Meltdown te-97

by Don Pendleton

  And then Bolan caught the scent of almonds.

  Cyanide. The guy was a pro. And for somebody heavy. Bolan bent over the supine body and clicked his lighter. The man's features were twisted by the poison, but there was no mistaking their origin, or that of the ill-fitting suit. They were Eastern cut. Bulgaria probably. That made one thing certain: hit men of this caliber weren't sent out just to keep an eye on some wayward antinuker. They were onto Rachel. And onto Mack Bolan.

  8

  "Shit, I hate physical inventory." Dave Jennings slammed a clipboard onto his desk and flipped his pencil high in the air. He missed the catch, sending the pencil skittering off into a corner of the office.

  "You don't like anything physical, Dave. Inventory or otherwise." Pete Collins was anything but sympathetic.

  "Hell, I'm as physical as the next guy. In the right circumstances. But putting on a rubber suit to stand around and count tubes of hot metal isn't physical. And it isn't fun."

  "Maybe not, but we got to do it, so let's get it done." Collins laughed quietly while he slipped on his protective gear. Jennings was having trouble getting into his own suit, but Collins enjoyed the scene too much to offer to help.

  Jennings was still fuming. "You know, every three months, we do the same damn thing. And every three months we come up with the same numbers. Since Number 2 went down, we haven't used a single fuel rod."

  "Maybe not, but how would we know that if nobody counted 'em?"

  "You're starting to sound like one of those NRC guys, Pete. You doing some sort of consulting work on the side?"

  "Wish to hell I did, man. You know, consulting is where it's at. You get paid big bucks and all you got to do is tell somebody something he already knows."

  Jennings finally smiled. Both men were ready to enter the fuel dump. Collins secretly agreed with his partner. The work was boring. There was rarely any suspense to break up the monotony, and there was certainly no glamour. But rules were rules. And the rules were that you counted the radioactive material in your possession. You counted carefully and you counted often.

  Like Jennings, Collins sometimes wished that a discrepancy would show in their figures. It would mean they'd have to go back and do it all over again. But at least the numbers would mean something. In the three and a half years since the TVA Station 2 reactor had been out of service, they had been getting the same result every time they counted.

  "You ready, Pete?" Jennings asked.

  Collins nodded. Jennings punched the combination into the electronic lock on Fuel Repository Number I and waited for the huge door to swing open.

  Collins stood to the side with a calculator in one hand and a clipboard in the other. When the door was open, the men stepped through and Collins punched in the closing combination.

  Neither man knew both combinations. The theory behind this security measure was that it would make theft and sabotage more difficult. There was no real reason for it, since the problem was not access to the fuel rods as much as getting them past the heavy security and radiation detectors at the main gate. The rods were long and pencil thin. You couldn't disassemble them, and you sure as hell couldn't hide them under your clothes.

  And if you did, you wouldn't get any closer than fifty yards to the gate without setting off an alarm.

  Neither he nor Collins was in the same room with the fuel rods. They were on the other side of a thick concrete and steel wall, but the TV equipment they used to monitor the fuel supply was off-limits to most personnel. The fuel was so hot that they were required to wear protective gear. Collins often complained that he had to wear the outfit "Just to watch TV."

  As soon as he began his count, Jennings knew something was wrong. He adjusted the contrast on his monitor just to be sure. When he had the focus as sharp as he could get it, he whispered to Collins. "Pete, come here. We've been robbed."

  "Sure," Collins said, laughing. "I got to hand it to you, my man. That's a new one. You've tried just about every way a man could to make this more exciting than it is."

  "I'm not kidding, Pete. Look for yourself. Punch up A28."

  While Collins directed his camera, Jennings left his own screen to join his partner.

  "Okay, a little higher and to the left. There. What do you see?"

  "Holy shit. Holes. Fucking holes. We have been robbed. Must be sixteen, eighteen rods missing."

  "Twenty-one. I counted."

  "Damn! We got to get hold of McAndrews. He's going to have a stroke, man. A fuckin' stroke."

  * * *

  The first time the needle jumped, Dave Steinberg thought he was imagining things. He rubbed his eyes, and watched. The needle was normal.

  He took a quick look at the bank of warning lights. They were all dark. The readings on all the other gauges were ordinary.

  The temperature needle jumped again. This time it stayed against the right-hand peg. Something sure as hell was going on. Steinberg punched into the main PA and called his supervisor. While he waited for Mike Orlando, he watched the needle. It was starting to fall back toward the normal range. For a second he thought he'd call Orlando back and tell him to forget it. When the needle jumped a third time, he knew something was wrong.

  The main control room door hissed open, and Orlando slipped in. "What's up?" he asked.

  "Look at the temperature on sixteen."

  "It's a little high. So what?"

  "So it buried the needle twice. There's something wrong on that line. No way the temperature should skip around like that. Keep an eye on it."

  Steinberg got up, and Orlando slid into the empty chair. He watched the gauge for several minutes without speaking.

  "It still seems okay to me. A little skittish maybe, but..."

  The bank of warning lights exploded into color. At the same time, the needle went off the high end.

  "That's it, Davey. Hit the alarm. And check the cameras. Make sure there's nobody down there. Where's Patty?"

  "She was going to check out Tower 3," Steinberg said, punching up the monitor for her location. A small figure in a bulky radiation suit appeared on the screen. "Christ, Mike. She's still down there."

  As the men watched, a cloud of steam came into view at the bottom of the screen. It billowed like the fog in a monster movie, rising a foot or two, falling back halfway, then climbing again.

  "Get on the radio, Davey. She doesn't see it."

  Steinberg tried to raise her. It took him a few seconds. Finally he heard her voice.

  "Hi, guys. What's happening?"

  "Patty, don't panic. Just look behind you and tell me what you see."

  "Quit clowning around, David."

  "I'm not clowning, Patty. Do it. Now!"

  Steinberg could see the figure on the screen halt. It bent to the side and down. "Holy shit! What's going on? Where the hell did all that steam come from?"

  "How bad is it, Patty?"

  "I don't know. The whole bottom of the tower is full of it. Is it hot?"

  "I'm getting eighty rems per, Patty. You have to get the hell out of there. Now."

  "What's happening, David?" Her voice began to break. She had been with them only six months. She'd never seen anything like this. Hell, none of them had. And if she didn't get out of the tower, she'd never see anything like it again.

  "I got another needle hopping here, Davey. It's on the same line." Orlando was yelling to make himself heard over the klaxons blaring throughout the power station. "She has to get out of there."

  The steam was growing as if it were alive. It followed Patty as she clambered up the ladder. The woman turned again to check her location. As Steinberg watched, the steam mushroomed upward, and Patty was obscured from view for a moment. The steam thinned a bit, and Steinberg could see her struggling to keep her grip. By now she was probably hysterical. He never should have told her how hot the steam was.

  The ladder would get tougher and tougher to hold on to. It would get slippery with condensation. Then, in one breathtaking moment, it happened. Th
e woman's left foot slipped off the ladder as she put her weight on it. She hung suspended by both arms.

  Her feet whirled helplessly in the air as she sought to regain the ladder. Then she was gone from the screen.

  "Oh, God," Orlando groaned. "Oh, my God."

  "Patty," Steinberg screamed. "Patty." He clicked the mike on and off, trying to raise her again. But he knew there was no way.

  No one could survive the steam, never mind the fall.

  And who knew what was at the bottom of that infernal cloud. The klaxons continued to blare. The lights flashed like a Christmas tree. One by one, the needles on the Tower 3 cooling lines began to waver, then to climb.

  "Attention, all personnel," Orlando roared into the PA mike. "We have an event in progress. Repeat, event in progress. L.o.c.a. in progress."

  Steinberg stared at the empty monitor, now completely engulfed in steam. "It all sounds so routine, Mike. Loss of coolant accident. L.o.c.a., my ass. What the hell are we doing here?"

  * * *

  The huge flatbed trailer rumbled up Third Avenue, bouncing over every pothole. The deadweight strapped to its middle rocked precariously. Every bounce threatened to sever the heavy steel bands that clamped the load in place. There was little traffic, other than the trailer and its two escort vehicles. A police cruiser was in the lead and another followed the truck at a respectable distance.

  The patrolmen in the rear had been given the standard briefing. They knew the lead-lined steel canister was supposed to be tightly sealed and accident proof. They didn't believe it, but not because they were in the habit of mistrusting their superiors.

  They didn't believe it for a far simpler reason: if the official version was incorrect, they were dead men. The canister contained plutonium so radioactive that a single speck lodged in a lung would mean certain death.

  Among them the four patrolmen had thirty-seven years of experience on the streets of New York.

  They had seen death in all of its urban forms.

  Blood was just a color to them now. Brighter than some perhaps, but not unusual. But this time they were scared stiff. The transport of this cargo had been on again, off again for years. Enough people had had enough reasons to delay the passage of radioactive material through inhabited areas so that the case had been tied up in the courts for years. It had finally been approved, but the losers died hard. Each of the cops knew there were dozens of groups who had their own reasons for wanting an accident in the city.

  Some because of the warning it would represent, others for the havoc it would wreak. Some even wanted, hoped, to get their hands on some of the deadly metal.

  There was enough fissionable material on the tail of the truck to make a halfdozen small tactical nuclear weapons. Everybody knew there were people dying to get their hands on it. The Libyans wanted it, and the Israelis thought they needed it. A dozen countries would love to have it, and twenty terror groups would kill to get it. Yeah, the cops were scared.

  At Fifty-third Street, a white van ran a red light, narrowly missing the tractor, and just squeezing between it and the lead car. The backup car peeled out and slid sideways across the avenue.

  Buck Foster was out of the cruiser and on the divider, pumping a shell into his shotgun before the car stopped rocking. He sighed when the van kept moving. He didn't know whether he was relieved or disappointed.

  Probably both, he thought, knowing that he couldn't take much more tension. He hopped back into the patrol car, and Dan McGuire gunned it into a roar, caught up with the caravan and punched his horn twice. The driver honked the truck's horn in acknowledgment.

  "Buck, I don't know about you, man. But the sooner we turn this baby over to some other jurisdiction, the happier I'll be," McGuire said.

  "Hell, yes, Danny. It's enough to make a no-nuker out of you. The crap in that truck scares me shitless."

  Neither man really felt like talking, but neither one could help doing it. At Sixty-sixth street, McGuire shot ahead of the truck, and the lead car fell back. The men weren't supposed to rotate their positions, but everybody agreed it would help cut the tension. At 10th Street it started to rain. And by 125th Street it was impossible to see more than twenty yards ahead. The wipers clacked, and the wheels hissed on the slick pavement.

  McGuire was getting edgy as he slid to the right-hand lane to wait for the backup car to rotate forward.

  Three blocks later, he was still waiting.

  "Something's wrong, Bucko. Where's Rodriguez? He should have made it up here by now."

  Foster craned his neck to see past the rear of the flatbed. There was nothing but wet pavement.

  "Holy shit! Rodriguez, is missing."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" McGuire whispered.

  "It's us and the truck, man. That's all. There ain't nobody else behind us."

  "Where the hell are they?"

  "You're asking me?"

  McGuire never answered. The window on the driver's side mushroomed inward. He was dead before the car plowed into the front of a rib joint at 133rd Street.

  Foster reached for the two-way and yelled into the static. The mike was as dead as McGuire. The surviving cop kicked open his door and fell to his knees as the truck disappeared into the night.

  Down Third Avenue he recognized a cruiser. Its roof lights were blinking sporadically. He got to his feet and struggled toward it. He had to get this on the radio as soon as possible. He didn't understand why the other car hadn't notified McGuire it was bailing out. When he got to the cruiser, he found out. Rodriguez was slumped over the steering wheel. His head hung at a crazy angle — what was left of it. His partner in the shotgun seat was just as dead. Foster grabbed the radio and clicked it open. Nothing but static.

  * * *

  On a rooftop at 127th Street, Peter Achison watched, waiting for Mack Bolan. He watched Buck Foster struggle down the avenue searching for a phone. It was cold and rainy, and Mack Bolan hadn't shown. Achison nodded to the two men with him. He whispered into his small walkie-talkie, dispatching three shadows from the roofline across the street. He watched Buck Foster stagger south for another half block, shook his head and stepped out of the rain. Maybe Foster would tell Bolan enough to get him interested.

  9

  All right, they wanted to play games. Mack Bolan liked games, too. And he played for keeps. The missing plutonium would be round one.

  Brognola's sources had learned that the stuff had already been sold. But Bolan knew it sure as hell had been stolen to get his attention. And the thieves had it. The Fed's sources had told him that the hot stuff had been off-loaded and the truck ditched north of the city. The plutonium had been taken to West Virginia and hidden in a cave. It was there waiting, waiting for somebody to come and get it.

  Sure, it was sold, and the Libyans would still have been happy if they had had to pay twice the price. It was a steal. But Brognola was concerned that somebody else might be just as interested. That much fissionable material was bound to attract some attention from a number of parties. And there were too many people with questionable connections moving in and out of Malcolm Parsons's group. Modesty wasn't part of Parsons's character. He'd been bragging about the coup.

  Bolan was determined to break the thing wide open, and to do it quickly. The last thing he needed was to walk into a free-for-all. Taking on Parsons's clowns would be a picnic. But if the KGB moved in, or one of the terrorist groups thought it was an easy score, Bolan wouldn't have time for sandwiches.

  The West Virginia mountains were honeycombed with caverns, most of which weren't on any map. Some were regularly used by moonshiners, some hadn't been visited since the Revolutionary War. The limestone of the Alsoleghenies had been dissolving for millions of years. In fact, geologists thought it might even be possible to travel from northern Pennsylvania all the way to Georgia without coming up for air. The intel had even been able to pinpoint the cave. A little footwork had paid quick dividends.

  It had been easy to find, but Bolan knew
it wouldn't be easy to get close to without tipping his hand.

  Once he left Morgantown behind, the winter woods surrounded him. Thick stands of trees rolled on and on over mountains. As he drove deeper into the forest, the towns got smaller and more dilapidated. Bolan wondered how Parsons had known such a place existed. Why he had chosen it to hide the plutonium was obvious.

  Two miles from Pine Grove, close enough to walk, Bolan pulled his rented Blazer into a logging road overgrown with weeds. Two hundred yards in, the vehicle would be invisible from the road.

  He edged the Blazer into the brush to avoid blocking the road, although it looked as if it hadn't been used in years.

  It was getting dark. The cold was biting, and his breath clouded in front of him as he walked. The Weatherby Mark V was slung over his shoulder, its scope covered to protect it from becoming scratched.

  The going was tough. Every breath stung as he drew it.

  Uphill was the worst; downhill not much better. The terrain was rocky, scattered with weathered boulders.

  Fallen branches and leaning trunks of long-dead trees littered the grounds. The Executioner felt right at home. It wasn't jungle, true enough, but he was hunting the usual game. Bolan didn't know for sure what he was up against until he had a chance to watch the cave. If he was lucky, there would only be a small force. Heavily armed, for sure, but small numbers would make it an even match. He'd have to take the cave on his first assault.

  On the ridge above, Bolan picked out a break in the trees. It would be a perfect vantage point from which to survey the opposition. The cave mouth was two hundred yards dead ahead across the shallow valley. He lay flat against a dead tree and used his night glasses. No one was visible, but there was a dull glow from deep within the cave. He scanned the logging road that ran back away from the cave. Vehicles would give him an idea of what he was up against. About three hundred yards down toward the main road, two 4Xbled trucks sat in a small clearing. Probably two men each, Bolan thought. Count the driver of the truck and there were at least five, maybe more. They probably wouldn't post a heavy guard — maybe only one man. It was unlikely they expected an attack in the middle of the night. A raiding party would make a racket, and one man would never try it on his own. It made no sense — to anyone but the Executioner.