Zero Day

by David Baldacci

  Thirty minutes later Puller had found them.

  He counted the barrels. There were five of them. He couldn’t tell if they were lead-lined but he hoped they were. As he drew closer he could make out the muck and mildew clinging to the sides of the metal. He hoped there were no holes in them. If so, he was probably already dead. He drew even closer and used a gloved hand to rub some of the muck off. He was looking at a faded blue label with a skull and crossbones.

  Blue meant uranium.

  The next barrel in line was the same. He pushed against each with his hand. They were full, or at least seemed to be. The weight could be coming in part from the lead lining. Yet the tops appeared sealed and had enough crust around them that Puller didn’t think they had been opened in decades. Two other barrels had red labels and the skull warning.

  Plutonium cakes. He pushed. They were full too.

  The last barrel in the line had the same red label. Plutonium. But that wasn’t what he was focusing on.

  The top was off the barrel. He eased a few steps closer. Then, deciding to just go for it, he got so close he was able to look down into it. Lead-lined, yes. That was good. There was no penetration into the lead from the outside elements.

  That was excellent.

  The barrel was also empty. The plutonium was on the loose.

  That was catastrophic.

  And then he noted something else. On the concrete floor were six identical rings lined up next to the barrels. Puller knew exactly what that meant. There had been six other barrels here. Uranium and/or plutonium. And now they were gone.

  He got on his walkie-talkie.

  “I found the stuff. And we got one empty barrel. That used to hold plutonium. And a half dozen missing ones.”

  The walkie-talkie crackled and Cole said shakily, “I found something too.”

  “Cole, you okay?”

  “I… Just get over here. I’m on the east side, about three hundred feet from where we came in.”

  “What is it? What did you find?”

  “Roger. I found Roger Trent.”

  CHAPTER

  88

  TOGETHER THEY GAZED DOWN at the prone man. Puller didn’t think he was dead, because he was trussed up. One did not tie up the dead. Just to be sure Puller knelt next to him, stripped off his glove, and felt for a pulse. He gazed up at Cole. “Slow but steady. He’s been drugged.”

  Cole said, “And I found these.”

  Puller looked where she was pointing. This was the last thing he would have expected to find in here.

  They were banker boxes. He opened one. They were full of financial records. Puller sifted through a few files. There was also a baggie filled with labeled flash drives.

  “What are they?” asked Cole.

  “Looks like financial records. Like I told you, your sister said Roger was having problems. Maybe these records tell a story someone never wants anyone to discover. Along with Roger.”

  “But who would do that?”

  “I have my suspicions.”

  “Who? I mean—” She broke off because Puller was looking over her shoulder.

  He said, “Did you check your entire side over there?”

  “No. I was doing my sweep when I found Roger lying on the floor. Why?”

  He pointed. “That’s why.”

  Cole turned around and saw what had captured his attention.

  There was a light coming from the opposite side of the building. A soft green light. It had just come on. In the pitch dark he would’ve seen it before.

  She hustled after him, her Cobra out.

  Puller stopped and so did she.

  She looked where he was looking.

  The box was about four feet long and the same width and looked to be built of stainless steel. It was a nice job, no obvious seams. The metal looked like it had been cast in one piece; a nifty piece of craftsmanship. Puller knelt down next to it, put his gloved hand on the box. Then he took it away.

  He looked up at Cole. “Warm.”

  “What’s powering this thing?” she asked. “There’s no electrical source in here.”

  “There’s lot of energy in here, Cole. There’s probably enough in those barrels over there to power New York City for a thousand years once you ran it through a nuclear reactor.”

  She stared down at the box. “Is… is this it? Is this a bomb? It doesn’t look like a bomb.”

  “Since when have you seen a nuclear bomb up close and personal?”

  “I’ve seen them on the wings of planes. I watched a History Channel program of the ones they dropped on Japan. They didn’t look like a box.”

  “Well, looks can be deceiving.”

  “Did it just turn on? I didn’t see that light before.”

  “Neither did I, which means that this sucker just woke up.”

  She drew a sharp breath. “Does it have a timer? Is it ticking down?”

  “You’ve been watching too many movies.” Puller was looking over every inch of the box, trying to find a seam, an indication of a hinge, a break in the metal. He ran his fingers over the top, feeling for anything his electronic-aided eyes had missed.

  “So it doesn’t have a timer?”

  Puller snapped, “Cole, I don’t know, okay? I’ve never been around a nuclear weapon before.”

  “But you’re in the Army.”

  “Not that part. And the Navy and Air Force control most of the nukes. The infantry are just the working-class guys shooting and getting shot at in all types of weather just like they did two hundred years ago. Biggest weapon I was around was a fifty cal. You can kill hundreds of people with a fifty. This thing can kill tens of thousands, maybe more.”

  “Puller, if you open that thing won’t whatever is in there kill us?”

  “It might. But if I don’t open it, whatever is in there will probably kill us anyway. Plus a whole bunch of other people.”

  His fingers stopped probing and held on one spot, six inches from the right side of the stainless steel.

  “Did you find something?” she asked.

  In answer he picked up his dumbbell-sized phone and punched in a number. “It’s time to bring in the heavyweights.”

  “What if the call won’t go through?”

  “Then we are screwed, that’s what.”

  She started to say something but he held up a finger. “The phone works.” He spoke into it.

  “Hey, Bobby. Got time to give your little brother some tips on defusing a nuke?”

  CHAPTER

  89

  ROBERT PULLER had been on standby at USDB for the last two hours on orders directly from the Secretary of Defense. Though the military had many experts in nuclear armaments, Puller had insisted that the only one he wanted or trusted was his older brother. That the man was serving a life sentence for treason made the choice problematic. But when Puller had held his ground against even the four stars, the Defense Secretary had intervened and approved his plan. And even the military men had to concede there were few people in the world who knew more about the science of nukes than Robert Puller.

  Robert was alert and also anxious. His brother was sitting next to a nuclear bomb, after all. On an earlier phone call Puller had filled him in on everything that David Larrimore had told him.

  “Describe the box to me,” said Robert.

  “Four feet square. Stainless steel. Bolted to the floor.”

  “Speak up. Can’t hear you clearly.”

  “Sorry, I’m talking through a mask.” He repeated the information in a louder voice.

  “Okay, implosion, not a gun device.”

  “Right.”

  “Talk to me about the barrels. The empty one was plutonium?”

  “Right. At least that’s what it said.”

  “This guy Larrimore have any idea how much plutonium was contained in each barrel?”

  “If he did he didn’t say. I don’t think he ever believed they’d leave the shit behind. And I have to agree with him on that point.”


  “I’m going to assume that this design is not super-sophisticated, so we’re talking at least six kilos and possibly more.”

  “That barrel could hold a lot more than six kilos even with the lead liners.”

  “I understand, but the size box you’re talking about clearly shows they didn’t put the equivalent of a fifty-gallon drum worth of plutonium in there. That would be overkill.”

  “Maybe they’re nuts, you ever think about that?”

  “Maybe they are, but I’m only concerned with the science of it.”

  “Can I take the top off or will I get blasted by radiation from the plutonium?”

  “How heavy is the top?”

  Puller pulled on it and then tapped it. “Not that heavy.”

  “So probably no lead lining or other shielding. The plutonium should be completely surrounded by the explosives and a tamper/pusher and maybe another layer or two that will shield you. And we know there’s a tungsten carbide neutron reflector in there. That thing is super-dense. You should be okay.”

  “Should?”

  “Best I can do, bro.”

  Puller drew a long breath and motioned for Cole to step back. She did. He tugged. The lid came up. He was not hit with a blinding blue light.

  “John?”

  “I’m good. I’m not glowing. I take that as a positive sign.”

  “Do you see a timer?”

  Puller glanced up at Cole, who shrugged and managed a smile behind her mask.

  Puller said, “Do they really use timers on this stuff?”

  “It’s not for melodramatic effect like in the movies. It has a very real purpose. The conventional explosions have to go off exactly at the same time or a hole in the shock wave will be created and the pit will escape through that. Then you get that fizzle, like we talked about before, bro.”

  Puller poked around the box. He uncovered a group of wires and saw it.

  “Okay. Got it. That must be the light we saw come on earlier. This sucker must have an internal power source because there’s no juice in here.”

  “What’s the timer at?”

  “Sixty-two minutes and counting.”

  “Okay,” said Robert. “Wires?”

  Cole was holding a strong light over the box, illuminating it for Puller. His latest-generation goggles allowed him to see clearly even in lighted conditions.

  “A bunch,” said Puller. “They were covering the timer. Should I try and cut some of them? Maybe it’ll stop the countdown.”

  “No. Chances are excellent that they’re booby-trapped. If you’re looking at twenty wires, only three of them mean anything. That’s a common ruse in conventional bombmaking, and the same rule, we can assume, holds true for pseudo-nukers. You cut any of the fakes it’ll probably accelerate the timer to zero and you can kiss your ass goodbye.”

  “Okay, will not cut wires,” said Puller firmly. It was oppressively hot in here to begin with and the hazmat suit made it hotter still. His mask kept fogging up and he would use his forehead to clear it, which didn’t work so well, since that was the primary source of the sweat. He finally just ripped the mask off, wiped his eyes with his hands, and put his goggles back on.

  “The initiator will be in the dead center of the sphere,” said Robert. “That floods the pit with neutrons during detonation. The gold foil that was found at the crime scene was probably used as a layer between the beryllium and polonium as we postulated before. The plutonium will be shaped like a ball around that. The tamper/pusher will be around the plutonium. The pusher increases the shock wave hitting the pit. And the tamper helps hold the pit from blowing apart too quickly to maximize your yield.”

  “Okay, Bobby, I don’t need a lecture on every little thing.”

  “I guess I’m just trying to make sure I still know what I’m talking about,” said his brother slowly.

  “Don’t second-guess yourself. You know this stuff. You’re a genius. Always have been.”

  “Okay, the explosive lenses form the outside layer. You should be able to see the lenses. Like faces on a soccer ball. They’re carefully shaped explosive charges. Almost like a work of geometric art. Do you see them?”

  “I see them.”

  “How many?”

  “A lot.”

  “How are they arranged?”

  “Pretty seamlessly.”

  “No gaps?”

  “None that I can see.”

  Puller heard his brother let out a breath. “Somebody knew what they were doing.”

  “What the hell does that mean for me?”

  “If they manage to compress the chain reaction long enough, the bomb yield will rise exponentially, like we discussed. And from your description it looks like they were pretty sophisticated in their design.”

  Puller checked the timer. It was at fifty-nine minutes, twenty-seven seconds.

  “How do I turn this thing off, Bobby?”

  “John, you can’t actually turn it off.”

  “Then what the hell am I doing here?” Puller barked so loudly that Cole jumped and almost dropped her light.

  “There’s really only one way to do it,” Robert said in a calm tone. “We have to screw up the detonation. The lenses are seamless now, but if we throw off the timing of the detonation we can cause a fizzle.”

  “So how do I do that?”

  “We throw off the detonation sequence by adding one of our own.”

  Puller looked up at Cole in dismay. “So you’re telling me that in order to beat this thing we have to detonate it? Is that what the hell you’re telling me?”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” said Robert.

  “Shit,” muttered Puller. “That’s really the only way?”

  “If there was another, I’d tell you.”

  “How about if I just start whacking stuff?”

  “Odds are real good you’re dead and a mushroom cloud probably goes up over West Virginia.”

  “I should have let the cavalry come in here, chopper this thing out, and drop it in the ocean.”

  “They couldn’t have done that in an hour. And hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

  “Maybe they could have gotten in here before it engaged. Stopped the timer from commencing or dropped it in some deep hole.”

  “Again, hindsight.”