Urland nodded, still a little confused.
"Very delicate chemicals in there. I am really sorry. You can help me move the boxes when we decide where they need to go. Until then, we are all safest if the boxes stay where they are."
"Okay," Urland said, his head hanging. "Just tryin’ to help."
"How ‘bout somethin’ to eat?" offered Brenda, changing the subject. "We don’t have any wild turkey or corn-on-the-cob or… or cranberry sauce. But I could make steaks and eggs?"
She was trying to be culturally sensitive.
Farris became suddenly aware that he was hungry. "That would be most kind."
Urland was not to be outdone in making his new Indian friend feel at home. "And I can see about maybe gettin’ some venison for tomorrow. I put a salt lick out for the deer up behind the barn. They seem to come by pretty regular. How’ that be?"
"Very thoughtful of you. But please, do not put yourself out for me," Farris said. He had no idea what deer meat might taste like. And he had no desire to find out.
Better finish reading up on my colleagues as soon as possible, he thought to himself.
"Let’s get on inside now," said Brenda, shooing the two men along the cracked sidewalk toward the kitchen door.
CHAPTER 8
With the new developments freeing Farris to work on the nuclear project, the Mawlawi had decided to call an emergency meeting of his technical advisors. A change in logistics might be in order.
The original plan had called for dynamite to be used as the primary explosive. It could be easily manufactured by non-chemists and the raw materials were readily available. The main disadvantage of dynamite was that it would take a lot of the stuff to accomplish their goal. And even with mass quantities, given the lack of confinement for the explosion, there was no guarantee of success.
When Farris had first reported the invention of the professor’s potassium electrolysis device several months earlier, the Mawlawi had wondered if a chemical explosion might not accomplish the attack with a higher degree of confidence than dynamite.
Consultation with chemists at his disposal had indicated that a chemical reaction was, indeed, a viable and potentially more effective approach to achieving the goal. But the scientists had recommended sodium instead of potassium. Sodium was substantially more stable than potassium, was easier to isolate, and could be manufactured in a fairly basic lab by any competent lab technician. The American could be given the necessary instructions.
At that time, the Mawlawi had taken the decision to use sodium as the explosive. The council directed the American operative to modify the lab facilities to accommodate the additional requirements for sodium production. His chemists had assured the Mawlawi that the team in place would be capable of making the sodium bomb without the need of a chemist.
Now, two months later, the Mawlawi was convinced Farris’s sudden availability was a sign from Allah that the operation should take advantage of the young man’s unique talents. The Al Qaeda chemists continued to be wary concerning the complexity of processing potassium. But they had to agree that, if processing and delivery could be accomplished, elemental potassium offered significant explosive advantages over sodium.
After considerable prayer and reflection, the Mawlawi had made his decision. Potassium it would be. Allah had spoken.
CHAPTER 9
On March 28, 1979, an ‘incident’ occurred at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Metropolitan Edison owned the facility. But its design and operation were closely monitored, and to a large extent controlled, by the federal government through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC.
John Sigler knew the entire debacle was the government’s fault. The administration’s energy policy had not only driven entire coal mining communities out of work, but had also deposited the American public on the doorsteps of Hiroshima.
It was only a matter of time before something horrible happened. And in fact, it had taken a mere three months after TMI’s commissioning for the disaster to occur.
After the total meltdown of TMI Reactor Unit 2, the government and the utility had both assured neighboring residents that there was ‘no significant release of radiation.’ Everything had been safely contained. Multiple government sponsored ‘investigations’ had concluded that, although the incident was extremely unfortunate, and TMI’s neighbors had suffered substantial psychological distress, the meltdown posed no physical health risks to surrounding communities. Eventually, the government even allowed TMI Unit 1 to resume nuclear operations, while Unit 2 remained a pile of rubble filling a hole in the ground where the ‘incident’ had occurred.
But John Sigler knew the radiation leak had not been ‘insignificant.’ He and his family lived just east of TMI, in the small community of Elizabethtown. When John turned twelve in June, 1979, just three months after the disaster, he had already seen the beginnings the radiation’s hellish effects.
His mother was pregnant with his brother, Jacob, at the time. She had lost most of her hair and was frequently so weak she couldn’t get out of bed. The doctors assured the family that pregnancy hormones were the likely cause of her hair loss and weakness. She should remain bed bound until delivery, just to be safe.
When Jacob arrived on July 4th, 1979, his family was in shock when the doctors sympathetically told them that Jacob had been born with an unusually small brain. Mental retardation was likely, they said. They were sorry, they said.
Less than three years after Jacob’s birth, both he and his mother were dead. Each had died of lung cancer, though no one in the Sigler family ever smoked. The doctors could offer no explanation for the coincidence. But fourteen-year-old John and his dad knew the reason. It didn’t take a genius to know that two-year-olds don’t die of lung cancer.
TMI was the cause.
A few years later, John’s father developed leukemia. Not common for a man his age, the doctors said. But it happens, they said.
The cancer progressed inexorably through his body. Evilly patient. Excruciatingly earnest. John had dropped out of school so he could remain by his father’s bedside as the cancer silently ravaged his organs. John’s father finally died, after months of agony, in October, 1985.
John was eighteen.
John wished he had died, too. Dying would have been easier than drowning in his family’s pain, gasping for a breath of relief.
Even after the shock of the nuclear assault on the Sigler family had subsided, there were the nagging questions. Pursuing him. Unrelenting. Why had he, alone, survived? For what purpose?
John never forgave the United States government for torturing and murdering his family. Ultimately, he concluded there was only one possible reason he had been spared — to take vengeance for his family’s suffering.
But John was no fool. He knew he couldn’t defeat, or even seriously damage, the nuclear juggernaut by himself — especially not as a boy of eighteen. He needed collaborators, others who hated the nuclear establishment as much as he.
For years he sought out anti-nuclear organizations to aid him in his mission, to feed his pathological need for revenge. He posted his contact information in chat rooms on the rapidly expanding internet. He joined in anti-nuke rallies and attended meetings.
But without exception, these nuclear opponents were far too passive. He wanted to send a serious message. He wanted clear retribution for the death of his family at TMI.