old Man followed him in.
It was something of a maze inside the bio-shield, with concrete walls that were over four feet thick, and it was even hotter and noisier than outside. Radiation levels were higher too because of the proximity to the reactor coolant and the core itself. The perp would have had to move fast to do what he’d come to do and get out of there before he received enough radiation exposure to cause blood changes and start breaking down his DNA — as would Hector and the Old Man.
They moved forward into the labyrinth, as cautiously as they could, knowing that time was of the essence. They didn’t know where the man was and they were risking getting shot by moving ahead, but the consequences of not stopping him and what he came to do outweighed the personal risk they faced.
The ambient noise made sneaking around easier. It was virtually impossible to hear them coming. Hector and the Old Man only had a few feet to cover, and either the guy was in there waiting for them, or he was gone, looking for the other stairwell, which they assumed he must have known about. They almost stumbled into the 1–2 reactor coolant pump seal room. Hector looked around quickly and cleared the room. Nobody was there.
A minute later, they heard the familiar sound of gunshots — two reports in rapid succession. They instinctively ducked, but the sound came from somewhere else. Somewhere distant. They could only assume that Hays and Henderson encountered the perp trying to escape by the back stairwell. Two shots. No more. It could have gone either way. It was hard for them to believe that Hays and Henderson were killed, but Hector and the Old Man didn’t know for sure. It was possible the perp took them out to clear his back door and was coming back here to ensure his objective was achieved. Or he was on his way out of containment, away from the blast site.
On the off chance he might be returning, the Old Man shouted at Hector to keep an eye out, while he looked around to find the explosive. Hector looked for some sort of cover but found none. The only thing he knew was that the terrorist hadn’t left the way he’d come in. So it stood to reason that if he returned, he’d come in the only other way possible. Hector crouched down on one knee and took aim on the back entry to this area, hoping they wouldn’t be there long.
The Old Man looked around inside the bio-shield and located the mechanical seal on the shaft of the 1–2 reactor coolant pump. The three-stage seal assembly kept 500 degree, highly contaminated water from leaking past the shaft and coming out into the containment environment. If the seals were damaged, the resulting leak would eventually lead to a ‘loss of coolant accident’ and reactor core uncovery. With nowhere for the heat to go, the core would literally melt itself and the metal vessel containing it. The damage to both the plant and to the nuclear industry would be catastrophic. Not to mention, if this happened while the men were still inside, the water coming out of the seal package would instantaneously flash to steam and they would be burned to death — immediately.
The perp apparently hadn’t expected anyone to find him in here, because he hadn’t tried to hide the explosive device he’d planted on the seal package. The Old Man saw it sitting there, in plain sight.
It was a small cylindrical device about the size of a bottle of wine cut in half. The top had what looked like a piece of copper covering it. He assumed this contained C-4 military grade explosive or something similar. He could see a PETN detonator attached to it, with wires leading off to some kind of detonation device. By the contours of the thing, it looked like a shaped charge. The amount of C-4 was probably less than a brick — maybe 1.25 pounds. If simply strapped onto the side of the seal, the force when detonated would blow out, away from the target area. But if the C-4 was placed in a shaped charge, when detonated the heat and pressure would cause the inverted cone at the bottom of the small canister to melt and push outward, focusing the force of the explosion in one small area and yielding catastrophic results.
Because of the constant vibration on the pump and seal assembly, the Old Man assumed there was no tamper device on the explosive. Jansen, or his man, wouldn’t want it to go off until it was time. With so much concrete and steel in containment, no radio transmitter would be able to set it off. That meant a timer. He couldn’t see any det cord or other short-term fuse, but as he approached the bomb, he saw a digital timer counting down. It was set to go off at 0700, still a couple of hours away.
The Old Man recognized this as marginally good news. Because the bomb had a timer, he knew how much time he had to get it out of there and disarmed. But he didn’t want to waste any time. This was a highly dangerous place. The heat and vibration were intense and perhaps more than the bomb-maker had anticipated. In addition, the radiation field might cause the timer to malfunction and detonate earlier than expected. He doubted that the device was specially made for this application or shielded against the radiation. Whoever had made it was probably not a nuclear physicist. By the looks of it, the bomb-maker knew something about bombs but probably not about the effects of radiation on timers. All in all, the Old Man had a number of worries. Not the least of which was that he and Hector didn’t know the status of the terrorist. He could come back their way if he was still alive.