“Headquarters has ordered a lock-down of both facilities until we find the culprits. We’re going to test everyone for explosive residue. Both air-circulation systems are back up and running and the holes are patched, but we’re going to keep everyone in place for at least twenty-four hours until we find out who was responsible for this… prank. I don’t know what else to call this. No one leaves, and both places are locked-down air-tight until we find who did this. Was this someone trying to test our security or something? I mean those tiny explosions couldn’t do much damage at all.”
George Oppenheimer opened the door and was greeted by his dog. Iliad jumped up on his hind legs hopping around, hoping to get petted, or even picked up. As usual, he sniffed George for interesting odors, drawing in the polonium particles from his master’s pants deep into his lungs. Oppenheimer was once again working for the government, on a consulting basis, and was attending a seminar, when a small explosion livened things up at the Oak Ridge facility.
His wife Kitty, came out of the bedroom and gave him a big hug, never realizing that she was breathing in a few particles of polonium from his suit jacket as she inhaled. Five-year old Frank, and two-year old Toni, both came running out and also gave their daddy, George, a hug, and each buried their faces in to his pant legs and inhaled particles of polonium.
The family decided to go out to eat at a restaurant down the street. George shook hands with a dozen people before they were seated. His fame was still a novelty, because of his work on the atomic bomb project. Each received a dose of polonium, in some form or manner from contact with Oppenheimer. The waitress was next to receive a dose of polonium when she picked up a napkin that little Frank had dropped, and pretended to blow her nose in it to the amusement of both children. The cook received his next when the paper the order was written on was put on the spindle and was spun around for him to read.
Particles spread from the cook, to forty other diners, and then they went home, and infected another ten people each, who, in turn, infected six others apiece, and so on. By this time, the polonium was getting spread really thin and was not as potent. Yet it still packed a poisonous punch. All in all, George Oppenheimer and men like him, spread polonium to over six thousand people. Not all died, like he and his family, the waitress, the cook and ten of the forty other diners. Still many became deathly-ill, and many never had a normal life again.
Now multiply that by the one-thousand four-hundred eighty-nine people originally infected at Oak Ridge, then add another one-thousand seven-hundred twenty-eight in Dayton, and you have a problem of exponential proportions when they each give a dose of polonium to a couple of hundred more give or take a life.
Iliad died too by the way, along with thousands of other pet dogs, cats, rats, mice and even cockroaches. Polonium is an equal-opportunity killer.
The White House
July 30th, 1946
The air is sweltering in the enclosed room. There are too many big bodies crammed into such a small place. The atmosphere is even more uncomfortable than the sweltering heat outside for more than one reason. The most powerful man on earth is speechless. At the moment, there is not a more uncomfortable place on earth.
There is stunned silence, as the news sinks in. No one moves, waiting for Truman to say something… anything. Someone coughs, and the silence is broken as others dare to breathe again.
The president looks sick to his stomach and is as white as a ghost. Then, the color returns to his face, as his fists clench, and suddenly, the old World War One Artillery Captain is back in command.
Truman finally explodes. “Jesus Christ, how many?!”
“Virtually all the personnel at both Oak Ridge and Dayton sir; they are all dead, dying or sick. Remember the report a few days ago about two small explosions at both facilities?”
“Hell yes!”
“There was something in those explosions that is now causing everyone who was in the facilities at the time and everyone who have since visited them, to become deathly-ill. There was some kind of poison or germ, or who knows what in those tiny explosions that was spread by the air system. The timing was perfect, as almost everyone involved with the atomic program was either at the symposium, or at one of the facilities within a few days.”
“What the hell can do something like this?”
“Well sir, it could be a germ, but probably it was some kind of radiation, as the symptoms are strikingly like what we’ve seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It’s hard to detect whatever it is. To make matters worse many of the relatives, and hospital staff attending the victims are also contaminated and are also becoming sick.”
“Holy shit! What is being done to stop the spread of whatever it is for God’s sake?”
“Doctor Anderson will fill you in sir.”
“We have to quarantine everyone who has come in contact with any of the victims. It looks like it has to be direct contact with either the victims themselves, or anything they’ve touched.”
“Holy Mother of Mary!”
“Yes sir, but it gets worse. We have no way of detecting what it is yet. Geiger counters register nothing, yet the symptoms present very much like radiation-poisoning. The good news is that the farther it gets away from the original victim the less potent it is. There appears to be some dilution of the poison’s effect.”
“If this ever gets out to the press they will demand that we shut down all our atomic weapons production and research facilities and that will be the end of the atomic bomb!”
“Ah sir… Wilkes here, sir… That is in effect, what has already happened. All of our current experts are either dead, or dying, and all of our facilities are infected, or contaminated, by something unknown. No one is allowed in or is going to enter them again, for a very long time, until we figure out what it is and how to clean it up or kill it. Even then, who are we going to get to work in them? The atomic weapons program is essentially shut down until further notice sir.”
Again, a stunned silence fills the room.
Truman gets up and paced the room. All eyes are on the small, yet powerful, figure. Everyone is unsure of what to do. Finally, he speaks directly to the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Well gentleman, I guess we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. We’ll have to beat their asses fair and square. No secret super weapons or atomic wonder weapons. We have to use what we’ve got, against what they’ve got. We’ll have to outsmart them starting now. There will be no more of this arrogance about how they can’t do this or they can’t possibly do that. They just did it to us! Now, we have to figure out a way to beat them straight up man-to-man. There’s no more easy ways around it. We can assume nothing about the Soviets. They’ve outsmarted us at every turn except for ‘Louisville Slugger.’ You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a small one. I don’t believe in small plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet any situation, which we can’t possibly foresee at the moment.”
“NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE AND GET TO WORK ON JUST HOW THE HELL WE‘RE GOING TO DO IT! BY GOD, YOU HAVE A WEEK TO FIGURE IT OUT, OR I’LL FIND SOMEONE WHO CAN! DISMISSED, YOU SONS-OF-BITCHES! Not you, Marshall… you stay behind with me. By God, it’s time to shake things up around here!”
Chapter Seventeen:
The Pyrenees Line
