Dangerous Ground jm-1

by Larry Bond

  “Did it crash?” Richards’ question echoed the one in Jerry’s mind.

  The ROV was now on the other side, the port side of the aircraft, and she passed it down the plane’s length.

  Halfway, Jerry said, “Wait. Stop, please. Can you have the camera point up, toward the top of the fuselage?” Although Emily was nearby, he asked over the circuit so that up in control they’d know what was happening.

  Davis moved the ROV up. The image slid down until they were looking at the upper midsection of the fuselage. It bulged and an exposed metal framework marred the smooth surface. “Look, that’s where the wings were removed. It didn’t crash. It was dumped here.”

  Jerry’s conclusion was confirmed when the ROV continued aft. One of the plane’s horizontal stabilizers lay next to the fuselage. Its base was a neat line, not jagged. The airfoils had been detached and discarded along with the fuselage.

  As she moved aft, the ROV’s gamma detector came off the peg. “I’m getting a reading,” reported Davis. “Just higher than background.”

  “Understood,” was Richards’ reply. “Continue aft.”

  As Huey slowly approached the tail, the counter continued to rise. “Whoa, it’s coming up fast. Now reading 0.7 rem per hour,” Davis reported.

  “That sounds real bad,” Davidson said from his seat at the Manta controls.

  “Any radiation is bad,” answered Davis offhandedly “But this wouldn’t cause significant damage if you limited your exposure to a few hours. I wouldn’t go inside the plane, though. Accounting for distance and the shielding properties of water, I’d guess the dose rate would be about fifty times that inside.”

  “Holy shit! That’s hot,” exclaimed Davidson. Then apologetically, “Sorry, ma’am. I just wasn’t expecting the radiation to be so high.”

  Jerry grinned at Davidson’s reaction, although his surprise was understandable. The typical yearly radiation dose for most human beings is between 0.15 and 0.20 rem, it’s often less for nuclear submariners because they are protected by a steel hull and the sea from cosmic rays, which makes up a third of the yearly dose. And even though they lived and worked in close proximity to a nuclear reactor, the extensive shielding and strict safety procedures significantly reduced their radiation exposure. Davis’ estimated dose rate inside the An-12 would give a typical human being their annual dose in less than a minute. Exposure over a period of three hours would make a man very sick, although he would probably live. An exposure of eight hours would likely lead to death.

  Finally, the ROV reached the back. The broad cargo door was closed on the underside of the upturned tail, and the meter spiked at 2.0 rem per hour.

  Emily slowed the ROV and maneuvered it as close to aircraft as she dared. As Huey gentle approached the ocean floor, she triggered the automatic sequence that would drop one of the sampling tubes, collect a sample of the silt, and then winch it back up to the container in the ROV’s underbelly.

  “I’ve taken a soil sample for analysis,” reported Emily.

  Richards paused after passing the message to control. “Dr. Patterson thinks they had a spill while transporting solid waste in this aircraft. Rather than decontaminate the plane, they just got rid of it,” he said.

  Over the phones, Emily replied, “I agree. Too bad all that contamination is exposed to the open ocean,” she added sharply.

  “Unless you can think of anything more to do here, Dr. Patterson wants to move on to Delta One.”

  Davis turned Huey west-northwest. Jerry’s Manta had been slowly circling for half an hour now and had built up a map of the seabed for several miles to either side. There was nothing else near the first contact.

  As the Huey approached Delta One at a stately six knots, Jerry programmed the Manta to patrol the area. It would circle at slow speed, listening passively with its sonar while the ROV made its survey.

  Huey was still half a mile away from the barge when the radiation detector showed a measurable reading. “It’s at 0.5 rem per hour here,” Davis reported. “Should I take a sample?” she asked over the phones.

  Richards’ reply was almost immediate. “Yes, go ahead.”

  Davis was already slowing the ROV and gently descending to the seabed. In the TV camera, it was a nearly featureless surface of silt and sand, with the rocky underbed showing through here and there. A partially exposed, corroded container could just be made out under the silt.

  Each of the ROVs could take up to six soil samples on a sortie, thus they had to be used carefully. The container had obviously been here quite a while and would make an excellent test to see how far the leaked contamination had spread. As it hovered near the bottom, a cloud of sediment started to obscure the camera’s view.

  It only took a minute, and as soon as the sample was stored, Davis started the ROV off again. Jerry noted that Davis was now running Huey a little over six knots, but it wasn’t far to go.

  Finally, almost two hours after launching the Manta, they saw what the Yablokov report described as “Barge SB-5, with containers of unspecified solid radioactive waste.”

  “Detector shows only 0.1 rem per hour. That’s not all that much, even after I correct for distance and water shielding,” Emily reported.

  Richards passed on her observations, and then replied, “Dr. Patterson says not to worry about it. The radiation reading is consistent with the small amount of radioactive material that the barge is listed to contain in the report. But go ahead and collect a soil sample anyway.”

  “Collecting soil sample.” While Huey took another sample, Davis noted the location.

  As she circled the barge, they could see that it had capsized as it sank, landing on its side and spilling part of its cargo. The cylindrical steel containers, each about twelve feet long, lay scattered to one side. The containers on the seabed were half-buried in silt, and their surfaces were covered with patches of marine growth. On a few places, they were dented and cracked from landing on the seabed, and rust had taken hold.

  “Get a sample from that one just to your right.” Richards instructed. “Dr. Patterson says that it is likely to be as high a reading as we’ll get at this site.”

  “Understood. I’m maneuvering Huey into position now.”

  “Can you find any markings?” Richards asked over the phones.

  “No, nothing that I can make out. Collecting soil sample.”

  As Emily deployed the sampling tube, TM1 Bearden asked, “Dr. Davis, where does the radioactive material from these containers go?”

  “Not very far, at least not yet,” answered Davis. “You can see the cracked and corroding containers. If this one dumpsite were found off the coast of Alaska or Nova Scotia, it would trigger a national scandal. There are reportedly hundreds of these containers in this bay.”

  “Aren’t there people living there? Eskimos or something?”

  “There were, but most of the indigenous Nenet population were forcibly moved out by the Soviets in the mid-1950s. The ones that are left probably wish they were somewhere else. The whole island’s been used as a nuclear test site and waste dump. The Soviets exploded thermonuclear bombs as big as fifty-eight megatons here. Dr. Patterson’s the expert, though.”

  Once Huey had taken the sample, Patterson guided Davis and the ROV to two more sampling points, spaced at intervals from the barge. After the last sample, she turned Huey toward Memphis. It had just enough battery for the return trip.

  Dr. Patterson entered the torpedo room, almost breathless, holding a plot of Delta One. “So far, the data matches the survey exactly.” She sounded almost triumphant.

  Jerry asked, “What’s the point in surveying something if we’ve already got all the information on it?”

  “Because it’s a check on our ability to do a survey. When we find something new, then we won’t have to work as hard to prove our data is correct.”

  Looking at the two ROVs and thinking about the hours of effort that they’d just spent and the work they had left, Jerry couldn’t be that
detached. “Let’s just search where the charts are empty, then, or at least at an area that hasn’t been surveyed already.”

  “We need a baseline, Lieutenant,” said Patterson, a little sharply. “If we don’t do things by the numbers, the rest of our work will be meaningless.”

  Jerry couldn’t argue. “Yes, ma’am.”

  An hour and a half later, Huey reached Memphis and was safely recovered. He needed servicing, but the torpedo gang was more than willing to wait while both Doctors Davis and Patterson and the nuke ELTs carefully removed the samples, then thoroughly and publicly checked the entire vehicle for traces of radioactivity.

  While they examined Huey, Jerry recovered the Manta. The instant he reported it was aboard and the latches in place, he felt the deck vibrate. Hardy was repositioning Memphis away at something higher than creep speed. Jerry heard the IMC announce, “Secure from ROV and Manta stations.”

  For a few hours, anyway, Jerry thought to himself.

  “It’s clean,” Patterson announced. “You can get more radiation standing next to a smoke detector. It’s safe to work on.”

  “All right,” barked Foster. “You heard the lady. Let’s get it turned around.”

  Recharging Huey’s batteries would take the longest — twelve hours. In the meantime, they would wash down the hull with fresh water, drain and flush the trim tank, check every system on the ROV, and replace the fiberoptic control cable cassette. The extensive post-operation maintenance requirements were the main reason why they carried two ROVs. While one was out collecting data, the other would be undergoing preparations for the next mission.

  That afternoon during lunch Dr. Patterson presented the wardroom with the results of the samples’ analysis. Several of the chiefs also attended, including Reynolds and Foster.

  “The contents of the aircraft and the single container was spent nuclear fuel,” announced Patterson excitedly. “The analysis of the soil samples from those locations showed cesium-137, cobalt-60, and various uranium and plutonium isotopes, all of which are consistent with spent fuel. The barge’s contents were a mix of solid waste, consisting mostly of cobalt-60 and strontium-90. Surprisingly, there seems to be very little migration of the contamination from the dumpsites.”

  Patterson then went and described the potential effects these radioactive elements could have on the local environment once the containers had corroded sufficiently. She further alluded to the fact that as shocking as the results were from this initial sortie, that it was only the tip of a very large iceberg and that even more egregious sites were sure to be discovered.

  Patterson concluded her briefing by saying that, with the exception of the An-12, everything was largely in agreement with the Yablokov Commission Report and that they were now ready to begin looking for new dump-sites in the morning.

  When she finished, Master Chief Reynolds asked, “Ma’am, with yours and the Captain’s permission, I think the whole crew might like to hear about this. Can we put that map up on the mess decks? I think it’s important that they know what this is all about.”

  Hardy looked at Patterson, almost expecting her to say no, but the doctor smiled. “Do you think so?” she asked. “If they’re interested, I could give a little presentation. It wouldn’t be too technical, of course. ”

  “Doctor,” Reynolds interrupted. “Almost all of the men have at least a passing knowledge of nuclear physics. And their specialties demand knowledge of electronics or engineering. I think you should, if you’ll pardon the pun, give them a full dose.”

  Her smile tilted a little bit, but Patterson replied, “All right, COB, whatever you think. Half an hour? When?”

  They arranged a series of three half-hour lectures, one for each watch section, tentatively titled, “The effects of radioactive waste on the environment.”

  While they worked out the details, Jerry thought he saw Captain Hardy smile.

  17. DISAPPOINTMENT

  The first excursion into Oga Cuba had been a long one and the Manta’s batteries were sorely depleted. It took almost eight hours for them to recharge, during which Jerry tried working on the division’s paperwork and the next item in his qual book. Unfortunately, he got hauled into the planning sessions for the next series of sorties and had to spend a lot of time with Patterson and the Captain instead. So, while the batteries were recharging, Jerry worked with the two of them and Emily to develop a search plan for the rest of Oga Guba. Since Emily’s ROV’s didn’t have the speed or endurance to conduct extensive searching, the task fell entirely on the Manta — and by default, Jerry.

  Russian territorial waters extended twelve miles from the coast, but the Manta’s acoustic modem only had a maximum range of seven and a half miles. That made it possible to search much of the littoral. And while Patterson made it clear that she would have preferred searching all the way to the shoreline, it was just for the sake of thoroughness. From the Yablokov and Bellona reports on the Kara Sea dumping grounds, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the Soviet’s disposal methods.

  “The Soviets didn’t appear to have any organized system for where they dumped their radioactive waste,” complained Patterson. “They scuttled a nuclear submarine in twenty meters of water, dumped defueled reactors in seventy-five meters, and ordinary solid waste in the deep trench to the east of the island. Any bottom type, any depth, inside or out of territorial waters, it didn’t matter. And Soviet records are so poor they can only say the number of waste containers is somewhere between six and eleven thousand.”

  Jerry had heard the statistic before, and waited patiently for Dr. Patterson to refocus on the search plan. She was demanding, arrogant, and impatient, but she knew her stuff and she obviously cared.

  “All we have to do is find evidence of new containers being dumped, that the Russian government is no better than their predecessors. We can then alert the world to the threat and also cement the President’s position as an environmental leader!”

  “And to find those containers, we need to decide where we are going to look.” Hardy’s reminder snapped Patterson out her reverie. “Doctor, you’re the expert here. Where should we search?”

  She sighed heavily. Annoyed that Hardy didn’t just get the political ramifications of the mission. “It doesn’t really matter. One spot is as good as another.”

  They picked five search areas, all roughly of the same size and slightly overlapping each other. By the time they were done, it was a little after 1600. Patterson headed aft to finish working on the results from the samples, and Hardy disappeared into his stateroom.

  The Manta’s batteries would be fully charged by 1930 that evening, so that gave him just over three hours to do all the things that he was supposed to have done since breakfast that morning. And he was supposed to have the six to midnight in control. And the noon to six tomorrow. He’d miss both of them while he flew the Manta.

  Jerry had to talk to the XO. He found Bair in his stateroom. “Sir, regarding my watch in control this evening…”

  “Already taken care of,” Bair interrupted. “Patterson talked to Hardy this morning, and as of now you’re off the watch list.”

  Jerry felt a few of the bricks from the ton on his back disappear, but he was still concerned. “What about my qualifications?”

  Bair smiled. “Not a problem. We’ll just have you stand double watches on the way home.”

  “I was afraid of that, sir.” Jerry replied.

  “I’ll give you all the help I can,” Bair assured him, “but for now your only task is the Manta and supporting Dr. Davis’ ROV operations. Without that, there’s no mission. Let Foster run the division. Besides, you’ll be almost living in the torpedo room anyway.”

  “Yessir,” Jerry acknowledged reluctantly and headed down to his spaces. He had to find Foster and fill him in and for a moment reveled in not having to look over his shoulder while he tried to run the division.

  * * *

  That evening and for the next two days, Jerry flew five sorties
in Oga Cuba. Before each flight, Jerry would program the search pattern into the Manta, which was smart enough to fly on autopilot once it was launched. While that would help reduce pilot fatigue and the chance of missing anything, it didn’t help with the actual survey. Somebody had to watch the screen and interpret the sonar image. Captain Hardy made it clear that while the enlisted men could help with the watch, the Manta operator was the “primary sensor operator.” If the Manta flew, Jerry had to be there to see what it saw.

  The pace was hard. Fully charged, the Manta’s battery would last for twenty hours at five knots or eight hours at ten. There was no such thing as a short sortie. Patterson and Hardy both insisted that unless the Manta was actually charging, it would be searching.

  It took ten hours to charge the battery when it was flat. Jerry could bet on sleeping about half that time, but even after Bair excused him from standing watches, there was still some work he couldn’t get out of.

  While the Manta was charging, Hardy kept Memphis in motion. The sub would head away from the coast as soon as the Manta was recovered, never lurking in the same place for more than a few hours. They would head for the deepest water nearby, then loop back to take up position in time for the next sortie.

  For the most part, the Russians left them alone. There were two settlements on Novaya Zemlya, both military bases. Supplies came into them by ship, but from the western side. If the Barents was the Russian Navy’s front step, the Kara was more like the side yard the kids never played in.

  The watches, keyed up after their distant encounters with Russian units, started to get careless as monotony set in, and with Hardy’s concurrence, the XO started inserting synthetic contacts into the sonar and fire-control system. Hardy was merciless when the first contact was missed by the sonarmen for a full five minutes.

  Once a day, Memphis carefully came to periscope depth to receive the Fleet broadcast. They would always extend the periscope with its ESM intercept antenna first, before raising one of the communication antennas, but it only picked up the fixed surveillance radars that lined the coast. Both the periscope and comms antenna were very small and were further treated with radar-absorbing material, so there was no chance of them being detected by the coastal stations.