The Ops Room was like a hornets’ nest. The scale of the task dwarfed anything that had ever been attempted in peacetime.
At last, the helicopter flying at 1,000 feet started to collect and send the data on the radioactivity levels through to COBRA. The professors fed the data, in real time, into the impressive-looking laptops in front of them. As the helicopter flew over the smouldering train, the operator of the radioactivity-sensing equipment let out an expletive and advised the pilot to give the train a wide berth next time. The pilot carried on with a predetermined series of flyovers and sweeps of the vicinity on a grid basis. As the volume of data fed back to the professors increased, it became obvious from their faces that the news was far from good – they had turned an ashen colour.
After what seemed like an age, but in reality was only a matter of minutes, the younger of the two professors started speaking. ‘We need to know, Prime Minister, what acceptable mortality rate to put into our models. The scale of the radioactive leak is very large. What level of increased cancer mortality is acceptable? Should we take one additional death per 100,000 people every ten years, or what?’
There was a discussion amongst the COBRA team; a number was agreed on and keyed into the computer model. The other professor spoke up hesitantly. ‘I hope you’re all sitting down. On the basis of the data, gentlemen, the exclusion zone is: two miles upwind of the train, ten miles downwind and the ellipse at its widest point is six miles wide.’
Rafi looked at the map. A vast swathe of London, from Enfield to West Ham and from Stoke Newington across to Woodford, was now destined for dereliction in perpetuity. It seemed completely unreal – like something out of a disaster movie.
‘Air Chief Marshal, we have emailed you the perimeter line of the exclusion zone. It can be superimposed on your maps.’
A hush fell over the two rooms. The second professor spoke solemnly. ‘The exclusion zone has an area of fifty-seven square miles and the length of the perimeter is close to thirty miles.’
Rafi looked at Kate. ‘I’ve had enough,’ he felt gutted. All his attempts had proved to be inadequate. The terrorists had won through. Tears welled up in his eyes. They’d pulled off the big one. Over fifty square miles of one of the most densely populated parts of Europe would have to be totally abandoned and many people would face horrible deaths.
Haunting thoughts flooded through Rafi’s mind. If they had told the junior minister to: Get lost!, they could have got the information on the last property to the Ops Room minutes earlier. Valuable time had been squandered. If the nuclear train had been stopped just a few hundred metres sooner the terrorist would not have had a clear line of sight. The knot in his stomach tightened. He turned, walked down the corridor, to break the bad news to Aidan’s team.
In a monotone Rafi told them of the missile attack at Stratford, and that one of their team should liaise with the Ops Room to be briefed on the scale of the radiation contamination. The ball was now in their court. He left their room and noticed Kate still standing by the door to the Ops Room.
Rafi walked over to her and took hold of her hand. She turned and looked at him with tears in her eyes. ‘Come on, let’s go; there isn’t much we can do here.’ But she didn’t move. She stood mesmerised by the screens, like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
‘In a few minutes, please,’ she replied. ‘I would like to see what happens next…’
Plugging the gaping holes in what was left of the two spent fuel containers was the immediate task. Access by air was the quickest and safest way to get materials in to cover the ruptured containers. The imperative was to stop further hazardous and highly toxic radioactive waste escaping by entombing the train in concrete.
Operation Counterpane was under way. The army’s HQ Land Command based at Wilton, near Salisbury, had been in a state of full readiness and within minutes of the train being hit by the first missile it was already coordinating troop movements, working closely with those in the Ops Room.
Colonel Turner had passed across a long list of all the available UK civilian helicopters. These were now under the command of the Royal Air Force.
All helicopters within 250 miles and powerful enough to lift a concrete hopper were en route to Stratford. The workhorse Chinook helicopters would be the best at transporting the concrete, but as at 10.45 a.m. the nearest was still forty minutes flying time away. The demands of the armed intervention in the Middle East had seriously depleted the modest size of the services’ ageing helicopter fleet. On paper, the number of helicopters remaining in the UK looked significant, but in practice the majority were out of action, undergoing repairs or modifications. Thankfully, the helicopter squadron from the Netherlands was now only fifty-five minutes away.
Colonel Turner’s team had identified seventeen large building sites with cranes and concrete hoppers. There was a local property development boom going on thanks to the impending 2012 Olympics. Each helicopter was directed to a property development site, where they could pick up a concrete hopper and a crane driver.
It was going to be a dangerous operation, particularly for the first four or five sorties which would be the most at risk when they jettisoned their loads in close proximity to the hot radioactive contents below. In theory, it would be best to use the biggest helicopters first, but in practical terms the colonel opted for a first-come-first-served basis. An added complication was getting the calculations right as to the maximum payload which each helicopter could carry.
The reaction time of the coastguard helicopters was far faster than anything the colonel could have hoped for. The first collected its hopper of concrete within forty-one minutes of the request going out. Having a modest lifting capacity, it was only able to take the hopper a third full, but it was a start.
The pilot and his two crew members were joined by the crane driver and took off with the hopper slung under the helicopter’s belly and headed for the plume of dark smoke which was clearly visible in the overcast February daylight. The pilot made his approach from the south-east – upwind. Half a mile from the train, the helicopter gained altitude and the hopper was lowered to the full length of its steel wires. Hovering over a specified spot was second nature to the pilot – even in a force eight gale. This time, it was different. The risks were unseen.
‘Bombs away!’ shouted the crane driver pulling the mechanical release cord. ‘Now comes the slow bit,’ he shouted. ‘I reckon we’ll be here for sixty to seventy seconds.’
‘Shout when we can scarper,’ yelled the pilot over the noise.
Seventy-five seconds later their task was completed. The empty tubular steel hopper and hawser were ditched; the helicopter banked and headed south.
The co-pilot called back to those behind him. ‘What were the readings?’
‘OK-ish,’ came the reply. ‘No more dentist’s X-rays for a while though, I reckon. But we’re still below the maximum limit and a bit more shouldn’t do us any real harm; just fry a few cells here or there!’
‘Are you willing do a second run?’ enquired the pilot.
‘If no one else is around and we can help stop the radioactivity escaping, do we have a choice?’ asked the crane driver.
The co-pilot radioed through to the Ops Room and spoke to the colonel. ‘Load safely deposited. Our radioactivity gauge shows that we can do another run. Where’s the next helicopter?’
‘It’s five minutes behind you, followed by two more shortly after that, then there’s…’ He hesitated, ‘A bit of a gap.’
‘Sign us up for that slot. Where do we get our next load of concrete from, please?’
The colonel studied the map. His adjutant beside him pointed at a mark on the map, saying, T suggest this one,’ and relayed the coordinates. The pilot moved on to the new course.
‘What did it look like?’ asked the colonel.
‘Devastation,’ replied the pilot. ‘There’s a river and a canal nearby. You’re no doubt aware of where the water goes?’
‘Yes,’ replied
the colonel. ‘We’re working on how to stop the radioactivity getting into the water courses and then leaching into the water table.’
Multi-tasking was the order of the day. Kate was roped in by the colonel. ‘Find me a good location to set up a decontamination unit for the helicopter crews and where we can put the helicopters that have been exposed; ideally a small local airfield away from the public gaze. When you’ve found it, get the RAF command centre to set up a decontamination unit and field hospital there.’
‘Yes, sir,’ came the reply.
A private airfield and flying club was found at Stapleford, near the M25/M11 intersection and less than fifteen miles away. She passed the details on to the RAF Control Centre.
‘Let me look it up,’ said the voice at the other end of the phone. ‘Good choice – its main runway will take transport planes. Tell them to expect a couple of Hercules planes within the next forty-five minutes. Get them to clear the area to the west of their runway number 28/10. We will put the contaminated helicopters there.’
Kate phoned the flight centre, half expecting the phone to be answered by an unhelpful individual. It was answered by the manager of their Club House. Kate explained that the RAF needed to borrow their facilities.
‘No problem. We’ve been listening to the flurry of radio traffic for the past half an hour. Is it as bad as they say?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ replied Kate.
‘What can we do to help?’
‘You can expect two Hercules transport planes carrying medical supplies within the hour. They won’t be staying long, as they’ve other deliveries to make,’ said Kate, who went on to give details of their requirements.
‘We’ll clear out the student accommodation block. It’ll make a good medical block and decontamination facility. I’ve only one favour to ask: if you could ask the transport planes to land on the tarmac part of the main runway and not on the grass section, it would be much appreciated,’ said the manager.
Back at the train, the first five sorties flown by the lighter coastguard helicopters had started to cover the ruptured canisters with concrete.
‘Bloody pyramids!’ commented the adjutant. ‘The train line is on an embankment and the concrete pours down off the carriage on to the sloping ground. The base layer of the concrete gets wider and wider but the pile doesn’t get much higher.’
The crane driver in the back of the first coastguard helicopter overheard this conversation and shouted to the pilot, ‘Suggest they add salt to the concrete; it’ll speed up the setting time.’
The first heavy-duty Chinook helicopter did the sixth run and took almost two full hoppers. This was closely followed by eleven more Chinook sorties.
By midday, the ruptured canister and train were no longer visible, buried beneath a small hill of concrete. Phase One had been completed successfully.
Meanwhile, the irate junior minister had been let out of the interview room and was now en route to 10 Downing Street, where he had been summoned to attend a meeting with the head of PR at the Cabinet Office.
Phase Two, which had commenced simultaneously with Phase One, involved the establishment of the exclusion zone.
Four Apache helicopters were tasked with marking the thirtymile long boundary of the exclusion zone and the location of the fourteen decontamination centres. They used a combination of electronic and smoke beacons.
From listening to the conversations, Rafi had gleaned that the main problem was the large amount of radioactive material that the south-easterly wind had picked up and was depositing over a wide area.
The Kornet missiles had thermobaric warheads. These, it seemed, were different to conventional explosive weapons and used the oxygen in the air instead of carrying an oxidizer in their explosives. As one of the army officers explained, ‘They produce more bang for their bucks. Unfortunately there was water surrounding the spent fuel rods. The thermobaric explosion will have extracted the oxygen from the water and liberated hydrogen gas, which will have made the bang even bigger. The ferocity of the blast vaporised much of the radioactive material and blasted it high into the sky. The radioactive plutonium is heavier than lead, so thankfully it won’t travel far. It is the lighter and more highly radioactive isotopes in the spent fuel that will cause the problems. They will stay airborne far longer and are responsible for the unexpectedly large size of the exclusion zone.’
16 Air Assault Brigade, the army’s premier rapid reaction fighting brigade from nearby Essex and Suffolk, parachuted in 750 troops using Hercules transport planes. They were joined by soldiers from the 1st Royal Tank Regiment’s Nuclear Biological and Chemical Unit, stationed alongside RAF Honning-ton in Suffolk, who landed at London City Airport within fifty minutes of the first missile exploding. They were transferred by helicopter to the locations of the fourteen decontamination centres and were tasked with helping clear the ground.
Other soldiers had already started securing the perimeter of the exclusion zone: they were stopping people from entering and directing those leaving the exclusion zone towards the nearest decontamination centre. The public were left in no doubt that the soldiers carried live ammunition and were prepared to use it, if necessary.
Meanwhile, 3,000 soldiers were being airlifted in from all round the UK to reinforce the cordon around the perimeter as quickly as possible. Commercial planes had been commandeered to assist with the troop movements.
Companies of soldiers were tasked with supervising the evacuees and corralling them into the holding areas, located adjacent to each of the fourteen embryonic decontamination centres and the adjoining medical centres which were triaging the casualties and dispensing radiation tablets. It was calculated that over 1,000 decontamination shower units would be required to process the majority of the 900,000 people in around ten hours.
Rafi couldn’t work out where all the planes and people came from. The screens showed the skies full of parachutes. Rapidly, it all became a blur. He stood watching but taking little in.
One question that had been exercising COBRA was how to make certain that the inner exclusion zone was completely cleared of people. A ninety percent rule was adopted. Speed was of the essence. Those who could be moved quickly were dealt with first. Reluctant individuals would be strongly encouraged to leave later in the afternoon.
The squadron of twenty-six helicopters that had flown in from the Netherlands, combined with the armada of private helicopters, were a godsend. Every available decontamination unit and the associated medical support teams within their range were commandeered and delivered to one of the fourteen decontamination centres. The ingenuity of the Royal Engineers and the soldiers from the Royal School of Military Engineering at Chatham and at Minley in erecting the decontamination centres tipped the balance. By the early afternoon 1,250 decontamination shower units were up and running.
Specialist army units moved in to coordinate the mammoth task of clearing the exclusion zone. They were joined by the Territorial Army’s Medical Services and Veterinary Corps.
Thanks to the forward planning, Operation Counterpane had sufficient numbers of paratroopers in planes around the UK ready to take off. Within eighty minutes of the missile explosion the thirty-mile perimeter had a significant military presence guarding the electronically tagged line. The line in the densely built-up areas was zigzag in shape. The smoke beacons marking the locations of the fourteen decontamination centres were clearly visible.
600 Regular and Territorial personnel from the Royal Military Police, Provost Staff and Guard Service arrived to work alongside the local police forces and emergency services. Their first job, with the paratroopers, had been to systematically block all the roads and side streets out of the exclusion zone so that no vehicles at all could leave the area. Lorries and cars were commandeered and used as barricades. Tempers flared as people were forced to walk to safety.
A one-way road system was established to funnel the traffic away from the exclusion zone. In the opposite direction the local police assist
ed by the Territorial Army established express ways to enable troops, the emergency services and their equipment to get to the perimeter of the exclusion zone. To stop the civilian movement of traffic and keep the roads moving for emergency vehicles, a curfew was imposed on the whole of the Home Counties.
The helicopters that had completed their sorties with the decontamination equipment and medics were tasked with flying in Territorial and Regular Army soldiers in protective clothing to work with the paratroopers to create corridors within the exclusion zone. These corridors channelled people towards their nearest decontamination centre. Those who couldn’t walk were transported by army vehicles.
One of the hardest parts of the operation was to stop panic setting in. All radio, cable and TV stations carried the same content. There was a message from the Prime Minister, followed by an explanation as to what was going on and what people should do.
Appeals for help with the rehousing of those dispossessed went out to councils and people living away from the exclusion zone.
The brigadier and his team were in charge of identifying and unblocking bottlenecks. The decontamination centres were their main headache. They implemented a fast track system. At the holding areas alongside the decontamination centres, units were set up, screening people for alpha, beta and gamma radiation. Where ‘within nominal’ readings were detected, people were given potassium iodate tablets, sent away from the exclusion zone and told that they didn’t need to be decontaminated.
Initially, those people from the fringes of the exclusion zone were found to have negligible levels of radiation and were sent on their way, but soon the contamination levels rose as the radioactivity travelled with the wind and a point was reached where everyone had to undergo decontamination. Logistical problems were experienced as families found that they were being split up in the process. Contaminated children not of school age were allowed to have a parent with them. All other schoolchildren separated from their parents were fast tracked and moved to nearby schools to be reunited with their families as quickly as possible.
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